We met him at Gowanus Goes Green and he takes beautiful pictures all over Brooklyn. He doesn’t have a blog but you can see his work at his pbase site.
This is a photograph by Gary Sloman of the Carroll Street Bridge
First Annual Gowanus Goes Green: Fun
The Gowanus Canal Conservancy threw a great party on Carroll Street on Sunday. The first annual Gowanus Goes Green Festival included music from The Defibulators, natural food, workshops, kids activities, and green businesses and not-for-profits exhibiting their goods and services, including The Spa, a green wellness center in Bay Ridge, Movers Not Shakers, residential and commercial moving with environmentally sustainable practices, Theo, makers of organic chocolate bars, V-Spot, which served delicious empanadas, and Engage Green, makers of bags, and shoes from recycled materials.
On display were the plans for Sponge Park. Proposed by the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, it is a landscaped esplanade that runs the length of the canal that looks beautiful in the renderings. It would also reduce the problem of contaminated water flowing into the canal (hence the sponge).
I really enjoyed myself at GGG. The best part was riding the Carroll Street Bridge. What a blast!
Even better was just hanging out in the Yard, a tree-filled waterfront park on the banks of the Gowanus Canal, drinking beer, listening to music and enjoying the day.
Only the Blog Links
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
Smartmom: Third Street Is A Small Town
Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Paper:
The night before Memorial Day, Mrs. Kravitz and Mrs. Cleavage were baking and bitching in preparation for their Third Street building’s first BBQ of the season.
Mrs. Kravitz was rolling dough for her pies. Earlier, she’d prepared a pecan filling, and bright red and pink cherry halves in a sugary mix for a cherry pie.
The scene was like something out of a quaint Southern kitchen. Two Southern girls (one from Texas, the other from North Carolina) transplanted to Brooklyn, channeling their southern childhoods spent baking pies.
Or so Smartmom imagined.
There was something so cozy about it. Smartmom admired the ease with which Mrs. Kravitz rolled the dough — like it was second nature; something her mama taught her how to do.
Or so Smartmom imagined.
Mrs. Cleavage sat on a high stool by the toaster and prepared a delicious pasta salad with snap peas; she wasn’t happy when Mr. Kravitz and Smartmom wanted a preview.
“I’m going to have to make another one tomorrow if you people don’t stop taking bites,” she threatened.
The conversation moved seamlessly from one juicy topic to another (husbands, ex-husbands, children, parents, neighbors, and friends). But mostly it was food talk — a running commentary on what was being prepared.
In the dining room, Mr. Kravitz and another neighbor were trying to figure out how to make a proper mojito. After much trial and error (Errors? What errors?) they settled on a recipe.
Finally, when the pecan pie was ready, Mrs. Kravitz offered tastes. Truthfully, It didn’t look like any pecan pie Smartmom had ever seen. It didn’t taste right either.
“It needs more sugar,” Mrs. Cleavage said.
“Too many eggs. It’s too eggy,” Mrs. Kravitz said tasting the pie.
“It needs more sugar,” Mrs. Cleavage said again.
“So eggy. It’s like a pecan quiche,” Mrs. Kravitz said chewing slowly.
“It needs more sugar,” Mrs. Cleavage said one more time.
“I forgot the sugar. I forgot to put sugar in,” Mrs. Kravitz gushed.
“What do you think I’ve been telling you?” Mrs. Cleavage told her seriously.
At 4 pm on Memorial Day, Mr. Kravitz fired up the grill near the recycling pails in the building’s cement front yard.
The building next door, festooned with red, white and blue balloons, was also having a BBQ — a bittersweet goodbye party for a family moving back to Australia after a few years on Third Street.
A teenager from down the street, a talented young chef, brought over his homemade BBQ sauce, which was instantly slathered on the ribs. As the meat cooked, a gaggle of neighbors and friends placed pot-luck dishes on the makeshift table — some plywood boards over garbage pails covered with a red paper tablecloth.
Ravi, Smartmom’s 14-year-old neighbor, brought down his sitar and played a complicated raga for the crowd. The music, buried beneath the sound of the children’s water fight and the insistent chatter of the grown ups, provided an exotic soundtrack for the May night.
