Man pinned by car in critical condition

A 55-year-old man is in critical condition after being pinned to a wall by a car in Brooklyn Heights, fire officials said.

The car rammed the pedestrian near Old Fulton Street and the entrance of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, according to the FDNY.

The victim was rushed to Lutheran Hospital in critical condition, officials said.

Shop owners and workers nearby said they did not witness the accident, which occurred near the ramp to the expressway, where the tall brick wall that the victim was pinned against obscured their view.

A traffic agent said the pedestrian was hit by a car that sped around the turn but police said they did not believe there was any criminality.

kconley@nypost.com

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Miami Dolphins bill would bring state money to aging stadiums

A bill drafted by the Miami Dolphins would give Florida sports teams $3 million a year in state money to improve older stadiums, provided the owner pays for at least half the cost of a major renovation.

Under the law, the stadium would need to be 20 years old and the team willing to put in at least $125 million for a $250 million renovation. That’s less than the $400 million redo of Sun Life Stadium that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross proposed this week, which he hopes will win state approval thanks to his offer to fund at least $200 million of the effort to modernize the 1987 facility.

Miami-Dade and Florida would fund the rest through a mix of county hotel taxes and state general funds set aside for stadiums. Sun Life currently receives $2 million a year through the program, and the Dolphins want to create a new category that would give them an additional $3 million.

While the Miami Marlins and Miami Heat both play in stadiums subsidized by county hotel taxes, the Dolphins receive no local dollars. The bill would change that by allowing Miami-Dade to increase the tax charged at mainland hotels to 7 percent from 6 percent, and eliminate the current rule that limits the money to publicly owned stadiums. Sun Life Stadium, in Miami Gardens, is privately owned but sits on county land.

The bill pits enthusiasm for one of Florida’s most popular sports teams against a lean budget climate and lingering backlash against the 2009 deal that had Miami and Miami-Dade borrow about $485 million to build a new ballpark for the Marlins. Ross also must navigate a Republican-led Legislature that has twice rebuffed his requests for public dollars.

“I would be surprised if that bill even got a hearing in committee,” said Mike Fasano, a Republican representative from the Tampa area and a critic of tax-funded sports deals. “I’m a big Dolphin fan, and have been for years. But with all due respect, we’ve got people who are struggling throughout this state right now . .. The last thing we should be doing is giving a professional sports team or facility additional tax dollars.”

While the bill would open up the $3 million subsidy to other the teams, the Dolphins see it as unlikely that another owner would be willing to put up as much money for renovations as Ross, a billionaire real estate developer.

If the bill were enacted today, any stadium opened before 1993 would be eligible for the money, provided it could show the proposed renovation would generate an additional $3 million in sales taxes.

Ross and his backers are pitching the renovation as a boon to tourism, with Sun Life a magnet for the Super Bowl, national college football games and other major events. The National Football League is considering South Florida and San Francisco for the 2016 Super Bowl, and the Dolphins say approval of renovation funding is crucial to winning the bid.

Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, who sponsored the Senate bill, said the funding makes sense because when Sun Life hosts a Super Bowl, the entire state benefits from both tourism dollars and publicity.

“It’s a small price to pay for economic development, and for all the shine we get from major sporting events,” said Braynon, whose district includes Sun Life. Rep. Eduardo “Eddy” Gonzalez, R-Hialeah, is the sponsor on the House side.

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Gov. Scott scolded by legislative black caucus

TALLAHASSEE --
Gov. Rick Scott heard a litany of complaints Tuesday from the Legislative Black Caucus, on matters ranging from judicial appointments to civil rights for ex-felons. Throughout an hour-long discussion, the Republican governor held his ground in the face of grievances from Democratic lawmakers.

Criticized for making only a handful of black appointments to the judiciary, Scott said he’s limited to the choices given him by nominating panels and won’t appoint judges who believe in “judicial activism.” He said 6.5 percent of his judges are African-American (Florida’s black population is more than twice that). But Scott broke the tension by pointing out that he has appointed the wives of Reps. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, and Joe Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach, to state boards.

Faulted for signing a flawed election law that cut back the days of early voting, Scott said: “We’ve got to make changes, I agree. I didn’t have anything to do with passing it.” Scott’s administration, however, did spend more than $500,000 in legal fees last year successfully defending the law against numerous legal challenges.

