Precious Metal Scavenger Arrested In Connection With Greenpoint Terminal Market Fire

Authorities have arrested a homeless man in connection with last month’s Greenpoint Terminal Market fire:

An arrest has been made in connection with that massive fire that destroyed a warehouse complex along the Brooklyn waterfront last month.

Investigators say the man arrested is homeless. Police sources tell NY1 that 59-year old Kuczera Leszek had been burning off insulation to strip copper from the building. He faces a number of charges, including arson and burglary.

The fire broke out on the morning of May 2nd in Greenpoint, eventually growing to 10 alarms. Seven warehouses burned for over 24 hours.

The owner had been working on a deal to develop the land. Others in the community had been looking to give the 19th century structure landmark status.

Although it seems like a pretty big fire for one guy to start, homeless metal scrap hunters are prevalent on the waterfront there, so who knows?

Backstory: That Was Some Fire; That Would Be Suspicious; Deny Everything!; Fuhgeddaboudit!.

Make Way For The Methadone Clinic!

Florence Fabricant notes that European Union, the East Village “gastropub” that was denied a liquor license back in March, has closed.

Did You Hear What They Want To Do With Blackwell’s Island?

Department of Corrections officials announced that they identified a site for a new jail in the Bronx. They just don’t want to say where:

A South Bronx industrial lot is to become the site for the city’s new $375 million jail, officials said yesterday.

John Antonelli, a deputy commissioner of the Department of Correction, told the City Council that the facility would have space for 2,000 inmates and be just two miles away from the courthouse.

“We have identified a site in the Oak Point section that is in reasonable proximity to the courts, appropriately zoned and large enough to accommodate a 2,000-bed facility,” Antonelli testified before the council’s Fire & Criminal Justice Committee.

The proposed site is in an area with garbage dumps, a sewage-treatment facility and power plants.

The site’s prior owners were investigated for possible ties to reputed crime boss John Gotti and declared bankruptcy, leaving behind $60 million in unpaid taxes.

“I would anticipate opposition to this, but I think that your agency is going to have to come forth with a more detailed plan than what we have today,” warned Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx).

Where, you say, is the “Oak Point” section of the Bronx? It’s not in the Encyclopedia of New York City? Neither Lloyd Ultan nor John McNamara (see here) has written the definitive history of the neighborhood? Maybe that’s because Corrections officials are really talking about Hunts Point, but then we would have known where they were talking about . . .

Next thing you know, they’ll be putting a jail in the Winfield section of Queens, and over in Vandewater’s Heights in Manhattan, one within walking distance of Punkiesberg (uh, scratch that example!), or maybe one in Kreischerville.

For extra credit.

Drink, Fight, Fuck And Make Great Mosaic Art

Another East Village squatter artist collective disappears:

The members of the Cave, a squatter artists collective on St. Mark’s Pl. near Avenue A, recently were compelled to vacate the building after a developer with an option to buy the dilapidated tenement bought them out. Before the developer, Ben Shaoul of Magnum Management, paid them to leave, however, his workers first came in with some heavy-handed tactics, brandishing sledgehammers and crowbars.

Jim “Mosaic Man” Power, whose work decorates the bases and poles of East Village streetlights, said he enjoyed the artistic environment of the Cave, but that there was also a lot of partying and fighting that distracted from making art. He said he’s O.K. with taking a $2,500 buyout and didn’t fight leaving.

. . .

Eddy Menuau, another artist who lived in the building, also got cash to leave, and has relocated to Brooklyn and is currently concentrating on being a carpenter. Asked how much art got done in the building as opposed to drinking and fighting, he said it was about 40 percent art to 60 percent the rest.

(G.G. Allin would have turned 50 years old this August.)

Because Being A Numismatist Just Sounds Dirty

A dirty, filthy numismatist spreads valuable coins around town:

. . . Scott A. Travers is going around Manhattan this week making a few routine purchases and deliberately spending three rare one-cent coins. Mr. Travers is serious about coins: he collects them, writes about them and is a former vice president of the American Numismatic Association. He hopes that the sharp-eyed people who find one of the three coins will be caught up in what Mr. Travers describes as the magic of coin collecting.

“I’m planting a seed and I hope that a new generation of people will come to appreciate the history that coins represent,” said Mr. Travers, who is sprinkling around the pennies to coincide with National Coin Week, which starts Sunday. The pennies are almost a century old and are among the most coveted by collectors.

One was produced in 1909, the centennial of Lincoln’s birth, the first time a United States coin showed a historical figure rather than a depiction of Liberty. The coins had the initials of the engraver, Victor D. Brenner, prominently displayed — too prominently for public taste — so they were hastily removed and the coin was reissued without them. The San Francisco mint, whose coins had a small S mint mark below the date, produced fewer than 500,000 pennies with the offending initials. They became instant collectors’ items and most quickly disappeared from circulation.

Mr. Travers said his 1909 coin was worth more than $1,000. At Brigandi Coin on 44th Street in Manhattan, one of the rare 1909 coins was being offered for $1,200 this week.

The two other coins Mr. Travers is spending, though not as famous, are also worth a pretty penny because only a relatively small number were made. One is a 1914 penny from the Denver mint (a small D is under the date), valued at $350. The other is a 1908 penny from San Francisco with an Indian girl in a headdress, valued at $200.