Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

August 7: Richie Havens at Metrotech Noon Concert

Who can orget Richie Haven's incredible performance as the opening act at Woodstock. I wasn't there but I saw the movie and have heard that song umpteen times. Freedom, freedom, freedom. Was that the opening of "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child."

I've always loved Richie Havens. And according to Park Slope's Ben Greenman in the New Yorker, he has a great new album just out called Nobody Left to Crown.

“Nobody Left to Crown” (Verve Forecast), Havens’s first recording in four years, opens with a pair of originals, “The Key” and “Say It Isn’t So,” which manage to address spiritual themes without sounding overly earnest, a trick that sometimes eluded the artist in his younger years. The centerpiece of the album is a majestic cover of “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Over his trademark open-tuned strumming, Havens delivers a commanding vocal performance that fully restores the revolutionary impulse of The Who’s original; he somehow gets blood from a song that has been ossified for years. Nothing else quite rises to that level, though there’s an urgent version of Jackson Browne’s “Lives in the Balance” and several strong tracks in which Haven applies Eastern-style enlightenment to Realpolitik—including the quietly furious title song, which slyly quotes “Home on the Range.”

And he's a Brooklyn boy to boot. Born in Bed-Stuy. Here's the blurbage about BAM's R&B Festival at Metrotech, where Havens will be performing on August 7 at noon. Marcus Carl Franklin, the incredible kid who played one of the Bob Dylan's in "Im Not There" WILL BE THERE. Note to self: Don't miss this.

Born in Bed-Stuy, Richie Havens is gifted with one of the most recognizable voices in popular music—a fiery, poignant singing style that has remained ageless since he first emerged from the burgeoning Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s. His blistering performance at Woodstock helped Havens reach a worldwide audience of millions, and for decades he has used music to convey messages of brotherhood and personal freedom. Joining him is teenage blues guitarist Marcus Carl Franklin, who portrayed a young Bob Dylan in the 2007 fictionalized biopic of Bob Dylan I'm Not There appearing in a telling scene with Havens.      

    

The Oh-So-Prolific-One: Leon Freilich/Verse Responder

News item: NYC high schools are adding double dutch as a varsity sport.

      Ropes 'N' Rhymes

I used to watch the schoolgirls
As they did double dutch,
And I thought they're so athletic
With the just-right touch.

So I'm overjoyed to find out
That they'll finally have teams,
And new schoolgirls will be proving
It's entrancing as it seems-seems-seems.

Bike Valet at Brooklyn Flea

Jonathan Butler and Eric Demby, who run the Brooklyn Flea are working double-time to keep the neighborhood happy despite heated gripes that came spilling out at a recent community meeting in a local church.

The complaints: The Flea is bad for parking. It's noisy and disruptive to neighborhood life on a summer Sunday.  There are also complaints about the large number of bikes locked up outside the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene. So the latest innovation to keep the neighbors happy: valet parking for bikes.

Starting this Sunday, we are pleased to announce that bike parking at the Flea just got a whole lot easier. Bike valet is coming to the Flea! Even better, it's free.

We love folks to bike, walk, subway, bus, or blade-scooter to the Flea--and now you can just hop off your bike, park it with our trusty valet guy/gal right in front of the Lafayette entrance, get your ticket, and pick up your bike on the way out. No muss, no worries, no sweat.

The fine folks at Transportation Alternatives provide this service at a few spots around town, and we're hoping that this new partnership with the Flea will kick bike valet into high gear as a viable option for cyclists around the city at big or small events.

New Editor/Writer At Brownstoner: Good Luck to Gabby, Who is Moving On

Good bye and good luck to Gabby, Brownstoner's current managing editor and writer. Today is her last day at Brownstoner and she is leaving to  pursue a freelance career. I ran into Gabby once on Seventh Avenue and we had a really nice chat.

Gabby, we wish you the very best in your new adventure. Jonathan Butler, publisher of Brownstoner, had this to say about Gabby's excellent work on the blog.

Gabby's coverage of real estate and retail development in Park Slope and Gowanus, in particular, have been second to none and her reliability at staying on top of the news has given us a chance to step back a little from the day-to-day grind to focus on the larger direction of the site and related new projects like The Flea.

And to replace Gabby, Butler has hired writer Lisa Selin Davis, who will begin as the full-time managing editor and writer on Monday. Lisa covers real estate and travel for the New York Times, Metropolis, Interior Design and This Old House.

I met Lisa when she read excerpts from her novel, Belly, a novel set amid horse racing set in Saratoga Springs, NY, at Brooklyn Reading Works a couple of years ago.

Good Luck to both Gabby and Lisa.

Keeping Those 60-Year-Olds Out Of Park Slope's Union Hall

A friend, who is a tad over 60, had a little trouble getting into Union Hall last night. And you thought they just wanted to keep babies and strollers out of there.

Keeping the Thugs Out of Union Hall

Some people (maybe it's mostly women) apparently like to be carded, especially when it's obvious they're well over the drinking age. I don't, and I think it's silly (a word I have since regretted) for someone of 60 and looks close to it.

Went to Union Hall, my neighborhood bar earlier this week and tried to saunter in. But was stopped by a voice growling "you have to see me first." Turning, I noticed a bouncer type who I hadn't even seen as I walked up to the door; certainly a few weeks ago he wasn't in evidence.

I need to see ID, he says

I laugh  a bit (mistake #1) and say That's a but silly (mistake #2) isn't it?

There's the rule on the door, he growls.

OK, I  say as I fish out my wallet, but I do think it's silly for a 60-year old guy to be carded. And I am, if not smiling, certainly not belligerent as I say this. By this time I had my license in my hand.

That's it, he says, you're not going in.

What?

You're not going in. You refused to show your license and were arguing about it.

Hardly arguing I said, it's called expressing an opinion, and since I have my license out right here, how is that refusing?

He wouldn't budge. But did want me to do so, claiming I was "impeding traffic," in spite of several people walking in and out of the door I was not in front of. I demanded to see the manager, setting up a Catch-22 as I wasn't allowed in to see him, and he obviously wasn't going to do me a favor by calling for him. I considered calling Union Hall but the thought of using my cell-phone provider's so-called directory service was too daunting.

He then grabbed my arm (admittedly, not forcefully,) and said I'd have to step off "private property." At which point I got...what...annoyed? and said if he touched me again I'd call the cops.

Go ahead he says. And so I made my first-ever call to 911 and said I was in trouble at the Union Hall on Union Street in Brooklyn, a combination that took some time to convey, leading me to believe that I were in real trouble, I wouldn't have been able to complete the call.

My friend K who I was meeting showed up then.  As I explained, he reluctantly went in to get the manager (nice of the bouncer to let him in, but then K was white and better dressed than I was) and came out after a few seconds and said that the bartender and the bouncer were mutually in charge.

Waited for the 911 response about 10 minutes, also mulling it over with K, who seemed to think I was in the wrong. I guess some people think that "arguing," (even if I didn't do that,) with anyone in authority puts you automatically in the wrong.

So my question to Union Hall's owners is: what exactly is that man doing there? Warding off the hordes of trouble-makers who are trying to storm Union Hall and terrorize the yuppies in there? Keep the homeless out? Or just harass an unassuming local guy who wanted a quiet beer with his friend and has a sarcastic manner?

Park Victim was Homeless Man

According to the Brooklyn Paper, the police are now saying that the corpse that was found in the park yesterday was the body of a homeless man. They did not release the man's name because his family has not been notified.