“Is it the Mojito’s or are these the best ribs you’ve ever tasted?” Mr. Kravitz asked Smartmom. She had to agree. The spare ribs were so good that she couldn’t stop herself from eating them — her fingers brown and sticky.
Then it was time for Mrs. Kravitz’s pies: old fashioned country pies in the midst of this very urban BBQ.
“Still needs more sugar,” Mrs. Cleavage said slowly chewing Mrs. Kravitz’s cherry pie.
But the kids didn’t care. They didn’t want anything to do with the pies.
It was the s’mores they were after. They gathered round the small BBQ with their marshmallows on sticks and prided themselves on their roasting technique — not too dark, not too light. Perfect.
A little boy from down the street called Smartmom over to see what he’d done.
“This one’s perfect,” he said.
“Yes, it is,” Smartmom told him, admiring the lightly browned marshmallow.
“It’s for you,” he told her.
Smartmom was touched. She watched as he patiently placed his perfect marshmallow on a graham cracker, added a square of Hershey chocolate and covered it with another graham cracker.
Once the marshmallows were gone, the party seemed to wind down. Neighbors looked for their pots and pans.
“Thanks for letting us glom on to your BBQ,” Smartmom’s friend Brooklyn Mabel told her. “We always glom on to your BBQs,” she said.
“We love to have you,” Smartmom shouted after her as she walked toward Sixth Avenue with her husband, daughter and son.
The clean-up went quickly. Smartmom filled large contractor bags with miscellaneous garbage; neighbors collected wine and beer bottles and tossed them into the recycling. Mr. Kravitz carried the plywood downstairs; he let the BBQ stay out for the night as the charcoals cooled. There was a feeling of summer in the air as the first BBQ of the season came to an end. The children went upstairs to sleep.
It was a school night, after all.
The Oh So Prolific One: Leon Freilich, Verse Responder
REBATE CHECKS
From the mail to the mall
Without hesitation?
To fuel and to food
In desperation.
Much To Do About Sunday
There’s the Gowanus Goes Green, an all-day festival on the banks of the Canal today from 11-6 at The Yard on Carroll Street between Bond and Nevins Streets including the Carroll Street Bridge.
Local Produce Events in the Community Gardens sponsored by Spoke the Hub.
–St. Marks/Warren Street (between 4th and 5th Avenues)
11:00-11:50am Tai Chi & Chinese Music Workshop with Kwok Kay & Alice Choey
12:00-12:30pm Mark Lamb Dance Performance
–Garden of Union (at 4th Avenue)
12:30pm Accordion Angels / New Music
1:00pm BaTuBa Collective Percussion / African Drumming
1:30-2:20pm Yoga & Movement Meditation Workshop with Mina Hamilton
–President Street (at 5th Avenue)
2:00pm Mad Jazz Hatters/ New Music
2:30pm Slackjaw / Nouveau Bluegrass
Circus Sundays in Red Hook at the Waterfront Museum at Pier 44.
Teenage Extras Wanted for Teen Health Film
I don’t know anything about these people but does sound like a fun experience for the right teen.
I’m producing a pilot about health for teenagers, and we are looking
for teenage extras (diverse ethnicity and sizes!). This is a nice
opportunity for outgoing teenagers (13-16) to get some professional
experience on a set:http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/tfr/703420718.html
If any of your kids are interested, they should indicate where they
go to school, we’re trying to reach out to our community!!
Middle School Letters Did Not Arrive on Saturday
We waited with bated breath for the arrival of the mail on Saturday hoping the letter from the Department of Education would be in there with word about which middle school the Oh So Feisty One would be going to.
Even OSFO was impatient. “Is the mail here yet,” she asked all morning.
Finally, I went down at 2 or so and checked the mail.
Two Netflix and some junk mail. That was it. I haven’t heard from one person who got the letter. Or should I say The Letter.
Dang. Monday’s the day. I hope. On Monday maybe we’ll get The Letter.
Documentary on Missed Connections Needs You
I got this email from a filmmaker who is making a film about the Missed Connections section of Craigslist.
