No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
14th Annual Local Produce Festival in Park Slope
All day Saturday and Sunday May 31 and June 1, Spoke the Hub sponsors the Local Produce Festival. Elise Long, one of the Park Slope 100 and founder of Spoke the Hub is the force behind this annual festival. Check it out.
Saturday, May 31
EVENTS ALONG UNION STREET BETWEEN 5TH AND 6TH AVENUES, PARK SLOPE
Workshops Under the BigTop Tent
10:00am Creative Dance & Yoga For the Whole Family with Heidi Kinney
11:00am Brazilian Dance with Ellen Baxt
1:30-2:00pm Monte Allen/Brooklyn Kenshikai Karate Demonstration
2:00-2:30pm Modern Dance Warm-Up with Mark Lamb
4:00pm Freestyle Repertory Theater / Improv Workshop for the Whole Family
4:30pm African Drumming for the Whole Family / BaTuBa Collective Percussion
5:00pm African Dance for the Whole Family / Charles Moore Dance Theater
5:30pm Basic Salsa Workshop / Salsa Salsa Dance Studio
Street Fun & Games on the Midway
10:00am-Noon Frisbees on the Midway
10:30-11:15am Sing, Dance & Make Believe for ages 3-4 with Sarah Pope
Noon-1:00 Fun & Street Games for the Whole Family with Lori Jorgensen
1:00-1:30pm Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps Marching Band
1:30-2:00pm MaracatuNY / Brazilian Percussion
4:00-6:00pm Board Games on the Midway
Music at the Bus Stop
12noon Connection Works Ensemble / New Music
12:45pm Connection Works Ensemble Jam Session, open to all, including student musicians
1:30pm Douglass Street Music Collective
2:30pm Mani Chamber Music Group
3:30pm Music & Dance Improvisation with Connection Works Ensemble, Douglass Street Music Collective, Propel-her Dance, and YOU!
4pm Douglass Street Music Collective
Performances Under the BigTop Tent
2:30pm Young Artists Perform!
PS 321 Dance Students
Spoke the Hub Dance Students
Spoke the Hub Drama Students
Gowanus Wildcats Drill Team
Charles Moore Dance Theater Youth Ensemble
Berkeley Carroll School Dancers
David & Sarah Gratz / Young Musicians
Brooklyn Jazz Lab
Salsa Salsa Dance Studio Youth Group
6:00pm Professional Artists Performance
Salsa Salsa Dance Studio Duo
Charles Moore Dance Theater
Parents Who Dance / Modern Dance
RedWall Dance Theatre
David Bindman / Saxophone Solo
Sarah Council Dance Projects / Modern Dance
Lily Skove / Modern Dance
Freestyle Repertory Theater / Improv
Dance Under the Stars!
7:00pm Basic Swing Dance Lesson with Laurie Shayler
7:30pm Dance Party Under the Stars for the Whole Family
with Art Lillard and His Heavenly Big Band
Sunday, June 1
EVENTS IN THE COMMUNITY GARDENS
St. Marks/Warren Street (between 4th and 5th Avenues)
11:00-11:50am Tai Chi & Chinese Music Workshop with Kwok Kay & Alice Choey
12:00-12:30pm Mark Lamb Dance Performance
Garden of Union (at 4th Avenue)
12:30pm Accordion Angels / New Music
1:00pm BaTuBa Collective Percussion / African Drumming
1:30-2:20pm Yoga & Movement Meditation Workshop with Mina Hamilton
President Street (at 5th Avenue)
2:00pm Mad Jazz Hatters/ New Music
2:30pm Slackjaw / Nouveau Bluegrass
Gorgeous Strawberries At The Farmer’s Market
Hop on over to Grand Army Plaze. The strawberries—flowers, asparagus, fish, bread, tomatoes, and the rest—are sublime.
Middle School Letters: In Your Mailbox Saturday or Monday
Parents are hoping that the NYC Department of Education really did mail out the middle school letters on Friday May 30, as they told school officials they would.