The three-day old corpse was found by a Park Department worker on Wednesday morning near Lookout Hill. A reporter who actually saw the body said that the man looked to be Hispanic, 30-40 years old and was dressed in a white t-shirt and blue jeans. The cause was probably blunt trauma to the head.

Lookout Hill: Site of Murder and Revolutionary War

A gaggle of TV and print news reporters gathered near the path to Lookout Hill in Prospect Park yesterday waiting for news from the Police Department about the man who was murdered there.

The TV journalists stayed in one area, the print journalists and photographers in another. It was an interesting scene.

The reporter from the Daily News announced that the area was called Lookout Hill. Reporters shot out questions to the cops that were guarding the path about the geography.

"The road over there is called Wellhouse Drive," one cop said referring to the path that goes south to north next to the Lake.

Most of the unconfirmed information about the body came from the reporters. One TV reporter, who was rushing off to edit her story, told me incorrectly that they found a skeleton under a pile of leaves and that it was probably an old murder. She was absolutely wrong about that.

A reporter who actually climbed up the hill before the police closed off the area saw the body and said he saw a male, probably hispanic, in a white t-shirt and blue jeans, lying in an area near Lookout Hill.

The reporters stopped runners, who slowed down to see why there were so many police cars, and asked them how they felt about a Homicide in Prospect Park. One reporter said something to the effect of: We need to fan the flames of tabloid-dom. One young  photographer said  to me: I'm supposed to stop people on the road  and ask them how they feel but it's embarrassing.

Bikers and runners did react to news of the crime. People kept walking up to me to find out what was going on. People looked shocked but not surprised that something like this could happen in our park. One person said, "I'm not going to tell my wife about this because she's in this park every day."

Some wanted to know if Lookout Hill is a gay cruising spot—as if that would somehow explain a crime of this nature. One guy, a news photographer said, "Some guy was bludgeoned about a year and a half ago on the other side of the park. A known homosexual. It was in the Vale of Cashmere."

Others acknowledged that the inner paths of the park are dark and mysterious and not a place they'd want to go after dark or alone.

I overheard some policemen talking about the hill as the site of the  Battle of Brooklyn, which was fought on August 27th 1776. I didn't write down what they said so I looked it up today. Here's Dalton Rooney:

The setting for the first major battle of the Revolutionary War. The Continental Army lost the battle, but they held the British back long enough for Washington and his troops to escape to New Jersey.

The reporters watched as the medical examiner's van drove up the narrow path. Later four detectives in natty suits went up the hill. One looked like Liam Neeson and had a wide white tie.

Finally the van holding the body came down the hill. Someone, I think it was one of the cops said, "Hey guys, here's your shot."

The photographers positioned themselves to get a picture of the van as it drove by. Later some cops,wearing plastic gloves and holding large brown paper bags, came down.

"No comment," they said brusquely. 

When the well-dressed detectives emerged, some reporters asked for a comment but none was forthcoming.

The TV crews were waiting for permission to go up the path. "Can we go up to the tape?" the attractive news anchor asked again and again. But I don't think anyone was allowed near the crime scene yesterday. Once most of the police left the scene, the reporters did, too.

The park was peaceful. In other areas no one seemed aware that a man was murdered in the park. They just went about their day at the playground, running the drive, in Long Meadow.

A humid and peaceful weekday in the park.

Photo of Lookout Hill taken by Dalton Rooney. 

Take The Brooklyn Trivia Test

For readers of OTBKB the test will be a breeze. And if you don't know the answers...What can I say? It was devised by Kristin Goode, About.com's Brooklyn reporter. Take the test and let me know how you do.

Elliott Gould: We Love You

BAMcinematek presents Elliot Gould: Star for an Uptight Age August 1-21th. What a great idea for a festival. Brooklyn-born, Elliot Gould starred in a bunch of iconic films of the 1970's: MASH, The Long Goodbye, Bob, Carol, Ted & Alice, California Split, I Love My Wife.

He was even in a 1971 Ingmar Bergman film called The Touch. Perhaps he is best known for his work with the great Robert Altman. Check the BAM website for the full schedule. Gould will do a Q&A after the 6:30 showing of Little Murders (written by Jules Feiffer and directed by Alan Arkin) on Friday August 8th. He will will also do a &A  after the 6:30 showing of The Long Goodbye (directed by Altman) on August 9th. Here's the BAM blurgage:

1970: the year of M*A*S*H, when Brooklyn-born Elliott Gould became a full-fledged movie star. Time Magazine christened him “Star for an Uptight Age,” suggesting that the audiences of the 70s, with their own insecurities and neuroses now reflected onscreen, were welcoming a new kind of leading man who possessed a greater depth, complexity and a willingness to go further as a performer. We are pleased to welcome Elliott Gould to BAMcinématek with this special focus on his extraordinary work in the 70s, including his three legendary collaborations with Robert Altman and a rare screening of Bergman’s The Touch.
 

The Current Weather in Park Slope

Brought to you by The Feldman Family from their weather tower in Park Slope.

Dead Body Found In Prospect Park

A dead male body was found in Prospect Park this morning on Lookout Hill, which is on the South West side of the Park near the lower lake and Wellhouse Drive.

I got to the scene around 11:20 or so. There were at least twenty police vehicles, a fire truck and the medical examiner's car along the drive near the lake.

A newspaper reporter on the scene actually saw the body before the police closed off the area. He told me that it was a male Hispanic man with short brown hair. He was 30-40 years old and was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans and was lying in a fetal-like position. He was  found underneath a pile of leaves by the Parks Department (although that is not confirmed). 

Lookout Hill is the second highest point in Brooklyn. There are three staircases that lead to the lookout area. The man was found just down from the top. The cause of death is "blunt force trauma to the head"

At 12:42 the Medical Examiner removed the body in a van and drove out of the park. Soon after, three detectives emerged from the scene. Reporters were waiting for representatives from DCPI but no one came and no one was allowed to view the crime scene.

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

Homicide Inside Prospect Park?

A friend just wrote in to say that he saw on the Gothamist Map feed: There's been a homicide inside Prospect Park near Prospect Park Southwest and 16th Street.

Anyone know anything about this.

Open: Dreamland Roller Rink in Coney Island

Doesn't it sound dreamy to roller skate by the ocean in Coney Island? Well, now it's possible. Thanks to Lola Staar.

The Dreamland Roller Rink is open Friday nights from 7 p.m. until midnight and on Saturdays from noon until midnight and on Sunday noon until 9 p.m.

The admission is $10. And you can rent skates for $5.

I think I'm going to try to get Hepcat to join me on Friday night. I love roller skating. Coney Island? I' and so there.

Straphangers Campaign: Subways are Getting Worse

The findings of the Straphangers 2008 Subway Report Card are in and there's lots to read over at their website. Here's an overview from the site:

--Our findings show the following picture of how New York City’s subways are doing:

--The best subway line in the city is the L with a MetroCard Rating of $1.40. The L ranked highest because it performs best in the system on two measures—regularity of service and announcements—and well above average on three other measures: frequency of scheduled service, delays caused by mechanical breakdowns and the percentage of dirty cars. The line did not get a higher rating because it performed well below average on: a chance of getting a seat during rush hour. The L runs between 14th Street/Eighth Avenue in Manhattan and Canarsie in Brooklyn. The previous top-rated line—the 1—dropped to a fourth-place tie.  

