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The story of Italy's Egyptian museum
U
sually people thinking about Ancient Egypt (3150-50 BC) imagine wide deserts in Africa with giant pyramids and sphinxes, gods and mummies near the Nile, but there’s a big piece of Egypt in the city from where I write monthly for the Star-Revue, namely Turin, which is in the northwest portion of Italy. Here, 2000 miles away from Egypt, there’s a museum which houses more than 30 thousand artifacts from the Pharaohs’ land - the Egyptian Museum of Turin. The museum, founded in 1824, is now directed by Christian Greco, 45, a well-known Egyptologist I had the pleasure to talk with about what is today the second largest archeological collection of ancient
by Dario Pio Muccilli
Egypt worldwide, smaller only than the Cairo’s Museum, in Egypt itself. “We are a very well-known museum with a very large history, which has its roots in the Kingdom of Sardinia (which ruled on the north-west, ed), one of the states that existed before Italy became united in 1861. In 1824, the Kingdom, like all of Europe, was hit with a kind of Egyptomania amidst upper classes, especially among diplomats who collected thousands of Egyptian finds, shipping them from Egypt to the Italian motherland” tells Mr. Greco.
made up of ancient stones, tablets and artefacts, which were sold to King Charles Felix of Sardinia back in 1824, even thanks to Vidua claiming that “only buying this collection Italy would become a great country”. “He was right”, says Mr Greco, “Buying the collection Italy had the opportunity to become a global landmark for scholars, giving more respectability to the country on the international scenario. So there was even a political will behind such a cultural choice to set up a Museum.”
The collections of that time are still the heart of the Museum, that owe some thanks to the explorer Carlo Vidua, who raised during years of exploration a personal collection
country then, the King, as well as Sardinia’s officials, saw in ancient Egypt an example of an organized state, which was exactly the goal they were
The Tomb of Kha, discovered in 1906 during the excavation campaign carried out by the Italian archaeological mission in Deir-elMedina, is the most impressive and remarkable ensemble of the whole museum. Dating back to 3,500 BC, it houses sarcophagi and statues, as well as furniture, garments and Besides, being Italy still not a united grooming items.
trying to achieve throughout the entire peninsula.
(continued on page 16)
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N
a Lakan Masego grew up in Red Hook and has long been a passionate activist for racial justice. He graduated from South Brooklyn Community High school in 2018. The death of George Floyd as a result of police brutality pushed his activism up a notch and led to him start his own group, The New Black Leaders. “My friends on Facebook were actually talking about Black Lives Matter and Brown Lives Matter and the movement in general,” Masego said. “So, I created a Facebook group. Over 300 people joined the first three days and people were actually having real conversations. It was huge.” He wanted to have a protest partly since he said there had not really been a protest before in Red Hook. “People often overlook us even though we have the biggest projects in Brooklyn and the second biggest in New York City, “Masego said. “That motivated me to put us on the map a little bit.” There was a small protest in the middle of June, and then a BBQ on Juneteenth that was also organized by the New Black Liberated Kings and Queens Leaders. When he decided to have a larger protest, he recruited his friend Crystal who made a flyer to announce a protest the next week. He initially thought organizing the protest would be simpler than it was. The flyer was shared on his Facebook group, but then
it was shared in other Red Hook Facebook groups and older people, long-time Red Hook residents who never heard of the group, panicked. There was some concern based on the current climate at the time, according to Masego. “When we were planning the protest, it was during the time that riots were happening and people were looting, so a lot of older folks were worried that was the energy that would be brought to Red Hook,” Masego said. “There was tension for a little while. It was a strange experience because it felt like a lot of people did not want it to happen.” It soon became clear that this was not an outside group, and Mesego worked together with other local institutions. “We started at the Miccio Center and passed by the Red Hook Initiative (RHI),” Masego said. “We went down to Barclays Center and down West 9th Street. It was huge, over 1,200 people came. It was amazing.” He started planning by talking to the pastor of Redemption Church, Edwin Pacheco. He had a lot of back and forth with the previous 76th Precinct CO Megan O’Malley. She wanted to know the route but he strongly did not want to reveal it. “That is a very important part of the protest and you can’t just trust anybody with that type of informa-
tion,” Masego said. “I gave them a general feel of the route but did not tell them the real route.” “This movement was not about them, it was not for them, it is not a violent movement,” Masego said. “It is not peaceful but it is not violent. She kept saying that her main issue was that she did not want it to get violent but it would not have been violent anyway.” Masego, along with other members of Strategy for Black Lives, which New Black Leaders merged with in August, went down to Washington D.C. to the March on Washington that weekend. “People were angry and rioting and occupying the streets and expressing themselves in a demanding way,” Masego said. “It was good to see so many different types of people actually supporting the movement.” Now that New Black Leaders has officially merged with Solidarity for Black Lives, he is hoping to continue these meetings with the new organization. He went to South Brooklyn Community High School, a transfer high school on Conover Street, for three years. He initially did not want to go there since the school is in Red Hook, but he ended up feeling at home in his new environment. “When I actually became a student, I felt so comfortable and at home because of how diverse and how
Masego negotiates with the 76th precinct about the protest route.
cultured the teachers are,” Masego said. “In other public schools teachers are predominantly white and female but in South Brooklyn what I noticed is that a lot of teachers are people of color, Latinx and black and just brown in general. The dialogue was different and the way they spoke was different.” An impactful event involved him performing on Broadway prior to a Hamilton performance in front of 1,500 people. “It was amazing,” Masego said. “They had us backstage and fed us. I felt like a star that day. It was a beautiful experience.” “Some classes had a lot of students, but teachers always did their best to give every single student the attention they needed.,” Masego said. “The teachers worked really hard to make sure that every student understood what was going on in class, and South Brooklyn opened so many doors for me.”
