The Park Slope Civic Council

Civic News
June/July 2009 Volume LXXI, No. 10

www.parkslopeciviccouncil.org

The Little School

That Anchored a Village

PS 133 and The Battle for Baltic Street

Widespread deterioration was precipitated by the razing of

over 400 units between Fourth and Fifth Avenues to make way for a
new school that was never built, wrote neighborhood activist Fran
Justa in her 1984 doctoral dissertation, a long chapter of which was
entitled The Battle of Baltic Street. The sudden loss of the families,
and the increase in surrounding abandonment, was disastrous for
Fifth Avenue.
Through the 1970s, Justa reported, the number of abandoned or
demolished buildings rose from 32 to 105 in the blocks surrounding
the six-acre dump.
Finally, in 1977, a group from the Baltic Street Block Association
approached the Park Slope Civic Council and asked for help cleaning
up a portion of what had come to be known as the Baltic Street Lot
to create a community garden. Trustee Joan Ryan jumped on the idea
and helped the group apply to the Astor Foundation for a grant.
Brooke Astor liked the idea, recalls Ryan, who succeeded Goetz
as Civic Council president in 1980. Ill never forget it: She sent her
grant officer, a real East Side matron, who walked all around the lot
with me, beautiful clothes and all. She gave us whatever we asked
...See Village, page 6

In 1983, 11 years after 6 acres of homes and businesses had been cleared from around
PS133, construction began on 56 new townhouses. The city wants to replace the
historic school with one three times as large.
Fifth Avenue Committee

n 1972, PS133 was the last building standing amid six acres
of rubble stretching from 5th to 4th Avenues, from Baltic Street
across Butler and halfway to Douglass. The site was so barren,
PS133 so isolated, that 78th Precinct police called it The Little
School on the Prairie. The only reason the 1898 building had not
shared the fate of dozens of its neighbors row houses, storefronts,
warehouses, small factories was that the city was going broke, and
it had run out of money to build the massive new elementary and
middle schools that were supposed to fill the vast, empty space.
In 2009, PS133 is again slated for demolition and replacement by a
massive new school, and its fate will be decided by the City Council
this summer. Just as happened four decades ago, it has become the
focus of fierce arguments over good and bad development, class
divisions and neighborhood character. The arguments are enlarged
by the involvement of a lush and spacious 30-year-old community
garden that would be buried under the new school and replaced by
a smaller garden halfway up Butler Street.
The major difference today is that what happens to PS133 will
have enormous impact on its immediate neighbors, community
gardeners, several hundred school children and those who care
deeply about historic preservation, but most people would likely see
its demolition and replacement as simply one more example of what
Park Slope has become in the last 30 years. In the 1970s, by contrast,
antagonists on all sides saw the fight over PS133 and its environs as
a struggle for the soul and future of the neighborhood. Those older
conflicts offer context for what is happening today.
In 1972, when Jim Goetz and his wife, Diane, moved close by on
Sterling Place, two brownstones still stood, like broken teeth, as the
sole survivors of a once-vibrant block. Those last holdouts were soon
gone, Goetz recalls, and then the site entered a prolonged, wasteland
limbo as New Yorks economy went sour. The city was losing population as well as money, meaning it didnt need new schools even if it
could afford to build them.
We used to joke that first they tore down all those homes and
displaced all the families who lived there, then they wondered
where all the kids had gone, said Goetz, who soon became active in
neighborhood affairs, helped found the Fifth Avenue Committee and
served as president of the Park Slope Civic Council in 1979-80.
The giant lot became a garbage dump and a home for stray dogs.
Rival Puerto Rican gangs used it for rumbles. PS133 stayed open
but sank further and further into disrepair. The city had promised
urban renewal but instead accelerated urban decay.

News & Notes for the Civic Minded

To the Editor:

I have been hoping that somehow, somewhere, someone would find

a way to stir the Civic Council into action. I find it almost impossible to
believe that despite all the changes in Park Slope since 1973, the city has
not expanded the boundaries of the landmarked community.
I see apartment houses going up all over. The April issue of the Civic
News says nothing about that. There is a piece about Snapper Garrison,
an 1880s jockey. After that there is nothing about the protection of
todays elegant and endangered Park Slope, with cheesy apartment
houses rising at its fringes.
Everett Ortner
We apologize to Mr. Ortner, whose late wife, Evelyn, led the effort to create
the Park Slope Historic District. Our intention had been to provide an update
in each Civic News on the progress of our Historic District Expansion Committee, but we have been remiss of late. The committee is deeply engaged in
expanding the district; regular updates may be found on our web site and,
we promise, in future issues of the Civic News.

