BENSONHURST'S PREMIER NEWS BLOG

Source: Markowitz’s office

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, City Council Member Domenic Recchia and Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce President Carlo Scissura all gathered for the groundbreaking a of a new BJs Wholesale Club in Gravesend.

Since Superstorm Sandy struck late last October, the time-table for the construction was moved up in an effort to spur job growth in the area.

“By moving up the construction time table and creating 300 well-paying jobs, they are helping to drive the economic recovery in South Brooklyn—especially in nearby Coney Island—one of the areas hardest hit by the storm,” said Markowitz in a press release.

As we previously reported, the megastore, where you can buy everything from computers to over-sized boxes of cereal, will occupy a 200,000 square foot space at 1752 Shore Parkway. It gained the City Council’s approval in September 2011, and is being developed by Thor Equities. It’s not without controversy: some locals are concerned that it will siphon customers away from mom-and-pop business owners.

Toys’R'Us set up a tent storefront to continue sales throughout the holiday season.

Some neighborhood retailers are still struggling to catch up post-Hurricane Sandy. After getting hit hard by the storm more than a month ago, merchants from Caesar’s Bay are focusing on a resilient recovery effort. Bensonhurst’s leaders are looking to help them get back on their feet.

Community Board 11 Chairperson Bill Guarinello and District Manager Marnee Elias-Pavia said the Caesar’s Bay stores have a strong hold in the economic standing of Bensonhurst.

While inland stores like Best Buy were not badly damaged by the hurricane, merchants located closer to the shore, like Babies’R'Us and Kohl’s, have struggled to fully reopen. Helping these retailers regain stability is vital to the success of this neighborhood, board leaders explained. Otherwise, Guarinello said, “Our local economy is likely to suffer.”

But simultaneously, Guarinello said that a more direct line of communication is needed with retailers. He added that merchants need to speak with the Community Board and explain what kind of aid they need most.

“If they want help, they’ve got to let us know,” he said.

Once they establish the best way to assist the area, Gaurinello said that Board leaders’ first step would be to contact the government and request more immediate relief assistance. “We can ask them to give these guys some priority,” he said.

Comparing this neighborhood to Coney Island and Sea Gate, Guarinello explained that, “Bensonhurst did not take a major hit. We had some flooding. Very little power outages.”

But, Guarinello said that Caesar’s Bay suffered badly, adding that the effects of Sandy on this shopping area will likely outlive this holiday season and carry over into 2013. “[Caesar’s Bay stores] took a hard hit. Our shoreline has been collapsing. We’re going to try to be helpful.”

Toys”R”Us has set up a temporary tent to vend some of their merchandise during the holidays.

On Saturday, November 17, the Toys”R”Us location at Caesar’s Bay opened its doors for the first time since Hurricane Sandy struck. After more than three weeks of cleanup following the storm, the retailer is back and ready for business.

The only thing that’s changed is the store’s location.

Instead of its usual waterfront building, Toys”R”Us has been separated into two parts. The electronics, bicycles, movies, sports equipment and video games are now located a little further away in the shopping center, at the former location of Spirit Halloween store, at 8975 Bay Parkway. Other items will temporarily be located in a tent directly outside the Toys”R”Us store.

And while they couldn’t say much else, managers reassured Bensonhurst locals that Toys”R”Us will be open to meet demand this holiday season.

Find out what other store managers of Caesar’s Bay businesses are saying, and why leaders say you should support them through the holidays.

Food Stuffs is a bi-weekly column examining the gastronomic landscape of Bensonhurst and the surrounding neighborhoods. Each entry will cover anything and everything even remotely related to food because here in Bensonhurst, food is always news.

My adventures in pickling continue through the bright buckets and barrels at the Cherry Hill Market on 86^th Street. While circling the pickle bar, I stop and notice the vibrant red color of a baby tomato.

In the world of pickles – tomatoes are definitely the most delicate. They can be too firm or too soft. They can become mushy liked canned crushed tomatoes. They can absorb all the pickle brine and explode like a sour fruit.

Growing up in Southern Brooklyn, my mom used to grow tomatoes in our backyard and we always had too much of everything. She was not a pickler or a preserver and after years of gardening the abundance was too much for her. My dad installed a wooden deck over the garden patch. I only wonder if my mother had tried some of these more exotic pickles (and yes, pickled cherry tomatoes are exotic to my parents), would she still be gardening and growing wonderful things on East 31 Street.

Pickling tomatoes is a delicate process, and when you have a good one, you certainly feel appreciative.