Black lawmakers make up about one-fifth of the Legislature’s membership. They remain angry at Scott for one of his first decisions as governor: He and the three Republican Cabinet members imposed a five-year waiting period after ex-felons leave prison before they can apply for restoration of their civil rights.

“Once you’re out as a felon, you should spend time making sure you’re doing the right thing before you get your rights back,” Scott told the group, seated around a large square table.

The meeting ended with a plea that Scott appoint a task force to look at disparities in sentencing that affect young black men. Scott did not directly respond to the request.

“It’s deja vu all over again from last year,” said Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, as the session ended. “He’s still stuck on judicial activism. He wants everyone to think like him. He wants to run the state like a corporation, like it’s Florida, Inc. He’s not flexible on a lot of things.”

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Vogue's Andre Leon Talley Interviews Jennifer Lopez on Sidelines of the Golden Globes

Vogue contributor Andre Leon Talley was front and center at Sunday's Golden Globe Awards and was able to snag an interview with one of the night's fashion winners, Jennifer Lopez!

In addition to complimenting the singer/actress/entrepreneur on the amazingly sheer Zuhair Murad gown she wore on the red carpet, Andre also got an update on Lopez's two children. "They're good, they're great," she said of her twins Max and Emme. "They're going to be five, and it seems like they were just born. But they are going to be five next month."

VIDEO: Andre Crowns His Best-Dressed Star at the Globes

When asked whether she also takes the famous twins on shopping trips, J.Lo confessed, "they do know Target." She also said she spends a lot of playtime with the kids outside at various parks, even while taking them on tour all over the world.

VIDEO: Stars Hit Up ET's Golden Globe Platform

Addressing her two-outfit wardrobe change during the Golden Globes, the award-winning entertainer said it's always fun to switch things up. "You know, I go through phases -- a girl has to change it up every once in a while." She then revealed: "I had to change, it was tight -- that dress -- and I needed something open."

VIDEO: Stars React to Jodie Foster's Golden Globes Speech

Watch the video to also hear Jennifer reveal to Andre her favorite Vogue cover and for a preview of her upcoming crime thriller Parker, co-starring Jason Statham.

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State passes 1st US gun control bill since massacre

ALBANY — New York's Assembly on Tuesday easily passed the toughest gun control law in the nation and the first since the Newtown, Conn., school shooting, calling for a tougher assault weapons ban and provisions to try to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill who make threats.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed hard for the bill, which passed the Senate on Monday night. He is expected to quickly sign the measure into law.

"This is a scourge on society," Cuomo said Monday night, six days after making gun control a centerpiece of his State of the State address. The bipartisan effort was fueled by the Newtown tragedy that took the lives of 20 first graders and six educators. "At what point do you say, 'No more innocent loss of life'?"

The measure, which passed the Assembly 104-43, also calls for restrictions on ammunition and the sale of guns.

"This is not about taking anyone's rights away," said Sen. Jeffrey Klein, a Bronx Democrat, when the bill passed the Senate late Monday night. "It's about a safe society ... today we are setting the mark for the rest of the county to do what's right."

Under current state law, assault weapons are defined by having two "military rifle" features such as folding stock, muzzle flash suppressor or bayonet mount. The proposal reduces that to one feature and includes the popular pistol grip.

Private sales of assault weapons to someone other than an immediate family will be subject to a background check through a dealer. New Yorkers also would be barred from buying assault weapons over the Internet, and failing to safely store a weapon could lead to a misdemeanor charge.

Ammunition magazines will be restricted to seven bullets, from the current 10, and current owners of higher-capacity magazines will have a year to sell them out of state. An owner caught at home with eight or more bullets in a magazine will face a misdemeanor charge.

Another provision places requirements on therapists, psychologists, registered nurses and licensed social workers who believe a mental health patient made a credible threat to use a gun illegally. They would be required to report such a threat to a mental health director, who would have to notify the state. Any registered handguns — or registered assault weapons purchased before the ban — could be taken from the patient.

The legislation also increases sentences for gun crimes including the shooting of a first responder that Cuomo called the "Webster provision." Last month in the western New York town of Webster, two firefighters were killed after responding to a fire set by the shooter, who eventually killed himself.

