Monthly Archives: June 2010
Camp Gowanee for Kids of All Ages at Spoke the Hub.
I was in Spoke the Hub last night at an exhibition of drawings from a recent figure drawing class taught by Russell Floersch. It was an interesting and diverse selection of drawings by adults who have enjoyed this weekly exploration of the body through drawing. The class included people who’ve never drawn before, as well as those who have. Floersch seems comfortable and delighted to work with all experience levels. He is offering this class in July and August. Go to the Spoke website (above) for more details.
The space has been hugely renovated since I was last in Spoke the Hub, when OSFO was 3. Way more space, a huge dance studio that doubles as a space for Floersch’s figure drawing classes with Russell with a live model.
This summer Spoke is running Camp Gowanee, located at Spoke’s other space at 748 Union Street & 295 Douglass Street. Look at the ambitious creative offerings. It might be just the thing for your child this summer for full or half day participation:
Week 1: Circus Arts (July 5-9)
* ages 7-11 / ages 12-15
* Juggling, magic, tumbling, mime, clowning, hula hoops…
Week 2: Street Dance, Culture & Art (July 12-16)
* ages 7-11 / ages 12-15
* Street Dance (hip hop, locking, stepping, breaking), rapping, poetry slams, grafitti (without destroying others’ property) fashion, mtv…
Week 3: Rhythm Week (July 19-23)
* ages 7-11 / ages 12-15
* African drumming, tap dance, poetry, rapping, music composition, visual rhythm composition in art …
Week 4: Tahiti Express (July 26-30)
* ages 7-11 / ages 12-15
* Polynesian dance, culture, language, crafts, music, synchronized swimming…
Continue reading Camp Gowanee for Kids of All Ages at Spoke the Hub.
Park Slope Eatery Set to Open
Par Slope Eatery, a new casual baker/deli is set to open on the fabled corner of Fifth Street and Seventh Avenue, the corner, which used to house La Bagel Delight before its move two blocks south.
Flyers posted on the window say: Apply Now Hiring. And there are menus available outside. The big sign boasts artisan bakery so I’m wondering if they’re going to have great bread.
Maybe.
Current Weather in Park Slope
Brought to you from the Feldman Family weather tower in Park Slope.
Tom Martinez, Witness: Signatures For Change in Honduras
Photographer Tom Martinez is in Honduras as part of an international human rights accompaniment and observation delegation. In this photo, a member of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) is seen knocking on doors in an ongoing effort to collect signatures for a national constituent assembly, which was process begun by President Zelaya, which lead to his removal in a military coup on June 28, 2010.
So far Tom’s group has met with representatives from the International Committee of the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), the leadership of the FNRP, and Honduran Platform for Human Rights, who gave a general overview of the events leading up to the coup on June 28 of last year, the human rights situation in Honduras since the coup, and their continued work to reconstruct democracy in Honduras under increasing repression. This violent repression has continued under the government of Porfirio Lobo, who was named president following a campaign and election process held under the auspices of the de facto coup government in the last half of 2009.
For more information about the delegation and the situation in Honduras go here.
Two Brooklyn Census Managers Fired for Faking Surveys
Well, maybe this means that Teen Spirit or Hepcat will finally get a temporary job with the Census Bureau. They aced the test and Hepcat actually did the training but they’ve never been called to do any work.
They hired these bozos instead and look where that got the Census Bureau.
According to the New York Times, about 10,000 census surveys in Brooklyn have to be redone because two managers supposedly filled out many of the household surveys themselves.
The two managers, Alvin Aviles and Sonya Merritt, began using online databases to fill out household surveys instead of collecting the information by knocking on doors. Needless to say, the two were fired after census officials finally figured out what was going on.
The local census office where they worked was supposed to complete 97,000 household surveys in the neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick and Greenpoint by July 10. By June 12, 9,000 surveys were still incomplete.
So to speed thing up, these two managers started faking the surveys.
Echoes of Smartmom’s Life in Toy Story 3
You would have thought they’d be tired. Indeed, the humidity was incredibly high and the family had spent much of the day outside. Smartmom trudged up and down Seventh Avenue for the street fair, the Oh So Feisty One was out with her friends; Hepcat went to see the Red Bull air races in New Jersey.
And Teen Spirit, no fool he, stayed in all day in the air conditioning.
They all came home hot and sweaty: Smartmom took a long nap. OSFO just stood next to the air conditioner and drank a tall glass of cold lemonade.
You would have thought they’d be toast by the time they ate the Smartmom-made Father’s Day dinner: chicken and vegetables in Calcutta Kitchen’s delicious Masala simmering sauce.