PS Civic News_3.75x4.5_April_DrS:Layout 1

4/2/09

A Tree Dies in Brooklyn: On June 22, Parks Department

workers cut down a dead American elm on 3rd Street between

7th and 8th Avenues. A crowd gathered to watch the last
moments of a tree described by Joe Ferris as the oldest
and largest elm in Park Slope, its age estimated
at between 125 and 150 years.
Ferris should know: In the
1960s, working with the Civic
Council and block associations,
the former state assemblyman
spearheaded efforts to plant
hundreds of trees around the
Slope.
Ferris, who shared the block
with the elm tree for many
decades, wrote this Ode to a
Near and Dear Friend:

3:34 PM

Always there in all seasons:

Spring boughs, a budding
harbinger of warm sunny days
Summer plumage, a verdant canopy of this majestic monarch
Autumn a burst of golden reds and rich dark browns
Ah, winter, its silhouetted arms captured the diamond stars in the
mysterious cobalt sky night. And a late March storm turned ice and
rain to shimmering crystals.
The gentle moon through all these wondrous times orbited in her arms.
For 47 years, I have stopped many a day and night, gazed up to travel
on her outstretched arms into the heavenly sky.
Now gone. But, in thankful memory, always there.
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Honors Well Earned: The June 4 Annual Meeting was devoted to the presentation of

awards and scholarships, and the election of new trustees and the slate of officers for 2009-10.
Each of the three well-dressed young women at the center of the photo above left delayed
their arrival at their senior prom long enough to accept $1,000 scholarships for academic
achievement combined with community service, given to students graduating from the high
schools at John Jay. They are Fatoumata Bah (Secondary School for Research, the Park Slope
Merchants Scholarship); Sachi Moncion (Secondary School for Law, the Mary Laverne Allman
Scholarship); and Sidoney Flowers (Secondary School for Journalism, the Kazeroid Scholarship).
They are flanked to their right by Scholarship Committee Members Tom Miskel, Nat Allman and
Joan Emerson and to their left by their college counselors Amy Seponara (Journalism), Elizabeth
Torres (Law) and Josh Steckel (Research). Trustee Lumi Michelle Rolley presented a posthumous
Lovgren Award for outstanding volunteer service to the late Robert Guskind, founder of the
Gowanus Lounge blog; it was accepted (top right) by his widow, Olivia Kissin. The second Lovgren
Award, which goes to a community professional, was presented by PSCC President Ken Freeman
to Catherine Bohne (left), owner of Community Bookstore, for her work reviving the Park Slope
Chamber of Commerce, launching the Buy Local campaign, and many
other efforts in service to the Park Slope community. New Trustees
calendar
John Casson, Linda Gnat-Mullin, Melinda Morris and Sarah Murphy
For details and additional listings, go to parkslopeciviccouncil.org.
were elected, as were officers Ken Freeman (president), Lauri Schindler
PCCC Monthly Meeting
(1st vice president), Gilly Youner (2nd vice president), Eric McClure
Thursday, Sept. 10, 7pm, New York Methodist Hospital Executive
(treasurer), Judith Lief (recording secretary), Michael Cairl (financial
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6.1.2009 21:05

Viewing Brooklyn: A Look Back in Postcards and Pictures

Mack Trucks and Prospect Park

rowing up in Brooklyn, I often

heard people shout, Come on,
you could get a Mack Truck through
that! Usually, they were stuck behind
a line of cars trying to get past a garbage truck (long before they were
officially supposed to be called sanitation trucks). But I never realized
how the story of Mack Trucks and
Brooklyn were really intermingled
From the collection
until I found a post card of a Mack
of Bob Levine
Bus at Prospect Park.
In 1890, John M. Mack had gotten a job at Fallesen & Berry, a
carriage and wagon company on Atlantic Avenue. In 1893, John and
his brother, Augustus (better known as Gus), bought the company.
In 1894, a third Mack brother, William, joined the company.
On Apr. 2, 1900, the Mack brothers started a new business making
motor vehicles on Atlantic Avenue and their first sale was to Harris and McGuire, concessionaires at Prospect Park. They bought a
40-horsepower, 11-passenger, open sightseeing bus that took visitors
around the park. Bus No. 1, as it was called, operated for eight years
before being converted into a truck, logging over a million miles in
all as it trekked around the park. A sister vehicle was delivered in
1901 and served uninterrupted until it was retired in 1924. It is now
in the Mack Museum in Allentown, Pa. A fancier bus, which had a
canopy, seven seats, and held 20 passengers, was built in 1904. The
picture of the 1904 model shown here is from a special set of prints

Brown Harris Stevens

100 Seventh Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215

made for Macks 60th anniversary.

