Results tagged “crownheights”

Yesterday, a fire in a Crown Heights apartment building killed a man, 42, and his two young sons, ages 2 and 1. While the cause of the fire has not yet been determined, fire officials said incense had been burned in the bedroom (where the fire began) and that there were no smoke detectors in the home.

A fire broke out in a six-story Crown Heights apartment building earlier today, killing three. Officials told CBS 2 reports that, "firefighters were called to a blaze that broke out in the Crown Heights section of the borough at 654 St. Marks Ave. at Rogers Ave. about 1:30 p.m. Two children, ages, 2 and 3, along with a 45-year-old man were pronounced dead at the scene." The names of the victims have not yet been released, and the cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

Brooklyn's oldest gay bar may be forced to close following the sale of its Crown Heights building. The Starlight Lounge — which also claims to be the city's first black-owned gay bar — might be evicted because the new owner of the property apparently wants the building "empty."

A Brooklyn mother charged with beating her 4-year-old son to death over the course of two days told a friend she was "possessed by a spirit" during the savage attacks. Suspect Myrna Chen Phang was visited Sunday at the NYPD's 71st Precinct station house by a friend, Rosa Adrien, who tells the Daily News, "[Phang] said something came over her, almost like a spirit. She said she didn't know why she let it happen." 4-year-old Jayden Lenescar died Friday afternoon after being beaten repeatedly with fists, a clothes hanger and belt buckle.

Yesterday, 18 people suffered minor injuries when a B15 bus swerved to avoid a suddenly-stopped car on Troy Avenue in Crown Heights. The bus crashed into parked cars and then hit some more at the Atlantic Avenue intersection. One car burst into flames and a driver told the Post, "There were no horns and no brakes. I was trembling. The car door jammed and I couldn’t get out. I thought, ‘Lord, I got to lose some weight, I don’t want to die in this car.’"

Yesterday the Farm Sanctuary aided in the rescue of a chicken that would have otherwise been part of the sacrificial slaughter during the Jewish ritual of kaparot. They tell us the chicken was saved in Crown Heights, and later named Chesed, meaning mercy or loving-kindness in Hebrew. He joined the over 200 other NYC chickens the organization has rescued from this ritual over the past three years.

       

We thought our old roommate who left behind a used condom in a dust bunny after he moved out was disgusting, but he seems like a paragon of good hygiene compared to these revolting animals, who are competing for "bragging rights" (and $1,000) in a nationwide "Dirtiest Apartment" contest. Two of the finalists hail from right here in Brooklyn, and the Daily News gave one of them, 29-year-old Lisa Henderson, her 15 minutes of shame (photo #3). She wouldn't let the tabloid's photographer shoot inside, however, because her mommy had just arrived from Arkansas to clean up her adult daughter's mess. On the contest's website, Henderson explains the wretched squalor:

Continue reading "Brooklyn Slobs Make Finals In Filthiest Apartment Contest!"

Early Sunday morning, an off-duty state correction officer was killed after being shot multiple times on Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights. The NY Times reports that the victim, Jeremie Kane, had "left Millie’s Head 2 Toes barbershop... just before 1 a.m., the police said. Mr. Kane stepped outside the barbershop to make a call on his cellphone when he got into a dispute with another man, who then shot him." According to the Daily News, Kane was shot twice in the head and four times in the chest—"Investigators were not certain what prompted the deadly shooting and have not ruled out that it was a robbery attempt." Kane, 30, was assigned to Ossining "Sing Sing" Prison, but was released on workers comp leave last month and had been staying with his mother in Brooklyn. The Times saw his aunt visit the site where Kane was killed and a small memorial had been placed; she sobbed, "Oh, my God, the blood’s still here."

The NY Daily News and NY Post seize on the same City Council member item today. Here's how the News tells it: "The neighborhood lunatic of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is getting $5,000 of your tax dollars to teach classes in a City Councilwoman's office about the origin of words." And here's the Post: "Here's your tax dollars hard at work. A city councilwoman set aside $5,000 in next year's budget for a wacky Brooklyn man with a rap sheet to teach courses in etymology at her district office."

After publishing that quintessential degentrification story about a new luxury condo in Crown Heights being converted to a homeless shelter, the Daily News reports that after reading the article, at least four homeless people "flocked" to the building yesterday.

