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By Courier Staff
Brooklyn Daily
Brooklyn’s New Year bragging rights sure were worth a hoot and a holler. Gotham’s first baby of 2014 was born in Park Slope as the clock struck midnight, and Brooklyn Bowl announced it was striking out with new sites in Sin City and London.
Our month in review recaps these and other top stories from last month.
Oh baby! Shannon-Lee Willis of Crown Heights stole the spotlight from the Times Square ball drop on Jan. 1, when she arrived at the stroke of midnight to high fives and fist pumps at New York Methodist Hospital, where officials said the adorable infant girl’s buzz-worthy arrival made her the city’s first newborn of 2014. We drank to that!
Power position: Las Vegas and London are poised to roll with cool Kings County, thanks to new Brooklyn Bowl branches in both cities. The Sin City site will open inside the Linq, a new entertainment mall near the famous Las Vegas Strip, and be more than twice the size of its Wythe Avenue mothership. The English edition of the popular venue opened its doors in East London last month, steps from the Barclays Center-sized O2 Arena, with live feeds of shows at its big-time neighbor across the pond.
New park: An abandoned eyesore in Sheepshead Bay is set to become a sight for sore eyes. The city pledged to splurge $3.65 million to transform a shabby, overgrown lot at Brigham Street and Emmons Avenue into a kids’ playground to accommodate the neighborhood’s family boom. Former Canarsie Councilman Lew Fidler allocated funds for the project from his discretionary budget before being term-limited out.
Method-ical tweaks: New York Methodist Hospital’s ambitious plan for a U-shaped outpatient center needs some nips and tucks before it can proceed with its operations, stated Community Board 6, dispensing a prescription of demands it says will make the new facility blend in with the landscape while sticking to height-zoning laws.
‘River’ reopens: A new $76,000 Steinway piano and succulent oysters wrapped in smoked salmon with caviar are among the sumptuous new offerings at the renovated River Cafe, which reopened after more than a year after damage by Hurricane Sandy. The superstorm destroyed the famous waterfront restaurant’s old 88 and kitchen, but didn’t dish it the ultimate fate of other ravaged eateries, such as then-newly-opened Governor, which closed for good after the flood.
‘Zumba’ boom: Mill Basin fitness fiend Joe “Zumba Daddy” Gillette danced into local history books, after breaking his own record for the city’s largest indoor zumba class at Aviator Sports and Events Center, attended by 434 zumbaoists — up 15 from last year’s 419. Gillette said he expected recordsetters.com to declare his milestone of attracting the largest number of zumba dancers in any city building. Stay tuned.
Fiscal CPR: An emergency cash transfusion was just the tonic for ailing Interfaith Medical Center, which returned to business after Albany funneled around $2 million in state funds to keep the Bedford-Stuyvesant hospital from flatlining.
Swan song: Swans are not symbols of purity, beauty, and transformation, but rather a blot fit to be shot, claimed Albany swan haters, who came up with a plan to kill off the mute variety of the birds by 2025. The state’s “Mute Swan Management Plan” calls for an all-out war against New York’s largest fowl for allegedly behaving aggressively towards people, destroying aquatic vegetation, frightening away other birds, and posing a danger to flying planes. Animal activists retaliated with a petition on Change.org that has drawn thousands of signatures so far.
Nyet! You can take a person out of the former Soviet Union, but you can’t take the Soviet Union out of some people. Members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot went to prison for singing anti-state lyrics in a Moscow cathedral, but a Russian-American priest warned them to stay away from his Bensonhurst church when they attend next month’s Amnesty International concert in Prospect Heights. Archpriest Serge Lukianov of the Orthodox New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia Church called the punk protestors “satanic,” and said their message against the church and its role in government was nothing to rave about.
Gung hay fat choy: The polar vortex plunged the borough into a deep freeze for most of January, but the icebox didn’t dampen the spirits of warm-hearted, party-hearty Brooklynites, who will close the month with rollicking Chinese New Year celebrations around town. Festivities lead up to the big shebang in Sunset Park, where firecrackers and a parade along Eighth Avenue will officially ring in the Year of the Horse on Feb. 2.