Last Sunday, there was a great celebration of Bastille Day on Smith Street, sponsored by Bar Tabac. Here’s the report from Streetsblog. Go on over there to see the video.

Every year, on the Sunday closest to Bastille Day, Brooklyn bistro
Bar Tabac helps put on one of the city’s finest carfree events, turning
two blocks of Smith Street into a neighborhood party. As restaurants
take over sidewalks with café seating and shady tents, the center of
the street transforms into a sandy arena for a tourney of Pétanque (bocce’s French cousin). Streetfilms’ Nick Whitaker caught the festivities yesterday,
with the Open Planning Project’s Nick Grossman guiding the way and Bar
Tabac’s Christophe Chambers explaining what goes into the event. Says
Whitaker:It’s not just the action and attraction of the tournament that makes it
special. People lounge about, eat great culinary delights, kids
skateboard, friends play foosball, and listen to great music — the
kinds of things that we need to happen more to make the sometimes
hectic, noisy streets of NYC more palatable. If livable streets
advocates are looking for a good model of what draws people to an
event, look no further.