Monthly Archives: April 2010

arts and culture

Drinking With Divas – Cristina Guadalupe

Sarah met Cristina Guadalupe for burlesque and beer at the Galapagos Art Space.  Cristina is an architect and artist who recently moved to Brooklyn from her native Barcelona.

Her short film Moose Youth will screen at Powershovel Art Space in Tokyo this May and in Los Angeles in July.  She is currently working on a new short called Le Dauphin, featuring fellow diva Peekaboo Pointe, which will show at gallerie du jour – agnes b in Paris from September 9-23.

Sarah: What is your favorite building in New York?

Cristina: The Guggenheim.  There is no building in the world that achieves what the Guggenheim does.  Even if you have been many times, as you approach the building it remains so alien, so crazy and unexpected.  It has gone far beyond what Frank Lloyd Wright could have expected.  You cannot display art in the Guggenheim or curate a show without taking the space itself into account.  Even though it is all white, it is anything but a white box.

Sarah: What is the purpose of architecture?

Cristina: Vitruvius said that architecture enables things to happen and contains the activity.  It’s not necessary to construct a solid thing.  What is most important is making the social interaction that happens in a place the best it can be.  Like a piazza in an old city is a political space, a void that creates a place where people can gather and discuss.  Architecture is not solid; it’s void.  It’s about letting it happen.  Today, though, this is getting more complex because people gather more and more in virtual spaces.

Sarah: Do you see any connections between your study of architecture and your filmmaking?

Cristina: Moose Youth was a cinematographic essay about a place. There was this space I fell in love with – a space between walls with no roof and the F train circling around.  It gave me the same feeling I felt with a Plaza de Toros.  Although the film had some sort of structure – introduction of the character, development, and end – it was more photography in motion than a narrative film.  It was also about how at the end of ourselves there’s this space where no one gets in, not our husband, not our mother, not our friends.

Sarah: Tell me about your next film.

Cristina: Le Dauphin was the title given to the heir apparent to the throne of France and is also my main character, Victor, a smart, French 19-year-old boy.  It’s filled with crazy Brooklyn characters.  It’s like Alice in Wonderland meets Don Quixote meets the Catholic journey down into the Inferno.

Sarah: I can’t wait to see it!  How do you make the films?

Cristina: I use a handheld Japanese camera called a Harimezumi.  It’s digital but the quality is like Super 8.  It’s low res.  Moose Youth is silent.  I was going to do music, but the images alone are so powerful. Le Dauphin will have some dialog and music.

Sarah: At the end of the day, do you consider yourself an architect or an artist?

Cristina: I’m not 100% architect or 100% visual artist.  Sometimes I get worried that I’ll be a dilletante. Jean Cocteau, who is my biggest influence, was accused of being a dilletante, because he was a painter, a writer, a cinematographer, and a poet.  So I guess I can’t worry about it.  I feel deep inside of me that everything I do is just the expression of my art.  I feel the same feeling whether I am designing a building or making a film. Cocteau said that all were expressions of his poetry.

Sarah: Aren’t films innately different, though, because they unfold in a linear way?  A building can be approached from any angle.

Cristina: Yes and no. Above all, cinematography is creating a scenario and a place where things are going to happen. The film is not the movie itself but the invisible element you are taking back home. Cinematography is a tool for expression. Sadly the industry has turned it into a pale shadow of what it could be. This place we are trying to go: it’s where we put a platform of experimentation out there that lets many interpretations happen and new questions unfold.  Just like the void in the piazza.

THE WEDDING BAND

Go to Galapagos Art Space for the art and the space, not the cocktails.  We stuck to beer and wine, avoiding the electric blue Cosmos and scary cocktail specials such as the “Back Alley Orgasm.”  The burlesque was intoxicating enough.  Instead, here’s a cocktail I designed for Cristina’s wedding.  A week before you want to drink this, fill a sterilized jar with a cut, ripe pineapple, then fill jar with aged rum.  Let sit for a week, shaking daily, then strain and keep it in the frig.