You would have thought they’d be ready for bed but someone — Smartmom thinks it was Hepcat — made the suggestion.
And then Smartmom googled it and found out if it was within the realm of possibility.
“It’s playing at 10:05 at the Pavilion,” Smartmom said aloud.
“Let’s go,” OSFO said.
Smartmom and Hepcat eyed each other cautiously. Their 13-year-old daughter, who barely ever wants to be with them, just agreed to do something with them. Silently, they were shocked and thrilled and ever so careful not to mess up this incredible opportunity.
They were about to have a high-quality family experience even if it was 10 o’clock on a school night.
“Let’s call Eastern,” Hepcat said, wasting no time and dialing the ubiquitous car service as Smartmom ordered the tickets online.
Waiting for the car downstairs, Smartmom wondered if she’d make it through the movie. The night air was still thick, and she felt like if she closed her eyes she might fall asleep. She looked at her watch and suddenly felt completely irresponsible. They were taking their 13-year-old to a 10:05 movie on a Sunday.
“This is kind of crazy,” Smartmom told OSFO as they got into the car. OSFO shrugged. She seemed pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. Smartmom wondered if any of her neighbors saw them going out.
The Sunday List: Postcard Show, Williamsburg Walks, New Play and Northside Fests
Williamsburg Walks and Northside Festival
Today is Day 4 of the Northside Festival and it’s also Williamsburg Walks: A two day shut-down of Bedford Avenue between N 4 and 9th Sts organized by the Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, the L Magazine and Project for the Public Spaces with the support of the New York City Department of Transportation Weekend Walks Program. Bring the kids and the dogs and the bikes!
Art Benefit in Dumbo
Now through July 18, in Dumbo, A.I.R. Gallery, founded in 1972 as the first artist–run, not–for–profit gallery for women artists in the United States, is having its 9th annual postcard show/benefit: Wish You Were Here 9 includes original works by more than 400 artists. The 4” x 6” artworks, as well as diptychs and triptychs based on this size, are created and donated by A.I.R. Gallery Artists and hundreds of other national and international artists. These cards range widely in style and media and encompass a broad spectrum of themes, including work by Kiki Smith and Mary Frank.
Film
playing all weekend: I Am Love at BAM; Toy Story 3 at the Pavilion
Music
Sunday, June 27th at 9PM at Barbes: French virtuoso Guitarist Stephane Wrembel seems to have channeled both the technique and the fire of Django Reinhardt. He studied for years with the manouche (the French Gypsies) but has also gotten deep into American vernacular musical styles. His weekly sets will mix up the traditional Django repertoire along gypsy swing re-interpretations of standards
Theater
Shows this weekend: Gallery Players: 13th Annual Black Box New Play Festival
Sunday, June 27th at 7PM at Barbes: The Twenty-Five Cent Opera of San Francisco presents theater slash performance slash entertainment brought to you once monthly by the playwriting firm of shulman delaney gassman kosmas and copp. Featuring new works for the tiny stage by landscape artist Erin Courtney, theater architect Yelena Gluzman, & word contstruction worker Kristen Kosmas.
Art
At the Brooklyn Museum: Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is the first U.S. museum survey to examine the late work of American artist Andy Warhol (1928–1987). During this time Warhol produced more works, in a considerable number of series and on a vastly larger scale, than at any other point in his forty-year career.
Food
Sunday, June 27th on Smith Street between Douglas and Degraw: Stink-Fest ‘10 Rocks Smith Street with Fun For the Whole Family Fourth Annual Cheese Eating Contesting.
Sunday, June 27, 12 – 5PM at The Bell House: The 2010 Unfancy Food Show. With dozens of local purveyors including, but definitely not limited to, Brooklyn Brewery, Sullivan Street Bakery, SCRATCHbread, Cut Brooklyn, Sweet Deliverance, Marlow and Sons, McClure’s Pickles, The Brooklyn Kitchen,, People’s Pops, Salvatore Brooklyn Ricotta and Nunu Chocolate, the UnFancy Food Show is the most aggressively awesome gathering of small producers in New York.
Fakelyn: Are you a real Brooklynite?
Some people think that the only real Brooklynites are the one’s who were born here. Other don’t think that matters a bit. In the Complaint Box on the City Room blog, New York Times readers are having it out. Here’s an excerpt from a “complaint” written by Ellen Leavitt, a teacher at a Brooklyn high school. Where’s Leon Freilich when you need him?
