Brooklyn’s biggest stories of the week: A nor’easter flooded streets from Coney Island to Red Hook and Greenpoint and brought down trees across the borough; about 212,000 New York City high schoolers could soon graduate without passing a Regents exam; the PS 8 and PS 307 rezoning is back in the news ten years on; Brooklyn Public Library unveiled the design for a rebuilt Pacific Library; the city and the Met are giving away 70,000 free opera tickets; the state is putting $4 million into restoring Prospect Park Lake; a man was shot and killed in McLaughlin Park while three Downtown Brooklyn schools sheltered in place; Carnegie Diner opened inside DeKalb Market Hall; and the Atlantic Antic and two more street fairs moved to October 4. Read on for the latest!
Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency for New York City on Friday, and the nor’easter arrived that evening with gusts above 55 mph. Saturday’s high tides flooded Mermaid and Neptune avenues in Coney Island, where the MTA had put up storm doors to keep water out of the subway, and water also pooled on streets in Red Hook and Greenpoint. NYC Parks logged 121 fallen-tree calls in Brooklyn by Saturday evening. Four people were hurt when a tree fell at Kelly Park Playground in Homecrest, and NYCHA worker Leighton Brown, 56, was killed by a falling tree at the Cypress Hills Houses in East New York. Every city beach closed for the weekend, and the city is asking residents to report storm damage through 311.
Thursday and Friday evenings ended in vivid pink-and-violet skies over Brooklyn, seen here behind the Lower Manhattan skyline from the Brooklyn waterfront.
If the state goes ahead with scrapping the Regents graduation requirement in June 2027, current ninth, tenth and eleventh graders would qualify for a diploma by passing their 44 required credits and nothing else, a city Education Department official told a City Council hearing on Tuesday. Roughly 212,000 students were in grades nine to eleven last year. Katie Hansen, the department’s executive director of academic policy and systems, said there would be no stand-in exam: “We’re not expected next year to stand up a one-for-one replacement for the Regents exams.” Students can still sit the tests for an advanced diploma designation. New state assessments are years away, and the council’s education chair, Eric Dinowitz, warned the gap could “turn into a checklist.” Reported by Chalkbeat New York.
A New York Times Magazine essay published September 20 by the journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, about the years her daughter spent at PS 307 Daniel Hale Williams in Vinegar Hill, drew a follow-up in the New York Post on September 25 reporting that she and her husband had opposed parts of the 2016 rezoning while it was being decided. Hannah-Jones told the Post they had never opposed integration and were pressing for parent input and a guaranteed share of low-income seats; former PTA chair Ebony Richardson and other parents dispute the essay’s account of the school.
Brooklyn Public Library released the design for the renovation of Pacific Library, the borough’s first Carnegie branch, which opened in 1904 and has been largely inaccessible for most of its 120 years. Safdie Architects and AYON Studio are adding a main entrance everyone can use, an elevator and accessible bathrooms, plus a sunken garden and glass pavilion, new children’s and young-adult areas, restored skylights and the original cone-shaped roof. Public space grows by 34%. The branch is expected to close in summer 2027 and reopen in fall 2029. It is paid for by the Gowanus Neighborhood Plan, Borough President Antonio Reynoso, Council Member Shahana Hanif, former Council Member Brad Lander, the Mayor’s Office and proceeds from the Brooklyn Heights Library redevelopment.
Mayor Mamdani and the Metropolitan Opera launched Opera for All on September 24: 70,000 free tickets across the 2026-27 season, released as 10,000 a month by lottery, about a tenth of all seats for the season. Any New Yorker who has not bought a Met ticket since 2019 can enter, at on.nyc.gov/opera or through the Met’s app, and seats come from every section of the house except standing room. Brooklyn Public Library is one of the partners helping spread the word, so expect to see it at your branch.
Governor Kathy Hochul announced $4 million on Thursday for the final phase of the Prospect Park Lake restoration, a $25 million project in all. The work adds accessible paths and bridges, cuts back pavement along Wellhouse Drive, rebuilds the bridle trail with new drainage, swaps asphalt for rain gardens, and brings new park furniture and dark-sky lighting. The 60-acre lake is Brooklyn’s only lake. No construction schedule has been published yet.