The measure passed the Senate 43-18 on the strength of support from Democrats, many of whom previously sponsored bills that were once blocked by Republicans.

The governor confirmed the proposal, previously worked out in closed session, also mandate a police registry of assault weapons, grandfathering in the estimated 1 million assault weapons already in private hands.

It was agreed upon exactly a month since the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.

"It is well-balanced, it protects the Second Amendment," said Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos of Long Island.

Cuomo said he wanted quick action to avoid a run on assault weapons and ammunition.

Assemblyman Steve Katz said legislators were being "bullied." He said the bill is "solely for the governor's egotistical, misguided notion."

Republicans argued the bill wouldn't stop mass shootings or other gun crimes but instead turns law-abiding into potential criminals.

Republican Assemblyman James Tedisco said the bill was dangerous because it would give people a "false sense of well-being."

"You are using innocent children killed by a mad man for own political agenda," he said. "You are actually making people less safe."

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Coral Gables culinary students learn the art of sushi making

Christian Rivas is still years away from becoming a professional sushi chef, but his hand-crafted California roll looks good enough to serve professionally.

“The hard part was getting the roll to be in good shape,” Christian, a 16-year-old junior at Coral Gables Senior High, said of his first attempt.

The Gables student was one of about 30 who stood in rapt attention inside the school’s kitchen classroom. He is a member of the school’s culinary arts program.

On Tuesday morning, chefs and executives from Sushi Maki, including CEO Abe Ng, volunteered to teach these students about the restaurant business. The main part of the presentation was Kingston-bred director of sushi education Steve Ho Sang’s instruction on how to make sushi rolls and hand rolls.

Sushi Maki goes through three tons of fresh salmon every week, Ng said. The succulent Norwegian fish in front of the class, expertly filleted via Ho Sang’s knives, looked like half a week’s supply.

The executives were there as part of the Education Fund’s Teach-a-Thon program which brings business professionals into Miami-Dade County Public School classrooms. These pros volunteer to teach a class at the elementary, middle or high school level to help raise money for school activities such as Coral Gables’ culinary program and to promote the value of public school teachers.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is that teaching is really brain surgery,” said Linda Lecht, president of The Education Fund. “We want to call attention to the fact that teaching is a hard job and we, as a community, have to rally around our teachers if we are going to improve education. We want to get out the message of how important teaching is to our whole economy.”

Mercy Vera, Coral Gables’ culinary teacher, sought a partnership with The Education Fund — a North Miami-based non-profit that helps fund programs at Miami-Dade public schools from Homestead to Miami Gardens — to help prepare her students for careers in the profession.

The Education Fund’s latest fundraising campaign currently has $23,202 to split among 26 participating schools.

But having pros come into the classroom is also invaluable, Vera said, because it is impractical, if not near impossible, to cram 30 or more teenagers into a professional restaurant kitchen. And, of course, they would not be allowed to use the knives and other utensils. Here, in the school’s carefully stocked kitchen classroom, the guests give the kids a taste of reality.

“This brings a totally different dynamic to the classroom. This is an experience they normally wouldn’t have and this is the only way to show the children industry,” Vera said.

“I love the energy of public schools,” said Ng, 39. “I’m excited to do a restaurant 101, and to ignite a spark in them would be a big thing to me.”

The experience met with much enthusiasm from senior Jorge Castro, 19, who says he hopes to follow in the footsteps of Food Network star chef Bobby Flay, one of his inspirations in the culinary world.

“This is one of those jobs where you meet a lot of people and you make people smile when you make them good food and that counts — to see them smile,” Castro said.

Ng, a Palmetto High and Cornell grad, is part of a family that opened the Canton chain of Chinese food restaurants locally in 1975. His mom and dad still work at the South Miami and Coral Gables locations and the family also operates the spin-off Sushi Maki chain, which opened in 2000.

Ng enjoyed stepping out of the boardroom and into the classroom for his two-hour teaching experience.

“These students seem to have a good foundation,” he said as the students hustled to clean the kitchen. “The future generation of culinary, I’m optimistic about it.”

Follow @HowardCohen on Twitter.

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“Large number” sign UM medical school petition

A “large number” of faculty at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine have signed a petition complaining about the school’s leadership, the head of the faculty senate said in an email Monday.