To have a successful pickle we need to avoid the mush, avoid the toughness and avoid the vinegar bombs. It’s a delicate flower. One should also be prepared for the sweet side of this pickle. Like pickled beets or pickled carrots, the sugar in the tomato is going to change the flavor of your normally salty pickle expectations. Just roll with it, roll with that salty fruit sugar.

Cherry Hill Market’s pickled tomatoes are fine. They are not too mushy and not too firm. The bright red color makes you excited about the first bite, and they don’t explode with vinegar juice. The subtle sweetness is a great addition to pickle diversity. The baby tomato pickles are some of my favorites. They remind me of spring, of gardens, of new seasons. The other good thing about this tomato, totally off the record, is that it is small enough to sample. So while you are packing them up (and remember to re-use your containers or bring some Chinese soup containers from home) feel free to sample and see if this is your kind of snack.

Of course, 86^th Street is also the place for food and pickle deals. At $2.25 and with tomato season nearly over, it’s an exciting time for pickles like these.

Biting into this pickle in the middle of Bensonhurst may wake up some of those thoughts for you as well. Even as the D train roars above the elevated tracks, the pickle gives you some kind of peace.

Until the next brine!

Cherry Hill Market, 2278 86th Street at 23rd Avenue, (718) 373-4900.

Is there a restaurant or specific dish you think we should check out? Let us know!

Image courtesy of David Cohen

Food Stuffs is a new column examining the gastronomic landscape of Bensonhurst and the surrounding neighborhoods. Each entry will cover anything and everything even remotely related to food because here in Bensonhurst, food is always news.

Some foods make me feel all patriotic and nostalgic. They remind me of when I used to watch the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks on my parent’s Panasonic TV. Or the first time I went to see those same fireworks, standing in the crowds on the temporarily closed FDR expressway. These feelings of summer and Brooklyn and sticky nights come back to me with that refreshing, bright red fruit, the watermelon.

As my adventures in pickling continue, I was drawn to the watermelon. It is a comfort food for so many of us. It brings people together. A friend of mine, who I lived with while traveling in India, made a watermelon song. It goes like this, “Watermelon, watermelon – I love you love” and repeat. Now, even the most cynical and Brooklyn-to-the-core readers may have appreciated that hippie music sampling. I certainly hope so.

Looking at the big chunks of watermelon in the pickle brine, I could only appreciate how flexible a fruit watermelon is. In the Middle East, folks save and roast the seeds and eat fresh watermelon with feta cheese. In the South, people pickle the brine with all sorts of sweet and salty flavors. Across colleges all of the country, rowdy students intoxicate the watermelon with liquor to get themselves a bit looser. And if you really want a summer treat here in Brooklyn, find yourself a watermelon-flavored Italian Ice.

I re-used a plastic fruit bag, much to the chagrin of the market cashier and paid for the two chunks of melon, one for me and one for my companion. As we left the market on 86th Street searching for a place to savor the bright pickles, I noticed a September 11 mural across the way with bright stars and stripes and an eagle reminding us to “Never forget.”

There, I thought, that’s the place to eat pickled watermelon.

We stood proudly against the mural, imagining that we were welcoming summer a few weeks before Memorial Day. Somehow, this is as close as we would get to military service.

As I bit into the tip of the watermelon triangle, I enjoyed the mixture of sweet and pickle. The first bite tasted like watermelon with a vinegary salad dressing. I was into it and continued my way down to the rind. The rind is really the best part of this pickle. Generally, when eating watermelon you would ignore the rind, but here you savor every pickled bit. The rind is firm and crunchy yet full of flavor and refreshing, salty moisture. I found myself wanting to eat through the rind to the skin, but I stopped myself, as the pickled goodness had not permeated the protective layer of the melon. This watermelon is as tough as Bath Beach.

Standing on the corner, by the 9/11 mural, eating my pickled watermelon, I looked forward to more pickles, more murals, fireworks, chants of USA and more Bensonhurst treats.

Cherry Hill Market, 2278 86th Street at 23rd Avenue, (718) 373-4900.

Is there a restaurant or specific dish you think we should check out? Let us know!

Giuseppe Maffei, owner of Gino’s Foccaceria.

The 18th Avenue Feast has been coming to town for close to three decades, bringing this Brooklyn neighborhood a sprinkle of culture, a pinch of cuisine, and a wrinkle straight into that summer lovin’ state of mind. While last year’s Festa di Santa Rosalia was canceled at the last minute, this August it’s back – and tomorrow it’s show time.

But while many natives are ready to indulge in some funnel cake and perhaps brave a ride on the rickety Zipper, some 18th Avenue business owners are a little less enthused about the return of the Feast.