The Red Hook Star-Revue is published every month. Founded June 2010 by George Fiala and Frank Galeano
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October 2020
we get letters Farebox needed
MTA Chairman Pat Foye claims his agency is facing a financial “Five Alarm Fire.” Putting it out requires not only federal assistance, but also farebox, City Hall and Albany revenues. First, the MTA requested $3.9 billion in additional funding. After receipt of $3.9 billion in CARE COVID 19 funding, the MTA announced they needed another $3.9 billion. Today, it is $12 billion. What will it be tomorrow? Weeks ago, it was a four-alarm fire. Now it is a five-alarm fire. What will it be tomorrow? MTA Chairman Foye reminds of Pinocchio. Riders and Washington are already fighting the financial fire. City Hall and Albany must do likewise. MTA Chairman Foye recently blamed Washington for a loss of $1 billion. This was based on the Federal Highway Administration not working fast enough with the MTA in completion of the NEPA environmental review process. This is necessary to
implement Congestion Pricing. It is supposed to raise $15 billion for the MTA $51 billion 2020 - 2024 Five Year Capital Plan. Even if FHWA made a NEPA finding tomorrow, tolling could never be implemented on January 1, 2021. For nine months, Governor Cuomo and NYC Mayor de Blasio never announced their appointments to the MTA Traffic Mobility Review Board. Details of who will pay what can never be resolved and made public until this board is established and completes its mission. This process is politically sensitive. It could take many months to a year before congestion pricing is set. I will not hold my breath waiting for MTA Chairman Foye’s future New York Times Guest Op Ed holding Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo accountable for their inaction delaying implementation. This $15 billion could have solved the financial crises.—Larry Penner, transportation advocate who previously worked for the Federal Transit Administration Region 2 New
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York Office.
We're blushing!
Dear George. ‘It’s rare for me to write a note to a ‘media medium’. I must say the September issue was probably the best ‘local paper’ issue I have ever read...and I go back to the days of The Brooklyn Heights Press and Cobble Hill News and The Phoenix. The piece by Enright on Hamill, your reference to Michael Armstrong, the “autopsy” by Graubard, the Little Italy piece ...every piece was awesome. The StarRevue continues to SHINE. Bravissimo!—Mike Pesce
Goodbye Pete
Dear Joe Enright, Thank you for the fine piece you wrote about Pete Hamill. Pete was a true original, and one of the greatest and most unrecognized voices in American literature. He was an inspiration to all who knew him. He was deeply disappointed, indeed outraged when Trump won the presidency. To the very last, he was special in every way.
He would have been delighted that the Star-Revue saluted him in such a grand fashion. Thank you, from all of us who knew and loved him. Peace, James McBride, writer
Gowanus is no Venice
Please, we cannot compare Gowanus to Venice as that Italian city is rotting and collapsing as we speak...from overuse. But the Gowanus is unique in its problems: it has been treated as a sewer for years. and there is no natural drainage...water flows in and can't get out. Raw sewage pours in when there is sewer overflow. And there are new apartment houses that now abut its shore. It needs a massive pumping station...more important.. it needs a commitment from all municipal agencies to fix a problem that is nearly 100 years in the making.— Nancy Ingrassia Stehle
Words by George
GEORGE FIALA WANTS THE Red Hook Star-Revue to be the next Village Voice. Fiala, who is sixty-six, wants you—hopefully a connected millennial—to pick up the latest issue and feel the weight of the monthly’s thirtysomething pages. He wants you to flip through and discover things you didn’t realize you cared about—how a Senegalese drummaker learned his craft, or how zoning laws shape communities. He wants you to look forward to
what his writers have to say each month because they’re incisive, witty, and cool. And he wants to do it all while reacquainting you with the magic of print.
but know little about the policies that shape their neighborhoods. “They don’t realize how much things like land use decisions affect their day-today experience,”
Running a free community newspaper supported by ads is about as profitable as it sounds. “Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to sell a Model T to someone who’s looking to buy a Tesla,” says Jamie Yates, who’s in charge of advertising at the StarRevue. These days, Yates says, most of the paper’s revenue comes from ads placed by city agencies, which, as of 2019, are required to allocate at least half of their advertising budget to “community and ethnic media.”
Fiala’s mother was a Holocaust survivor; her experiences, he says, instilled in him a sense of what real hardship could look like. If the Star-Revue still exists, it’s only because Fiala wills it into existence every month when he lays out the latest issue and gets into his van to distribute all the copies around the area. “There’s something called the last man standing,” he says. “You never know when your day will come and everyone will say, ‘You know what? We’ve missed the Village Voice, and this paper’s not too bad.’ ”
He admits his paper’s odds of achieving widespread recognition aren’t good, but says the experience of putting out a new issue every month is reward enough. “I like to think that I’m doing something important in the history of the world,” he says. “Nothing is that important. But you know when people say, ‘What are you gonna leave behind?’ I leave behind my bound volumes of the Star-Revue. I just have to find a place that won’t put them in the garbage.” Many New York residents, especially transplants, he says, see neighborhoods as collections of consumer options—bars, restaurants, shops, maybe a few art galleries. Similarly, the subset of cool, politically engaged hipsters Fiala wants reading the Star-Revue follow national politics closely
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eptember was kind of an exciting month for me here at the Star-Revue. I don't generally like to toot my own horn, mostly because I like to let the paper speak for itself, however I'd like to share a few words for an article that appeared on the website of the Columbia Journalism Review, an esteemed magazine about the news business that I've been reading for over thirty years. The story behind this article is that the author, Jorge Bello, was a journalism student at Columbia and interviewed me a bunch of times for his graduate thesis. I answered a lot of question and he took my ramblings and turned it into a paper that was them published. Here are some cool excerpts:
©COPYRIGHT 202O MARC JACKSON AND WEiRD0 COMiCS #19
October 2020, Page 3
UPS UPDATE by Brian Abate The United Parcel Service, which is building a huge regional distribution facility in the west side of Red Hook, finally sent a brief response to a series of questions from local residents about how UPS plans to drive their trucks in our neighborhood. The questions were sent to Laura Lane, Communications Officer, on July 2. Jim Tampakis of Red Hook’s Marine Spares International and Tamco Mechanical put together the questions after talking to and working with local residents. UPS delayed their response, saying that they needed time to prepare a response. “Many ideas that have been raised by community members – such as use of the wharf for trailer movements; alternative routes to and from the building; and resiliency of the Atlantic Basin area – could have significant impact on the facility’s design and construction, depending on whether and how they are executed,” Lane said last month via email. “Notably, we continue to explore the feasibility and efficiency of waterway options for the facility, including its construction and operation.” Right now it seems as though the suggestions made by Tampakis, including using the waterfront as well as truck routes that would be less
disruptive in Red Hook remain possible. However, Lane did not make any commitments, or even hint at that, but she did say that UPS would keep the interests of the community in mind.