I was wondering if you could help a local Brooklyn filmmaker in my creation of a short documentary on the Missed Connections section of Craigslist. If you felt comfortable posting the below on your blog it would be tremendously helpful!
MISSED CONNECTIONS DOCUMENTARY
I am a local Brooklyn filmmaker at work on a documentary about the Missed Connections section of Craigslist and I am looking for your story! I earn my living producing television for others, namely PBS, this Missed Connections project is one of my independent endeavors, an art project of sorts that is financed by myself. I’ve already interviewed a number of folks with some great stories. The final piece will consist of the short interviews about the moments of ‘missed connection’ and animation that illustrates these fleeting encounters. I am looking to speak via email, and then perhaps on the phone, with those of you that have posted on Missed Connections, have been posted about, and especially those of you that have ‘connected’ on Missed Connections (be it with the one you intended or another).
Interested individuals can email me with a little bit about their Missed Connections experience at mcdocumentary@gmail.com
Brooklyn Moment of Community Support for Lenell’s in Red Hook
I got this email from a friend. She sent this excerpt from a newsletter from Lenell’s, a small, independently-owned wine & spirit shop in Red Hook. The “store gossip” section recounts how hard it is for such a business to deal with a sleazy landlord. It describes a true Brooklyn moment of community support.
Lenell’s is a truly incredible store. Everything in there is unusual and carefully selected. We bought a bottle of nepalese rum today! They are the kind of small local business that really need our support. The owner told us today she might need to move to Bed-Stuy which would mean closing up for 6 months in order to reapply for a license
If you haven’t been by the store this past week, we have been in utter f’ing hell. Saturday night a leak that has been going on in the building for several months finally broke through into the store. When the water started coming down, it was a Red Hook moment at its finest. Several Red Hook folks banded together and helped us move half the store to the other side. We covered half the store in plastic best we could, called it a day, and went down to Bait & Tackle and had a beer. I was touched so deeply by the outpouring of Red Hook folks who helped us out. This is why I want to stay in this neighborhood. The support was overwhelming. As a neighbor hugged me and said, “LeNell, you are family!”, I broke down and cried.
The way neighborhood people banded together in our time of crisis was amazing. What was not so amazing was the landlord’s response. He actually stood in front of the store and laughed while we moved inventory. Neighbors and customers helped me stay calm. I was speechless! The superintendent of the building came in and apologized, saying that he’s been trying to get the leak fixed for months and the landlord is ignoring the problem. The landlord doesn’t live in the neighborhood and actually thinks he’s going to open a business in my space. (Hmmmmm….he works for Baluchi’s, does this mean he thinks he’s gonna open a restaurant? Who really knows.) I think he has no idea how he just pissed off many people by standing in front of the store sneering while we were in crisis. We are so eager to be out of this building that is sadly not cared for! This past week in addition to the flood, the gas was turned off due to landlord not paying his bill. Thank the heavens we don’t live in this building. The residential tenants have been in even more distress. So please pardon the mess and plastic sheeting and bear with us.
I’ve been really honest with y’all about the store situation. Our lease is officially up this month. I know it will take months for a formal eviction should it come to that. Sad to say that the space that we had a draft lease for fell through this week. It was for the vacant lot across the street next to the Good Fork. This lot is co-owned by Jimmy Buscariello and Greg O’Connell (who owns quite a bit of Red Hook including the Fairway building). We had architectural drawings, had agreed on basic lease points, and I’ve been thinking all along that we were just finalizing details. The space included the store on the first floor and the bar on the second. After discussing this project for nearly a year now, I get a visit from Greg recently telling me that he has just realized constructions costs will be more than he wants to pay. He won’t entertain thoughts of my partnering in building out the space. Just flat out pulled out at the last moment…which happens to be a few days before the end of my current lease. I’m in shock. I really thought this deal was practically done when Greg had me pay an attorney to draft a lease. Rarely is LeNell speechless. I am.