By 1901, when the firm had built eight buses, the business was
on a roll (on rubber wheels with wooden spokes). They changed
their name to the Mack Brothers Company in 1902, but the buses
were marketed in 1904 under the trade name Manhattan, probably to distinguish them from the companys horse-drawn product
line, which was still being manufactured in Brooklyn. They soon
introduced the concept of placing the cab over the engine, which is
still seen in many buses and trucks today.
In 1905, the Mack brothers, now numbering five, moved their
headquarters and factory to Allentown, Pa. In 1909, they built
Americas first engine-driven fire truck, with extension ladders and
hooked poles. They delivered it to Morristown, N.J., where it ran
until 1926.
During World War I, Mack delivered more than 6,000 trucks to
Allied forces. British soldiers admired their ruggedness and would
call for someone to bring up one of those bulldog trucks. The firm
has used the bulldog symbol ever since.
John Mack died in a car crash in Weatherly, Pa. in 1924.
Mack Trucks, Inc. is still doing well (certainly compared to other
vehicle companies in the news today). It is still headquartered in
Allentown, though it became a subsidiary of Renault in 1990, then
was bought by Volvo in 2001.
There are several stories about how the Macks came up with the
idea of motorized trucks. One is that John, on a fishing trip to Long
Island, decided that there had to be a faster way to get there than a
buggy ride that took most of the day. He wanted a vehicle that would
enable him to get in plenty of fishing over the weekend and be back
at work on Monday. By motor vehicle, he figured he could
reach his destination in about an hour (though not on the
LIE today). So John and Gus set to work.
At first they tried steam-powered and electric motors, but
what convinced them to start building gas-powered vehicles
was an invitation for a ride in a new 2-cylinder Winton
automobile. The Winton was owned by Johns neighbor
Theodore Heilbron, captain of William Randolph Hearsts
private yacht, who lived at 33 3rd Ave., a block from the
The Mack Brothers Bus No. 1 (below) and in a 1904 postcard at Grand Army
Plaza (below right) was built in 1900 and was Macks first sale of a motorized
vehicle. The print (right) of a 20-seat Mack Bus bought for Prospect Park in
1904 was made for the Mack Truck Co.s 60th anniversary.

Libby Ryan

Senior Vice President

Specializing in civilized and
discreet real estate transactions
718.399.4103
lryan@bhusa.com
4 Civic News Vol. LXXI No 10 June/July 2009

Bob Levine Collection

Mack shop on Atlantic Avenue. They were impressed by the Wintons

superior performance.
Although Mack now only makes trucks, for the companys first
60 years buses were a major product line, when it often used the
advertising slogan The first Mack was a bus and the first bus was a
Mack. We can add that the first bus was used in Prospect Park.

As summer starts here in Brooklyn, we can still see much of what

the sightseers saw in 1900 on their ride on Bus No. 1. Thanks to the
Prospect Park Alliance, most of the vistas in the Park have been
restored to the way Olmsted and Vaux created them, and they will
be preserved for the next generation.
As I finish my last column for the publishing year, I want to thank
all those who gave me ideas and helped me check the facts. These
include Amy Peck, the archivist at the Prospect Park Alliance, Francis
Morrone, our local architectural historian, Tom Miskel, who seems
to know everyone and everything about the Slope, and such people
as Linda Gnat-Mullin, who generously offered to let me use photos
from her collection. I have also really appreciated hearing neighbors
say, I read your column thanks.
One more thing: If you want a photo of your house from 193941, the Department of Finance documented just about every house
in the city for tax purposes. It was done again in the mid 1980s (in
color). You can order a copy of your houses photo at:www.nyc.gov/
html/records/html/taxphotos/home.shtml. It will cost from $35 for
an 8x10 black and white to $60 for an 11x14
color print. You need to know your block and
lot number, but if you dont theyll look it up
for an additional $5. I have not seen any of the
color prints from the 80s, but the photos from
1939-41 are worth the price (and make great
gifts as well).
Bob Levine, Trustee and PSCC Historian

Civic News Vol. LXXI No 10 June/July 2009 5

...Village, continued from Page 1 ...

for. It was a real triumph.

