Brooklyn Heights Press and Cobble Hill News

TWO SECTIONS

Now Heights Residents Can Pay Parking Meters by Cellphone

77TH YEAR, NO. 3,950

THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2017

50 CENTS

SEE PAGE 3

COUNCILMEMBER STEPHEN LEVIN (RIGHT) HONORED JOHN ESPOSITO WITH A CITATION IN FRONT OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS AT THE PIERREPONT PLAYGROUND after the Parks Department devotee retired with 45 years of work behind him. See page 2.

Heights Press photo by Paul Frangipane

www.24middagh.com www.24middagh.com

John Esposito, center, in cap, surrounded by his family at the Pierrepont Playground.

Heights Press photo by Paul Frangipane

Parks Department Devotee Retires After 45 Years

By Paul Frangipane

Special to Brooklyn Heights Press

The sign hung on the fence by the parkhouse says it all.

Councilmember Stephen Levin, right, gave Esposito a citation in front of family and friends.

2 • Brooklyn Heights Press • Thursday, June 8, 2017

Photo by Jonathan Boucher

Photo by Jonathan Boucher

The sun shined through the trees of Pierrepont Playground as a crowd of smiling family and friends shared food and drinks with the backdrop of a picturesque view of Lower Manhattan.

The occasion was the retirement of John Esposito, who walked around the playground he helped to maintain, celebrating 45 years of work with the New York City Parks Department.

“For the last 25 years, he has worked tirelessly to keep the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, the Pierrepont Playground and the Chapin Playground clean for the enjoyment of residents and visitors alike,” Councilmember Stephen Levin said, awarding Esposito with a citation on June 1 in front of family and friends.

Esposito and his family filled the gated section of the playground closest to the Promenade and shared cake as Brooklyn Parks Chief of Staff Martin Maher honored Esposito for his service. At the same time, the children of the family hung loving drawings for Esposito on the nearby tree trunks.

After graduating from Lafayette High School, Esposito volunteered at parks and baseball fields around the city. In 1971, he launched his Parks Department career at the Coney Island Boardwalk.

“Both in his professional and personal endeavors, John became a great mentor to many young people,” Levin said.

While working for Parks six days a week, Esposito umpired for a Bensonhurst Little League team.

In 2005, the Brooklyn Heights Association recognized him with the Extraordinary Service Award, giving him credit for helping make Brooklyn Heights a “small town neighborhood.”

A large crowd of Esposito’s family watched as he smiled as Levin awarded him the citation, praising him for his work for the parks of Brooklyn.

“Upon his retirement, John can be proud knowing that his great legacy has greatly contributed to the quality of life in Brooklyn,” Levin said. “He has truly excelled in his work and has earned the esteem of all New Yorkers.”

Businesses on Montague Street generously contributed to the success of the event, including Lassen & Hennigs, Monty Q’s and Key Food.

Now Heights Residents Can Pay Parking Meters by Cellphone ParkNYC: No Quarters Necessary

By Mary Frost

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

No more dashing out from restaurants, shopping or movie theaters to load the parking meter. Without much fanfare, a new method to pay Muni-Meters on city streets by using smartphones has rolled out in Brooklyn Heights and throughout the borough.

By using the ParkNYC app, drivers can use their phones to pay for parking, check how much time remains on the meter, keep an eye on a countdown clock and extend their parking time without returning to the car.

The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) launched ParkNYC last December in Midtown Manhattan. The program went live in Brooklyn roughly two weeks ago and is also in operation in the Bronx and Staten Island. It’s expected to come to Queens sometime this summer.

To use ParkNYC, download the app (or go to www.parknyc.org to register an account). You’ll need to enter your license plate and phone number, and set preferences. Then load your wallet using a credit or debit card. (Like EZPass, ParkNYC can be reloaded in increments starting at $25 and going to $150.)

Those with sharp eyes may have noticed that a row of zone numbers now appears on Muni-Meters and signs at the end of each block. To pay for meters using the phone app, enter the zone number and expected length of parking time. Confirm and go enjoy yourself.

If your minutes are running out (and the maximum limit has not been reached), you can use the app to add time without running to the car. Traffic cops will check the status of your parking by using devices that check license plates.

If you’re not into apps, the meters will still take quarters and plastic, according to DOT. If you don’t have a smartphone, you can still use ParkNYC by using an Interactive Voice Response system to pay for your parking. Set up an account online at www.parknyc.org using a computer or tablet. Then call 877-7275307 to start your parking session. The system will walk you through the payment process.

The goal is to upgrade all 85,000 Muni-Meter spots by the end of this summer, DOT said in a statement.

Zone numbers have been placed on Muni-Meters in Brooklyn.

Heights Press photo by Mary Frost

Thursday, June 8, 2017 • Brooklyn Heights Press • 3

Cops, Civilians Host Interfaith Solidarity Service in Bed-Stuy

By Francesca Norsen Tate

“In this metropolis called New York, [there are] a combination of peoples of different culPraying as a community and bringing the tures, races, languages, ages of people. And police force and the neighborhood together in amazingly, we live together as one.” solidarity and love were the purposes and “When we listen to the news today, we seem theme of the NYPD-Patrol Borough Brooklyn to get the impression that there is this chasm North’s Interfaith Prayer Service, held on between law enforcement and regular civilians.

Tuesday. The host congregation was St. Philip’s The police are human beings just like everyone Episcopal Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant. else,” said Fr. Israel. “There are good police Brooklyn North’s Assistant Chief Jeffrey and there are bad police. There are good citiMaddrey, who spoke toward the zens and there are bad citizens. end of the service, told the gatherThere are good clergy and there ing that the interfaith service was a are bad clergy,” he said, to some response to tensions in New York laughter. and locally. Begun in 2014 during He said we need to recognize the turbulent times that included riotneed to “work together as a world, ing and the birth of the Black Lives and a people created by God.” Matter movement, the interfaith Imam Ahmad Jaber, a prayer service “was a response to gather leader at Masjid Dawood, speaktogether and pray. Because praying ing about observing the holy is so powerful. It helped released month of Ramadan, explained the pressure in the community.” custom of fasting from food, Now, in 2017, the tensions are water and other pleasures from different, Maddrey pointed out, sunrise to sunset.

“This is why it’s so important that “That is only the physical we come together, pray as a comaspect of fasting. However, the munity, show up and show spiritual aspect of it is more strength.” We can’t just do this once important,” he pointed out. a year, he added. “This is something Because, why am I fasting?” that we have to do all the time — During Ramadan, charity and work together, live, love together.” Rabbi Joseph Potasnik sharing meals are part of giving, Maddrey also introduced to the injects humor into his particularly to those who are gathering a young teen named message about unity. need. Ramadan is also a month of Gabe whom he’s been mentoring. love, unity and kindness. There is Gabe’s mother, concerned that her son was tak- an emphasis on getting to know each other. ing a wrong path, brought her concerns to the Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive director of assistant chief. He and Gabe then set out reading the New York Board of Rabbis, blended humor and discussing John C. Maxwell’s bestseller, about commuting with the need for solidarity, say“The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.” ing, “When you travel on the Belt Parkway — that “It’s an advanced book for a 13-year-old, but is, when you sit on the Belt Parkway approaching he’s doing really well with it,” said Maddrey, the entrance to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, you who added, “I am going to be in his life forever, will see the tri-faith chapels. The message for all of making sure he does well.” us is, ‘If you want to cross that bridge, you’d better learn to cross it together as one people.’You go Clergy Reflections to Kennedy Airport/Terminal 4, you walk by the The Rev. Carver W. Israel, rector of the host tri-faith chapels, you can’t walk by one unless you church, gave a brief history of the Church of walk by all of them. You want to travel safely, England and the Episcopal Church in the U.S. learn to travel together. And when you look at the Torah, the Jewish Bible — reverends, the original Bible,” he quipped to much laughter. “The middle word in the entire Bible is the word ‘and.’ It’s a conjunction that connects us one to the other. May all of us be like that word, ‘and.’We, together, with you, NYPD, we are many faiths. But together, we are one family. Amen.”

Other speakers included Bishop Nicolas Episcopal parishes in addressing this issue over Angustia of the Mennonite United Revival; the past few months. The parish has examined and Bishop Willie Billips of Faith Hope & Charity discussed such writings as those of Ta Nahesi Ministries; Pastor Gwen Dingle, Pentecostal Coates, author of Between the World and Me and House of Prayer; Msgr. Jamie Gigantiello, newly his article “The Case for Reparations” (The invested pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Atlantic Monthly, 2014), and renowned civil rights Church; Rev. Edward Jenkins of Ebenezer lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, author of The New York Wesleyan Methodist Church; Bishop Gerald Times bestseller “Just Mercy;” as well as videos Seabrook of Rehoboth Church; Rev. Milagros such as Ava Duvernay’s documentary “13th,” con- Solorzano of New Jerusalem Church, the Rev. Dr. sidering the ironic 20th-century follow-ups to the Barbara Williams-Harris of Onward Ministries and a NYPD uniformed chaplain.

Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.

Following the service, Assistant Chief The speakers will directly address race relations, racial injustice, and approaches to recon- Maddrey told the Brooklyn Heights Press of the ciliation. Questions and comments from the importance of clergy and law enforcement working together before crises occur. Last audience will follow.

Mother Tatro, in addition to her being an weekend, for example, he attended a church in ordained priest, holds a CUNY law degree. She Brownsville in civilian attire just to pray, listen was founder of the “Messengers of Justice to the sermon and engage the community. He Project” in New York and has worked exten- said he will continue to visit churches within sively for non-profit agencies doing legal coun- Brooklyn North throughout the summer.

“This is something that all of us need to be seling for low-income New Yorkers.

Rev. Bridges earned a master of arts in reli- doing: reaching out to the churches, going to gion at Yale Divinity School and a Doctor of visit churches getting the word of the Lord, getPhilosophy in religion at Vanderbilt University. ting spiritually fed. But it’s also a great opporShe has taught at the School of Divinity, Seattle tunity to build network and relationship with University, and was formerly pastor of the First the churches. Because when that time of crisis comes, our relationship is already strong.

Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn Heights.

Rabbi Person, adjunct rabbi at the Brooklyn We’re able to work together because we’ve Heights Synagogue, is director of CCAR Press, already started building trust. And when we the primary publisher for the Reform Movement. work through a crisis, the trust gets stronger. I Ordained in 1998, Person herself edited “The think it’s very important — going forward — Torah: A Modern Commentary” (2005), and has going after the churches, reaching out to the authored books as well for children and young congregations and people of faith. Let them know that the Police Department supports adults.

For more information call St. Paul’s Church, them; we love and appreciates them, and wants to work with them.”

718-625-4126.

Brooklyn Heights Press

Assistant Chief Jeffrey Maddrey of the NYPD’s Patrol Borough Brooklyn North has been mentoring 13-year-old Gabe.

Heights Press photos by Francesca N. Tate

Corpus Christi Festal Evensong Is Season Finale in Cobble Hill

The Feast of Corpus Christi, which celebrates the Body of Christ both as the Eucharist and as the community of faith, falls on Sunday, June 18. The Christ Church Choir and the Cobble Hill Consort will sing Evensong and Benediction for the Feast of Corpus Christi in the Christ Church Chapel that afternoon.

Donald C Barnum Jr., director of music at Christ Church, conducts this final Evensong of the 2016-2017 season. Following the 4 p.m. service is a reception in the church courtyard and garden. The chapel is reached by the driveway next to the rectory at 326 Clinton St. Featured music includes “Psalm 111” by Richard Massey, “Psalm 116” by William Crotch, “Magnificat” and “Nunc Dimittis” in B minor by T. Tertius Noble, “Preces and Responses” by Tim Brumfield, “Panis Angelicus” by César Franck, “O Sacrum Convivium” by Olivier Messiaen, with soloist

Daniel Greenwood, lead tenor of New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players; “Ave Verum Corpus” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and “Laudate Dominum” by Diego Ortiz. The Latin word preces is the plural of prex, meaning prayer.

Christ Church cordially invites all its neighbors in the Heights to attend and enjoy an afternoon of fine liturgical music spanning six centuries.

The Cobble Hill Consort is a local performance ensemble that practices and performs at Christ Church and other venues. Its repertoire includes both sacred and secular pieces. From October through June, the Cobble Hill Consort performs monthly on Sunday afternoons at Christ Church for Evensong and other services, as well as other concert performances, both secular and sacred. Those interested in singing, or play an instrument are invited to contact Don Barnum at 917-689-2953.

For more information, please call Tony Bowen, at 718-624-0083.

As a response to recent political and social events that have pushed racial justice to the forefront, the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island invites the greater Brooklyn community to attend a panel discussion on racial justice and reconciliation here in Brooklyn on Sunday. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Carroll Street) will host the discussion on Sunday, June 11, at 3 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.

The panel of presenters will include three speakers who are very familiar to Brooklyn: the

Reverend Flora Wilson Bridges, pastor of Rendall Memorial Presbyterian Church in Harlem and author of “Resurrection Song: African-American Spirituality”; the Rev. Marie Tatro, an Episcopal priest and newly appointed Vicar for Community Justice of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island; and Rabbi Hara Person, director of strategic communications with the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR).

At Bishop Lawrence Provenzano’s behest, St. Paul’s Carroll Street joined other Long Island

Carroll Gardens Church Hosts Meeting To Discuss Racial Justice, Reconciliation

4 • Brooklyn Heights Press • Thursday, June 8, 2017

BROOKLYN EAGLE Empire State Of Mind In DUMBO Here’s a view of Empire Stores’ rooftop with the DUMBO Clocktower in the background. See pages 11-12.

Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

Volume 17, No. 41

Two Sections

THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2017

$1.00

PAL/Wynn Center Brings Tournament Level Chess to Bed-Stuy Primary Students

Third-grade players focus on a first-round match in PAL/Wynn game room.

Eagle photos by Andy Katz

Renowned Grand Master Maurice Ashley Allies with Brooklyn DA to Train Young Minds

By Andy Katz Special to Brooklyn Eagle

Bedford-Stuyvesant’s PAL/Wynn Center was the scene of bitter struggle on a recent Friday afternoon, with quarter neither sought nor given as third- and fourth-grade students squared off against one another under the tutelage of International Chess Grand Master Maurice Ashley. Long noted for sponsoring sports-themed afterschool programs, the Police Athletic League (PAL) and Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office expanded its range of PAL Smarts STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) activities with an afterschool chess program “Our office supports many athletic programs,” Acting District Attorney Eric Gonzalez pointed out, “but not all of the kids are going to be athletes.

This is also important in the sense that young people meet prosecutors not because they’re victims of a crime, or, God forbid, accused of a crime.”

“It builds character, it builds intellect,” said instructor Maurice Ashley. “It teaches the kids resilience, patience — it’s a tool that transforms the kids forever.”

The tournament developed in stages, as Ashley and his assistant Peter Madsen carefully arranged each matchup beforehand.

The kids responded enthusiastically when their names were called, rushing to take the assigned position. Some shook hands before starting their game.

A quick perusal of the room revealed that the majority of players were female.

“Yeah,” Ashley laughed afterward. “I got lucky this time. I didn’t have to go out and recruit for the girls. They just showed up.”

Ashley was also quick to put rest the notion that girls and women are inferior chess players. “They just need encouragement to stick with it, and they’ll be more than a match for the boys,” he pointed out.

“Just wait till the end of the day!” PAL assistant Robin Hibbler laughed when asked if the girls seemed to have the right instincts to become chess masters. “They schooled me!”

A small group of parents clustered near one corner of the PAL game room. Bed-Stuy resident Gilbert White was on hand to 2 • Brooklyn Eagle • Thursday, June 8, 2017

watch his son, third-grader Chase, compete: “It’s a great program,” White said. “I knew the game — the moves — sure, but I never really knew how to teach it to him, not the way they do here.”

Asked if Chase had been doing better in school since taking on chess, White nodded: “Certainly. His grades have improved since this started.”

As if the excitement of a discovered check wasn’t quite enough, midway through the tournament a brace of retired NBA players, Felipe Lopez and Erick Barkley, appeared, to the delight of all.

“You’re all leaders,” Lopez told the kids. “I can say that because you’re here, learning, and not home watching TV or playing video games. You could be looking on the web for shoes …

But no one can ever take away from you what you learned. No one can ever take away your education.”

“You know what to do,” Ashley announced as the kids settled in for the final set of matches.

“You know the routine; you know the right attitude. I want you to have the best game possible — so stay focused!”

The first African-American International Chess Grand Master, Ashley honed his game in city parks playing blitz chess against hustlers who made their living delivering checkmate to the unwary. In Ashley’s universe, the game is clearly without bounds — in addition to teaching inner-city kids, Ashley is coorganizer of the Millionaire Chess Open, the highest-stakes chess match in history; he has taught chess in Ferguson, Belize and Cape Town; and he has been a commentator on international chess championships, the US Chess Open and Gary Kasparov’s match with IBM’s Deep Blue. His next stop will be in Rwanda to help with the Genocide Memorial in Kigali.

Did any of the current group remind Ashley of a younger version of him, of that moment when chess set the neurons in his mind ablaze with an inextinguishable light?

“Oh yes,” Ashley smiled. “I’ve got one or two right here.”

INSET: Deep concentration during the third round of tournament play.

Eric Gonzalez with second place fourth-grade winner.

Thursday, June 8, 2017 • Brooklyn Eagle • 3

Thursday, June 8, 2017 • Brooklyn Eagle • 3A

Our World In Pictures INDIA — Residents Struggle to Survive: A handicapped woman begs as her child sits on the steps of a shop in Gauhati on Tuesday, May 30. Some 800 million people in the country live in poverty, many of them migrating to big cities in search of a livelihood.