"She did say that UPS would keep the interests of the community in mind." “Throughout our time on the Red Hook site, we have prioritized mitigating any disruption to the community, and we will continue to do this when construction begins,” Lane said. Lane spoke about new ways of bringing employees to the future plant, including the Red Hook Ferry, which Tampakis previously suggested. “We have access to all these miles along the waterfront, so why not put them to use in a way that’s beneficial to everyone,” Tampakis has offered. “As you know, public transit options are limited in the area, but we are
optimistic that UPS’s presence will further strengthen the argument for additional and improved commuter networks in Red Hook that would support not only our employees but also the community at-large,” is how Lane phrased it. “We also recognize the potential the existing Red Hook Ferry has as a commuter solution for our employees.” Using the waterfront would greatly benefit Red Hook as it would mean fewer trucks coming into and out of the neighborhood. While no decisions have been made yet, it is encouraging that UPS is looking at using the waterfront as well as considering using alternative truck routes, as Tampakis has also suggested. “UPS can be a great neighbor for Red Hook, so I just hope they work with the community and come up with solutions that work for everybody,” Tampakis told the Star-Revue.
REAL ESTATE STILL SHAKY by Brian Abate
The coronavirus pandemic has devastated New York City. After a few awful months, the real estate market is now slowly improving in what has become “a new normal.” “It was pretty drastic the first three months after the pandemic hit,” said Nick Ferrone, a real estate broker for Compass, located on Court St. in Car-
roll Gardens. “I occasionally showed empty apartments but there really wasn’t much to do the first few months.” “Closings are done remotely now,” Ferrone said. “I didn’t realize how important it was to see people’s faces and get a feel for what they’re thinking. I have got to do things like have sanitizer available and make sure to always wear a mask etc. I’ve been following all of the safety mandates.” The local real estate market is slowly recovering. There are big differences in the types of apartments and other homes that are selling right now. “Apartments under $900,000 have actually been doing really well, which shows that younger people are still buying homes, but family sized apartments have been getting hammered,” Ferrone said. It’s a good sign that younger people are still buying and staying in New York City despite the pandemic, but so far most families that left have stayed away. “Families have been leaving the city in droves,” Ferrone said. “They’ve been moving to New Jersey, Westchester, Long Island etc. Now, because of those families moving out of the city, townhouses are doing really well.” Ferrone, like everyone else, isn’t sure how long this will last, or when and if the majority of families who left the city will return. He has never been in a situation like this. “Price drops aren’t getting as much of a response as expected,” said Ferrone.
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FLU VACCINE COULD BE THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE YOU EVER GET
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For more information or to find a location to get your flu vaccine, visit nyc.gov/flu, call 311 or text "flu" to 877877. NYC_Flu_2020_COVID-19_RedHookStar_9.75x7.5_V1.indd 1
Page 4 Red Hook Star-Revue
Health
9/21/20 7:26 AM
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October 2020
EPA Gowanus dredging imminent by Jorge Bello
T
he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will begin dredging the Gowanus Canal in mid-November, scraping out the thick layer of tar and feces that sits at the bottom of the waterway. But, Christos Tsiamis, the EPA engineer who heads the cleanup, warns that a new layer of gunk could start accumulating after dredging is completed in 2023. The completion date of the two retention tanks that will prevent recontamination by capturing the sewage that overflows into the canal could be pushed back. In June, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the city agency overseeing the tanks’ construction, which is already behind schedule, requested an 18-month extension from the EPA. Work on the retention tanks is funded entirely through water bills paid by New Yorkers, the DEP explained in an email to the Star-Revue earlier this month. The lower water consumption and unpaid bills resulting from the pandemic have cut the city’s revenue, requiring that it review “all current and future capital projects.” During a virtual meeting last week with the Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group, a local organization, Tsiamis explained that the EPA is still deciding whether it will grant the city’s request for an extension. At the meeting, members of the organization vented their frustration at the prospect of another delay and at the
city’s general foot-dragging in fulfilling its part of the cleanup. “What kind of teeth does the EPA have against New York City?” asked community member Louis Kleinman, expressing his desire for the federal agency to take a hard line with the DEP. “Can we put somebody in jail? What can you do to goose these people up?”
whether the City and DEP are in compliance with their obligations.”
The only teeth the EPA has bared so far have been in stern-worded letters to the city this summer. In one such correspondence sent on July 28, the agency’s regional administrator, Pete Lopez, warned that the DEP was in “significant non-compliance” with its obligations relating to the construction of the smaller of the two tanks, which will be located along the middle of the Gowanus Canal.
"Gowanus residents vented their frustration at the city’s foot-dragging in fulfilling its part of the cleanup."
In the same letter, Lopez asked the city to provide additional information in order to evaluate its extension request. DEP Commissioner Vincent Sapienza responded in August by providing a construction schedule for the larger of the two retention tanks, which will be located at the top of the canal and have a capacity of eight million gallons. However, Sapienza stated the DEP would furnish a schedule for the smaller, four-million-gallon tank later this year, once the city has assessed the pandemic’s impacts on its budget. In a separate correspondence, DEP lawyers urged the EPA to “move forward with the design and contracting work rather than publicly debating
Lopez did just that. On September 2, he directed the DEP to establish a schedule for the completion of both tanks and to procure a contract for the design of the smaller tank, a step that it had stalled on for several months.
In his September 16 response, Sapienza lamented the EPA’s “deeply disappointing” and “myopic” directive. “But if this is truly EPA’s priority,” he wrote. “DEP will comply with your instructions, and my staff will promptly complete the procurement of the
[smaller tank’s] design contract.” The DEP estimated completing the design and permitting for the smaller tank will take five years to complete while work on the bigger tank should be completed by 2032. Reprimands penned on official letterhead aren’t the EPA’s only recourse. There are considerable monetary penalties for noncompliance with Superfund directives, and the EPA has made the city aware of them, the federal agency’s assistant regional counsel, Brian Carr, told members of the community advisory group. Nonetheless, Carr said, the EPA is taking the city’s financial burdens into account and weighing them against instances of noncompliance that predate the pandemic as it deliberates on whether to grant the DEP its extension. “The agency’s going to make a reasoned decision and the regional administrator’s correspondence indicates the EPA’s willingness to do that.” Should too much time elapse between the dredging of the canal and completion of the tanks, Tsiamis said, the city would have to carry out additional “maintenance dredging” to decontaminate the canal again. “But that will cost New York City a lot of money.” “And who would put their feet to the fire to do that?” asked Margaret Maugenest, a community member. “If it weren’t for you they’d be doing nothing!” Carr clarified that the EPA intends to make maintenance dredging an enforceable requirement for the city.
