Of course, the best thing for everyone would be to stay inside as much as possible. But for people over 60 and others more vulnerable to COVID-19 who must shop for themselves, the following local grocery stores will provide special hours for those folks only at:
Key Food, 169 Atlantic Avenue (Brooklyn Heights): 7:00 am-9:00 am (unable to confirm, please call ahead)
Target, 139 Flatbush Avenue (Atlantic Center): Every Wednesday, 8:00 am-9:00 am
Stop and Shop, 625 Atlantic Avenue (Atlantic Center): 6:00 am-7:30 am
Whole Foods, 214 3rd Street (Gowanus): 7:00 am-8:00 am
Details are few but a store calling itself Cardinal Mkt where you can “eat, drink and shop” is coming to the space formerly home to Henry’s End restaurant at 44 Henry Street between Cranberry and Middagh. There’s a website where you can sign up to get updates: https://www.cardinalmkt.com
125-year-old Brooklyn institution Gage & Tollner, at 372 Fulton Street, in downtown Brooklyn, has an official re-opening date: Sunday, March 15, according to Grub Street. Red Hook restaurateur St. John Frizell, along with husband-and-wife team Ben Schneider and Sohui Kim of Good Fork and Insa fame, will be stewarding the famous, historic steakhouse into 2020 with a menu of classic favorites: steak and scalloped potatoes, pork potpie, clams casino with a dab of kimchee, Edna Lewis’s she-crab soup, and plenty of pillowy Parker House rolls. Once open, the restaurant’s operating hours will be 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. daily.
To get this new iteration of the classic Brooklyn restaurant off the ground, hundreds of small investors banded together in a successful crowdfunding campaign to raise $477,000 to support the three restaurateurs in breathing life back into Gage & Tollner. Investors include Elizabeth Warren’s chief strategist and his wife, children’s book author Tad Hills, and actor Michael Shannon, Grub Street reports.
An engineering firm contracted by City Council is proposing a scheme to demolish the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway — and replace it with a $11 billion tunnel! The report by engineering and design firm Arup proposes a three-mile, four-lane bypass tunnel that would stretch from the Prospect Expressway to Bedford Avenue, allowing the city and state to turn much of the BQE through brownstone Brooklyn into a ground-level boulevard complete with bus and bike lanes, parks, and other public facilities.
The downside? Construction would take between seven-10 years to complete — at least two years beyond the 2025 crisis point when the BQE’s triple-cantilever is expected to become unsafe — and will cost anywhere from $5-11 billion, according to Arup’s estimates.The plans call for filling in the trench where the highway runs through Cobble Hill, tearing down the crumbling triple-cantilever between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street, and removing the Park Avenue viaduct.
The tunnel would primarily service through-traffic, while planners would encourage Manhattan-bound drivers from the north to take the Williamsburg Bridge, and those from the south to go into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. New York City Council, spearheaded by Council Speaker and mayoral candidate Corey Johnson (D–Manhattan), tasked Arup in September with studying the BQE repairs, a monumental task, which has challenged experts with creating a strategy to renovate the 66-year-old freeway — without creating a traffic nightmare.
The city’s Department of Transportation proposed to spend between $3.2 and $4 billion on their two controversial ideas from 2018 to either fix the roadway or build a temporary six-lane highway on top of the beloved Brooklyn Heights promenade, which residents quickly panned. One of the key alternatives that Arup highlights are a decked roadway at Furman Street, along with replacing the triple-cantilever with an expansion of Brooklyn Bridge Park, similarly to the proposals by international architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group and Mark Baker.
Locals have been calling for government officials to build a tunnel for years, but those plans faltered under the steep costs. The new recommendations come almost a month after Mayor Bill de Blasio’s expert panel released their report, proposing the city reduce the six-lane highway to four lanes and up enforcement on oversize trucks. Hizzoner quickly formed a truck enforcement task force within the Police Department, but was skeptical of narrowing the road. That report also warned that the triple-cantilever section could become unsafe within five years if officials don’t take measures to reduce current traffic volumes.
Lawmakers are going to analyze the report and hear testimony at a Tuesday Council meeting on the roadway, which is likely to include proposals by DOT and the NYPD on how to make the highway safer and preserve its structural integrity. -The Brooklyn Paper
According to the sign, “Vineapple will be returning this spring” at its location on Pineapple Street between Henry and Hicks. It will feature “a fresh new concept” and serve “breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner.” It will have “a curated menu of wine, beer, and cocktails.”
Those seeking “employment opportunities” or offering “general suggestions” are invited to email [email protected]
To see a photo of how this block looked in 1940, check out the link to Brooklyn Heights Blog below and view the “Comments” section.
Contract for Project to be Awarded Later This Year;Local Bus Service Will be Enhanced During Construction
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) today announced its intention to proceed with elevator replacement at the Clark Street 2/3 subway station in Brooklyn Heights over an eight-month period, in which technicians will repair all three elevators simultaneously. This approach dramatically minimizes the duration of the project, and avoids up to two years of service unpredictability. The contract for the project will be awarded later this year. Local bus service will be enhanced during construction to accommodate affected customers.
