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By Lauren Gill

Brooklyn Daily

This local art scene is a hotspot!

A Sunset Park gallery is putting a spotlight on the work of local artists in “Ars Nova,” an exhibit of focused on fresh, forward-thinking art. The curator of the show, whose title simply means “New Art,” says that a bright new perspective is representative of the area’s flourishing creative community.

“We’re a little bit out of the way but not anymore,” said Audrey Anastasi, also the director of the Tabla Rasa Gallery. “People are kind of discovering Sunset Park. The art community here is vibrant.”

To recruit artists for the show, Anastasi headed to the Brooklyn Army Terminal, where the group Chashama provides affordable studio space for artists. She and her husband Joseph, with whom she owns the gallery, were struck by the work of Prospect Lefferts Garden painter Kenneth E. Parris III, known for his series of paintings of dancers. However, the gallery will display futuristic paintings from Parris’s most recent body of work, part of a series titled “How we make it and survive while trying, struggling for an extraordinary and peaceful life,” which explores the conflict between ideals and reality.

Parris will discuss his paintings during an afternoon talk at the gallery on Jan. 23, including details about his dancer series, which he worked on for five years. To create those images, Parris toured with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for two years, painting them from a backstage perspective. He says that dancers are the ideals subjects for his work.

“Dancers are the perfect models not just because of the musculature, but because they have such an understanding of their bodies,” he said.

His body of work captures private moments, celebratory dinners, and parties — moments that often go ignored, he said.

“I wanted to tell this story because it’s a story that people don’t necessarily think about when they see these beautiful dancers on stage,” said Parris.

“Ars Nova” also showcases work from 10 other artists, and includes digital images given form with a three-dimensional printer, paintings focused on urbanization and migration, and a video project which displays more than 2,400 storefronts throughout New York.

But Anastasi says that visitors to the gallery, which has been a Sunset Park staple for ten-and-a-half years, can be assured that the work will seize their attention.

“We only show work that grabs us,” said Anastasi. “We love all of this work.”

“Ars Nova” at Tabla Rasa Gallery [224 48th St. between Second and Third avenues in Sunset Park, (718) 833-9100, www.tablarasagallery.com]. Opening Jan. 14 at 6 pm. On display until Feb. 20, Thu–Sat, 1–5 pm. Kenneth E. Parris III talk on Jan. 23 at 2:30 pm. Free.

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By Dennis Lynch

Brooklyn Daily

School is in for winter!

A radically free art school will celebrate its move to Sunset Park’s Industry City with a new exhibit and a free dance party on Jan. 15. The queer arts collective House of Ladosha will christen the Bruce High Quality Foundation University’s new space with “This is UR mind,” an exhibition one member called an “experiential dive into the mind of Ladosha.”

“It’s a blow-up of the consciousness as a group” said collective member Neon Christina. “We’re going to be showing video art pieces we all worked together on, with some sculptures, and portraits, all amounting into one installation.”

The gender-bending group “puts self-expression via social media on the same level as more traditional mediums,” according to its mission statement, and some of the show’s videos were taken from their online presence. The Bruce High Quality Foundation approached the group because the collective, like the school, is “generative” and not “reactive,” according to outreach director Sean Carney.

“When they see a lack of representation for their voices, they just create a world where those voices exist,” he said. “And it made sense for us to work with a group whose practices are so rooted in social media, participation in nightlife. Their art represents areas where artists often feel at home, but that aren’t necessarily part of the mainstream yet.”

Members of the collective will play music alongside DJs at the opening’s after-party, starting at 10 pm.

The Bruce High Quality Foundation University, which starts its next semester of free, ten-week classes on Jan. 24, is open to anyone with an interest in art.

“It doesn’t matter if you have a background in visual arts, or writing, or anything really,” Carney said. “You can have people who have never had any formal arts education sitting in class next to someone with a terminal degree.”

The Foundation has rented studio space in Industry City since 2012, running classes in two spaces in Manhattan. But with rent across the river “becoming a little preposterous,” according to Carney, the group refitted its Brooklyn space to host the art school and gallery.

The new classroom can accommodate roughly 1,000 students per semester. The move to Brooklyn will further the group’s mission to build an “other arts community” apart from the traditional, Manhattan-based scene, Carney said.

“We’re trying to build this arts community that anyone can join,” he said, “It doesn’t feel like Chelsea — it’s a lot more open and inviting and more reflective of what New York actually looks like. We hope that a lot of the local artists get involved and that to the people in the community, that the ‘New York City art world’ is not parachuting down into their community.”

House of Ladosha at Bruce High Quality Foundation University (33 34th St., 6th floor, between Second and Third avenues in Sunset Park, www.bhqfu.org). Jan. 15 at 8 pm. Show available by appointment until Feb. 28. Free.

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By Lauren Gill

Brooklyn Daily

Gravesend eatery Fiorentino’s closed its doors after more than 30 years feeding locals last weekend, but there are still plenty of places to get your Focaccia fix. We asked regulars who stopped by Fiorentino’s last supper to tell us their new go-to Italian joints and cooked up a list of the top spots.

Joe’s of Avenue U

Gravesenders know this neighborhood institution for Sicilian comfort food such as rice balls, panelle sandwiches, and unbeatable pizza, according to locals. Plus its right across the street from Fiorentino’s.