A 24-year-old man was shot in the torso and killed in the basketball area of McLaughlin Park at 24 Cathedral Place in Downtown Brooklyn, near Tillary and Jay streets, early on Tuesday afternoon, September 22. Police sent a shelter-in-place advisory to three nearby schools — Westinghouse High School, the Adams Street Educational Campus and Science Skills Center High School — and students stayed inside through the afternoon. The victim was later identified as Jayde Browne. Two suspects were reported still at large and no motive has been given.
Plans are in for a large residential development on the Fulton Street block opposite the former Macy’s at 422 Fulton, which is itself becoming the BKX retail and entertainment centre. Department of Buildings records show three separate new-building applications filed on August 13, each for a 27-storey building with 99 apartments — 297 homes in total — designed by Kao Hwa Lee Architects for an entity called Four Eighty Five LLC. All three are still in plan examination rather than approved. Press accounts describe a fourth building and a higher unit count, but no fourth application appears in city records yet, so treat the larger figures as provisional.
Carnegie Diner & Cafe opened on Wednesday, September 23 at 445 Gold Street, inside DeKalb Market Hall at City Point in Downtown Brooklyn. It is the first Brooklyn location and the eighth in the country for owner and executive chef Stathis Antonakopoulos, in the old Sixpoint Brewery space. There is all-day breakfast, a dozen kinds of pancake, an insane selection of burgers, a full plant-based menu and head-turning milkshakes, plus a pre-theatre prix fixe. Open Monday to Friday 8am-10pm and weekends from 7:30am.
The third round of the Yard Opportunity Shop is running in Building 92 at 63 Flushing Avenue, Wednesday to Saturday, 11am-7pm, free to walk into, through November 27. It is a retail incubator for small and minority- and women-owned businesses, and this rotation is all food: Doosra’s Indian-inspired chai snacks, Gracie Baked’s stuffed cookie bars and Baby Cakes, Live Loud Foods’ candied nuts from Chef Keeshay, and bean-to-bar Mexican-inspired chocolate from Oso Cacao. More new places to eat are in our September openings round-up.
A weekend of heavy wind and rain pushed three of the borough’s biggest street events a week down the calendar, and they all landed on the same Sunday. The Atlantic Antic now runs October 4, 12-6pm, rain or shine, with Brooklyn Bridge Parents’ Playtopia at Atlantic Avenue and Boerum Place from 12 to 4pm. The Third Avenue Festival in Bay Ridge moves to the same day, 10am-6pm, and Montague Street’s Open Streets and Neighborhood Tag Sale go to October 4 as well, with the tag sale from noon to 4pm. Our outdoor festivals guide has the rest of the autumn.
Aqua Cosmos: The Hudson Canyon, an immersive projection of marine life from the undersea canyon off New York Harbor, was thrown onto the Brooklyn Bridge on the weekend evenings.
The Liberty finished the regular season 26-18 and go into the playoffs as the eighth seed, and they are carrying some silverware with them: they beat Las Vegas 93-85 at Barclays Center on June 30 to take the Commissioner’s Cup, becoming the first franchise to win it twice, with Breanna Stewart named the first two-time Cup MVP. The first round is a best-of-three against Minnesota, starting Sunday, September 27 at 2pm in Minneapolis, with Game 2 at home at Barclays on Tuesday, September 29 at 8:30pm and a third game on Thursday, October 1 if they need it. The Nets, meanwhile, hold Media Day on Monday, September 28 and open training camp the next day. Their one home preseason game is against Philadelphia at Barclays on Thursday, October 8 at 7:30pm.
Brooklyn FC’s men lost 4-0 away to Birmingham Legion on Wednesday. There is better news off the field: defender Thomas Vancaeyezeele has been called into the French Guiana squad for the CONCACAF Nations League, his first call-up since 2024 and his fifteenth cap if he plays. Two home games are coming at Maimonides Park — Detroit City on Wednesday, September 30 at 7pm, then Rhode Island on Saturday, October 3, billed as Fan Appreciation Night and the last regular-season home match of the year. The women are home on Friday, October 2 at 7pm against Fort Lauderdale United, with a shark theme and a limited-edition shirt in the team store.
The Cyclones’ season is done. They return to Maimonides Park on April 6, 2027 against Jersey Shore, after opening on the road at Frederick on April 2.
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