The other space we thought was workable in Red Hook, turns out to be a dud, as well. The owner has been telling everyone that we are moving into the space. Months ago I asked him for lease points and told him that I could not agree to anything less than a 10 year lease. Today out of nowhere, he tells me that he only wants to sign a five year lease. I won’t do it. It’s just not good business sense at this point. I refuse to keep working to pay someone else’s mortgage while I barely pay myself and have no hope for me and my hardworking staff to get ahead.
So folks, I just don’t know the future. I had really hoped to announce that we had a lease signed for this lot across the street and was so eager to break the news to you. I’m really just in shock. Storefronts in Red Hook sit vacant, vacant lots side idle, landlords daydream, and proven businesses like mine get put through hell. A boss of mine told me years ago, “If you can survive in New York, you can survive anywhere.” Well, I think I’ve proved myself long enough. Maybe it’s time to head back South. Own a real home, eat real bar b que, and have a life. LeNell is broken.
When you come in and I’m dazed, bitchy beyond normal, on the phone like a lunatic, please don’t take it personally. Everything I’ve worked so hard for is hanging in the gallows.
LeNell’s Ltd: a Wine and Spirit Boutique
416 Van Brunt Street Brooklyn, New York 11231
www.lenells.com
toll free 1 877 NO SNOBS
phone 718 360 0838
fax 718 874 2733
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
14th Annual Local Produce Festival in Park Slope
All day Saturday and Sunday May 31 and June 1, Spoke the Hub sponsors the Local Produce Festival. Elise Long, one of the Park Slope 100 and founder of Spoke the Hub is the force behind this annual festival. Check it out.
Saturday, May 31
EVENTS ALONG UNION STREET BETWEEN 5TH AND 6TH AVENUES, PARK SLOPE
Workshops Under the BigTop Tent
10:00am Creative Dance & Yoga For the Whole Family with Heidi Kinney
11:00am Brazilian Dance with Ellen Baxt
1:30-2:00pm Monte Allen/Brooklyn Kenshikai Karate Demonstration
2:00-2:30pm Modern Dance Warm-Up with Mark Lamb
4:00pm Freestyle Repertory Theater / Improv Workshop for the Whole Family
4:30pm African Drumming for the Whole Family / BaTuBa Collective Percussion
5:00pm African Dance for the Whole Family / Charles Moore Dance Theater
5:30pm Basic Salsa Workshop / Salsa Salsa Dance Studio
Street Fun & Games on the Midway
10:00am-Noon Frisbees on the Midway
10:30-11:15am Sing, Dance & Make Believe for ages 3-4 with Sarah Pope
Noon-1:00 Fun & Street Games for the Whole Family with Lori Jorgensen
1:00-1:30pm Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps Marching Band
1:30-2:00pm MaracatuNY / Brazilian Percussion
4:00-6:00pm Board Games on the Midway
Music at the Bus Stop
12noon Connection Works Ensemble / New Music
12:45pm Connection Works Ensemble Jam Session, open to all, including student musicians
1:30pm Douglass Street Music Collective
2:30pm Mani Chamber Music Group
3:30pm Music & Dance Improvisation with Connection Works Ensemble, Douglass Street Music Collective, Propel-her Dance, and YOU!
4pm Douglass Street Music Collective
Performances Under the BigTop Tent
2:30pm Young Artists Perform!
PS 321 Dance Students
Spoke the Hub Dance Students
Spoke the Hub Drama Students
Gowanus Wildcats Drill Team
Charles Moore Dance Theater Youth Ensemble
Berkeley Carroll School Dancers
David & Sarah Gratz / Young Musicians
Brooklyn Jazz Lab
Salsa Salsa Dance Studio Youth Group
6:00pm Professional Artists Performance
Salsa Salsa Dance Studio Duo
Charles Moore Dance Theater
Parents Who Dance / Modern Dance
RedWall Dance Theatre
David Bindman / Saxophone Solo
Sarah Council Dance Projects / Modern Dance
Lily Skove / Modern Dance
Freestyle Repertory Theater / Improv
Dance Under the Stars!
