Friends Helping Friends By Naming Things For Other Friends

Don’t feel too dumb if you don’t recognize the person who your street is now named for — the Brooklyn Paper explains that they’re mostly bureaucrats:

In the grand tradition of naming city streets after people no one has ever heard of, DUMBO’s own Main Street is slated to be co-named for former Department of Transportation assistant commissioner Dolores Barbieri.

Who?

What?

Huh?

The street co-naming would be the first for DUMBO, a distinction that puts it on the map — in the sense that the neighborhood now has enough residents to attract the attention of politicians who want to honor ex-colleagues.

Under the proposal, the block between Plymouth and Water streets would be co-named for Barbieri, who died last May. Barbieri — a Brooklyn native — was a Pratt Institute graduate and an assistant to former Borough President Howard Golden.

Her biggest achievement at the DOT was the reconstruction of both Staten Island Ferry terminals, neither of which is in Brooklyn.

Her connection to DUMBO? She was living on Main Street when she passed away.

“We nominated her for the street-naming because she had an outstanding record of public service,” said Evan Thies, spokesman for Councilman David Yassky (D–Brooklyn Heights).

Community Board 2’s transportation committee overwhelmingly approved the co-naming on Tuesday in advance of a full board vote on March 26.

And that’s OK with some DUMBO enthusiasts.

“Paying homage to people who devoted their lives to public service is always a good thing,” said Tucker Reed, executive director of the DUMBO Improvement District.

And yet everyone knows the real reason is to get people to stop thinking about the other great Barbieri:

In the past three and a half years, Lloyd Joseph has been in and out of hospitals, undergone multiple surgeries and struggled to make ends meet as the injuries he sustained in the October 15, 2003 ferry crash prevented him from working. On Monday, he rejoiced when he learned he can finally move ahead with a lawsuit against the city.

“I am very happy with that reaction; it’s been four years now and I am still suffering,” said Joseph. “I have another operation today. I have already taken three operations, and I still have one more to go. And it’s time for my wife and my kids to get some kind of closure on this.”

Joseph is one of dozens seeking damages from the crash of the Andrew J. Barbieri, which claimed the lives of 11 people and injured scores of others. The city wanted to use an old nautical law to cap civil claims to the cost of repairs to the ferry, at about $14 million.

But in a 25-page decision, Federal District Court Judge Edward Korman denied the city’s request, saying a rule requiring two pilots to be in the pilothouse at the same time was simply ignored at the time of the crash, leaving the city liable.

Korman’s ruling says, “enforcing the rule was cost free and the City’s failure to do so constituted a breach of the duty of care owed to the Barbieri’s passengers, who entrusted their safety to the city. This breach of duty was a substantial factor in causing the deaths and injuries suffered by the plaintiffs.”

April Fool’s Day Is A Week From This Sunday — And Don’t Think I Didn’t Check That

Now if I could only remember what I did with my library card:

In what would be a first in the United States, the Brooklyn Public Library hopes to team up with Netflix to deliver DVDs and videos to anyone in the borough with a library card, The Post has learned.

The price would be unbeatable — free.

The disclosure was made by John Vitali, the library’s chief fiscal officer, following an announcement at Brooklyn Borough Hall that Dionne Mack-Harvin had been named executive director of the borough’s library system.

. . .

“What we want to do is work with Netflix and really get that inventory together, really use Netflix as the delivery mechanism,” Vitali said.

“We’re getting some good vibrations back. Nothing formal has been settled. What’s really exciting is — it’s my understanding — really the first of its kind, a model for that kind of corporate partnership.”

Netflix has an inventory of 75,000 movies.

Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said he knew nothing about a possible partnership with the library and seemed surprised by the news.

Vitali said that if the partnership works out, the library and the movie-delivery service would develop a separate list. But it would include popular films.

“DVDs are very expensive to buy, and they’re also very expensive to move because they’re delicate,” Vitali said.

“Instead of buying the DVDs, we’d be outsourcing from Netflix to, in effect, create a free inventory of DVDs that would be available to our customers.”

