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Photo by Henrik Krogius

A stop sign at the corner of Clark Street and Columbia Heights, destroyed by a tractor-trailer truck the previous Monday, had been replaced by Wednesday.

Manhole Blasts Hit Heights, Causing Power Losses on Hottest Day

By Mary Frost
And Raanan Geberer

Con Edison was kept hopping Thursday and Friday as power outages took place in Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Bay Ridge, Williamsburg, Midwood and other neighborhoods, as well as in Queens and Staten Island.

Brooklyn Heights was rocked with two major power-related incidents late Thursday and early Friday when an underground high-voltage electrical feeder blew on Henry Street in the north Heights, followed a few hours later by a manhole explosion on Hicks Street, also in the north Heights.

Bees: Only a Part of It

Hills & Gardens
By Trudy Whitman

Melissa Ennen was worrying over bees. The second beehive was scheduled for construction on the roof garden at the Commons Brooklyn at 388 Atlantic Avenue that afternoon, and the people who had installed the first one had inadvertently taken some essential equipment with them. The bees, too, were on their way, and since timing is everything in beekeeping, Ennen was energetically working her cell phone trying to locate the necessary materials.

The Commons Brooklyn is a community and education center offering classes on a sliding scale on health and healing, food-social justice, urban agricultural, and the environment. The start-up was financed by Ennen, who owns the building and is evaluating models “to make it sustainable financially.”

Tobacco Warehouse, Now

Review & Comment
Henrik Krogius, Editor
Brooklyn Heights Press & Cobble Hill News

From the perspective of the Brooklyn Heights Association the judge’s ruling barring St. Ann’s Warehouse from the Tobacco Warehouse was a great victory. In a statement to members, association president Jane McGroarty stressed that the warehouse now “may not be privately developed or in any way altered except under strict guidelines.” From the point of view of preserving and maintaining the historic ruin, however, the ruling may not be so beneficial.

Maintaining this roofless structure in the absence of a regular tenant, or of any regularly scheduled use, will place an extra burden on Brooklyn Bridge Park. Where St. Ann’s Warehouse would have had a clear interest in, and responsibility for, its upkeep, the park will now have to spend out of its general maintenance funds to attend to the prevention of any further deterioration, without a guaranteed or regular source of income from future Tobacco Warehouse uses to help defray the cost. The danger is that the Tobacco Warehouse will become an orphan.

Tobacco Warehouse: Opportunity Destroyed

By Dennis Holt
Senior Editor

As Alice put it in her Wonderland adventures, “Everything’s got a moral, if you can only find it.”

This observer, and many others, have not been able to find a moral in the bizarre story about the Tobacco Warehouse. Almost no one can really comprehend what’s happening with this development. In major accounts in both the The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, there was a tone of “what’s really going on” by both reporters.

Tobacco Warehouse Ruling Leaves Theater in Limbo

BHA ‘Gratified’ by Decision, but Some Locals Are Upset

By Samuel Newhouse
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

DUMBO — The roughly 140-year-old Tobacco Warehouse on Water Street in DUMBO cannot be converted or renovated for use by the St. Ann’s Warehouse theater, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

“What we’re feeling is relief, gratification and vindication that the court took the facts, and made the decision that we believe and always will believe is the right decision,” said Brooklyn Heights Association (BHA) Executive Director Judy Stanton Thursday. “The judge’s language is very clear.”

The evidence “is so one-sided that [plaintiffs] must prevail as a matter of law,” wrote U.S. District Judge Eric N. Vitaliano of Brooklyn federal court in his ruling released this week in favor of the BHA, the Fulton Ferry Landing Association, the New York Landmarks Conservancy and the Preservation League of New York State.