Brooklyn Paper Radio

Brooklyn Paper Radio host Rose Adams speaks to Julian Bannister and Yannick Jules-Bannister, a married couple who run the business, New Beginnings, which specializes in hoarder houses. Since the company’s founding in 2016, the Downtown Brooklyn-based duo has scrubbed dozens of houses across the city, and encountered have rat nests under piles of trash, cockroach-infested teddy bears, and even dead pets along the way. Today, they talk about some of their most memorable clients: a former model who slipped into depression after a debilitating back injury, and a bereaved mother unable to throw out her son’s belonging after his tragic death. How do Julian and Yannick change their clients’ habits? Compassion.

For the last few years, small communities of RVs have sprouted up across the borough. The semi-mobile homes — equipped with water tanks and generators — have become refuges for Brooklynites unable to pay rent, residents say, and the communities are growing. Today, Brooklyn Paper Radio speaks to two RV owners who live under the Gowanus Expressway in Sunset Park to learn why they moved there, what their community is like, and why more Brooklynites are moving in. Check out this and our other Podcasts at https://podcasts.schnepsmedia.com/ or download where podcasts are found!

(Photo by Trey Pentecost)

Brooklyn Paper Radio returned to the airwaves this week to discuss some of the biggest stories in Brooklyn!

Co-hosts Zach Gewelb and Johnny Kunen were joined by reporter Kevin Duggan, who discussed Borough President Eric Adams’ recent recommendation regarding the city’s plan to close Rikers Island and implement borough jails.

Adams issued a purely advisory recommendation last week for a facility that would replace the Atlantic Avenue holding facility, asking that the Mayor’s Office for Criminal Justice and the Department of Corrections reduce the proposed building’s height from 395 feet to 235 feet, and from 1,437 beds to 900 beds. The jail currently houses 815 beds and is 170 feet tall at 11 stories.

Duggan also discussed the alarming rise of cyclist deaths throughout the borough.

Cycling advocates accused Mayor Bill de Blasio of failing his own Vision Zero street safety initiative — a citywide mandate to prevent any traffic-related fatalities — in the wake of back-to-back fatalities that recently claimed the lives of two Brooklyn bikers. There have now been 15 New York City cyclists killed by motorists in 2019, compared to 10 last year.

Reporter Rose Adams made her Brooklyn Paper Radio debut, speaking about a food pantry in Bensonhurst that is short on funds and is asking the community for help.

Located on New Utrecht Avenue between 77th and 78th streets, Reaching-Out Community Services is a staple of southern Brooklyn, offering a range of social services and food to 9,800 families from across the borough. But while donations have plateaued in recent years, demand for Reaching-Out’s services has grown, forcing the organization to turn away needy families.

Rounding out the show was arts editor Bill Roundy, who provided listeners with three things to do in the week ahead — one event that’s child-friendly, another that’s intellectually intriguing, and one where Brooklynites can get their booze on.

Tune in to the show for the list of events and for the latest happenings around the borough.

Brooklyn Paper Radio can be found on BrooklynPaper.com, SchnepsBroadcasting.com, iTunes, and Stitcher.

Brooklyn Paper Radio this week hit the waves to talk the latest news regarding the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, as well as the playoff-bound Brooklyn Nets.

Co-hosts Zach Gewelb and Johnny Kunen were joined by reporter Kevin Duggan, as the trio spoke with Peter Bray, the executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, about the fall out following last week’s town hall as it relates to the BQE.

Bray said that “a threshold has been achieved,” given that the city will no longer be trying to force a highway onto the Brooklyn Promenade. In fact, it was the day of the most recent town hall that the city revealed a new “expert panel” to consider some other solutions.

“Clearly the city is saying that it made a mistake before with its original two plans, that it didn’t widely consider other options, and now its time to talk a fresh look and the fact that the panel was announced on the day of the town hall meeting… It didn’t surprise us,” Bray said.

Kunen then pitched his own idea on how to solve the BQE’s issues: make the triple cantilever an above ground two story tunnel.

Bray didn’t dismiss the idea, saying that “all creative ideas need to be put into the hopper.”

Moving on, Gewelb and Kunen talked about the exciting playoff-clinching weekend for the Nets and how they might match up against either the 76ers or the Toronto Raptors.

Nets coverage will continue on next week’s show as we discuss the team’s first-round match-up.

We encourage listeners to email [email protected] with comments on the Nets’ playoff chances and the BQE. We’re happy to read some of the comments on next week’s show.

Brooklyn Paper Radio can be found on BrooklynPaper.com, iTunes, and Stitcher.

Let’s hear it for the girls!

Brooklyn Paper Radio this week took a page from its sister podcast Power Women, dedicating its latest episode to those females whose contributions to Kings County truly made it the city’s better borough.

Co-hosts Anthony Rotunno and Johnny Kunen recognized the culmination of another Women’s History Month by inviting Brooklyn Historical Society curator Erin Wuebker on the show to fill them in on an upcoming exhibition she is putting together for the cultural center, which will showcase the life and legacy of a little-known local doctor who blazed the trail for future female physicians when she started practicing in the County of Kings in the 19th century.

Susan Smith McKinney Steward — who lived in a neighborhood locals then called Weeksville, and now call Crown Heights — upended convention by becoming New York State’s first black female doctor, and the country’s third, according to Wubker, who said history has often failed to give the pioneering physician the recognition she deserves.

“Even though she was well known in her lifetime, most people haven’t heard of her,” Wubker told our hosts. “There aren’t any major biographies about her. She is really an important pioneer when we’re talking about both women’s history, and black history, for Brooklyn and also the nation as a whole.”

The 1847-born Steward treated borough women and children, a focus Wuebker said was largely due to societal conventions of her time. Her career will be featured as part of the curator’s forthcoming “Taking Care of Brooklyn” exhibition, which will explore the history of care and public health in the borough when it opens at the Historical Society in May.

But the show didn’t exclusively spotlight ladies — the hosts also welcomed a gent poised to make his own mark on Kings County as the incoming editor-in-chief of Brooklyn Paper, and Schneps Media’s other local newspapers.

Zach Gewelb, who previously ran our sister TimesLedger newspapers published in Queens, this week took the reins atop our company’s Brooklyn editorial operation, succeeding Rotunno, who gave a heartfelt thanks to those colleagues, readers, and listeners who inspired him during his almost two years with the borough’s number-one news source.

“Brooklyn is my home and it will always be my number one love,” said Rotunno, who is leaving the organization to be a senior editor at New York Magazine.

Gewelb enthusiastically promised to hit the ground running, assuring Brooklynites they can expect the same style of deeply reported, hyper-local news to fill the Paper’s pages, and website, under his reign.

“In community news, the people are what is most important, and whether it’s sports or in the arts, our job is to highlight those people,” he said. “I can’t say enough how excited I am for this opportunity. I am absolutely thrilled to be here.”

To learn more about the Paper’s future, and the borough’s medical past, you’ll have to tune in to the show — which will, of course, go on under Gewelb, but may take a week or two to return to the airwaves as he settles in.

Brooklyn Paper Radio, recorded at our studio Downtown, debuts new episodes every Tuesday, and can be found, as always, on BrooklynPaper.com, iTunes, and Stitcher.