Brooklyn has become a hipster haven, drawing lots of celebrities and artists and quirky entrepreneurs and parents who use surnames for their children’s proper names. Fine. But many of these recent arrivals — from New Jersey, Iowa, the suburbs, France, all over the place — have now been crowned the Face of Brooklyn.
Ahem, hello, media experts, how about us lifelong Brooklynites? Are we the proverbial chopped liver?
In the 2008 anthology “Brooklyn Was Mine” (Riverhead Books), hardly any of the writers included were born and raised in Kings County. Most are transplants. Doesn’t anyone want to hear from those of us who actually went to kindergarten in Brooklyn, who played stoop ball before it was hip, who lived here during the blackout of 1977? Maybe it’s time to start paying attention to us. And I don’t mean trotting us out as the quaintness factor.
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
Fourth Avenue Nightlife: Persian Poetry, Korean Tacos, Trash Pony Bar
Hepcat and I went to Mission Delores (349 Fourth Avenue near Carroll) last night for beers and we love that bar, which is definitely having its moment. What a cool, cool place it is. A former garage, it’s an indoor/outdoor space with old factory doors, colorized wanted posters on the walls and a great selection of beer including Hepcat’s favorite: Arrogant Bastard (not a beer I particularly enjoy).
Afterwards we had a late night snack at Oaxaca Tacos, which serves amazing tacos, including a Korean Tacos with Kalbi marinated steak topped with Korean BBQ sauce, kimchee and Asian pear slaw
Amazing. Full disclosure: I hired them to cater Blogfest and they were fantastic.
We also passed the Trash Pony Bar, which is what happens to Root Hill Cafe at night. The owners found a stuffed animal pony in the trash right outside the store about a year ago and when they decided to open a bar they had a concept and a name.
Look for the pink globe lights out front during the hours on Thursdays-Saturdays when Root Hill becomes Trash Pony. It’s a cafe with a double life.
Tonight at Zora Space (315 Fourth Avenue near Third Street) is a sampling of Persian poets, such as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, Baba Taher, Shams e Maghrebi, and Mohammad-Reza Shafiei Kadkani, among others.
Sara Goudarzi Vocal (poetry)
Aida Shahghasemi Vocal (singing) & Daf
Sinan Gündoğdu Saz & Oud
Double D Pool to Open on Tuesday
That’s right. The city is NOT closing the Double D Pool on Nevins Street between Douglas and Degraw. Great news for kids and parents. Summer is saved!
The Weekend List: Persian Poets, 25-Cent Opera, Gunk Punk
Saturday night at 7:30 at Zora Space (315 Fourth Avenue near Third Street): A sampling of Persian poets, such as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, Baba Taher, Shams e Maghrebi, and Mohammad-Reza Shafiei Kadkani, among others.
Film
playing all weekend: I Am Love at BAM; Toy Story 3 at the Pavilion
Music
Saturday, June 26 at 4PM at Grand Army Plaza: Don’t miss Brooklyn’s hottest dance party as Felix Hernandez brings his famous Rhythm Revue to Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Park. Part of Jazz: Brooklyn’s Beat—a series of six events in June that bring world-class jazz to central Brooklyn’s cultural consortium.
Sunday, June 27th at 9PM at Barbes: French virtuoso Guitarist Stephane Wrembel seems to have channeled both the technique and the fire of Django Reinhardt. He studied for years with the manouche (the French Gypsies) but has also gotten deep into American vernacular musical styles. His weekly sets will mix up the traditional Django repertoire along gypsy swing re-interpretations of standards
Saturday, June 26th at 6PM at The Bell House: We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988 – 2001 is the first and only book on the last great wave of down-and-dirty rock’n’roll, one whose hangover can still be felt in bars and clubs across the globe. The book is the next chapter in the Please Kill Me/American Hardcore/Our Band Could Be Your Life succession. Musician and journalist Eric Davidson (Village Voice, CMJ, SF Bay Guardian) was there as this scene unfolded as the frontman for Ohio punks the New Bomb Turks, and he tracks the roots and history of this largely undocumented movement. This is the last generation of punks and rockers to conquer city after city without the diluting force of the Internet.
Theater
Shows this weekend: Gallery Players: 13th Annual Black Box New Play Festival
Sunday, June 27th at 7PM at Barbes: The Twenty-Five Cent Opera of San Francisco presents theater slash performance slash entertainment brought to you once monthly by the playwriting firm of shulman delaney gassman kosmas and copp. Featuring new works for the tiny stage by landscape artist Erin Courtney, theater architect Yelena Gluzman, & word contstruction worker Kristen Kosmas.