--The 7 came in second behind the L with a MetroCard Rating of $1.30. Both the 7 and L are in a pilot “Line General Managers” program, which appears to be benefiting riders. According to New York City Transit leadership: “the new positions will be responsible for virtually all elements of the day-to-day operations on both of these lines [and] will be given their own railroads and the responsibility for running them to the satisfaction of our customers.”⁶ The 7 performed above average on four measures: frequency of scheduled service, regularity of service, delays caused by mechanical breakdowns and chance of getting a seat during rush hour. The line did not get a higher rating because it performed below average on: the percentage of dirty cars and adequate announcements. The 7 runs between Times Square in Manhattan and Flushing, Queens.

--The W was ranked the worst subway line, with a MetroCard Rating of 70 cents. The W line has a low level of scheduled service and performs below average on four other measures: regularity of service, car breakdowns, car cleanliness and announcements. The W did not receive a lower rating because it performed above average on: a chance of getting a seat during rush hour. The W line operates between Whitehall Street in lower Manhattan and Astoria, Queens. In last year’s survey, the W tied for the worst line with the C.  

--Overall, we found a weak showing for subway service. Car breakdowns worsened from a mechanical failure every 156,624 miles in 2006 to one every 149,646 miles in 2007. Subway car announcements deteriorated from 90% in the second half of 2006 to 85% in the second half of 2007. Two other measures showed no sign of improvement: regularity of arriving trains and car cleanliness. (We were unable to compare the      remaining two measures.)

Kensington: Rash of Car Vandalsim

What is going on in Kensington?

On July 27, 2008 between 6:30 and 6:50 a.m., twelve cars had their tires slashed on Cortelyou Road between Ocean Parkway and East 7th Street.

A group calling itself the Kensington Action Force wants to know if anyone observed this activity on Sunday morning. Send replies to Kaforce(at)yahoo(dot)com

According to the Kensington Action Group and the local NYPD precinct, car vandalism has spiked recently in the Kensington community. Here's something that was posted on Kensington Blog.

there's been about 20-30 car break-in, usually 2-4 a night, that I have seen personally around Ocean Parkway and Cortelyou, along Cortelyou, and on East 7th Street by the side of the church and between the school,

I usually hit around midnight to 5am, since i walk my dog regularly at 6am. The best police have done is park unmanned golf cart decoys on the block. this regular occurance is an outrage since its obvious to me that they are targeting large suv's with out of state plates, always around the same time and always parked in spots that are not exactly in front of a residence or apt bldg.

A&S Pork Store to Close October 1

This is bad news for Park Slope foodies. The A&S Pork Store, a Fifth Avenue institution since 1948, is set to close in October. What we're losing: a fantastic butcher, deli, and maker of prepared foods that are absolutely delicious. What is my family going to do without their Chicken, eggplant and veal parmesan.

And their breads...I love their foccacia bread, their mozzarella, their other delicious specialties.

And that's not all: we're losing the last butcher shop in Park Slope. The very last. And that's patently ridiculous. We lost Great Western Fine Foods last month and now this. I was a frequent Western Fine Foods customer and noticed that they were showing the space to interested parties.

Now this.

A&S has been a fixture on Park Slope's Fifth Avenue for a long time. Anthony Scicchitano opened the business on Fifth Avenue in 1948 and eventually expanded to 26 franchises across the city.

As reported in the Daily News, the current sibling owners of A&S, Salvatore and Enzo Bonnello, took over the shop five years ago. According to the Daily News, they were told by Scicchitano that their future was secure. But Sccicchitano died 18 months ago and his daughter wanted to sell the building. The brothers can't afford to relocate in Park Slope. Their current rent is $5,000. and the market value for other store ronts is now $12,000.

Every time I went into A&S I wanted to tell them: you can't close this shop, you can't close this shop, you're all we have left. The last butcher but also one of the last vestiges of mom and pop Park Slope.

Is there some way that they can stay in Park Slope. Any one out there have an idea? 

Food Stamps for the Unemployed

The economy is looking very glum, the ranks of the unemployed is growing and Nydia Velazquez, a Brooklyn Congresswoman, has proposed a bill that would allow people on unemployment to collect food stamps while they search for work.

As reported on New York 1, Velazquez and other advocates think the government should help the  state's 500,000 unemployed adults.

"Making sure that in this nation, the most powerful richest country in the world, that we provide a safety net for those most vunerable,” Velazquez told NY 1.

Tonight Summer Music and Film Al Fresco

--In JJ Byrne Park. Third Street and Fifth Avenue at 8:30 p.m,  Brooklyn Film Works presents The Candiate with Robert Redford. This amusing, albeit cyncial, documentary fiction about "the semi-truths manufactured to market a candidate, The Candidate shrewdly exposed the effects of the media on the political process, posing unanswerable questions that have become all the more pressing with every soundbite-ruled election."

8:30 on the big screen in JJ Byrne Park. Third Street and Fifth Avenue

--At Brooklyn Bridge Park: Music at the Bridge Welcomes Issue Project Room:
Set times:
           John Zorn/Cobra                    6:45pm
           Theremin Society                   7:45pm
           Jonathan Kane/February       8:45pm

 

Body of Girl Recovered Off Brighton Beach

The body of a 10-year-old girl who disappeared swimming in the ocean at Coney Island was found this morning off the coast of Brighton Beach.

My friend who lives in Coney Island knows the family. The child's name was Akira Johnson, 10. She lived in Far Rockaway but came to the beach to go swimming on Saturday. Powerful riptides pulled her under and she never came back up.

An Online Tour Of Park's Notable Trees

Eugene Patron, who tells-all about Prospect Park, sent word yesterday that the Prospect Park website has just added a great new feature: a “tour” of the Park’s notable trees. Accordingto Patron, "14 of the Park’s rarest, most unusual, oldest, and tallest specimens are displayed on a simple, clickable map. Each click triggers a window with more information and three beautiful images." Now, doesn't that sound like a cool way to learn about the great trees in our midst?

Check it out here: http://www.prospectpark.org/trees

The online tree tour was the brainchild of Jeroen “Haffy” Shiran, an arborist, and his colleagues in the Prospect Park Alliance’s Landscape Management Office (LMO).  Haffy researched and wrote the text accompanying the tour.  The photos were taken by Paul Blutter, a volunteer who has been working with LMO over the last few years.  An amateur photographer, Blutter spent much of last year photographing the Park’s trees.  The online tour itself was designed by Jesse Adelman, Director of New Media for the Alliance.

“It was great to collaborate with LMO on this feature – they’re really passionate, and they are experts on the subject,” Adelman explains.  “It’s nice to grow our web site with features that are educational and fun to use.  Plus this is also an opportunity to support the expansion of our Plant-a-Tree program. “

More than 1,500 trees have been planted in Prospect Park over the last two decades as part of the Park’s Commemorative Tree Program.  Hundreds of the Park’s existing majestic and beloved trees have also been adopted by people through the Commemorative Tree Program.  Planting or adopting a tree is not just a wonderful way to honor a special person, but also helps the Prospect Park Alliance care for arboriculture in Brooklyn’s great landmark Park.

The Prospect Park Alliance’s Office of Landscape Management works with donors wishing to plant a new tree to select an appropriate type and an optimal location.  Donors are then welcome to attend the planting of their tree.  Planting is done in spring and fall.  August 15 is the deadline to make a donation in time for fall planting.