[287 Avenue U at Lake Street in Gravesend, (718) 449–9285]. $4–$18.

La Palina

Gourmands hail this Bensonhurst bistro for its baked clams, broccoli rabe, and potato croquettes — all served by friendly servers, locals say.

[159 Avenue O at W. 5th St. in Bensonhurst, (718) 236–9764]. $10–$28.

Mama Rao’s

Locals love this upscale Dyker Heights eatery for its family-style meals and impeccable service.

[6408 11th Avenue at 64th St. in Dyker Heights, (718) 745–2269] $6–$42.

L&B Spumoni Gardens

Hungry ‘Hursters know this Bensonhurst eatery — or is it in Gravesend? — because you can get its world-famous Sicilian slice for the price of a subway ride or drop a few bills and enjoy an unbeatable four-course, family-style dinner.

[2785 86th St. at Lake Place in Bensonhurst, (718) 449–1230] $2.50–$39.95.

Gargiulo’s Restaurant

This Coney Island gem survived the Bad Old Days and a monster hurricane, and it just keep coming back for seconds! It’s most notable for its family-style pre-fixe meals and wide selection of pastas and veal, locals said.

[2911 W 15th Street at Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island, (718) 449–1230]. $7.50–$35.

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By Lauren Gill

Brooklyn Daily

This restaurant’s salad days are over.

Gravesend eatery Fiorentino’s served its last meal on Jan. 10 after 32 years of feeding hungry Brooklynites. The owner closed the restaurant citing financial difficulties and because his father and brother, who were also business partners, recently died, he said. The big cheese is sad to let go of the joint, but regulars’ reactions to the news were comforting, he said.

“I think some of them were more devastated than I am,” said owner Anthony Fiorentino, “It’s like the television show, ‘Cheers,’ people come to see each other, they know each other.”

Longtime patrons packed into the Avenue U bistro’s dining room for a final meal Sunday night.

One devotee who has been going to Fiorentino’s since she was a little girl cited the broccoli rabe and chicken cutlet parmigiana as favorites she’ll sorely miss — but she will miss the restaurant’s close-knit atmosphere the most, she said.

“They make you feel like family,” said Manhattan Beach resident Antoinette Danner, who said she dined at Fiorentino’s at least once a month before it closed. “When they told me it was closing all I did was cry and I was like ‘Where am I going to go now? How do you replace everyone that treated you so nice?’”

Fiorentino plans to sell the expansive space, which includes two dining rooms and a bar, but he doesn’t have any future plans except to take care of his mother and her Gravesend home after he ties up the loose ends, he said.

The Avenue U restaurant’s lot between McDonald Avenue and West Street is zoned for residential and commercial uses, and a new owner could build apartments up to seven stories on the site, city records show.

Fiorentino will look back fondly on the many memories created inside the restaurant — he named the countless birthday and New Year’s Eve celebrations as some of his favorite moments. Coney Island’s annual Mermaid Parade was a summer highlight, because mermaids used to flood Fiorentino’s after the procession.

Now locals will have to start scouting out new spots in Gravesend for their family festivities, but other restaurants just won’t be the same, one stalwart said.

“I’ve been coming here ever since they opened,” said Edith Serafin, who eats at Fiorentino’s once a week. “ It’s my favorite restaurant, and I will sadly miss this place.”

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By Colin Mixson

Brooklyn Daily

They’re really up a creek.

Last Sunday’s unusually high tide, strong wind, and torrential rains sent junk spewing into Shell Bank Creek, trapping boats and leaving locals shaking their heads at the sorry state of Jamaica Bay.

“Besides it being an eyesore, it’s a shame to anyone who lives on the water to have to witness something of this proportion,” said Charles Martinez, a retired sanitation worker and captain of the Sea Boot, which he docks at Shell Bank Yacht Club. “It’s a load of garbage, and we try to keep our waters clean.”

Much of the junk was left over from Hurricane Sandy, lodged on the bank near Plumb Beach Bridge and the mouth of Shell Bank Creek, until the weekend’s raucous seas loosened it, according to John Douglas, president of local community group Gerritsen Beach Cares.

“It had been deposited during Sandy and hadn’t been cleaned up,” said Douglas. “It was all dock pieces and things that were deposited in the tall grasses.”

Some of the debris likely came from regular old litterbugs and from sunken boats that litter the bay and which officials have been working to remove, according to Martinez.

“There’s a lot of plastic bags, a lot of flotation things from submerged boats, objects that come off of submerged boats that pop up, and a lot of it is from people who use the beaches and don’t clean up after themselves,” he said.

Douglas is interested in organizing a cleanup in light of the deluge of detritus, but said it will likely have to wait until the weather warms up.

“I’m sure we’d probably like to do something, but we’d have to do it in the spring time, because, right now, it’s a little too cold,” he said. “That had been our goal during the summertime, and we hadn’t managed to pull it together.”

Meanwhile, mariners will have to keep their eyes on the water as they’re taking their boats out, Douglas said.

“This is their play area — people are boating — and the last thing you want to do is drive down the canal into a log,” he said.

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By Joseph Staszewski

Brooklyn Daily

Sisters Destiny and Selena Philoxy didn’t always play this well together.

The South Shore girls’ basketball pair, who are a year apart, used to bicker on the court growing up and were counter-productive to their team’s success. Selena, a center, spent her first two high-school seasons playing at Academy for Careers in Television and Film in Queens even though the family moved to Brooklyn, and Destiny entered South Shore as a freshman a year ago.

