Volume 58, No. 199
BROOKLYN TODAY JAN. 25 Good morning. Today is the 25th day of the year. On this day in 1901, Brooklyn Register James Howe (who held a now-defunct office) announced his plans to erect a statue of George Washington on horseback at Bedford Avenue and Fourth Street, “near the fountain.” The statue, he said, would serve as an inspiration for generations of schoolchildren. It would be modeled on a similar statue erected in Washington, D.C., in 1853. The statue, known as “George Washington at Valley Forge,” was eventually installed nearby, at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge, and dedicated in 1906. It was sculpted by Melvin Shrady,
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013
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LICH in ‘Imminent’ Danger of Closing By Mary Frost
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Long Island College Hospital (LICH) in Cobble Hill could close “imminently,” sources told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. David Doyle, spokesman for State University of New York (SUNY) chairman Carl McCall, confirmed on Thursday that SUNY trustees have discussed closing LICH. SUNY Downstate Medical Center in East Flatbush, itself financially troubled, acquired LICH in 2011. “The board has requested that the newly appointed management provide recommendations for immediate action to mitigate losses. Based on those recommendations, the board has discussed the possibility of closing LICH, and Chairman McCall reiterated that this was a possibility,” according to the SUNY statement. SUNY said that trustees may vote on closing the hospital “in the near future.” To close the 150-year-old LICH, Downstate
Medical Center would be required to submit an acceptable closure plan to the State Health Department. To date, no plan
has been submitted, SUNY says. Speculation that LICH would close has been swirling
across Brooklyn all week. An insider told the Brooklyn Eagle that the hospital – sitting on some of the most desirable real estate in Brownstone Brooklyn — was “worth more dead than alive.” Assemblywoman Joan Millman, who sits on the LICH Advisory Board, told the Brooklyn Eagle last weekend the news was “a real shock.” Before the SUNY/ LICH takeover, “We were told it was viable; we didn’t know SUNY’s finances were so bad. We were operating in a vacuum. If it wasn’t going to be feasible, we should have known beforehand,” she said. “From December of last year to January of this year, 11,000 people were served in the ER. Where are these people going to go?” She added, “1,900 people work at LICH. Closing the hospital would have a devastating effect on the local economy.” The entrance to Long Island College Hospital, familiar to generaMany stakeholders were tions of Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill residents. Eagle file photo out of town for the presidential
City Gears Up for ‘Census’ of Homeless
By Paula Katinas
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Call it a census of the homeless. Every year, the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) sends volunteers out onto the streets to count the number of homeless people. The agency is once again undertaking a survey of the homeless on Monday, Jan. 28, and is looking for volunteers to assist in the effort. The survey, officially called the Homeless Outreach Population Estimate, or HOPE, begins at 10:30 p.m. and ends at 4 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 29. Volunteers will be asked to show up at a specific location at
Large Numbers Downtown, in Bed-Stuy, Coney
A homeless man sleeps on the streets of New York.
File photo
Brooklyn Loves Its Dogs — To the Max! By Rob Abruzzese Brooklyn Daily Eagle
in the 11217 area code there is even a dog named Django, after Quentin Tarantino’s latest flick. New Yorkers’ dog names aren’t only inspired by movies, though; favorite foods, actors, musicians, and athletes have also influenced names in the dog community. Oreo is the most popular of food-related names, but there is no shortage of variety, as other common names include Muffin and Biscuit. Murphy, Brando, Kobe and Jeter are also prominent choices. Most popular of all, though, are gender-specific human names like Charlie, Jack, and Lucy. This trend is not confined to New York; it is evident na-
tionwide, as people consider their dogs more as a part of their family than they ever have in the past. One Brooklyn dog owner, Kerry Held, said she even changed the name of her dog after she picked him up at the shelter because the name Sparky was not familiar enough. “Frankie is my dad’s name,” said Held. “We consider him family and we didn’t like Sparky.” As far as breeds go, Shih tzus are by far the most popular, followed by yorkies, chihuahuas, malteses and labrador retrievers. Pit bulls are among
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Cops Bust B’klyn Man on Internet Child Sex Charge A Bushwick resident was busted Wednesday and charged with attempting to lure a 10-year-old Suffolk County girl into committing a sex act using Facebook, according to the Daily News. John Burke, 35, allegedly sent the girl a message in early January, asking her to engage in a sex act. He is a friend of the girl's family, according to the News. Burke was arrested at his Bushwick home. Yesterday, he was waiting to be arraigned on charges of disseminating indecent material to a child.
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Eagle file photo by Brianna Howe
If you go to your local dog park and call out the names Max, Lucky or Princess, you can bet that a few dogs will come running. But this is Brooklyn — so calling out names like Carmelo, Biggie, and even Brooklyn will also get you quite a bit of attention. WNYC combed through NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s dog license database and compiled a list of the most popular dog names and breeds in NYC. Among the 92,720 licensed dogs in the city, Max is the most popular name, followed by Bella, Rocky,
Lucky and Buddy. According to WNYC’s findings, Brooklynites aren’t big on the old staples like Fido, Spike or Rover. While there are a few dogs in the borough with those classic names, you are just as likely to hear of dogs with names that are more hip and in line with contemporary pop culture. WNYC’s list reveals that many New Yorkers are fond of naming their dogs after popular movies. Bella, the name of a character in the Twilight series, is the second most common dog name in the city, while Rocky is the third. Of course, because Brooklyn is on the cutting edge,
10:30 p.m. to undergo a brief training session and then travel around their assigned communities to talk to homeless people on the streets, in the parks, in the subways and in other public spaces and take a count of how many there are. The training session begins at 11 p.m. The survey of homeless people gets under way at 12:15 a.m. Volunteers will work in teams. After the survey is complete, volunteers will return to the training center to submit their data. “HOPE is critical to helping DHS evaluate the effectiveness of our strategies to overcome street homelessness as well as
inauguration, Millman said, but a rally is planned for Friday. Ken Brereton, a psychiatric nurse for 18 years, told the Brooklyn Eagle, “Two years ago they fought a battle to keep the funding coming because [LICH] was so vital to Brooklyn; now they’re talking about closure.” (See story, page 15.) If LICH were to close, local residents would lose a valuable resource, but SUNY would be sitting on a gold mine. Timothy King, managing partner of Real Estate Services for CPEX, offered the Brooklyn Eagle a quick and dirty property estimate. “There is no question that this would be a very valuable asset, and could likely fetch over $100 million in a sale,” he said Thursday. King, who was a trustee at Brookdale Hospital and was involved as a broker in selling the former St. Mary’s hospital on behalf of St. Vincents, added, “Based on my experience, the closure and sale of a hospital is
Laura Petragliz with her dog, Bella.