Solving problems using Brooklyn style
T
he Brooklyn Style Foundation is organizing their very first Fashion Accessories Design Competition where contestants will create a fashion accessory that solves a problem relating to our current situation. This contest is open to high school students all around the country. The impetus to have a competition like this one was partly because of everything that the country is going through right now and adolescents ability to create change. Rob Price, who has been a board member of the Brooklyn Style Foundation since this summer, said that the founder, Rick Davy, is really focused on supporting the community and building development programs. “With what has been going on both with the pandemic and the state of everything there are so many challenges that he felt like these young creative talents could answer those challenges with their designs,” Price said. The Brooklyn Style Foundation’s mission is to assist emerging, underprivileged designers in honing their talent and growing their business, and to provide a professional forum to showcase their creations alongside other emerging designers around the globe.
Red Hook Star-Revue
by Nathan Weiser This relates to the contest since emerging designers will be able to showcase their talent in front of judges. Examples of two possible submissions include jewelry that can take ones temperature or a hand bag that holds hand sanitizer for quick access. The range of accessories can include footwear, eyewear, jewelry and hand bags. The competition is for the students to design an accessory that is forward looking in the problem it solves as well as being feasible to make. They wanted submissions to be accessories instead of an overall outfit because this way they can be more targeted to solve problems. The deadline for students to submit their accessory designs was September 25 and the winners will be announced on October 11. “It’s a great opportunity for them to win prize money that is being offered as well as having the potential for these (the accessories) to be produced as samples and even have them go down the runway at the Brooklyn Fashion Show,” Price said. The winners of the competition will be showcased and announced in time for Brooklyn Fashion Week in October. They are planning for the acces-
sories to actually be incorporated and integrated into the Fashion Week in April. The designs can be conceptual or functional in their execution, but only the fully thought out idea will be submitted for the competition. High school students must have a consenting adult sign the submission (parent, teacher or principal. Brooklyn Style Foundation’s competition is looking for any budding designer who is in grade nine through 12. They can submit or work on their idea via a sketch, a doodle on a napkin, a prototype or any other medium that is best for them to illustrate the concept that they come up with. Price sees so many possible applicants based on the tools they have available. “There is such an incredible pool of talent,” Price said. With YouTube and social media, a lot of these young creatures are able to learn and be creative with a lot more resources than
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10 years ago. We wanted to welcome all creative potential fashion designers to be able to submit ideas.” Teenage designers are asked to submit the drawing, rendering, or prototype, with information explaining the chosen design with the rest of the application. The application for the competition can be found at: www. bkstyle.org/hs-accessories-design. The Brooklyn Style Foundation is a non-profit that was founded back in 2004 as a platform for Brooklyn’s explosive creative talent. Brooklyn Fashion Week has been in existence for about that long as well, showcasing young talent.
October 2020, Page 5
New dance studio comes to Red Hook
R
ed Hook now has a new and modern dance studio that will offer instruction in an array of different styles and mediums. On September 26, World Arts East Red Hook officially opened its doors with an open house in its expansive space occupying the second floor of 127 King Street.
The open house presented yoga fundamentals, ballet barre, Samba Carnival dance, Capoeira / Afro-Brazilian martial art, salso and Afro-Caribbean dance. There was a surprise party later in the afternoon. Masks were required and they asked people to RSVP beforehand for the open house. Due to the New York State guidelines they will be having limited capacity for their classes for the foreseeable future. “People have to RSVP for classes first,” owner and instructor Erica OlivaresBowen said. “We want to make sure everyone is healthy and that they can social distance.” Olivares-Bowen has a lot of previous experience as an educator. She has guest lectured at George Mason University, Temple University, Santa Monica College and more recently at Hunter College. She has been on the faculty at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and for yoga at Boricua College in New York. As a youth, she studied with artists from Russia,
by Nathan Weiser China, the U.S.A. and Cuba, who gave an appreciation for the diversity of the field.
(this option includes four classes per week with the same options as above).
There are eight teachers slated to teach at World Arts East and participated in the open house.
The various price options for adults include $20 for a 60-minute class, $22 for a 75-minute class, $49 for a new student to take unlimited classes for two weeks and $180 for 10 classes.
“Everyone is excited about teaching here, but our powerful teachers who are passionate about what it is that they teach wanted to teach for the open house.” Olivares-Bowen said. “The wonderful thing is that everyone is focused on something slightly different,” Olivares-Bowen said. “We really focus not only on arts and yoga but a global perspective on arts and yoga.” The studio is open for classes Monday through Saturday. They are looking to start with some options for instruction and then see how people in the neighborhood as well as outside Red Hook respond, and then expand organically. The studio will have classes for children 10 years old and up and also for adults. Right now they have ballet, hip hop, Afro Latin dance, yoga and Capoeira for kids. The various price options for kids include $20 for a first class for a child, $25 for youth drop in, $300 for the child monthly rate (three classes per week with a choice between ballet, yoga, Capoeira, Afro-Caribbean, salsa/ballroom and Afro-Latin percussion) and a $400 youth monthly rate
Another aspect that makes World Arts East Red Hook stand out is that they offer treatments and spa techniques that are not available in normal fitness or dance studios. In addition to the arts and yoga classes, they offer an Ayurvedic treatment and massage for those that are interested. “Ajurveda is a 5,000-year-old system from India that is based on balance and wellness,” Olivares-Bowen added. “The system uses yoga, meditation, Ayurvedic treatments, massage and nutrition in order to balance the being.” An example of a treatment they incorporate within Ayurvedic is Abhyanga, which is similar to massage. Abhyanga focuses on balancing the being and there are herbal oils that are used on the skin.
Founder Erica Olivares-Bowen
said. “This is an amazing community. I have gone to talk to different people in the neighborhood, different businesses and owners, and they are really excited that another form of arts is here.” If people are interested in signing up for classes at World Arts East Red Hook they can go to the website (worldartseastredhook.com), they can email (worldartseast@gmail. com) or they can call for more information (929-295-0605). The upcoming schedule is listed in the schedule tab on their website.