After months of waiting the middle school letters could be in your mailbox as early as today. Woo Hoo. Imagine knowing where your fifth grader will be going to school next year. Around here we’ve tried to put 6th grade out of our minds.
Sixth grade? What’s that?
The fifth graders at PS 321 are in senior mode. Next week they’ve got field day and a big trip to a historical site upstate. They’ll even be getting their fifth grade t-shirt with every kid’s signature on it. Soon they’ll be getting their yearbook.
It’s the end of elementary school and they know it. But they still don’t know what they’re doing next year.
I heard that a friend’s son received an acceptance letter from NEST (New Explorations in Science and Technology) a middle school on the Lower East Side.
I know that some schools do their own admissions and manage to avoid the big computer at the DOE. NEST must be one of them. Did you ever think that getting into middle school would be like getting into college?
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
A Comedy About The Distance We Put Between Us On The Subway
The name of the play is Standing Clear and it bills itself as a comedy about the distance we put between us on the subway. This makes me think of the portraits that Ed Velandria creates on the subway.The people always look they are in their own worlds and disconnected from those around them.
The show, Standing Clear, is the latest original work from Coffee Cup, a theater company who did another piece called Turning Tables (about restaurants, perhaps?) The show is playing at the Access Theater, 390 Broadway (at White Street). For more information and tickets, go to smarttix.com
Here’s the blurb: Their latest physical comedy, Standing Clear, is an ensemble piece that digs deep into the personalities we commute with each day. Have you ever imagined what a stranger’s life was like? Pressed right up against each other, but miles away, what happens when we let the strangers we see every day affect us? An ode to the NYC subway, Standing Clear shines a spotlight on the fleeting moments that we rarely recognize as being key to the essential beauty of New York.
Another Evening, Another Meeting: Rezoning of the Gowanus
At last night’s CB6 Land Use meeting, there was a presentation by the NYC Department of City Planning on the rezoning of the Gowanus, Here’s an excerpt from Pardon Me for Asking. And there’s more at Curbed, in a post titled, 25 Blocks Worth of Change in the Gowanus. PMFA has pix, too.
Another evening, another meeting….this time, it was the monthly gathering of the Community Board 6′s Land Use Committee. On the agenda was New York City Planning’s presentation of the rezoning framework for the Gowanus Canal.
Under discussion is a 60 block area between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens which is now zoned industrial. City Planning has broken the whole into five sub-areas and into different use-groups, including residential and retail use.
I don’t know about you dear reader, but every time I go to a meeting dealing with the future of the Gowanus Canal, the debate comes back to the most important factor: the pollution from decades of environmental abuse. Without fail, the subject was brought up by members of the audience as well as by at least one Land-Use Committee member.
Movies Al Fresco in Park Slope: Thursdays in July
Brooklyn Film Works is coming back for its third summer. Organizers will be showing films with a political theme in honor of the election year.
I don’t know if the schedule has been finalized but here’s what I do know. They’re showing 1776, The Manchurean Candidate (the original directed by John Frankenheimer) and The Candidate with Robert Redford.
As always, there will be a terrific short before the feature.
Brooklyn Film Works shows movies on a gigantic screen set up in JJ Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street. The movies will be on Thursday nights in July at dusk. Bring something comfortable to sit on (a blanket, pillow, or lawn chair). Bring a picnic.
More information will be forthcoming on the Old Stone House website and on OTBKB (of course).
Boomberg, Gotbaum and de Blasio Weigh in on Crane Collapse
Politicians are weighing in on today’s crane collapse. The death toll so far is 4. Those who died were construction workers working on the crane. There are numerous serious injuries of workers and pedestrians.
Mayor Mike Bloomberg: "What has happened is unacceptable and intolerable. Having said that, we do not know at the moment what happened or why."
Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum told the New York Times: "It’s clear we need to be far more strict and crack down on any unsafe
construction sites, and its clear we need more inspectors, still. When
a violation is issued, disciplinary action must follow. Just two days
ago the city decided that inspectors will no longer be present every
time a construction crane is being erected or made taller, an emergency
provision put in place following the last major accident. This move by
the D.O.B., tightening restrictions following a catastrophe, and then
relaxing them as soon as the smoke clears, was likely premature."
Councilmember Bill de Blasio sent out a press release: "This is inexcusable. Every time the Department of Buildings tells us they have taken steps to improve safety, another horrific accident occurs. This has to stop. The Department of Buildings is clearly not up to the job. We need a moratorium. We need a reinspection at every site in New York City." He called for a ban on usage of cranes until every one is reinspected.
Pre-K Admissions Problems With Sibling Verification
Reading Park Slope Parents, I see that many local sibs did not get into pre-K programs at public schools that their older siblings attend; parents are, understandably, upset. Apparently the DOE’s computers compared data for the older sibling on the application with pre-submitted data about the older sibling in their records. f these addesses didn’t match the child applying for pre-K was treated as a non-sibling. Looks like the computer screwed up. Big time. What if the family has moved since the original pre-K application? Here’s an excerpt from the Inside Schools blog:
Currently,
OSEPO staff are finishing up looking at every single one of the
applications of families who indicated they had a sibling already
enrolled, Jacob said. He told me he anticipates that the number of
families affected will be a "small minority" of the 9,000 families who
indicated that they had a sibling in their school of choice, though the
number will be "more than 4 or 5." After the scope of the problem is
clear, the DOE will decide how to handle the cases, he said, and
families will be notified then if there was a mistake in the way their
application was treated. "There are some cases where the problem was on
our end. … When we hear about problems, we solve them," he told me.Jacob
said there may also be families who believe they were erroneously
denied a seat who actually completed the application incorrectly,
perhaps by listing the school in which the sibling is already enrolled
as something other than their first choice. (Sibling priority only
works for your first-choice school.)Jacob advised me that the
very best thing parents who believe the address-matching issue may be
the root of their rejection should hold tight while the DOE decides how
to solve the problem. I know that will be hard to do, but I have faith
that the DOE is committed to addressing the issues, even though it
might not know yet exactly how to. If you just can’t wait, Jacob said
the best number to call at OSEPO is 212-374-4948.
That’s also the number you should call if you have other issues or if
you still haven’t received a letter — though we have heard from one
father who just received a letter this morning.
2 Dead in Crane Collapse on East 91st Street
As reported on WNYC, Gothamist, and elsewhere, this morning a construction crane collapsed on East 91st Street and First Avenue killing at least four two construction workers (update at 1:35 p.m.). Many more were injured. The FDNY is still searching through the wreckage.
David Byrne Plays the Building
David Byrne has created a sound installation, sponsored by Creative Time, called Playing The Building, in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument.
Creative Time presents Playing the Building, a 9,000-square-foot, interactive, site-specific installation by renowned artist David Byrne. The artist transforms the interior of the landmark Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan into a massive sound sculpture that all visitors are invited to sit and “play.” The project consists of a retrofitted antique organ, placed in the center of the building’s cavernous second-floor gallery, that controls a series of devices attached to its structural features—metal beams, plumbing, electrical conduits, and heating and water pipes. These machines vibrate, strike, and blow across the building’s elements, triggering unique harmonics and producing finely tuned sounds.
Says David Byrne:
“The idea is that the public can sit down and play this thing, and that when they do, it should be pretty obvious what’s going on. They’ll see machines mounted up on the girders and the pipes and the columns, and they’ll notice that as soon as they hit a key, a sound comes from the building. There’s all this stuff coming out of the back of the organ like a big octopus; some are little tubes blowing compressed air into the plumbing pipes. Those sound like alto flutes, kind of pretty. Some are wires that go to these strikers; those will be like little gongs, hitting the radiators and big metal columns with high, percussive notes. Other wires go to motors that are strapped like crazy to girders and support structures within the building. They’re hung off balance, so they shake and vibrate, which makes a sound like when a car or truck goes over an iron trestle bridge. Depending on the length of the metal beam, they make different notes.”