7:00pm Basic Swing Dance Lesson with Laurie Shayler
7:30pm Dance Party Under the Stars for the Whole Family
with Art Lillard and His Heavenly Big Band
Sunday, June 1
EVENTS IN THE COMMUNITY GARDENS
St. Marks/Warren Street (between 4th and 5th Avenues)
11:00-11:50am Tai Chi & Chinese Music Workshop with Kwok Kay & Alice Choey
12:00-12:30pm Mark Lamb Dance Performance
Garden of Union (at 4th Avenue)
12:30pm Accordion Angels / New Music
1:00pm BaTuBa Collective Percussion / African Drumming
1:30-2:20pm Yoga & Movement Meditation Workshop with Mina Hamilton
President Street (at 5th Avenue)
2:00pm Mad Jazz Hatters/ New Music
2:30pm Slackjaw / Nouveau Bluegrass
Gorgeous Strawberries At The Farmer’s Market
Hop on over to Grand Army Plaze. The strawberries—flowers, asparagus, fish, bread, tomatoes, and the rest—are sublime.
Middle School Letters: In Your Mailbox Saturday or Monday
Parents are hoping that the NYC Department of Education really did mail out the middle school letters on Friday May 30, as they told school officials they would.
After months of waiting the middle school letters could be in your mailbox as early as today. Woo Hoo. Imagine knowing where your fifth grader will be going to school next year. Around here we’ve tried to put 6th grade out of our minds.
Sixth grade? What’s that?
The fifth graders at PS 321 are in senior mode. Next week they’ve got field day and a big trip to a historical site upstate. They’ll even be getting their fifth grade t-shirt with every kid’s signature on it. Soon they’ll be getting their yearbook.
It’s the end of elementary school and they know it. But they still don’t know what they’re doing next year.
I heard that a friend’s son received an acceptance letter from NEST (New Explorations in Science and Technology) a middle school on the Lower East Side.
I know that some schools do their own admissions and manage to avoid the big computer at the DOE. NEST must be one of them. Did you ever think that getting into middle school would be like getting into college?
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
A Comedy About The Distance We Put Between Us On The Subway
The name of the play is Standing Clear and it bills itself as a comedy about the distance we put between us on the subway. This makes me think of the portraits that Ed Velandria creates on the subway.The people always look they are in their own worlds and disconnected from those around them.
The show, Standing Clear, is the latest original work from Coffee Cup, a theater company who did another piece called Turning Tables (about restaurants, perhaps?) The show is playing at the Access Theater, 390 Broadway (at White Street). For more information and tickets, go to smarttix.com
Here’s the blurb: Their latest physical comedy, Standing Clear, is an ensemble piece that digs deep into the personalities we commute with each day. Have you ever imagined what a stranger’s life was like? Pressed right up against each other, but miles away, what happens when we let the strangers we see every day affect us? An ode to the NYC subway, Standing Clear shines a spotlight on the fleeting moments that we rarely recognize as being key to the essential beauty of New York.
Another Evening, Another Meeting: Rezoning of the Gowanus
At last night’s CB6 Land Use meeting, there was a presentation by the NYC Department of City Planning on the rezoning of the Gowanus, Here’s an excerpt from Pardon Me for Asking. And there’s more at Curbed, in a post titled, 25 Blocks Worth of Change in the Gowanus. PMFA has pix, too.
Another evening, another meeting….this time, it was the monthly gathering of the Community Board 6’s Land Use Committee. On the agenda was New York City Planning’s presentation of the rezoning framework for the Gowanus Canal.
Under discussion is a 60 block area between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens which is now zoned industrial. City Planning has broken the whole into five sub-areas and into different use-groups, including residential and retail use.
I don’t know about you dear reader, but every time I go to a meeting dealing with the future of the Gowanus Canal, the debate comes back to the most important factor: the pollution from decades of environmental abuse. Without fail, the subject was brought up by members of the audience as well as by at least one Land-Use Committee member.
Movies Al Fresco in Park Slope: Thursdays in July
Brooklyn Film Works is coming back for its third summer. Organizers will be showing films with a political theme in honor of the election year.
I don’t know if the schedule has been finalized but here’s what I do know. They’re showing 1776, The Manchurean Candidate (the original directed by John Frankenheimer) and The Candidate with Robert Redford.
