Brooklyn Heights Blog

The New York Daily News reports that former NYS Senator Martin “Marty” Connor (SD-25) is “poring over” Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s campaign finance report in an attempt to find something to “use against” him in this year’s election.  Marty tells the paper he hasn’t found anything… yet.

NY Daily News: Connor has a big axe to grind with the mayor, whose support of Dan Squadron (along with a little help his friends sent to the WFP on Squadron’s behalf) helped the Brooklyn Democrat oust Connor in last year’s primary. But while Connor admits he has his sights trained on the mayor, he also insists his motives are pure.

“I want to see a Democratic mayor,” the former Senate minority leader said. “I think the mayor has used his money to dominate this city, and I don’t agree with that.”

BHB photo by Sarah Portlock

A day late, probably a dollar short but never too late for rock n roll errr sumthin’ - it’s FNCP aka stories you may have missed in the last week:

Saw it First on BHB

Heights History: Montague Street Revitalization 1976

Sweet news! New Sweet Melissa’s in Busy Chef Spot on Henry?

Montague Street Crisis: The Video

Brooklyn Heights (Lame) Graffiti Gang Spotted

Park Progress: Pier 1 (Fourth Report–No Green Yet, but Provision for Water)

Magic We Miss on Montague

Armando’s Seeks New Liquor License

Africa Comes to Brooklyn Heights

Squadron and Millman on the fare hike

The Brooklyn Bugle is Twitteriffic

And in other news…

Busy Chef evicted at Henry St. corner

What $4.25 Million Buys You in Brooklyn Heights

Update2 on Promenade trees

There Must Be Some Way Outta Here: Watchtower Plans Rockland Compound

Channel 7 Visits Atlantic Chip Shop for Brooklyn Restaurant Week

Mamma Mia! Ignazio’s opens next week

From CHB

Lobo’s getting a makeover

Cobble Hill Housewife ain’t so Brooklyn

Two Years Ago on BHB

Busy Chef Speaks

Voici la nouvelle façade

One Year Ago on BHB

Last Stand for Magnetic Field

Morrone to Document Every Brooklyn Heights Building

There were lots of crimes on or near the subway last week, and more car thefts in the neighborhood. Be careful out there — and, as the precinct’s Captain Mark DiPaolo reminds everyone, don’t leave your car unlocked, even if it’s in a garage.

Train pains
At least two victims were robbed last week on or around the subway trains.

Two teens snatched a woman’s cellphone from her hands as she was buying a Metrocard at the Jay Street-Boro Hall station on March 25. At 2:30 pm, the woman was just about to get her new card when suddenly a man grabbed her arms from behind and a second kid took the phone. The first perp looked at her and said, “If you follow me, I’m going to bust your face.”

A thief stole a man’s laptop and external hard drive in the early morning hours of March 24, after the victim fell asleep on the subway and left his things on the floor between his feet. The incident happened between 2:45 and 3:30 am on the Brooklyn-bound N train, and the victim discovered what had happened when he woke up at the DeKalb Street station.

Range over
A thief stole a man’s Range Rover from the parking garage on Cadman Plaza West on March 29. The incident happened between 3:30 and 10:50 am, when the man parked his car and came back, only to discover it was gone. Surveillance tapes show that the perp entered the garage, found the car’s keys in the garage’s security box and that the car was unlocked, and got in. As he drove out, he plowed through the closed gate and damaged the car.

Hotwired
A car thief stole a man’s Mazda sedan on March 23 on Jay Street in a matter of minutes. The victim told cops he parked on Jay Street, near Willoughby Street, around noon and ran an errand. But when he came back 45 minutes later, the car was gone.

According to today’s Brooklyn Paper:

With $261 million of federal transportation funding from the so-called “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” headed to New York City, Hizzoner said on Monday that he would use the cash to complete major shovel-ready projects including long-planned renovations of the Brooklyn Bridge — while redeploying the city money that had been allotted for the jobs to other infrastructure projects.

Other Brooklyn projects that the Mayor said will benefit include the improvement of the Flatbush Avenue streetscape between Tillary Street and Hanson Place, and reconstruction of the Coney Island Boardwalk.

Tonight, Community Board 2’s Economic Development committee will meet at 6 pm at Long Island University’s Jonas Board Room (DeKalb Avenue at Flatbush Avenue Extension). The executive directors of two local business improvement districts — Kate Kerrigan of DUMBO and Blaise Backer from Myrtle Avenue — will present their offices and what kinds of services they offer their respective communities.

Read more »

Borough Hall Greenmarket (located on Columbus Park Plaza just east of Court Street, between Remsen and Pierrepont) is open year round on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 8:00am to 6:00pm, but April through December it is also open on Thursdays during those same hours. So, this Thursday it will resume its thrice-a-week schedule. The Greenmarket is also celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Thanks to Dave’s Kitchen for the tip.

This fall, there will be a new preschool and Kindergarten in Brooklyn Heights — Congregation B’nai Avraham is expanding its popular Kiddie Korner program with new space at the corner of Montague and Clinton streets for infant and toddler daycare, and a Kindergarten class in the Remsen Street synagogue.

The 3,500-square foot space is in the former City Market Café and is the ground floor of the new condo building at 166 Montague St., and is scheduled to finish construction by August and open on Sept. 1. For PDF renderings, click here [pdf], and a flyer is here [pdf].

Read more »

The New York Times reports on The Body Broken: A Memoir by Heights resident Lynne Greenberg detailing her decades long battle with chronic pain:

New York Times: For Lynne Greenberg, a Brooklyn Heights resident, mother of two and scholar of 17th-century English literature, the headache is the only thing, really, the metronome by which she has lived out the last three years. It struck in 2006 while she was sitting in a London library making her way through a stack of ancient documents: “Any movement or physical activity at all sent shock waves through the center of my head.” It has never gone away.

More than two decades ago, when Ms. Greenberg was 19, a car accident catapulted her over an embankment to a 30-foot fall. She broke her neck but miraculously escaped all neurologic injury, and after a few months of neck immobilization she was declared cured.

Two weeks after a judge ruled that the Brooklyn House of Detention could reopen but not expand without city approval, Comptroller William Thompson has rejected a contract made with the architect to design the facility’s expansion the Brooklyn Eagle reports.

BHB/Sarah Portlock

Signs went up today at Taze, announcing its return to Montague Street after a devastating fire last year.

The Turkish restaurant, at 142 Montague St., will reopen on April 1 and offer a free glass of wine or selected drink for patrons.

The building has caught on fire twice in the last year — first, a fire in March and then, in September another fire forced Taze to close for renovations. Aerosoles, which is in the ground floor space, recently reopened as well.