The Park Sloper
Issue #15 · September 3, 2026
Park Slope this week: Methodist's 1,600 nurses ratify, Hanif holds Arrow Linen's new owner to 40 percent, and the Super Stoop returns September 26
A good week for the people who look after this neighborhood. Sixteen hundred nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist ratified a three-year contract with enforceable safe staffing standards, 4 percent raises each year, paid time off for nurses assaulted at work, and a clause protecting their clinical judgment from hospital AI. Their old contract expired April 30.
A more complicated week at the old Arrow Linen site, where the new owner wants 396 apartments where 250 were approved and the affordable count stays at 100. Council Member Shahana Hanif says the commitment made to this community does not change with the deed. No permits have been issued yet, so this one has a way to run.
School is back, which is the honest reason this week's pick is a pediatric dentist.
Victor, founding editor
01 · This week
Methodist's 1,600 nurses ratified a three-year contract
The wins the New York State Nurses Association is naming: enforceable safe staffing standards, 4 percent raises each year, an emergency response team and better weapons detection, paid time off for nurses attacked at work, and new grievance language stopping the hospital from rejecting arbitrators. There is also a protection for nurses' clinical judgment against workplace AI. NYSNA president Nancy Hagans said members listed their demands and stood strong for the tools they need to keep themselves and their patients safe.
Brooklyn Paper · NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist · old contract expired Apr 30
Hanif says Arrow Linen's 40 percent commitment survives the sale
We ran the numbers last week. Here is the answer to what happens next. Goose Property Management, which replaced Apex, wants four 10-story buildings at 99 units each, 396 in all, where Apex was approved for two buildings and 250 units. The affordable count stays at 100, so a 40 percent set-aside becomes 25. Hanif's office says a change in ownership does not change the commitments made to this community and that it is engaging the new owners on the full 40 percent. Demolition permits are approved but unissued; building permits are filed but unissued.
Brooklyn Paper · 467 Prospect Ave
Police are looking for a man after an assault on 15th Street
Police say a woman was pushed to the ground and sexually assaulted early Saturday, after 3am, near 222 15th Street just east of 5th Avenue, across from Crunch. The NYPD describes the suspect as a man with a light complexion in a tan baseball cap, black shirt, gray shorts and black-and-white sneakers. No arrest has been reported. Anyone with information can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.
Park Slope Walk · 15th St near 5th Ave
A $1.4 million valve cut the park's drinking-water habit by 80 percent
Prospect Park Lake was being topped up with about a million gallons of potable water a day. A new valve replacing an aging 8-inch service line brings that to roughly 200,000, and gives staff real control over inflow during heavy rain. DEP expects up to 12 million fewer gallons of sewer overflow a year, and fewer of the algal blooms that make the lake look and smell like that in August. It is the first piece of a $50 million Bluebelt program of rain gardens and ponds.
Brownstoner · DEP, NYC Parks and Prospect Park Alliance · completed August
The Super Stoop is back on September 26, and you register by the 20th
The Park Slope Civic Council's neighborhood-wide stoop sale returns for a second year, 11am to 4pm on Saturday September 26, rain date the 27th. Register your stoop online by September 20 and say what you will have out; registered stoops go on the digital and paper maps people actually shop from. Last year drew more than 250 households.
Brooklyn Paper · Park Slope Civic Council · register by Sep 20
02 · Worth a visit
Park Slope Pulse · 131 Garfield Place
The flags at 131 Garfield Place are still changing
Millie Lamanno lived at 131 Garfield Place for more than 60 years, in a house her family owned for 80, and died at 105. Neighbors called her the Mayor of Garfield Place. She was at the YMCA headquarters on September 11, 2001, and spent it taking in strangers who needed somewhere to be. The tradition she started, flying flags out front, is being kept up by the house's new resident, Ashley MacSuga-Gage, who rotates them for whatever she is thinking. The first one was Lionel Richie saying Hello, which landed better with some generations than others. Read the story, and look up next time you are on the block.
03 · One vetted pick
Best for a first visit and a nervous child · NYS license #055486, registered through June 2028 · from our pediatric dentists guide
The pick for a first visit, or a genuinely frightened kid. A children's-only practice on 4th Avenue between Butler and Douglass, built around Dr. Tanesha Francis, so the room, the staff and the pace are all designed for someone who has never sat in a dental chair. Francis also holds a second New York license in Dental Enteral Conscious Sedation, which is the one that matters if your child is scared rather than just squirmy. It is the name that comes up most on Park Slope Parents. Skip it if you need everyone seen in one trip, or if the schedule is too tight to work around: closed Mondays and Sundays, afternoons only Tuesday and Wednesday, alternating Saturdays.
School is back, and the dental checkup nobody scheduled in July is now everybody's problem. This week's pick is from our pediatric dentists guide, published last month: every dentist on it holds a New York dental license we confirmed as currently registered with the State Education Department, with no enforcement action on record. Nobody paid to be there.
See the pick →04 · The calendar
Labor Day weekend, and the park is doing the heavy lifting.
Sat Sep 5 · 7:30am to 8:30am ET · south of the Picnic House, Prospect Park · Free
Coffee, pastries and several dozen dogs
FIDO of Brooklyn's Coffee Bark, just south of the Picnic House. Coffee, baked goods, dog biscuits, and people who will tell you more than you asked about off-leash hours. Early, but the dogs do not care.
Sat Sep 5 · 7pm to 9pm ET · LeFrak Center at Lakeside, Prospect Park · Free, RSVP
Molière in the Park does Don Juan, free
Lucie Tiberghien directs Stephen Wadsworth's translation, with live original cello from Johnathan Moore. Free, but RSVP through Eventbrite. It runs again Sunday and Monday if the weekend fills up.
Sun Sep 6 · 11am to 6pm ET · Breeze Hill, Prospect Park · Free to enter
Islands in the Park, a Caribbean jam at Breeze Hill
Smorgasburg turns its Breeze Hill Sunday over to Caribbean food and music for the holiday weekend: guest chefs, island vendors, DJs, steel pan, and all-ages arts and crafts. A full day of it.
Mon Sep 7 · 10am to 5pm ET · Audubon Center, Lefferts Historic House and Children's Corner · Free, carousel $3
Labor Day school holiday in the park
Three free nature programs across the Audubon Center, Lefferts Historic House and the Children's Corner: Leaf Litter and Nature Detective run 10am to 3pm, Fall Leaf Discovery 2pm to 3pm. The carousel runs noon to 5pm at $3 a ride, or $13 for five.
Mon Sep 7 · 6pm to 6:30pm ET · Old Stone House, 336 Third St · Register
Handwriting the Constitution at the Old Stone House
Half an hour of copying out the Constitution, or another document written to protect human rights, by hand. Margaret Weber, the Old Stone House's education director, runs it as concentrated writing rather than a civics lecture. Ticketed through Eventbrite.