Other Brooklyn News This Monday: Slumlords, Community Boards, Infection Rates & More

Zainab Iqbal -
Late summer fruit in Midwood. (Photo: Zainab Iqbal/Bklyner)

Happy Monday! Today is the last day of August. Labor Day is next week. Schools are getting ready to open on September 10.

  • Concern and frustration over lack of detail on school reopening worry Southern Brooklyn parents and educators, we reported. “This feels like the same information we are given over and over,” a mother typed in the chatroom. “The lack of details this close to the opening – and the fact that everyday the goal posts seem to be moving – is troubling.”
  • Last Friday thousands of Americans headed to Washington DC, echoing the 1963 March on Washington where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, we reported. And check out our photos!
  • Three fatal shootings took place over the weekend across the borough, killing young men all in their 20s, we wrote.
  • When New York City resumes its land use review process in mid-September, there will be two major rezonings on the docket: Industry City, which was recently given the green light by the Department of City Planning, and Gowanus, the fate of which is still up in the air, we reported.
  • 18-year-old Isaiah Benloss is fighting for his life after being injured in a car crash, we reported. His mother is just waiting for him to wake up so she can tell him how much she loves him.
  • Here’s an update on the $420 per public school student food benefit: Just over 50% have received it.
  • A heart surgeon who worked at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn charges in a lawsuit he was fired after warning hospital brass about “significant shortfalls” in patient care that led to deaths, THE CITY reported.
  • Calling for a strike ratchets up pressure on Mayor Bill de Blasio to delay the scheduled return to in-person instruction on Sept. 10., Chalkbeat reported.
  • A Brooklyn doctor is striving to keep his community safe, Crain’s NY reported. “As an emergency medicine physician and community activist, Dr. Robert Gore is battling two public health crises at the same time. In his work at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and NYC Health and Hospitals/Kings County, Gore spent the spring desperately trying to keep people breathing during the worst pandemic in generations. And at his nonprofit, Kings Against Violence Initiative, he’s spent the last decade working to thwart a rise in gun violence.”
  • “A family in Brooklyn is celebrating their matriarch, a 73-year-old great grandmother, coming home from the hospital after a nearly six month battle with the coronavirus,” Pix11 reported.
  • “The Eco–Yogi slumlords of Brooklyn. How did a couple who built an empire of yoga studios and homes with ‘living walls’ end up as pandemic villains?” the Cut reported.
  • The city opened six more streets for outdoor dining in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, Gothamist wrote.
  • Brooklyn community boards reject the mayor’s request for layoffs amid COVID-19 budget cuts, the Brooklyn Paper reported.
  • Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams calls for an investigation into possible work slowdown by members of the NYPD, CBS reported.
  • Three more Brooklyn spots, including Bushwick’s House Of Yes, were found violating pandemic-related rules by the state task force and lost their liquor licenses, Patch reported.
  • “Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that 100,022 coronavirus test results were reported in New York yesterday, a record-high for the state. According to the governor, 0.69 percent of those tests were positive for COVID-19, making it 23 straight days with New York producing infection rates below one percent,” NY1 wrote.
  • In Brooklyn, grassroots groups are forming to address the mounting garbage on city streets that has led to increased sightings of rats, BK Reader reported.
  • Chadwick Boseman, an incredible actor who starred in Black Panther and who lived in Brooklyn early in his career, died after fighting colon cancer for four years.
  • “A helpful sign at Jay and Tillary streets reveals that the Jay Street Busway will open on Aug. 31 at 7 a.m. If it happens on that timeline, the stretch in Downtown Brooklyn would be the first place where the city has actually installed a car-free busway since Mayor de Blasio announced in June that the city would install 20 miles of busways and bus lanes,” Streetsblog reported.
  • A racial justice rally at Bed-Stuy’s Restoration Plaza had a strong message for attendees Friday: Protesters need to start getting ready to face violence, BK Reader reported.
  • “A Brooklyn family’s home was raided by a gaggle of gun-toting NYPD officers who kicked in their door, handcuffed the husband and pointed their weapons in the faces of his terrified wife and kids, a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court claims,” the Daily News reported.