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By Colin Mixson

Brooklyn Daily

68th Precinct

Bay Ridge—Dyker Heights

Bling sting

A burglar stole a woman’s trove of jewelry from her 84th street apartment on Jan. 16, police said.

The woman left her apartment between Fourth and Fifth avenues around 10 am and returned at 10 pm to find her bedroom window blinds were suspiciously pulled open.

Then she saw she was missing 26 pieces of jewelry from her dresser and a jewelry box on her nightstand, according to police.

Big bucks

An invader broke into an Eighth Avenue restaurant on Jan. 11, but did not get away with a whole lot.

Surveillance footage from the joint near Bay Ridge Avenue just before 3 am shows the freebooter breaking open a locked door that led to the kitchen, police said. He ran behind the counter to make his big money grab, but he only found $40. He took it anyway and fled.

Masked marauder

Cops arrested a man who they said tried to rob a man walking on Fourth Avenue on Jan. 14.

The victim told police he was on near 91st Street, on his way to the train, at 2:20 am when the suspect came up behind him.

The suspect was wearing a black coat and covered his face for his attack, officials reported. He tried to grab the man’s bag, but failed and fled, police said.

Cops later found him in area and one officer saw him drop a knife.

— Dennis Lynch

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By Colin Mixson

Brooklyn Daily

60th Precinct

Coney Island—Brighton Beach—Seagate

The People’s Slay-ground

A gunman shot a 37-year-old man — execution style — on W. 33rd Street on Jan. 17.

The victim was between Neptune and Mermaid avenues at around 8:30 pm when his assassin put two bullets into the back of his head, cops said.

Paramedics pronounced him dead at 9:27 pm, according to police.

School of hard knocks

Some schoolyard bullies attempted to rob a 16-year-old boy as he was waiting for the bus home on West Avenue on Jan. 8.

The victim told police that he was near Ocean Parkway at 1 pm when another group of kids jumped him. One of his underage attackers hurled him against a parked car before yelping, “give me what you have in your pockets!”

Fortunately, the kid’s pockets were empty, and his would-be robbers fled empty-handed, cops said.

Registry error

A thief looted a Harway Avenue store on Jan. 9, taking a register filled with cash.

The snake slithered into the shop between Bay 47th Street and 28th Avenue at 8 pm through an unlocked bathroom window in the building’s rear, cops said. Once inside, the invader simply snatched the register, along with the $3,000 it contained, and exited the store through a hallway leading outside, according to police.

Surveillance footage showed the crook pause for a moment on his way out as a neighbor came into view, but, lucky for him, the passerby took him for a worker, and went about his business, cops said.

Hubbard heist

A raider ransacked a man’s Hubbard Avenue home on Jan. 17, taking cash and jewels.

The victim told police he walked into his home between Avenue Z and Shore Parkway at 5:45 pm, only to find he was short $15,000 and a small fortune in jewels. He later discovered that the crook likely entered through a second-floor window above an awning, cops said.

When tykes attack

Two teenage delinquents nabbed a phone from the hands of a 55-year-old woman on Brighton Sixth Court on Jan. 11.

The victim told police she was near Brighton Beach Avenue at 3:30 pm, when the pint-sized punks ran up and snatched her phone.

Handsy man

Cops busted a 47-year-old man man who they say reached into a man’s pocket and took his phone on Brighton Sixth Court on Jan. 12.

The victim, a 50-year-old man, told police he was near Brighton Beach Avenue at 2 am when the suspect waltzed up and barked, “what’s in your pocket?”

Without further ado, the man allegedly thrust his hands into the victim’s pocket, and came away with his phone before fleeing, cops said.

— Colin Mixson

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By Joanna DelBuono

Brooklyn Daily

Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee are pissed at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for not nominating enough black actors for the Oscars, and they are both swearing boycotting the awards show.

Boo-hoo! Hollyweird is scared — Lee and Smith won’t be there.

Let me enlighten you, Jada and Spike. Hollywood cares about only one color — green. The gods of Hollywood and Vine don’t give a fig or not if you come or don’t — non-Hollywood-types are champing at the bit to fill their empty seats, anyhow. (Wink wink, Academy, I’m ready for my close-up).

And members don’t care if you sport a purple stripe between brown and white polka dots, who you sleep with (or don’t), what religion you practice (although the Church of Scientology does seem to have an edge), or what sociopolitical alliances you have — the only thing on the agendas of producers, agents, studios, and money men is how much dough they will make if they put you in a movie, and, if that movie wins, how much more they’ll make from distribution rights.

Unfortunately, Jada’s hubby Will hasn’t really been in any award-worthy movies lately. And Spike’s latest racially charged epic, “Chi-Raq,” wasn’t released until December. Maybe it was a crappy movie, maybe Hollywood is tired of hearing about Chicago and it’s issues, or maybe it was just not trendy enough to hit the big parade of movie blockbusters.

I am amazed at the outcry. Hasn’t Hollywood been very, very good to both Jada and Spike? Both live in luxury thanks to the money they made in movies, television, and music. Both are part of the very same Tinsel Town movie mill that they take offense at. Both have achieved stardom and success in many fields — thanks to those very same Academy members they want to boycott. So why bite the hands that have fed you and yours?