For two cocktails, muddle together in the bottom of a shaker:

1/2 lime, cut into four pieces
1/4 ounce simple syrup (equal parts demerara sugar and water, heated to dissolve then cooled)
1/4 ounce St. Elizabeth’s Allspice Dram
1/4 ounce Maraschino Liqueur

Fill shaker with ice and add:

2 ounces pineapple-infused rum
2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Shake very well.  Strain into two chilled flutes, filling glasses halfway.  Top each cocktail with:

approx. 2 ounces ice-cold NV champagne

Viva Cristina!

Civics and Urban Life

Goldstein Accepts $3 Million to Move Out of AY Footprint Apartment

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From the Brooklyn Paper:

Daniel Goldstein is now the $3-million man.After nearly seven years of steadfast opposition to Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards — a personal and political protest that made him the last resident of the project footprint — Goldstein accepted the lucrative offer on Wednesday and will leave the project’s footprint by May 7.

The move comes after he was left with no other options once the state condemned his Pacific Street property via eminent domain last month.

Goldstein paid $590,000 for the three-bedroom unit in 2003 — months before Ratner presented his 16-skyscraper residential, commercial and basketball arena plan that called on the state to evict residents through its condemnation power.

After a long holdout — which left his name as the only one on the buzzer of his six-story building — Goldstein was offered just $510,000 by the state.

But now Goldstein will receive a check for that amount tomorrow — plus the remaining $2,490,000 from Ratner when he, his wife and small child move out.

He said he was relieved, but still personally affronted by the $4-billion mega-project — the subject of years of protest and more than a dozen lawsuits.

“If I’m going to be forced out of my home in quick measure, I’m going to be paid for it,” he said. “Of course, I would rather the neighborhood be restored.”

Civics and Urban Life

Julius Spiegel, Brooklyn Parks Commissioner, Retires

Here’s the statement from Marty Markowitz, Borough President:

“From the restoration of the Coney Island boardwalk to the overhaul of McCarren Park in Greenpoint, Julius Spiegel understands better than anyone that our borough’s parks and open spaces define the character of Brooklyn . Who else would have the foresight to open the city’s first dedicated cricket field, at Gateway Mall, knowing how important the sport is to many of Brooklyn ’s communities? Who else would have seen so much potential in a vacant lot in East New York that has become Robert Venable Park? He may hail from Montreal and favor smoked meat, while I’m a Brooklyn boy who prefers pastrami, but I can tell you that everyone in Brooklyn agrees that because of Julius Spiegel, our parks make the rest of America ‘green’ with envy.”

arts and culture

Readings on the 4th Floor With Alexandra Styron & Bliss Broyard

William Styron and Anatole Broyard are unquestionably on the short list of great literary figures of the 20th century, but what was it like to grow up around such men – especially since they each held dark secrets?

Styron went through years-long periods of depression while Broyard kept the fact that of his African American roots from his family and the public.  On Wednesday, May 5th at 7:30 PM on the 4th Floor of PS 107 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, Alexandra Styron, a New Yorker contributor and novelist in her own right (All The Finest Girls), and Bliss Broyard, who wrote about coming to terms with an entire side of her family she never knew about (One Drop) will read from their works and talk about their experiences.

This reading will be held on the 4th Floor of PS 107, which is located at 13th Street and 8th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn at 7:30 PM. The event is open to the public and tickets are $10 online at www.ps107.org or at the door.

The PS 107 Readings on the 4th Floor is a topical literary series that raises funds for the PTA of P.S. 107. It has featured authors such as Jonathan Lethem, Gary Shteyngart, Jonathan Safran Foer and Pulitzer prize-winner Jumpha Lahiri and comedians like John Hodgeman, to leading journalists including George Packer of The New Yorker and 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Moss of The New York Times.

arts and culture

OTBKB Music: L’il Mo at Googie’s Lounge and Photos from SXSW 2010

Today over at Now I’ve Heard Everything:

There’s a small performance space on the second floor of The Living Room called Googie’s Lounge, and if you climb the flight of stairs to it tonight you can see Monica “L’il Mo” Passin play there.  Details here.