Instead of boarding up an unoccupied luxury condo in Crown Heights and letting it fall into disrepair, the owner has done the unthinkable: arranged to let homeless people live there. The new apartments, which were originally priced up to $350,000, seem pretty nice; one resident who moved in with his wife and two young daughters tells the Daily News, "When I first saw it, I was like, 'Damn, everything is brand new.' It has marble counters and marble floors in the bathrooms, too. I like the big kitchen. That's my favorite." Another new resident, an out-of-work truck driver from Miami who's living with his teenage son, crows, "The closet in the main room is so big you could put a twin bed in there." Lucky homeless!

Police are searching for suspects who robbed and then killed a bodega owner and his 18-year-old son last night around 9:30 p.m. WABC 7 reports that Mohammed Mansoor Abuzaid, 50, who operated the Utica Deli & Grocery (309 Utica Boulevard), and his 18-year-old son Abdul had tried to fight back but were ultimately "forced...to the basement, robbed" and then shot—the father in the head, the son in the chest. An investigator told the Daily News, "It was a robbery gone bad. They shot them both, emptied the cash register and ran." Another worker was pistol-whipped; police are reviewing surveillance video.

Ah, Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. What better way to spend the eve of the holiday than by slaughtering an animal? The NY Times reports that the tradition of kaparot--"Orthodox Jews take live chickens, swing them over their heads as a means of symbolically transferring sins to the chickens, and then slaughter them"-- is attracting protest. Rabbi Hecht (whose father revived the tradition) says he received threats via email, phone and letters. His number one suspect, PETA, denied the accusation, met with Hecht, and says, “If anyone is really sending threatening or anti-Semitic e-mails, that is both immoral and counterproductive. It’s unfortunate when someone hands an animal abuser cause for self-righteousness.” How much does it cost to slaughter a chicken? Just $2 for Hecht's Crown Heights congregation (he bought in bulk). After slaughtered, they go uneaten and, in the past, have actually been shoved in to traffic cones once killed (video here).

Early yesterday morning, an off-duty sanitation worker was killed outside of his Crown Heights apartment building. Edward Hunt, 32, was fatally shot around 5:30 a.m. on Lincoln Place. He was headed to work, as his shift at the Department of Sanitation was between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m., and was killed when he got out of his car to close the driveway gate. The Daily News reports that police are trying to determine why Hunt was shot, whether it was "because of a dispute or if his luxury SUV was targeted." (His wallet and cell phone were not taken.) Hunt, the father of a 3-year-old girl, lived a floor above his mother, who was awakened by the shots.

A woman returned to her Crown Heights home and made a devastating discovery: Her 16-year-old daughter was lying in a pool of blood, stabbed in the face and neck. Shannon Braithwaite was pronounced dead at the scene yesterday afternoon.

The NYPD is stepping into a long-running feud between two rival Orthodox Jewish patrol groups in Crown Heights in order to unite them into a single police-supervised unit. Shmira and Shomrim are two bitterly-divided private crime-patrol organizations that split in the late '90s. (Here's one explanation of their complicated rivalry.) In an exclusive titled, "Jew Guys Need to Talk," the Post reports that Shmira has agreed to the merger, but Shomrim refuses to sit down with Shmira, who they accuse of slashing patrol-car tires, making prank emergency calls and falsely informing on Shomrim to the police. Yossi Stern, director of Shmira, denies the allegations: "It's all a bunch of rhetoric. Show me a police report. We're not out to harass anybody. We're out to do a service for the community." You'll recall that members of Shmira were suspected of beating a 20-year-old black man, Andrew Charles, in Crown Heights last April.

Two children are recovering from gunshot wounds after being hit by stray bullets during separate incidents Saturday night. On President Street in Crown Heights, 10-year-old Denia Kearse (pictured) was enjoying a block party when shots rang out around 8 p.m. Her aunt tells channel 7, "Everybody heard pop, pop, pop, and it sounded like it was blocks away. And then, the next thing you know, my niece is bleeding." The stray bullet tore across her chest, chipping her collar bone, and passed dangerously close to her neck. According to the Daily News, she's in Kings County Hospital and expected to recover. Later that night in Far Rockaway, an 8-year-old boy was grazed in the head by a stray bullet as he got out of a car with his aunt around 10:30 p.m. The unidentified victim is in critical condition, and police are still looking for suspects in both shootings.