Art
At the Brooklyn Museum: Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is the first U.S. museum survey to examine the late work of American artist Andy Warhol (1928–1987). During this time Warhol produced more works, in a considerable number of series and on a vastly larger scale, than at any other point in his forty-year career.
Food
Sunday, June 27th on Smith Street between Douglas and Degraw: Stink-Fest ‘10 Rocks Smith Street with Fun For the Whole Family Fourth Annual Cheese Eating Contesting.
Sunday, June 27, 12 – 5PM at The Bell House: The 2010 Unfancy Food Show. With dozens of local purveyors including, but definitely not limited to, Brooklyn Brewery, Sullivan Street Bakery, SCRATCHbread, Cut Brooklyn, Sweet Deliverance, Marlow and Sons, McClure’s Pickles, The Brooklyn Kitchen,, People’s Pops, Salvatore Brooklyn Ricotta and Nunu Chocolate, the UnFancy Food Show is the most aggressively awesome gathering of small producers in New York.
Brownstone Brooklynites Choose Manhattan for Childbirth
Hospitals in Brownstone Brooklyn have lost patients from neighborhoods like Park Slope, Fort Greene, Boerum Hill, Prospect Heights and Carroll Gardens, according to a statistical analysis by The New York Times of birth trends from 1998 to 2008.
Anecdotally (and from reading Park Slope Parents) I know that for parents in Park Slope OBGYNs and hospitals in Manhattan are the norm not the exception. Yes, plenty of people have their babies at Methodist Hospital but the vast majority of parents choose Manhattan for what are perceived as superior hospitals and doctors. Here’s an excerpt from today’s NY Times:
The four Manhattan hospitals that are increasingly favored by women living in brownstone Brooklyn, especially in Park Slope, are New York University Langone Medical Center, the Roosevelt branch of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Mount Sinai Medical Center, according to The Times’s analysis.
Statistics show that Brooklynites hardly hesitate to use the local hospitals for routine emergency room care, like during the swine flu scare last year, but when it comes to having a baby, neighborhood allegiances break down.
Hospitals in or close to the affluent Brooklyn neighborhoods are not necessarily hurting. Births at New York Methodist Hospital, in the heart of Park Slope, soared by 40 percent in the 10-year period. It ranked among the city’s five hospitals with the most births in 2008, along with Maimonides (which had more births than any other hospital in the state) and Lutheran Medical Centers in Brooklyn, Roosevelt and Mount Sinai.
Yet, the numbers of births at Methodist to mothers from Park Slope, Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens dropped over that time as more chose Manhattan; the hospital’s growth came from the black, West Indian and Lubavitcher neighborhoods in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights; Latino and Satmar neighborhoods in Greenpoint and Williamsburg; and the West Indian, Haitian and blacks neighborhoods in East New York, Flatbush and East Flatbush.
A spokeswoman for Methodist, Lyn S. Hill, said the hospital analyzed its data a little differently, and found that births had remained constant over the last 20 years from the combined neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn and Park Slope. “Our patient population ethnicity closely mirrors that of Brooklyn,” Ms. Hill said.
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
My Summer Soundtracks
Everyone is talking about great summer music (or maybe I listen to the radio too much). So I decided to make my own list of albums I’ve enjoyed in the various summers of my life.
Childhood Summers:
Getz Gilberto (1963) A classic introduced to me by my dad. It was often on the turntable during those hot (and un-air-conditioned) summers on Riverside Drive.
Tapestry by Carol King (1971) We created modern dance to this endlessly at summer camp in 1970.
High School Summers:
The Harder They Come with Jimmy Cliff and others (1973) This was the soundtrack of my summer before college in 1976.
Music From Big Pink: The Band (1968). I remember the day I got this album ( a gift from my dad). We called it Big Pink for short.
The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle: Bruce Springsteen (1975) Summer darkness and light with the E Street band.
The Hissing of Summer Lawns: Joni Mitchell (1975) Smell the grass on those LA lawns.
Tea for the Tillerman: Cat Stevens (19 ) Oh this brings back memories.
Loudon Wainwright (1970): I loved this album and will never forget running into Loudon at Matt Umanov guitars in Greenwich Village. He was wearing a seersucker suit jacket and seersucker shorts and I asked him if this album was still available because I lost my copy. He wrote down an address where I could send away for it on Edsel Records in London.
College Summers:
Hazel and Alice (1979) Tersely emotive singing by the Thelma and Louise of Bluegrass. This was the soundtrack of my summer of 1979 when I was working at IBM in Endicott, New York (and taking dance classes with Bill T Jones).