I found a few more shots of my visit to SXSW 2010 last month in my phone.  You can see them too by just clicking here.

–Eliot Wagner

Civics and Urban Life

Vox Pop Closed Down, Again

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Vox Pop has once again been seized by the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance for back taxes accrued in 2006 and 2007 while under the stewardship of Sander Hicks. Here is an email from Debi Ryan, who runs the popular cafe, bookstore and performance space on Cortelyou Road in Ditmas Park.

As I am sure you all remember, Vox Pop was seized just a few days before Christmas for the same reason.  At that time, we raised and made a payment of $10,000 towards the 2006 and 2007 unpaid taxes in the amount of $56,000 as a down payment and were in the process of negotiating a repayment plan that Vox Pop could realistically pay.  Unfortunately, the Supervisor we were working with has left the State agency, and his replacement will not be available until tomorrow.  We have paid, and continue to pay our current taxes.

At this point in time we are waiting to speak with the State to determine what the appropriate next steps are.  The midlevel representative from the State who chose to seize our assets today stated we must pay the complete newly assessed tax debt of $66,000 prior to reopening, but we are hoping to renegotiate with the new Supervisor.

On a more positive note, Vox Pop is proud to say that it has almost completely paid off the legacy debt to vendors, former employees and the landlord over the past year and we are optimistic that the warming weather will increse our revenue and allow us to accelerate our payments even further.  Ironically, we were poised to launch our new outdoor patio cafe with table service and anticipate being able to do so as soon as we are reopened.

Thanks so much for your continued interest and support and I will fill you in on further details as soon as they are available.

Debi Ryan
Vox Pop Inc

Civics and Urban Life

Strike of Doormen, Janitors & Supers Averted

From the NY Times:

The owners of more than 3,200 apartment buildings in New York City reached an agreement on a new labor contract with the union that represents about 30,000 doormen, porters, janitors and building superintendents, averting a strike that was due to begin at 7 a.m. Wednesday.

The talks went right up to the midnight strike deadline, as they often have in the past, with the union resisting the owners’ demands for cuts in health care and other benefits. In the end, the owners agreed to a new four-year contract that includes a total pay increase of nearly 10 percent and no significant cuts in benefits for the workers, an official with the union, Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, said.
Civics and Urban Life

Traffic Calming on PPW Long Overdue

So says Eric McClure who runs Park Slope Neighbors

The plan for the bike lane includes a four-foot buffer, and there will be an eight-foot wide parking lane between the travel lane nearest the park and the buffer.  So a pedestrian crossing Prospect Park West, with or without his or her dog, will only have to cross two lanes of traffic rather than three, and will have the 12 feet of pedestrian refuge between the travel lanes and the bike lane.  Shorter crossings are safer.

I emailed Jeanine Ramirez, the NY1 reporter, last night, to provide her with some facts to counter the false and misleading information being put forth in the anonymous anti-bike lane flyer.  I never heard back from her.

The claim that a growing number of residents are protesting the Prospect Park West traffic-calming plan is bunk.  Park Slope Neighbors has more than 1300 signatures on a petition supporting traffic calming on PPW, including a two-way protected bike lane.  The project is supported by Council Members Lander and Levin, Community Board Six, and the Park Slope Civic Council.  It was announced more than a year ago.

Traffic calming on Prospect Park West, where cars routinely reach dangerous speeds well above the 30 mph limit, is long overdue.

Civics and Urban Life

Some Park Slopers Oppose PPW Bike Lane

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From NY 1 which also has a video on the topic:

A growing number of residents are protesting the city’s plan to install a bike lane in Park Slope. NY1’s Jeanine Ramirez filed the following report.

Bicyclists are not supposed to ride on the sidewalks along Prospect Park, but residents say they still do.

“I think absolutely essential that they get the bicyclists off the streets, off the sidewalks,” said Park Slope resident Cecil Bergen.

Cyclist John Cianciotta says he’s guilty of not obeying the rule.

“They hassle you if you ride on the sidewalk, but if you guys built a bike lane, I’d ride in the street,” he said.

