BROOKLYN

Building Collapses in Bedford-Stuyvesant

By The New York Times
Kevin Hagen for The New York Times

Several pedestrians were injured when a vacant four-story building at 1438 Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant crumbled on Tuesday afternoon. Tayleen Rosario said she and four co-workers at Fulton Dental Plaza next door scrambled to evacuate their patients. “It felt like an earthquake; it was chaos,” Ms. Rosario, 26, said.

Should a Cat-Kicker Go to Jail? Readers Respond

By Tatiana Schlossberg

On Monday, The New York Times wrote about a man charged with animal cruelty who is about to go on trial. The charges came soon after a video surfaced of him kicking a stray cat.

The video went viral. The article had a similar effect: By Tuesday evening, it had attracted more than 1,600 comments on The Times’s website, and 790 comments on Facebook . Readers were discussing the central theme of the article: Does a man who kicked a stray cat deserve to go to jail?

Andre Robinson, the 22 year-old defendant, has pleaded not guilty, though he has admitted to the police that he kicked the cat. Animal rights activists have attended all of his court appearances in Brooklyn, surrounding him and calling for a jail sentence.

Andre Robinson Michael Appleton for The New York Times

Many of the online commenters felt the same way: About 58 percent thought Mr. Robinson should receive jail time, based on a sample of the top 45 reader-recommended comments. Many of them said that a jail sentence would teach him a lesson, and serve as a warning to other would-be animal abusers.

Several people also wrote that people who are found guilty of domestic violence or assault begin by hurting animals, and putting someone like Mr. Robinson in jail could be a way to prevent more violent crimes.

However, several commenters focused on the racial dimensions of this particular case — that imprisonment disproportionately affects black men and that the problem of mass incarceration is not helped by putting those convicted of misdemeanors in jail.

Amaiya Williams, of Brooklyn, wrote a comment that received 817 recommendations and 19 responses. “The punishment for animal cruelty fits the crime,” she wrote. “Unlike humans, animals cannot speak for themselves. It’s our right as humans to speak for them. Animals are what make us human.”

In a phone interview, Ms. Williams said that when she was growing up, she saw young men in her neighborhood abusing animals, and “flashbacks” of those incidents caused her to weigh in on the debate.

Ms. Williams, who identified herself in the comment as a “black American woman,” wrote that she was upset with Mr. Robinson for reasons beyond his cruel action.

“149 years of freedom for blacks in this country and we can’t even extend compassion to a stray cat? … It was not too long ago blacks in this country were treated just as that cat.”

Anthony Cheeseboro, a professor at Southern Illinois University, commented that a “problematic” racial dimension was evident in the photo that accompanied the article, which showed Mr. Robinson in the foreground, with animal rights activists — three white women — standing behind him. “Middle-class whites are spearheading a change in attitudes about animal cruelty, yet the people being prosecuted for the crime often do not come from that background and set of values.”

In a phone interview, he said, “When black people look at this picture, they will see the white people and think, ‘They probably care less about a young black man being killed by police than they do about this cat.’

“The whole issue of animal abuse really puts into focus how these different communities view law enforcement and punishment.”

Justin Yoo recounted how, when he was 5, he accidentally killed a bird, and has felt guilty about it ever since. (He is now an adult.) In his comment, he compared himself to Mr. Robinson, and said that he believed Mr. Robinson was capable of reforming, that he had made a mistake.

Many commenters responded to Mr. Yoo’s post, saying that there was a difference between a child who accidentally hurt a bird, and a young man who willfully kicked a cat for entertainment.

“I was surprised that people were able to rationalize my experience and not give a break to the other guy,” he said in a telephone interview.

“The video is horrific, but nonetheless, sending someone to jail for that is ridiculous when we imprison the most people of any country in the world,” he said.

“The cat’s not dead or anything,” he added. “It was adopted, it’s taken care of in a home. If we say that this 22-year-old can’t change, we might as well give up on everyone.”

Marie McDermott contributed reporting.

