They came in droves. They looked at art. They even made art in the Learning Center. They waited in line for the elevators and there was congestion in the stairwell. But mostly the revelers drank wine, danced the Samba and partied.

Last night’s First Night at the Brooklyn Museum was a noisy, crowded, rambunctious gathering of every age group and stripe of Brooklyn life; a wonderful way to spend a sultry winter eve.

The museum’s new entrance and lobby, designed by Jame Polshek, is especially beautiful in the
evening; enthralling really.  Some have said it looks like an airport — that its cool glass lines take away from the Beaux Arts sublimity of
the building itself. But I had the feeling that it frames the old
building perfectly while providing an elegant and exciting point
of entry.

Employees from Target, Brooklyn’s big new store at the Atlantic Terminal Mall were giving out silver and red carnival beads with big red plastic Target pendants. Everyone wanted them; especially the kids.

There were big flags everywhere reminding people that this was the
Target First Night at the Brooklyn Museum. Even museum staffers were wearing
Target red Brooklyn Museum T-shirts sans Target logo. That was a tad obnoxious.

The store is obviously trying to win favor with the community by sponsoring cultural events. For the most part, it seems, people are excited about their big, new, box store. It’s stylish, it’s cheap, it full of handy stuff AND it’s trying to be supportive of programs and events in Brooklyn. The fact that it may put even more smaller Brooklyn concerns out of business is another story. And the stuff is so cheap – ya gotta wonder about the wages foreign workers are being paid to manufacture it.

Politics aside, my daughter did cartwheels in the rotunda where a DJ spun impossible-not-to-move-to Brazillian music. It is amazing how many Brooklyners already knew how to do the Samba. And for those who didn’t: there were Samba lessons. It was a sight to see: the syncopated hips, the shimmying shoulders and chests, the careful, rhythmic steps to the left and to the right.

Old and young, there were dancing Samba feet on the glass and marble Rotunda floor.

It was time to make an exit when the lines got long for white wine and beer, the rotunada got sweaty, hot and too crowded, and the children became hysterical with supressed tiredness.

And as the families moved out, groups of hip, stylish, Brooklyn singles were coming in; they were even lined up outside the museum. It was really time to PARTY.

Yours from Brooklyn,
OTBKB