By Caitlin McNamara

The tale of Rezso Kasztner’s rescue of a concentration camp-bound train — a Schindler’s List-esque story of Jewish lives saved during the Holocaust — is one that has, oddly enough, been all but erased from history. Although he is credited with saving more lives than Schindler, Kasztner’s name, {read more...}

By Phoebe Neidl
Brooklyn Eagle

RED HOOK — When Ian Cheney inherited his grandfather’s ’86 Dodge pickup truck seven years ago, little did he know that the weather-worn vehicle would be at the center of one of his documentary film projects. But after the New England native moved to Brooklyn, the truck became much more than a truck. Against all odds, it became a miniature urban farm.

“I soon realized the truck was the only {read more...}

When visitors stroll for the first time along Brooklyn’s Red Hook waterfront at the Fairway Store, they are apt to be surprised by three 50-year-old PCC streetcars sitting in silence on tracks laid 12 years ago by a crew under the direction of Bob Diamond.

With many years of transit fandom and construction to his credit, Bob is known nationally as a champion of the electric trolley, and a pioneer investigator. He is widely known as the rediscoverer of {read more...}

BROOKLYN – As reported in this newspaper, the B63 bus yields Brooklyn’s slowest trip in the “Pokey� category determined by NYPIRG’s Straphangers Campaign, a nonprofit public transit advocacy group. The Fifth Avenue bus that travels a {read more...}

NEW YORK — The Straphangers Campaign and Transportation Alternatives Thursday gave out its “Pokey,� “Schleppie� and “Trekkie� Awards for poor and ultra-slow bus service in the city.

The Pokey award, for the slowest local {read more...}

By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BAY RIDGE — The recent announcement by a gas company that it will not drill for natural gas near the city’s watershed comes after more than a year of {read more...}

By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN — This borough, by a slim margin of 4 percent, preferred Brooklyn’s own William Thompson over Mayor Michael Bloomberg, although Bloomberg was elected to a third term on Tuesday.

City Comptroller Thompson won about 50 percent of Brooklyn’s votes, compared to 46 percent for Bloomberg, who had Democratic Borough President Marty Markowitz’s endorsement. Markowitz, as expected, trounced Republican Marc D’Ottavio in a landslide win of 224,771 to 35,062.

Brooklyn Councilman Bill de Blasio, {read more...}

By Raanan Geberer
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN — The statement by New York Water Taxi that it may have to halt its East River commuter ferry service is being met with disappointment in the communities the route serves.

However, many {read more...}

By Mary Frost
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BOERUM HILL -- It all started when parents noticed that their kids couldn’t hold their pencils properly or write legibly.

So many children had terrible handwriting at Boerum Hill’s P.S. 261 that they were referred, en masse, to the school’s occupational therapy specialist, Nadia Rohrs.

“The parents were frustrated with their children’s handwriting,� said P.S. 261 Principal Zipporiah Mills. “They saw their kids holding their pencils like this.

“We {read more...}

By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Eagle

It seems something out of a fairy tale forest, plunked down on an acre of Bay Ridge land like the charming but bewitched house in Hansel and Gretel.

Just three days after Halloween it’s been discovered that the famed “Gingerbread House,� built in 1916 at 8220 Narrows Avenue and owned by Jerry and Diane Fishman, is for sale at a $12 million asking price.

The news comes initially from the {read more...}

By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BAY RIDGE — With the 2010 Congressional elections one year from now seen as a litmus test to Democrat President Barack Obama’s mid-term leadership and Republican renewal, the 13th Congressional District contest here is set to be a prime testing ground.

Michael Allegretti, a rising reform-minded Republican with footholds in Bay Ridge and Staten Island, is seeking to end the first term of freshman Congressman Mike McMahon, a centrist Democrat from {read more...}

BROOKLYN – While Brooklyn voters pull their levers mostly to a Democratic Party beat, the different drum of the Republican Party here has its candidates on the offensive, making for last-minute campaign excitement as Election Day {read more...}

By Raanan Geberer
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN – Once a year – or twice a year, if they vote in the primaries – voters come face to face with poll workers. Some may wonder where they come from and {read more...}

By Mary Frost
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

NEW YORK HARBOR — Escorted by a flotilla of vessels and with helicopters buzzing overhead, the new Navy warship USS New York, built with World Trade Center steel embedded in its hull, sailed under the Verrazano Bridge and into New York Harbor Monday morning.

Hundreds, including families of Sept. 11 victims and first responders, gathered on the waterfront near the scene of the terrorist attack for a 21-gun salute.

The bow of the {read more...}

By Mary Frost
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees are often thought of as mild-mannered accountant types (with maybe just a tiny sadistic streak). But there’s another side to the IRS that most law-abiding folks don’t know about — IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) investigates, apprehends and helps prosecute some of the world’s most dangerous criminals.

To expose accounting majors to the rough-and-tumble world of criminal investigations, the {read more...}