AP Photo/ Anupam Nath

CHILE — Students Demand Loan Debt Cancelation: Demonstrators clash with police during a strike demanding the government overhaul the education funding system that would include canceling student loan debt in Santiago on Thursday, June 1. The students marched nationwide as President Michelle Bachelet gave the State of the Nation report from the city AP Photo/Esteban Felix of Valparaiso.

4 • Brooklyn Eagle • Thursday, June 8, 2017

Thursday, June 8, 2017 • Brooklyn Eagle • 5

B

rooklyn Nabes: Sunset Park

Immigrant Victims: Brooklyn’s Chinatown Loan Club Scams Millions of Dollars

By Jane Yi Zhang Special to Brooklyn Eagle

Na Lin, 50, joined 10 others at a meeting with the police in Sunset Park last January. The two police officers and the attendees made a circle around a folding table in the office of the Brooklyn Community Improvement Association (BCIA), a Chinatown community nonprofit. Stifling air filled the basement space. Lin sat next to one of the officers, her lips pressed tightly together. She looked troubled, as did the dozen other people in the room.

The meeting was initiated by Louie Liu, vice president of BCIA, after Na Lin and the group told him about the $2 million scam in which they had lost money. He felt obligated to inform law enforcement. Among other community service projects, Liu is the founder of Brooklyn Asian Civilian Observation Patrol (BACOP), a neighborhood patrol group that now numbers 50 volunteers.

BACOP aims to help make Chinese immigrants feel more comfortable on the streets, as they help police to deter crime, particularly against the elderly. But the recent investment scam was something Liu’s patrol force could not deter. All he could do was ask police to listen and, perhaps, offer some hope for recovery.

“It didn’t lead anywhere. The police didn’t even write a report,” recalled Na Lin recently. She said she had lost about $100,000.

Four years ago, Na Lin joined a biaohui, the Chinese term for underground loan club, through which participants pool money together and lend to the one who bids with the highest interest rate. The club’s manager was Na Lin’s personal friend Huiqin Chen.

Na Lin emigrated from Fuzhou, China 28 years ago. She works as a tour guide for casino buses. In the morning, she loads the bus with people from Sunset Park, which contains one of Brooklyn’s Chinatowns, and rides two hours to Bethlehem, Penn-sylvania, where the casino is located.

By 5:30 in the afternoon, she’s back in Sunset Park, calling it a day.

She knew from the beginning it was a risky investment and that she was not insured. The entire club relied on trust. She invested her money with Chen because they had known each other for a decade.

“We’re from the same village. Her husband and children were here. I even attended her son’s wedding. It’s like a friend asking you to lend her money. I don’t want to say no,” Na Lin said. Besides, the rate of return was much higher than what she could get from other regulated investments.

Chen’s loan club had three different funds, each with about 50 members. Na Lin joined all three, investing about $800 in each every month, sometimes more depending on her income. As a tour guide, she earns a base salary from the tourist company that operates the casino bus. Passengers, who are usually Chinese

INSET: After joining the loan club, members receives a handwritten “contract,” like this, specifying the club’s terms and members’ names in a grid handdrawn by the fund managers. Eagle photo by Jane Yi Zhang 6 • Brooklyn Eagle • Thursday, June 8, 2017

seniors who go to the casino because it provides coupons for a free lunch, are also required to tip the driver and the tour guide.  As members of the loan club, anyone had the right to borrow money. To borrow, a member needed to bid with the highest interest, which is usually 20 percent or above.

Na Lin didn’t need to take the risk. She already owns a house in Sunset Park. She has no ambition to build a business either.

But the chance of free money proved irresistible. For each bid other members placed, Na Lin could earn $200 from her $800 principal.

“No bank could offer such interest rate. I just wanted to invest a small amount to earn a small portion,” Na Lin said.

None of these transactions have formal records. The monthly payments from Na Lin to Chen were cash only, Na Lin said. In this recordless and lawless territory, fraud grew freely.

Last year, at least five funds in New York collapsed, three of them in May alone according to articles in World Journal, a Chinese-language newspaper that covers the immigrant community. The fund managers cut contacts with all the members and fled, owing millions of investors’ dollars. No one knew the exact amount.

The clubs are popular among certain Chinese immigrants, particularly from the Fujian province. For those who haven’t built up credit history and therefore can’t borrow from banks, the money enables them to build businesses or buy properties.

“Too many Fujianese immigrants here participate in biaohui,” said Liu, the community leader who’s also a Fujianese immigrant.

“The original purpose of these clubs was to help villagers. But that has changed.”

Collapsing biaohui isn’t new in the Chinese community.

Over the years, these notorious loan clubs have often made headlines in Chinese newspapers, involving millions of dollars each time. Older and educated immigrants steer clear of them. However, among the new Fujianese immigrants, these loan clubs are part of their culture.

The practice has more than a century of history.

Originated in rural areas without financial institutions, this type of financing enabled villagers to develop local businesses — albeit at a high cost.

In Fujian’s rural area where transportation is limited, villagers usually live in the same town their entire life. Members of loan clubs know each other closely, they usually belong to the same clan, their children are classmates and their ancestors are buried in the same temple. But more importantly, they are bound geographically, explains Liu. If the funds don’t work out, the managers have no place to flee.

Na Lin grew up in one of these villages, where loan clubs were part of daily life. Her family and friends were more or less involved.

“People who don’t grow up in such culture wouldn’t understand,” Na Lin said. “Even my husband didn’t understand.

Everyone laughed at me. They thought I was stupid putting my money in the biaohui.”

As more and more immigrants from Fujian flooded into the New York Chinatowns, they copied this practice, but not always with good results. In the U.S., where the population is highly mobile, it changes things.

Louie Lui, one of the good guys — he tried to help victims reach out to police for recovery.

Eagle file photo “It doesn’t work like that,” Liu said. “You can’t simply copy a tool developed from a rural village in China and paste it here.”  After joining the club, members like Na Lin receive a handwritten “contract,” which specifies the club’s founding and maturing date, payment terms and members’ names. The names, some of them nicknames, are placed in a grid handdrawn by the fund managers, who would be the only people to oversee the money flows. Sometimes, when a fund was short of money to lend out, a manager would borrow from another fund she managed — a well-known trick known as a Ponzi scheme.

Na Lin is well aware of the practice, and says she knew that Chen did things like that. But growing up in such a culture and seeing how friends and family successfully established their businesses through biaohui blinded her judgment. Every month, she fed Chen with cash payments until one day, Chen disappeared.

That day came last January, when the loan she invested in was about to mature. Na Lin called Chen in the morning to collect her money. Chen agreed to pay. In the afternoon, Na Lin called again. Chen had turned off her cellphone. That night, Na Lin tried various way to contact her. All failed. Two days later, she and several other members knocked on Chen’s apartment door.

The landlord answered, telling her that Chen, along with her husband and children, had moved out.

Na Lin was shocked. In the past three years, she had contributed nearly $100,000 to Chen’s three funds. Some members had invested more. The total loss among the 10 of them was estimated to be $2 million.

Rumors of Chen’s whereabouts varied. Some thought Chen had gone back to China. Some heard she had brought her whole family to Florida. But no one could confirm anything.

Na Lin said if other members had found her, they wouldn’t tell her because everyone wanted to be the first to recover their money.  A few days after Chen’s disappearance, Na Lin and the other victims met with two police officers at BCIA’s office, hoping the police could help them locate Chen and get their money back.

“There’s nothing we can do,” said Tommy Ng, NYPD’s deputy inspector and commanding officer of the Manhattan Chinatown precinct. The Police Department does not intervene in contract term violation, explained Ng, not to mention those were verbal contracts.

Besides, lending money out at a 20 percent interest rate is a civil violation. Under New York’s usury laws, unlicensed nonbank lenders may not charge more than 16 percent for personal loans of $25,000 or less.

“This is too good to be true. You want to earn a high return without a record, you should be ready to take the risk,” Ng said.

It has been a year and three months since Chen’s loan club collapsed. Na Lin seemed to make peace with herself, accepting the reality that she would never get her money back from Chen.

“I can only hope that she’s making more money with the money she took from us. And that one day she will listen to her conscience and decide to give the money back to us,” Na Lin said.

But what happened last year hasn’t deterred her from putting her money in loan clubs. She has been investing in with another friend of hers.

