So, Brooklyn’s borough president got the lede in yesterday’s Times article
about the new $38 million Brooklyn building for the Theater for a New
Audience.

‘"Shakespeare, your new home away from home is Flatbush-upon-Lafayette,’ Marty Markowitz announced yesterday."

And it looks like the parking lot across the street from the Brooklyn
Academy of Music is going to be a glass and stainless steel theater
designed by Hugh Hard and Frank Gehry. I guess all that talk about
making Fort Green into the new BAM Cultural District was true. The
Times reports that this new theater is part of a $650 million effort to
convert "vacant and underused space in the area into space for arts
organization."

At the press conference on Thursday at the Mark Morris Dance Center,
Mayor Bloomberg said, "It will make this borough an even greater
destiantion for tourists." Tourists, eh? It’s hard to imagine tourists
crossing the river for Shakespeare in Brooklyn. The borough is just a
Hollywood cliche to most tourists – and not exactly anyone’s idea of a
day trip.

But for those who live here – the true cognoscenti – Brooklyn is
where it’s at. And a theater modeled after an Elizabethan courtyard
with a 299-seat auditorium, a cafe, a roof garden and education space
sounds like an awesome addition to the borough’s thriving cultural
scene. Theater for New Audiences already brings Shakespeare to more
than 3000 city students a year. Think of all the Brooklyn kids who will
be able to learn about Shakespeare now.

So many things are happening in Brooklyn.  I applaud the good stuff
and thumb my nose at the real estate development that threatens the
well-being and patience of borough residents. Yay for art. Down with greed and
political wheels and deals.

A Shakespeare tree grows in Brooklyn. And that’s positively poetic.

Yours from Brooklyn
OTBKB