Soon, Cianciotta will get his wish. The Department of Transportation plans to install a two-way bicycle lane along the park side of Prospect Park West by June.

While that makes many bikers happy, a growing number of residents oppose the plan.

“New York is a beautiful place and the only way to really enjoy it is on a bike,” said cyclist Shahnti O’Neill.

“They should definitely have a bike lane on Prospect Park West because it’s dangerous with the three lanes and the traffic comes so fast,” said cyclist Tony Reid.

“We’re shocked, we’re disturbed, and we’re worried,” countered resident Denise Walters.

Walters lives on Prospect Park West. She says she just learned about the proposed bicycle lane — and thinks it’s a safety hazard.

“I think pedestrians are going to have a more difficult time crossing the street with their dogs. They’ll have to cross the lane of traffic and then they’ll have to look both ways in the middle the street to make sure one of the bikes isn’t coming from either direction,” she said.

Those who live along Prospect Park West, and those who run the Poly Prep Day School there, say they haven’t been included in the decision making process.

“I live right on the park and didn’t know anything about it,” said resident Suzanna Douglas.

But the DOT says this has been three years in the making – starting with a request from the local community board. Community Board 6 says there’s been plenty of notice about planning meetings.

Continue reading Some Park Slopers Oppose PPW Bike Lane →

Food and Drink

Outdoor Drinking in the Slope

Brooklyn Based, a thrice-weekly e-newsletter about Brooklyn culture, has a great list of places to drink outdoors around Brooklyn. The following is their list of spots in Park Slope. To see the rest go to Brooklyn Based.

Mission Dolores: World’s most brilliant conversion of an auto shop. Big courtyard, 24 beers on tap, pinball, dogs. 249 Fourth Ave., no phone

Commonwealth: A neighborhoody bar with a good juke box and a sweet patio. 497 5th Ave., 718-768-2040

The Gate: An easy place to watch Park Slope stroll up and down 5th Avenue. Large patio, lots of beers. 321 5th Ave., 718-768-4329

Excelsior: Very cute back deck and garden, filled with cute gay men. (390 Fifth Ave., 718-832-1599) At Ginger’s, the lesbian bar near by, the garden is more spacious and the vibe more laid back. 363 5th Ave., 718-788-0924

O’Connors: Lovable dive with bottled beer, stiff drinks and a huge backyard that’s a relatively new addition to this north Slope staple. 39 5th Ave, 718-783-9721

arts and culture

Tom Martinez, Witness: 4/20 Day (East Village Mural)

4/20 or April 20th is National Weed Day. Legend has it that back in the 1970’s, a group of students at San Rafael High School, who became known as the “Waldos,” met everyday at 4:20 p.m. to smoke pot in front of a statue.

Over time 420 became a code for getting high. It was conjectured that 420 is a police code for marijuana use, but this is not true.

4/20 is now a counter-cultural holiday. There are many “smoke-outs” held on this day around the world in protest of current marijuana laws.

Civics and Urban Life

Bklyn Bloggage: neighborhoods

Little League opening day parade: Gerritsen Beach

When hipsters meet Russians: Sheephead Bites

A spot for public space in Ditmas Park: Ditmas Park Blog

About the Huron Street kittens: NY Shitty

Ninja vandals in Williambsurg?: Free Williamsburg

Earth Day happenings in Ft. Greene: The Local

Whole Food site hit with stop work order: Pardon Me for Asking

8th Avenue hit and run: Fucked in Park Slope

The baller version of hell: Fucked in Park Slope

Free space this summer in Bed Stuy: Bed Stuy Blog

arts and culture

The National: Brooklyn Band Par Excellence

I hear a lot of a band called The National around the apartment because they’re one of my son’s favorite’s. They will be playing a benefit for Celebrate Brooklyn on Tuesday, July 27th at 6PM and they have a much awaited new album called High Violet coming out in May that has been leaked out slowly.

