Category: <span>Brooklyn Life</span>

by Lillian Rizzo Ramel Fletcher’s family and friends came to room 36 of Brooklyn Supreme Court yesterday to hear the testimony of Darrell Morse, who stands accused of Ramel’s murder. There were nine of them — Ramel’s mother, aunt, cousins and friends. They sat at a distance from one another, occupying the right side of...

One day last winter Clara Cortes was strutting around his apartment in the Sheepshead Bay Houses shirtless, windows flung wide open. The odd thing, he recalled recently, is that the temperature outside that day was five degrees.

Cortes wasn’t alone in his sauna-like experience. Many residents of the same public housing development say that intense heat of their apartments, even during the coldest season, has forced them to open windows, turn on fans and, in extreme cases, blast air conditioners to cool down the steam being pumped in from the building’s boilers.

by Mariya Karimjee The woman at the rectory told me that the Golden Age Club met every Wednesday for a few at the St Athanasius Catholic School auditorium.  I expected a gathering of 15 or 25 people. The room was packed when I walked in. The noise bounced off the wall and echoed around the...

By Abigail Ronck It’s Saturday afternoon just after 3 p.m. and it feels as if an entire community hangs on the silence. Alston Wang is one of the greatest pingpong competitors they’ve seen in Sunset Park in quite some time. And he’s only 11. Back and forth the ball goes, until finally Wang sends it...

By Michael Keller In a small brick house in Midwood, the blinds are shut but the lights are on. A long, black umbrella leans against the closed door and a reporter waits in a car outside. Inside, the Hakimisefat family meets with their lawyer. Police charged Eric Hakimisefat, 16, with criminally negligent homicide, reckless driving,...

By Lillian Rizzo In the middle of West Sixth Street lies a cement island that is a refuge to some and aggravation to others. Smack in the middle of the former-four lane street, the pedestrian island was added in June by the Department of Transportation in hopes of making an accident-prone corner safer. But the...

By Evan MacDonald “Get out of my house!” he screamed into the young girl’s face. He was her coach, a tall African-American man dressed in a blue striped shirt and black pants. She was a young soccer player, dressed in red shorts and a grey T-shirt, and she had just become the latest member of...

By Lynn La Russ doesn’t remember the day he told Marley he loved her. It was some time around late January of this year. No, early February. Definitely early February. But Marley doesn’t remember either, and so neither of them cares. What they do know is that they’ve been together for 10 months and they’re...

By Lillian Rizzo Rocky Feliciano had been sitting in the garage at Treacy Auto at 1725 Gravesend Neck Road on a Friday evening when he heard a scream from across the street. He figured it was just another noise coming from a neighbor, he said, and so did not respond. But a few minutes later...

By Joi-Marie McKenzie A hint of cold air breezes past the corner of Fulton and South Portland, where Habana Outpost sits. The restaurant feels empty. In a month, Habana Outpost, a seasonal hot spot for residents in Fort Greene, will completely shut down for the winter. A large green sign that reads “Habana Outpost Open...