Brooklyn Ny

One in a series of stories marking the Dodgers' 50th anniversary in L.A. -- About midway through his blundering reign as president of the Dodgers, Peter O'Malley assigned his publicity chief, Tommy Hawkins, to a Mission: Impossible. Hawkins, bright, personable and a former Notre Dame basketball star, was to discover why the O'Malley clan was hated so venomously in Brooklyn.

Frank Sabatino, one of the last commercial fishermen left in Brooklyn, is generally acknowledged to be a tough customer. He has survived two sinkings in chilly Atlantic waters, one of which put him in the hospital for three days, battling hypothermia. Two years ago, while he was out fishing alone about two hours from shore, he accidentally gouged one of his eyes with a fish pick, blinding himself. Instead of calling the Coast Guard, he sopped up the blood with a rag and steamed home.

THIS is a West Side story, a chance for a 24-hour romance with Manhattan. Yes, I have been here many times -- and the Port of New York's cruise terminal at 55th Street and the Hudson River isn't in the most scenic part of town. But there's always a bit of romance in the air with cruise ships in the neighborhood. I started with a walking tour of Hell's Kitchen, roughly between 40th and 59th streets, with 9th and 10th avenues as the main north-south arteries.

When the Dodgers played their final game in Brooklyn, on a Tuesday evening 50 years ago Monday, the sadness enshrouding Ebbets Field was so impenetrable that not even a five-hit shutout by Danny McDevitt could shake it. Setting the depressing tone, Vin Scully recalls, was the song selection of organist Gladys Goodding, whose music infused the maudlin mood. "Gladys was a very nice lady, known to take a drink or three," the longtime Dodgers announcer says.

All of 22 years old and fresh out of USC, Rosalind Wiener was looking for ways to attract voters in her bid for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council. She had 35,000 cards printed up enumerating the standard election promises: strengthen drug laws, improve the economy, eliminate government waste and provide adequate public transportation. But she needed one more item. Something different. Something original. Well, her family had always been huge baseball fans, so why not?

The Dodgers leaving Brooklyn? It was as inconceivable as the Notre Dame Fighting Irish leaving South Bend, Ind., the Packers leaving Green Bay or the Statue of Liberty being moved to Lake Michigan. Yes, Brooklynites understood Ebbets Field was decaying and knew owner Walter O'Malley was frustrated by his inability to get New York city commissioner Robert Moses to approve O'Malley's plan for a new stadium. They had heard the rumors about Los Angeles.

BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- A 24-story apartment building dominates the modest skyline near Prospect Park. With a security guard planted at one entrance, a metal fence encircling it and security doors to protect it, the structure looks like a fortress. Only a sign in front informs residents that they are not living on just any old plot of earth. It reads: "EBA, Ebbets Field Apartment." But even this designation must fight for recognition against more recent, more poignant memories.

THE fashionably coiffed woman of a certain age stares curiously at sawdust-covered Bart Bettencourt and Carlos Salgado as they have their picture taken on striped benches on North 6th Street. "Oh, are you in a band?" she inquires. Not quite. Bettencourt and Salgado do call themselves Scrapile, a worthy rocker name, but this duo makes recycled wood furniture, not music.

It has been nearly two weeks since Imette St. Guillen's body was found along a desolate roadside in Brooklyn, and many New Yorkers can recite from memory the shreds of evidence in the case: the hotel-grade floral quilt wrapped around her, the cat hairs adhering to it, the tube sock stuffed in her mouth. Those who have followed news coverage of her slaying speculate about what happened around 3:30 a.m. that Saturday, when St.

After three weeks of testimony about gunshot wounds and buried bodies, about capos and whispered orders, the defense in the "Mafia cops" trial rested Tuesday morning with the image of a gnome. "Franzone is a gnome," attorney Bruce Cutler said of a key government witness against his client, a retired New York City Police detective named Louis Eppolito. "A gnome," he said, "is defined as one of a race of dwarf-like creatures who lives underground and guards treasure hoards....