The Roches (1978) Songwriting sisters who blurred pop, barber shop, folk and fun. This was also my soundtrack of summer ’79.
Fear of Music: Talking Heads (1979) This was the soundtrack during the summer of 1980 when I was living on Beethoven Street in Binghamton, NY.
Spirit in the Dark: Aretha Franklin (1970 ) I remember dancing to this in a dance therapy workshop in Johnson City, NY circa 1978?
Joan Armatrading (1976 ) Oh the feeling, when you’re reeling, you step lightly thinking you’re number 1…
Adult Summers:
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) Hip Hop meets confessional in this virtuosic blend of jazz, rock, soul, gospel, and R&B. My soundtrack running in Prospect Park….
Soul II Soul Club Classics (1989) This was the music blaring out of car windows on Ludlow Street during the summer of 1989.
Inside Betty Carter (1965) A friend and I used to hear her at Fat Tuesdays; once at Celebrate Brooklyn (in the 1980s) and once at BAM (with my father) where she did a master class where all questions had to be sung. Brilliant.
Adrian Hibbs Project EP (2007) A white man who sounds like Stevie Wonder, he plays a mean Wurlitzer. A discovery of mine last summer in Block Island where he performed on Fridays at the Spring House.My summer Soundtrack 2009.
OTBKB Music: Li’l Mo and The Monicats Tonight and Alejandro Escovedo Next Week
Manhattan based Monica Passin, better known as L’il Mo, crosses the river into Brooklyn to lead her band, The Monicats, through a set of country, rockabilly, blues, 60s pop and whatever else she and they may play. And I’ll add that not only are L’il Mo and The Monicats terrific musically, they are just plain fun to watch. Details plus a music video are posted over at Now I’ve Heard Everything.
Next week, Alejandro Escovedo, a rock n roll force even if you’ve not heard of him yet, comes into town and plays three shows at City Winery to promote his new CD (on sale Tuesday), Street Songs of Love. Check out a contest to win tickets to see Al, stream cuts from that new album and see a video by checking out Now I’ve Heard Everything.
–Eliot Wagner
Park Slope Civic Council FAQ About Expanded Landmarking
On the Park Slope Civic Council website there is an interesting and informative FAQ about expanding the Park Slope historic district.
Why expand the Park Slope Historic District?
Landmark designation is the only way to protect the buildings and streetscape that make Park Slope distinctive. Without this designation, there is nothing to prevent developers or owners from tearing down or drastically altering existing buildings. Zoning law regulates building height and usage but not exterior appearance or fidelity to the surrounding architectural context. Only historic district designation offers that protection, and only about 25 percent of Park Slope lies within the present district.Who decides whether the Park Slope Historic District will be expanded?
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), with ratification by the City Council, after an extended period of intensive research to document each building in the proposed expansion.What part of Park Slope is under consideration, and why isn’t it larger?
The LPC has a small staff and can only conduct research into several hundred buildings at a time. In this first phase, the LPC has agreed to survey more than 700 buildings contiguous to the existing Historic District, but the Park Slope Civic Council is laying the groundwork to have all of Park Slope eventually considered.Will building owners be part of the process?
Yes. The process includes communication with all building owners and a public hearing.Would landmark designation lower my property value?
On the contrary, landmarking tends to raise property values because people want to live in neighborhoods protected from radical demolition and development.Would I be required to restore my property to some prior period in its history?
No.Continue reading Park Slope Civic Council FAQ About Expanded Landmarking
The Weekend List: Unfancy Food, I Am Love, Stink-Fest, Jazz at GAP
FYI: Weekend events are being added all day (see Stink-Fest on Smith Street).
Film
I Am Love at BAM; Toy Story 3 at the Pavilion
Music
Saturday, June 26 at 4PM at Grand Army Plaza: Don’t miss Brooklyn’s hottest dance party as Felix Hernandez brings his famous Rhythm Revue to Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Park. Part of Jazz: Brooklyn’s Beat—a series of six events in June that bring world-class jazz to central Brooklyn’s cultural consortium.