“We usually never had fun, because we argued on the court,” said Selena, a junior. “We never had fun with each other.”

Their contentious relationship changed last summer — the two realized how much better they were together, and now they want to play for the same team even after their time with the Vikings is up.

“We stopped arguing,” Destiny said. “It’s childish now. We are trying to be the best sisters to go to college together. We want to be the best two.”

The duo formed a perfect pair in a 64–44 win over rival and host Francis Lewis in Public School Athletic League girls’ Class AA basketball on Jan. 8. Selena scored 21 points — including seven in the first quarter — and grabbed 17 rebounds. Destiny added 15 points, six rebounds, and five assists.

The game reminded coach Anwar Gladden of how the two played to open the year.

“Early on, they had a good connection and then they kind of lost it at some point,” he said. “I don’t know. They are sisters. Maybe someone stole socks or something, but who knows. They have gotten it back.”

The two shared control of the first half, with Selena dominating the first quarter and Destiny controlling the second. South Shore adapted its game to a smaller unit with Selena on the bench in the second and grabbed the advantage behind Destiny’s driving ability.

The Vikings, the defending city champions, closed the frame on an 8–0 run and took a 29–17 lead into the break. Dominique Williams scored 18 points to lead Francis Lewis (9–2, 8–1).

The momentum continued after halftime with Selena back in the game and Destiny continuing to shut down Lewis star Sierra Green on the defensive end. The senior scored five of her 12 points in the first half.

“My coach just told me to keep my eyes on her and forget about the ball,” the younger Philoxy said.

The Vikings (10–1, 8–0) scored the first seven points of the third quarter and never looked back. When Lewis tried to rally, Selena quickly put an end to it with a three-point play along the baseline that gave South Shore a 40–24 lead with 4:02 to play in the frame.

The team started out a little sloppy, but it settled and exceeded Gladden’s expectations, he said.

“Teams don’t have the talent that we have — there is no reason why games should be as close,” Gladden said. “We want to start to build some type of dominance now that we got over the hump of winning a championship.”

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By Joseph Staszewski

Brooklyn Daily

What a 10 months it has been for the Lincoln forward Jahlil Tripp.

The senior is fighting to play another for the Railsplitters, and even though he doesn’t know what school he’ll attend next week, he knows where he’s going next year. Tripp announced last weekend that he verbally committed to play at Rutgers next season, choosing the Scarlet Knights and coach Eddie Jordan over Siena and Qunnipiac.

But he’s unsure if he will remain at Lincoln for the rest of the school year after exhausting all his options for gaining a fifth year of eligibility in the Public School Athletic League.

Waiting this long makes heading to a prep school more difficult — second semesters are underway, and hoops season is already in progress.

“I’m disappointed, but God has a better plan for me,” Tripp said. “I’m going to see what the future holds. I’m still deciding with my family.”

Tripp earned the scholarship playing just two full varsity seasons. He missed nearly his entire sophomore year at Brooklyn Colligate after he caught a stray bullet to the right calf two years ago and a month later broke his left tibia in two places taking a layup while warming up for the game that was supposed to mark his return.

“I think I am blessed, because I don’t think a lot of people would have got a Division I scholarship not playing a whole season of high-school basketball,” Tripp said. “For me, to get one and be able to commit is just a blessing.”

He appeared certain all spring and summer that he would return to the court for Lincoln, but officials kept pushing back the final decision.

Lincoln is a city title favorite with him on the court, but without him, it has suffered three league losses for the first time since 2012 and just the third time in the last 15 years.

For now, Tripp is happy to have one future destination set at Rutgers — even as he contemplates his immediate next move.

“They made me feel like it was a family over there, real comfortable over there,” Tripp said. “I felt like that was the best choice for me and my family. I went to the game, liked the style of play. The campus was lovely.”

His teammates and Lincoln fans have rallied around him. Many of them, including senior Cahiem Brown, wore T-shirts that said “Do It 4 Tripp” on the back. They know how difficult it has been for him and admire his loyalty.

“He still cheers for us, even though he’s not playing, so we have to do it for him,” sophomore guard Tyler Bourne said.

Tripp won’t be playing for Lincoln, but he is staying positive.

“I’m just hoping the future is brighter,” he said.

Landing at Rutgers could be the first step to that future.

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By Allegra Hobbs

Brooklyn Daily

We guess that’s why they say every rose has its thorn.

The city is uprooting a Coney Island community garden and replacing it with below-market-rate housing, officials recently announced. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development will weed out two adjacent, W. 20th Street gardens used by the Unity Tower Tenants’ Association and the Senior Citizens Block Association of Mermaid Avenue and build an unspecified number of so-called “affordable” housing units there, according to the city.

Officials say they will give displaced gardeners new space within a quarter-mile of their current locations. But it is unclear if the new plots will be the same size, and activists say they will never be the same garden.

“Moving gardens is impossible,” said Paula Segal of 596 Acres, a group that helped gardens fight the development. “When they say they are moving a garden, what they really mean is: We are going to take away this thriving community resource and move it to a different community.”

Gardeners will receive a new yet-to-be-named plot close to their current digs, help moving their equipment, and assistance christening their new patches with topsoil, according to a parks department spokeswoman.

