“I’m With McCain,” Says Hikind

 

 

Photo provided By Dov Hikind

By Edmund DeMarche

It would probably require more than an endorsement from Assemblyman Dov Hikind from Borough Park to swing New York into Senator John McCain’s corner on Nov. 4, but his passionate rebuke of Senator Barack Obama may show lingering concerns about Obama’s relationships for Jews across the country.

 

Hikind issued a press release with the title: “Obama is Wrong For All the Wright Reasons,” indicating the senator’s questionable relationship with his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

 

“The Reverend Jeremiah Wright repeatedly lauded Louis Farrakhan, conferring upon him honorific titles, often sounding like a devoted disciple of Farrakhan’s. Farrakhan called Judaism the ‘synagogue of Satan.’ And Rev. Wright echoed the anti-Semitism, blaming Israel for 9/11. Wright said, ‘You don’t see the connection between 9-11-01 and the Israeli Palestinian?…something wrong?…You wanna buy my glasses?’” said Hikind.

 

Rev. Wright, for the most part, has dropped off the political map recently because McCain has refused to hold Obama accountable for fears of striking a racist chord with some voters. Being from Borough Park, which is bounded by 37^th St., 64^th St., Eight Ave., and McDonald Ave., and predominantly Jewish. Hikind does not need to fear political backlash for his endorsement.

 

“I cannot support Obama’s willingness to sit down personally with Ahmadinejad, or other leaders who call for the destruction of Israel, without preconditions,” said Hikind. “Our country needs a President with a backbone and the strength to face our enemies.  If Barack Obama didn’t have the courage and wisdom to denounce his racist reverend in Chicago, how on earth will he deal with America’s enemies who want to destroy everything America stands for?” said Hikind.

 

Polls are indicating Jews are not flocking to Obama in the numbers other Democratic presidential candidates have received. A poll in September done by the American Jewish Committee gave McCain 30 percent of the Jewish vote with another 13 percent “unsure.” However, a Gallup poll released on Oct. 23, showed Jewish voters nationwide have grown increasingly comfortable with voting Obama for president since the Illinois senator secured the Democratic nomination in June. They now favor Obama over John McCain by more than 74 percent.

McCain is looking to build on the trend President Bush set when he drew 22 percent of the Jewish vote in his re-election effort in 2004, up from 19 percent in 2000 and 16 and 11 percent for Republican candidates in 1996 and ’92.

Back in March, Hikind said voters would make a “mass movement toward Sen. McCain,” when Obama knocked out Sen. Hillary Clinton.

 

However, not all Brooklyn Jewish politicians are flocking to McCain’s corner. Councilman Lew Fidler, a Jew who has endorsed Obama, said he knows a lot of Jews who are backing Obama.

“You can’t group all Jews into one category,” said Fidler, considering Reformed Jews, Hasidic and Jews “somewhere in the middle. “You can’t talk politically by using such large brush strokes.”

Fidler said he’s seen nothing in Obama’s past to indicate he would abandon Israel. “Just because a guy has “Hussein” as his middle name, doesn’t mean anything.”

Borough Park includes the largest Hasidic block in the United States, and Hasidic Jews tend to be socially conservative and may just be leaning Republican this year, say some political leaders.

“As a proud American and a proud Jew, I will cast my ballot for President for John McCain.  Barack Obama has not done anything to deserve my vote,” said Hikind.

 

Waterfalls Are Off Earning City Big Bucks

By Elmer Hassan

Technically they’re fountains.

They take water from “intake filter pools,” but I digress: The “Waterfalls” ended with a turn of the switch on Monday, Oct. 13. There was to be no more recycled water released from the $15 million waterfalls arts project. On average, 2.1 million gallons of East River water back into the East River every hour.

Some people marveled at the project and, who could deny numbers. Public Art Fund’s official Waterfalls website, nycwaterfalls.org, received more than 512,000 visits between January and October 2008. More than 6,000 photographs appeared on Flickr, a website where people post their own photos, while others posted more than 200 videos on YouTube, earning more than 235,000 views during the exhibition.