Sunday, June 27th at 9PM at Barbes: French virtuoso Guitarist Stephane Wrembel seems to have channeled both the technique and the fire of Django Reinhardt. He studied for years with the manouche (the French Gypsies) but has also gotten deep into American vernacular musical styles. His weekly sets will mix up the traditional Django repertoire along gypsy swing re-interpretations of standards
Saturday, June 26th at 6PM at The Bell House: We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988 – 2001 is the first and only book on the last great wave of down-and-dirty rock’n’roll, one whose hangover can still be felt in bars and clubs across the globe. The book is the next chapter in the Please Kill Me/American Hardcore/Our Band Could Be Your Life succession. Musician and journalist Eric Davidson (Village Voice, CMJ, SF Bay Guardian) was there as this scene unfolded as the frontman for Ohio punks the New Bomb Turks, and he tracks the roots and history of this largely undocumented movement. This is the last generation of punks and rockers to conquer city after city without the diluting force of the Internet.
Theater
Gallery Players: 13th Annual Black Box New Play Festival
Sunday, June 27th at 7PM at Barbes: The Twenty-Five Cent Opera of San Francisco presents theater slash performance slash entertainment brought to you once monthly by the playwriting firm of shulman delaney gassman kosmas and copp. Featuring new works for the tiny stage by landscape artist Erin Courtney, theater architect Yelena Gluzman, & word contstruction worker Kristen Kosmas.
Art
At the Brooklyn Museum: Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is the first U.S. museum survey to examine the late work of American artist Andy Warhol (1928–1987). During this time Warhol produced more works, in a considerable number of series and on a vastly larger scale, than at any other point in his forty-year career.
Food
Sunday, June 27th on Smith Street between Douglas and Degraw: Stink-Fest ’10 Rocks Smith Street with Fun For the Whole Family Fourth Annual Cheese Eating Contesting.
Sunday, June 27, 12 – 5PM at The Bell House: The 2010 Unfancy Food Show. With dozens of local purveyors including, but definitely not limited to, Brooklyn Brewery, Sullivan Street Bakery, SCRATCHbread, Cut Brooklyn, Sweet Deliverance, Marlow and Sons, McClure’s Pickles, The Brooklyn Kitchen,, People’s Pops, Salvatore Brooklyn Ricotta and Nunu Chocolate, the UnFancy Food Show is the most aggressively awesome gathering of small producers in New York.
Current Weather in Park Slope
Brought to you from the Feldman Family weather tower in Park Slope.
Mayor and City Council Agree on Budget
At a late night session of the City Council on Thursday night, Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council agreed on a $63 billion budget which will mean painful job losses in schools and other social services. According to the NY Times, the city will make the 2,000 or so cuts largely by attrition although there will be layoffs.
The deal marks the end of a process that lasted months due to a $5 billion shortfall and a serious recession.
25 fire houses that were marked for closure were saved. That alone preserves the jobs of 400 firefighters at a cost of $37 million. Also spared were caseworkers at the Administration for Children’s Services.
And in good news for city children: all of the city’s swimming pools will remain open for the summer, including the Double D pool on Douglas Street in Park Slope/Gowanus.
There will be no tax increases or fees; tax revenues were higher than expected this year due to gains on Wall Street.
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
Shred Paper for Local School
The Shred Services paper shredding truck will be outside of PS 321 on 7th Ave and First Street on June 26th, from 8AM until noon.
Here’s your chance to get rid of your confidential papers securely and conveniently and support the school at the same time! The cost to have a large box of papers shredded is $10 with $5 going to PS 321 PTA.
The effort is part of a campaign called “Make Up The Difference” which was launched recently by the school’s PTA in response to the expected DOE budget cuts.
New Arts Space on Fourth Avenue: Zora Space
There’s a new space for visual and performance artists, filmmakers and musicians on Fourth Avenue!. It’s called Zora Space and they officially opened their doors this week at 315 4th Avenue in Park Slope.
They are also calling out to artists to submit proposals for shows at the space, which was conceived by its founder-director Zohreh Shayesteh, as a welcoming environment for artists to experiment, interact, communicate, create and showcase their work.
Zora’s inaugural exhibition is called: Dialogue Beyond Reality (June 18-August 15). It serves as a jumping-off point for an eclectic line-up of events, performances, screenings and exhibitions. The schedule demonstrates the inclusive vision of Ms. Shayesteh along with the team of expert curators she has assembled: Renowned jazz sax player Jay Rodriguez (director of musical programming); noted Iranian-American artist Nahid Hagigat (art director); artist/weaver Cynthia Alberto (coordinating director); and poet/essayist Zohra Saed (programming director).
An independent filmmaker whose documentary “Inside Out” was the official selection of 2006 Tribeca International Film Festival, Ms. Shayesteh feels passionately about the importance of the arts—and that served as her motivation for opening Zora Space. “As an independent artist who believes that art is a necessity for everyday life, I feel that the art world has become too commercialized—an exclusive club where artists are viewed as money making mechanisms. With Zora Space, I wanted to provide a place for artists who have something to say, regardless of who knows them and how much money they can generate for themselves or for their agents…a space for the arts, artists and art lovers.”
