In his State of the Borough address tonight, Borough President Marty Markowitz will lobby to turn two Brooklyn armories into recreation centers with gym facilities. Currently the huge old buildings—located on Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights and on Sumner Avenue in Bed-Stuy—house homeless shelters, and, like the recently-opened Park Slope Armory YMCA, they may continue to do so. "The [YMCA] in Park Slope is just beginning, but I have a hunch in a few short months it's going to be jam-packed," Markowitz said. "Bedford Stuyvesant deserves it as much as Park Slope, and so does northern Crown Heights." more ›

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. more ›