The Weekend In Brooklyn: Remembering RBG, A New Street Mural That Was Soon Erased & More

Last Friday, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Since then, there have been memorials all throughout Brooklyn. We wrote about one on Sunday outside the Brooklyn Municipal Building and one outside her childhood home in Midwood. People have also been gathering outside James Madison High School (where she graduated from in 1950) and outside the Kings County Supreme Court. There are tons of great obituaries (like this and this and this) highlighting her legacy and the immense work she did for women and the country. Governor Cuomo announced that there will be a statue of RBG coming soon in Brooklyn. And Borough President Eric Adams is calling (again) on the Mayor to rename the Brooklyn Municipal Building after Ginsburg. We will keep you updated on what comes next.

A massive “F–k Cuomo and de Blasio” mural was painted on North 15th Street between Wythe Avenue and Banker Street in Williamsburg at around 1 a.m. on Saturday, the Post reported. It was quickly scrubbed off by the City. It apparently took place during a block party. “A few partygoers got the idea to paint in huge [letters, using] yellow paint with rollers on North 15th, ‘F–k Cuomo and de Blasio,’” an attendee at the block party told the NY Post. “The party continued. Everyone took photos… It was a big hit. The crowds cheered, even the cops chuckled.”

According to a new lawsuit, Council Member Laurie Cumbo and Medgar Evers College “colluded to punish a student for publicly criticizing the lawmaker,” the Daily News reported. At a community board meeting on April 30, 2019, student Sakia Fletcher had a heated exchange with Cumbo on her stance on  the redevelopment of the Bedford Union Armory. According to the lawsuit, Fletcher was suspended after the meeting, and when “Medgar Evers held a disciplinary hearing, a Cumbo staffer asked that it be behind closed doors — part of the evidence, Fletcher claims, that she was punished at the urging of the Democratic pol who serves as Council majority leader,” the Daily News wrote. Fletcher, who graduated earlier this year, is seeking unspecified damages and is hoping the lawsuit will prompt Medgar Evers College to reform its disciplinary policies.

“New York City school officials wound up slow-walking the investigation of the parents’ complaint, in part because Mayor Bill de Blasio delayed release of the findings to help him win support in Albany for mayoral control of schools,” THE CITY reported. Five years ago, a Brooklyn mother and several other parents filed a complaint with the city Department of Education “charging that more than two dozen Hasidic Jewish schools across Brooklyn were cheating thousands of kids by failing to provide an education that includes the menu of secular classes required by state law.”

Educators and Activists held a PPE drive, a brief workshop, and a protest ahead of school reopening. The focus of this event was mainly on the District 75 schools and students, which these educators say have been largely ignored in the preparations process of reopening schools. D75 is city-wide intensive program for the students with special needs. One teacher explained that D75 received no guidance from the DOE or even enough PPE equipment. At the same time, when the D75 teachers and staff returned to their buildings earlier this month, they found their classrooms, bathrooms, and hallways to be just as dirty as many other DOE schools, we reported.

And lastly, let’s not forget that we are still living in a pandemic. The NY Times has written incredible stories inside the Brooklyn Hospital Center since March. Just last week, the Times published a series of interviews of those working in the frontlines in May and June. The stories are powerful and heartbreaking. Do give it a read. “With Covid, I became a mortician at the same time as a transporter. The amount of bodies that we had to move — it was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. My job would be: clock in, probably do one or two calls, and then get suited up to move about 15 bodies into a freezer truck, every single day. Dead weight is probably the heaviest thing that you could ever feel. The first day that I went into that truck, I went home and cried for about two hours. My wife had to hold me.”