As in year’s past, the Academy’s nominees fell into one category — which ones greased Hollywood’s star-making machinery with the most cash.

Sorry, Jada and Spike, that you won’t be there, but the show will go on and be the usual, same-old arduous three hours of self-appreciation. The stars will somehow muddle through, the speeches will be made, the dumb jokes will be yukked at, and life in the land of make-believe will go on as before. Television ratings will soar and pundits will compare who was the best host.

Not for Nuthin,™ but to paraphrase Tina Turner: Those big Hollywood wheels will keep on turning, churning, and rolling down the river, even without you. Question? Shouldn’t the stars that twinkle on the silver screen be in it for the artistic endeavor and not just the awards? Hmm?

Follow me on Twitter @JDelBuono.

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By Allegra Hobbs

Brooklyn Daily

This food film shows us a melting pot.

A documentary premiering at Cobble Hill’s Brooklyn Israel Film Festival on Jan. 24 explores the people and culture of Israel through food and flavor, providing a new look at a country often viewed in light of political strife.

“We wanted to give people another type of insight into Israel,” said festival chair Naomi Berger, who selected “In Search of Israeli Cuisine” alongside a pair of darker political films to showcase the full complexity of the country.

The film trails award-winning, Israeli-born chef Michael Solomonov as he explores the unique combinations of cultures and traditions that inform the culinary hodgepodge that is Israeli cuisine — ultimately, exploring the question of whether a distinct Israeli cuisine even exists, given the country’s relative youth and the diversity of culinary styles that go into the cooking.

“There are over a hundred cultures that have come to Israel from around the world, and many that have been there for hundreds of years, and they each have their own distinct heritage, and with that heritage comes food traditions,” said Roger Sherman, the film’s director.

Sherman, who will speak after the film’s premiere on Sunday, says that he was blown away by Israel’s rich food culture

“I went and was completely knocked out by the food scene there,” he said. “It is like New York or San Francisco or Paris. You can’t get into the restaurants.”

The country’s approach to food may ring true to urban viewers who make their way to the Kane Street Synagogue for the premiere — Israeli chefs have a strong penchant for all-natural, freshly-picked ingredients, just like trendy chefs in Brooklyn. But a chef in Israel would never identify as locavore, said Sherman.

“The idea of locavore is completely foreign to them because everything is local,” said Sherman. “You can drive most of the country within two hours.”

“In Search of Israeli Cuisine” premieres at the Brooklyn Israel Film Festival at the Kane Street Synagogue [236 Kane St. at Tompkins Place in Cobble Hill, (718) 875–1550, www.kanestreet.org/biff2016]. Jan. 24 at 7 pm. $15.

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By Dennis Lynch

Brooklyn Daily

Cue the Whole Foods.

Sunset Park’s first hipster coffee shop recently opened — a new high-water mark in the so-called “up-and-coming” ‘hood where locals fear an influx of newcomers attracted to low rent and nearby Industry City’s cachet of cool will push out working-class families. But the prospect of holier-than-thou dumpster divers and adult coloring-book enthusiasts sipping brew roasted by a Portland company that moved to Brooklyn in 2009 doesn’t concern one Sunset Park native — he’s just glad to have a decent cup of Joe!

“That doesn’t bother me at all,” said Danilo Medina inside the new cafe, Parkette Brooklyn. “It’s just really, really good coffee. I like the chill vibes of the place. It’s a great if you’re trying to study or get work done. It’s way better than Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts.”

Parkette’s owners, who moved to the area last year, employ Sunset natives and see the business an investment in the community rather than a force for displacement, one said.

“We all talked about gentrification a lot before we went ahead, but again, we’re living around the corner, and almost all the people that work here either live here or grew up here, so it feels really good to be integrated,” said Caitlin Hersey, who opened the store in November after moving to the neighborhood with her husband and two children last year. “We don’t feel like we’re stepping on anyone’s toes or displacing anybody.”

Parkette’s menu, which includes brews from artisanal coffee darlings Stumptown and gluten-free baked treats — and its decor of exposed brick walls, bare wood floors, and a folksy music — lend a hip vibe common in neighboring gentrified areas like Park Slope. And the shop is full of something else prevalent in Brooklyn’s higher-income ‘hoods — 30-something parents. It’s a demographic the shop aims to attract, another owner said.

“We want to do things like story time for the kids in the future,” said co-owner Nadia Shen. “We wanted a space that was kid-friendly, so parents don’t have to worry about their children when they came around to grab a coffee.”

The move is paying off, a regular said.

“It’s got a nice vibe to it,” said customer Amy Krawcyk. “They put a little area in the back for kids — sort of intentionally saying ‘Come hang out.’ ”

Parkette Brooklyn (4022 Fifth Ave. between 40th and 41st streets in Sunset Park). 7 am–7 pm.