“We love Red Hook,” Olivares-Bowen
To-Go drinks & food
& Reservations for seating area
Food
Featuring wagyu beef cocktail weiners and a house bourbon mustard and gin mayonnaise dip
m
4 - 11 p Page 6 Red Hook Star-Revue
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October 2020
Houses of worship remain wary, diligent in these times
by Erin DeGregorio
A
on a larger scale because many more people were watching. We had to buy and install more cameras in order to make this as professional as possible.”
In mid-March, they were forced to physically close across the City, being forced to hold remote services for congregants, instead. Though services were allowed to take place in person with modifications after June 22 – under Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Phase 2 reopening plan – religious leaders have remained diligent and cautious.
“We did that for a month, and we realized not many people were coming,” Pastor James said, noting that services are still being shown online.
We spoke with three local religious leaders about how they’ve been doing since the pandemic began.
Brooklyn Islamic Center slowly reopens Throughout the pandemic, the Brooklyn Islamic Center (BIC) in Kensington has participated in social service activities by providing donations and necessary commodities to its members and others in the community. However, one of the biggest challenges faced by BIC, according to Vice President and Imam Abu Samiha Sirajul Islam, has been providing meaningful prayer services – especially for Ramadan, the holiest month of the Muslim calendar. “Special prayer services are usually held in Ramadan, but Ramadan fell this year during the pandemic,” he said. “So that special service was not held, along with other spiritual activities done in the mosque during the month of Ramadan.” In terms of religious education, classes for children and adults and other educational services for BIC members – which are normally held in person – are still being held online. Additionally, Imam Islam said monetary contributions from BIC members to run the facilities were hampered as they stayed away from the institution physically. Prayer services are now held on-site with health and safety measures in place, plus at a limited occupancy capacity. “We see that people have a natural inclination to be in touch with GOD and prayer during calamities and they keep on asking when will we offer full services,” Imam Islam said.
Pre-pandemic, Bethesda Healing Center was already going virtual The Bethesda Healing Center (BHC) in Brownsville had a semi-advantage going into the pandemic as it was already tech-savvy and holding services virtually. The center remotely connects with its worshippers through YouTube, Facebook Live and Whatsapp. “We were doing live-streaming before COVID-19 and it was working, so we just continued with that,” Pastor James Osei-Kofi explained to the RHSR. “But, of course, this one was
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BHC resumed shorter, in-person services on Aug. 2, with 25-percent of the congregation’s population going into the sanctuary at two scheduled times each day.
Pastor James said an average of 75 attendees can be at BHC – including musicians, technicians, IT personnel and security. In-person attendance, since Aug. 2, has slightly increased and remained steady, according to Pastor James. To further emphasize the importance of and feasibility of utilizing technology, BHC worshippers must register ahead of time to attend services via an app, telephone call or text. Additionally, BHC has left about six slots open for each in-person service for those who are simply walking down the street and want to come to church. Upon entrance, everyone must remain socially distant, have their temperatures checked, and disinfect their hands with sanitizer. Pastor James explained the biggest challenge for BHC has been finances, as it depends heavily on worshippers’ tithes and generosity. Again, worshippers had the opportunity to use an app to donate money or could drop off their envelopes at the office’s mailbox. “We are the type of people who hug one another and talk to each other, sometimes for hours, before leaving the building. There’s a sense of belonging here and, when people come together, they feel more obliged to give,” he said. “Finances aren’t the same as they were before, but things are picking up and we are still moving ahead.” BHC has also been running a food pantry and a hot-meal soup kitchen every Saturday from 10 am to 2 pm – with Pastor James at the forefront. The soup kitchen ran from March to June and then resumed once again in July. “On a personal note, I think this pandemic has revealed matters about our own selves and how we, as churches, are supposed to help people. We were called upon to do much more than we could have done under normal circumstances,” Pastor James said. “We’ve been doing some outreach, including handing out PPEs as well, to let the community know, ‘Hey, we’re here for you. If there is anything you need, we are here to support and assist.’ So far so good, but we still have a lot to do.”
The Bethesda Healing Center has had a large social media presence dating from before the pandemic.
the pandemic dies down. Midwood, where EMJC is located, had a near 12-percent of residents testing positive (almost 3,015 cases) as of Sept. 29. “We have a pretty diverse membership, in terms of age, but the people who come to our services tend to be older and are the most at-risk [for contracting COVID-19],” said Rabbi Cantor Sam Levine. “I really don’t want to create opportunities for them to be tempted to come out.” Services have been broadcast over Zoom with members using their cell phones, laptops and even landlines to tune in. But a major challenge that Rabbi Levine has encountered is maintaining a sense of contact and community through this remote way, over an extended amount of time. “It’s hard when people who are accustomed to being social together and in proximity to one another, all of a sudden can’t,” he told the RHSR the day after Yom Kippur, which was on Sept. 28 this year. “I think we’ve been pretty successful in reinventing the synagogue in certain ways. We’ve had a very nice and steady attendance at our daily services, on Shabbat and on the holidays. Daily services, for ex-
ample, are better attended now than they ever were before.” With that said, Rabbi Levine noted that having Zoom available as an option to host and view services has been great, overall. Plus, after EMJC services conclude, people use Zoom to hang out and chat for 15 minutes or so. “I have no objection to using Zoom,” Rabbi Levine said. “It’s wonderful because it’s almost as if people have been asking for that connection all this time and we had never presented it to them in that way. Now, we are … and once we get back to in-person services, we may have to make adaptations that allow for a hybrid model. I’m not sure what those adaptations will look like later on.” One thing Rabbi Levine wants to make clear to his community is that their health and safety are top priorities. “I don’t want to rush this,” he said. “Right now, everything’s a big question mark and a gamble. I’d rather wait until things really are safe to gather inperson for services again.”
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East Midwood Jewish Center remains closed The East Midwood Jewish Center (EMJC) has not had any in-person services since the shutdown in March – and doesn’t plan to hold any until
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the red hook
s we embark on the seventh month of living through the coronavirus pandemic, houses of worship have continued to be there for their worshippers through virtual prayer and support.
STAR REVUE October 2020, Page 7
Need to get out of the house?! All This Closeness Driving You Nuts?
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The Brooklyn Bridge Rotary Club chapter began in 2010. During normal times, meetings are held every other week, most recently at the Park Plaza diner in Brooklyn Heights. These days, they meet mostly online on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month. New members are always invited. For membership and other information contact Reyana McKenzie at reyana.mckenzie@gmail.com.
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October 2020
Why Sweden goes maskless by Dario Pio Muccilli, European correspondent
W
hat is the link between protestantism and Covid containment measures?