Dialogue Beyond Reality, which runs through August 15, features eight cutting-edge New York-based artists (Robin Antar, Behar Behbahani, Meredith Bergmann, Alex Cascone, Roya Frassat, Aphrodite Désirée Navab, Nosrat Nosratian and Anderson Zaca) using photography, sculpture and video in a group show highlighting diversity juxtaposed with unconventional harmony and synchronization.
Upcoming performances at Zora Space run the gamut from a concert featuring Gio Moretti, the Italian singer-songwriter (6/24); Poetics of Iran, an evening of poetry and music featuring a sampling of Persian poets (6/26); Samantha Chance performing BACK TO THE GRAVEYARD, a solo show about the joys and perils of family dinner planning, bad art, drinking in public, and, of course, flesh-eating monsters (7/31); among many other offerings.
Very importantly: Ms. Shayesteh is inviting visual and performance artists, filmmakers and musicians to submit project proposals (information available on the website).
Refreshments at Zora Space include coffees, beverages and a variety of moderately priced snacks and sandwiches—with an influence of far away places. Reservations are encouraged for special events.
Zora Space
315 4th Avenue (between 2nd & 3rd Streets)
Park Slope, New York
718 832-4870
Subway and Bus Service Changes This Weekend
Subway and bus service changes that may affect your trips are effective this coming Sunday, June 27. Visit the Subway and Bus Route Changes page at http://www.mta.info/nyct/service/RouteChanges/index.html to see if you should update your email and text message alert choices.
All About Fifth: 3-Part Interview with Brad Lander
On All About Fifth check out the 3-part interview with City Councilmember Brad Lander. To see the first two interviews, check out here (district digs) and here (small business challenges), respectively. Here’s an excerpt from the 3rd part where he talks about Fifth Avenue, sustainablity and local green initiatives:
Brad Lander: I am very committed to the “livable streets” effort. Although I’m in my car a lot, and appreciate the very real and practical need to keep traffic moving, we live in a neighborhood where our quality-of-life is very directly related to the quality of our life-on-the-street. My kids have started to do more walking and biking on their own, and it has given me a new appreciation of how much difference it makes to have safe intersections, so I love the many places where we have new “bulb-outs” or “neck-downs.” While there has certainly been some controversy around them, I value and appreciate the new bike lanes. While I still drive more than I cycle, I think the trade-off is well worth it. I’m also hoping we can do even more to improve our streets: wider sidewalks, more trash cans and recycle bins, drinking fountains, healthier street trees. Our neighborhood has come a long way since the days people were scared to walk down the street – but we could do even more to make people want to.
Locals Protest Cuts to B71 Bus
On June 23rd, a spirited group of Brooklynites gathered to protest cuts to the B71 bus and all the bus lines slated to be restructured or totally eliminated next week. The B71 is a cross town bus whose route is not duplicated by any Brooklyn train line and connects neighborhoods which have been particularly hard hit by budget cuts this year.
Kids came with signs saying where they take the B71: to schools, to doctors and dentists, to libraries, museums and parks. Representatives of the disabled came to remind the MTA how essential buses are for mobility and workers came who need the B71 to get to their jobs. The rally was attended by residents and organizations from the Columbia Waterfront district, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, City Councilmembers Brad Lander and Letitia James and representatives from Assemblywoman Joan Millman and State Senator Daniel Squadron’s offices who all represent areas served by the B71.
Organizers of the rally also gathered more than 2,700 signatures on paper and online petitions to stop the elimination of the bus. On Sunday, June 27 there will be another rally against bus cuts at the Smith Street Fair, which will begin at the corner of Union and Smith Streets at 11AM.
July 3: Food Films and Food at The Old American Can Factory
On July 3rd Community Markets is collaborating with Rooftop Films, Umami Food and Art Festival and the The (Makers) Market at The Old American Can Factory to screen a series of short artists’ food films on the roof of the Old American Can Factory at 232 3rd St. and 3rd Ave in Gowanus/Park Slope, Brooklyn.
The event will kick off at 8:30 PM with a live concert by the all-original indie rock group, Railbird from Saratoga Springs, hailed as “a great indie band set to break out,” by Billboard Magazine. After the screening there will be a Q & A with artists, and curator followed by an after party with refreshments for sale prepared by Communal Table.