Maria Grimaldi is now an organic farmer in Sullivan County but,
in 1977, she was an employee of the Horticultural Society assigned
to work on the Baltic Street Community Garden. She tells how the
garden used Astors money to buy tools and hire several local teenagers, including a former gang leader named Armando. Armando
wasnt just some mischievous kid, she says, but someone who had
committed serious crimes and spent time in Attica.
At first Armando thought it was a joke, but then he and the other
kids began to interact with the Puerto Rican families on Baltic Street,
and with some of the black people in the neighborhood who were
from the South and knew lots about farming. They showed the kids
how to garden. When they got a crop in, they developed a whole
different attitude.
The police couldnt believe some of these kids were so into gardening, says Grimaldi. Theyd sit in their patrol cars and laugh.
With the help of the local congressman, Fred Richmond, the gardeners got another major boost: a $12,000 Community Development
Grant. They also got the help of Cornell University Argicultural
Extension Agent John Ameroso.
Ameroso tells how Richmond had been placed on the Agriculture
Committee almost as a joke: what less desirable assignment could the
House leadership give a freshman congressman from Brooklyn? But
Richmond used his position to support the community gardening
movement, which was just beginning to take off. Thanks to money
won by Richmond, Ameroso became one of the first extension agents
hired to work with community gardeners in the inner city a job
he still holds today.
The first time I saw the lot, I went, Huh? Were supposed to turn
this into a garden? recalls Ameroso. It was like a war zone. But it
turned out to be great. It brought the neighborhood together.
That first garden was on the site now occupied by Key Food on 5th
Avenue, slightly softening the moonscape surrounding PS 133.
Around the same time, neighborhood activists had begun to think
about others ways the vacant land might be used to help a struggling
neighborhood: housing, shops, a new school. Many of those activists coalesced in 1978 as the Fifth Avenue Committee. FAC had a
lengthy and complicated agenda crime reduction, commercial
revitalization, the maintenance of racial and economic diversity
but the Baltic Street Lot occupied much of the organizations time and
energy for the next several years. The lot also came close to tearing
the organization apart almost before it got started.
There was general agreement within FAC that a supermarket
should occupy some portion of the lot, but there were widely divergent opinions about how the rest of the land should be used.
One faction argued for subsidized housing to counter the creeping
gentrification that was displacing large numbers of the Slopes lower
income residents. Another faction wanted the site used for commercial development and market-rate housing.
The arguments grew so bitter that a faction broke away to form
a new group, the Park Slope Improvement Committee, which
launched a full-bore offensive against FAC. Justa quotes from a
letter PSIC President David Brennan sent to 10,000 area residents:
Those of us trying to revitalize the portion of the slope in greatest need (the Fifth Avenue corridor) are appalled that anyone can
encourage these [subsidized housing] projects which will only serve
to downgrade the vicinity.
A 1980 article in City Limits magazine describes how PSIC brought
in the Rentar Development Corporation, a company with close ties
6 Civic News Vol. LXXI No 10 June/July 2009