 

Back in January, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who seemed more excited about the project than anyone, gushed to the Daily News that, “”These waterfalls will be just as awe-inspiring as any found in nature.”

Others saw 120 feet steel scaffolding that magically turned on at 7 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m. (That time was changed on Sept. 8, from Tuesday and Thursday through Sundays from 12:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. and on Mondays and Wednesdays from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m, because of the damaging effect they had on nearby plant life.)

Bloomberg claimed the project would inject the city with $55 million, from tourism.

He was right. This week, the mayor’s office announced the project brought in $69 million for the city. Nearly 1.4 million people visited The New York City Waterfalls from a special vantage point or from a ferry or tour boat between June 26 and October 13, 2008, according to a report by the economic development consulting firm Appleseed and market research firm Audience Research & Analysis for the City’s Economic Development Corporation. Many of these tourists visited Broadway shows and ate in nearby restaurants.

 

The project by Olafur Eliasson, the Danish- Icelandic artist who designed the project who is best known for The Weather Project, a 2003 installation at London’s Tate Modern that drew some 2 million spectators to a huge artificial sun fashioned from a mirror-covered ceiling, was deemed a success,at least economically.

 

The Public Art Fund$15.5 million in direct spending on the exhibition’s total presentation, including building materials, construction, operation, disassembly, and promotional and educational materials. There was no money taken from taxpayers.

 

 But there were some hardships along the way.

 

The River Café, the restaurant at the Fulton Landing, underneath the Brooklyn Bridge where one of the waterfalls were located, complained that the salt from the spray was killing its trees.

 

In July, two kayakers paddled close to the waterfalls and were almost killed when they lost control of their kayaks. According to the Daily News, the falls were shut off while the two were saved by harbor patrol.

 

 “I’m kind of relieved they’re gone,” said Chris Richards, a local resident. “They never really blended with the neighborhood.”

 

Burnett Street Fire

By Edmund DeMarche

Regina Horowitz knew something was amiss when she looked out her sixth floor window and saw red flames and smoke billowing out of a third floor window.

“It looked like something out of a movie,” said Horowitz, visibly shaken while sitting on a bench in the courtyard at the apartment on 2240 Burnett St., about one hour after the fire was contained. Horowitz was watching “The Oprah Winfrey Show” when fire engines began to arrive.

 

A two-alarm fire ripped through the six-story building on Brunett Street in Marine Park on Monday, leaving one man dead and four other residents treated for minor smoke inhalation, according to two EMS workers at the fire. Six firefighters were also treated for complications at the scene.

The fire started in Apt. 4E. The cause is still being investigated, but one firefighter at the scene said it was probably due to an air conditioner malfunction. The fire took 55 minutes to contain and required 106 firefighters, according to FDNY officials.

Residents in the building congregated outside and exchanged kind words along with a sense of relief. Doreen Greenwood, a member of CERT, offered assistance to a Florence Beck, an elderly woman using a ventilator.

“I think everyone out here is just relieved the fire was pretty well contained,” said Gary Beck, a resident.

 A discussion took place among some tenants of the building. Bryan Jones, a resident who complains about what he says is a mold problem in the building, a story this paper covered previously, points his finger at the building’s inability to provide electricity for the new demands.

“This building was built in the 1950s,” said Jones, who was having drinks with a friend at Buckley’s restaurant when he received word of the fire. “There’s definitely some kind of overload on the system.”

Jones’s claim was echoed the following day in a conversation between four women who did not want their names to be published. One of the women said the building has brownouts in the summer and can use an increase in electrical output.

After the fire was doused, First Response, a Marine Park company located on Avenue S and East 35^th Street, began to pump water out of the building. “There’s a lot of water damage in there,” said Chris Mayer, a worker at First Response. “We’re going to start getting the water out as soon as we can.”

There are four buildings close to one another in this small apartment complex. There is a well-manicured courtyard, where some elderly residents sit on one of the six park benches and chat with their nurses or each other. 

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