10 South Street, New York, NY (Map)
31 May – 10 August 2008
Open Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Noon – 6PM (Free)
Opening Reception: 31 May, 6–8 PM
Jamie Livingston Site Has Been Improved
Hugh Crawford is continuing to improve the Jamie Livingston site, which is much more robust and seems able to handle the large volume of traffic it is getting.
Big News: Many of the X pictures have been replaced with real photos, as have the pictures with Hugh’s finger and a date on a Post-it. Hugh thinks there are only a few missing photos now.
MyFox has an extensive article about Jamie and the site:
‘Polaroid a Day’ Chronicles a Life
Jamie Livingston’s Photo Project Finds an Audience Online
http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/ContentDetail?contentId=6654456
So does Time.com. Betsy found this post by Richard Lacayo on Time.com’s art and architecture blog.
Something about Livingston’s project reminded me that towards the end of his life the photographer Garry Winogrand shot rolls and rolls of film almost aimlessly, just pointing the camera out the window of his car. I think Winogrand was looking for whatever you find when you let go as best you can of the structures of art. (That was an idea that was also basic to what Robert Rauschenberg was doing sometimes.) And I ‘ve always been fascinated by an old movie by the Swiss director Alain Tanner, In the White City. Bruno Ganz plays an engineer on an oil tanker who jumps ship in Lisbon and stays there, periodically sending home to his girlfriend a home movie of his aimless days. By the time he makes the last film his life is dissolving into pure weightless existence, and the movie is just footage of streets going by underfoot.
After Livingston’s death, his pictures were organized by two friends into a show they mounted last year at Bard College, which is where he had begun the series when he was a student there. This kind of pure steady documentation can be very powerful. The Livingston project, because of the way it ends, is heartbreaking, but also wonderful in its attention to every little bit of life. The combination of easy digital photography and the Internet will create more of these sustained accounts of everydayness. (It already has. In the last few years a couple of guys made projects of taking a picture of every meal they ate for a year.) Flickr is a public library of photo diaries. But I’m betting that this one will always be one of the form’s monuments, built one little piece at a time.
Department of Education Mailing Middle School Letters Today!
That’s what I was told by a reliable source at PS 321. She received an email on Thursday morning saying that the letters would be mailed to parents on Friday May 30, 2008.
Some would say, it’s about time.
She told me that the middle schools have the lists of the kids they are accepting. They just haven’t let the parents, the students, or the guidance counselors at the elementary schools know yet.
Here’s hoping they get those letters out today. If they do, look for it in the mail Saturday or Monday.
Food Drive at Old First Church Through June 15
Old First Church on Seventh Avenue at Carroll Street is running a food drive, in the hopes of donating 200 or more bags of non-perishable groceries to help replenish Brooklyn’s empty food banks.
Here’s the grocery list: Rice, pasta, dried beans, canned veggies, fruit, applesauce and tuna, shelf-stable milk and infant forumal, canned and packaged soup, whole-grained cereals, 100% fruit juice (no glass please).
Please fill a grocery bag and bring to the church office by June 15th. Office hours are Mon-Thurs, 9am-5pm OR Snday 9am-2pm.
Help Old First Church meet its goal of 200 bags of groceries to replenish Brooklyn’s empty food banks.
Prospect Park Has Multi-Million Dollar Friend
Brooklyn Paper reports that a stretch of Prospect Park will be restored thanks to an enormous donation.
A famed philanthropist donated $10 million last week to restore a 26-acre stretch of Prospect Park to its original glory, but even with the generous contribution, funding for the expansive project is only halfway secured.
Shelby White, widow of the Wall Street investor Leon Levy and head of the Leon Levy Foundation, donated the money to the planned Lakeside Center — a $75-million project that would demolish the run-down, but popular, Wollman skating rink and replace it with a multipurpose recreation and education venue with new rinks, plus restore the area back to Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s original 19th-century design.