The lots between Surf and Mermaid avenues have been in the city’s crosshairs since at least 2008, when it eyed turning the Surf Avenue site into housing under a redevelopment plan then-Mayor Bloomberg was pushing, according to reports.

The city desperately needs more so-called “affordable” housing options, said a city rep, and free plots of land are simply the easiest and most economic way to meet that need.

“To reach the very lowest incomes is very expensive to do, and one of the only opportunities we have to do that is on city-owned land,” said mayoral spokesman Wiley Norvell.

The sites were part of a list of vacant land owned by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development that the city offered to developers for below-market housing in January.

The city spared 11 Brooklyn community gardens it had previously tapped for development by turning them into parkland — but will raze four other borough plots, including the one at Unity Towers.

In total, the housing department will hand 27 Brooklyn gardens over to the parks department — 16 of those were on city land, but not on the development list.

Representatives from the Unity Tower Tenant Association seemed confused about the news and were not able to comment on the loss of their garden.— with Lauren Gill

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By Joanna DelBuono

Brooklyn Daily

Clinton Hill

Standing O is extending a warm welcome to Joan Barry McCormick, an experienced fund-raising professional with an impressive record, as the vice president for institutional advancement at Pratt Institute.

That department seeks to enhance financial support for the institute. Our Ms. McCormick took the reigns on Jan. 11 from Nancy Walker of Interim Solutions, who has served as interim vice president since April 2015.

Pratt president Thomas Schutte is excited to have Joan aboard.

“With Joan’s outstanding past success in fund-raising, I am confident that she will effectively lead us in achieving our ambitious goals,” he said.

Joan is also happy and shares the president’s sentiments.

“I am proud to join Pratt in this role at such a critical time in the institution’s history,” she said.

The new veep holds a master’s degree in public administration from Kean University; a mini Master of Business Administration in strategic health care management and a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and mass media — both from Rutgers.

She presently lives in New Jersey (you know, that other state), but since Brooklyn is such a great place to live and work — and she already works here — can living here be far behind? We hope not.

Standing O offers wishes of good luck in the new position.

Pratt Institute [North Hall, 200 Willoughby Ave. and Hall Street in Clinton Hill, (718) 636–3886]

Bay Ridge

It passed, it passed!

Three chairs to state Sen. Martin Golden (R–Bay Ridge). The chairman of the senate’s Civil Service and Pensions Committee let us know that the bill he sponsored and worked hard for has passed you-know-who’s desk in Albany. Senate Bill 4839 protects first responders that serve our fair city while they are performing their assigned duties. If individuals who intend to cause bodily injury attack them, those actions will now be deemed a felony, Golden said.

“Emergency medical service paramedics and technicians are required to treat patients under extremely dangerous and stressful conditions, and deliberate, violent attacks against these public servants are, sadly, not uncommon,” the senator said. “Therefore, EMS paramedics and technicians should be offered every protection under the law. This bill ensures that, in those cases in which there is proof that an individual intended to injure one of these professionals while on duty, that perpetrator can be prosecuted as a felon. We must do everything in our power to protect those who are there for us in times of need.”

Standing O agrees, thank you Sen. Golden for having their sixes.

District office [7408 Fifth Ave. at 74th Street in Bay Ridge, (718) 238–6044]

Bensonhurst

Welcome

Welcome to Emily Buckley, a Bishop Kearney High School alum who has come home to roost as the lacrosse coach.

Emily Buckley hails from Park Slope and was an integral part of Kearney’s varsity soccer team. After graduating, she attended the University of New Haven where she pursued a degree in sports management, and played on both the soccer and lacrosse teams.

She also competed in a worldwide CrossFit event in 2014. She recently returned from Reno, Nevada, where she was a competitor in the Olympic weight-lifting trials.

Emily is happy as roses on returning home.

“My experience at Kearney was great, because I was always encouraged to pursue various sports,” she said. “I am excited to be back at Kearney to help develop the lacrosse sports program.”

Standing O is hyped too!

Kudos to Kearney’s “12 Hours of Kearney Giving” campaign. The initiative raised more than $48,000 — way to go!

Bishop Kearney High School [2202 60th St. at Bay Parkway in Bensonhurst, (718) 236–6363]

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By Joanna DelBuono

Brooklyn Daily

Bay Ridge

Cheers to Basil Capetanakis and John Demenagas of Troop 715, who have achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest accomplishment in Boy Scouts.

Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R–Bay Ridge) was on hand to offer her good wishes when the boys received their wings on Jan 9.

“Both these young men have exhibited a concern and compassion for those in their community and throughout the world, earning them the rare and prestigious advancement rank of Eagle Scout,” she said. “I am very proud of Basil and John, and I look forward to seeing more great things from them in the future.”

Basil helped out the CHiPS soup kitchen and homeless shelter, collecting urgent supplies as part of his community project.

In order to obtain the coveted rank — that lasts for life by the way — a scout has to earn at least 21 merit badges, and plan and implement a community project that demonstrates leadership and commitment.

Standing Os are for life, too, so here’s a couple of well-deserved shout-outs to the aspiring ‘“Eagles.”

Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, district Office [7408 Fifth Ave. at 74th Street in Bay Ridge, (718) 987–0197].

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By Bill Roundy

Brooklyn Daily

Be their guest!

