The city’s plan to put a temporary, six-lane roadway on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade for six years while repairing a ­ 1 1/2-mile stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway below got a frigid reception at a Saturday rally.

About 200 people changing “Save lungs not lanes!” and “Better way today!” gathered on the promenade to demand more transparency and community input into the planning process for the massive project, which is slated to begin next year.

“It would be unbelievably horrific and destructive,” said Bill Orme, who’s lived in the neighborhood for 27 years. “This place here is one of the treasures of New York City. There’s few places like it in the world.”

https://nypost.com/2019/01/12/protesters-fight-bqe-repairs-during-brooklyn-heights-rally/

Members of the CPN Holiday Fund Committee let the good time roll at a post-holiday party last week to celebrate their record-breaking results. It was reported that many staff members expressed their appreciation for the CPN holiday gift. Board member Henry Fleary, Board Treasurer Kris Giacinto and Board President Ted Valand are seen with committee members who urge more Shareholders to join the effort next year.

Thanks to Alan Posner for finding this little gem! As one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods, it’s no surprise that Brooklyn Heights is full of welcoming neighborhood restaurants. The area, spanning from Atlantic Avenue on the south to Old Fulton Street on the north, and from Court Street on the east to the East River waterfront on the west, is dotted with cozy spots serving comforting, family-friendly fare. And while the favorites at the neighborhood’s northern end generally stick to tried-and-true menus of American or Italian food, bits of culinary experimentation are beginning to pop up in the newer restaurants along the Atlantic Avenue border. Here, the best restaurants in Brooklyn Heights.

http://www.grubstreet.com/bestofnewyork/absolute-best-restaurants-brooklyn-heights.html

Tami Sheheri found this great photo of the area where our building now sits! So we poked around and found this interesting tidbit to go with it!

(Cadman Plaza West was called Fulton Street until our building opened in 1967) The area from Henry, Clark and Fulton all the way up to Old Fulton Street at Middagh was officially deemed blighted by Robert Moses’ Slum Clearance Committee in the late 1950s and condemned, along with the southern side of Clark Street between Monroe Place and Fulton Street, in part because the former Church of the New Jerusalem on the corner of Monroe Place was abandoned.

In the 1960 Census, of the 366 dwelling units on the west side of Fulton Street between Clinton and Henry Streets, sixty percent of the apartments were deemed “substandard and unfit” (because poor people lived there). This was crucial because such a finding was a precondition for obtaining federal funds for site acquisition for slum clearance under the Housing Act of 1949. The result supported Robert Moses’ 1959 proposal to tear the area down and replace it with a four-hundred long twenty story building between Clark and Poplar Streets with garages, of which 64 percent would be “luxury” studios (then called “efficiencies”) and one-bedroom apartments. -Brooklyn Heights Blog

http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/30621

The city is about to unleash a toxic public-health nightmare with its proposal to close the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and erect a temporary highway on it during a decade-long Brooklyn Queens Expressway repair project, experts said Tuesday.

“It removes the lid on a stew pot of chemicals, which means they will go right into Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo,” said Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and public-health expert who lives in the area.

The warning comes after the city Department of Transportation earlier this year proposed shifting BQE traffic up to a temporary roadway where the Promenade now sits while construction is done to the double-decked road below, a project that could take as long as six years.

“This is an assault on people who live nearby and will be inhaling those emissions,” said Garrett, who first made her dire comments in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.  https://nypost.com/2018/12/18/bqe-repairs-will-unleash-toxic-hellstorm-on-brooklyn-experts/

The federal government has agreed to pay New York City $25 million toward a $337 million project to repair the Brooklyn Bridge’s approaches and towers. This is the first time such work will take place on the world-famous bridge’s Gothic arches, according to amNewYork.

“At 135 years old, our world-renowned and beloved bridge needs a lot of care, including work on her approaches and her soaring, majestic towers,” city Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said in a statement. The grant was secured as part of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s BUILD program, which funds road, rail, transit and port projects, amNewYork reported.

The bridge, built in 1883, carries more than 100,000 vehicles on an average day, amNewYork said. Its crowded walking and bicycling promenade carries 4,000 cyclists and 10,000 pedestrians per day. -Brooklyn Eagle

Due to the first Wednesday of the month being a bit too close to New Years Day, our first meeting of the New Year will be on January 9th at 7:30 in the Community Room. Details to come.

Brooklyn Bridge Park bigwigs are shelling out millions of dollars to build an entirely new span in place of the beleaguered Squibb Bridge, which zig zags from its namesake park in Brooklyn Heights down to the waterfront lawn below, and for the second time closed due to structural problems back in July.

“We have announced plans to fully replace Squibb Bridge,” Eric Landau, president of the semi-private Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, which oversees the green space, said at a Dec. 5 corporation board meeting. “There is certainly a long history with this bridge.”

Landau also is confident that the looming reconstruction of the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway’s triple cantilever — which stretches 1.5 miles between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street, and cuts beneath the stretch of Columbia Heights where locals currently enter Middagh Street’s Squibb Park — won’t affect work on the new bridge or pool, although he conceded that using either during the expressway repair may not be a pleasant experience. https://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/41/50/dtg-squibb-bridge-dead-2018-12-07-bk.html