White — a Brooklyn native — decided to donate to Prospect Park because she spent so much time there as a child, “horseback riding [and] rowing with my junior high school boyfriend from Walt Whitman JHS.”
“And, sorry, Mike,” she joked with Mayor Bloomberg during a May 22 press conference to announce the donation, “I smoked my first cigarette in this park.”
Now Rented: 2 of 4 Vacant Storefronts Between 2nd and 3rd On Seventh
Seventh Avenue between Second and Third Streets is 2 for 4.
That’s right, two of the four vacant storefronts on that stretch of Seventh Avenue are now rented. The Second Street Cafe and Park Slope Books storefronts are still available. But the storefront, which housed Seventh Avenue Books, is becoming a store for “children’s exclusives.”
I don’t know if that’s toys or clothing.
It’s going into the building owned by Mark Ravitz Art and Design. It’s the building with the cyclops/octopus/sun drips. There were once dripping cows on that building.
Barrio, the groovy, new nouveau Mexican restaurant with the super-duper Margaritas, is in the spot vacated by Tempo Presto and Mojo/Carvel before that.
So, do I hear any interest in the Second Street Cafe?
The owners, I believe, are trying to sell the recently renovated restaurant. Interestingly, one of the owners used to work at Restaurant Florent, the legendary 24-hour diner-style restaurant on Manhattan’s Gansevoort Street. That restaurant, which was a harbinger of the uber-gentrification of the meat-packing neighborhood on the far Westside, is going out of business on June 29th.
Does anyone remember Evelyn’s Goat Cheese Salad? It was a specialty at Florent and also on the menu at Second Street Cafe.
Hebrew Language Charter School?
I found this on the Inside Schools blog. I was looking for info about the middle school admission’s letters, which I didn’t find. But i did find this:
Apparently there is interest in establishing a Hebrew language charter school. It will be interesting to see what kind of brouhaha this causes. The following is by the Inside School’s blogger, Philissa.
I had sort of thought that the folks who last autumn were talking about bringing a Hebrew-language charter school to New York City would have been dissuaded by the controversy surrounding the Khalil Gibran International Academy, but apparently they were not. Next week, representatives of the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life plans to submit an application to the DOE and the state Board of Regents to open a charter school as early as 2009, according to a report in the Jewish Daily Forward.
The proposal will be modeled after Ben Gamla Charter in Florida, which ran into some trouble early in this school year because its Hebrew language curriculum contained religious references. Considering that doing damage control for Khalil Gibran proved costly and embarrassing for the DOE and that the controversy continues to this day, it should be interesting to see what kind of reception the Hebrew school’s advocates receive.
Red Hook Braces for Onslaught of Ikea Customers
The Brooklyn Paper reports that the Red Hook Ikea has added hundreds of parking spaces.
Ikea has added hundreds of parking spaces to its Red Hook store in advance of the hotly anticipated opening on Wednesday, June 18, which is expected to draw a cavalcade of shoppers that will continue for months.
The Scandinavian home-furnishings giant’s first New York City store will use the neighboring site of the former Revere Sugar refinery to handle any parking overflow from its own 1,400-car lot at least until Labor Day.
Company officials didn’t disclose how many vehicles can be packed onto the dirt lot, but it is large enough to hold several hundred.
By enlarging its car capacity, Ikea has revived concern in Red Hook that the heretofore remote corner of Brooklyn will be overrun by drivers, because mass transit is not an appealing option if you’re hauling home a futon (or boxes and boxes of Swedish meatballs).
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
New Store Off Fifth: Urban Alchemist
Yesterday I happened upon a new store on Fifth Street just East of Fifth Avenue (343 Fifth Street) called Urban Alchemist and it’s owned by five designers. In addition to jewelry, they will also be selling vintage furniture, home goods, lamps, bags, and T-shirts.