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By Joseph Staszewski

Brooklyn Daily

The Nets are at a self-made crossroads. Its lack of draft picks leaves the club little margin for error when choosing the path it hopes leads out of the National Basketball Association’s basement.

General Manager Billy King, who owner Mikhail Prokhorov reassigned last week, left the organization and his successor very few options for fixing the franchise with just one first-round draft pick over the next three years and $56.7 million in salary commitments in 2016–17.

The team’s best hope for a turnaround is a smart general manager, a player-friendly coach, and Prokhorov’s deep pockets.

Pundits expect the league’s salary cap and luxury tax threshholds to soar from $67.1 million to $89 million — with the luxury tax threshold climbing from $81.6 million to $108 million — thanks to a new multi-billion-dollar television deal, according to a USA Today article. It could go up again drastically in 2017–18 — possibly capping salaries at $108 million and the luxury tax at $127 million.

That leaves the Nets plenty of money to throw at free agents over the next two summers. And the franchise has all the motivation — Prokhorov said he deserves a championship even more now than he did when he first bought the team six years ago.

Way back when, Prokhorov and then–part-owner Jay Z offered a “Blueprint to Success” and promised a championship, but that never happened, despite his best — and sometimes risky — efforts.

“I think we have been really bold, and we did our best in order to reach a championship,” Prokhorov said. “And I still believe, with some luck, our results might have been more promising. But I’ll do my best to make us a championship team.”

That is still the goal, and it always will be, but the team is a lot further away than it was six years ago.

I applaud the team’s reported interest in former Raptors and Suns general manager Bryan Colangelo as King’s replacement. The two-time National Basketball Association “Executive of the Year” has a proven track record and would bring a clear vision to Brooklyn.

Multiple reports have suggested former Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau may take over for interim Nets coach Tony Brown. His record is stellar. Thibodeau’s Bulls squad won 64.7 percent of its games and made the playoffs all five years. But Brooklyn should still proceed with caution — his strong will and hard-headedness contributed to his demise in Chicago.

If the Nets aren’t into this for a long-haul rebuild, then Brooklyn’s own Mark Jackson makes more sense. His Golden State players loved him, and he helped mold the group into a championship team.

Jackson’s charisma and confidence would be an asset when trying to lure free agents to build around Brook Lopez and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. He would also handle the New York market and media better, something that appeared important to Prokhorov.

The Nets are not beyond repair, but one more misstep after three years of errors could make it a long time before Prokhorov’s championship dream becomes a reality.

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By Anna Ruth Ramos

Brooklyn Daily

Monday marked the 48th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death — but Mayor DeBlasio is already thinking about the 50th.

Hizzoner paid tribute to the civil rights great at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s annual commemoration on Jan. 18, where he urged attendees to honor the leader’s legacy by fighting for a more equal society over the next two years.

“We should honor him with a new and fairer country, and a new and fairer city,” he said. “When we gather here in 2018, let’s be ready to say that we did all we could, and show Dr. King that we’ve earned it.”

DeBlasio speculated that King would be shocked at the racial and economic disparity still exists in the United States in the year 2016, citing a $15 minimum wage, paid parental leave, and universal pre-kindergarten as causes the famed activist would be fighting for if he were still alive today.

“Dr. King would remind us, if in 2016 we have to even say the self-evident words ‘black lives matter’ that we have not gone far enough as a nation,” the former Park Sloper said on behalf of the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The Brooklyn Academy of Music has hosted its annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day tribute since 1990, drawing huge crowds to its Fort Greene headquarters for the day of speeches, film screenings, art exhibitions, and performances.

The Brooklyn Interdenominational Choir and “The Voice” star Kimberly Nichole provided musical entertainment at this year’s event, before author and cultural critic Michael Eric Dyson — who has penned several books on King — delivered a keynote address.

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By Shavana Abruzzo

Brooklyn Daily

Cher famously said, “If grass can grow through cement, love can find you every time,” but Brooklyn’s community gardens — potted with blood, sweat, and tears — are reaping thorns from Mayor DeBlasio, who plans to uproot some of them for below-market-rate homes he can plant on the thousands of zombie lots and Franken-buildings blistering the cityscape.

Hizzoner clearly values the humble community garden or else he would not have spared most of the 43 sanctuaries on city-owned land that grow food, germinate unity, and serve as outdoor classrooms. But his plan to raze four borough beauties and five more in Harlem to build 800 new low- and moderate-income units is the pits.

Manhattan alone has enough abandoned apartments and vacant lots to house all the homeless people in the city, claims Picture the Homeless, which dug up 2,228 properties that could be turned into 24,000 residential units, if the mayor tilled the legislative and policy soil.

The long struggle for community garden legitimacy began in the early 1970s, when a fiscal crisis and a new top-down management style at City Hall heralded a new era of neighborhood input and outreach. Eco buffs called the Green Guerillas — their slogan remains “It’s your city. Dig it” — began lobbing “seed bombs” packed with fertilizer, buds, and water over fences around abandoned lots on the Lower East Side to grow life on dead land. Neighbors responded heartily and the community garden revolution took off. Today, all five boroughs bloom with more than 600 verdant oases nurtured by ordinary people on an extraordinary mission.

