Results tagged “brightonbeach”

Thieves ransacked a Brighton Beach home after the city mistakenly marked it for demolition. After a fire ravaged the house next door to Martin Senzer's Brighton First Street residence, a Department of Buildings inspector who "is either legally blind or an imbecile," according to Senzer, slated the 66-year-old's home for demolition last January. That mix-up sent a plumber and a National Grid employee to Senzer's house to turn off the gas and water — and they had to cut the locks to get in.

Some warped punk with a BB gun has been firing at people near the corner of Avenue D and East Third Street during the past week; at least eight people have been shot, and several car windows have been blown out by the sniper. Construction worker Edward Gilyard was shot on Friday, and doctors found two pellets lodged next to his skull. He was at his job site when he felt a sharp pain on his right temple, and tells the Daily News, "I put my hand up there and felt the blood... All of a sudden, I had a little hole in my head."

It's like Shark Week over here today. A reader just sent us this photo, taken Sunday at Brighton Beach, saying that this man plucked this baby shark right out of the shallow water with his bare hands. When we inquired about him throwing it back in so it could live, and grow, and eventually feed off of gold-chained locals, she told us, "I think he took it home to cook it" (shark fin soup?). He reportedly put the little guy in a plastic bag, departed, returned to the beach, and resumed sunbathing. Sigh, why did we even ask.

Yesterday morning, a five-hour standoff began when a 20-year-old kidnapped his ex-girlfriend and held her hostage in a Brighton Beach, Brooklyn building. It ended when police stormed the apartment's kitchen: The Daily News reports, "One officer used a Taser on Samuel White, 20, and another officer fired his gun when White lunged at Emergency Service Unit officers with the kitchen blade as they entered his Brighton Beach apartment around 5p.m." (It's unclear if White was hit.) White apparently managed to recover enough to stab one detective with a 12-inch knife, prompting cops to yell, "Put it down! Put it down!" before three officers firing at him five times, killing him. The 19-year-old ex-girlfriend had an order of protection against White, after he allegedly kidnapped her and raped her in August; yesterday, she did manage to escape the building. The NY Times says she climbed "through a window just as the police arrived. She told the police she had been raped." White's friends and sister do not think he was armed, telling the papers, "All I can say is an unarmed person was killed. It wasn’t necessary, it wasn’t right," and "This kid had no weapons. He was a good kid."

Wednesday night a few Russian women were ticketed $250 a piece for swimming past 6 p.m. at Brighton Beach. The Parks security allegedly threatened to jail them and check up on their immigration statuses. While the Parks Dept. told us that "New York State law does not allow you to swim at your own risk," the swimmers (and eyewitnesses) say that the lifeguards never alerted them that the beach was closing, and simply clocked out without getting anyone out of the water.

Move over, Clementine Lee, the Parks Department has a new Public Enemy #1: The older Russian women enjoying a swim at Brighton Beach—and yesterday a few of them were handed $250 tickets for cooling off in the water. A tipster writes in: "I guess there's a sign somewhere on the boardwalk that says swimming is not allowed 6 p.m. to 10 a.m., but I never noticed it. It's hot, it's August, and some people have to work during official swim hours."

It's a beautiful day outside, but if you need to brighten yours up a bit more why don't you take this express train to Brighten Beach! Though don't expect anything different from what you'd find here.

A 40-year-old woman was fatally struck and dragged by a red Mercedes that hit her while she was crossing Brighton Beach Avenue yesterday afternoon. The car's driver, 27-year-old Ronald Suriano, was arrested for drug possession (cops found drugs in his car).

After the many questions about the unofficial Democratic primary results, the NYC Board of Elections has released the official results for the February 5 primary results, confirming a Clinton victory in the Big Apple. She won 55% of the vote with 527,941 votes, to Barack Obama's 43% (413,898 votes). A total of 955,966 votes were cast, meaning 34% of the city's registered Democrats voted.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an officer struck on 42nd St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan, a bomb threat on 76th St. and Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan, and a shooting on Mayfair Dr. in Brooklyn.
• Don't speed (108 m.p.h.), at night (2:30 a.m.), while drunk (.113 BAC), while tailgating and driving erratically, on an urban highway (Staten Island Expressway.) One young Brighton Beach resident didn't get the memo it seems.
• Councilman Leroy Comrie's efforts to halt the branding of soft and alcohol-based drinks "OG Nation," was recently successful, with the renaming of Larry Johnson and Jim Brown's snack and beverage company "Hall of Fame Beverages." No word on what the fate of the"Thug Chips" snacks brand is.
• After Hillary Clinton put her own money on the line by loaning $5 million of her own cash to her campaign, backers have ponied up $7.1 million in additional funding. The beauty of democracy: it brings a tear to our eye.
• Unfortunately, as police arrived at the Staten Island 9/11 Memorial today, a man shot himself in the head and died.
• The FDA is now questioning the safety of a widely used Botox [botulinum toxin] in injection as a beauty treatment. Thousands of New York women would love to express outrage at the revelation, but simply can't.
• Grub Street points out that one can do more than just eat at IHOP, one can now wear IHOP. And that means much more than just throwing up a half-stack of flapjacks on yourself at 5 a.m. after too much "syrup." We're talking IHOP apparel.
• Good question: New York City has its Bravest, Finest, Strongest, and Boldest, but what about the lawyers employed by the City. Do Jack McCoy and the legions of actual city attorneys who've served as his inspiration deserve an appellation? Suggestions welcome.