As always, there will be a terrific short before the feature.
Brooklyn Film Works shows movies on a gigantic screen set up in JJ Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street. The movies will be on Thursday nights in July at dusk. Bring something comfortable to sit on (a blanket, pillow, or lawn chair). Bring a picnic.
More information will be forthcoming on the Old Stone House website and on OTBKB (of course).
Boomberg, Gotbaum and de Blasio Weigh in on Crane Collapse
Politicians are weighing in on today’s crane collapse. The death toll so far is 4. Those who died were construction workers working on the crane. There are numerous serious injuries of workers and pedestrians.
Mayor Mike Bloomberg: "What has happened is unacceptable and intolerable. Having said that, we do not know at the moment what happened or why."
Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum told the New York Times: "It’s clear we need to be far more strict and crack down on any unsafe
construction sites, and its clear we need more inspectors, still. When
a violation is issued, disciplinary action must follow. Just two days
ago the city decided that inspectors will no longer be present every
time a construction crane is being erected or made taller, an emergency
provision put in place following the last major accident. This move by
the D.O.B., tightening restrictions following a catastrophe, and then
relaxing them as soon as the smoke clears, was likely premature."
Councilmember Bill de Blasio sent out a press release: "This is inexcusable. Every time the Department of Buildings tells us they have taken steps to improve safety, another horrific accident occurs. This has to stop. The Department of Buildings is clearly not up to the job. We need a moratorium. We need a reinspection at every site in New York City." He called for a ban on usage of cranes until every one is reinspected.
Pre-K Admissions Problems With Sibling Verification
Reading Park Slope Parents, I see that many local sibs did not get into pre-K programs at public schools that their older siblings attend; parents are, understandably, upset. Apparently the DOE’s computers compared data for the older sibling on the application with pre-submitted data about the older sibling in their records. f these addesses didn’t match the child applying for pre-K was treated as a non-sibling. Looks like the computer screwed up. Big time. What if the family has moved since the original pre-K application? Here’s an excerpt from the Inside Schools blog:
Currently,
OSEPO staff are finishing up looking at every single one of the
applications of families who indicated they had a sibling already
enrolled, Jacob said. He told me he anticipates that the number of
families affected will be a "small minority" of the 9,000 families who
indicated that they had a sibling in their school of choice, though the
number will be "more than 4 or 5." After the scope of the problem is
clear, the DOE will decide how to handle the cases, he said, and
families will be notified then if there was a mistake in the way their
application was treated. "There are some cases where the problem was on
our end. … When we hear about problems, we solve them," he told me.Jacob
said there may also be families who believe they were erroneously
denied a seat who actually completed the application incorrectly,
perhaps by listing the school in which the sibling is already enrolled
as something other than their first choice. (Sibling priority only
works for your first-choice school.)Jacob advised me that the
very best thing parents who believe the address-matching issue may be
the root of their rejection should hold tight while the DOE decides how
to solve the problem. I know that will be hard to do, but I have faith
that the DOE is committed to addressing the issues, even though it
might not know yet exactly how to. If you just can’t wait, Jacob said
the best number to call at OSEPO is 212-374-4948.
That’s also the number you should call if you have other issues or if
you still haven’t received a letter — though we have heard from one
father who just received a letter this morning.
2 Dead in Crane Collapse on East 91st Street
As reported on WNYC, Gothamist, and elsewhere, this morning a construction crane collapsed on East 91st Street and First Avenue killing at least four two construction workers (update at 1:35 p.m.). Many more were injured. The FDNY is still searching through the wreckage.
David Byrne Plays the Building
David Byrne has created a sound installation, sponsored by Creative Time, called Playing The Building, in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument.
Creative Time presents Playing the Building, a 9,000-square-foot, interactive, site-specific installation by renowned artist David Byrne. The artist transforms the interior of the landmark Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan into a massive sound sculpture that all visitors are invited to sit and “play.” The project consists of a retrofitted antique organ, placed in the center of the building’s cavernous second-floor gallery, that controls a series of devices attached to its structural features—metal beams, plumbing, electrical conduits, and heating and water pipes. These machines vibrate, strike, and blow across the building’s elements, triggering unique harmonics and producing finely tuned sounds.