A group of hotel and restaurant professionals are launching a smorgasborg night of entertainment inside a Greenpoint kombucha factory starting this weekend. “Nightcap Riot” aims to dazzle visitors with music, theater, drinks, and variety acts, creating the ultimate date night in one location, according to one of its producers.

“Instead of going from place to place, it’s a full evening,” said Alex Gruhin, who is also the show’s artistic director.

Each evening will starts with a short performance from a comedian or magician, followed by a tutorial on making cocktails with kombucha, a short play, a tea service, and a musical act. The musical acts and individual performers will vary during the event’s month-long run.

“Beyond the mixology and theater component, everything is only going for one night, which is kind of scary and fun,” said Gruhin.

The play, “Destiny and the Little Man,” is a brand-new adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s “The Man of Destiny,” about a battle of wits between a young Napoleon Bonaparte and a mysterious woman who may be a Viennese spy. But the actress who plays the Mysterious Woman says that even those familiar with the witty comedy may be surprised by the streamlined version from Brooklyn playwright Jim Knable.

“The end of the play turns political in the Shaw version, which is quite frankly very boring, and he’s made it his own,” said Ariel Reid, who is also a producer of the event. “And we go out with a bang.”

Audiences will carry their drinks into a space transformed into an Italian tavern, and sit beside characters in the play.

“It will be performed amongst and amidst the audience, but in a non-intrusive way — we’re not going to pull them onstage,” said Bruce Levitt, the play’s director.

The night will also include some snacks to soak up the booze, but not a full meal, said Reid, adding, “It’s not dinner theater.”

The night’s final portion will be a music concert, with acts during the run that will include Broadway performers, acoustic singer-songwriters, and funk bands. The opening weekend will feature rhythm and blues performers JC Brooks and Jeremy Tromburg, of the Chicago act JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound.

Gruhin says that the group’s background in hotels and restaurant service will help them to juggle all of the night’s moving parts.

“We have hospitality people involved who have knowledge of how to orchestrate table service and how to orchestrate events,” said Gruhin. “It’s really about creating pillars of an evening and making sure everything has transitions and everything will flow.”

Nightcap Riot at Magick City (37 Box St. between Manhattan Avenue and McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint, www.nightcapriot.com). Shows Thu–Sat, Jan. 15–Feb. 14, with some Sunday shows. 8 pm. $50.

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Courtesy photo US Navy

Brooklyn Daily

Borough wide

Anchors aweigh!

Brooklyn’s very own tar (that’s “sailor” to you landlubbers) is headed south — to Antarctica.

Chief Equipment Operator Samuel Acosta of Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 1, is one of 40 Seabees assigned to this mission in support of Operation Deep Freeze.

“I have seven years of cargo-handling experience,” Acosta said. “During my time off, I plan on visiting some of the historic sites at McMurdo Station, such as Scott’s Discovery Hut, which was created in January 1902 and later used by famed explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1909. To see some of the original stuff on display really takes you back in time.”

Even though he is going in the summer season, the temperatures don’t go much higher than 32 degrees Fahrenheit, so our pal must really love the cold, because this is his fifth trip to the land of ice and penguins.

Standing O wishes seaman Acosta a very safe journey and says, “Stay warm now, and don’t forget that parka and extra thermal undies.”

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By Allegra Hobbs

Brooklyn Daily

Call it a gag order.

The son of the guy who created the Heimlich maneuver is demanding the city’s education department investigate an anti-choking device reportedly purchased by two Brooklyn public schools, which he thinks may not have been tested properly.

“If any medical device intended for use in an emergency lifesaving situation has not been properly tested and approved, that raises obvious concerns, especially when children are involved,” said Georgia journalist Peter Heimlich, whose father Henry invented the first-aid procedure.

Heimlich runs several websites dedicated to unearthing allegedly sketchy medical practices — including investigations into his dad — and recently launched a one-man investigation into the LifeVac, a plunger-like contraption that is designed to suction onto a choking victim’s mouth and pump the obstruction out of their throat.

LifeVac’s founder Arthur Lih has been promoting his product to schools in the borough of Kings after spotting several fatal chokings here — a 7-year-old choked to death on her lunch in Williamsburg last October, roughly a year after a 21-year-old autistic woman choked to death in Cobble Hill.

Since starting his crusade, Lih claims two Brooklyn schools have purchased LifeVacs — Greenpoint’s PS 31 and Sheepshead Bay’s PS 206. A substitute nurse at PS 31 said she was unaware of the device, but that she is just a temp. PS 206 did not return requests for comment.

Lih insists his contraption works and will save lives — several fire departments have bought them, and it is endorsed by his sister who is a gastroenterologist in Queens.

“We can protect our children now,” said Lih, a Long Islander who used to run an airfreight company. “We have new technology, a simple device that can save lives — we do not have the luxury of time.”

The gadget is only an emergency measure to be used in a last-ditch effort to save someone after standard anti-choking techniques have failed and the victim is unconscious, he said.

But Heimlich remains skeptical, because no peer-reviewed medical journal has published a study about the LifeVac, which he says makes it impossible to know how reliable or safe the device actually is.

Two separate unpublished studies claim to have tested the LiveVac on dead bodies — one by a paramedic and a speech pathologist, and one unsigned. Lih’s sister, a paramedic, and a computer scientist also performed tests on a choking patient mannequin, according to company promotional materials.