Mayor Ed Koch, who leased land to local green thumbs for a buck and helped expand the community garden movement, once remarked of the productive public plots, “some of them have become absolutely necessary and add back to the value of a whole neighborhood.”

Their continued success is simple, says Yonnette Fleming, an urban food justice farmer behind the Hattie Carthan Community Food Project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, composed of a garden, two farmer’s markets, and a farm which dodged a date with the wrecking ball.

“Community gardens help communities grow,” she says.

Enough said.

Follow me on Twitter @BritShavana

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The future Congressional Caucus 2030

Brooklyn Daily

Marine Park

Three cheers to the Model Congress Team at St. Edmund Preparatory High School. The politicians to-be competed in the Princeton Model Congress in Washington D.C.

The team, which has doubled in size since its initial showing last February at Harvard, consisted of Shelby Lau, Amanda Mattioli, Joshua Beaton, John McCarthy, Anastasia McGrath, Marissa Moran, Gerald Rehill, and Jared Rios.

They showed up ready to rumble and up for the challenge — with the help of the team’s non-traveling members.

There stood St. Edmund’s delegation — proud in its purple and white — among the country’s elite, private school students. The eight students assumed their roles as representatives and senators and fought for the bills they drafted in the weeks before the competition.

Proposals included bills calling for a new type of nuclear energy, taming China’s actions in the South China sea, amending Obamacare, and reenacting postal banking.

The future legislators were nothing but spectacular as they defended their bills and managed to get six of their eight bills passed in their individual committees.

All eight made their voices heard by giving passionate speeches and sound advice regarding the bills’ constitutionality.

Seeing government in action was an experience these students will never forget and that will motivate them as they get ready for Harvard Model Congress in February.

Standing O wishes them lots of luck.

St. Edmund Preparatory High School [2474 Ocean Ave. at Avenue T in Madison, (718) 743–6100].

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By Joanna DelBuono

Brooklyn Daily

Borough Wide

Angel of Mercy Jubilee

Borough daughter Sister Teresa Lilly will be celebrating her 60th Jubilee as a Maryknoll Sister at a special mass on Feb. 14. The consecration will take place at the Main Chapel at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Ossining, New York.

Sister Lilly entered the Maryknoll in 1956 after working for eight years as a nurse. A 1945 graduate of St. Agnes Academy in College Point, NY, she received her RN from St. Catherine’s Hospital School of Nursing in Brooklyn, in 1948. She made her First Vows as a Maryknoll Sister in 1959, receiving the religious name Sister Marius, and her Final Vows in 1965 in San Pedro Necta, Guatemala, where she worked at the clinic for Monte Maria Academy, from 1961 to 1968.

Sister Lilly went on to minister in El Salvador and Guatemala during her tenure until her retirement in 2007. She currently resides at the Maryknoll Center in Ossining where she still actively serves via a ministry of prayer for mission worldwide.

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By Joanna DelBuono

Brooklyn Daily

Gerritsen Beach

Christmas bells were still ringing for Michael “Santa Claus” Sciafaffo at the Tamaqua by the Bay Club when the United States Marine Corps Reserve honored Sciafaffo for collecting lots of toys and goodies for Santa’s sleigh. Assemblywoman Pamela Harris (D–Coney Island) and Councilman Alan Maisel (D–Marine Park) were on hand to help Santa’s helper accept his certificate from the Marines at Toys for Tots.

The gifts cheered up the family victims of Superstorm Sandy.

Michael now has a Standing O to put next to that certificate.

Tamaqua by the Bay [84 Ebony Ct. at Bijou Avenue in Gerritsen Beach, (718) 646–9212].

East New York

Calendar Girl

The Police Athletic League is featuring budding, third-grade artist Deliah Montero’s depiction of Stonehenge in its 2016 calendar.

Montero attends the league’s summer program at IS 218 Beacon Center, and her art will grace the calendar’s August entry.

Stonehenge is one of the most recognizable and famous sites in the world. The league’s summer day-campers, who studied the world’s most famous landmarks and monuments while exploring the history and culture of the countries where they are located, worked together on song and dance routines and created extraordinary artwork.

“I see first-hand the great work our staff does with inner-city kids in need,” said league executive director Frederick Watts. “We offer a safe, nurturing environment where children can grow, play, learn, and be inspired to great success. The hard work and creativity of our staff was instrumental in producing our beautiful calendar.”

Deliah can add a Standing O on her wall right next to the 2016 calendar!

Police Athletic League IS 218 Beacon Center [370 Fountain Ave. and Logan Street in East New York, (718) 277–1928].

Midwood

In the pink

Brooklyn College has courses to motivate adults who really want to keep their gray matter in the pink.

“For adults who never stop experiencing life, there is a place and community that celebrates learning,” sayeth the college’s website. “We invite you to join us.”

If you want lectures, they got ’em Borough Historian Ron Schweiger recently treated students to a talk on how Brooklyn used to be. Ah, those Brooklyn memories!