Says David Byrne:
“The idea is that the public can sit down and play this thing, and that when they do, it should be pretty obvious what’s going on. They’ll see machines mounted up on the girders and the pipes and the columns, and they’ll notice that as soon as they hit a key, a sound comes from the building. There’s all this stuff coming out of the back of the organ like a big octopus; some are little tubes blowing compressed air into the plumbing pipes. Those sound like alto flutes, kind of pretty. Some are wires that go to these strikers; those will be like little gongs, hitting the radiators and big metal columns with high, percussive notes. Other wires go to motors that are strapped like crazy to girders and support structures within the building. They’re hung off balance, so they shake and vibrate, which makes a sound like when a car or truck goes over an iron trestle bridge. Depending on the length of the metal beam, they make different notes.”
10 South Street, New York, NY (Map)
31 May – 10 August 2008
Open Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Noon – 6PM (Free)
Opening Reception: 31 May, 6–8 PM
Jamie Livingston Site Has Been Improved
Hugh Crawford is continuing to improve the Jamie Livingston site, which is much more robust and seems able to handle the large volume of traffic it is getting.
Big News: Many of the X pictures have been replaced with real photos, as have the pictures with Hugh’s finger and a date on a Post-it. Hugh thinks there are only a few missing photos now.
MyFox has an extensive article about Jamie and the site:
‘Polaroid a Day’ Chronicles a Life
Jamie Livingston’s Photo Project Finds an Audience Online
http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/ContentDetail?contentId=6654456
So does Time.com. Betsy found this post by Richard Lacayo on Time.com’s art and architecture blog.
Something about Livingston’s project reminded me that towards the end of his life the photographer Garry Winogrand shot rolls and rolls of film almost aimlessly, just pointing the camera out the window of his car. I think Winogrand was looking for whatever you find when you let go as best you can of the structures of art. (That was an idea that was also basic to what Robert Rauschenberg was doing sometimes.) And I ‘ve always been fascinated by an old movie by the Swiss director Alain Tanner, In the White City. Bruno Ganz plays an engineer on an oil tanker who jumps ship in Lisbon and stays there, periodically sending home to his girlfriend a home movie of his aimless days. By the time he makes the last film his life is dissolving into pure weightless existence, and the movie is just footage of streets going by underfoot.
After Livingston’s death, his pictures were organized by two friends into a show they mounted last year at Bard College, which is where he had begun the series when he was a student there. This kind of pure steady documentation can be very powerful. The Livingston project, because of the way it ends, is heartbreaking, but also wonderful in its attention to every little bit of life. The combination of easy digital photography and the Internet will create more of these sustained accounts of everydayness. (It already has. In the last few years a couple of guys made projects of taking a picture of every meal they ate for a year.) Flickr is a public library of photo diaries. But I’m betting that this one will always be one of the form’s monuments, built one little piece at a time.
Department of Education Mailing Middle School Letters Today!
That’s what I was told by a reliable source at PS 321. She received an email on Thursday morning saying that the letters would be mailed to parents on Friday May 30, 2008.
Some would say, it’s about time.
She told me that the middle schools have the lists of the kids they are accepting. They just haven’t let the parents, the students, or the guidance counselors at the elementary schools know yet.
Here’s hoping they get those letters out today. If they do, look for it in the mail Saturday or Monday.
Food Drive at Old First Church Through June 15
Old First Church on Seventh Avenue at Carroll Street is running a food drive, in the hopes of donating 200 or more bags of non-perishable groceries to help replenish Brooklyn’s empty food banks.
Here’s the grocery list: Rice, pasta, dried beans, canned veggies, fruit, applesauce and tuna, shelf-stable milk and infant forumal, canned and packaged soup, whole-grained cereals, 100% fruit juice (no glass please).
Please fill a grocery bag and bring to the church office by June 15th. Office hours are Mon-Thurs, 9am-5pm OR Snday 9am-2pm.
Help Old First Church meet its goal of 200 bags of groceries to replenish Brooklyn’s empty food banks.
