The photo (courtesy of and © Andrew Porter) shows, from left to right, Brooklyn Heights Association President Jeremy Lechtzin, BHA Executive Director Lara Birnback, and City C0uncilmember Lincoln Restler. As Mr. Lechtzin noted in his remarks, this was the Association’s 116th annual meeting. The BHA is, he said, the oldest neighborhood civic association in the U.S., having been established in 1910. The meeting was held at the First Unitarian Congregational Society.
As reported by Mary Frost in the Eagle, the meeting featured several awards for community service and covered many issues of concern to Brooklyn Heights residents, including: the BQE; the future of the Bossert; the prevalence of sidewalk bridges and scaffolding; school crowding because of efforts to reduce the number of students per classroom and increased population because of the pending conversion of former Jehovah’s Witnesses buildings on lower Columbia Heights from commercial to residential; and the threat of increases in property taxes. Councilmember Restler noted that property taxes are governed by state law, and that the last time Albany dealt with this issue it took ten years to amend the statute. Mr. Lechtzin said there had been concerns about parking and truck loading and unloading following “the recent Montague Street redesign, which included curb extensions, new street furniture and planters.” He said there is as much truck loading and unloading space on Montague as there was before the redesign was implemented. However, I have noticed that large tractor-trailer rigs making deliveries to Key Food Montague turn and park on Hicks Street, and often leave their trailers blocking the pedestrian crosswalk.
One piece of very good news is that a home has been found for the Community Fridge. It is now in front of the Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church, at 125 Henry Street, across the street from its former location.
Some coming BHA sponsored events were announced. Spring Into Service, a day of volunteer work on community projects, will be on Saturday, April 25. To participate, email lsullivan@thebha.org The annual egg hunt at the Harry Chapin and Pierrepont playgrounds will be on Saturday, March 18, starting at 10:30 AM. For details about other future events, see the BHA website events page.
A highlight of the evening was a speech by U.S. Representative Nydia Velazquez (photo below, C. Scales for BHB) who represented Brooklyn Heights from 1997, when it was added to her district, until 2022, when her district lines were changed again. After 33 years of service in the House of Representatives she decided not to run for re-election “to make room for the next generation.” She praised Brooklyn Heights, and the BHA in particular, saying the neighborhood “shaped much of my work.”
“Whether we were fighting to protect the Promenade, investing in the waterfront, establishing the Greenway, pushing back on Washington D.C. or making sure businesses on Montague Street had a fighting chance — the people of Brooklyn Heights were always in the room. You picked up the phone, you wrote the letters, you packed the town halls.”
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