This is a question that may sound meaningless, but it is not so for Swedish (or Scandinavian as well) handling of the pandemic. Since the beginning of the outbreak, Sweden has not imposed any lockdown as well as any mandatory maskwearing, which is why roughly 84.7% of people do not do it at all, according to the german site Statista. Even if this kind of herd immunity strategy has been based on the opinion of the local Public Health Agency, there are lots of other immaterial reasons behind these choices, which have been striking in a country which has the 3rd highest death toll per capita in Europe. First of all, no one in Sweden wanted to stop the economy, which is not only
work for Swedes, but it is the most important source of self-confidence, thanks to the Lutheran and Calvinist idea of predestination, which is very diffused there thanks to centuries of Protestantism. The predestination theory stresses how men are not able to determine their life path, as everything has been already decided by God, who knows who has to be saved from sin and who doesn’t. Since only God knows, the best that an average person can do is work hard, make money and hope for the best (after death). So, imagine how hard it could possibly be for the Swedish people to stop working because of a lockdown. The idea of destiny is so deeply a part of the collective consciousness that it cannot be ignored. This is a very capitalist belief, but Protestantism and Capitalism are very strongly intertwined, as German
philosopher Max Weber argued in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905).
linked to the “universal priesthood” preached by Martin Luther five centuries ago
Besides, believing that everything is predetermined has favoured a freedom-loving mentality, where the single person triumphs over the community, as in personal success one may find God.
Thus, if Sweden stopped being Catholic a half-millennia ago in order to achieve independence from Rome’s Vatican, we can barely believe today it would obey anyone but its national consciousness, even if this is not healthy or reasonable as well.
Following the latest progress of Swedish society, this prompted an openminded attitude towards LGBT and immigrants’ rights, but it also pushed the nation to be way more individualist and liberalist. That is why Swedes, and Norwegians as well, are not used to obey any authority. Even their monarchy is more a symbol than a powerful institution. They love democracy, hating impositions of any kind, even if reasonably imposed because of an health emergency. This sort of democratic idea is directly
However it’s difficult to believe that Swedish people have no doubts about their way to handle the outbreak, but yet data about masks reveals how only the 5.7% of people, there, are against government laissez-faire strategy about face-covering. Maybe this massive lack of maskwearing or containment measures is due to the idea that the Swedish nation is already saved by God, as it shows all the “symptoms” of a good
(continued on page 17)
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Page 10 Red Hook Star-Revue
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October 2020
Buddy Scotto was my friend and I will miss him
T
he world knew Buddy Scotto for almost 92 years, I was his friend for the past seven.
I first heard about him when I worked for the Brooklyn Phoenix newspaper in the early 1980's. He was known in the office for getting rid of the 'stench' that permeated Carroll Gardens when the wind blew in from the Gowanus Canal. I met him in person right after Carlos Menchaca won his first race for Red Hook City Councilman in 2013. We were both on the board of the Carroll Gardens Association, which he founded in 1971. I was researching a long article I wrote about the race, which included a section on Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, who had taken Menchaca under her wing. I read someplace that it was Buddy
by George Fiala who had introduced Nydia to her onetime husband Paul Bader. Bader was also involved in the Menchaca election, or so he told me at a victory party on election night at Hope and Anchor. "Wow, I can actually talk to Scotto," I thought. So I called him up and asked if I could meet him. "I thought you'd never ask," was his quick answer. I publish a community newspaper, Buddy was the penultimate community activist. He was a fighter for affordable housing, for Italian heritage, for Brooklyn's renewal and more than anything, the creation of a thriving Gowanus Canal commercial and residential district. He told me about all those things many times. He had millions of stories that he loved to tell. The big thing I learned from him is that until your
goal is reached, you have to keep reaching for it. He proselytized for Gowanus at every opportunity. So much so, in fact, that I could tell that a lot of people would write him off as old and having lost his faculties. In fact, he was sharp as a whip up to the very end. I know, because I would ask him questions about other subjects, and he would speak knowledgably about all manners of subjects. He was a quiet supporter of Bernie Sanders, but he didn't really like to be political. We would sit politely at Sal's Pizza while listening politely to the owners Republican talking points without ever challenging them. One day he took me to the Gowanus Flushing Tunnel, and watched it bubble and roil the waters as he explained to me how it worked.
He loved to watch the Mets, and a couple times I'd sit with him in his apartment on First Place and share a pint of ice cream, which he also loved. His private life during the time I knew him wasn't always the greatest, but except for just a very few times, he accepted his situation with grace and dignity and without ever a complaint. I guess one of the best things that somebody told me about Buddy and me came from his daughter Debra, who told me that while Buddy had tons of acquaintances, he had very few real friends. Sometimes I feel the same way and I guess that's one of the reasons that we found each other. I'll miss him for sure and I wish I had spent even more time with him, but as often happens, life gets in the way.
The photo on the left was taken at the inauguration of the Red Hook Ferry Terminal. Buddy showed up bright and early and had a few private words with the mayor. The next picture was taken at last year's Star-Revue Christmas party at Sams Restaurant on Court Street. Buddy was hanging out with another old timer and friend, our occasional opera reviewer Nino Pantano. On a visit with me to the canal, outside of 365 Bond, Buddy makes a funny face. The photo on the right was taken across from the old Long Island College Hospital during a protest before their forced closing. Buddy often gave the peace symbol in a crowd. He once met Pope Pius XII who expressed that emotion to him then.
The photo on the left was taken one Veterans Day in Carroll Park. Buddy was honored for his Korean War service. In the photo is Councilman Brad Lander, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, Buddy, Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon, former State Senator Daniel Squadron, and the other mayor of Carroll Gardens, former Assemblywoman Joan Millman. Joan was a great friend of Buddy's and orchestrated a fabulous party for Buddy at Enoteca a few years ago on the occasion of his 90th birthday. The middle photo was taken on the occasion of Fairway's reopening after Hurricane Sandy. Buddy is next to the dais listening to Borough President Marty Markowitz. The final photo was taken in the basement of St. Stephen's Church. The Scotto Funeral Home sponsors a special service every November and would hold a reception afterwards. At Buddy's shoulder is his daughter Debra, to his left is CB 6 District Manager Mike Racioppo, next is Joan Millman and to the far right is one-time District Leader and Hollywood actor Ralph Perfetto.