Richard Williamson, a law professor who is chair of the senate, sent the email to faculty assuring them anonymity if they signed and saying that the deadline for submitting copies of the petition is Friday, “in order to make a final report in a timely manner.”

Williamson’s email was the first official confirmation about the size of the protest. The medical school did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A copy of the petition obtained by The Herald stated that faculty decried the “failed leadership” of Dean Pascal Goldschmidt and Chief Operating Officer Jack Lord. “We want to make clear that the faculty has lost confidence in the ability of these men to lead the school.”

Earlier this month, Goldschmidt announced that Lord was “stepping down” as COO but gave no indication what he would be doing next. Last week, spokeswoman Lisa Worley said, “We are working on a transition with Dr. Lord, and it will be resolved in the near future.”

Several anonymous sources have said that the number of signatures has climbed to 700. Total faculty at the medical school is about 1,200. On Monday, a faculty senate spokeswoman said her office “nothing more to add” to the Williamson email. Williamson did not respond to a request for comment.

Williamson’s memo said faculty signing the petition “must include identifying information” but “we have gone to very considerable lengths to protect the anonymity of the petitioners. People who claim to have seen or received the ‘official list’ of those who signed are either misinformed or are being disingenuous, as no such list exists. Once the final report is complete, all petitions will be destroyed.”

Williamson told The Herald last month that only a small number of people had seen the signed petitions and none of them would talk about it.

“Please note that the fact that we serve as a conduit for a petition does not make the petition a Senate document,” Williamson wrote Monday. “Having said that, the Senate is very interested in the well-being of the Miller School of Medicine and its faculty. Indeed, our ad hoc Medical Committee has spent considerable time looking into problems at the School, has already provided one report that the Senate endorsed, and will present a follow-on report to the Senate’s General Welfare Committee shortly.”

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Study Shows Gender Bias in Wikipedia, Linux

Today in the age of the “brogrammer,” whose frat boy tendencies are glorified and sought after by cutting-edge online startups, women in tech often find themselves objectified and excluded — especially in communities like Wikipedia and open-source software, where women make up even less of the population (around 13 percent and 1 percent, respectively) than in more mainstream technical fields.

That was one of the facts Joseph Reagle, an assistant professor at Northeastern University, drew on for his study about “Free culture and the gender gap.” He discovered that just because a community (like Wikipedia) says that it’s open doesn’t mean that it isn’t hostile to women.

Free for all?

The “Free Encyclopedia” Wikipedia’s claim to fame is that anyone can edit and contribute to it. To keep errors from cropping up, it has policies that let anyone flag part of an article for review, and allow trusted editors to decide how to present something.

The process by which those editors decide, however, is often highly combative and alienating to women, who “are socialized to not be competitive and avoid conflict” according to Reagle. Sue Gardner, the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation (the project behind Wikipedia), wrote a list of “Nine Reasons Women Don’t Edit Wikipedia,” in which she noted Wikipedia’s “fighty” and “contentious” culture, where loud and assertive people drive others out regardless of their competence.

“Otherwise commendable features”

Reagle found that Wikipedia’s values of radical freedom and openness actually led to a culture that is more closed off to women. He noted that “implicit” power structures existed, even in the absence of formal ones; and that imposing few restrictions on how people treat each other can lead to “a chaotic culture of undisciplined vandals,” which disenfranchises women from participation just as surely as if there were rules against women participating.

Similar dynamics exist in popular open-source software projects like the Linux kernel. Open-source luminaries like Eric Raymond are legendarily combative and hostile to “idiots,” even while they they tolerate abusive personalities who drive female contributors away. Reagle’s study quoted numerous female writers with experience working in Linux and open-source software, who called its community “cliquish and exclusionary” as well as “more competitive and fierce than most areas of programming.”

How to achieve equality

Wikipedia’s new Teahouse page is “a friendly place to help new editors,” which is designed especially to encourage women to participate. Meanwhile, women like Denise Paolucci are creating their own startups like Dreamwidth, which are based on existing open-source programming code. Unlike most “proprietary” code, it’s still free for women to do what they want with it — if they can overcome the obstacles in their way.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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Josh Duhamel Safe Haven Interview NCM Fathom Event

Josh Duhamel has a lot to live up to now that he's bringing a Nicholas Sparks leading man to life. But how will Duhamel's in Safe Haven compare to Ryan Gosling's work in The Notebook, Channing Tatum's performance in Dear John or Liam Hemsworth's star-making role in The Last Song?