Because Clark Street is a deep cavern station accessible only by elevator, the station will close while this work is underway and customers will be directed to nearby stations. The start and end dates for the elevator replacement work will be announced after the contract is awarded.
New York City Transit President Andy Byford said, “This plan reduces the length of construction time at Clark Street to just eight months, and eliminates uncertainty for our customers. We strongly feel our approach minimizes the impact that this disruption will cause. When the elevators return to service, the public can look forward to new elevators with improved reliability. We will continue to work in close collaboration with the community during the duration of this project.”
MTA New York City Transit presented the community with alternatives that would have led to repair work lasting for 22 to 24 months, but would have attempted to maintain train service to the station during construction work in Brooklyn Heights . Under these scenarios, technicians would have worked on one elevator at a time, leaving two elevators in service. But because two elevators are needed to safely maintain train service to this deep cavern station that lacks stairway access, New York City Transit would have had to suddenly and unpredictably suspend train service whenever one of the two remaining elevators was taken out of service. The elevators have been in service for 100 years and are being replaced because they have reached the end of their useful lives.
The upper level of the station will remain open, preserving public access to businesses located there. The MTA will also take steps to minimize the impact on local businesses. Measures being considered include: installing and maintaining windscreens on fences and barricades around all work zones incorporating business signage, and installing wayfinding signage so that pedestrians know that businesses on the block are open during construction.
Customers are advised to use nearby stations, including the High Street A/C station located north three blocks and through a walkway to Cadman Plaza, or the Borough Hall-Court Street 2/3/4/5/R subway complex, located two to three blocks south and one to two blocks east, on Montague Street between Clinton and Court Streets. From the Clark Street station, these alternative stations can be reached via the B25 bus.
The Cobble Hill Association (CHA) invites you to an evening focused on the question: “What is possible for the BQE corridor?” To bring about a comprehensive and transformative plan, we need to imagine what we want for our future.
Mayor’s BQE EXPERT PANEL released their study Read: Executive Summary and the Full Report PDF The panel chose not to recommend a specific design, instead outlining a “path forward for the next decade” while a more comprehensive plan is developed. After conducting new tests on the cantilevered section between Atlantic Ave and Sands Street the panel found it to have a lifespan of only 5 to 6 years. This makes repair or reconstruction more urgent than originally anticipated. This newly discovered urgency outlined the rest of their recommendations, allowing them to focus on the short term. The panel rejected any temporary highway, on the promenade or through Brooklyn Bridge Park. The report recommends the following: The panel specifically rejected a transformative plan for the original project area only (Atlantic to Sands) saying it would not be equitable to the rest of the corridor. The panel does not recommend completely removing the highway, saying they “believe we need a highway for cars and trucks to move, but it can be done better.” Repairing the BQE now to give it another 15-20 years, which is estimated to cost approximately $1.5 billion. Already in effect: DOT has already started these repairs. NYPD is enforcing overweight truck use along the corridor and before the cantilever section.
Currently not in practice but recommended to start now: Reducing the BQE from 6 to 4 lanes. Traffic mitigation and reduction measures including removal of on/off ramps. New ferry and bus service from Staten Island to downtown Brooklyn andManhattan.
While repairs are underway, study a comprehensive transformative plan for the entire BQE from the Verazzanno to the Kościuszko. Development of this corridor-wide plan will involve joint cooperation from New York State, “which controls the remaining 18 miles of the BQE, and the federal government will need to be fully engaged…Therefore, a joint working group of three levels of government should be immediately convened.”
Here is an excellent summary of the BQE situation. Thanks to Roberto Gautier for finding it. It seems this “expert panel” that the Mayor put together reached a conclusion that the roadway should be fixed asap. Duh. – K. Klein
Built in the 1950s by storied city planner Robert Moses, the BQE carries some 150,000 vehicles per day. Now, 65 years later, a 1.5-mile span of the highway between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street is crumbling, and city and state officials are mulling ways to repair the roadway.
Complicating matters is the fact that the Brooklyn Heights Promenade is perched atop the BQE’s triple-cantilever section. The 1,825-foot esplanade, with sweeping views of Manhattan and the East River, is structurally connected to the roadway, so any changes that happen to the BQE inevitably extend to the promenade, which has become a sort of communal backyard for Brooklyn Heights.
The chorus of community, preservationist, and urban planners’ concerns has coalesced in the form of an alternative proposal put forward by the Brooklyn Heights Association, a prominent voice in the neighborhood; a bold plan put forward by Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office, who suggests converting part of the triple cantilever into a truck-only road with another level transformed into a High Line-esque linear park; and a blockbuster vision put forward by famed architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group that would transplant the expressway entirely and build over it with up to ten acres of new parkland. Read entire article here: https://ny.curbed.com/2019/3/12/18248873/brooklyn-heights-bqe-repair-dot
