A memorial for Gowanus Lounge founder Robert Guskind was held on Saturday, April 5th, 2009 at the Brooklyn Lyceum. The event opened with a stunning video montage (edited by Blue Barn Pictures) comprised of interviews with Bob, footage of him reporting on the streets of Brooklyn, and videos made by Bob. It was a beautiful and haunting way to begin the event.
The first speaker was State Senator Velmanette. Montgomery. I had the feeling that she didn't know a great deal about Bob or about blogging. At first I wondered why she was there but she did, eventually, pose this thoughtful question to the group:
"How can we bring him and people like him to young people so that they can know about his work and be part of something that passes his legacy on?"
Jake Dobkin, co-founder and publisher of Gothamist, spoke next about the time he invited Bob out for drinks at the SoHo Grand, the kind of place that, according to Jake, "epitomizes everything that Bob hated. He squeezed himself into a tiny table next to two groups of bankers and I showed up late. But he took it in stride and within two minutes I knew he had a gigantic heart and a fierce intellect."
Lockhart Steele, publisher of Curbed, met Bob when he started sending in photographs with captions that showed his hilarious sensibility. "We invited him to office and this big jovial guy comes in." They hired him on the spot and Bob, who called himself the fastest writer in the world, told him: "I can start right now."
" Bob knew what he wanted to bring to the table and he just started doing it with a complete focus on getting done what he wanted to do…Even looking at a horrifying building, he could bring humor, appreciation and even joy to create a narrative of the neighborhood," Lockhart told the crowd.
Chris Kreussling, who writes Flatbush Gardener, met Bob at the second Blogfest and came to relate to Bob as a fellow traveler on the road to drug and alcohol recovery. "It's something I recognized about Bob empathically, an important part of of him," Chris said. "For me, recovery is not about abstinence, it's about choosing life and there are a lot of ways to do that."
Brenda Becker, who writes, A Year in the Park, discovered an interesting thread in Bob's work: "With his emphasis on Coney Island and the Gowanus, strange cats and stray pit bulls something connects all of it," Brenda told the group. "Bob could see beauty in that which was broken. And he could see what could be in it again. How a polluted canal could be Venice. A street couch could be absurdest theater. A broken, miserable Coney Island could be turned into something great and not a greed-driven non-entity."
Nate Kensinger, a photographer and contributor to Gowanus Lounge, called Bob "The Blogfather" for the way he championed people's work and brought them into the Gowanus Lounge fold. "He was the single greatest supporter of my photography and he was enthusiastic about a lot of people."
Bob's coverage of the closing of a Fifth Avenue donut shop meant a lot to Nate. "He covered things the mainstream media would never have covered. The closing of that donut shop was the end of an era of an old school diner."
E.Cherilin Stephens met Bob last fall after he took a brief hiatus and then reached out for help on his blog. She immediately pitched in and ran the blog on weekends, "So that Bob could have some time off."
Phil DePaolo of the New York Community Council, remembers the time he invited Bob to lead a group of Rutger's students around Coney Island. "Watching him with a group of young minds; they were like sponges. Afterwards we had a wonderful lunch on Mermaid Avenue. Because as much as Bob loved blogging, he loved food."
About Bob's writing style Phil said; "Anyone can write about stuff. But being able to take something hideous and give you a laugh. He could always inject some humor."
Heather Letzkus, a close friend of Bob's, remembered the first time Bob re-posted something from her blog, New York Shitty. He called her "an angry blogger" and she was furious about it: "I am not an angry person. How dare this guy call me an angry person," she ranted to her husband.
But it was anger at injustice that fueled both of their passions for development issues in Brooklyn. "Bob wrote Gowanus Lounge for the underdogs, the downtrodden, those who could not speak for themselves," Heather said.
Mark Farre, a musician and writer, met Bob when they were both students at Georgetown University. Echoing Brenda Becker's words he said, "Bob liked to find what was broken in beauty and what was beautiful in ugliness. This was a tension that followed him all his life. In that way, he was a poet as much as he was a journalist, a mystic, and an artist."
Marc described Bob's upbringing in Passaic County, NJ where he was born in 1958, the son of a truck driver, who left the family when Bob was 5 and a mother, who raised Bob and his sister alone. He graduated at the top of his class at Georgetown and was immediately hired by his mentor, Neil Pearce, at the National Journal, where he worked for 16 years.".
Marc alluded to Bob's drug problems in the 1990's but emphasized that that was just one part of Bob's story. "An abundant soul, no one had a larger heart, laugh, body, voice, appetite and huge hole which he sought to fill with huge experience."
One of things he loved to experience was spicy food. "He was always after more spice, more transcendence. Bob had a desire for more. He was a seeker," Marc said.
Finally, Marc was adamant that Bob died "because he ran out of fuel. He gave everything he had…through the torment and shitstorms and the suffering, he loved his beat, he loved you. Bob did not want to die. But he died the way he lived and was unable to feel how much people loved him through the pain."
Marc was the first speaker to mention Bob's wife, a pre-school teacher named Olivia. "Without Olivia there would never have been a Gowanus Lounge." Bob discovered Brooklyn through Olivia after he moved into the apartment she owns in Park Slope. "Olivia often accompanied Bob on his long walks and drives through the Brooklyn streets…"
Norman Oder, the blogger behind Atlantic Yards Report considered Bob "a colleague, a friend, a peer." Like Bob, Norman worked for the mainstream media but came to blogging "through a zig zag path and found it to be a new place to go to another level."
Norman referred to Bob's workaholic tendencies: "He lived a lot, worked harder than most people, lived a lot of hours. But he still deserved to be here another 20 years. And whatever the technology would be – you'll probably be able to touch your tooth instead of typing – Bob would have been in the middle of it."
After the designated speakers mentioned above, people in the room were invited to join the "shout out."
Aaron Brashear, a self-described local hell raiser in Greenwood Heights, never actually met Bob but emailed him frequently. "Brooklyn is different without him. I keep thinking, 'Oh I want to send this to Bob.' He was one of the most intense people I didn't get to meet."
Deborah Matlack, a photographer and contributor to Gowanus Lounge, who has started her own blog, Brooklyn Rocks, also never met Bob in person. "I'm really sorry about that because he was a mentor."
There were others, too. Ward Dennis of Brooklyn 11211, a blog in Greenpoint, Gary Tilzer from True News, Lola Staar from the Coney Island shop and roller rink, Katia Kelly of Pardon Me for Asking, Kristin of Best View in Brooklyn and Triada Samaris of CORD.
The event ran a full four hours and included time to mingle and eat and drink. Food was provided by Rafael Soler of Bob's beloved Food Vendors of Red Hook
Park, who supplied the pupusas and Juventino Avila, chief/owner of Get
Fresh Table and Market. Chris Kreussling baked a huge number of
chocolate chip and pignoli nut and almond macaroons.
It was a wonderful celebration of a man, whose reputation continues to grow even, sadly, as many mourn his death.
The event was organized by a large, dedicated group which included Aaron Brashear (Concerned Citizens of
Greenwood Heights), Sam Coker, Nicole Davis (Brooklyn Based), Phil
DePaolo (New York Community Council) Jake Dobkin (Gothamist), Susan Fox
(Park Slope Parents), Ann Kansfield (Greenpoint Reformed Church),
Katia Kelly (Pardon Me for Asking), Chris Kreussling (Flatbush
Gardener), Heather Letzkus (NY Shitty), Norman Oder (Atlantic Yards
Report), and E Cherilin Stephens (Gowanus Lounge).