BROOKLYN WEATHER: What’s it gonna do today? Check here for Brooklyn weather.
TIP: See you at 1 p.m. at Fou Le Chakra for your free portrait sitting. Come on down: it only takes a minute. 411 7th Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets. Also, scroll down to see everything that’s going on today in Brooklyn. See the Grab-bag, too.
FYI: On Monday April 25 alternate-side-of-the-street (ASOTS) parking will be suspended for religious
observance (Passover). Also: Thursday through Saturday April 26-30 ASOTS
parking is also suspended. All other parking regulations in effect.
TONIGHT IS THE SECOND NIGHT OF PASSOVER.
CITY NEWS: In a talk at the Tribeca Film Festival (which is in full swing), Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, star of a new flick
about the aftermath of 9/11, said that the U.S. "is responsible
in some way" for the devastating terror attacks. She is getting a beating from the local press (Daily News, Post) for saying it. Slow news weekend, I guess.
Her new movie "The Great New Wonderful" has a plot centered on
the destruction of the World Trade Center – premiered Friday.
"I think what’s good about the movie is that it deals with 9/11 in such
a subtle, open way that I think it allows it to be more complicated
than just, ‘Oh, look at these poor New Yorkers and how hard it was for
them,’" Gyllenhaal told the NY1 cable channel.
_Staten Island Ferry officials plead guilty in 2003 crash.
_A city sanitation worker was charged with murdering his girlfriend who was eight months pregnant. Her body was found April 3rd in the Hudson River. The suspect, Roscoe Glinton of Sunset Park, was arrested on Friday night. He faces second-degree murder charges.
_Columbia Presbeyterian Hospital admitted Friday that it treated patients for Legionaire’s Disease, which they contracted at the hospital. Two of the patients died.
_FDNY is concerned about New York City’s emergency response plan now that the NYPD has been given primary responsibility.
_For the first time ever, the Department of Homeless Services counted the number of homeless persons in the five borough. THey found that there are approx. 4,400 homeless people in New York City. Homeless advocacy groups say the estimates should be much higher.
_NYC unemployment down 30% from last year. It is the largest one year drop on record.
-According to the "Schumtz Survey " conducted by the the NY
Straphangers Campaign, the subways are getting dirtier. The group
inspected 2,200 cars on 22 lines in the city between September and
December. The 1 and 9 trains were rated the dirtiest, while the N
train was found to be the cleanest.
BROOKLYN BEAT: Brooklyn-born general nominated to be chair of Bush’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
_Raphaelina
Smith, the girl that was shot in the back on Sterling and Ralph Avenue
in Crown Heights on the way home from school last week left Kings
County Hospital today with the bullet still in her back. A neurosurgeon
involved with her case said that it would be more dangerous to remove
the bullet than to keep it in.
From Curbed a blog sponsored by NYtimes.com Real Estate: "We all know that Brooklyn will be another front in the coming gourmet
food war. In Park Slope, Whole Foods is opening a 42,000-square-foot
store to take on the Coop. The secret weapon? Around 220 parking spaces–meanwhile the hippies strike back with a new (and already neglected) product blog.
In Red Hook, Fairway is taking a 19th-century warehouse and converting
it into another huge supermarket, opening in the fall. It’s all old
news, yes, but adding fuel to the fire is the report that Trader
Joe’s–reigning king of the food-related rumor mill–also has its eye on the borough. As much as we’d like to see the tofu fly between these fine retailers, we’re sticking to our original story.