All of the band members live in Brooklyn. Matt Berninger, the band’s singer and lyricist, lives in Ditmas Park and he had this to say about the band’s Brooklyn roots: “I don’t know how much of the music scene here has to do with Brooklyn, other than the fact that there are so many venues and places to grow and learn and perform in front of a crowd,” he says. “There’s a big difference between writing music in your garage and standing up in front of a hostile room of people who don’t give a shit about you, and doing that over and over again until someone, somewhere, finally starts to care. If we weren’t in New York, music might have turned into a dad-rock hobby, something to do on weekends. But here, there’s always new and exciting stuff you want to chase.”

Read more about the band in Black Book.

arts and culture

OKTB Film by Pops Corn: Richard Brody on Godard

In January, I rented Made In U.S.A., a Jean-Luc Godard film I had never seen. I watched it and loved it. I moved on to the special features and loved the insights, both personal and aesthetic, offered by Richard Brody, a New Yorker writer and editor who penned a biography of Godard, Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard. I bought the book later that month and began.

April is now half-over and I’ve finally completed the book. I could have read it faster for a number of reasons, but mostly I didn’t want it to end.  Closing the book this morning was like ending a chapter of my life, like pulling away in the moving van.  The last few weeks, I commuted with it through New York, like a sign, practically begging for someone to comment and join me in this world. I got nothing.

Nothing but an education. I have long admired Godard’s revolutionary cinema—his reckless abandon and theoretical challenges to standard filmmaking rules, his disregard for narrative construction and his inability to separate life from the cinema, as the title of the book suggests. Yet, I had much to learn. The seminal works–Breathless, Masculine Feminine and the entire 1960s—are covered brilliantly, but Brody applies the same detailed, thoughtful study of later Godard, demonstrating value and Godard’s growth as an artist, a concept generally refuted.  Brody doesn’t buy into Godard being dispensable post-1968 because he understands the work. He nails that film critics—long thought to be the sector of the world who prop Godard up—are generally just as in the dark about his work as the uninitiated.  And while the book is not a journey of the writer’s personal opinions about the artist’s work, Brody finds himself in the position of defending Godard’s work against disinterested dismissal and lack of critical comprehension (King Lear, In Praise of Love), and does so the way a scientist might prove a theory.

Understand cinema. Read the book. Watch the films. Everything you can find. Or the ones you’ve never seen. Or the ones you think you’ve seen, but are different to you now.

As Brody states in its final paragraph, the cinema will live on as long as Godard does, as long as his films do.  And so it is that the cinema lives on at Cannes in a few weeks, where the latest film from one of the cinema’s true masters will premiere.  The trailer for Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard; 2010):

Food and Drink

Undomesticated Brooklyn: Cooking Ennui

by Paula Bernstein

“Cooking ennui is an inevitable test of your character to which you must rise.”

At least that’s what my friend Beau,  says. Beau cooks a full meal for his wife and kids every night and makes it seem effortless.

“What’s your secret?” I ask. “How do you manage to maintain your enthusiasm for cooking when it’s so routine? And how do you come up with something to cook every night?”

“The secret is pre-planning for easy predictability occasionally interrupted by novelty,” said Beau. “You’ve got to plan a handful of days at once, so you won’t have to think about it all too much. Then, most of those meals have to be things that are relatively easy and well-liked, so going on auto-pilot isn’t too taxing. Add one (relatively easy) thing you’ve been meaning to try (you may have to dig for this: another reason to subscribe to Fine Cooking) that keeps the week from seeming like endless repetition, and you’re good. time will pass and suddenly, you’ll find you’re over the hump. definitely takes deliberate planning and will, though.”

Of course, relatively easy is all relative. For me, it means taking out a bowl of cereal and pouring in milk! Maybe some fresh fruit to add some color.

With Beau as an inspiration, I’ve come up with the following ideas. Keep in mind that I don’t practice what I preach, so let me know if you have any ideas to add to my list:

Ten Tips  for Easy Meal Planning:

1. Designate a “Meal Planning Day,” where you compile a list of recipes and ingredients you’ll need for the week. Try to pick at least one recipe that you can incorporate in several meals.

2. Keep your pantry, freezer and refrigerator organized so that you can cross-reference the ingredients needed for a recipe with what you have on hand. Plus, this way you’ll be sure to toss old stuff before it becomes rancid.