“I’ve known her since I was young. And I’ve been in her club for more than 10 years,” Na Lin said. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

A Special Section of BROOKLYN EAGLE Publications

June 8-14, 2017

‘Blue Bloods’ and Bidding Wars in Bay Ridge

OH, WHAT A NEIGHBORHOOD. BAY RIDGE HAS HIGH-PROFILE PROPERTIES LIKE THE HOUSE (TOP PHOTO) WHERE TOM SELLECK’S CHARACTER FRANK REAGAN LIVES on CBS TV’s “Blue Bloods.” It has houses with turrets (above, left) and mansions with fountains (above, right). Plus, in the sale market, there are bidding wars for attached houses price-tagged at less than $1 million as well as $500,000 two-bedroom co-ops. See EYE ON REAL ESTATE, pages 7-9INB. INBrooklyn photos by Lore Croghan

2INB • INBROOKLYN — A Special Section of Brooklyn Daily Eagle/Brooklyn Eagle/Heights Press/Brooklyn Record/Bay Ridge Eagle/Greenpoint Gazette • Week of June 8-14, 2017

Darts Fly In Brooklyn

Brooklyn Eagle Chief Copy Editor Stephanie Kotsikonas stands by her insanely rare dart shot, where one dart stuck into the top of her previously thrown dart, at The Brazen Head bar on May 24. Kotsikonas and other Eagle staff members competed against professional darts players.

Photo by Marc Hibsher

The Long Medieval History of the Sport

By Paul Frangipane Special to INBrooklyn

The Brooklyn Eagle hosted a dart-throwing contest in Brooklyn on May 24 at The Brazen Head bar at 228 Atlantic Ave. Darts have become increasingly popular in Brooklyn, but well-accepted rumors tell a tale of a chivalrous history of the game.

The medieval story tells a tale of a contest between bored soldiers in England during quiet time between battles that would entail throwing short spears into wine barrels. When the contest intensified, a slice of a tree became the more precise target, with the rings of the tree marking score. The game was eventually

forced indoors due to a fierce winter.

Darts is most likely so popular because there are nearly no restrictions as to who can play. Men, women, children — no matter how short or tall, weak or strong — can throw spiked instruments at a wall.

Henry VIII of England was given “darts of Biscayan fashion, richly ornamented,” or basically small throwing spears, in 1530.

Pilgrims on the Mayflower in 1620 were said to have brought similar darts to the new lands as weapons, but eventually they became used for target practice.

Continued on page 4INB

Week of June 8-14, 2017 • INBROOKLYN — A Special Section of Brooklyn Daily Eagle/Brooklyn Eagle/Heights Press/Brooklyn Record/Bay Ridge Eagle/Greenpoint Gazette • 3INB

Darts Fly in Brooklyn: The Long Medieval History of the Sport Continued from page 3INB The original popularity of the sport came in 1908 when the Magistrates in Leeds, England, in an effort to destroy the sport, ironically made it more popular. “Games of chance” were declared illegal in bars until pub owner “Foot” Annakin argued in court by challenging magistrates to a dart-throwing contest on the courtroom floor. His skill cemented darts into the category of “games of skill.”

As dart boards spring up in bars in Williamsburg and Park Slope now, the majority of pubs in Britain in the time leading up to World War II hung boards on their walls.

The popularity of the sport as an international game is given credit to the News of the World, a British newspaper that instituted its darts championship in 1927. The competition went national in Britain after Word War I and eventually spread across oceans.

Here in Brooklyn, the New York Dart League and the Gotham City Dart League, founded around 1942, are two of the most popular communities to compete in professional dart throwing in the metro area.

The sport often brings out rookies that don’t seek fierce competition, but even if the stakes do rise high, at least they aren’t spears flying past beer-drinking hipsters in Williamsburg.

Massive Arts Weekend in Greenpoint

SPONSORED BY GREENPOINTERS.COM PUBLISHER JULIA MOAK, GREENPOINT OPEN STUDIOS — WHICH was hosted this past weekend — is an annual event celebrating the one-time industrial core as what is now a neighborhood boasting emerging art, design and craft. Shown: Artist Magaly Vega stands behind her plastic canvas in her Java Studios studio. See brooklyneagle.com for the full story and more photos. INBrooklyn photo by Andy Katz

Week of June 8-14, 2017 • INBROOKLYN — A Special Section of Brooklyn Daily Eagle/Brooklyn Eagle/Heights Press/Brooklyn Record/Bay Ridge Eagle/Greenpoint Gazette • 5INB

--- CROSSWORD ---

(See answers on page 15.)

HOW TO PLAY: Fill in the grid so that every row, every colmn, and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 through 9 only once.

Each 3x3 box is outlined with a darker line. You already have a few numbers to get you started.

Remember: You must not repeat the numbers 1 through 9 in the same line, column, or 3x3 box.

See answers on page 15.

6INB • INBROOKLYN — A Special Section of Brooklyn Daily Eagle/Heights Press/Brooklyn Record/Bay Ridge Eagle/Greenpoint Gazette • Week of June 8-14, 2017

A Walk Down Memory Lane With the Owner Of 75 81st St. Bay Ridge House Built In the 1920s Is for Sale

By Lore Croghan INBrooklyn

Take a walk with us down memory lane — which in this case is 81st Street in Bay Ridge.

Long-time residents of the block between Narrows Avenue and Colonial Road surely recall that back in the first half of the 1980s, the stately red-brick house at 75 81st St. wasn’t made of brick.

It had a bland beige stucco façade.

Then, in 1985, John and Antoinette Fleming bought the big single-family home, and the beige stucco’s days were numbered.

“I fell in love with the inside of the house,” Antoinette Fleming told Eye on Real Estate the other day.

“The layout was wonderful. We didn’t change it,” she said.

But the stucco was not so wonderful. So she and her late husband had a red-brick facade put on the house. Insulation was added between the stucco and the brick.

Fleming is now selling the lovely single-family home, which made us want to hear her reminiscences about her years of home ownership.

It took nearly two years of construction to put 75 81st St., which had been built in the mid-1920s, into good shape.

New Pella windows were installed. The kitchen and some of the bathrooms were rebuilt.

“We lived with a lot of dust for a while,” Fleming said.

After all that work, the house was wonderfully energyefficient.

Two Patios Plus a Mother-in-Law Suite John Fleming, who was an attorney, was from Bay Ridge.

Continued on page 8INB

Welcome to Antoinette Fleming’s Bay Ridge house, which is for sale. The address is 75 81st St.

Comfy chairs in a tranquil corner of Antoinette Fleming’s Bay Ridge house.

INBrooklyn photos by Lore Croghan

Week of June 8-14, 2017 • INBROOKLYN — A Special Section of Brooklyn Daily Eagle/Brooklyn Eagle/Heights Press/Brooklyn Record/Bay Ridge Eagle/Greenpoint Gazette • 7INB

A Walk Down Memory Lane With the Owner Of 75 81st St. Continue from page 7INB Antoinette Fleming was born in Calabria in southern Italy.

She lived there until she was 13, then emigrated from Italy to Brooklyn with her family.

At the time of their 81st Street home purchase, the couple owned and lived in a house on 82nd Street in Bay Ridge. They decided to move because they wanted a bigger yard for their daughter, who was a little kid at the time.

Now their daughter is a grown-up and has moved out of the house on 81st Street.

“It’s too big for me now,” said Antoinette Fleming, who lives there with her little dog Emma.

Fleming is thinking about relocating to Cocoa Beach, Florida, to be near her brothers.

She hired Melissa Leifer and Jerry Gemignani of Keller Williams’ Tribeca office as her listing agents.

The 4,562-square-foot, three-story house sits on an elevated 60-by-109-foot lot.

There are six bedrooms — plus a seventh one in a mother-inlaw suite in the basement.

A heated garage that’s attached to the house has room for two cars plus a lawnmower and other equipment. There are two patios plus a grassy, tree-lined backyard that’s big enough to build a swimming pool.

The asking price for 75 81st St. is $3.8 million.

It’s a gracious and spacious house — see brooklyneagle.com for additional photos we snapped.

A Broker Party Attended by 22 Real-Estate Agents Leifer and Gemignani have been marketing it since the beginning of March.

They hosted a party at the house for people from other brokerage firms. They had a good turnout, Gemignani said — 22 real-estate agents attended.

Numerous house-hunters who have looked at 75 81st St. grew up within a five-block radius of it, said Leifer.

They all told her, “I love this street.”

Other people who have visited the house live in Dyker Heights, Prospect Heights, Park Slope, Lower Manhattan and Midtown, Gemignani said.

The agents have had multiple offers for the house, and are negotiating with two different buyer candidates, Gemignani said.

“If you have a family and want a house for less than $4 million, there aren’t a lot of options in Manhattan or Brownstone Brooklyn — and you won’t get a garage,” he said.

Here’s the lovely living room at 75 81st St.

INBrooklyn photos by Lore Croghan

Here’s the dining room at 75 81st St., plus a glimpse through a door of the eat-in kitchen.

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This fine canine named Emma has a favorite spot in the mother-in-law suite at 75 81st St.

