Like the “Time 100” list, the Brooklyn Org 25 shines a spotlight on nonprofit leaders who represent Brooklyn.

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On Wednesday, Oct. 23, Brooklyn Org celebrated the inaugural Brooklyn Org 25 at the annual Brooklyn Org Changemakers Ball.

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Queer New Yorkers joined the thousands of people who hit the streets on Oct. 24 for a joyous ticker-tape parade to celebrate the New York Liberty’s first-ever WNBA Championship victory and the city’s first professional basketball championship in more than five decades.

The New York Liberty basked in the spotlight along the Canyon of Heroes on Broadway in front of thousands of fans just days after defeating the Minnesota Lynx in the WNBA finals, delivering the city’s first professional basketball title since the Knicks won the 1973 NBA championship.

Led by forward Breanna Stewart, a homegrown New York State native from the Syracuse area who averaged more than 20 points and 8.5 rebounds per game this season, the team ran roughshod through the competition in the postseason, sweeping the Atlanta Dream in two games before knocking off the Las Vegas Aces and finishing the Lynx in five games.

Another out LGBTQ star on the team, Jonquel Jones, was named WNBA Finals MVP after carrying the team to victory with 17 points in the series-clinching overtime victory in Game 5. Jones, who was drafted sixth overall in the 2016 draft, was also named the 2021 WNBA MVP.

Among other out players, Courtney Vandersloot also contributed to the team’s championship season and averaged five points per game in the playoffs.

The squad overcome adversity along the way — including during the WNBA finals when Stewart and her wife received homophobic threats — but all of that noise was drowned out during the cheerful parade, which drew a strong presence of LGBTQ sports fans who waved signs in the air and packed the sidewalk along the parade route while Liberty players partied on floats.

Elected officials, including a mix of out LGBTQ politicians and allies, were also well-represented at the celebration, which proceeded along Broadway from Battery Park to City Hall. The party continued at City Hall, where lawmakers and others heaped praise on the hometown champions.

Queens Councilmember and LGBTQIA+ Caucus co-chair Tiffany Cabán, who cheered the team throughout its playoff run, published a now-and-then post on X showing a picture of her at the team’s 1998 open practice event adjacent to a photo of city lawmakers issuing a proclamation making Oct. 20 Liberty Day in New York City.

“So this is a very, very cool moment, not just for my child self, but to see the way that women’s sports and women athletes have transcended the sport, and they’re out there being political on the front lines,” Cabán said, according to AMNY. “They’re out there being brave. They’re showing leadership. It’s a very, very cool moment.”

During the celebration, Stewart was joined by her wife and children.

“This might be Barclays Center, but this is Club Barclay tonight,” Stewart said at a Barclays Center celebration that same day. “We’re so happy to be here. We’re so happy to have brought this championship home to you guys. Being in Brooklyn celebrating with you guys is what we wanted this entire season, and you guys continue to push us, so thank you for everything.

Below are some photos from the celebration:

THE OUTBREAK OF E. COLI-RELATED FOOD POISONING OF McDONALD’S QUARTER POUNDER BURGERS has spread to Wisconsin and Michigan.

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Sleeping with the fishes has become a reality for the popular Bedford-Stuyvesant Aquarium. The tragic ending capped off a summer of excitement for all who found joy in the makeshift goldfish pond near Hancock Street and Tompkins Avenue.

After the “pond” — a few-inch pit in the sidewalk, just off of a fire hydrant — sprung a leak, local firefighters worked with the Department of Environmental Protection to assess the damage and help plug it. But come Friday morning, workers had paved over the home of more than 100 fish, blindsiding local fans of the local attraction.

“This is what the city is wasting time and taxpayer money on,” one neighbor told Brooklyn Paper.

Another called the move a “huge travesty for the community,” claiming that the makeshift pond had drawn eager children and their families to the neighborhood to witness the wonder.

Earlier this summer, a handful of longtime local residents decided to turn the water-filled pit into a makeshift neighborhood goldfish pond, lovingly called the “Bed-Stuy Aquarium.” They shored up the pit, bought about 100 small goldfish, and dumped them in with colorful rocks and decorations.

Photos and videos of the makeshift pond started circulating online and in person, garnering equal amounts of praise and criticism — some argued that the local attraction was unsafe for its aquatic inhabitants. (A department spokesperson said that the DEP had turned off the leaky hydrant “several times” since it found out about it, but people kept turning it back on — which prevented DEP crews from working in the area.)

Still, the pond persevered. Organizers even started a GoFundMe to “help build a better habitat,” including “an outside ventilation system for them so they can survive through the seasons so the community can continue to enjoy the beauty of nature.” And in the weeks that followed, locals decorated the surrounding area, even going as far as to place chairs and a bookshelf full of children’s books.

But now, Bed-Stuy’s Bikini Bottom is officially no more.

Neighbor Jackson Rogers said Friday that while he understands that everyone in the city has to follow the rules, exceptions should be made for “things that bring the community together,” such as the Bed-Stuy Aquarium.

“I don’t see the city making any initiatives,” he told Brooklyn Paper. “I don’t see the city doing anything for the community as a whole. And then the one time that people take it into their own hands, the city shuts it down immediately. I feel like if we had a government that cared about us, they probably would see a project like this and think, ‘Wow, this is so inspiring. This is amazing how these people come together.’”

And while it may “seem like a silly joke,” Rogers said, the Bed-Stuy Aquarium built bridges within the northern Brooklyn community.

“The way that it brought together people in the community — old Bed-Stuy people, new Bed-Stuy people — was the most unbelievable, beautiful thing that you’ve ever seen,” he said. “And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

“Yo, Bed-Stuy fish pond forever,” Rogers added, hopeful that the community spirit the pond drummed up will live on even in its absence.

Although the pond’s future remains unclear, a sign near what is now just a fire hydrant says the beloved Bed-Stuy Aquarium “will return soon.”

Additional reporting by Kirstyn Brendlen