3. Plan for every night of the week (and lunch if you prepare that too). Try to mix it up so you don’t have pasta or red meat two nights in a row. Designate one night “Leftover Night.”

4. Create a recipe binder to organize recipes from magazines, friends, and family. We use a photo album to store favorite recipes and keep it handy in the kitchen

5. Rely on old favorites, but be sure to experiment with a new recipe at least once a week. Or else you’ll get bored fast.

6. For new recipes, rely on websites such as CookingLight.com, myrecipes.com or allrecipes.com where you can enter a particular ingredient (or a list of ingredients) and get recipe ideas.

7. When in doubt, just cook something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Make the effort and it will be worth it.

8. Cheat with household gadgets like a rice cooker, a microwave and a crock pot to speed things up.

9. Cook in bulk and freeze individual portions.

10. Don’t feel bad about ordering in or going out to dinner every once in a while. You deserve it!

arts and culture

5th Annual Gathering of Brooklyn Bloggers on June 8th

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“Where better to take the pulse of this rapidly growing community of writers, thinkers and observers than the Brooklyn Blogfest?” ~ Sewell Chan, The New York Times

How many bloggers does it take to fill the Brooklyn Lyceum? Come find out on June 8 at 7:00 PM when the borough’s most opinionated and dedicated bloggers (and surprise special guests) step away from their keyboards to sound off about how and why Brooklyn remains such a rich source of material and inspiration.

But forget about filling the room. Here’s the real question the Brooklyn Blogfest will answer: How many bloggers does it take to wrap their arms around New York’s most happening borough? So, whether you are a blogger, wannablogger, reader, or media maven, you’ll want to come see for yourself. And meet up with this year’s most tenaciously keen tribe of bloggers as they gather to celebrate all the reasons Brooklyn is such a potent source of runaway creativity.

Since it was founded in 2005, the Brooklyn Blogfest has established itself as the nexus of creativity, talent, and insight among the blogosphere’s brightest lights. This year will be no different as a panel of blogging’s best disect the unique brand of entrepreneurial creativity flourishing here. Also on tap: a video tribute to Brooklyn’s most visionary photo bloggers, special networking sessions for like-minded bloggers (i.e. Blogs of a Feather), the return of the ever-popular Shout-out, when bloggers are invited to share their blogs with the world, and a roof-raising after-party with ABSOLUT® VODKA cocktails, food and music.

“The borough of Brooklyn has always been front and center in the world of blogging,” says Louise Crawford, founder of the Brooklyn Blogfest and onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.com. “Whether you live by a blog, blog to live, or live to blog, you’ll want to come out on June 8.”

FIFTH ANNUAL BROOKLYN BLOGFEST 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Doors Open at 6:30 PM
The Brooklyn Lyceum
227 Fourth Avenue at President Street in Park Slope Brooklyn
$10  ($5 for students and seniors)

The 2010 BROOKLYN BLOGFEST is sponsored by ABSOLUT®  VODKA

Civics and Urban Life

Freddy’s Bar Moving to Park Slope’s 4th Avenue

It’s good bye Prospect Heights for Freddy’s Bar but hello to Fourth Avenue starting this summer. The Victory Party is on April 30th and the new place should be open by summer. I got this press release from the owner of Freddy’s this morning:

Freddy’s Bar is not closing, it’s moving.

We are presently in negotiations with a landlord who is not a billionaire at 4th Ave and Union Street.

We will be having a Victory party on April 30th to celebrate what the little guy has been able to do in fighting a billionaire and the corrupt government agency that he controls. We feel we have dealt fatal blows to Ratner’s organization. The nets will not be sold to an international criminal, because the NBA can’t afford to be associated with organized crime.

Freddy’s Bar is not giving up the fight, we stand in solidarity with Prokhorov’s sanctions-busting victims in Zimbabwe, and with the people of Yonkers who are paying the price for a Ratner bribery scandal. We will continuing to stand against the corruption that has dominated our lives for the last 7 years, and are looking forward to moving out from under this sword of Damocles.