Although traffic fatalities decreased for pedestrians, drivers and their passengers in 2007, last year saw an uptick in motorcycle and bicycle deaths. The numbers announced yesterday by the mayor at a press conference in Brighton Beach add up, overall, to the lowest number of traffic deaths since the city began keeping track almost a century ago.

Gothamist spent Monday afternoon strolling Brighton Beach Avenue ogling bacon, tins of caviar, baby octopus salad, chicken Kiev, assorted meat pies, smoked fish and a plethora of pickled vegetables among the delicacies in the nabe’s endless stretch of specialty food stores. We also window-shopped at Little Odessa’s gift shops; each overflowing with tacky specimens of multicolored Venetian glass vases. After all the walking and looking, we were getting hungry.

Hassan Askari, the Muslim college student who intervened in a violent subway attack against a group of Jewish riders, was honored at City Hall yesterday. The fight allegedly started when some thugs boarded a Q train yelling "Merry Christmas", prompting one of the Jewish riders to respond with a "Happy Hanukkah." Fisticuffs ensued, with one of the non-Jewish attackers shouting, "Happy Hanukkah, that's when the Jews killed Jesus!" One of the goons is also said to have exposed his tattoo of Jesus before the fight, because you know how Jesus was all about beating Jews.

Alexander Properetchny was performing unlicensed oral surgery on 71-year-old Villimin Colleti Tuesday, when his patient "fell unconscious." The fake dentist called 911, but not before allegedly dragging the unresponsive woman out onto the stoop of his building where he propped her in the doorway. Paramedics found Colleti on the sidewalk outside of 47-year-old Properetchny's office in Brighton Beach without any identification and took her to Coney Island Hospital where she was admitted as Jane Doe.

Even as Astroland is on the verge of losing its lease, City officials are looking to collect $200 million from various sources to overhaul the Coney Island boardwalk. The New York Post reports that funds are being sought from New York State, the federal government, and even Brooklyn real estate owners who will benefit from a refurbished seaside walkway.

An argument escalated into arson and then a murder-suicide, all in front of a small child, in Borough Park early yesterday morning. After setting their apartment on fire, police say that Christopher Flynn shot his girlfriend Christina Scarabaggio and then turned the gun on himself. Scarabaggio's 4-year-old daughter Bianca Perez was found crying over her mother's body outside.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A murder-suicide on East 176th Street in the Bronx, a confined space rescue at 680 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and a sexual assault at Victory Blvd & Bay St. in Staten Island
• Breaking: The city and families of September 11 victims have worked out a compromise for this year's anniversary events; the city will allow families to enter the pit at Ground Zero.
• The Dow dropped 387 points today - causes included worries about funds and subprime lending.
• Lenora Fulani repudiates her 1989 remarks calling Jews "mass murderers of people of color" and thinks about running for mayor in 2009.
• After three women rejected three Staten Island guys, the guys allegedly bashed in the ladies' car windows, possibly confirming why the women rejected them in the first place.
• The John Travolta connection to yesterday's tornado.
• Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens is being suspended for five games, after intentionally drilling a Toronto Blue Jays player. Question 1 : Will the Yankees have to pay him for those missed games? Question 2: Did you see him on Mythbusters' Baseball Myths show last night?
• Since the Money Honey loves the fur coat she wears in More magazine, PETA calls her "morally bankrupt"
• Police arrested the man accused of stabbing a Brighton Beach father on his way home from buying milk.

This past Sunday, Gothamist went on a tour of the Brighton Line and Franklin Avenue Shuttle subway lines in Brooklyn. The tour, sponsored by the New York City Transit Museum, was lead by subway historian Joe Cunningham who gave an incredibly detailed history of the line, peppered with historical anecdotes, on the various tour stops on the line that started as a steam powered railroad to take holiday makers to the Brighton Beach Hotel during the Victorian era.

Today, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz will be kicking off another year of "Lighten Up Brooklyn" with a walk around Brooklyn Heights. "Lighten Up Brooklyn" was started a few years ago to encourage Brooklynites to lose weight and make their lifestyles healthier. And since he had stents put into his arteries last year, Lighten Up Brooklyn is a big deal to Markowitz. From his office's press release:

Markowitz, who underwent a stent procedure last summer, vowed to transform and lengthen his life through healthy eating and a committed fitness regimen. The borough president’s frequent energetic strolls through Prospect Park have helped him lose 26 pounds since last summer, and he kicks off the Lighten Up Brooklyn 2007 not only talking the talk, but also walking the walk!