8INB • INBROOKLYN — A Special Section of Brooklyn Daily Eagle/Brooklyn Eagle/Heights Press/Brooklyn Record/Bay Ridge Eagle/Greenpoint Gazette • Week of June 8-14, 2017

The Gingerbread House at 8220 Narrows Ave. is for sale for a $10,999,999 asking price.

INBrooklyn photos by Lore Croghan

Bidding Wars for Bay Ridge Homes Here’s the 411 on Bay Ridge Home-Sales Pricing Trends

By Lore Croghan INBrooklyn

Bidding wars.

Now there’s a phrase that gladdens the hearts of home sellers — and they’re hearing it a lot in Bay Ridge.

These days, there’s almost always a bidding war when attached houses with asking prices of less than $1 million hit the market there, Melissa Leifer, an agent at Keller Williams’ Tribeca office who sells homes in the southwest Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood, told Eye on Real Estate.

By the time the bidding is over, the sale prices of these houses are more than $1 million.

Take 425 76th St., for instance. Leifer had the listing. In five days, there were 12 offers for the house, whose asking price was $950,000, she said.

City Finance Department records identify the buyers as Sarah D. Bunting and Dan Patrick Brady. They paid $1.1 million. The deal closed in April. The sellers, Thomas C. Riley and Ellen Sandler Riley, had purchased the house for $673,000 in 2011, Finance Department records show.

Bidding wars also frequently break out for Bay Ridge twobedroom co-ops, which are currently price-tagged at about $500,000.

“It has been very busy this year,” said Leifer, who lives in Bay Ridge.

How Different Price Tiers Stack Up The Bay Ridge home-sales market has several different price tiers. See brooklyneagle.com for additional photos of neighborhood homes that have sold or are for sale, and how they’re priced.

• After co-ops and attached single-family homes, the next price tier is two-family and three-family homes. Their asking prices are $1.2 million to $1.75 million.

There are bidding wars for these homes if the asking prices are “realistic,” Leifer said.

“If the asking price is even 5 percent higher than it should be, the house sits on the market,” she said.

The prices for these homes don’t go as high when co-brokers aren’t allowed.

• The next price tier is single-family houses that need gut renovation. Their asking prices are $1.99 million to $2.3 million.

Sales activity has started to pick up in this tier, she said.

• Luxury homes are in the next price tier. The asking prices are $2.8 million to $4 million.

These are single-family homes that usually have garages.

They are built on wide lots with a minimum size of 50 by 100 feet, said Jerry Gemignani, an agent at Keller Williams’ Tribeca office who handles sales in Bay Ridge with Leifer. There’s lots

of greenery in the yards.

Only a few luxury homes have hit the market in Bay Ridge this year.

Selling them is a slow process that typically takes six months, give or take a bit, he said.

• Super-luxury homes are in Bay Ridge’s highest price tier. The asking prices are $4.5 million and up.

These houses are unique. Their pricing is “emotion-based,” Gemignani said — there’s no meaningful comparable-home price data to work with.

Often, these houses take years to sell, he said.

Where the Buyers Come From These days, the majority of Bay Ridge homebuyers Leifer’s seeing come from outside Bay Ridge.

Windsor Terrace and Park Slope are the two neighborhoods where the highest number of Bay Ridge buyers come from.

Also, a lot of buyers of Bay Ridge homes are relocating from other states because they’ve gotten jobs here in New York. Some of these arrivals from other states are doctors and medical researchers. Often the buyers from other states are families with kids.

Many house-hunters from other states also look for homes on Long Island, where they discover the taxes are higher than they are in Brooklyn.

Here’s 146 76th St., which Gregory Bauso and Demetria Gavaris bought for $2.3 million, city Finance Department records show.

And there are foreign house-hunters checking out the Bay Ridge market.

“I’ve shown a lot of houses to people from Ireland and England,” Leifer said.

“You get the best of both worlds in Bay Ridge — suburbanstyle houses with yards, garages, driveways and sometimes swimming pools, but also subway access,” she said.

Prospective buyers of Bay Ridge luxury homes often grew up in the neighborhood, then moved away. They want to come back and raise their kids in Bay Ridge, Gemignani said.

This house at 30 82nd St. is for sale for a $4.998 million asking price.

INSET: Melissa Leifer and Jerry Gemignani of Keller Williams’ Tribeca office talk about Bay Ridge homesales pricing trends.

Week of June 8-14, 2017 • INBROOKLYN — A Special Section of Brooklyn Daily Eagle/Brooklyn Eagle/Heights Press/Brooklyn Record/Bay Ridge Eagle/Greenpoint Gazette • 9INB

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MYBROOKLYNCALENDAR.COM Calendar Events June 8-14 Arts Doubled A sculpture exhibition of work by Jennie Nichols and Daniel Wiener. Both artists use mold-making as their medium. Nichols’ works are more or less precise and true to the cast object, while Wiener uses molds as tools to create disparate forms in an improvised intuitive process.

When: Thursday through Sunday, through June 11, 1-6 p.m.

Where: Bushwick/Studio 10 (56 Bogart St.) Afterglow A solo exhibition of paintings by Emily Roz. When: Thursday through Sunday, through June 11, 1-6 p.m.

Where: Williamsburg/Front Room Gallery (147 Roebling St.) Sights in the City During the summer of 1980, under the direction of his photographer father, Jamel Shabazz armed himself with a Canon AE1 SLR camera and began to photograph the landscape of his native New York City.

Composed of color and black-and-white photographs taken between 1980 and 2016, many of which have never been published, “Sights in the City” is the testament of Shabazz’s visual journey.

When: Tuesday through Saturday, through June 17, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Where: DUMBO/United Photo Industries Gallery (111 Front St.) The View From Here A series of paintings referencing the historical and physical

attributes of places visited by the artist, as well as the generations that have passed through them and the artist’s presence as a contemporary visitor.

When: Thursday through Sunday, through June 16, 1-6 p.m Where: Prospect Heights/FiveMyles (558 St. Johns Place) This Land Is ...

This show features work by 800 Brooklyn students and offers youthful artistic commentary on modern socio-economic and political issues, from immigration and health care to gun violence.

When: Tuesday through Sunday, through June 18 (Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sunday, 12-6 p.m.)

Where: Fort Greene/BRIC Arts (647 Fulton St.) Kajahl: Obscure Origins This exhibition presents a focused survey of Kajahl’s portraits, which combine iconography from African, Asian, European and Pre-Columbian traditions. The fusion of these symbols results in the creation of enigmatic artworks that bring the forgotten past into the foreground and reanimate minor artifacts of history into transformative assemblages.

When: Thursday through Saturday, through June 18, 12-5 p.m.

Where: Clinton Hill/Tillou Fine Art (59 Cambridge Place) S.B. Walker: Walden Walker’s photographs illustrate the way this once pristine landscape is now viewed and used. Using a large format camera, Walker captures both the grandeur and the cotidian 100 years after Thoreau.

When: Tuesday through Saturday, through June 23, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Where: DUMBO/Janet Borden, Inc (91 Water St.) Multilocational See multilocational artworks by Natalia Nakazawa and Cecile Chong. Multilocational is defined as “of, pertaining to, or being present in more than one location.” It subtly plays on the words multicultural or multinational, or “of mixed ancestry or residence.”

When: Fridays, through June 25, 3-6 p.m.

Where: Park Slope/Old Stone House (336 Third St.)

Andrew Snyder: 9 Meditations A performative installation, “9 Meditations” pays tribute to the tradition of demonstration by way of performance. There is a long history of demonstration in the crafts — whether weaving, smithing, or throwing — as a performance that shows the mastery of the craftsman’s skill.

When: Wednesday through Sunday, through July 15, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Where: Park Slope/Open Source Gallery (306 17th St.) Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern This exhibit takes a new look at how the renowned modernist artist proclaimed her progressive, independent lifestyle through a self-crafted public persona, including her clothing and the way she posed for the camera. The exhibition expands our understanding of O’Keeffe by focusing on her wardrobe, shown for the first time alongside key paintings and photographs. It confirms and explores her determination to be in charge of how the world understood her identity and artistic values.

When: Wednesday through Sunday, through July 23, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. (Thursdays, 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.)

Where: Prospect Heights/Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Parkway) Forged Worlds This outdoor photography exhibition showcases work by seven artists whose photographic practices revolve around the physical construction of fictional landscapes. Installed on a fence beneath the Manhattan Bridge, this photo installation invites viewers to take a closer look and perhaps allow themselves to be carried away — if even for a moment — in thoughts and lands so strange, yet so familiar, so close to home.