Lih said he believes the fact that several fire departments have purchased his product is more important than any peer-reviewed study, because they are on the front lines. The Brentwood Fire Department in Long Island says it has purchased several, but hasn’t used them yet.

“The Board of Fire Commissioners chose these devices in an effort to provide Brentwood Firefighters with a tool that can be quickly and easily put to use to aid a choking victim,” said Fire Marshal Robert Kuehn.

The device is also registered with the Food and Drug Administration, though an agency rep said that this does not mean it has tested it, just that the company “filled out the proper paperwork.”

Heimlich has written to city and education authorities asking them to look into the device to see if it complies with their guidelines for medical care. He stressed that he is not a medical professional, which is why he is passing off the investigation to the experts.

Lih pitched the LifeVac to Borough President Adams in October — but the Beep agrees with Heimlich that the tool needs more vetting.

“LifeVac was informed that there needs to be a real-life proof of concept before any further conversation can proceed,” said Adams’ spokesman Stefan Ringel.

The city’s Department of Education said it had no knowledge of the LifeVac’s use in its schools. It refused to explain what role it has, if any, in selecting first-aid equipment for schools, but said it does not endorse Lih’s invention.

“The Department of Education does not recommend this device,” said spokeswoman Toya Holness.

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By Colin Mixson

Brooklyn Daily

Talk about police brass!

The New York Police Department’s jazz band played Katy Perry — and some bygone big-band classics — for kids at Marine Park’s PS 207 on Jan. 11. The show really got students jazzed up, one educator said.

“It was fantastic,” said PS 207 assistant principal Noreen Alvarez. “The kids were talking about it all day. They had the teachers and the students up and dancing.”

The ensemble is composed of officers from all over the city who aspire to both social and musical harmony, a top department official said.

“These are all officers who have musical talent and, on special occasions, they’ll take off their gun belt and take up their trumpet,” said transit division chief Joseph Fox.

The band, which featured 19 police performers and a few cats from PS 207’s middle-school jazz band, began with classics from the blues and jazz canon before moving on to contemporary pop selections such as Katy Perry’s “Roar,” Alvarez said.

Police explained each genre’s nuances to the rapt audience of 7–10-year-olds, another officer said.

“We do a whole intro of blues, jazz, and pop, so they hear the different sounds, and we explain to them the different styles of music,” said Lieutenant Tony Giorgio, who put the band back together in 1991 after a hiatus.

For a grand finale, the school’s staff arrayed themselves and performed the classic Rockettes-style kick-line while the band played Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.”

Honchos intend for the show to humanize the force, and after the concert, Fox reminded kids the police are there to back them up.

“These kids are at an age where they’re at their most impressionable,” Fox said. “I told the children that there are many lessons they’ll have today, but one lesson I’d like them to remember is that behind these uniforms are men, women, sisters, wives, and they’re putting their lives on the line to protect you and make you happy.”

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By Allegra Hobbs

Brooklyn Daily

R they kidding?

The Metropolitan Transit Authority will shut eight subway stations across the borough — including the Bay Ridge Avenue, 53rd Street, and Prospect Avenue stations along Bay Ridge’s beloved R train — for up to two months over the next few years while it gives them facelifts, officials announced recently. The news left one Ridge straphanger with mixed emotions.

“My husband takes the train there a lot, so we’ll have either the 59th street station or 77th — a big inconvenience for us,” said Catherine Hannoosh. “We’re annoyed. We wish that just one side could be closed, but we’re really, really happy they’re going to do some improvements to the station.”

The transit authority last Friday announced its plan to gussy up 30 stations citywide through a series of marathon construction sessions that will last between six and 12 months and will, at some point, close individual stations entirely for stretches of time ranging between six and eight weeks, according to a transit authority spokesman.

The agency has not yet decided whether it will run buses to and from the closed stations, a rep said.

Three C stations — including Clinton-Washington avenues in Fort Greene and Kingston-Throop avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant — and two G stops — Classon Avenue in Clinton Hill and Flushing Avenue in Williamsburg — are also on the hit list.

The planned improvements are still only vaguely defined — the agency says the work will “modernize” the stations, leaving them “cleaner, brighter” and “easier to navigate,” but a rep was unable to specify exactly what the improvements will entail and when they will take place at each station.

Gov. Cuomo and the transit body simultaneously announced plans to roll out more wifi and cellphone services and mobile ticketing to subway stations across the borough, but these lofty goals are not necessarily related to the station scrub-downs.

The transit agency says the lengthy lockdowns will allow it to get repairs done more quickly — contractors will be able to get all the work done in one fell swoop, rather than doing it piecemeal on weekends or nights for shorter stints of construction over longer periods.

The majority of the stations will be totally revamped by 2018, but some will take until 2020, the body said.

State Sen. Daniel Squadron (D–Brooklyn Heights) recently joined Councilman Vincent Gentile’s (D–Bay Ridge) ongoing push for a full-line audit of the R train.

Straphangers are already making plans for alternative transportation, one rider said.

“I’ll be riding my bike a lot more,” said David Cariddi, who lives off the C train’s Clinton-Washington stop. “It’s actually faster to ride my bike, but I don’t do it because I’m lazy. I could lose a few pounds.”— with Dennis Lynch

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By Colin Mixson

Brooklyn Daily

Mill Basin nurtured them, and now they’re returning the favor.