Tour o

Experiment in Livable Streets in Williamsburg

This goes out to a friend who recently told me that she wants to explore Williamsburg. This Saturday participate in the last Saturday of Williamsburg Walks, a 4-week experiment in closing Bedford Avenue to traffic from Metropolitan Avenue to North 9th Street.  A way to rethink public space, it's also a way to experience the main drag of hipster Williamsburg.

I know that a group were trying to organize something like this in Park Slope. Hopefully that can happen next year. For now, read about Williamsburg's experiment and maybe try to get over there.

This is a “green” event and it is very much in the spirit of the Mayor’s PlaNYC initiative to make the city a more inviting and livable place by 2030.

Williamsburg Walks built upon the concept of “streets as places.” Not to be confused with a street fair or failed attempts to create pedestrian malls, Williamsburg Walks is taking an already dynamic place and opening it up to the community.

If you build more streets, you get more cars. If you build more pedestrian-friendly areas, street furniture and bike lanes, you will get more pedestrians, bikers and a social environment for the community.

If this four week experiment is a success, we hope to extend it and consider the possibility that Bedford Avenue could be closed every Saturday the same way Orchard Street has been closed on Sundays since the 60s.

We are doing everything we can to ensure that this event is a success. We want it to be remembered as a clean, safe and well-organized event. We are trying to be inclusive and address the needs, issues and concerns of the community. We want your feedback, good or bad, and we hope to learn lessons each weekend and apply them to the next.

 

The Oh-So-Prolific-One: Leon Freilich/Verse Responder

Blog At Your Own Peril

You sit at the computer
For hours on end
And when at last you get up
Find you can't bend.

You blog away on this
And that and such
And suddenly your neck
Cries out for a crutch.

You click away until
Paralysis
Sets in and vital heartbeat
Goes amiss. 

You type till blood pours out
From all your fingers
And breathing comes in spurts
And painful zingers.

You know of course your health
Is off the  charteries
And the diagnosis is:
Blogged arteries

Addition to be Built on PS 8 in Brooklyn Heights

Here's some good news for parents at the overcrowded PS 8 in Brooklyn Heights. Hopefully the Schools Chancellor will address overcrowding at other Brooklyn schools as well. This from NY 1:

The city is annexing a Brooklyn school to help ease overcrowding.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein says an addition will be built on P.S. 8 in Brooklyn Heights by 2011.

Local officials applaud the move as a testament to the success and growing popularity of the previously underperforming school.

The expected costs for the project are included in the current capital plan, and funding for the construction will come out of the next five-year budget, which begins next year.

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

Kids Rx: Was Anyone Going To Tell Me?

So was anyone going to tell me that there's a new business going into the space vacated by the Second Street Cafe? Hello?

There's a sign in the window of the that space that says, Kids Rs. There's some explanation, which I didn't write down (duh) about it being a place for children's health.

So I googled Kids Rx and it turns out that they've got a branch on Hudson Street in the West Village (see picture).  From the looks of their website the show will carry all manner of children's health items and that's a broad term. In addition to being a pharmacy, they carry baby products with an emphasis on organic and natural, homeopathics, vitamins, skin care, hair care, dental care, household items, gift baskets, gifts baskets and a baby registry. Here's their "about: information from their website.

KidsRx is a real community pharmacy that places special emphasis on the healthcare needs of children.

What makes us different from an ordinary "drugstore"?

KidsRx makes a shift from a product-based service to an information-base service.

KidsRx creates a fun and welcoming atmosphere for child and parent alike. Kids are welcome to play in our waiting area with Thomas The Tank & Friends or sit and watch our overhead train go!

KidsRx specializes in pediatric compounding which allows us to customize a formulation to best suit a patient's needs. Flavoring, lollipops, transdermal gels (to treat nasuea/vomiting or fever), make hard to find items, custom doses, and create discontinued products.

KidsRx offers comprehensive counseling and follow-up with child and caregiver, always keeping in mind that medicines used improperly can cause a lifetime of consequences in a child.

When you and your child come to KidsRx to fill a prescription or just to visit, you will never want to go anywhere else!

We accept all insurance plans, offer fast free delivery and fill prescriptions for pet medications.

Wow. Sounds like a very interesting idea that could quite well in this neighborhood.

And it's the first non food or drink establishment to go in there. When I first moved here that was a liquor store owned by the man who works at Shawn's Liquors, the one with the coke bottle glasses.

Then it was a Mexican Restaurant.

After that: the Second Street Cafe if I am not mistaken. More than ten years ago.

Tonight: Plush Interior, Lily Konigsberg, Henry Crawford And More

Hard to define and chock full of jams, The Plush Interior brings you a blend of jazz, funk & rock.  Preview acts by some of Brooklyn's homegrown bands like Lily Konigsberg, Hank Crawford, and DJ Dan McMahon and more.

The Old Stone House
Tuesday July 29th
6 p.m.

The Brooklyn Blogade Had Quite A Picnic!

Last Sunday, while I was still in Block Island, the Brooklyn Blogade met in Prospect Park for a picnic.

I'm so sorry I missed it for what a picnic is was. Hosted by A Year in the Park and Dope on the Slope with generous help from Creative Times, it was quite the event. The Brooklyn Blogade, an outgrowth of the Brooklyn Blogfest, is a monthly meet-up for bloggers, blog readers, those interested in becoming bloggers and their friends all over Brooklyn. The next one is in September and I will, of course, keep you posted. Here's Brenda on the picnic of a  A Year in the Park  on the picnic. Go to her blog for more words and pictures.

This symphony of thundercloud-colored foliage in the Concert Grove was a perfect grace note for a Brooklyn Blogade picnic bookended by ominous thunderstorms.

We had the Music Pagoda near at hand, and cowered there briefly during some lightning. I hate lightning. I mustered my courage, however, to give a little guided ramble through Battle Pass; the distant thunder was a good atmospheric stand-in for the sound of cannon and musket fire.

We had ample time before the next round of storms to engage in Pagan Blogging Rites around a sacrificial table laden with goodies. Food 1 7-27 The mac and cheese was just as good as it looks; there was also a sublime salad of shrimp, avocado, and cucumber.

Wednesday Night: Issue Project Room Brings John Zorn's Cobra and Theramin Society to Brooklyn Bridge Park

This should be quite a night at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Music At The Bridge Welcomes Park Slope's ISSUE Project Room on Wednesday, Jul 30, 2008 from 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM. This has been such a fun series. Music at the Bridge invited various venues to curate one summer evening. A great shout-out to places like Zebulon, Barbes, Issue Project Room and Jalopy. IPR is a raw exhibition space showcasing innovative performances and exhibitions in Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood.