There’s a a lot of great stuff in the shop already. I took a bunch of pictures, which I will post later. Here’s the word from co-owner Rebecca Shepherd, who is one of the jewelry designers, about this lovely new shop:
I would like to announce that I have opened a store in my beloved Park
Slope Brooklyn! We are called Urban Alchemist and are located at 343
5th street between 5th and 6th av. Our co-op is made up of 5 Brooklyn
Designers including my line, Esewara (my partner), Via Nativa,
Re-surface lighting and Loyalty&Blood. We welcome you to our design
studio! Come by for a glass of wine, coffee or tea. If your lucky,
you’ll come by on a day I bring homemade chocolate chip cookies!
The Selling of Brooklyn Bridge Park
Cathryn Swan over at Washington Square Park sent word of this event, presented by the Sierra Club, which is free and open to the public. Cathryn’s blog is “a chronicle of a big park and a city government overcome by its own power.”
Discussion: The Selling of Brooklyn Bridge Park
Friday, May 30th; 6:30 p.m.
Judson Memorial Church (Washington Sq. Park South, entrance on Thompson
St.)Background information:
Urban parks are becoming our newest endangered species. It has been a
20-year effort by the surrounding community to secure the Brooklyn
Bridge Park in an 85-acre strip along 1.5 miles of Brooklyn’s East
River waterfront. It has become an example of the implementation of
“parks that pay for themselves,” leading to increased privatization and
the further demise of public parks.Requiring parks to pay their own way is an extension of the relentless
cutbacks in public funding for NYC parks in recent decades, from 1.5%
of the municipal budget in former years to only 0.4% currently.Unlike traditional New York City parks, which are administered by the
NYC Dept. of Parks & Recreation, the Brooklyn Bridge Park is being
created by a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corp., a state
agency whose primary mission is promotion of economic activity.Apart from $150 million committed by the city and state for
construction, the park will have to generate enough income to pay for
ongoing operation and upkeep. The main source, under the approved plan,
will be payments from owners of apartments in high-rise housing with
1,200 luxury units that private developers will be allowed to build
within the park – a massive intrusion into its narrow swath of green
space.Speakers:
Judi Francis, President, Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund
Roy Sloane, civic activist
Free and open to the public. Wine, cheese and snacks will be served.
Slope Sports Says: Run, Run, Run
Slope Sports sponsors two weekly runs for runners at all levels.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT FUN RUN
Meet us at the Grand Army Plaza entrance of Prospect Park at 7:15pm for one loop (3.35 miles) of the Park tonight. Run at your own pace – all paces welcome!
SATURDAY MORNING RUNNING GROUP
Come join Slope Sports and Prospect Park Track Club our free and fun group run at the Grand Army Plaza entrance of Prospect Park at 8:00am.
One group will run 6-8+ miles in and around Brooklyn . Another group will head into the Park to run 1 mile to 1 loop (3.35 miles).
All paces and distances welcome.
The Oh So Prolific One: Leon Freilich, Verse Responder
VEEP X TWO
It sounds like wack,
It sounds insane–
Team up with Barack
As well as McCain?
In a year of firsts–
A woman, a black–
Old ways are all
Under attack.
But on a bi–
Partisan spree
Party leaders demand
This V.P.
What Obama needs
Is an older man,
An administrator
Who knows how to plan,
While Johnny Mac
Requires in truth
An independent
With much more youth.
So look for a double
Invitation
To wend its way,
A solicitation
To come and be
The No. 2
For the Democrats
And GOP crew–
A bi-polar
Seemingly daft
Communication
Announcing a draft
To run for Vice President.
Though it hasn’t been cricket
To have the same candidate
On each’s ticket,
The Constitution
Expounds not a word
On this novel subject,
Not "nay," not "absurd,"
So what’s inevitable
Is a Michael Bloom-
Berg one-on-two
V.P. boom.
And best of all
He’ll have lots to give,
With not a chance
He’ll go negative.
Sundance at BAM
Sundance at BAM. Lots to see, lots to do. For the third straight year, Sundance is moving into BAM for eleven days to present 22 features and 36
short films from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, music
concerts, Q&As with the artists, art installations, and special
events.