to the Brooklyn Democratic Party and Borough President Howard

Golden. Rentar, builders of the Albee Square Mall on Fulton Street
(demolished in 2008), drew up plans for a shopping center that would
surround PS133 with a large, regional supermarket, stores, and parking for 357 cars. (In a bit of uncanny historical parallelism, Rentar
is Ratner spelled backwards, though there is no obvious connection
between the Arthur Ratner who headed Rentar and the Bruce Ratner
who has his own grandiose designs for Brooklyn today.)
Rebecca Reich, FACs first director, remembers those days vividly:
PSIC members were mostly middle-aged men who had been able
to buy houses cheaply and wanted real estate prices to rise. They saw
any work that we did as a threat to the worth of their homes.
They launched ad hominem attacks on me in letters to the newspapers that would have made Karl Rove proud. Two of their leaders
were on the Community Board and used that forum to spout these
things, too. It was hard not to attack them back, but I was young
and I shrugged it off. I figured it came with the job.
In her dissertation, Justa quoted from a letter by PSIC vice president Fred Baer published in the now-defunct Brooklyn Phoenix: The
Rebecca Reichs, the Doris Clarks [another FAC founder and a longtime Civic Council trustee] and the Fran Justas are trying to develop
an empire of buildings and public funds to ensure the financial base
that will enable them to pursue the socialist propaganda that will
continue to encourage hatred and economic depression.
FAC had put together a plan that was radically different from
PSICs and Rentars. Commercial development would be limited
to a small supermarket with a 50-car parking lot. A new PS133,
financed with bonds rather than city money, would sit among rows
of affordable, owner-occupied townhouses, each with two rental
units filled by low-income, Section 8 tenants.
We spent a year-and-a-half dealing with Mayor Koch and with
the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, recalls
Reich. Their party line was that the market was going to take care
of Park Slope and they were not about to put any investment into
the Baltic Street Lot.
Then something remarkable happened, as Reich describes it:
We got involved in the National Peoples Alliance, a group based
in Chicago that was fighting redlining by banks and insurance
companies. Insurance companies refused to give policies in certain
neighborhoods, including parts of Park Slope.
They met with us and asked if we were seeking funding for any
development projects. The Baltic Street Lot looked like the perfect
opportunity. I wrote up a proposal that was like a wish list for everything we were looking for, then got flown to Chicago, where FAC
was one of six groups from all over the country making presentations
to AETNA, which was then the largest home insurer in the country,
and which had been a major target of the anti-redlining effort.
The next thing I knew, AETNA had agreed to provide belowmarket-rate financing for buyers of homes on Baltic Street, says
Reich, pointing out that mortgage rates were then in the mid teens.
We went almost overnight from wish list to Heres the money.
The saga did not end, however, with AETNAs largesse. FAC
continued to fight for affordable housing; the city, adopting the
PSIC line, continued to resist. FAC and PSIC argued their cases in
heated meetings of the Community Board and the Civic Council,
whose trustees included members of both groups. (Justa writes
that PSIC tried but failed to get several more members elected as
Civic Council trustees.) Finally, on March 1, 1981, the city issued
an RFP a request for proposals for a mixed-use development
of a supermarket and 56 townhouses. Rentar did not respond to

Mike Stein/www.photomike.com

In 1982, 10 years after an urban renewal project went sour,

ground was finally broken for the first new building: the Key
Food Supermarket on the 5th Avenue side of the six-acre
site. This photo is from an exhibit at the Central Library
of photos taken by Mike Stein for the Prospect Press, a
neighborhood paper published from 1982-87.

the RFP; FACs one small victory had been the

citys rejection of the Rentar plan for a shopping center. But the townhouses were to be
sold at market value and the rental units would
not qualify as Section 8 housing both huge
victories for FACs opponents.
Also, the city suddenly found money to refurbish PS133; funding a new school had been
the gaping hole in PSICs plans.
FAC felt betrayed and considered walking
away from the project. Justa quoted one angry
FAC member arguing at a community meeting:
Ten years ago, people didnt ask the city to tear
down housing, and we have a right to ask the
city to put back the same housing for the same kind of people who
still live in the neighborhood.
In the end, FAC decided to salvage what it could from a bad situation: It would develop the townhouses while another developer
would build a large supermarket and 107-car parking lot. AETNAs
money would bring down the interest rates, making the townhouses
slightly more affordable. Each townhouse would include two rental
units, which would help the new owners pay the mortgage. The
houses had to be owner-occupied to qualify for AETNAs assistance,
which would contribute to neighborhood stability.
Ground was broken for the supermarket in 1982, and work began
on the houses in 1983. The community garden moved from the Key
Food site to a large plot at the corner of Baltic and 4th Avenue. (We
were told the new site would be the gardens permanent home,
recalls Ameroso, but it was an Italian handshake agreement nothing in writing which is too bad.) The houses, while still under
construction, went on the market for $137,000, and most of them
were soon under contract.
There were lots of problems with the contractor and the quality
and timing of his work, recalls Pat Conway, who was a community
organizer with FAC back then and is now secretary to the FAC
board (and a mainstay in the fight to save PS133). Weve learned
a lot since then about being a partner with a private developer, but
this was our first project. FAC has gone on to develop many highly
praised affordable housing projects.
Despite everything, says Conway, the project was a net gain for
the neighborhood. It gave moderate- to middle-income folks the
opportunity for home ownership, and it continued the neighborhood
tradition of live-in owner-landlords. It gave stability to an enclave
that, for years, had been a eyesore and a point of contention.
S.J. Avery, who bought one of the new houses and has lived there
ever since, says bonds developed among the homeowners even before they moved in, thanks to numerous meetings provoked by the
contractors missteps. That neighborly feeling has grown over the
years, with many homes still occupied by the original owners.
All along, at the center of it all, has been PS133, a classic building
designed by legendary architect Charles B. J. Snyder, many of whose
New York City schools have won landmark status.
The beautiful old building is an anchor to the neighborhood,
says Avery. When we looked at the empty lot, when we were all