Wednesday night, Join them in the park under the tent in the historic Tobacco Warehouse with the following sets;

Set times:
           John Zorn/Cobra                    6:45pm
           Theremin Society                   7:45pm
           Jonathan Kane/February       8:45pm

John Zorn's Cobra
Composer and saxophone player, John Zorn is hard to fit into just one
genre. He blurs the lines between numerous influences of jazz ensembles,
rock, and symphony orchestras, while creating a unique experimental sound
all his own. Written and premiered in 1984, Cobra is a classic in the
circles of new music, having been performed innumerable times. In fact,
composer and "prompter" John Zorn says it is his most-often-performed
composition -- no mean feat considering his prolific output. It is no
wonder, though: There is a mischievous, cartoonish quality to the sound of
Cobra that epitomizes Zorn's style but also makes for continually
fascinating listening. Based on the composer's secretive "game pieces,"
Cobra is “a fun-filled, mystical, blindfolded ride down a dark alley that
circles back every few yards.” – Steve Loewy, All Music Guide. Read more
about John Zorn's Cobra at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zorn

Jim Staley/trombone
Sylvie Courvoisier/piano
David Weinstein/keyboard
Annie Gosfield/keyboard
Anthony Coleman/keyboard
Eyal Maoz/guitar
Mark Fekdman/violin
Okkyung Lee/cello
Shanir Blumenkranz/bass
Ikue Mori/electronics
Cyro Baptista/percussion
Kenny Wollesen/drums
John Zorn/prompter

Theremin SocietyTheremin Society (Dorit Chrysler, David Simons, Rob
Schwimmer, & special guests)
For those of us left out in the dark, the theremin is one of the earliest
electronic musical instrument and is played without being touched. The
Theremin Society was founded in December 2005 by ISSUE Project Room's
Artistic Director Suzanne Fiol and thereminist Dorit Chrysler. The project
focuses on the contribution of the theremin to 21st century musical
culture and to the musicians who have devoted their careers to this
instrument. It is sure to be a night of abstract artists experimenting
with a wide range of musical language. Hear their music and more at:
http://www.doritchrysler.com/ThereminSociety.html

Jonathan Kane 200pxJonathan Kane's February
Jonathan Kane is a Downtown NYC legend -- as co-founder of the no-wave
behemoth Swans, and the rhythmic thunder behind the massed-guitar armies
of Rhys Chatham and the rock excursions of La Monte Young -- and one of
the hardest-hitting drummers on the planet. With his solo work, Kane
summons Swans' concussive wallop, Chatham's dense guitarstrata, and the
perpetual propulsion of 70s krautrockers Neu, then steers it all head-on
into... the blues. Make no mistake about it: Kane is a bluesman, and
beneath the high-decible bombast, he's powering guitar-driven minimalism
into the blues, and the blues into guitar-driven harmonic maximalism. So
roll with Jonathan Kane down his Highway 61 of the mind -- it's the shape
of blues to come. For more information, visit:
http://www.myspace.com/jonathankane

The Oh-So-Prolific-One: Leon Freilich/Verse Responder

  Tens, Anyone?

They agree on just one thing,

Today's tweens and teens:

Their bewildered parents

Are clueless hasbeens.

Brooklyn Based: Foodie Field Trip to Brooklyn's Chinatown

Brooklyn Based, a thrice-weekly e-newsletter (and site) always contains inspired tips about things to do, places to eat, and really unusual findings in the borough of Kings. Today she's got a great guide to the foodie pleasures of Brooklyn's Chinatown. She calls it Foodie Field Trip #1: Brooklyn's Chinatown. Go to her site and sign up for her newsletter. You're missing out.

Calling the section of 8th Ave. off the N train “Chinatown” is like calling The Wire “a TV show” or foie gras “food.” It doesn’t do it justice. Yes, you can get great dumplings and buy glazed tripe and chicken feet from street food vendors. There are the usual bins of tiny dried fish and tanks full of live frogs. Fried pig’s head? They have you covered. But what sets the Brooklyn Chinatown apart (and the Chinatown in Flushing, Queens, but this isn’t called Queens Based, now is it?) from its Manhattan counterpart is the stuff that is not the missionary position Ten Ren bubble tea and Custard King.

Brooklyn Beat: BWAC Art Show/Meditations on Art and Reality

Here Brooklyn Beat of the blog, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn, shares his impresssions of the  Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition's HOT! Summer Art Exhibition this weekend at the BWAC
exhibition space at 499 Van Brunt Street in Red Hook.

With the sturdy waves of New York harbor lapping against the waterfront shoreline, the BWAC summer show drew a good crowd all weekend.

-Artist Dawn Robin Petrlik's installation "The Lonely Death of Esmin Green" which combines the artist's sculpture of a woman's body, collapsed face down on the floor, along with chairs and a video monitor, to create a meditation on the death of Esmin Green, a patient at Kings County Hospital, who died on June 19 in the waiting room, after convulsing on the floor. Ms. Petrlik's notes on the installation indicate that it is her attempt to address the simple important fact of Ms Green's passing, not as "some woman", or "some immigrant" or some "crazy person" but this person."

The audience becomes part of the installation as you walk through the space and see yourself, along with the sculpture, in a video surveillance monitor. Ms. Petrlik indicated that the sculpture, which is not for sale, will "naturally dry out and crumble over the course of the show in a symbolic ashes to ashes gesture." Viewers are invited to make repeat visits to review this process and to remember this story, and this person "with her name and dignity intact."

The late Ms. Green, 49, was the mother of 6 children, ages 14 - 31, in Jamaica; Ms Green came to the US, a church-going member of her community, was working in day care in order to support herself and her family at home. According to CNN, previous psychological problems may have been exacerbated by loss of her job and apartment, which led to her admission to Kings County, where she died, neglected by staff at the hospital's psychiatric emergency room. A very powerful, provocative and thoughtful work. For more on this installation: http://www.dawnrobyn.com. For more background on the life and death of Esmin Green: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/03/hospital.woman.death/

-Red Hook Cine Soiree! On Sunday, July 27th, guest programmer Joel Schlemowitz presented a salon of experimental and underground films from a band of intrepid, avant-garde cine-artists . The program opened with recorded music - 1920s foxtrots played on a wonderfully low-tech, hand-cranked, Victrola. The films ranged from the sublime to the sublimely ridiculous and somewhere in between. Cats and Pants by Jennifer Matotek, featuring, whatelse, cats and pants, proved to be a big crowd pleaser. Robot Movie, by Fabio Roberti, featuring a dancing robot, a circa 1980s guitar player, and a sound track of electro-madness was described by one critic as "Alien Transmission" and there's not much more to say than that, although I for one am a better person for seeing it. Five Haikus for the NY Subway by Zaza M. was sensitive and humorously brilliant. Sometimes, while 8 hours of a camera focused on the Empire State Building as Andy Warhol did, might make a statement, a couple of others showed that there is art in brevity, notably, Faces in the Flowers by Jennifer McMillan, which was lovely if a bit twee and just a bit too long for this viewer, but with an affecting soundtrack, while Spidery, by Bradley Eros, films of the micro-natural world backed by a score by Karlheinz Stockhausen, clocked in at 5:55 minutes and, while Lord knows I tried to embrace the aesthetic, it just made me think "I'd Rather Be Waterboarding." But Stan Brakhage, for all his avant-brilliance, can test the soul, too, so, there ya go. Despite my facile comments, clearly every filmmaker here had something to say, something worth saying and therefore worth seeing.

Overall a great program on an alternately steamy then stormy Sunday afternoon. More films and programs to come. Visit the BWAC site. Fine programming by Joel Schlemowitz, guest curated by Mike Olshan. More on the films and the programmer: http://www.joelschlemowitz.com

-Music Saturday by the Big Bang Big Band, a large, percussive and groovy orchestra and blues vocalist, and Sunday by Le Nozzi de Carlo, a gentle, thoughtful, and tasteful Latin-tinged pop and jazz ensemble, were highlights of the weekend. More performances to come. Again, check out the BWAC site.