A pair of native Mill Basin restaurateurs joined forces with Citymeals on Wheels to deliver supper to nearly 100 seniors residing in their old stomping ground on Jan. 12.

The brothers, who built a Brooklyn soup empire before opening three Zagat-rated restaurants in Manhattan, said that the gesture was their way of giving back to a neighborhood that’s full of fond memories.

“Almost everybody around the world is very sensitive and proud of where they came from, and Mill Basin has always had a very warm place in my heart,” said Jonathan Schnipper, co-owner of the Schnipper’s Quality Kitchen restaurant chain. “I haven’t lived there since the late ’80s, but every few years, I feel the need to go back, just to drive through where I grew up. I think it’s more of a sentimental place than anything else.”

The Schnipper family made its home on 56th Drive near E. 66th Street on Mill Island, where Jonathan and brother Andrew recall playing stick ball with their pals and trekking to their go-to hangout, Kings Plaza, Andrew said.

“We lived in Kings Plaza,” he said. “There wasn’t a weekend we weren’t there.”

As adults, the duo left Mill Basin and went into business together, eventually founding the popular Brooklyn soup purveyor Hale and Hearty in 1990.

The restaurant, which they based largely on the premise that soup, despite popular opinion, is hearty enough to constitute a full meal, became a hit, and the brothers sold the business that’s become ubiquitous with drinkable lunches throughout New York in 2006.

The siblings immediately went about planning their next venture in the food world, and, in 2009, they opened the first Schnipper’s restaurant, an American-style burger joint, in Manhattan. They now own four locations in the distant borough.

Last fall, the pair got involved with Citymeals on Wheels, a non-profit that delivers food to qualifying seniors on weekends and holidays as a complement to the city-funded Meals on Wheels program, which delivers prepared food on weekdays.

The Schnippers recently raised nearly $9,000 for the program’s Sweet September fund-raising campaign, where restaurateurs donate a portion of their dessert proceeds to support the charity, according to Andrew.

“We donated a dollar for every milkshake we sold,” he said. “We sold a lot of milkshakes that month.”

But the Schnippers wanted to do more, so they signed up to participate in Citymeals’ Chefs Deliver program. Organizers asked the brothers where they’d like to send their dishes, and it didn’t take long for them to decide, Andrew said.

“So, when Citymeal’s said ‘Is there any part of the city that has meaning to you?,’ both of us immediately said it would be great if we could prepare meals and have them delivered where we grew up,” he said.

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By Colin Mixson

Brooklyn Daily

Locals say this waterfront park needs to dry out.

Drug dealers, gang bangers, and liquored-up late-night revelers will have to cut their degenerate dealings at Kaiser Park short — the Parks Department will begin closing the park at 11 pm rather than 1 am starting Feb. 1, a local pol announced.

Raucous witching-hour parties are a problem in the Coney greensward, but police could only kick out people with open alcohol containers, making it tough to break up the gatherings, the elected said.

“Except in the case of open alcohol containers, but in terms of crowds congregating past midnight, the police department informed me that Kaiser Park has a closing time at 1 am, so there was nothing they could do,” said Councilman Mark Treyger (DConey Island).

Locals are optimistic that giving cops the power to hand out summonses for simply being in the park after 11 pm will restore a measure of peace to the sometimes rowdy park.

“They want to stay under the radar, but if they see they’re going to start enforcing the park curfew, they don’t need the heat,” said Edwin Cosme, 55, who lives a few blocks away from the park on W. 19th Street.

Treyger started pushing to close the park early after a gunman killed Philadelphia man Eric Rivera during a massive, after-midnight party at the park in June, the pol said.

“The facts of the case troubled me,” he said.

Cosme hopes the pressure will tamp down a gang activity he sees in the park, he said.

“There are gang conflicts, certain gangs wear certain colors, the Bloods wear red, the Crips wear blue, and also you have drug dealers out there peddling drugs,” Cosme said.

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By Shavana Abruzzo

Brooklyn Daily

New year, same old Islamo-problems:

•Mayhem in the Muslim world.

• Round-the-clock holy war.

• Passing the buck to the West.

The battle-weary, blood-soaked years since 9-11 have shown that time cannot heal all wounds, that Westerners are trapped in an ideological abyss, and that only Muslims can destroy radical Islam and save the day. Yet many Muslims continue to believe oppressive sharia — the food of terrorism — is the word of God, making them volatile and unassimilating partners of the West and a drain on modern civilization. Their antiquated doctrines and ancestral feuds are antithetical to free-world values and show no sign of reform. The Muslim brand is further tarnished by nervy refugees committing crimes and scandal in Europe. Ballsy asylum seekers are hauling German officials into court for not processing them quickly enough, but the masochistic nation — desperate to discard the shackles of its Nazi past — is downplaying the Islamo-pandemonium and pledging to accept half a million refugees a year for several years to speed-dial its Islamification.

Muslims need to be a lot more angry, distressed, contrite, ashamed, conscience-stricken, and spurred to heavy-duty action over their fellow faithful killing, maiming, and displacing innocent men, women, and children around the globe with impunity. They also need to consolidate their power and mobilize their masses to crush a domestic enemy they insist is perverting Islam. They have the ways and means.