If you want trips, pack your bags and get ready to roll. And if you like movies, the popcorn is ready — just store up on those Junior Mints.

The Lifelong Learning program at Brooklyn College provides the best atmosphere for adult learners who want to keep their minds alive — just like Standing O.

What you are waiting for? Classes are starting soon!

Brooklyn College Lifelong Learning [2900 Bedford Ave. at Avenue J in Midwood, (718) 951–5000].

Gravesend

Checkmate!

Two rooks and a queen to the members of the Chess team at IS 228 David A Boody Intermediate School. The team captured the first place in the New York City Chess Championship competition held at the Brooklyn Marriott Hotel. This is its sixth championship win over the past seven years. Coach Bruce Fuchs leads the team.

“Chess playing has a tremendous impact with high-order thinking and enhances strategy and planning for our students,” said principal Dominick D’Angelo.

IS 228 David A. Boody Intermediate School [228 Avenue S at W. Fourth Street in Gravesend, (718) 375–7635].

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By Dennis Lynch

Brooklyn Daily

It is a literal space opera!A young man with stellar ambition reaches for the stars in an opera launching at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Jan. 28. And you can forget about fat ladies and viking helmets, because “The Astronaut’s Tale” boldly goes where no opera has gone before, said its stage director.

“ ‘The Astronaut’s Tale’ is a multimedia piece — we have an actor, three singers, a very exciting percussive orchestra, and gorgeous projections of outer space on three surfaces that create a multidimensional visual effect,” said Nancy Rhodes.

Fort Greene’s Encompass New Opera Theatre is the first company to perform the family-friendly production by the late librettist and actor Jack Larson in its entirety. The production clocks in at just over an hour — perfect for young space junkies — but “really packs a wallop,” Rhodes said.

“There’s a fantastic rocket launch at the climax of the opera,” she said. “The way we planned it, it should be an interesting and exciting moment.”

The opera traces the life of a young man named Abel, from his days as a 13-year-old stargazer through journey as an adult sitting in a tin can, high above the world.

Larson worked closely with scientists at the California Institute of Technology to make sure the science in “The Astronaut’s Tale” was sound, but Abel’s journey also has a mystical element. Abel’s religious upbringing clashes with his scientific lessons, but the boy learns to reconcile the two on his journey to the heavens.

Larson planned to come to Brooklyn to see the production, but the 87-year-old died in December. Rhodes says that the play’s examination of life, death, and the afterlife is all the more poignant now that its creator has passed on.

“In addition to being an actor, Jack was a poet and a philosopher, he always said he put everything he knew into this opera,” she said. “He addresses biblical and philosophical ideas, but nobody’s made to feel the fool. All of the aspects of the afterlife come out his play. He really wrote a real, complete idea of our existence.”

Real-life astronaut Michael Massimino will attend a pre-show reception on Jan. 28. Tickets for the reception and opening show cost $125.

“The Astronaut’s Tale,” at the BAM’s Fishman Space [321 Ashland Pl. between Lafayette and Hanson places in Fort Greene, (718) 636–4100, www.bam.org]. Jan. 28–30 at 8 pm, and Jan. 30–31 at 3 pm. $20–$49 (half off for students).

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By Bill Roundy

Brooklyn Daily

This space survey is skipping the galaxy far, far away!

A video variety show will explore the worlds of space opera films at Nitehawk Cinema on Jan. 28, but will blast right past the most famous example of the genre. “Star Wars” is just too big to include, says the host of “Kevin Geeks Out about Space Opera.”

“I feel at this point, a month and a half after ‘Star Wars’ comes out, people are kind of oversaturated with Star Wars,” says Carroll Garden comedian Kevin Maher. Instead, the show will cover “everything surrounding it — the movies that came before it and influenced Star Wars, the ones that ripped-off Star Wars, the ones that tried to be the next Star Wars.”

The night will feature melodramatic tales of interplanetary conflict like the “Flash Gordon” serials, the “Battlestar Galactica” TV shows, and “Jupiter Ascending,” the widely-panned 2015 film featuring Channing Tatum as a canine space-warrior.

“We always try to run the gamut of the best and the worst of the genre,” said Maher.

The “Kevin Geeks Out” series addresses a different topic each month, examining cinematic tropes like attacking animals, super villains, or lady robots. No matter how silly the subject, Maher gives it a thorough analysis.

“There’s a level of simultaneously taking this way too seriously, but then not taking it very seriously at all,” said Maher. “It’s a little bit academic, but with a sense of humor — you can take stupid things seriously.”

And Maher recruits guest speakers to provide new perspectives, with each showing film clips to support their arguments. Among the guests at the Space Opera show will be comedian Jen Northington, defending “Jupiter Ascending” as “the ultimate space opera,” and Meg Sweeney Lawless, presenting a super-cut of one of the least operatic things imaginable — every bit of paperwork contained in the first season of “Star Trek.”

“It’s one of the nerdiest things we’ve ever done on the show,” said Maher.

Despite the word “geek” in the name, few of the shows “Kevin Geeks Out” themes have been as nerd-centric as space operas. Maher says that is deliberate, and that “geeking out” is about getting really excited about a topic, no matter what it is.