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a partial roof collapse on Union St. in Brooklyn, a person under a train at Coney Island and Brighton Beach Aves. in Brooklyn, and a slashing at Dyckman St. and Broadway in Manhattan.
• Artie Fufkin speaks! Paul Schaffer, who was the musical director of the Blues Brothers, keyboardist for Bill Murray's lounge singer character on SNL, and the bandleader for David Letterman's "The World's Most Dangerous Band" since 1982, is publishing his memoirs. Yeah!
• A local moving company is converting a number of its trucks from diesel to biodiesel fuel in an effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
• The producer of a Broadway show called "My First Time" is employing a mindreader to determine who gets free tickets to the show. Recipients must affirm via a psychic they are virgins.
• A 17-year-old was shot several times in the head as he lay in bed in the middle of the afternoon while visiting relatives in the Bronx.
• Juana Yolfo is a Spanish-speaking 106-year-old woman who was born in Puerto Rico before moving to Brooklyn and then settling in the Lower East Side more than 40 years ago. She's celebrating her birthday this week after more than 50 years as a NYC resident.
• Al Sharpton as Apollo Creed? The reverend is getting in shape to pummel Giuliani if there's any hope the latter's electoral prospects brighten.
• Carroll Gardens parents are in a huff about youthful neighborhood ruffians, who are disrespectul to adults and unmindful of younger children as they engage in shenanigans and otherwise behave like hooligans.

Gothamist is just recovering from the food coma that followed Wednesday night's preopening party at Borough Food & Drink. By the time we got there the room was jammed with all manner of food bloggers, writers and restaurant industry insiders all gleefully sampling items from the menu of the new Chodorow-Pelaccio venture.

Woe to the Segway commuter: A Brooklyn man who commutes from Brighton Beach to Midtown Manhattan has failed in his attempts to fight a $90 ticket he received while riding the contraption. Jonathan Gleich told the Post, "New York City wants to be green, but to me they're being mean. For me to get to work costs 15 cents instead of two bucks to take the subway. There are never delays, there are never strikes. There's nothing to stop me but rain and snow."

With many local short-season spring vegetables out of commission (ramps, pea greens), at least for a while, one nutty underdog is currently available at many small Middle Eastern, Russian, and Ukrainian produce markets throughout lower Brooklyn and parts of Queens- green almonds. Because they are only available for 3-4 weeks each year, green almonds are usually overlooked, or are considered too hard to find. Some people dismiss the olive-sized green things as too much kitchen work; everything depends on how far along the almond inside the furry green casing is- we’ll explain, because other than the two links above, there’s not a lot of literature on the subject. If you’re waiting for fiddlehead ferns, you’re not feeling all the bulky white asparagus, or you just want to try something new, here’s what you need to know:

The Kensington-Ditmas Park area of Brooklyn is slowly becoming known for its restaurants and dishes, including the “haute barnyard” French Fries at The Farm on Adderley. Meanwhile, the wide swath of Coney Island Avenue running through the center of both neighborhoods remains a mainstay of ethnic restaurants from Prospect Park to Brighton Beach -- everything from all-night, tri-level Pakistani joints to Turkish baklava places. It’s sort of like the restaurant bustle of Jackson Avenue in Queens, but decompressed over a 5-mile stretch. In this mix are a dozen or so Mexican Torterias; tiny shops, usually with signature sandwiches. Most of these places are closet-sized, just big enough for a stove at the back, a regular household refrigerator or a steam table. Torterias are often home bases for roving tamale carts; moreover they’re round-the-clock operations, with employees pickling their own jalapenos, pulling and braiding homemade Oaxaca string cheese, or clipping cilantro leaves from plants growing in window boxes.

There’s no home in the Hamptons for poor, old Gothamist. No bungalow on Fire Island, not even a shack on the Jersey Shore. No, Gothamist prefers (and by “prefers” we mean “has no other option than”) to summer in Coney, in Brighton or Rockaway or waiting on line at Shake Shack. And though we spend the balance of most summers huddled around our puttering air conditioner, we’re feeling a touch nostalgic for those balmy seaside days. That’s why earlier we went to Coney and why we’re now going to Randazzo’s Clam Bar in Sheepshead Bay.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at me, but I love salad. I enjoy it as an appetizer. I clean off my plate when it comes as a side. And, if it’s really tasty, I could be completely satisfied with salad as an entree.

Way Out, by JP Chan. Tag yours with "gothamist" on Flickr if you want us to use them.

Yesterday, a Brooklyn grandmother was fatally hit by a car while crossing Brighton Beach Avenue. Eighty year old Maya Shelgelman had the walk signal when a car driven by Rakhilya Ashurozak turned and hit Shelgelman. One witness told the Post that it looked like Ashurozak had been on the phone while driving: "She had one handon the wheel and one hand on her phone." Ashurozak was only given a summons for not yielding to a pedstrian.

Hello and welcome to New York City. Today I'd like to introduce you to one of our city's crown jewels: the subway. A glorious municipal means of transport the subway and its siblings the bus and the ferry, can take you almost everywhere in Gotham. Literally from the canyons of Wall Street to the beaches of Rockaway all for the low, low price of $2.00 - even lower if you ride enough and purchase an unlimited Metrocard!

Well, Gateway National Recreation Area is right in our neck of the woods, extending in three New York City boroughs and into northern New Jersey. It is a good place to start your quest for the perfect patch of sand and cooling waters.