Many Addresses Before Making Bed-Stuy Home

By Karen Workman
“The great thing about Bed-Stuy is you have these beautiful Victorian brownstone homes,” said Odehyah Gough-Israel, who bought her two-family home in 2010. Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times

With the move this summer of New York’s first family from Park Slope to the Upper East Side , City Room is taking a look at the migration of New Yorkers from one neighborhood to another. Odehyah Gough-Israel shared her story; tell us yours here .

Some people live in the same place for a lifetime. Odehyah Gough-Israel is not among them, but she has now found a place to call home: Bedford-Stuyvesant, in Brooklyn.

“I always try to advertise it as your home away from home, a home like the one you grew up in,” Ms. Gough-Israel said of her neighborhood.

She grew up in Washington, D.C., but has called many places home since then. The 62-year-old first moved to New York City in the 1970s, sharing an apartment on the Upper West Side with a friend. Later in the decade, she moved to Los Angeles for her job at a book publishing company. She even moved to Israel in the early 1980s and spent 12 years there.

When she returned to the U.S. in 1994, a friend living in Prospect Heights offered her a room.

“I knew nothing about Brooklyn,” Ms. Gough-Israel said. “I’d never ventured into Brooklyn when I lived in Manhattan, but I found I really liked it.”

She liked the neighborhood, despite the roughness that characterized it during those years.

“There were nights when there would be shooting on the streets,” she said. “There’s certainly a lot of changes in the way it looks now.”

Ms. Gough-Israel lived there for seven years before moving back to Washington to help care for her parents. In 2005, she returned to New York City again, and this time chose a two-bedroom apartment in Bed-Stuy.

She picked the neighborhood for it’s affordability, and has watched it change with time.

“When I moved there, my car was broke into once every six months,” Ms. Gough-Israel said of her first apartment in Bed-Stuy. “I’ve literally seen it evolve.”

In 2010, she bought a two-family home for $450,000. It’s just five blocks from her first apartment in the neighborhood. She rents the third floor and enjoys the peace of not living in a large building.

“The great thing about Bed-Stuy is you have these beautiful Victorian brownstone homes,” said Ms. Gough-Israel. “You’re very much moving into a nice neighborhood with family-owned properties.”

A recent profile of Bed-Stuy described it as “a community of primarily two-family rowhouses” where rent prices have increased 30 to 40 percent in the last five years. Townhouses sell, on average, for about $1.4 million to $1.5 million, according to Morgan Munsey, a resident and broker.

The commute to midtown, where Ms. Gough-Israel works at a law office, is an “easy 45 minutes” from the A or J train, she said.

“The gentrification, there’s so many people who previously lived in Manhattan and, needing more space, are moving into Brooklyn,” said Ms. Gough-Israel. “It’s changing the neighborhoods.”

She added: “I’m seeing a lot of juice bars and small restaurants and boutiques open, and a lot of real estate agencies.”

Read about Martin Kleinman’s move to Riverdale after 25 years in Park Slope .

‘Life After Brooklyn’ Resonates With Readers

By Karen Workman

Mayor Bill de Blasio and his family aren’t the only ones leaving Brooklyn.

While the de Blasio family left Park Slope to live in Gracie Mansion , hundreds of readers who responded to the recent article “ Life After Brooklyn ” had different reasons for moving out of the borough.

“In my Brooklyn tenure I lived in Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Prospect Heights, and then Crown Heights. I got priced out of each neighborhood one by one,” commented PG .

Martin Kleinman, 63, shared a similar story with City Room recently. Mr. Kleinman and his wife, Ronni Stolzenberg, moved to Riverdale, in the Bronx, after spending 25 years in Park Slope.

Kleinman’s story was featured on City Room as part of its look at how people choose where to live in New York City. Have you changed neighborhoods? Tell us about it here .

From the Bronx, to Queens, Then Park Slope and Riverdale

By Karen Workman
Martin Kleinman and his wife, Ronni Stolzenberg, moved from Park Slope, Brooklyn, to Riverdale in the Bronx four years ago. Ángel Franco/The New York Times

With the move this summer of New York’s first family from Park Slope to the Upper East Side , City Room is taking a look at the migration of New Yorkers from one neighborhood to another. Martin Kleinman shared his story, tell us yours here .