When: Daily, through July 31, 2017 Where: DUMBO/Manhattan Bridge (Adams Street, Plymouth Street and Anchorage Place) Truman Capote’s Brooklyn: The Lost Photographs of David Attie In the spring of 1958, a young photographer named David Attie was led through the streets of Brooklyn Heights and to the Brooklyn waterfront by an unexpected guide: 33-year-old Continued on page 12INB

Week of June 8-14, 2017 • INBROOKLYN — A Special Section of Brooklyn Daily Eagle/Brooklyn Eagle/Heights Press/Brooklyn Record/Bay Ridge Eagle/Greenpoint Gazette • 11INB

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MYBROOKLYNCALENDAR.COM Week of June 8-14, 2017

Image courtesy of Green-Wood Cemetery

Continued from page 11INB Truman Capote. The images Attie took that day were to illustrate Capote’s essay for Holiday magazine about his life in Brooklyn. Decades later, these largely unseen photographs are being exhibited for the first time.

When: Wednesday through Sunday, through July 31, 12-5 p.m.

Where: Brooklyn Heights/Brooklyn Historical Society (128 Pierrepont St.) Next Stop: Second Avenue Subway Tracing nearly 100 years of history, the New York Transit Museum’s newest exhibit explores how the Second Avenue line fits into New York’s past, present and future transportation landscapes.

When: Tuesday through Sunday, through Sept. 3, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. (Saturday and Sunday hours, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.)

Where: Downtown Brooklyn/New York Transit Museum (Corner of Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street) Infinite Blue The works of art in “Infinite Blue” feature blue in all its variety — a fascinating strand of visual poetry running from ancient times to the present day. In cultures dating back thousands of years, blue — the color of the skies — has often been associated with the spiritual, but also signifies power, status and beauty. The spiritual and material aspects of blue combine to tell us stories about global history, cultural values, technological innovation and international commerce.

When: Wednesday through Sunday, through Nov. 5, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.; Thursdays, 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.

Where: Prospect Heights/Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Parkway)

Green-Wood Cemetery presents “The Victorian Cult of Mourning” on Sunday, June 10.

Books & Readings Trinidad Noir: The Classics Robert Antoni will appear in conversation with Tiphanie Yanique; this event is part of the WORD! Caribbean Book Festival.

When: Sunday, June 11, 11 a.m.

Where: Bed-Stuy/Bedford Stuyvsant Restoration (1368 Fulton St.) Unbound: Roxane Gay in Conversation with Moderator TBC A Book Launch Series with BAM and Greenlight Bookstore presents Roxane Gay for the release of “Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body,” her latest book exploring her past and her journey in understanding herself.

When: Tuesday, June 13, 7 p.m.

Where: Fort Greene/BAM Rose Cinemas (30 Lafayette Ave.) Book Launch: Away with Words by Joe Berkowitz “Away With Words” is a hilarious and heartwarming romp through the world of competitive punning, and makes a perfect addition to any wordplay lover’s library.

When: Tuesday, June 13, 7 p.m.

Where: Dumbo/PowerHouse Arena (28 Adams St.)

Educational The Victorian Cult of Mourning An afternoon symposium devoted to exploring the arts and culture of Victorian mourning with illustrated talks and show-and-tell presentations of period artifacts. Speakers will include Dr. Stanley Burns, professor of medicine and psychiatry and founder of the Continued on page 13INB

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MYBROOKLYNCALENDAR.COM Continued from page 12INB Burns Photographic Archive; Green-Wood Cemetery Historian Jeff Richman; Evan Michelson, coowner of Obscura Antiques & Oddities and host of the Science Channel’s “Oddities;” funeral director Amy Cunningham; Jennifer Glassock, research associate at the Costume Institute; and more.

When: Sunday, June 10, 12-5 p.m.

Where: Greenwood/Green-Wood Cemetery (500 25th St.) NYTM Train Operators Workshop Drop by the computer lab to take control of a New York City subway car and operate it over virtual miles of track, using some incredibly realistic software. Limited capacity.

When: Saturday and Sunday, June 10-11, 3:304:30 p.m.

Where: Brooklyn Heights/New York Transit Museum (99 Schermerhorn St.)

Family Fun

The New York Transit Musuem will host “Party on Wheels” on Sunday, June 11.

Kids Drawing and Poetry Workshop Kids can join artist Jesse Chun for a workshop on drawing, poetry and combining the two.

When: Saturday, June 10, 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Where: Brooklyn Bridge Park/99 Plymouth St.

When: Sunday, June 11, 9-11 a.m.

Where: Downtown Brooklyn/New York Transit Museum (Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street)

Party on Wheels The New York Transit Museum’s Lo-V subway cars are turning 100 and they’re having a “Party on Wheels” to celebrate! Bring the whole family to enjoy exclusive early access, breakfast and birthday cake, crafts and dancing, a conductor cab photo booth, model trains, face painting snd shuttle rides on the museum’s 100-year-old train cars.

Michael Jackson Dance Party With DJ Cochon de Lait Each workshop is 60 minutes long and is specifically designed for children 7 and under, but all members of the family are welcome to this family show.

When: Sunday, June 11, 12:30-1:30 p.m.

Where: Williamsburg/Brooklyn Bowl (61 Wythe Ave.)

Image courtesy of New York Transit Museum

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B

rooklyn Nabes: Sunset Park

Eagle photo by Jane Yi Zhang (left); Photo courtesy of Lai Fa Hom (right)

Chinese-Born U.S. Vet Survived Critical Language Barrier

Left: Lai Fa Hom, the 89-year-old Korean War veteran, at the lobby of his Carroll Gardens senior home. Right: In 1951, Hom enlisted in the U.S. Army.

By Jane Yi Zhang Special to the Brooklyn Eagle

It has been 16 years since he started his clothing business on the sidewalk of Eighth Avenue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. His store — a 5-foot-long foldable table with a metal hanger on top — sells 1990s-style women’s and men’s clothes. Although the fruit stand across from him has changed hands — from Lee to Wong to Gao — he remained at the same spot.

Every morning, Lai Fa Hom, 89, and his wife park their car within view of the clothing stand — next to a fire hydrant — at the corner of 57th Street, where he says he doesn’t get fined.

“Sometimes I run the red light or double-park.

The police don’t give me tickets,” Hom said. The reason, he said, is the veteran certificate he carries everywhere he goes. More than half of a century ago, the U.S. Army sent Hom to the Korean War battlefield. The Chinese Army was one of the enemies. Worrying that Hom, a Chinese immigrant, would trade information with the Chinese, the U.S. Army placed him in the artillery division up in the mountains, away from Chinese soldiers.

“That’s one of the reasons I survived the war,” Hom said. Today, he’s one of the oldest veterans of the American Legion, Lt. B.R Kimlau Chinese Memorial Post 1291 in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Hom came to the U.S. by himself from Canton, China in 1948 when he was 21 years old. He spoke only Taishanese, a Cantonese dialect. With help from family members, he opened a laundry business in the Bronx.

But just as he thought he was on the right track of building a new life in the country, North Korea invaded South Korea and the U.S. became involved in the Korean War. Two soldiers came to his store and drafted him.

“They told me if I don’t go to the Army, they will send me back to China,” Hom said. “They have my name and my business address. They know where to find me.”

Hom was given two weeks to sell his laundry business. Although he was an undocumented immigrant, had no high school diploma and barely spoke English, in 1951 he enlisted in the U.S. Army.  “They called me ‘Crazy Chinese Man,’” Hom said as he recalled his military life of 66 years ago in vivid detail.

The 16-week training took place in Fort Dix, N.J. Hom was the only Asian in the division. As a new immigrant who didn’t speak English, he said other soldiers saw him as a joke. When the commander asked the soldiers to turn left, he turned right; when the

trainer explained how to assemble an artillery, he fell asleep because he couldn’t understand a word.

“It was tough,” Hom said. One of the punishments was pushups. Hom said he had no idea how many of those he had done over the 16-week period. Still, he passed training and was sent to the battlefield in South Korea.

Being an artillery soldier was a blessing and a curse. On one hand, he was far from any immediate danger; on the other, he was stationed at Pork Chop Hill, so-named because its topographic shape resembled a pork chop. In the winter, the mountain was buried in 7 inches of snow, Hom said, with no truck or jet to deliver food. The eight soldiers built a cave with dead branches on the mountaintop and fed themselves snow for days.

During battles, the commander gave orders to soldiers through the radio. Hom had to make sense of the orders through context.

But it didn’t always work: On one occasion, the commander on the mountaintop tried to give Hom an order to stop firing. He saw the commander raise his palm, moving it back and forward to signal him. Hom turned around and fired another five rounds.

The commander rushed down to yell at him. “Why did you do that? I told you to stop!”

“I saw his hand. I thought he meant five rounds!” Hom said, remembering the details in his senior house apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, where he and his wife were accepted nine years ago. “It sounds funny now. But it was tough back then.”  He told his story as he ate oxtail stew freshly made by his wife. The 50-inch flat screen TV was playing news about President Donald Trump. “What do you think about the president?” he asked. “I think he’s bad.” He learned English after he came back from the war. His co-worker in a garment factory taught him.

