One For The Stink

Bay Ridge residents wonder what the fuck that noise is:

Ear-itated Bay Ridge residents are struggling to name that tone — a round-the-clock humming noise they say is depriving them of sleep.

The noise — compared to the roar of an engine and the honk of a fog horn — has been blowing in from near the Bay Ridge Channel for nearly a year, but nobody has been able to pinpoint its source.

“The problem is it’s constant, 24 hours a day,” said Dr. Concetta Butera, a chiropractor who lives on Colonial Road. “It’s messed up my life really badly.”

For Butera, who has lived in her sixth-floor apartment for 18 years, the sound is more than just a nuisance. Besides spending the night at her office, she has sunk more than $2,000 into muffling the noise.

Late last year, Butera installed soundproof windows, invested in a sound machine and even hired an acoustical consultant, who failed to determine where the sound was coming from but suggested a fan outside her building.

Rita Majurinen, a music teacher who lives several blocks away on Wakeman Place, said the sound reaches her home, too.

“It’s such a low tone that I can feel it in my body,” said Majurinen, adding the noise has kept her awake at night.

Residents suspect it has something to do with a city sewage treatment plant, going as far to say that the noise is more annoying than the plant’s odor:

The prime suspect so far is the Owls Head Water Pollution Control Plant, a sewage plant known more for the putrid smells it emits than for any noise.

But city Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Ian Michaels said a noise inspection unit investigated several times and found the plant innocent.

“We have found no evidence that the noise is coming from the treatment plant,” said Michaels, who said inspectors scoured the neighborhood, the treatment plant and the Brooklyn Army Terminal, but found no clues.

“One theory is it may be coming from these large cargo ships just off the shore,” said Michaels.

But Butera, who has written letters to local elected officials and Community Board 10, said she isn’t convinced. In fact, she pines for the days when the only thing the plant emitted was a foul odor.

“At least with the smell, you can shut your window,” said Butera. “But this noise? It’s penetrating — the whole apartment, the whole house, everything. I’ll take the smell.”

Open Bridge In Case Of Nuclear Attack; There Are Crackers There

Department of Transportation workers inspecting the Brooklyn Bridge discovered a large cache of Cold War-era provisions to be used in the case of a nuclear attack:

City workers were conducting a regular structural inspection of the bridge last Wednesday when they came across the cold-war-era hoard of water drums, medical supplies, paper blankets, drugs and calorie-packed crackers — an estimated 352,000 of them, sealed in dozens of watertight metal canisters and, it seems, still edible.

. . .

The room is within one of the arched masonry structures under the main entrance ramp to the bridge, not far from the Manhattan anchorage. Three city officials gave a brief tour of the room yesterday — taking care to step gingerly over broken glass and fallen wooden boards — on the condition that the precise location not be disclosed, for security reasons.

The most numerous items are the boxes of Civil Defense All-Purpose Survival Crackers. Printed in block letters, on each canister, was information about the number of pounds (6.75), the number of crackers per pound (62) and the minimum number of crackers per can (419).

Joseph M. Vaccaro, a carpentry supervisor at the Transportation Department, estimated that there were 140 boxes of crackers — each with six cans, for a total of some 352,000 crackers.

The officials would not open any of the supplies because of safety concerns over germs, but Mr. Vaccaro said that one of the canisters had broken open, and inside it, workers found the crackers intact in wax-paper wrapping.

Nearby were several dozen boxes with sealed bottles of Dextran, made by Wyeth Laboratories in Philadelphia. More mysterious were about 50 metal drums, made by United States Steel in Camden, N.J. According to the label, each was intended to hold 17.5 gallons and to be converted, if necessary, for “reuse as a commode.” They are now empty.

Nothing Against Your Policies, It’s Just The Color Of Your Skin

The Brooklyn Paper reports on a recent candidate forum in the 11th Congressional District, a picture postcard of a harmonious post-racial political landscape (.pdf):

The only white candidate for an open congressional seat in a predominantly black Brooklyn district was barred from a candidate forum held by a coalition of black churches last weekend. The decision to block City Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn Heights) from the March 11 event — which drew about 30 people — was part of an effort by Churches United for Worldwide Action to ensure that a black person is elected to replace retiring Rep. Major Owens.

. . .

The moderator of the forum, the Rev. Kermitt Williams, of Agape Fellowship Church in East Flatbush, received the loudest applause when he declared: “As we know there is a candidate who is campaigning for this seat who’s not black. The fact that’s even being allowed to be pursued by someone that is not a part of our struggle and someone who is not black is of great concern to us.”

Just Watch How Bummed Everyone Will Be When A Dozen Different Bail Bondsmen Open Up In Those Storefronts

Boerum Hill neighborhood associations (OK, well, one at least) are not happy that the trade off for putting retail in the Brooklyn House of Detention seems to be adding space for more prisoners. But provided it was the right store, some locals might not care if they had the entire death row of Texas kept there:

“It seems like a strange idea, shopping under this place,” said college student Ximena Rivera. “But maybe if they put something that I like, then I would reconsider,” she added, suggesting a Banana Republic.

Linda Serrone, 31, agreed.

“If they had a bottle of wine that I couldn’t find somewhere else, then maybe. But I think it’s pretty inhumane and bad to have prisoners up above while people are shopping below,” said the artist from Sheepshead Bay, who works nearby.

Just Think How Low The Monthly Maintenance Will Go If We Get Whole Foods As The Tenant!

Only in New York, Kids, only in New York:

By almost any measure, the Brooklyn House of Detention, 10 stories of razor wire and wire-mesh windows in Boerum Hill, is a repellent sight.

But, the city reasons, it need not be so. So, to attract people other than criminal suspects to the 760-bed jail, the Correction Department has decided to convert part of the complex into 24,000 square feet of retail shopping space.

“The site is going to be redeveloped,” Martin F. Horn, the correction commissioner, said in an interview this week. “One way or another, retail is going to be there.”

Under Mr. Horn’s jail-with-retail plan, three sides of the block that the jail now occupies, along Atlantic Avenue between Smith Street and Boerum Place, would be converted to one-story retail space beginning this summer. The jail entrance, now on Atlantic, would be moved to the fourth side of the block, along State Street.

. . .

Which retailers would be asked, or be willing, to open a shop on jail property remains to be seen, several city and local elected officials said. But Mr. Horn and several elected officials in Brooklyn, including Marty Markowitz, the borough president, and David Yassky, a city councilman from Brooklyn Heights, floated a few ideas this week.

An upscale food market, Mr. Horn suggested; a children’s clothing store, Mr. Yassky offered; law offices, Mr. Markowitz mentioned.

Mr. Markowitz, who is known to gush about how great Brooklyn is, said that even a boutique hotel on jail grounds would be nice — but only if the city razed the existing structure and rebuilt it from scratch.

“If it’s designed in such a way that the guests feel totally comfortable,” he said yesterday, “why not?”

Mr. Markowitz added that although he would prefer to see the jail closed permanently, if it is to be open it should also have retail and, preferably, residential space.