Martin Kleinman grew up in the Bronx. In 1984, he and wife, Ronni Stolzenberg, were living in Jackson Heights, Queens. They wanted to start a family, but were concerned about crime in their neighborhood.

The couple decided to move to Park Slope in Brooklyn — a decision not lauded by his grandmother.

“She literally looked at us like we were going to a death camp,” said Mr. Kleinman, 63. “She said, ‘Why are you going to Brooklyn? You’re going to go off and get killed.’”

That didn’t happen, and his family flourished along with the neighborhood. But Mr. Kleinman and Mrs. Stolzenberg moved out of the neighborhood — and its borough — four years ago.

“We’re solidly middle class by New York standards, but the people moving in had massive sums of money,” Mr. Kleinman said of Park Slope. “Twenty-five years younger than us and they have untold wealth.”

The couple left the three-bedroom, three-bath co-op where they raised a son together for another three-bedroom, three-bath co-op — this one, in the Bronx.

“The people are a lot sweeter,” Mr. Kleinman said of his neighbors in Riverdale. “In Park Slope, especially with the young’uns, there’s an edge. They’re really hard; very focused and strivers.”

In addition to the people and the price, Mr. Kleinman, a communications strategist and writer who works from home, said he likes the green space of his new neighborhood and the ease with which he can get to Manhattan — either by car, bus or the Metro North.

“What we miss is having a shopping street, like Fifth Avenue,” in Park Slope, he said.

He does not miss the electrical misfortunes that often befall old buildings, like the one he lived in while there.

“Here, we can do the hairdryer and the microwave at the same time,” he said.

Mr. Kleinman said in an email that he still loves Park Slope and the friends he has there.

“But what I love is the Park Slope I remember, the Park Slope of my 30s and 40s, not the Park Slope of today,” he said. “When I visit, it’s bittersweet.”

New York Summer Stories: Air-Conditioning’s Start in Brooklyn

By Karen Workman
Richard Perry/The New York Times

During this holiday week, City Room is digging up articles from The New York Times archives that tell tales of city summers past.

Today we look at the history of air-conditioning, which, according to an article by the reporter James Barron, started in Brooklyn.

Before Anyone Complained About the Air-Conditioning, an Idea
July 16, 2012

Barron wrote: “July 17, 1902: It was another scorcher in New York.

“The week before, seven deaths tied to the heat had been reported. The city’s public baths were jammed with people desperately trying to cool down.”

Wednesday’s story: The Ladies and Their Fans
Tuesday: Getting Out of Town
Monday: Mosquitoes by Myriads

Basking, Not Baking

By The New York Times
Jeremy White, 11, left, and a friend cooled off on Friday in the Sol Goldman Pool at the Red Hook Recreation Center in Brooklyn.  The pool opened for the season on Friday. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Have You Seen Filming in New York City?

By The New York Times
A film shoot for the TV series "Girls" on Berry and North 5th Streets in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on May 9. Michael Nagle for The New York Times

The film industry is increasingly turning to Brooklyn for production locations, expanding its reach into boroughs outside Manhattan. While more films have been shot in Manhattan than any other borough, half of the 29 television series produced in New York City last season were based in Brooklyn. “The Good Wife,” “The Carrie Diaries,” “Blue Bloods” and “Hostages,” to name a few, have embraced Brooklyn, as have recent feature films like “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ and “Cymbeline.”  

The Times’s Vivian Yee writes about Brooklyn’s appeal to filmmakers and the headaches that residents sometimes bear with on-location film shoots. 

If you have observed something unusual while a film or TV series was shot in New York City, tell us about your experience in the comments. We already know about limited parking and closed sidewalks — have you seen something more notable?

Don’t Worry, the Calendar Will Catch Up

By The New York Times
Keana Durrant and James Thomas enjoyed the sun on the Brooklyn Heights promenade on Tuesday. Spring starts on Thursday. Todd Heisler/The New York Times