Here’s the trailer:
Buy Tickets Now: Mississippi Delta Heritage at 651 Arts in Ft. Greene
651 ARTS is producing a very ambitious program that runs through June 7th and includes a performance by my fave, Cassandra Wilson. For schedule, tickets, and loads of information, pictures, and audio clips go here.
651 Arts is dedicating its entire annual season to the culture, artists and influence of the Mississippi Delta in The Mississippi Delta Heritage Project. While the history and impact of the Delta Blues tradition is undisputed, few are aware of the contemporary artistry that continues to thrive in the region. The Mississippi Delta Heritage Project provides a glimpse of this flourishing artistic culture to New York audiences. CASSANDRA WILSON, COREY HARRIS, T-MODEL FORD, JIMMY “DUCK” HOLMES, and LOBI TRAORÉ are among the many outstanding artists, either from or influenced by the Delta, who will be performing as part of this series. Have a look inside, we hope you join us in the celebration!
de Blasio Says: Ban Hotels in Gowanus Rezoning
I just got this press release from de Blasio’s very busy publisicst, Jean Weinberg. There’s a press conference today at 5 p.m (see below).
Carroll Gardens—Councilmember Bill de Blasio will join community leaders at a press conference today calling on the Department of City Planning to ban the development of hotels in the rezoning of the Gowanus. De Blasio will make the announcement immediately prior to the City Planning Commission’s presentation of their latest version of the Gowanus Canal rezoning.
Councilmember de Blasio is calling on City Planning to ban hotels for several reasons: in predominately manufacturing areas, hotels will likely push out existing manufacturing uses, in areas that are predominately residential, hotel uses are disruptive because hotels are 24/7, often with taxis or cars idling outside, and while we are in the midst of a hotel boom, at some point that will taper off and some of these hotels will not make it or even worse, will turn into “hot sheet” motels in order to stay afloat.
Who: Councilmember de Blasio, community leaders, local elected officials and others.
When: 5pm—Thursday, May 29, 2008
Where: 372 Hoyt Street (Outside of P.S. 32 in Brooklyn)—between 2nd& 3rd Street.
** Take the F Train and get off at Carroll Street- exit near intersection of 2nd St and Smith Street. Head East on 2nd St towards Hoyt St.
Red Hook Open Studio Tour: June 7 & 8
I just got word from artists Kristin and Sean Eno that the Red Hook Open Studio Tour is right around the corner.
The Monarch Open Studio Tour is imminent. It’s just a week and a half away! Come see the land that time almost forgot, but then suddenly remembered. It’s part of a larger Red Hook open studios weekend, but our building is totally huge, so it has more art!
If you like art, daytime drinking, or invading people’s space to check out their belongings, then you’ll love it. Babies and art critics are welcome. Here’s what discerning folks are saying:
I went last year, and I had a good ol’ time! – John Shanchuk
I went two years ago and I was there for like TWELVE HOURS! – Cara McKenney
We look forward to seeing you. Information and directions below.
Monarch Luggage Building Open Studios
featuring 14 artists living and sometimes working therein, including
Kristin and Sean Eno, Studio 2U
Painting, Jewelry, Photography, Video; possibly with added tricks or gimmicks14 Verona Street
June 7th and 8th
Noon – 6pm
Gov Paterson Recognizes Same-Sex Marriages From Elsewhere
This from the New York Times. Read more here.
ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada.
In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”
The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses.
Only the Blog Links
Hoyt Street residents say no to Oyster Bar (Pardon Me for Asking)
Battle Hill on Memorial Day (Brooklynometry)
Rise in shootings and murders (Daily News)
Murder Book 2008 mentioned in Times’ feature about crime writers (Murder Book 2008)
Murder She Once Wrote (NY Times)
Coney Island Daze (Midnight Cowgirls)
From my window this afternoon (Self-Absorbed Boomer)