Forest City Ratner will leave Brooklyn a thousand years before Freddy’s Bar does. . . they have missed mortgage payments on their Metrotech Center, and the Yonkers and Zimbabwe sanctions busting scandals are criminal acts. The question is will they run out of money first, or face prosecution first. I am sure that both will happen.

The move is about the employees, and the business. We’re little guys. We can’t run our business into the ground as Ratner has and still survive. We have a lot of mouths to feed and we are not billionaires. The move is strategic. Very soon “Freddy’s Next Bar” will be standing tall, and Ratner will be in rubble, with no stadium, and hopefully with justice and karma finding him. This is a guy who closed a family homeless shelter in the dead of winter.

In order to assure our capacity to keep Freddy’s alive in a another location, and keep people employed… we have to move the contents of the bar in a particular timely fashion to “Lock down’ the next space, and thus we will not be facing an eviction situation in which a protest by chaining ourselves could happen. The Chains (“The Chains of Justice”) have served their purpose…to raise awareness of corruption, and they will move with us, forever installed on that bar as a symbol of a united community and that community’s power for affecting change.

The owner of Freddy’s has had to consider those employed at Freddy’s as well as his own situation, needing employment and food on the table. He made a difficult decision to pull out in such a way as to keep the contents of the bar and move it into another location. If we wait for condemnation we might sacrifice too much. I can’t yet confirm the location since everything is moving very fast, and it is not locked down yet, but the area we are hoping to secure is on 4th Ave near Union Street.

We hope to open this new space as soon as possible, 2 or 3 months hopefully. The email address will not change… nor the web address.

Freddy’s has been the culmination of everything I am and everything I ever wanted in a bar.

I could not be prouder of Freddy’s, it’s community, and it’s accomplishments.

Freddy’s is not an address, it is an idea.

I’ll See you at “FREDDY’S NEXT BAR”…the first one is on me!

arts and culture

OTBKB Music: Useful Lists and A Video

A couple of useful lists are waiting for you over at Now I’ve Hear Everything: music venues in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan (provided by radio station WFUV to celebrate the fact that with changes to their antenna, the station can now actually be heard in those places, including Park Slope) and a calendar for this week which highlights many good but conflicting performances.

If that’s not enough, how about a video of John Hiatt and his top notch band performing the title track from his new album, The Open Road?

–Eliot Wagner

Civics and Urban Life

What To Do With The Food Coop Profits

It’s a good problem to have. The Food Coop is making a ton of money — to the tune of $39 million a year, and profits of $500,000. So what should they do with the profits. Lower the prices, start other coops, give it away?

An article in Crains NY reports on this problem. Here’s an excerpt.

The first sign that Brooklyn’s Park Slope Food Coop is unlike any other supermarket in the city are the people milling outside wearing orange-and-yellow vests. Their task is to accompany shoppers on walks home with their groceries—and then return the shopping carts to the Union Street store.

It is a job that reflects the mission of the co-op to cultivate a sense of community, but it also helps solve a growing problem for the organization: finding enough stuff to do for the nearly 16,000 members who must work 2.75 hours for the co-op every four weeks in order to shop there.

Founded in 1973, the Park Slope co-op has grown so dramatically in recent years that it has been forced to limit the number of new members. Its balance sheet is so strong—the co-op paid off its mortgage in January—that general manager and founding member Joe Holtz wonders what to do with more than $500,000 in profits. Last year’s revenues were $39 million.

“If we continue to accumulate cash like this,” he says, “we’ll have to have a meeting and maybe lower our prices again.”

For the first time in its history, the co-op is confronting the fact that it can’t grow its physical space any more. It has purchased all of the available buildings in its path. If the weekend checkout lines get much longer, Linewaiters’ Gazette—the co-op’s aptly named newsletter—won’t be enough to keep shoppers amused.

“We’re pushing the capacity of the building,” says Mr. Holtz, who was the co-op’s first paid employee in 1975.