The Umami films include contributions from different cultures and feature a variety of unusual approaches to food, highlighting its unique, multi-faceted nature. Some of the short films to be screened include:
Eggs and Bells (2008) by Annie Lanzillotto Lanzillotto’s fantastic irreverent performances (she sings, dances and writes…) celebrate her Italian American upbringing. In Eggs and Bells she pays homage to her Nonna and to traditional foodways.http://www.annielanzillotto.com/
Chickpea Masala in Four Movements (2010) by Steve Bradley Bradley soaks, sautés, and DJs his way through an aural/visual investigation into the preparation of Chick Pea Masala http://userpages.umbc.edu/~sbradley/
Miss Lucy (2007) by Tami Marks (Tami Ben-Shahar) Marks is an Israeli artist living in Massachusetts. Touching on themes of gender, faith, ritual and perhaps madness, this video follows Miss Lucy as she uses her kitchen as a temple and her oven as an alter. She indulges in sacrifice only to be resurrected as a modern woman. Derived from the sacred and the profane, Miss Lucy is both the name of a Christian saint and of an Israeli hot dog company.
“As farmers market organizers we’re aware and fascinated by the constantly evolving, culturally significant role that food plays in communities throughout New York,” says Rebecca Pedinotti of Community Markets. “Organizing this event with the Umami artists is an exciting way to explore food and eating beyond the market, as an enactment of community, identity and so much more.”
On the ground floor of the OA Can Factory from 6pm to 9pm there will also be a pop up (Makers) Market. The eclectic array of Makers who sell artisanal wares, art and design products every Sunday at the (OA) Can Factory, will be featuring their handmade products for sale before the film screening.
The Weekend List: I Am Love, The Gunk Punk Undergut, Jazz at Grand Army Plaza
Film
I Am Love at BAM; Toy Story at the Pavilion
Music
Saturday, June 26 at 4PM at Grand Army Plaza: Don’t miss Brooklyn’s hottest dance party as Felix Hernandez brings his famous Rhythm Revue to Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Park. Part of Jazz: Brooklyn’s Beat—a series of six events in June that bring world-class jazz to central Brooklyn’s cultural consortium.
Sunday, June 27th at 9PM at Barbes: French virtuoso Guitarist Stephane Wrembel seems to have channeled both the technique and the fire of Django Reinhardt. He studied for years with the manouche (the French Gypsies) but has also gotten deep into American vernacular musical styles. His weekly sets will mix up the traditional Django repertoire along gypsy swing re-interpretations of standards
Saturday, June 26th at 6PM at The Bell House: We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988 – 2001 is the first and only book on the last great wave of down-and-dirty rock’n’roll, one whose hangover can still be felt in bars and clubs across the globe. The book is the next chapter in the Please Kill Me/American Hardcore/Our Band Could Be Your Life succession. Musician and journalist Eric Davidson (Village Voice, CMJ, SF Bay Guardian) was there as this scene unfolded as the frontman for Ohio punks the New Bomb Turks, and he tracks the roots and history of this largely undocumented movement. This is the last generation of punks and rockers to conquer city after city without the diluting force of the Internet.
Theater
Gallery Players: 13th Annual Black Box New Play Festival
Sunday, June 27th at 7PM at Barbes: The Twenty-Five Cent Opera of San Francisco presents theater slash performance slash entertainment brought to you once monthly by the playwriting firm of shulman delaney gassman kosmas and copp. Featuring new works for the tiny stage by landscape artist Erin Courtney, theater architect Yelena Gluzman, & word contstruction worker Kristen Kosmas.
Art
Brooklyn Museum: Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is the first U.S. museum survey to examine the late work of American artist Andy Warhol (1928–1987). During this time Warhol produced more works, in a considerable number of series and on a vastly larger scale, than at any other point in his forty-year career.
Food
Sunday, June 27, 12 – 5PM at The Bell House: The 2010 Unfancy Food Show. With dozens of local purveyors including, but definitely not limited to, Brooklyn Brewery, Sullivan Street Bakery, SCRATCHbread, Cut Brooklyn, Sweet Deliverance, Marlow and Sons, McClure’s Pickles, The Brooklyn Kitchen,, People’s Pops, Salvatore Brooklyn Ricotta and Nunu Chocolate, the UnFancy Food Show is the most aggressively awesome gathering of small producers in New York.
Bklyn Bloggage: home & design
100 abandoned houses: CasaCara
Rainbow Jello: Swiss-Miss
Best summer house tours: Apartment Therapy
Sneak Peek: Gold Teeth: Design Sponge
Blogger tag sale: Adventures in Renovating a Bklyn Limestone