Day: July 22, 2025

A STATE JUDGE IS SPARING PUNITIVE MEASURES ON THREE BROOKLYN YESHIVAS that were found to have violated New York’s educational standards.

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MMDG celebrated its 45th anniversary season with a multi-work performance at the Chelsea-based Joyce Theater in Manhattan. 

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Modern Bay Ridge pays constant homage to its history.

Annual parades and celebrations honor its Italian, Irish, and Norwegian heritage and its more recently-established Middle Eastern community. In some areas, like Fort Hamilton or the Visitation Monastery, the nabe’s past is a clear part of its present. 

But Bay Ridge is also full of overlooked, less-famous historic sites dating back centuries. Take a deep dive into some of the nabe’s most storied locations, and find out the history behind some of its less-showy spots. 

Denyse Wharf

In the 18th century, when Bay Ridge was still part of New Utrecht, a man named Denyse Denyse lived in a homestead near what’s now the Belt Parkway. From a small wharf — Denyse Wharf — he ran ferries between Bay Ridge and Staten Island.

In August 1776, British troops used Denyse Wharf to enter Brooklyn ahead of the infamous Battle of Brooklyn. According to Friends of Historic New Utrecht, the Americans weren’t expecting an attack from Bay Ridge, and left the area undefended — and many locals were loyalists, one of whom signaled the British to begin their invasion. Some tried to fight them off, but their efforts were no match for British cannons, which destroyed Denyse’s home. 

Today, despite its historic significance, the wharf has largely crumbled in the shadow of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, and is blocked off from public entry. Its remains can be seen from the Bay Ridge Promenade just south of the Verrazzano.

Former Crescent Athletic Club/Fort Hamilton High School

Fort Hamilton High School sits on the grounds of a once-famous sports club, the Crescent Athletic Club.

The club was founded in 1884, and purchased part of the Van Brunt Estate along Shore Road, between 82nd and 86th streets, in 1889. There, the Crescent Athletic Club turned the old home into a country club and built fields and courts for tennis, baseball, football, rugby, and more.

The facility was popular and very busy, hosting concerts, lectures, dinners and dances alongside sports games, and its teams, the New Mooners, were talented. In 1902, it held the first Davis Cup tennis match, and in 1911, then–president William Howard Taft traveled to Brooklyn to watch a lacrosse match on the grounds.

In 1931, the Crescent Athletic Club — which had become the largest social club in Brooklyn — moved to Long Island and closed its Bay Ridge facility. The city purchased the property in 1936, and Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia laid the cornerstone for the new Fort Hamilton High School in 1940. Today, the school’s athletic fields sit on what used to be the Crescent Athletic Club fields. 

Barkaloo Cemetery

At the corner of Narrows Avenue and MacKay Place is what may be the smallest cemetery in Brooklyn. 

The Barkaloo cemetery is believed to have been the private family cemetery of the Barkaloo family (whose last name is spelled in many variations across headstones and history.) It’s the final resting place of two revolutionary war soldiers, Simon Cortelyou and Harms Barkulo, and Maria Barkeloo. Historians believe more people may be buried in the graveyard, but that their headstones and records have been lost to time. 

Locals have taken responsibility for maintaining the cemetery, which had, over the years, fallen into disrepair, with no clear steward to care for it. 

Subway stations

Though the R line today is often a source of frustration, its arrival in the neighborhood heralded a new age for Bay Ridge. 

The Bay Ridge Avenue, 77th Street, and 86th Street stations opened in 1916, as part of the expansion of the BMT Fourth Avenue line. That expansion started a “building boom” in Bay Ridge, newspapers reported at the time, as hundreds of buildings went up around the newest subway stations. 

Ridgeites marked the opening of its first three stations with pageantry and celebrations, according to Hey Ridge, and the line was extended all the way to Bay Ridge-95th Street in 1925.

More than 100 years later, the stations have been renovated and modernized, and not much of their historical significance is left. But, the next time you’re waiting for a delayed train, remember that the Bay Ridgeites of old were thrilled by the newest subway stations. 

Doctor’s Row

The final hidden Bay Ridge historical gem is not one location, but an entire street — Bay Ridge Parkway between Fourth and Fifth avenues, also known as Doctor’s Row.

Doctor’s Row is Bay Ridge’s only historic district, and includes 54 mostly-intact row houses built between 1906-1913. Most of the homes were purchased and inhabited by doctors, who used the basements for their practices. 

The homes, which have been meticulously preserved, were mostly build by one man and just two architects, and the entire street looks almost identical to how it did in the 20th century — giving a glimpse into what it would have been like to explore the neighborhood in the 1900s. Many medical professionals still live on the block, according to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, continuing a long local tradition.

Federal agents continued to arrest immigrants attending mandatory court hearings in Lower Manhattan on Tuesday, as alleged leaked footage from ICE detention appears to show immigrants being kept at the facility in squalid conditions.

The leaked video — taken from the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, according to the New York Immigration Coalition — appeared to show cramped conditions with people sleeping on the ground in dirty, unwashed clothes. Some individuals covered their faces with shirts, seemingly to block the beaming lights.

The video further showed the people located near a shared toilet with no privacy.

Revelations from the video added to the unease felt among those advocating for migrants as they waded through murky legal proceedings on the 12th and 14th floors of 26 Federal Plaza. 

US Rep. Adriano Espaillat expressed outrage over what the video showed, saying the conditions were “a blatant violation of human rights and due process.” 

“I was deeply alarmed by recently uncovered video footage showing immigrants detained by ICE forced to sleep on filthy floors, share a single bathroom among nearly 30 people, and endure inhumane treatment,” Espaillat said. “The environment in which these individuals are being forced to remain is indicative of the Trump administration’s sentiment towards immigrants as disposable and serves as further justification to continue to demand oversight and accountability at these facilities. This video demonstrates a moral and legal failure that demands immediate action.”

Still, the outrage did very little to stall ICE activity mere floors from where people are being held against their will.

Federal agents lined both the 12th and 14th floors, some of them clutching paperwork with the faces of those intended to add to the growing numbers already in their custody. Parents hugged their children closely as they passed by the armed federal agents — many of whom, yet again, concealed their faces with masks. 

A number of people, some being escorted by advocates, were pounced upon by agents after their court hearings and rushed away into a nearby stairwell.

Several of those taken appeared visibly shaken, their eyes welling up. Others were simply confused, as they struggled to communicate due to a language barrier. Some of those escorted away initially were ultimately released, with one stating in Spanish that he was let go because they were looking for someone else.

According to some workers inside the building, more eligible immigrants are looking to attend their court hearings virtually, hoping to avoid the agents. A slew of notices posted around the building even stated that some judges would be seeing virtual cases through September.

Queens City Council Member Julie Won observed court hearings at Federal Plaza on Tuesday. She said she was shocked by the arrests and the images coming out of the 10th floor.

“New York City is a sanctuary city. We don’t have the space to hold this amount of detainees that they’re illegally holding because they did not get due process legally. This is lawlessness, so I’m not surprised that they have to hold them on the 10th floor sleeping like sardines,” Won said. “We don’t have the infrastructure to follow these orders from Donald Trump to arrest and detain all these people. It’s unfathomable.”

This comes one day after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Czar Tom Homan visited New York where they not only pledged to flood the Big Apple with more ICE but also defended the taking of immigrants inside the courts.

“They may not have a criminal conviction, but they need to be detained. They need to be arrested and taken off the streets of this country,” Homan said. “Being in the country illegally is not illegal anymore? You need to commit a murder to be deported?”