After being chocked into unconsciousness and robbed, we can't blame 85-year-old Lillian France for being pissed at the guy who attacked her. Cornelius Abson, who was caught on tape preying upon France in a Crown Heights elevator and arrested yesterday, confessed to police and apologized to France in a written letter, blaming it on his crack addiction. But France said, "How can he be sorry when I was the, I understand, the 12th victim?"

Crown Heights is up in arms about a Manhattan center for homeless men moving in. The NY Sun reports on the intake center, currently housed at Bellevue and which may move to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter. At a community board meeting this week, the residents expressed their anger, one stating: "Now that we can walk outside without getting shot, you've decided to throw sand back on our heads." Others fear the neighborhood fall victim to an increase in crime and a decrease in the value of the brownstones. A homeless man who has been to the Armory Shelter said he's "seen people openly shoot heroin, shoot crack, smoke weed" there and that placing the city's main intake hub in the dysfunctional facility "is totally and utterly absurd." The plan still needs to be approved by the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.

After calls from the NYPD and a critically injured 9-year-old boy's family for help, two neighborhood teens turned themselves in for a Monday night shooting in Crown Heights. Luis Gonzalez, 19, and Jonathan Frazier, 18, were arrested and charged.

Police have questioned a man suspected of shooting a 9-year-old boy on Monday night. Gunfire erupted between two men outside a Crown Heights housing project (the Daily News suggests it was a "drug turf war"), and Shamhawan Kelly was hit by a bullet which entered his temple and exited his forehead. Fights and shootings are "not unfamiliar" to the project's residents--the NY Times reports "longtime residents... taught their children to hit the ground when a shot was heard"--but one resident wept yesterday, "This [shooting] was the worst." The NYPD hopes the $12,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction will encourage witnesses to step forward. The boy's family remains hopeful, as he seems to be improving.

Police are looking for a man whose gunfire hit a 9-year-old boy on his bike. According to the NY Post, two men were arguing on Pacific Street in Crown Heights, when one of the men said, "Now I've got to you motherf---er" and opened fire. Sham-Shawann Kelly had been eight feet away, with many other children, when the bullet hit his head. He is in critical condition, but his family is hopeful he will make it. The Daily News reports police were on the scene with bloodhounds, even sledgehammers "to knock down doors," to find the suspect.

After serving tours in the Middle East, it was a Brooklyn backyard barbecue that proved deadly for Sergeant Kidson George. The 26-year-old man was gunned down on the porch of a Crown Heights home where he was celebrating the 4th of July with his girlfriend and others. George was shot twice in the chest by his girlfriend's former boyfriend, sending children screaming and dashing for cover.

The police have increased their presence in Crown Heights after two incidents that have upset the black and Jewish communities and caused unrest between them. And many are recalling the summer of 1991, when the Crown Heights riots shook the city.

Southpaw owner Matt Roff is awfully busy opening new bars and venues lately (hopefully not nearby any nit-picky neighbors). As he works on the Galapagos space transformation, he somehow fit in opening up a beer garden last Friday in Crown Heights.

A real estate developer with close religious and social ties to the Lubavitcher Hasidim community managed to swindle 40 families out of their homes in what the Daily News describes as one of the biggest scams of the recent housing crisis.

According to The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the 11233 zip code that encompasses Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights had the highest foreclosure rates for subprime mortgages in the entire nation in October. More than one in four people, or 25.2%, with subprime loans in the zip code lost their homes to foreclosure. That's almost four times the national average of 6.9%.

The NY Post has a terrifying story of a Brooklyn man acting out his on-screen horror fantasies in Crown Heights.

Take a good, long look New York: You could be staring into the squinty eyes of your future mayor. (Yes, the white dude on the right.) Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who describes himself as “somewhat comical” [emphasis added] is on the verge of announcing his candidacy for mayor. Fuhgeddaboutit?

A FDNY lieutenant died as he and other firefighters were battling a fire in Crown Heights. Lieutenant John H. Martinson went into cardiac arrest during the 2-alarm fire on the 14th floor of the Ebbets Field Apartments.