BWAC proves to be a great place to be for art, provocations and entertainment on weekends 1 PM - 6 PM though August 17.

More on BWAC: http://bwac.org

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

Landmarks Commission Rushing to Approve Prospect Hts. Buildings

Good news for historic preservationists. Looks like Prospect Heights will be getting landmark status soon. The Landmarks Preservation Commission is also looking at buildings in Bed-Stuy. This from NY1:

The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission is reportedly rushing to approve historic designations for more than a thousand buildings before the end of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's term.

Landmarks preservation has been a priority of the Bloomberg administration. The commission was one of the few city agencies not to have its budget cut this year.

According to the New York Post, the number of proposed designations includes a planned historic district in Prospect Heights with more than 860 buildings.

Other areas under consideration are a district of 40, late-19th century homes in Bedford Stuyvesant, and roughly 100 buildings in Ridgewood, Queens.

The Plus Interior: Tuesday in JJ Byrne Park

Hard to define and chock full of jams, The Plush Interior brings you a blend of jazz, funk & rock.  Preview acts by some of Brooklyn's homegrown bands like Lily Konigsberg, Hank Crawford and DJ Dan McMahon.

The Old Stone House
Tuesday July 29th
6 p.m.

The Candidate with Robert Redford: Wednesday in JJ Byrne Park

This Brooklyn Film Works finale is an amusing, albeit cyncial, documentary fiction about "the semi-truths manufactured to market a candidate, The Candidate shrewdly exposed the effects of the media on the political process, posing unanswerable questions that have become all the more pressing with every soundbite-ruled election."

8:30 on the big screen in JJ Byrne Park. Third Street and Fifth Avenue

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

Superstitious Day

Terrible things happened to a friend of mine on July 27th for three years running. It was many years ago when we were both teens. But I still think of her every year on that day. No matter where we are, she's always in my thoughts on that day.

This year she is in Germany. You can bet that she's taking it easy. After the third incident all those years ago, she vowed never to even move on July 27th. I'm sure she doesn't take it that far any more. But I'll bet she doesn't fly on airplanes or do anything risky. I just have a feeling. The day has that kind of power over her. And me, too.

The first incident occurred on a hosteling trip in Camden, Maine. The group was hiking when the group-leader fell off a mountain to his death. That's all I know. The teenagers had to find their way out of the park to get help. I remember she told me about it a few weeks after it happened and I was stunned that something so dramatic, so real could have happened to her. And it seemed unspeakably sad.

The second incident came a year later. She was also on a hosteling trip. A friend of hers fell into a glacier lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. He couldn't get out for more than an hour and nearly died. Fortunately, he was saved and lived to tell the tale. The third incident occurred in a national park in Washington State. Again she was on a hosteling trip. This time the group was poncho sliding down an icy pass. My friend went flying into a tree and broke both of her legs. She had to be helicoptered out of the park (strapped to the outside of the helicopter) to a hospital in Port Angeles where she was wrapped in body cast; she couldn't leave the hospital for three months. Eventually, she was able to fly back to New York having missed three months of eleventh grade.

The year after that, we were together on July 27th, which felt sort of exciting and scary, too. We didn't do anything on that day and joked that we were just going to sit very still. After all, the day was cursed. We were in a summer arts program in North Carolina feeling far away from home and family and spent the day in a local park having a picnic, swimming, taking it very easy.

When I was a teenager, I really looked up to this friend (and still do) for her sense of adventure, her fearlessness, her drive. Some people might say that going on hosteling trips three years in a row was pushing it a bit.

Strange to say, I think I actually envied her these disasters: they seemed so dramatic even if they were tragic. Isn't that what teenagers live for: drama, the real stuff. I imagined losing someone I'd only known for a few weeks but had grown quite attached to and even called by a cute nickname. I pictured her trying to save her friend who nearly died in that icy Colorado lake. And her stories about the park ranger who visited her at the Port Angeles hospital...It was all so...grown up and, dare I say it, exciting. My life paled in comparison. Ah, the strange logic of a teenage girl. But that's how I thought about things then. And I still take it easy on July 27th, try to anyway. I wouldn't want my life to take a dramatic turn. Not now anyway.

OSFO In Camp, Smartmom On Retreat: Hepcat Blue

This is from this week's Smartmom from the award-winning Brooklyn Paper.

Smartmom and Hepcat were silent driving away from Camp Fuller after dropping the Oh So Feisty One in her bunk. Smartmom could tell that Hepcat was sad even if he didn’t say a thing. She’s learned to read all of the signals given off by her pathologically understated man.

They’d had such fun driving up to Rhode Island: a real road trip adventure. As the family made its way up hellish I-95, Smartmom read aloud from “Trinity,” the 400-page best-selling young adult book about a high school girl with a major crush on a vampire. They stayed at the Hamilton Village Inn in North Kingstown, RI and had a fun dinner at the Steamview, an old-fashioned, family-style restaurant decorated with antique toy steam engines.

Smartmom and OSFO were packing for most of the week prior to camp — a major bonding experience full of rolled eyes and flash-flood fights. OSFO, who objected to the inadequate way that Smartmom folds clothing, re-folded her clothing and packed the entire trunk herself; neat as a pin. Driving away from OSFO’s camp, Smartmom had a pit in her stomach. This was only OSFO’s second summer at a sleepaway and Smartmom knew that her girl was nervous.

Last summer’s all-girls Quaker camp had decidedly left-wing leanings dating back to the 1930s. It was wilderness-oriented farm-camp that was more than a little rustic (i.e. composting outhouses called Kybo’s, no windows or doors in the bunks, mosquito netting required). Smartmom thought it would be a good back-to-basics experience; very empowering for a 10-year-old girl brought up in brownstone Brooklyn.

Not.

OSFO didn’t exactly hate the camp, but it was a little too crunchy granola for her. Smartmom thinks she was more than a little homesick and she really didn’t like the outhouses. Smartmom was relieved when OSFO showed interest in another sleepaway camp.

This time, she was an educated consumer. Windows and doors on the bunks. Check. Real toilets. Check. Traditional camp activities like a mountain-climbing wall and skate-boarding. Check. Perhaps most important, she was going to camp with a good friend, which made all the difference to OSFO. Still, in the weeks before camp, OSFO was feeling anxious. “Maybe I’m not a camp type of person,” she told Smartmom one night when she should have been sleeping. “If this one doesn’t work out, that’s it. No more camp for me.” Smartmom consoled her with tales of her own camp experience.

Like OSFO, Smartmom hated her own starter camp and wrote miserable letters home. It didn’t help that all the counselors decided to go to Woodstock leaving the campers to fend for themselves for a day or two (or so she remembers; it was 1969 after all). But the next year, Smartmom went to her beloved — and now defunct — Ethical Culture School Camp, a camp she remembers fondly to this day.

To Smartmom’s relief, OSFO seemed to take to Camp Fuller immediately. She was the second arriving camper and got to choose the bed she wanted. Later, when her friend arrived, she took the bed right next to OSFO’s. Hepcat carried her heavy trunk into the bunk and Smartmom made her bed, arranged her Ugly Dolls and placed her toiletries, her contraband gummy worms, and her stationery on her shelf. There were no tears or clinging hugs. OSFO seemed comfortable in her bunk, especially once her friend was there. She did look a tad nervous when her counselor announced that there would be a swimming test within the hour to determine who needed to take swimming lessons. She assured OSFO that the test was really easy, but OSFO looked dismayed.