That was just one of the questions I asked when Duhamel rang up ETonine in support of A Night With Nicholas Sparks' Safe Haven: Filmmakers, Author and Stars Bring the Book to Life, the NCM Fathom event taking place in cinemas nationwide on January 17.

ETonline: This is a very cool partnership you're doing with NCM Fathom. What appealed to you about this opportunity?

Josh Duhamel: I thought it was an interesting new way to get people interested and involved with the movie. The way Hollywood involves fans now is much different than it was when I first started, 12 years ago. Especially with a genre like this.

ETonline: Twitter has become a major way stars connect with their fans. Are you a fan of the platform?

Duhamel: It's interesting. There's something to be said about keeping your anonymity in some ways; maintaining some mystery. Some people say that familiarity breeds contempt, while sometimes it's the other way around. Nobody wants to know what I'm doing 24 hours a day, they'd be painfully bored, trust me [laughs]. At the same time, if I'm doing something interesting or funny, I like being able to share that with my fans. I'm not a completely closed book; I'm a social person and if I see something worth sharing, I'm happy to do that.

VIDEO - Exclusive Behind the Scenes of Safe Haven

ETonline: One of the things you'll talk about during the NCM Fathom event is the film's production. Did you have a good time making this movie?

Duhamel: It was one of the best experiences I've ever had. I'll be honest; you have to be a pretty miserable person to not enjoy making movies. It's something I always dreamed about. I do not take it for granted. We were in Southport, North Carolina -- this beachtown in the middle of summer. Julianne is so much fun to work with. She's so real, and Lasse [Hallstrom, director] is about the most collaborative director you could have. You can do no wrong with him, and when you're in a situation like that, you can't help but make a movie you're proud of. All the elements were there to make the kind of movie we set out to. I'm so grateful I got the opportunity to work with him, Lasse is one of the greats.

VIDEO - Julianne Hough's Shocking Admission

ETonline: When you first read the script, what appealed to you about this role?

Duhamel: To be honest, and I talked to Nicholas at length about this, if I was going to do this character, I wanted the freedom to make him three dimensional. I ran the risk of playing a boring suburban dad. The interesting parts in the script were Julianne's character, and David Lyons' character. Mine was a guy who could have easily been boring. But Lasse was open to all these ideas, and it was so much about finding moments in improv, that we ended up with something amazing. I mean, this is a single guy in the prime of his life trying to raise two kids and run a store, there's a lot of complexity there, and sometimes those are the hardest characters to play. They're not obvious, you have to do a lot of searching to find what these characters are made of.

ETonline: Now that you've created a character you're proud of, do you think he stands up against previous Sparks' men, like Noah in The Notebook or John in Dear John?

Duhamel: You can only hope. There have been so many successful stories and movies that Nicholas has told over the years, it's scary to compare yourself to those. We wanted sentiment without being sentimental here, and I talked at length with Nicholas about this. He said to me that if you look at a character like Noah, he's a guy who spends a whole movie pining for a girl. It was what Ryan brought to it that made the movie so interesting -- and that's what we focused on here. Forgetting what the expectations of a movie like this are and just focusing on getting to the core of what these two people are going through. By doing that, I think we found a lot of real moments between these two broken people who weren't searching for love, but happened to find it.

ETonline: Nicholas Sparks' movies are notorious for making people cry -- what was the last thing that made you cry?

Duhamel: Just yesterday, I was shown this love story that's told in 22 pictures. You can go online and look at it -- it's 22 photos about the genesis of this couple's relationship. It tells the whole story of their love in 22 photos and that had me crying. I'm a bit of a sap in that way. It doesn't take much to make me cry if I'm being honest.

NCM Fathom's A Night With Nicholas Sparks' Safe Haven in theater Q&A is on January 17, click here to buy tickets!

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Brookfield Office Properties starts long-awaited Manhattan West deck

Steve Cuozzo

After six years of promises, Brookfield Office Properties has finally started to build a deck over the exposed Amtrak rail yard for its planned Manhattan West development project.