“I do not self-identify as a geek,” said Maher. “Geek is uses as a verb. I think you can geek out about any subject whatsoever.”

Future shows, for instance, will focus on wigs and toupees in film, representations of the Devil, and — undercutting the non-nerd argument a bit — settling who is better: Batman or Superman.

And despite the official mandate to keep “Star Wars” out of the Jan. 28 line-up, Maher knows that it is going to come up.

“Even if we’re never addressing the elephant in the room, Star Wars is the yardstick that space opera is measured by, so we will inevitably be talking about it by comparison,” he said.

“Kevin Geeks Out about Space Opera” at Nitehawk Cinema [136 Metropolitan Ave. between Wythe Avenue and Berry Street in Williamsburg, (718) 384–3980, www.nitehawkcinema.com]. Jan. 28 at 9:30 pm. $15.

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By Dennis Lynch

Brooklyn Daily

No blizzard will keep Bay Ridge from rocking out!

Even if the streets are packed with snow, the Bay Ridge bar circuit is packed with shows. So once you dig out your sidewalk, you should have no trouble finding something worth walking to.

You can start this weekend off slow or with a bang. For the former, head to the Greenhouse Cafe (7717 Third Ave. between 77th and 78th streets) at 9 pm for a few pints and some acoustic rock covers from the Neighborhood Skells. For the latter, hit up Kelly’s Tavern (9255 Fourth Ave., between 93rd and 94th streets) at 9:30 pm, where the local cover band Love Button is reuniting for one night only.

The festivities start early on Saturday at Red, White, and Brew (8910 Fifth Ave. between 89th and 90th streets) where Identity Theft will play classic tunes by Jimi Hendrix, the Temptations, Bruce Springsteen, and more starting at 4 pm. Bring a guitar and tune up your voice — the band welcomes aspiring rockers who dare to hop on stage for a tune or two.

Identity Theft will pack it in at 8 pm, but your night is just starting! You have a few choices:

Head up Fifth Avenue to The Hideout (8415 Fifth Avenue between 84th and 85th streets) if you are in the mood for eclectic indie and punk tunes from a Candy Hearts-headed lineup. The show starts at 8 pm, the event’s Facebook page promises “no cover” and “no rules.”

If tasty licks and riffs are more your cup of liquor, head over to Leif Bar (6725 Fifth Ave. between 67th and Senator streets) at 9 pm for blues standards and more from Tomcat and the Whiskey Rats.

Or you can catch Garden State cover rockers Johnny Drama at 11 pm at the Wicked Monk (9510 Third Ave. between 95th and 96th streets). And while you are there, raise a glass in honor of the Monk’s chef Russell Titland, who lost his battle with cancer on Jan. 14.

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By Colin Mixson

Brooklyn Daily

He says the city shouldn’t be judge, jury, and executioner.

A Marine Park politician doesn’t trust the city treasury to appoint parking ticket judges, because the ostensibly impartial adjudicators have a vested interest in collecting fines rather than meteing out justice. An independent agency must hire traffic court judges, because the revenue-collecting Department of Finance’s mission to keep the city’s coffers topped off creates a conflict of interest, he said.

“If I hire the judges, I should be able to expect a certain outcome,” said Councilman Alan Maisel (D–Marine Park). “If the Department of Finance hires the judges, they could expect to find people guilty.”

Maisel drafted legislation that would give appointment power to the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, an independent agency with no mandate to raise money, he said.

And there is precedent for the move.

Agencies that generate revenue through fines — such as the Taxi and Limousine Tribunal, the Environmental Control Board, and the Health Tribunal — are already under the Office of Administrative Hearings and Tribunals’ purview, Maisel said.

“OATH is independent,” he said. “In most of these circumstances, these tribunals have been transferred to OATH to begin with, so why not the Parking Violations Bureau?”

Maisel introduced the bill in 2014, but council has yet to vote on it — though 18 of the city’s 50 sitting council members support the legislation, he said.

One supportive pol hopes the law would open the entire ticketing and appeals process to greater reform. For instance, drivers wishing to appeal parking tickets have the option to pay fines ahead of going to court to avoid incurring additional penalties, and the city benefits from an interest-free loan even if it finds the driver was innocent and refunds the fine — something that rubs motorists the wrong way, the pol said.

“It really, it irks New Yorkers,” said Councilman Vincent Gentile (D–Bay Ridge). “It really is not what most people consider a fair way of dealing with New Yorkers.”

The Department of Finance sees no problem with the current situation, and judges are beholden to the law — not the finance department that hires them, a spokeswoman said.

“Administrative law judges are independent contractors and not employees of the Department of Finance,” said Sonia Alleyne. “Adjudication hearings are determined by law, and the judges are bound to uphold the law.”

The city collected more than $500 million in parking fines in 2013, according to the Independent Budget Office.

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By Colin Mixson

Brooklyn Daily

They’re shoring it up!

A developer bought Coney Island’s long-neglected Shore Theater and plans to restore the 90-year-old landmark to its former glory, a source close to the developer said.