Still, that didn’t bring on any tears or requests for her parents to stick around. In fact, OSFO seemed eager for Smartmom and Hepcat to leave. They both gave her a long hug. “I love you,” Hepcat shouted out as he got into the car. Hepcat paused before starting the engine. Smartmom could tell that he was feeling blue. He and OSFO had had such fun on their Rhode Island road trip; he’d even started giving her some pre-pre-driving lessons. “Which pedal is the accelerator, which is the brake?” she asked at one point. “What does a yellow signal mean?” The two of them have a lot in common. Like Hepcat, OSFO is very handy, very creative, and very good with a glue gun and a drill. She loves her dad’s kooky sense of humor and they share all kinds of in jokes and a private vocabulary.

Two weeks without the OSFO was bad enough, but to make matters worse, Smartmom was about to depart for Block Island for a week of writing. No wonder it was such a silent, depressing drive away from OSFO’s new camp toward Smartmom’s ferry. They desperately need some quality time together without the kids. But it wasn’t meant to be.

“Are you OK?” Smartmom asked Hepcat as they waited for her ferry in Point Judith. “I’m gonna miss OSFO and miss you,” he said sweetly. Smartmom noticed he said OSFO’s name first, but it didn’t bother her. Not too much. Hepcat snuck a peek at his watch “I better go,” he said. “The traffic may bad you better head home now,” she told him. They lingered in a long, comfortable hug. She heard the horn of her high-speed ferry. “Love you,” she said. And now there were tears in her eyes.

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

More on Auster's Brooklyn

The Frenchman who is planning an August tour of Paul Auster's Brooklyn has some help from two OTBKB readers. Francis Morrone, who is a historian, journalist, author, lecturer, teacher and columnist for the New York Sun had this to say about some of the locations mentioned in "The Brooklyn Follies."

The space that is now Two Boots used to be called Circles Café. Though he later mentions the New Purity, I can't believe the Cosmic Diner isn't based on the old Purity, at Union Street. Don't forget he also mentions La Bagel Delight. Brightman's is, I think, a pure fabrication. Stores like Seventh Avenue Books and Park Slope Books came much later, and before them there were no used or rare bookstores on Seventh Avenue. Rocco's I haven't a clue about. Hope this helps a little.

Our friend Eliot, who produces podcasts of great contemporary music monthly had this to say.

The Cosmic Diner is pure invention. So is Brightman's Attic, but I always thought that Park Slope Books (the place that is now Carmen's) was the the model for it.

Park Slope Five Guys is Now Open

You lose one, you get something new. Out with the Tea Lounge, in with Five Guys Burgers. What is the neighborhood coming to?

Burgers, burgers and more burgers.

Here's A Hamburger Today, who made it over to the new Five Guys, which is across the Street from Methodist Hospital on 7th Avenue near 6th Street in Park Slope, on the very first day.

I won't spend too much time blabbing the burger. It's a really good burger. When I first tried 5G last year, I was skeptical. Signage reading "lean beef" and "cooked well-done" all pointed to bad. But the burger was juicy and flavorful. Who knew? The one at 5G Park Slope was the same. Delicious

10th Street Tea Lounge Is History

The original Tea Lounge on 10th Street and Seventh Avenue in Park Slope is now history. The landlord doubled the rent and the owner opted to close the the original of his three branches of this much loved Brooklyn cafe.

Okay, not every one loves the Tea Lounge. But those who love it love it. And I always liked the 10th Street branch. In fact, I liked it more than the huge Union Street behemoth.

Good bye to a nice spot to meet friends and sip coffee.

Mixed Feelings About the Brooklyn Flea

I'm not in Brooklyn but I've been reading the Brooklyn Paper and the Daily Intel and see that there is trouble brewing in Ft. Greene over the Brooklyn Flea.

Seems that not everyone is thrilled about the crowds that pour into the neighborhood on Sunday to particapte in Brooklyn's latest shopping extraaganza.

Last night there was intense meeting at local church about the flea, which has been drawing large crowds on Sunday.

Those who don't like the Flea have plenty to say. This from the Brooklyn Paper's reporting:

“There’s no parking at all and my vehicle was banged up by a vendor,” said Ramesh Kauden, who’s lived on Carlton Avenue for 40 years.

In fact, some “no parking” signs are hung on the Flea’s side of the street to facilitate the loading and unloading of antiques, handcrafts, vintage clothing and furniture, which arrive around 7 am and depart by 6:30 pm. Some parkers reportedly ignore these signs, leading vendors to double-park near the entrances to the schoolyard between Vanderbilt and Clermont avenues.

Other residents say litter overflows area trashcans. "It took all this time to clean up this place, now they want to come and drop more garbage on the neighborhood,” said Frank, who did not want to give his last name, a Fort Greene resident for 31 years.

The complainers now have the ear of Councilwoman Letitia James (D–Fort Greene), who said she’s received calls about wandering flea market patrons sitting on area stoops and locking their bicycles to gates or on scaffolding in front of Queen of All Saints Church across the street.

The church has become a hotbed for anti-flea sentiment.

But even in the immediate vicinity of Brooklyn Flea, many people give the swap meet a thumbs up, though they’re reluctant to publicly disagree with their neighbors.

“It’s nice to have local artists here, and people buying their stuff,” said Irene, who didn’t want to give her last name because she know other people on Clermont dislike the flea market. “It’s true that sometimes parking is hard on Sundays, but this is the city. It’s always difficult to find parking.”

BWAC Red Hook Art Show Opens Today

Brooklyn Beat of Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn was kind enough write this post about the the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition HOT! Summer Art Exhibition

The excitement begins on Saturday, July 26 through August 17 at the BWAC exhibition space at 499 Van Brunt Street in Red Hook.

I spent a few hours over a couple of weekends helping My Better Half, Judy Tantleff-Napoli, a BWAC member and artist/educator, set up her sculptures for the exhibition, and had the chance to preview some of the other work that will be on display in this show situated in this great pre-Civil War warehouse space right by the waterfront. Based on my preliminary view, it promises to be another wide-ranging, inspiring and provocative exhibition. Setting up the work was "fun" in a manner of speaking because the warehouse is always such an intriguing space and the BWAC folks were very spirited and easy to work with.

Saturday's opening 1 - 6 PM will feature the Big Bang Big Band performance at 3 PM. Sunday will feature Le Nozze di Carlo (which translate's roughly as "Carl's Wedding", I'll bet there is a story there)

Although the show opens tomorrow, as a blogger, I couldn't resist and took a few photos posted on my site (link above) Lots of great work. Among the many interesting works in all media, I thought Brian Keogh's sculpture could serve as one of the signature pieces for this 2008 Brooklyn artists show (which actually seems to attracts artists from all over).

For more information and directions visit: www.bwac.org

No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford

City of Water Day: This Weekend on Governor's Island

The Waterfront Alliance is sponsoring City of Water Day, a way to celebrate the waterfront and waterways! It all happens on Saturday, July 26, 2008 from 10:00am to 4:00pm on Governors Island.

On July 26th, paddlers, sailors, mariners and many others from around the region will converge on Governors Island to eat, drink and have fun.

Highlights of the day will include:

• A symbolic and inspirational convergence of kayakers, boaters, sailors and ferry-riders onto Governors Island. New York Waterway and the New York Water Taxi will pick kids from across the city and bring them to the Island for this special day of fun, education and adventure.