[Emphasis added but let’s skip the details, shall we?]

The Carriage Business In Brooklyn Was Strong — Stronger Than That Of The Upper West Side — In Fact, It Was So Strong That . . .

Many many years from now, this is the sort of detail that historians will repeat over and over in their books about Brooklyn:

Hampton Jitney, which has been driving New Yorkers to the East End of Long Island from the Upper East Side since 1974, announced earlier this week that it will pick up passengers from Park Slope and downtown Brooklyn beginning on Memorial Day. The same fleet of forest green coaches that now services the Upper East Side will be used in Brooklyn, a company spokeswoman said.

This disturbs status-conscious Upper West Siders, who long, long ago became parodies of themselves:

As New Yorkers scramble to nail down the last remaining Hamptons summer shares over the next few weeks, many Upper West Side residents who will soon be escaping to the beach say they feel overlooked by Hampton Jitney, which stops only on the Upper East Side and will expand its service to Brooklyn this summer.

“It’s just really surprising that they’d do a route in Brooklyn first,” a psychoanalyst who works on the Upper West Side and sometimes visits friends at their weekend homes in the Hamptons, Judy Bernes, said.

Jacqueline Jankoff, a bubbly, curly-haired Upper West Side resident, stocks up on groceries at Zabar’s every Friday during the summer before catching the 86th Street crosstown bus to Lexington Avenue, where she boards the Jitney and relaxes in the roomy bus on the way to her Amagansett beach house. After 18 years of this weekend routine, Ms. Jankoff says she could make the crosstown trip with her eyes closed, but that doesn’t lighten her grocery load.

“I come here, and then I have to schlep my shopping bags across town on the bus,” Ms. Jankoff said over a sample of goat cheese at Zabar’s. “I love the Jitney, but I wish it came here.”

Teamsters And Brewers, Together At Last

Given Brooklyn Brewery’s past labor strife, is its new bottle-conditioned “Local 1” beer kind of like a big inside joke? Either way, it sounds like it will be good:

Brooklyn Brewery introduced their newest beer — Local 1 — last week at a breakout party at Rockefeller Center.

Their new beer is the first 100 percent bottled-conditioned Belgian inspired ale, crafted by Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garret Oliver. Oliver, a well known “beer connoisseur,” is very excited about his new beer, and gave reasons the new Local 1 is a classier and more distinguished beer than other brews.

“What people don’t realize is that aroma makes up 75 percent of a beer’s taste,” expalined Oliver. “I like to think that Local 1 is Belgian-inspired, but also very Brooklyn in spirit.”

Local 1 is Brooklyn Brewery’s 13th beer, and the public should be able to get their first taste within the next year.

Location Scout: Brooklyn Brewery.

Of All The Reasons . . .

Parent groups have been vocal about the Board of Education’s plans to increase the number of “schools within a school” — specialized magnet programs — throughout the city. Space considerations are a big issue, but then there’s this:

Park Slope parents are up in arms over a Department of Education proposal to insert a new small school focusing on Arabic language and culture inside the same building as their children’s elementary school.

Department officials faced what is becoming a familiar uproar over new small schools when they announced a proposal to locate the Khalil Gibran International Academy, one of the more than 200 small high schools created by the Bloomberg administration, inside P.S. 282, the Park Slope school.

. . .

Fearing that their children will lose art, music, and science classrooms and a library if Khalil Gibran moves into the Park Slope school’s top floor, parents reacted by “screaming and crying,” a parent who attended the meeting with department officials Monday night in the school’s auditorium, Jennifer Bacon-Fossati, said. She said parents were also concerned about the safety of their younger children, who may have to share bathrooms with the older students.

. . .

Another parent, who asked that her name be withheld to protect her child’s safety, said she feared that the school’s focus on Arabic culture and language may draw a backlash from right-wing groups that could threaten the building’s students.

“There are concerns of the kind of criticism this school could face,” she said. [Emph. added]

Lady, quit overreacting! The students are long gone by the time Sanitation gets there on trash day . . .