A few years ago the Star-Revue held a staff Christmas party at El Bifesteak Yayo, an oldstyle Puerto Rican restaurant close to the Barclay Center. Next to Buddy is our staff reporter Nathan Weiser, going counter-clockwise is Sonja Kodiak Wilder, former Star-Revue Art Director and designer of the current logo, her husband, and our mailing specialist Thomas Warren. In the middle Buddy shows his macho fist to the camera at a Red Hook event honoring his good friend, now retired Good Shepherd Services Executive Director Sister Paulette LoMonaco. Finally, Buddy and old friend Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez pose for me. This was at a Night Out Against Crime event at Coffey Park.
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October 2020, Page 11
Bill de Blasio remembers Buddy
I
want to talk about a friend who passed away a few days ago, and most New Yorkers probably haven’t heard of him. But if you come from Brooklyn and particularly if you come from Carroll Gardens and the neighborhoods around it, you probably have heard of Buddy Scotto, Salvatore Buddy Scotto, the kind of New Yorker who should be celebrated.
I had wanted to visit Anthony Scotto’s restaurant with Buddy for some time, but I kept being too busy. Thankfully, we drove to Fresco, in the city, last year and had a tremendous meal. However, Anthony and his wife were not there that night so we hoped to go again. Buddy was a frequent visitor to the monthly 76th Precinct Community Council meeting. Along with Buddy are the Executive Director of the Red Hook Justice Center, as well as Judge Calabrese. Buddy used to visit me at the Star-Revue office 3 or 4 times a week, and this was one of those times. Below left we pay a visit to Red Hook’s Sunny’s. We had a beer at the bar. On the right is pictured Buddy, his sister Terry, Mayor de Blasio with his wife Chirlane McCray, and Buddy’s daughter Debra Scotto.
Maybe not the most famous name, but someone who did so much for his community. This is a man who was always there for the people of Carroll Gardens. This is a man who believed that even when this community was going through a lot of troubles, decades ago, 60s 70s, 80s, he believed that Carroll Gardens would come back, Brooklyn would come back, New York City would come back. He saw a future vision of greatness for Brooklyn, and he was right.
Buddy took me to a special meeting of Henry Street’s Pozzallo club. They are the other remaining Italian Social Club in the neighborhood. The Molese on Court Street is the other. With Buddy on the photo on the right is his son Mark Scotto.
He believed that the Gowanus Canal would go from being considered an eyesore to something that would be celebrated and be a center for a lot of positive things. And he was right. So, my friend, Buddy Scotto, we lost him. He was almost 92 years old, but he represented the best of Brooklyn and the best of New York City. And I’m just personally grateful to him and his family for all the wisdom I received from them over the years, all the love, all the incredible stories I heard, including the times when Buddy, very bravely, took on some of the organized crime elements in the community. And that was not easy to do, but he did it. That’s the kind of brave man he was. Also, a veteran of the United States military, someone who served his country well. So, I just want to say, Buddy, we miss you already, but we will never forget you. And to all the other people who do so much for this city in neighborhoods all over, you may not be famous outside your neighborhood, but New York City couldn’t be great without you. There’s some other people like Buddy Scotto who make this city work every day and give us hope and thank God for all of them and rest in peace, Buddy Scotto.
From Brooklyn’s Phoenix Newspaper Archives, January 1973
The above is from the mayors daily briefing for September 13, 2020.
Buddy was first and foremost a gentleman. Here he is kissing the hand of the Executive Director of the Carroll Gardens Association, Vilma Heramia. Buddy founded the association in 1971. The picture on the right was taken at our office and I just love his smile here.
Sludge Above left is pictured the Mayor of Carroll Gardens (left) together with the Mayor of Red Hook (right). That’s of course Buddy Scotto and John McGettrick. They both have done tremendous community work in their respective communities. To the right is Buddy one afternoon when he took me to the Molese Club on Court Street.
Buddy often enjoyed a slice or two at Sal’s Pizzeria on Court and DeGraw and once in a while I would join him. Until almost the end, Buddy would attend two or three community meetings a week. One of them was the monthly meeting of the Gowanus CAG. He is shown here with the EPA representatives, Brian Carr, Natalie Loney and Christos Tsiamis.
Page 12 Red Hook Star-Revue
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October 2020
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October 2020, Page 13
The Phoenix was once the leading newspaper for Carroll Gardens and Gowanus, and its archives are a treasure trove of information about the work Buddy did. Below are three separate articles that appeared in the 1970's.
Page 14 Red Hook Star-Revue
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October 2020
The little known story of the building with the subway on top
A
ll right, let’s start at the beginning. According to the latest realty news about hip, happening Gowanus, those old red brick Roulston buildings under the F train at 9th Street that once housed a huge bakery, coffee grinders, and tons of groceries – followed by cobwebs and then artist lofts – will now be home to lots of office workers. Firms fleeing higher rents in Hell’s Kitchen and Dumbo will have excellent rooftop views of a Godzilla-class railroad viaduct overhead. And the nicely-appointed windows looking out on 2nd Avenue will give harried analysts a bizarre alternative to their spreadsheets and power points as they gaze at a latticework of massive gray-steel stanchions that could survive a nuclear holocaust. During the first half of the 20th Century the two families who built and owned those now “repurposed” warehouses understood supply and demand as well as any of the hedge fund sharks who are reshaping our current surroundings. Hell, they made a boatload of money selling tons of food to Brooklynites. But they also knew a thing or two about charity and that’s something we could use a lot more of these days... In A Drinking Life Brooklyn’s dearly departed poet of the common people, William Peter Hamill Jr., remembered the Summer of 1940. Then a wee lad, his mother would walk him from 7th Avenue in the South Slope down to the Canal to drop off a daily lunch bag for his father. Billy Hamill, a Belfast immigrant, was then employed as a clerk at the Roulston offices on 9th Street, astride the huge food warehouses that supplied over 700 neighborhood markets. Anne Hamill told young Pete that his dad got the job based on “his beautiful handwriting.” But I suspect Billy’s Northern Ireland birthplace might have played a larger role because