Every so often, Hom hangs out at American Legion’s Chinatown post, a self-funded veteran community center with more than 600 members ranging from 22 to 103 years old. All but seven members — who are white and Hispanic — are Asian, according to Adjutant Gabe B. Mui of the Lt. B.R Kimlau Chinese Memorial Post.

Hom plays Tien Gow, a Chinese gambling game, with fellow veterans every time he comes to the Post. On the four-person game table, he likes to talk about his achievements, especially as a master of Hung Kuen, a southern Chinese martial art, said Huanyu Tan, 69, a Vietnam War veteran. He called Hom his “cousin,” because they came from the same village in Taishan, China.

“He’s rather chivalrous,” said Tan. “He never says no to friends who need help. He has a bad temper though.

When he doesn’t agree, he yells at you. He’s loud.”

After spending two Christmases in South Korea, Hom was sent back to the U.S. He remained in the Army Reserve until 1960, when he received an honorable discharge.

Thirteen months in the army go a long way. Without ever having had a green card, Hom acquired his U.S. citizenship in 1967 and received a vendor license to set up his clothing table in 2000.

The Department of Consumer Affairs, which issues the license, favors veterans and the disabled. And of course, Hom also enjoys privileges when stopped by traffic cops.

INSET: Veterans play Tien Gow, a Chinese gambling game, at the American Legion, Lt. B.R Kimlau Chinese Memorial Post 1291 in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

Eagle photo by Jane Yi Zhang Thursday, June 8, 2017 • Brooklyn Eagle • 7

M

ore on City Transportation

Select Bus Service, a Welcome Addition to Brooklyn’s Transit Scene

By Raanan Geberer Special to Brooklyn Eagle

If you look behind the recent hoopla over the opening of the Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan, you’ll find that the real story is the slow pace at which it was constructed and the high cost of construction. The first section, from 63rd to 96th Street, took 10 years to build and serious planning has yet to begin on the second phase, from 96th to 125th streets.

Compare this to the four years in which the city’s original subway line, from City Hall to 145th Street, was completed and to the seven years it took to construct the “A” train from 207th to Chambers streets, both in the early 20th century. The only

conclusion we can draw is that things are much more complicated today. While new subways should and probably will be built, the process can take years.

Thankfully, a new alternative has emerged in Brooklyn and elsewhere to make bus service faster in the absence of an aggressive new subway-building program. That alternative is bus rapid transit, which combines some of the features of mass transit with the flexibility of buses.

The MTA’s version of bus rapid transit is known as Select Bus Service (SBS). The city currently has 11 SBS routes. Two of them that are entirely in Brooklyn, and one additional route starts in Brooklyn and goes over the Verrazano Bridge to Staten Island. These routes serve such high-profile locations as Fort Hamilton, Sheepshead Bay, Kings Plaza, Brooklyn College, Kings County and SUNY Downstate hospitals and Williamsburg Bridge Plaza.

Passengers don’t swipe their MetroCard near the driver’s compartment — instead, they use their MetroCard to buy a paper ticket at a sidewalk machine, then hold on to it to show inspectors when they come through the buses. Thus, drivers don’t have to wait for passengers to swipe their MetroCards on board.

Passengers can now get on through the rear doors, which in “regular” buses are reserved for exiting.. SBS vehicles use their own dedicated lanes — either the street’s outside lane or one separated from the curb by a parking lane — which are painted an orange-tan color.

Finally, in some locations where the dedicated lanes are not the outside ones, “bus bulbs” at bus stops bring the curb right up to the bus.

The two all-Brooklyn routes are the B44, one of the longest routes in the borough, runs between Sheepshead Bay and Williamsburg; and the B46, which traverses the same aforementioned Utica Avenue route that subway planners have dreamed of since time immemorial. As we’ve mentioned, MTA also runs an SBS route between Bay Ridge-Fort Hamilton and Staten Island, the S79. Most of the MTA’s SBS lines were regular or limited-stop bus routes before the program began.

The B44 runs almost the entire north-south axis of the borough. It starts on Emmons Avenue, Sheepshead Bay’s main commercial street, which is known for its seafood restaurants. On its northward trek along Nostrand, Rogers and Bedford avenues, it stops at Brooklyn College, Kings County and SUNY Downstate hospitals, the Hasidic area of

OPINION

South Williamsburg and finally, Williamsburg Bridge Plaza Bus Terminal. Southbound buses go from Lee directly onto Nostrand Avenue rather than using nearby Bedford and Rogers avenues.

The B46 begins at Kings Plaza, goes north on Utica Avenue for most of its route and finally turns onto Malcolm X Boulevard for the final leg of its journey, terminating at Broadway in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The S79 connects Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton to Staten Island, terminating at the Staten Island Mall.

So far, SBS has met its expectations, said Kevin Ortiz, a spokesman for MTA New York City Transit. Overall, he said “We’re seeing 20 percent faster bus service and 10 to 20 percent increases in ridership along our SBS routes.”

Using Brooklyn’s SBS B44 as an example, he points to a 31 percent travel-time improvement in the morning going north, a 20 percent travel-time improvement in the afternoon going north, a 19 percent improvement in the morning going south and a 15 percent improvement in the afternoon going south.

Of course, as in any new development, there are criticisms of SBS. For example, Sheepshead Bites in May 2015 opined that having to pre-pay off-site could mean that more people will miss the bus, that double-parkers often ignore the dedicated bus lanes on the Flatbush portion of the B44 and that longer buses (used on SBS routes) “will mean fewer of them and longer waits.”

I live near an SBS route (admittedly, not in Brooklyn), and I find a marked improvement in service. The bus proceeds at a faster rate down the street, and boarding time is reduced because passengers can get in at any one of the bus’ three doors rather than having to wait at the front door. True, one can lose time while getting a ticket at the bus-stop ticket machine, but I don’t have any ready solution for that. Perhaps when the current MetroCard system is replaced by a faster chip card system, things will improve.

Many years ago I lived in Boston, and I saw how that city and neighboring Cambridge have a varied transit system, with streetcars, subways, buses and electric buses all working together.

Hopefully, this type of system can also become a reality in New York, with SBS as a major component.

INSET: A B44 Select bus is seen at Nostrand Avenue.

Photo courtesy of NYC Department of Transportation

Bringing Back an Old Option Could Help R Train Service

By Raanan Geberer Special to Brooklyn Eagle

I recently heard several Bay Ridge residents complain about the R train, the local subway line that travels between Bay Ridge and Forest Hills, Queens. Two of them, in particular, say that service has actually deteriorated in the last six months or so.

One said that when taking the R back from Downtown Brooklyn during the evening rush hour, if he misses a 95th Street-bound train he has to wait 25 minutes or so for another one. “The later you are, the worse it gets,” he said.

The second said that when he starts his trip in the morning from 95th Street, “The platform has two tracks. In the past, it was certain that there would be a train waiting on at least one of those two tracks. Now, we sometimes have to wait 10 minutes for a train to pull in, and by the time you get to 36th Street, the train is jammed.”

In the evening, he said, “If you’re getting on at Court Street, you probably won’t find a seat. At 36th Street [where the D merges with the R] and 59th Street [where the N merges with the R], the train sometimes stops in the middle of the tunnel until the other train gets ahead of us.”

Both said that when the Montague Street tunnel was being repaired and the Brooklyn portion of the R train ran between 95th and Court streets, the trains ran more regularly and it was easier to get a seat because of the shorter turnaround.

That points to a major source of problems on the line: the R, running through three boroughs, is one of the longest routes in the transit system. “If there’s a problem in Forest Hills,” says Josephine Beckmann, district manager for Community Board 10, “it’s often felt in Bay Ridge.”

To take some of the pressure off the “regular” R and give riders a break, her colleague city Councilmember Vincent Gentile (D-Bay Ridge-Dyker Heights) has proposed that M TA add a rush-hour express R-train “short line” that would terminate at Chambers Street. Indeed, the transit system ran such a service in the 1980s.

Responding to some of these concerns, Kevin Ortiz, spokesman for MTA New York City Transit, confirmed that the R is one of the longest lines in the transit system. “It has the sixth-longest peak riding time, it’s a local route and it shares

tracks with other lines — in Queens with the M, in Manhattan with the N and the Q sometimes.

“There’s one thing to keep in mind,” he continued. “During the 13-month shutdown of the Montague Street tunnel [that ended in September 2014], the R was truncated into two separate sections.

On the Brooklyn side, it ran from Court to 95th Street. When you have a shorter run, there’s less likelihood to run into issues. When the tunnel was reopened [and the longer route was reinstituted], there was more of an opportunity to run into hiccups.”

Asked about the old rush-hour R special to Chambers Street on the J line, Ortiz recalled that it was known as the “banker’s special” because it served riders who worked in Manhattan’s Financial District. He stressed that this service was discontinued because of low ridership.

“When we ran the M [which until recently also shared the J line tracks in Manhattan] down to Bay Parkway, it also ran empty.”

