Brooklyn Heights Blog

Photo by Marc Hermann/BHB

It’s ba-aaaaack!  Kernel panic returned to the UA Cinemas at 106 Court St. tonight in an incident nearly identical to one that happened last month. Read more »

Summer is over and that means that Community Board 2 meetings are about to resume. Tomorrow night’s general meeting will be held at 6 p.m. in the Great Room at the Alliance of Resident Theaters (ART/NY) at 138 South Oxford Street, between Atlantic Avenue and Hanson Place. On the agenda are presentations from the commanding officers of the 84th and 88th precincts. We’ll have a full report on Wednesday night’s meeting early Thursday.

The acrid odor of smoke in the area this morning is wafting in from a three-alarm fire in a vacant building in Long Island City.  Lots of people in our area, however, are calling the Fire Department, hence the cacophony of sirens.  No major conflagrations here, though.

Photo by M. Hermann/BHB

It took some wriggling, courtesy of the Fire Department, to assist this straphanger who took an express route down the stairs at the Borough Hall station, and ended up with his foot caught between the bottom step and the railing’s vertical support.  It happened just after 6:30 tonight on the stairs below the Municipal Building.  Engine Co. 224 and Ladder Co. 110 responded with hydraulic tools—just in case—but were able to free him without much effort.  He didn’t make his train, however, and instead found himself in the back of an ambulance, en route to Long Island College Hospital for observation.

We previously reported the planned closure by Long Island College Hospital of four in-school clinics that serve students in six schools located in the downtown Brooklyn area. Today, Governor Paterson announced a state grant that will enable LICH to keep these clinics open during the coming school year.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle These clinics — at the School of Global Studies, P.S. 38, the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies and M.S. 51 — provide healthcare services for thousands of Brooklyn students. Although the state Department of Health (DOH) disallowed the closure of Obstetrics and Pediatrics, DOH this past July approved the closure of the school-based clinics.

Tuesday in Albany, Gov. David Paterson, the State Senate and the Assembly announced $300,000 in grants to LICH to keep these clinics open. And all parties involved were happy with the situation.

BBC America is running the US season of  Brit reality show How Clean is Your House.  One of the episodes takes place in Brooklyn Heights (looks like Downtown to us, anyone?).   The program features “Tanya” whose apartment is full of every type of vermin imaginable.   Find out when this episode airs again at the BBC America website (US season 1, episode 7).

BHB pal EJ caught a  cell phone photo of  the Court-Livingston-Schermerhorn Business Improvement District’s presentation of Lithium, a site-specific electronic installation by Jeremiah Teipen. It’s part of the BID’s effort to “activate temporarily vacant retail space” in Downtown Brooklyn. Two Trees donated the space at 210 State Street for the light show, which will be on view until August 16.  We wonder if they’ll be jamming to this song during the exhibit. Read more »

Borough President Marty Markowitz today said he is “deeply disappointed” by Long Island College Hospital’s closure of four school-based clinics that serve students from six schools in the downtown Brooklyn area. “It’s unfortunate,” he said, “that innovative ideas and funding mechanisms that would have kept the doors of these vital clinics open could not be found.”

The importance of these school-based clinics cannot be underestimated. They serve as the first line of defense when we face health threats such as MRSA and the H1N1 flu. In addition, research and evaluations have demonstrated that school-based health centers represent cost-effective investments of public resources by reducing inappropriate emergency use, reducing hospitalization and increasing school attendance. Also, students who have access to these services can better manage their personal health and are more informed about health issues overall.

As was pointed out last year when my office and other advocates fought to save LICH, it would be one thing if neighborhoods served by LICH and these school-based clinics were facing significant population declines, but let’s face it, all you have to do is walk down Court Street, Smith Street or Atlantic Avenue and count the strollers, or see the small children crowding area parks, or check out the number of students overfilling neighborhood schools to know that there is an exploding population of young families in great need of school-based medical services. Not only that, this community is expected to grow by 15 to 20 thousand residents in the years ahead.

It sounds like a setup for an episode of CSI: New York - the 2009 Little People of America convention is being held at the Downtown Brooklyn Marriot this week through Friday. [Conference brochure here]

Brooklyn Eagle: “Brooklyn has been a very gracious host, opening up her heart to us and showing us the small town feel of a small neighborhood. Everyone in the community has been very warm and friendly,” said Michael Petruzzelli, conference co-chair. “The area has been truly friendly.”

It was a crime-filled week in the neighborhood, including an armed robbery at a fast-food joint, a series of vehicle thefts and a pair of thefts from strollers (don’t worry, there were no babies involved). Read more »