In trying to alleviate the pressure on the Park Slope store, longtime members like Mr. Holtz are now looking beyond Brooklyn to help other communities replicate their success.

arts and culture

Catherine Bohne’s Journey to Valbona

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Yesterday at the sale of Catherine Bohne’s personal book collection on 8th Avenue in Park Slope I learned why she is selling her books and where it is that she’s going.

I will share just a bit of the story now and will continue over the coming weeks. Think of it as an unfolding. The facts will be told as the facts are known.

What Catherine told me yesterday is that she has fallen in love with a new place and a new man. The place is Albania and Alfred is the name of the man.

It is a very romantic tale of one woman’s serendipitous adventure that led her to what she’d always wanted.

Last January, after eight exhausting and laborious years of running Park Slope’s beloved Community Bookstore, Catherine decided to take a vacation. Two weeks away. Some time to relax, explore and think. As someone who has always loved travel it seemed like a fine idea.

So she drank a bottle of red wine, talked to friends and eventually cashed in a pile of air miles and booked a ticket to Albania.

“When I  was 11 years old, I was on a boat with my mother and father. The boat went past the most mysterious landscape I’ve ever seen and I wanted to get off the boat. I said “Dad – what’s THAT?” “That?” answered my father, “That’s Albania, Catherine. No one can go there,” she told me yesterday standing in front of her apartment building.

A little back story: Catherine’s mother is Italian/Croatian and her father is from Brooklyn. As a child she spent summers in Croatia and as a teenager she lived in Africa.  “I have almost always felt more at home in the world, than at that home in the home where I’m supposed to belong, she writes on her blog.

Thirty years after that boat trip with her parents, Catherine got to Albania. Most of all she wanted to see Northern Albania, a very difficult place to travel to. “Why do you want to go there?” she was asked constantly by the Albanians she met on her journey.

They could not understand why this solo traveling American woman wanted to see Northern Albania. But as those who know Catherine will attest, she likes to do difficult things and she likes adventure. Not surprisingly, Catherine did her research and found out (from a travel blog) about the Hotel Relindja owned by a man named Alfred in place called Valbona.

On her long journey north through rural Albania, which included long rides on small buses and ferries, she would tell the people she met that she was looking for a man named Alfred.

Coincidentally (or fatefully) she met Alfred’s cousin on one of those small buses and when they arrived at their destination she introduced Catherine to her cousin. “He is tall and regal looking. Like a prince,” she told me. He speaks good English  (after four years in England working at a German car factory), is in his mid-thirties and lives on his family’s farm.

Love. Destiny. Life on a small farm in Valbona.

But that’s not all. From the sounds of it, Alfred is the Catherine Bohne of Valbona. A man of the community, he is a trusted leader, a compassionate and helping person, a connector, a creative thinker.

Within days, Catherine was in love, helping Alfred on his rounds visiting neighbors and friends. She was learning Albanian. She was figuring out ways to make Valbona a tourist destination, which could be an economic engine for this impoverished and extraordinary region, which has little in the way of modern conveniences.

In the months since that first trip, Catherine has been back to Valbona more than once. She is planning to sell the bookstore, she is moving to Valbona for good and she started a  website about travel to Valbona called Journey to Valbona. Here is an excerpt from one of her blog posts:

Like all smart children, I have always wanted to run away from home.  Is this why my reason for traveling always seems to be to get away to somewhere?  I mean get away but also to GET to somewhere.  Be somewhere else.  Perhaps be someone else.  Live in a different world, but I mean live, not just visit.  I don’t want to go: where there are lots of tourists, to generic resorts that could be anywhere, to places that make me feel like I’m in a frozen, pre-prepared, pre-packaged museum (though those can be amusing), or to places which have been somehow warped by the traffic of tourists.  I do want to go:  to places which are really real, to places of that particular joyful solemnity that accompanies true beauty, to places where I can wander and get lost, to places where I will learn something, to places which are quiet and to places where I can know and be known.  I’m not very good at doing nothing, so I like joining in and lending a hand, being useful.  My idea of “doing nothing” is writing and drawing and having adventures, so I also like places where I am free to wander around and where people will allow me to prove myself, and just laugh if I seem a bit eccentric.