Prospect Park Has Multi-Million Dollar Friend
Brooklyn Paper reports that a stretch of Prospect Park will be restored thanks to an enormous donation.
A famed philanthropist donated $10 million last week to restore a 26-acre stretch of Prospect Park to its original glory, but even with the generous contribution, funding for the expansive project is only halfway secured.
Shelby White, widow of the Wall Street investor Leon Levy and head of the Leon Levy Foundation, donated the money to the planned Lakeside Center — a $75-million project that would demolish the run-down, but popular, Wollman skating rink and replace it with a multipurpose recreation and education venue with new rinks, plus restore the area back to Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s original 19th-century design.
White — a Brooklyn native — decided to donate to Prospect Park because she spent so much time there as a child, “horseback riding [and] rowing with my junior high school boyfriend from Walt Whitman JHS.”
“And, sorry, Mike,” she joked with Mayor Bloomberg during a May 22 press conference to announce the donation, “I smoked my first cigarette in this park.”
Now Rented: 2 of 4 Vacant Storefronts Between 2nd and 3rd On Seventh
Seventh Avenue between Second and Third Streets is 2 for 4.
That’s right, two of the four vacant storefronts on that stretch of Seventh Avenue are now rented. The Second Street Cafe and Park Slope Books storefronts are still available. But the storefront, which housed Seventh Avenue Books, is becoming a store for “children’s exclusives.”
I don’t know if that’s toys or clothing.
It’s going into the building owned by Mark Ravitz Art and Design. It’s the building with the cyclops/octopus/sun drips. There were once dripping cows on that building.
Barrio, the groovy, new nouveau Mexican restaurant with the super-duper Margaritas, is in the spot vacated by Tempo Presto and Mojo/Carvel before that.
So, do I hear any interest in the Second Street Cafe?
The owners, I believe, are trying to sell the recently renovated restaurant. Interestingly, one of the owners used to work at Restaurant Florent, the legendary 24-hour diner-style restaurant on Manhattan’s Gansevoort Street. That restaurant, which was a harbinger of the uber-gentrification of the meat-packing neighborhood on the far Westside, is going out of business on June 29th.
Does anyone remember Evelyn’s Goat Cheese Salad? It was a specialty at Florent and also on the menu at Second Street Cafe.
Hebrew Language Charter School?
I found this on the Inside Schools blog. I was looking for info about the middle school admission’s letters, which I didn’t find. But i did find this:
Apparently there is interest in establishing a Hebrew language charter school. It will be interesting to see what kind of brouhaha this causes. The following is by the Inside School’s blogger, Philissa.
I had sort of thought that the folks who last autumn were talking about bringing a Hebrew-language charter school to New York City would have been dissuaded by the controversy surrounding the Khalil Gibran International Academy, but apparently they were not. Next week, representatives of the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life plans to submit an application to the DOE and the state Board of Regents to open a charter school as early as 2009, according to a report in the Jewish Daily Forward.
The proposal will be modeled after Ben Gamla Charter in Florida, which ran into some trouble early in this school year because its Hebrew language curriculum contained religious references. Considering that doing damage control for Khalil Gibran proved costly and embarrassing for the DOE and that the controversy continues to this day, it should be interesting to see what kind of reception the Hebrew school’s advocates receive.
Red Hook Braces for Onslaught of Ikea Customers
The Brooklyn Paper reports that the Red Hook Ikea has added hundreds of parking spaces.
Ikea has added hundreds of parking spaces to its Red Hook store in advance of the hotly anticipated opening on Wednesday, June 18, which is expected to draw a cavalcade of shoppers that will continue for months.
The Scandinavian home-furnishings giant’s first New York City store will use the neighboring site of the former Revere Sugar refinery to handle any parking overflow from its own 1,400-car lot at least until Labor Day.
Company officials didn’t disclose how many vehicles can be packed onto the dirt lot, but it is large enough to hold several hundred.
By enlarging its car capacity, Ikea has revived concern in Red Hook that the heretofore remote corner of Brooklyn will be overrun by drivers, because mass transit is not an appealing option if you’re hauling home a futon (or boxes and boxes of Swedish meatballs).