Monthly Archives: August 2010

Civics and Urban Life

20 Years Later Blacks & Jews Come Together in Crown Heights

The one-woman play Fires in the Mirror, used oral history to tell the story of the Crown Heights riots and the racial tensions it unveiled.

I can’t believe it’s been nearly 20 years since the Crown Heights Riots, a three-day riot in August 1991 in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. The community, which contains a mix of West Indians, African Americans and Jews had longtime simmering tensions. The riots began on August 19, 1991 after the child of Guyanese immigrants was accidentally killed by automobile that was part of a motorcade of a Hasidic rabbi.

During the riots an Orthodox Jew was killed. The riot unleashed tensions between the neighborhood’s black and Jewish communities. The riots influenced the 1993 mayoral race and led to the defeat of David Dinkins, who was viewed by many as having had a weak response to the riots…

Continue reading 20 Years Later Blacks & Jews Come Together in Crown Heights →

arts and culture

Tuesday Night: Dancing Under the Stars in Washington Park

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I have friends who have been going to Dancing Under the Stars every Tuesday night in Washington Park in Park Slope and are just loving it. Every week this summer this event, sponsored by the Park Slope Business Incentive District, features a different band and a different style of music. So far, there’s been jazz, pop, and folk dancing. This week a Latin band will be providing the music and there should be some great dancing rhythms. Continue reading Tuesday Night: Dancing Under the Stars in Washington Park →

arts and culture

OTBKB Music: Advance Planning and a Givewaway

For those of you who need to figure out what you are doing well before it happens, my August Advance Planning Music Calendar is now available over at Now I’ve Heard Everything.  Don’t forget that Aretha Franklin is coming to Brooklyn twice next week!

For those of you who’d like something for nothing, Now I’ve Heard Everything is holding a Giveaway.  Win tickets to see Eli Paperboy Reed and The True Loves at Le Poisson Rouge, the new CD from Eli and an American Express Gift Card.  You can read my review of Eli and the band when they visited The Bell House in June here, and then enter the Giveaway here.

–Eliot Wagner

arts and culture

Tonight: Mad Men at Sheep Station

Yes, it’s true. If you do not have cable at home (or specifically lack AMC) the nice people at Sheep Station welcome you to watch Mad Men tonight at 10PM in their back room. Here are the details from an OTBKB reader. And yes, I’ve called Sheep Station:

Like most Brooklynites, I don’t have cable, and like many Brooklynites I enjoy watching Mad Men. In trying to find a bar that was showing the premier last week, I kept hitting dead ends… Until the friendly folks at Sheep Station agreed last minute to show it for me and a few friends on the projection screen in their awesome back room. They’ve agreed quite enthusiastically to continue showing it every week, and I figured it was worth spreading the news to other Don Draper fans in the area. There have been questions posted on many a Brooklyn blog looking for this info which is why I’m sending it your way.

Mad Men is at 10pm on Sundays, and Sheep Station is at 4th Ave. & Douglass St. In Park Slope.