Jewish & World News

About a month ago, Philip Bjerknes, an advertising executive who has lived in Brooklyn for six years, made a surprising discovery: He could get an apartment in Alphabet City for less than he was paying in Williamsburg. "I lived [in Williamsburg] for the postindustrial charm or the affordability and neither of those really exist anymore," said Mr. Bjerknes, 27 years old. "I love Brooklyn. It's adorable, with great places to eat, but they also have that in Manhattan." Indeed, Mr. Bjerknes in 2006 joined the torrent of young professionals who have fled to Brooklyn in search of affordability and helped transform neighborhoods like Park Slope, Cobble Hill and much of Williamsburg into pleasant, restaurant-filled enclaves. Now, prices in those neighborhoods often have risen so much that some in Brooklyn are making the reverse move to Manhattan. With the mean rent for a studio in Williamsburg topping $2,700, apartment hunters are likely to find cheaper p...

Greenwood Heights residents say the raccoon population in their neighborhood is growing so quickly that the city must alter its vermin policy and begin trapping and removing the trash-pillaging critters. The number of raccoons has surged near Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery due to a warm spring, according to neighbors who say the masked bandits topple garbage cans, dent property, and break into homes in search of snacks.

A local photographer who published pictures of some young, Polish, neo-Nazis living in Brooklyn abruptly pulled the photos from his website Wednesday. "I want to keep a low profile," Adam Krause told PIX 11, when we contacted him, shortly after the pictures were featured in a story in London's "Daily Mail". The series of photos show young white guys, some of them sitting in front of flags with swastikas. Some have their faces covered with bandanas, while one of them poses at the Greenpoint piers, wearing a warm-up jacket with Polska printed on it, across the river from the Empire State Building in Manhattan.

It is at once a deeply-rooted Polish neighbourhood with industrial roots where immigrants still speak in their native tongue on the streets. At the same time, Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighbourhood is a fast-gentrifying area of New York full of young families and working professionals who wish to live close to Manhattan. But the northernmost neighbourhood in Brooklyn is also home to a group of Polish neo-Nazis, who walk the streets, just like anybody else, and are fiercely proud of their beliefs.

The bucolic farms of middle America are getting some stiff competition from the rooftops of New York City. A growing number of commercial farms housed several stories high throughout the city are producing crops year-round — in many cases without even using dirt.

Building upwards seemed to be the most efficient way to jam more people in Manhattan for years. But now, even the sky seems to have reached its limit, and the only place left to build is Brooklyn . While Manhattan is planning 5,000 new residential units, Brooklyn has plans for more than 14,000 new units, Nancy Packes, a consultant to some of the city's largest developers, told the The Wall Street Journal.

Terror fears have struck a Brooklyn bus depot after reports that several suspicious people videotaped its highly-flammable natural gas tanks. "If those were hit, the whole neighborhood would blow up," said Tommy McNally, a Transport Workers Union representative who responded to the reports.

David Pabana was standing on a sidewalk one day this fall when a baseball some children had been playing with rolled into the fence behind him. He threw the ball back to the children. It was at once the most routine act of neighborliness and one of the strangest journeys a baseball can make in New York City. When the ball left Mr. Pabana’s hand, it was in Queens. When it landed, the ball was in Brooklyn.

The New Domino: A benefit to Williamsburg By Susan Pollock We are particularly pleased that the City Planning Commission has unanimously approved our “New Domino” plans, which will now advance for final consideration by the New York City Council. Planning Commission Chairwoman Amanda Burden highlighted The New Domino’s benefits, saying, “This project will bring high-quality design and architecture, much-needed affordable housing, significant community facilities, and open space on the waterfront to a Williamsburg community in need of all these things.” The Commission’s action reflects support for the planning framework that offered a community-oriented project that balances density, open space, preservation, and most important, affordable housing. A living urban community requires creative planning and design — which is why we have double the parks, lawns, playgrounds and quality public open space required; a design that emphasizes light and air; a restored landmark centerpiece; ac...

New York - Some sixth-, seventh- and eigth-grade students in Brooklyn are ready to set sail the Hudson River aboard boats they made themselves. Twenty students from the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies, in partnership with Hudson River Community Sailing, are launching the S.S. Lowrider and the Jumbo Jet, their handmade seven-feet-six-inches-long wooden sailboats.

The constant rumble of helicopter noise over Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO may be over, after the city instituted a no-fly zone over the entire borough. The move to bar sightseeing helicopters comes after months of complaints from Heights residents about chopper noise stemming from a much-used Lower Manhattan helipad.

New York City police say a motorist was killed after jumping the curb and striking a stanchion of an elevated subway station in Brooklyn. Police say two of the three passengers in the Toyota Camry were listed in serious but stable condition at a local hospital.

The borough’s real-estate bust is now a booming Web site. Councilman Brad Lander (D-Park Slope) unveiled a searchable online database called stalleddevelopment.com to show off all the vacant, stalled or abandoned development sites in his district, which sprawls from Borough Park to Cobble Hill. Lander said that he and other staffers traversed the district and photographed many of the half-done, quarter-done and completely un-done sites — a relic of the boom gone bust. “These developments cause real hazards for their neighbors — fences falling down on sidewalks, loose construction debris that can become deadly in high winds,” he said in a statement. “We need to get a better handle on these sites, and to take action to convert local blight into community benefit.” Each site on the map is labeled “existing building conversion with stop work orders,” “vacant buildings in derelict condition,” “demo/vacant development site” or “stalled site.” The last category is the biggest subse...

Brooklyn, NY - Half of Brownsville's buildings are infested with mice or rats, and more than half of South Crown Heights households have roaches, according to a new city Health Department Web site. "They should call this place 'Mouseville,' " said Brownsville resident Dashawn Hampton, 23. "Mice and rats are everywhere. You see them around the buildings, and you can hear them crawling in your walls at night." Fifty percent of Brownsville residents reported seeing a mouse or rat in their building in the past 90 days, according to a 2008 Health Department survey. That's more than twice the city average of about 20% and almost twice the borough average of 26%. Nearby South Crown Heights has a lower rate of rodent sightings - 42% - but has the worst roach infestation in Brooklyn. Almost 56% of residents there see roaches in their households on a daily basis, according to Health Department data from 2008. That's well above the borough avera...