• Boat parade of working vessels past and present including the retired fireboat John J. Harvey and the Seaport Museum's tug W.O. Decker.

• Eco-tours of indigenous bird habitats hosted by NYC Audubon and a Hidden Harbor Tour hosted by the Working Harbor Committee. • Fishing clinics with I Fish New York. • Live music by Eric Bibb. • Lecture on Fuel from Algae by CUNY professor.

• Car free biking. Bring your own wheels or rent.

Report From Berlin: When Obama Spoke, Everyone Listened

A longtime friend and fellow Park Sloper was in Berlin yesterday and went with her husband and two daughters to hear Obama speak. Here is what she had to say about this historic event in that most historic city.

All four of us rode our bikes to see Obama speak at the Siegesaule—the Prussian victory monument that was deemed such an inappropriate place to speak.  He tried to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, but the Prime Minister, Angela Merkel, and others, decided it was inappropriate to have a candidate speak in a place where only elected officials have gone before.

The Victory monument faces the Brandenberg Gate—between the two structures, there is a street called the Strasse17Juni named to commemorate the uprising of the East Berliners on 17 June 1953.   This street lines the side of the Tiergarten, a large tree-filled park, nearly a forest, in the middle of Berlin.  The Central Park of this city.  (or should I say, the Prospect Park of Berlin).  People came teeming through the park to reach this wide boulevard, one of the widest streets in all Berlin (a city which claims the widest boulevards in Europe) and by the time we got there, you could no longer squeeze into the part that was in front of the Siegesaule.  It was full by 4pm—the speech was at 7pm.  No bikes were allowed on the streets, so we locked ours to a tree—along with thousands of other bikes—and walked through the tree-filled park until we were nearly at the Gate.  We forced our way onto this end of the Strasse 17 Juni and realized that we wouldn’t even be able to see one of the two enormous screens that were set up to give a view of the Man.

But we were glad to be there—more fun to hear his voice ringing out over Berlin, than to see his face in the Close-up of a newscast.

Obama was asked to speak from the side of the monument that faces the Brandenberg Gate—therefore, when the cameras focused on him, the gate would NOT be in the background.  Therefore, Germany could not be said to be using their famous backdrop to support a presidential candidate—especially one running against the party of the president in office. Good luck.  A poll yesterday showed that nearly 70% of Germans support Obama. That much more pathetic when

McCain said he’d like to speak in Berlin too, but only AFTER he’s president.  Hah!

And who needs the Brandenberg Gate anyway?  This power of the location was everywhere evident without the cliched backdrop.  It was a real Berlin location—steeped not only in history—but in so many histories—Prussian, World War II, the Cold War—triumph and defeat—good and evil.  This was not lost on our well-educated Obama of course, and his speech as you heard, often referred to the spirit of Berlin, the quest for Freedom, the American pilots who dropped food during the Berlin blockade—he braided this history artfully into the present—leading up to the need for partnership. The great partnership of the Luftbrucke—the need for partnership between Europe and America today.

Of course, it’s all more complicated than that.  Of course, after WWII Germans were our despised enemies until the Communists took their place.  But once they accepted defeat and became our allies in the cold war,  the evil Germans were transformed into civilian victims.

But Obama knows all this, I’m sure—and just as he smoothed over the last 60-70 years, so he also moderated his criticism of America.  But Berliners are not only full of spirit, they’re also a practical people—why else would they ride their bikes everywhere—and they know he has to moderate the rhetoric when speaking in a foreign land.  He mentioned ending the war—but he didn’t say the war was a mistake—he said America’s not perfect, but that we always strive to be better.  And so on.

SO: between the Prussian War Memorial and the Gate-where this street named for anti-Communist protest lies—We stood along with roughly 200,000 people—mostly Germans, mostly young, but we also heard languages from all over the world—including English.  It was said that many Americans living in other parts of Germany came to Berlin to hear him.  It was also said that many people from the eastern European countries came to Berlin to hear him.  It’s notable that Obama spoke in English and that most Germans could understand him.  That’s a feature of this country—how well they all speak English.

Mostly young people, but also many old ones, many children and babies.  They were selling beer and bratwurst and people came to juggle and sing and enjoy.  I felt like I should be carrying a sign that said “Make Love Not War.”  But when Obama spoke, everyone listened.  They clapped often and not only when he brought up the spirit of Berliners.  The German radio later reported that his speech was a great success.

I was especially happy to be there with my daughters and wondered if they’d remember this day the way I remember the peace marches my mother took me to when I was a kid. Of course, it all depends on what happens.  If Obama wins and fulfills even half the promise we expect—if he wins and ends this dark time in American politics, if he wins and does something, anything about the environment or the war, if one can come to Berlin, as we often do, and stop being embarrassed to be living in a country run by buffoons, if, in fact, they’ll be able to look back and say that they were in Berlin at the Siegesaule and that they had a good feeling, some kind of sense that things might, finally, change for the better.

We walked back through the Tiergarten with hundreds of others, through this typically German park which is part wild forest and part manicured gardens and retrieved our bikes, and rode home.

Our phone rang off the hook from Berlin friends who’d either been there too, or watched him on television.  It’s a town obsessed with politics—even and especially American politics.  Everyone wanted to know what we thought and we spent the night going over his speech, the reactions (people here were watching CNN and German news at the same time).  I liked his speech, and so did most of our friends.  It’s a bit too much like a preacher, especially for the low-key Germans, but they accepted that too.  They admire and even envy the emotion that this American candidate can project.   There’s a certain kind of theater that no German politician could ever create, and Obama creates that. I know he always manages to move me.  And it was doubly moving to see it along with so many other people, to confirm that his voice has stretched across the ocean and moved so many Europeans.  This guy certainly has something and that I think that something is desperately needed in the White House.

Photo found on Flickr, that global village of photography

This Sunday: Le Nozze di Carlo in Red Hook

My friend and Third Street neighbor, Bob Goldberg, who is one of the Accordian Angels, also has another band called, Le Nozze di Carlo.

This band was put together to play at an Italian friend's wedding. The band lasted longer than the marriage. Le (The) Nozze (Wedding) di (of) Carlo (Charles) is the translation. The Italiano lesson is finished. La lezione di Italiano e' finito.

They gig in the NYC area. Sometimes, you can find them in restaurants (vegetarian, French, and Louisiana/Italian), bars, lounges, cafes, museums, art galleries and the occasional shopping center.

They love to play without any amplification, none of this so called unplugged crap for us, when we say unplugged, we mean it. That of course limits our opportunities, so they will, when necessary, play and sing through microphones.

Their repertoire consists of Italian, French and Spanish tunes primarily, although they do mix in a bit of Klezmer, Irish and Americana. The band can swing pretty hard in the style of the Quintet of the Hot Club of France (Django and Stephane).

They play  folk music, old pop tunes and psuedo folk and pop that we write ourselves. And they're going to be playing on Sunday. This Sunday:

Le Nozze di Carlo will be performing
this Sunday, July 27th
starting at 3:00 pm
at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists' Coalition
26th Annual Outdoor Sculpture Show

499 Van Brunt Street (across the street from Fairway,  just before the
pier) in Historic Red Hook, Brooklyn

Admission is free - come for the music - stay for the art -
then go shopping at Fairway and IKEA or eat at some fancy restaurant...