BENSONHURST'S PREMIER NEWS BLOG

This map shows local schools that will serve as evacuation centers

According to the New York Times, Governor Cuomo has announced a public transit shutdown is set for noon tomorrow, while the city evacuates hospitals and nursing homes in or near Hurricane Evacuation Zone A (shown in orange on the OEM map above), such as Coney Island Hospital.

If you have loved ones at one of these locations, please contact the facility for more information.

The following is a press release from Assemblyman Peter Abbate:

Statement from Assemblyman Abbate

on Hurricane Irene

Assemblyman Stresses Precaution and Preparedness

Brooklyn— “This weekend, our community in Brooklyn finds itself in the likely path of Hurricane Irene. However, in the hours leading up to the storm, it is of the utmost importance that we all put the necessary safeguards in place to minimize the potential damage of the storm. What is most imperative is that we all calmly but diligently take every possible step to guard our homes and loved ones.

 Not only should every family have emergency batteries, flashlights and other supplies, but it is also important that we do out (sic) best to look out for our neighbors during and after the storm. Stay in touch with friends and family, especially senior citizens, which means making sure that cell phones are fully charged in the event that telephone wires are downed. Every family should have a plan. There is no such thing as being too ready. We all hope that this storm has a worse bark than bite, but in the event that it is as bad as predicted, there is no excuse for being insufficiently prepared.

 I thank the City for its efforts to make everyone aware of the dangers of Hurricane Irene and I stress the importance of heeding his warnings. There are two evacuation centers in the area, at IS 187 and at Roosevelt High School. Those south of 75^th Street are recommended to be wary of flooding, and those closest to the Belt Parkway should be most cautious. Avoid the parkway and any flooded streets.

 Stay tuned to the internet, the television and radio for further alerts and warnings, and most of all take care of your families and homes.

State Assemblyman Peter Abbate represents Assembly District 49, which includes Bensonhurst, Bath Beach and Dyker Heights.

If you’d like to know Irene’s current location, the New York Times is currently letting non-subscribers access their Hurricane Tracking Map.

You’ve heard of the old saying, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

In this edition of BK, Colleen ups the ante on that antiquated adage. While lemonade is great, there’s just so much more that you can do with the acerbic yellow citrus.

This week, when Key Food sold Colleen lemons, she made chicken piccata.

Piccata or ‘picatta’ means “to pound” or “to flatten” in Italian culinary vernacular and that’s what you do to get nice thin cutlets. Those babies need to be butterflied and then stomped like that off Broadway show – you know, the one with the musical garbage can lids? But I digress…

While in Italy, piccata is normally made using veal, the dish has evolved in the United States to instead incorporate chicken breast.

Have you ever been out to a restaurant with piccata haters? The ones who see piccata on the menu and whine to the waiter or waitress, “can you make mine Marsala instead?”

I’m certain that every time this question is brought up, somewhere a fruit wholesaler cries into his quinces.

Trying this recipe will hopefully bestow upon diners a newfound appreciation for the lemon, as well as proper restaurant ordering procedure.

Get ready for a seriously tart, savory experience that’s both simple to accomplish and probably better than what you’ve been eating. Please tip your server, put down the Marsala wine and pucker up for some piccata!

Colleen’s Chicken Piccata

Ingredients:

1 pound of chicken breast cut and pounded thin
1/2 cup flour to dredge
1 teaspoon garlic powder
6-8 tablespoons butter, as needed to brown chicken breasts
Juice from 1 lemon
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup fresh sliced mushrooms Click Here To Learn How To Prepare The Perfect Piccata

[UPDATE 2:00 p.m.] – Governor Cuomo has announced that all public transit in the New York City metropolitan area – including subways, buses and commuter railroads – will be shutdown at noon tomorrow Saturday, August 27.

[UPDATE 1:20 p.m.] – The following was posted on the Daily News website: 

“In New York, officials were preparing to deal with the storm, and transit officials said buses, subways and the Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road lines could be halted as early as Friday afternoon if Hurricane Irene showed no sign of changing track.”

Construction work this weekend is cancelled. The subway and bus system is subject to a partial or complete suspension as Hurricane Irene moves closer to New York – potentially as early as Saturday Friday afternoon.

Wherever you take shelter this weekend, keep in mind that service may not be restored swiftly, particularly if storm surge results in flooding of streets and subway tunnels, or power to third rails and street lights is lost.

The following disruptions apply at all times, even during normal weekend service.

Affected train	Weekend service disruption
	Service is subject to suspension at any time this weekend. Coney Island-bound trains will skip 71st Street. Trains in both directions will skip 20th Avenue.
	Service is subject to suspension at any time this weekend. Trains in both directions skip Smith-9th Street.
	Service is subject to suspension at any time this weekend.