“The people of Coney Island can start looking forward to an amazing theater,” the source said.

Jasmine Bullard, daughter of land baron Horace Bullard, sold the icon to Pye Properties for $20 million last week, The Coney Island Blog first reported.

Representatives from Pye would neither confirm nor deny the sale, but it plans to announce the sale soon, according to our source.

The blog’s founder spoke with a manager at Pye, who said programming will return the theater to its Vaudeville roots.

“He said they want to bring it back to what it once was, which was live entertainment,” said Michael Quinn.

The rebirth bodes well for the People’s Playground, which area businesses and political leaders have been pushing to become a destination in the winter as well as summer, according to one neighborhood booster.

“This is wonderful news,” said Boardwalk impresario and Coney Island U.S.A. founder Dick Zigun, who has long advocated for the ailing theater. “If Coney Island is on a trajectory to go year-round and build hotels, you have to have nighttime entertainment and that’s the place to do it, at a landmarked Broadway-equivalent theater.”

The theater was built in 1925 as the Loew’s Coney Island, according to historian Charles Denson. It housed Vaudeville acts in it’s heyday, he said. The Brandt Company took it over in 1964, and the theater started showing X-rated movies in 1972 in a last-ditch attempt to lure audiences. Harlem fried-chicken mogul Horace Bullard purchased the property in 1978 hoping to convert it into a hotel and casino, but the state decided against allowing gambling in the People’s Playground. The land baron put the building up for sale and let it sit derelict for the next several decades, drawing criticism from Coney Island advocates as the structure deteriorated and became an encampment of homeless people. Bullard died in 2013, and a 2015 announcement that the city would scoop up other derelict Coney Island properties that passed to his family reignited calls to seize the property through eminent domain.

It’s not the first historic Loew’s theater to be pulled off the historical scrap heap — the Kings Theatre in Flatbush reopened last year after the city hired a theater group to restore the iconic venue.

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By Colin Mixson

Brooklyn Daily

You can’t put a price on revenge.

The city will use eminent domain to scoop up blighted Coney Island lots so it can expand the amusement district per a 2009 rezoning plan. Officials tried for years to buy the land, but said property owners were asking way too much. But one property-owning family’s obstinacy may have been sour grapes rather than an attempt to sweeten the pot.

Horace Bullard dreamed of rebuilding Coney’s iconic Steeplechase Park and reviving the crumbling Shore Theater, but the city threw sand on his fire, and the dead landlord’s family was likely holding off the sale over a grudge, according to a longtime community leader.

“I think they’re still bitter, especially since his death,” said Chuck Reichenthal, who served as Community Board 13’s district manager for two decades. “I think there’s probably a lot of resentment to the city.”

The fried-chicken mogul was born in Harlem, but his heart was bound to Coney Island, and he dreamed of restoring the once world-class amusement destination to its former glory.

In the late ’70s, Bullard purchased the historic Shore Theater, a once-renowned Broadway-style theater that had been reduced to screening distinctly undignified triple-X flicks. Bullard hoped to convert the theater into a casino, but the city refused his request to allow gambling in the neighborhood.

His ultimate dream, however, lay in his 1985 designs to reinvent the legendary Steeplechase Park as a 75-ride, 17-acre mega park. Bullard leased the site from the city, but then-mayor Rudy Giuliani never supported the $55-million dream and eventually yanked the lease — something Bullard remained bitter over, an area historian said.

“Unfortunately, he could not let go of his anger over the loss of his Coney Island lease and his belief that Mayor Giuliani’s decision to cancel the lease was racially motivated,” Charles Denson wrote on his blog coneyislandhistory.org in 2013.

The final nail in the coffin came in 2000, when Giuliani illegally demolished the original Thunderbolt roller coaster in the dead of night — the coaster sat on the very plot the city is now seizing.

Reichenthal bets Bullard’s bitterness over the defeats rubbed of on his daughter, Jasmine, who now owns the property.

“They must have watched and felt for him as we’d feel for a member of our family who had an exciting plan that everybody kept laughing at,” said Reichenthal. “Every decade is different, and I don’t think the city or even the borough was ready to look at it seriously enough.”

Bullard’s motivation aside, it is good that the city is doing something with the fallow land, one local businessman said.

“I run tours, and they’re very popular, but for the most part, they’re a ghost tour,” said Michael Quinn, who owns Coney Island Tours. “I mostly show them empty lots — what was there and what could be there. I think its important for those lots to be developed. I hate walking around and seeing empty, unused lots, and I think most people would agree with me.”

Jasmine Bullard, who indicated after her father’s 2013 death that she might take up his development mantel, did not return a request for comment.

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Brooklyn Daily

Word’s pick: “Shriver” by Chris Belden

Shriver gets an invitation to a writer’s conference, based on his notorious one-hit-wonder novel “Goat Time.” But Shriver is not the man the organizers assume he is — he’s never written anything in his life. Can he pass himself off a literary genius, while at a conference surrounded by offbeat characters, including a detective eyeing him as the prime suspect in a missing persons case? Part thriller and all dark satirical comedy, Belden kept me laughing and questioning — who is the real Shriver?