The world’s 1.6 billion Muslims and 50 Muslim-majority nations collectively possess the largest army and land mass on the planet, control of global oil reserves, and sovereignty over important naval straits and airspaces. Yet they lack gumption — posting selfies with signs announcing “not in my name” doesn’t begin to cut the mustard.

Contemporary Christians and Jews would never abide tens of millions of their believers turning violent holy warriors and masterminding vast global terror networks that held the world hostage through a perpetual state of emergency, fear, suffering, death, and destruction. What then gives Muslims the right to ignore Islamo-evil?

Follow me on Twitter @BritShavana

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By Dennis Lynch

Brooklyn Daily

They wined about the R train.

Straphangers toasted the 100th anniversary of Bay Ridge getting a subway at The Owl’s Head wine bar on Jan. 13. Bay Ridge’s only train may not get a whole lot of love these days, but Ridgites were so excited over its opening that they held a day-long celebration, according to a local history buff.

“They had feasts, pageants, music, it was monumental in 1916,” said Henry Stewart, who hosted a “Crappy Birthday, R Train!” edition of the bar’s Drunk History series. “At the time, it was cutting-edge. It represented progress and the future.”

Stewart regaled drinkers with locals’ decade-and-a-half–long campaign at the dawn of the 1900s to get a train down to the largely farming community. One long gone newspaper called the area a “potato patch,” and many city dwellers laughed at the idea, he said. But advocates refused to give up, and on Jan. 15, 1916, new stations along the Fourth Avenue Line opened at Bay Ridge Avenue, 77th Street, and 86th Street, changing the neighborhood forever — thanks to campaigners, Bay Ridge was part of the metropolitan sphere, said Stewart.

The story of civic activism inspired one lifelong rider.

“I loved hearing the whole history, the idea of a Brooklyn area getting up in arms and getting organized was really great,” Amanda Nelson said.

Stewart could not pinpoint the moment when disdain for the train replaced esteem in Ridge straphangers’ hearts. Like many other subway lines, the R’s fall from grace was gradual — the product of decades of neglect and inadequate funding, Stewart said. The city took better care of the subway when the public was still enamored with it, but funding fell as novelty wore off, he said.

“Over 100 years, we don’t look at subways like that at all anymore,” he said. “We take them for granted both at a social and political level.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority recently gave the line an early birthday present, announcing it would rehabilitate the Bay Ridge Avenue station and two other borough R stations — though the work will mean closures for up to two months.

Not all riders take the so-called “Rarely” for granted, either. Bay Ridgites identify by it, said Stewart. And it’s a marvel to people whose borough isn’t connected to the subway system, one Staten Islander said.

“I’ve always had a bit of love for the R,” she said. “My friends always made fun of it, but I grew up in Staten Island, so I took it when I came to Brooklyn. Pretty much everything about the infrastructure needs to be replaced, but I don’t have any particular disdain for it, so yeah, absolutely a happy birthday to the R!”

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By Dennis Lynch

Brooklyn Daily

It’s a world gone wild!

A celebration of a famous Catholic monk erupts into a chair-hurling free-for-all in “The Glory of the World,” starting at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Jan. 16. The play starts and ends long stretches of contemplative silence, but its central section is a surreal trip that includes a 14-minute fight scene, says the show’s writer.

“It’s quiet in the beginning and end, so we thought the middle better be crazy,” said Cobble Hill playwright Charles Mee. “There’s a big, incredible fantastic fight, there’s song, dance, [it is] just this wild, crazy thing.”

The play is set at a 100th birthday bash for the American monk Thomas Merton, who passed away in 1968. The 17 men at the party agree that Merton was a fantastic man, but each for different reasons, says the playwright.

“One man stands up and says ‘I would like to toast him for being such a great pacifist,’ and someone else says ‘Yeah he may have been a pacifist, but I’m a communist, I say he was a great communist,’ and so on,” said Mee. “As BAM put it, it comes together as a layered portrait of what it is to be a human being.”

Each speech, story, and punch thrown by the 17 celebrants adds to Mee’s portrait of Merton, a prolific writer and erudite mystic. The monk’s 1948 autobiography “The Seven Storey Mountain” made him a religious celebrity and inspired scores of young men to seek life in the abbeys. He wrote more than 70 other books, including poetry, biographies, and discussions of pacifism, Eastern religions, and spirituality. He traveled to meet the Dalai Lama and other Eastern spiritual leaders, and Pope Francis gave Merton a nod of his mitre during his address to Congress last year.

Mee wrote “The Glory of the World” for the Actors Theatre of Louisville to perform for Merton’s 100th birthday in 2015. The cloistered cleric lived at the Abbey of Gethsemani outside Louisville for the last 27 years of his life and wrote his most famous works during his time there.

The play would have stayed in Louisville, but a former monk-turned-millionaire theater financier named Roy Cockrum caught the last performance and bankrolled the production’s move to Brooklyn. Cockrum won a $259 million Powerball jackpot in 2014 and has been supporting theater productions with his winnings ever since.

The play runs through Feb. 6, and will perform on Merton’s 101st birthday on Jan. 31.

“The Glory of the World” at BAM’s Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St. between Ashland and Rockwell places in Fort Greene, (718) 636–4100, www.bam.org). Jan. 16–Feb. 6, Tue–Sat at 7:30 pm; Sun at 3 pm. $28–$75.

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