Bensonhurst Weekend Subway Alert is a weekly look at the diversions affecting travel on the D-, F-, and N-lines through Bensonhurst and the rest of Brooklyn on the way to Manhattan. For information on diversions on other lines or beyond Brooklyn, refer to mta.info or Subway Weekender. Information is provided by the MTA and is current at the time of publication, but is subject to change.

All we can say about this one is that, if you’re reading, I hope you’ve already had your lunch.

I was taking one of my early afternoon walks through the hot, sunny streets of our fair neighborhood when I decided on an air-conditioned subway ride south toward Coney Island. I entered the 20th Ave station of the N Train, expecting the usual in subway aesthetics – peeling paint, stalagmite-covered ceilings,  filth, odors and, since it was an outdoor station, a fair amount of pigeon droppings.

When I found this Eldorado of excrement, I wasn’t disgusted as much as curious. Was this the result of some wild pigeon poop party from the night before? I assured myself that the sheer amount of crapping it took to create this couldn’t possibly have been done in that short of a time…

I could go on to talk about the ineptitude of the people who run the MTA, but we’ve already got a guy who does that.

At this point in my subway-riding life I really don’t expect anything I do or say to have any effect on when this eyesore gets cleaned up, so let’s all take a minute to bask in the green glow of just one of the horrible, horrible sights and smells the nation’s largest public transportation system has to offer.

After the infamous Boxing Day Blizzard debacle last December, and while Hurricane Irene barrels up the East Coast towards New Jersey, Mayor Bloomberg insists that, this time, NYC won’t be caught lying down.

The Daily News is reporting that the mayor, at a press conference this morning at St. Luke’s Baptist Church in Queens, told journalists that, should Hurricane Irene make a visit, the city will be well prepared.

From Daily News:

“The city has already seen the power of Mother Nature this week,” Bloomberg said, referring to the earthquake which shook the city Tuesday.

The city is “hoping for the best, preparing for the worst,” he added.

Just how would our beloved home fare if worse came to worse and a hurricane hit?

If we look at the Office of Emergency Management map above, you can see that, on the whole, Bensonhurst and its surrounding neighborhoods would fare better than our neighbors to the south and east. CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHERE FLOODING COULD OCCUR AND TO GET SOME TIPS ON HOW YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES CAN STAY SAFE

Stefanie Fedak, at left (image from cityhallnews.com)

If you’ve ever been fired then you’ve probably had a moment or two of wishing you could publicly bad mouth your former boss.

To most people, this is more fantasy than reality, just a guilty pleasure of the mind rather than something that can actually manifest itself in life. Besides, who cares about your boss except you and others you work with?

However, when the authority figure who’s the subject of so much resentment is a public figure, well, the newly unemployed can be much more empowered to make some noise.

That’s what happened when Stefanie Fedak, a former staffer of Councilman David Greenfield was let go. Until she was fired, Fedak’s duties included that of Greenfield’s press contact for a plethora of media outlets, including Bensonhurst Bean.

Observer.com has published, in its entirety, a scathing e-mail from Fedak in which she trashes Greenfield. It even includes an open invite for an evening of drinks and the musical styling of rapper Lil’ Wayne at Biddy Early’s (43 Murray Street), a bar near City Hall in Manhattan, tonight.

Where will Stefanie be headed next?  According to the e-mail on Observer’s website, she’ll be hanging her hat in the Lone Star State.

From Observer.com:

I am headed to Dallas, TX where I will eat meals cooked by a gourmet chef (aka my patient and loving boyfriend, Stan, who is actually a chef), write a book, return to law practice and hope that Governor Rick Perry is elected President so that he can be your problem, too.

Now tell us what you really think, Stefanie…

(image by Mike Buscher for Daily News)

We’ve heard about the pizza connection, but this is ridiculous…

According to the Daily News, a mafia-related feud was sparked in part by the delicious slices at one our favorite pizzerias, the New Zealand-renowned L & B Spumoni gardens.

The News reported this morning that alleged Colombo crime family member Francis Guerra, age 45, who stands accused of two murders, was also charged with ordering the beating of Eugene Lombardo outside of his Staten Island pizza parlor, the Square.

The reason? Apparently, Guerra thought Lombardo’s slices tasted a little too much like those at L & B’s, which is owned by Guerra’s in laws.

Lombardo’s sons had previously worked at Spumoni Gardens and according to FBI agents, this fact had not escaped Guerra’s mind.