Nick Sifuentes, spokesman for the Riders Alliance, a grassroots transit organization, looked at the big picture. “The main problem is lack of funding,” he said. “The state is basically disinvesting in transit. And it’s not really the MTA’s fault.” As an example of what MTA could do with more funding, Sifuentes mentioned the expansion of communications-based train control, which makes use of digital communications between track equipment and the train itself.

According to the MTA website, this system is planned for the R train, but only for its Queens portion. Since it allows more frequent train service with shorter headways, if it were installed on the entire R train, Brooklyn riders could benefit from trains running every 3 minutes or so.

For the near future, I think the special rush-hour R service to Chambers Street deserves another try. It would serve several constituencies: the financial people who work on Wall Street, the government workers who commute to the Municipal Building and other buildings around Chambers Street and the legal crowd that commutes to the Downtown Brooklyn courthouses. It would also take some of the pressure off the regular R service so that regular R trains would be less crowded. The year 1987 was 30 years ago — it’s time to study this option again.

OPINION

8 • Brooklyn Eagle • Thursday, June 8, 2017

For Train and Transportation Buffs, New York’s a Paradise

By Melanie Carroll The Associated Press

In this May 15, 2016 file photo, an acrobatic performer hangs from handrails of a subway car as he entertains riders on the Q train in Brooklyn.

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File famous for a depiction of the zodiac, and his jaw nearly dropped. It features 12 constellations painted in gold leaf and 2,500 stars, 59 of which are illuminated by LEDs. We talked with a friendly, informative attendant at the information booth beneath the station’s famous fourfaced clock, who told us where to find the nearby New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex & Store in Grand Central. It’s a good place to buy train-related books, toys and memorabilia. If you don’t feel like trekking to the exhaustive museum in Brooklyn, this smaller space may do the trick.

Our next stop was the Roosevelt Island aerial tramway, which offers stellar views as it rises

as high as 230 feet to cross the East River. The nearly three-minute ride between Manhattan and tiny Roosevelt Island is a steal for $2.75.

(Just like the subway, it requires the use of a prepaid MetroCard, which riders swipe at the turnstile to enter.) The windowed cabins are suspended on cables and carry up to 109 passengers about three-fifths of a mile, at up to 17 mph. There are cool views of the island, Manhattan and the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, but my slight fear of heights prevented me from enjoying it as much as I could have. I was relieved to soon be on firm Roosevelt

Island ground. We briefly checked out the 2mile-long island, named for former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, before heading back to Manhattan on the tram — though you can also take a subway back under the river.

But in New York, transportation buffs don’t have to hunt down the tram, Transit Museum or even Grand Central to get their kicks. Just grab a subway map — free from the manned station kiosks — or download one on your phone, and go for a ride. Whether you encounter rush hour commuters, a mariachi band, a preacher or a panhandler, it’s bound to be colorful — but it also happens to be the cheapest and most efficient way to traverse the city.

INSET: A Rockaway Parkway-bound L train heads south from Broadway Junction.

AP Photo/ Julie Jacobson

Melanie Carroll via AP

If you’re a rail fan or happen to have one in your family, New York City is a great place to visit. Arguably the most transit-friendly city in America, New York dazzled my 8-year-old son, not only with its ubiquitous subway lines but also with various train-related destinations.

During our urban adventure, we visited the best-known train terminal in the nation, crossed the East River on an aerial tram and strolled through vintage passenger cars.

Simply riding the subway, at $2.75 a pop, was a treat for us. On our way to the New York Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn, we took the Q train, which runs over the Manhattan Bridge. Despite stormy skies, we had a good view of the Brooklyn Bridge across the way, the East River below and lower Manhattan from the last car. We walked several blocks and eventually found the museum in the decommissioned Court Street subway station. The street entrance can be deceiving: It looks and feels like an actual subway station because it once was, although now it’s got museum signs on it. You even have to go down two flights of stairs below street level, just like you would for a real subway station, to enter.

Inside, my son loved the old-fashioned wooden subway turnstiles from the last century.

But the old passenger cars on the platform level really got his attention. He pretended that one of the cars, once used in an elevated train in Brooklyn, was rolling down the tracks and he was running after it to get on. The beautiful lightweight wooden body coach was made in Newark, Ohio in 1907 for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, or BRT. The car was in service in New York between 1908 and 1969 before its restoration in 1979, according to the New York Transit Museum.

I was fascinated by the old advertisements and announcements posted inside the 20 retired passenger cars. There was a World War II-era message telling riders to observe “meatless days, wheatless days and porkless days” to help win the war. An undated ad for Lux laundry soap informs women donning pantyhose to “expect runs unless” they use their product “after each wearing.” Other ads featured Chesterfield cigarettes and Carstairs blended whiskey for $3.61 a bottle. One of my favorite ads, from 1912, addressed onboard heating regulations. It decreed that between Oct. 15 through April 15, passenger cars would be “equipped with suitable heating apparatus” to heat the cars between 40 and 65 degrees, except when a storm, accident or emergency caused the heating system to fail. Sounds downright chilly, right?

Leaving Brooklyn, our next stop was the iconic Grand Central Terminal , which 82 million passengers flow through each year. The massive station, built 104 years ago, is still captivating. In the main concourse, my son peered up at the green ceiling,

This March 29 photo shows a wooden subway car built in 1908 on display at the New York Transit Museum in Downtown Brooklyn. The car served several elevated lines in New York between 1908 and 1969. It carried passengers to the 1939 World’s Fair in Queens and was among the last wooden elevated cars running in North America.

Subway trains parked in New York on May 18.

AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Thursday, June 8, 2017 • Brooklyn Eagle • 9

Our World In Pictures GERMANY — Riding the Waves: A surfer rides on an artificial wave in the river Eisbach at the English Garden in downtown Munich on Tuesday, May 30.

AP Photo/Matthias Schrader

PHILIPPINES — Congress Reviews Martial Law: A Philippine congressman waits for the start of the Committee of the Whole to review the recent declaration of martial law in Mindanao at the House of Representatives in Manila on Wednesday, May 31. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in the south through mid-July, but lawmakers had asked for a public session of Congress to determine whether it is still necessary. AP Photo/Aaron Favila

10 • Brooklyn Eagle • Thursday, June 8, 2017

Empire State of Mind in DUMBO

Empire Stores’ Newly Opened Rooftop Is a Real Visitor Magnet

By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Eagle

Up on the roof of Empire Stores, there are views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the World Trade Center.

Eagle photos by Lore Croghan

These rooftop views will add some sizzle to summer in DUMBO. Newly opened rooftop public space at a post-Civil War coffee warehouse is putting people in an Empire State of Mind, to borrow a phrase from Jay Z and Alicia Keys.

The landscaped public amenity atop Empire Stores is quite the visitor magnet.

The roof is quickly becoming a hot spot for selfie-snapping and sitting in the sun — when the Brooklyn waterfront isn’t being soaked with rainstorms, of course.

Empire Stores’ rooftop has eye-popping views of the Brooklyn Bridge, the World Trade Center and other Manhattan skyscrapers, Jane’s Carousel and the shoreline of Brooklyn Bridge Park, East River boat traffic and the Manhattan Bridge.

Built between 1869 and 1885, Empire Stores stood empty for decades.

Then, in 2013, the Brooklyn Bridge Park’s board of directors chose a joint venture headed

by Jack, Michael and Joseph Cayre’s Midtown Equities to ground-lease Empire Stores for a 96-year term and redevelop the landmarked property.

The development team has meticulously renovated Empire Stores and carved out a pedestrian passageway in the middle of it that connects Brooklyn Bridge Park’s shoreline and Water Street. A staircase located near the Brooklyn Bridge Park entrance to the pedestrian passageway provides public access to the rooftop.

Continued on page 12

This is the pedestrian passageway at Empire Stores, which leads to a rooftop with wonderful views.

Here’s a view of Empire Stores’ rooftop with the DUMBO Clocktower in the background.

Thursday, June 8, 2017 • Brooklyn Eagle • 11

Empire State of Mind in DUMBO

Take a seat — on Empire Stores’ rooftop.

Continued from page 11 Office, retail and cultural tenants have been moving into Empire Stores, including West Elm, Shinola Detroit and the Brooklyn Historical Society.

A glassed-in addition on Empire Stores’ roof that is separate from the open-air public space is going to be occupied by an outpost of SoHo House, an upscale members-only club, according to the website “Brooklyn Bridge Parents.”

An email that SoHo House founder Nick Jones sent to members said DUMBO House, as it will be called, will open this fall, the Brooklyn Paper reported.

ABOVE: This is a view of Jane’s Carousel from Empire Store’s newly opened rooftop. AT RIGHT: Empire Stores’ rooftop has a great view of the Manhattan Bridge.

Eagle photos by Lore Croghan 12 • Brooklyn Eagle • Thursday, June 8, 2017

There’s new public space on the roof of Empire Stores, seen here from Brooklyn Bridge Park.