trying to decide whether to take the gamble, the school was the only
building on the block, a big beacon. It added solidity and permanence. We glommed onto it, architecturally, emotionally. Almost
all of us can see it from one of our windows. I cant think of anyone
who doesnt love it.
The Department of Educations School Construction Authority
wants to tear down the 264-student PS133 this fall and construct a
building three times as large accommodating 950 students in two
schools, one in District 13 to replace PS133 and a second in District
15 to accommodate the anticipated student growth from the high
rises that have sprouted along 4th Avenue. The SCA, which is largely
exempt from city laws regarding zoning and public review, has few
hurdles to jump before it begins construction, but it must win approval from the City Council and thats where people like Avery and
Conway are making a last stand. They want the SCA to consider an
alternative plan involving restoration of PS133, construction of an
annex and preservation of the cherished community garden, which,
Ameroso points out, is the only bit of open, green space for dozens
of blocks along 4th Avenue.
On June 4, Civic Council trustees passed a resolution recognizing
the need for additional seats in District 15 and improved facilities
for PS 133 but asking the City Council to reject the current plan
so that the SCA can involve the community in a more meaningful
fashion, explore alternatives to the demolition of the existing historically significant school building and provide an adequate accounting
to the community of the analysis it conducted for the site in terms
of expansion of the school population.
They called it Park Slope Village, says Avery. You had your
school, your garden, your low-rise houses, your supermarket. They
say that your sense of place is determined by your sense of the horizon. The thought of them replacing PS133 with that much mass, a
boxy wall they want to take out something lovely and treasured
and put a box in its place. It breaks my heart.
Ezra Goldstein
You can read arguments for the new school and see renderings in
the Environmental Impact Statement: http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/
SCA/Reports/EIS/EIS-PS133.htm. For arguments on the other side,
go to http://hdc.org/blog/2009/06/15/park-slope-neighbors-on-ps-133.
To sign a petition against demolition of PS133, go to http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/4thAveLandmark.
Civic News Vol. LXXI No 10 June/July 2009 7

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The Park Slope Civic Council

Organized as the South Brooklyn Board of Trade in 1896, PSCC is

one of the oldest civic associations in Brooklyn. We identify and
address quality-of-life issues important to the community; create
and support projects geared to improving and protecting the
neighborhood; and assist local non-profit organizations that benefit those living and working in Park Slope. Our many ongoing programs include the Halloween Parade, the Clean Streets campaign,
community forums, and a holiday toy drive. Our annual House Tour
raises thousands of dollars for neighborhood initiatives. All are
welcome to join. To learn more, go to parkslopeciviccouncil.org.
Trustees:
Ken Freeman, President
Lauri Schindler, 1st Vice President
Gilly Youner, 2nd Vice President
Eric McClure, Treasurer
Judith Lief, Recording Secretary
Michael Cairl, Financial Secretary
Richard White, Membership Secretary
Nathaniel Allman, David Alquist, Robert Braun, John Casson,
Cynthia Dantzic, Darlene Lovgren Demarsico, Robert Eidelberg, Joan
Emerson, Mort Fleischer, Susan Fox, Ezra Goldstein (appointed),
Linda Gnat Mullin, Bernard J. Graham, Alexa Halsall,
Craig Hammerman, Lyn Hill, Nelly Isaacson, Kyle Johnson,
Robert Levine, Tom Miskel, Melinda Morris, Sarah Murphy, Greg
Sutton and Candace Woodward.

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Sign up online at www.parkslopeciviccouncil.org

or mail this form and a check to Park Slope Civic Council, 357 9th
St., Brooklyn, NY 11215-4098
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Household: $40

Senior Citizen: $20

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Address questions to mail@parkslopeciviccouncil.org

or call 718.832.8227

Civic News: Ezra Goldstein, Editor; Sheila White and Judith Lief, Copy Editors
CIVIC NEWS (ISSN 0031-2169) (USPS 114-740) is published monthly from September to June for $40 per year, including membership, by the Park Slope Civic Council Inc (founded
April 14, 1896 as the South Brooklyn Board of Trade), 357 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215. Periodicals postage paid at Brooklyn, NY. POSTMASTER: Send undeliverable copies to
Civic News, c/o Richard White, 357 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215.
We welcome submissions: deadline is the 10th of each month from August to May. Articles, images, and suggestions submitted become the property of the Park Slope Civic Council
upon acceptance for publication. Send unsolicited materials and photos to Editor, Civic News, 357 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, or to editor@parkslopeciviccouncil.org.