From the News:

“That was considered disrespectful to Frank Guerra’s wife’s family,” FBI agent Scott Curtis testified in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Lombardo acknowledged to a private investigator working for Guerra that the owners of L&B “weren’t happy” about the situation.

“It’s like Burger King and McDonald’s, they’re right next to each other,” Lombardo told the investigator on a tape recording played in court. “Leave it to the Italians to f— something up.”

When asked about the incident by reporters yesterday, Lombardo denied being assaulted by reputed Colombo associate Frank ‘Frankie Notch’ Ianacci.

In a phone interview with the Daily News, Lombardo expanded on what he claims never happened.

“Nobody laid a hand on me,” he said. “If they did, they better have a gun.”

Lombardo, 59, continued, “This is no secret recipe. There’s no patents on pizza. Why are we even having a conversation about pizza? We had an earthquake today. Why don’t you ask me about that?”

The MTA's D-train platform closure notices: wrong in almost every important aspect.

This poster has been a familiar sight along the D-line the past few weeks. It alerts riders to week-long closures of four platforms at three Bensonhurst subway stations:

• The Coney Island-bound platform at 71st Street, from August 15 through August 19 (four days)
• Both platforms at 20th Avenue, from August 20 through August 29 (nine days)
• The Coney Island-bound platform at 79th Street, from August 22 through August 26 (four days)

Unfortunately for riders, it appears this poster is wrong in almost every respect. We now have word that the Coney-bound platform at 71st Street will be closed not for four days, but for more than 10 weeks – until October 28. As a result, it also appears that the work at 79th Street has been postponed indefinitely.

Yet you wouldn’t know it from what the MTA has told us - the sign you see here is still posted at D-train stations throughout Brooklyn, and the Authority has done little to call unsuspecting passengers’ attention to the drastic change.

How could this happen, you ask? Well, that’s what we wanted to know. So we asked our contact at the MTA Media Relations office a few questions… questions we thought were direct but fair, given the failure to properly inform riders of the new changes or remove false information from the stations. And we didn’t think they would be that difficult to answer, but as of press time, we are still awaiting a response to our e-mail.

We think our questions are also your questions. We have reprinted them below.

• There is signage in D-train stations throughout Brooklyn alerting riders to a four-day closure. Now we are told the closure will be more than 10 weeks. How did this happen? Was the poster wrong from the start, or did something change during the construction work? How did the mistake happen?
• The signage with the incorrect dates is still posted in the stations. Why hasn’t the signage been replaced with accurate posters? What is the agency’s plan for following through on this now?
• The in-station signage also alerted riders to two other closures – at 20th Avenue (both directions, August 20 through August 29) and 79th Street (Coney Island-bound, August 22 through August 26). The 79th Street notice no longer appears on the website. Does that mean that work has been postponed or cancelled?
• If the 71st Street work can suddenly be extended from one week to 10, what confidence should passengers place in the agency’s assertion that the 20th Avenue work will wrap up on time?

[UPDATE August 26, 8:10pm]This morning, we received this reply from the Media Relations office:

The 71st Street station was scheduled to be bypassed from Saturday, August 13 to Friday, August 19 to replace the mezzanine stair (P1/P2). However, after demolishing the old stairs, it was discovered that the structural supports underneath were extremely deteriorated. The increased time period of the closure to October 28 will allow us to address this issue. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes during a relatively simple project you can uncover a much bigger problem that needs to be addressed.

While the work is being done at 71st Street, we have postponed the work at 79th Street because we don’t want to bypass two consecutive stations. That bypass at 79th Street will take place at a later date. The 20th Avenue station was scheduled to reopen on Monday, August 29 at 5 a.m. However, this may change due to the impact of the impending hurricane. (All weekend work has been cancelled.) We are working with our Marketing and Stations units to make sure that all signage is up-to-date.

The flea market at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit will be coming back to Bay Parkway, beginning two Saturdays from now, on September 3.

Bensonhurst Bean visited the biweekly event in May for some browsing and a little bit of buying. We had a great time and look forward to checking it out again.

Anyone interested in being a vendor can show up the morning of the market. Just make sure to get there early! A spot with a table and chair costs $35.

This is a great neighborhood event that brings colorful characters from all over. If you’ve ever wanted to while away a lazy Saturday buying or selling furniture, antiques, clothing and various other collectible items, this is the place for you.

The Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit is located at 8117 Bay Parkway, between 81st Street and 82nd Street. Flea markets will be held every other Saturday – weather permitting – beginning September 3, from 9 a.m to 4 p.m. Please call 718 837-0412 for more information.

Thanks to reader Amber D. for the heads up!