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I’m going to drop a little knowledge I picked up at college regarding Jingdezhen. It is a city in China that is often referred to as the “Porcelain Capital” because of its long tradition of pottery production. Now, Jingdezhen has made it’s way to 86th Street by way of an imported porcelain shop.

Jingdezhen at 2351 86th Street specializes in giant vases, awesome looking dragons made of jade and other, smaller art and household items.

The owner said business has been slow to pickup, but he hopes things will be moving along. This store is probably not related to recent porcelain shop which opened on Avenue U with a similar name. Maybe it is. Jingdezhen.

We got a call last night from Mimma Careri, owner of Gravesend’s Italia Pizza and Restaurant (307 Kings Highway), who told us that just days after we published a report about her son’s wrongly-suspended driver’s license, the DMV reinstated his driving privileges.

“From your piece, my son was able to get his license back in less than a week,” Careri told Bensonhurst Bean. “It was huge.”

Her son, Saverino Careri, who helps run this business, managing the counter and – when he had his driving privileges - making deliveries, was the victim of identity theft more than a year ago. Careri’s problems started after another man named Anthony Cabrera began racking up moving violations using the pizzeria owner’s recovered drivers license. When Cabrera was arrested on a DWI charge and gave Careri’s name, authorities released him before receiving the results of his fingerprint identification, according to Careri’s mother Mimma, which would have nailed him as an ID thief and saved Careri a headache.

Instead, Careri later learned that his license was suspended. In the spring, his license was restored after a court hearing – but no one informed the Department of Motor Vehicles, and Careri said the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office was dragging their feet.

But after our report – which was later picked up by the Daily News – the DA contacted DMV officials, who cleared Careri’s record on Wednesday. Now he can finally drive that Mercedes he signed a lease for just before the ordeal kicked off. He can also resume making deliveries for his family business, easing some of the strain on the long-standing neighborhood pizzeria.

“It feels great,” Mimma Careri told us about the news. “We’re very, very excited. Me and my son are very happy it’s all over with and he can finally drive.”

A Dyker Heights dry cleaning business is up for sale. The asking price is a negotiable $250,000.

According to the listing, the business has been there for 50 years.

It’s located in a busy strip mini mall on 86th Street. The name and exact address were not published, but there might be a Dyker Heights reader that knows exactly where this place is.

BENSONHURST BEAN EXCLUSIVE: A Gravesend pizza maker who became the victim of identity theft after losing his drivers license last summer is still wondering when he’ll legally be able to get behind the wheel again – even after a judge determined that his driving record is actually clean.

“I did everything I was supposed to do, and, as we speak, I still have to have a friend drive me to work,” said Saverino Careri, 28, owner of Italia Pizza and Restaurant located at 307 Kings Highway (corner of West 6th Street).

Careri’s problems started after another man named Anthony Cabrera began racking up moving violations using the pizzeria owner’s recovered drivers license. When Cabrera was arrested on a DWI charge and gave Careri’s name, authorities released him before receiving the results of his fingerprint identification, according to Careri’s mother Mimma, which would have nailed him as an ID thief and saved Careri a headache.

“Somehow, he was able to convince a whole police precinct that he was me,” Saverino Careri said.

Cabrera was later arrested on September 13, 2011, and initially charged with Criminal Impersonation, Identity Theft and Unlawful Possession of Personal Identification Information. He ultimately pled guilty to Disorderly Conduct and sentenced to jail time served. Cabrera’s present whereabouts, however, remain unclear.

Careri briefly had his drivers license restored this past spring after a judge heard his case.

“We thought everything was resolved,” said Mimma Careri. “Then we got a letter saying that the license was suspended again.”

Careri has now spent the better part of a year without a drivers license, keeping him from doing deliveries for Italia Pizza and putting a strain on the family’s business.

After that, the Careris were told that they needed to speak to somebody in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, which they did.  But so far, that has only produced more frustration for the pizzeria owners.

“We were told, ‘Oh, it should have been corrected a long time ago,’” Mimma Careri said. “They have to find Cabrera and bring him back before a judge.”

Mimma said that the family doesn’t know Cabrera, but believes he is from the neighborhood, and might have picked up Saverino’s license somewhere on Cropsey Avenue because that’s where her son’s girlfriend lives.

The Distict Attorney’s Office refuses to comment on whether or not Careri is any closer to having his drivers license restored, saying only that the case is “under investigation.”

“I’m disappointed, I’m aggravated, I’m angry,” Mimma Careri said. “My son just leased a car – it’s a Mercedes. He finally rewards himself for hard work and he can’t drive it.”

– Joe Maniscalco