The platform is a long-awaited breakthrough in Mayor Bloomberg’s dream to create a vast new Hudson Yards District in the once-forlorn far West 30s that will be home to major companies, residents and a wealth of public amenities.

It’s also crucial to publicly traded Brookfield’s plan for a $4.5 billion, five million-square-foot project on five acres anchored by two tall office towers and an apartment building.

The Manhattan West project, between Ninth and Dyers avenues and W. 31st and 33rd streets, will include a public plaza designed by High Line Park creator James Corner Field Operations.

The deck was first announced in 2006 but held up by caution over the real-estate market, changes to the original mix of towers and delays in negotiating agreements with Amtrak over use of the rail lines through the yard.

Manhattan West spans the irregular rectangle bounded by Ninth and Dyer avenues and West 31st and 33rd streets. Most but not all of it consists of the exposed train yard 65 feet below street level.

Brookfield CEO Dennis Friedrich told The Post, “Excavation started a while ago. This is the formal launch of the next phase.”

Giant machines will soon appear on-site to erect a street-level surface comprised of 16 “bridges.” The deck will occupy 50 percent of the entire site.

Friedrich said the platform will be finished in late 2014 and the site will be ready to receive tenants by 2016.

He estimated Brookfield’s land and platform costs at a total $700 million. The deck is to be financed with a five-year, $340 million construction loan from a bank consortium including HSBC, Bank of New York Mellon and four others.

Brookfield will invest more than $300 million of its own capital with no public subsidies.

The details are to be announced tomorrow at a photo-op. Bloomberg, Friedrich, Brookfield co-Chairman John Zuccotti, Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye and Hudson Yards Development Corp. President Ann Weisbrod are expected to attend.

“Our initial plan was for all offices,” Friedrich said. “But we got excited about residential because the market was so heated. So in our current plan, we replaced what was the third office building with apartments.”

Manhattan West lies just east of Related Cos.’ much larger Hudson Yards project. Each giant enterprise can now claim its own bragging rights.

While Related is raising its first tower for Coach Inc. without first building a deck over its own rail yard site, Brookfield is plunging ahead with a deck before it puts up a building — which it won’t do until it lands a tenant. Cushman & Wakefield has been tapped to find one or more.

Manhattan West was originally to have three office buildings. Now, it will have two of them at the yards’ Ninth Avenue corners of West 31st and 33rd Streets, and a high-rise apartment tower between them and Dyer Avenue.

Brookfield also owns 450 W. 33rd St., the massive, million-square-foot office address on 10th Avenue, which stands between the Brookfield- and Related-controlled portions of the sunken rail yard.

While Brookfield has long owned development rights above the tracks, Amtrak still controls the right of way through the yard.

So the two parties — as well as the MTA, Long Island Rail Road and the Port Authority, which also hold easements through the site — had to work out arrangements that will allow the deck and the towers to be built without interfering with the train routes, which terminate at Penn Station.

Despite a popular myth that the deck will support the towers, they will actually rise from bedrock at the sites’ corners and in effect be thrust through the platform. But the deck is needed to create a welcoming location for commercial and residential users.

Brookfield has committed to creating a 100 foot-wide park running east-west through the site, effectively forming an extension of 32nd Street. The public space will be designed by James Corner Field Operations, which designed the High Line Park.

“The platform is needed to create the land to create the plaza,” Friedrich said.

The High Line, which now ends at 30th Street, is to be extended along the old trestle’s loop westward to curl around Hudson Yards, and eastward along a spur toward Ninth Avenue.

Meanwhile, Related has begun work on the first office tower at its own Hudson Yards site — which is not to be confused with Extell’s One Hudson Yards, a 1 million square-foot tower to be developed by Gary Barnett’s company just north of Related’s land.

Brookfield’s portfolio includes 77 million square feet in New York, Washington, Houston and other US cities, as well as in Canada, Australia and London. It owns the World Financial Center downtown as well as trophy properties such as One New York Plaza.

“The new district is going to be successful for everybody here,” Friedrich predicted.

He said Related’s coup in signing Coach as an anchor tenant is “also great news for us. It creates a perfect bookend” for Manhattan West.

scuozzo@nypost.com

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