Maybe it’s the rising temperatures, but we’re so angry about so many topics that it’s time for our annual summertime catch-all editorial. Consider it a summer salad of things that are driving us mad (who doesn’t love a summer salad?):
• Clinton Hill alarmists: A proposal to build six stories of seniors housing in Clinton Hill met with ire this week — with one opponent actually saying that the building would “destroy” the community because it violates the city’s height limit. That limit? Five stories.
So one lone story would “destroy” a neighborhood? Given that senior housing is in such short supply, we think Clinton Hill could handle the devastation.
• Williamsburg teetotalers: Our North Brooklyn and online editions carry a story this week about a group of Williamsburg residents who stormed a Community Board 1 hearing to protest a liquor license for a wine bar at the corner of Driggs and Metropolitan avenues. Certainly, our first instinct is to consider the residents’ concerns, but when such concerns are willfully exaggerated by an exaggerated claim of “drunken frat boys” pillaging the neighborhood, our second instinct — to side with two seemingly reasonable men with good track records who want to open a legitimate business — kicks in.
The neighbors have a point that Williamsburg has become the city’s boozy playground — but they also need to be reminded that the market will ultimately decide about the new wine bar. If customers don’t like the place, rest assured, it will go out of business. And the “drunken frat boys” will have to find somewhere else to get their $11 Shiraz.
• Marty Markowitz: Brooklyn’s borough president is a beloved figure — possibly the most-liked official in the city. Wherever he goes, he is greeted with genuine affection — and, believe us, that’s rare for a politician.
Yet with his dream job locked up for a third term, Markowitz revealed some behind-the-scenes pettiness by hiring a high-priced election lawyer to get his lone Democratic challenger — a newcomer that no one has heard of — kicked off the ballot.
Markowitz could have taken the high road, decimated the neophyte Eugene Myrick in a token debate or two, and burnished his legacy as a likable guy. But he chose politics as usual.
• Mike Bloomberg: Does the third-term-seeking mayor think Brooklynites can be fooled by a press release? This week, Bloomberg said if re-elected to the third term that he never should even have been allowed to seek, he’ll get us an express F train, new ferry service and even trolleys.
These are worthy goals. But hasn’t Bloomberg been mayor for nearly eight years? Why are these ideas in a press release and not in his record?