— Kristina Kaufman, Word [126 Franklin St. at Milton Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096, www.wordbrooklyn.com].

Greenlight Bookstore’s pick: “The True Deceiver” by Tove Jansson

Writer and illustrator Tove Jansson is best known as the creator of the Moomins, but she also wrote several less-widely-read books for adults. Set in a small Finnish village in the depths of winter, her novel “The True Deceiver” tells the story of loner Katri, who worms her way into the life of Anna, an isolated children’s book author. It is a quiet, cold, pretty book about the lies we tell to protect us from other people, and from ourselves.

— Jen Keefe, Greenlight Bookstore [686 Fulton St. between S. Elliott Place and S. Portland Avenue in Fort Greene, (718) 246–0200, www.greenlightbookstore.com].

Community Bookstore’s pick: “The Anatomy of Fascism” by Robert Paxton

Why read a book on fascism in 2016? Pay attention to our current election cycle and the growing right-wing unrest in Europe and you might know why. Historian Robert Paxton’s brilliant book offers a lucid analysis of the roots, rise, and radicalization of Mussolini’s razza and Hitler’s volk. By the book’s end, Paxton reasons out a clear, workable definition of the 20th Century’s most reviled and destructive invention, noting ominously that an American-born fascism will be accompanied not by the fasces or swastika, but the stars and stripes.

— Hal Hlavinka, Community Bookstore [43 Seventh Ave. between Carroll Street and Garfield Place in Park Slope, (718) 783–3075, www.communitybookstore.net].

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By Colin Mixson

Brooklyn Daily

Brooklynites blasted the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for trying to pull a fast one on them on Jan. 20.

The agency showed Community Board 18 plans for a B82 Select Bus Service along Flatlands Avenue and Kings Highway, but the slideshow steered around any mention of the proposed route’s dreaded bus-only lanes or what ceding half the four-lane streets would do to traffic, one vocal critic said.

“Those pictures that you showed, they’re irrelevant, because they don’t show what’s going to happen once you eliminate that [public] lane,” Councilman Alan Maisel (D–Canarsie) told transit officials.

Authority reps were quick to point out bonuses that come with select service — more attractive bus stops, informational boards, wait-time displays, and improvements to intersections along the route — but the pitch was phony, because they didn’t so much as hint at the prospective dedicated bus lanes that locals fear will clog traffic along the already backed-up thoroughfares, another critic said.

“It was a one-sided presentation saying ‘This is what we’re going to do for you,’ but at no point did they say ‘This is what it’s going to cost you’ in ease of use, mobility, increased congestion, and things of that nature,” said board chairman Saul Needle.

The city’s nine select bus service routes all use dedicated bus lanes, but an authority spokesman said officials are still deciding whether they’ll create one for the B82.

The service would connect East New York and Coney Island, officials said.

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By Dennis Lynch

Brooklyn Daily

Two separate community panels gave the city an F for its plan to build a pre-school next to a Gowanus Expressway off-ramp in Bay Ridge on Jan. 20.

The School Construction Authority wants to build a 108-seat, city-run pre-kindergarten on 86th Street and Gatling Place, but a community board committee and the local education council panned the plan during two meetings on Wednesday evening. Education honchos claim the Department of Transportation can quell the raging traffic coming off the expressway, but local leaders say drivers are too unpredictable, so the site ain’t right for Bay Ridge’s young and bright.

“When drivers are trying to get home or to work, they blow through the lights,” said District 20 Community Education Council member Sheila Higginson. “There’s no way to ensure it’s not a safety hazard for the kids.”

The intersection averaged one crash per month in the last four months, according to law enforcement figures. One resulted in injury and another as the result of speeding, records show.

Safety concerns aside, the site is gross — a litter-laden embankment between the city-owned building and the off-ramp is a den of rats, and workers will have to regularly battle the rodents to keep them at bay, according to another leader who worked in the building when Community Board 10’s office was there.

“We asked many years ago when we were there that they pave that grassy area to prevent the rat burrows there,” said district manager Josephine Beckmann.

And fumes from the highway would wreck young lungs – board members could not open the windows at the former headquarters, because so much noxious exhaust wafted up from the Gowanus Expressway, another critic said.

“I’m very familiar with the site, and it’s a nasty, nasty site,” said Bob Hudock, the board’s education committee chairman.

The School Construction Authority will conduct air quality studies at in the coming months, and it could install filtration systems to keep smog out of the building, a representative told community board members.

But the school isn’t even necessary — some Ridge pre-ks had empty desks this year, and the city plans to create more than 500 new district seats by the end of 2017, education council president Laurie Windsor said.

The city filed plans to build a pre-k on the same 92nd Street block as a notorious flophouse last month.

Mayor DeBlasio is aggressively working to make good on his campaign promise to provide pre-k to more than 73,000 city kids by the time school started last September.

Enrollment topped out at just over 65,000 this year — up from 20,000 in 2013, according to a September announcement.

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