by Joe Enright Thomas Henry Roulston Jr. – who preferred to be called “Harry” – was born there himself… In 1879 Harry’s father, already on the far side of 40, got off the boat from the Emerald Isle with his wife and Junior in tow, greeted by a sister who had an apartment in Gowanus. Naturally, old man Roulston, who was a successful shop-keeper with his brother back in the old sod, went looking for work and got lucky when William Irvine needed help running his Court Street grocery. An industrious Roulston bought out Irvine three years later and moved his family over the store. Then on March 7, 1889, Roulston’s wife Eliza, only 36, suddenly took ill and died. Perhaps to swallow his grief, Roulston started to expand. He rented nearby vacant storefronts at Smith & Douglas and 5th Ave & 13th St. Now he needed a place to keep his horse and wagons – he bought a two story brick stable off Smith & 9th. Then he began buying produce from farmers in the south of Brooklyn. So why not open a shop in Sheepshead Bay? How about Red Hook at Van Brunt west of Dikeman Street to feed those dock-worker families? Now he needed more space. In 1905 he bought a warehouse at 101-103 9th Street. He kept expanding. By 1906 he had opened 45 stores. By 1909, 65 stores. He needed more space! That’s when he erected a row of buildings on the north side of 9th Street and set up a new headquarters and warehouses extending north from 2nd Avenue toward the Gowanus Canal. Exhausted, in 1910 old man Roulston handed over to Junior the management reins of his empire of 70 Brooklyn stores. When he died eight years later he was remembered by the dailies as someone “with commercial imagination, a sort of poetry when highly developed,” who was “honest with customers in every way, picking assistants with the same ideals.” It was said he “never forsook South Brooklyn,” and “took little part in public affairs, never was interested in politics.” His funeral service would have packed any church, but he wanted it held in his brownstone at 383 Union Street where he took his last breath – only a few doors down from a Roulston store at the corner of Hoyt Street. Thomas H. Roulston Jr. was also a dynamo. By the time of his father’s funeral, he had come to manage a colossus of 236 groceries extending from Richmond to Nassau Counties. Tommy had married Florence Davies in 1902, the daughter of Henry J. Davies who built the huge Ansonia Clock Factory on 7th Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets. Florence survived the Spanish flu pandemic waves of 1918 and 1919, only to succumb to a sudden bout of pneumonia in December 1920. Here we go again. Flash forward 10 years. There are now more than 500 Roulston chain stores. But the stock market has
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In this 1940 photo you can see that the building was very much the same as it looked until just recently, when a refurbishing brought it into the 21st century
crashed, and hard times are looming… In November of 1931 as the weather turned cold, Harry Roulston noticed more and more hungry men, women and children were coming into his 9th Street buildings begging for food. Rather than call the cops, Harry decided to make more bread, rolls and cake and he set aside a group of workers whose only job would be to hand out the food. Word spread. Needy out-of-work laborers and families started to stream in, from Red Hook, from Erie Basin, from Gowanus, from Park Slope, until he was feeding 2,000 loaves of bread every day to his fellow down-on-theirluck Brooklynites. Folks waiting for their free food would have watched workers extending the Culver-Smith Street line, a major undertaking of the City’s Independent Subway System – the IND – back then. The railroad was positioned above the 9th Street drawbridge because the Canal is narrow there and the banks were solid enough to support the structure. Ground was broken in 1927, then hit a speed bump as the Depression descended, and it wasn’t finally completed until October 1933. Over 100 buildings were condemned along the 9th, 10th & Smith Street corridors, but the Roulston properties were never in play. Why? The elevation of the span over the Canal was dictated by federal regulations dating to the time of tallmasted ships that required any bridge over a navigable waterway had to have vertical clearance of 75 feet at mean high water. The final height at Smith & 9th Street was recorded as 87.5 feet. Thus City engineers had to go above the Roulston buildings in order to
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meet that elevation. Of course the engineers would have had a much easier time constructing that span if the land beneath it was empty the entire length. But there is also no question that the Roulston bakery was beloved and any plan to take it down would have caused an outcry. In truth Harry got more publicity than his kind acts ever garnered when he married a woman in 1939 who was celebrated for being single. Marjorie Hillis was a Vogue editor whose perceptively witty Live Alone and Like It was one of the top-ten selling books in 1936. It’s still in print and judging from its glowing Amazon reviews – and a fabulous recent biography of Marjorie by New Yorker (via London) Joanna Scutts, The Extra Woman: How Marjorie Hillis Led a Generation of Women to Live Alone and Like It – it will continue to resonate for decades to come. The ties that bound Harry and Marjorie I suspect were a love for their fellow man…and Brooklyn. Marjorie was after all a daughter of the pastor of Plymouth Church at Orange & Hicks Streets where Henry Ward Beecher had held sway until 1887, the abolitionist whose “rhetorical focus on Christ’s love has influenced mainstream Christianity to this day,” according to Wikipedia, one of my favorite charities if truth be told. In 1939 another Brooklyn family of immigrants – hugely successful in the food business – also made news when another Harry – Harry R. Socolof succeeded his father, Joseph, as president of the Sweet Life Food Corporation in Williamsburg.
(turn the page) October 2020, Page 15
They loved Roulston's so much they wouldn't tear down the building (continued from previous page Joseph Socolof was what we used to call in the Flatbush of my youth, “a tough Jew.” He arrived here penniless as a teenager in 1889, fresh from Russian pogroms, and immediately enlisted in the US Army, serving in the artillery at Fort Columbus, protecting New York Harbor on Governor’s Island. During his stint in the Army he was naturalized a US citizen and within a month of his discharge in late 1893, married another Russian immigrant, Rose Feinman, and promptly founded his own food company, Sweet Life Food Corporation, at 115 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg’s North Side. But unlike Roulston which was strictly retail, Sweet Life was strictly wholesale. Joseph Socolof hooked up with a major middleman, Graham Co, Inc. at 151 Hudson Street in Tribeca and was dispatched to Europe as their Vice President to negotiate contracts with British, French and German colonial overlords to ship food from Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean to a roaring New York – food which eventually found their way to Socolof’s Williamsburg and Greenpoint warehouses, and thence to retailers like Roulston. In 1924 Joseph Socolof’s wife, Rosie, died. I detect a pattern. Soon thereaf-
Artist rendering of the building as it will appear after the current remodeling.
ter he organized the Greater New York Wholesale Grocers Association and became its president. When the Depression hit, he served as Chairman of the Food & Grocery Distributors Code Authority and supported the New Deal’s NRA pricing to eliminate cut-
throat competition. Then he retired to Miami where he founded the Miami Jewish Home for the Aged. Meanwhile Harry and Marjorie Roulston, residing in a brownstone on 1st Street off Prospect Park West, had been devoting much of their attention to the Congregational Home for the Aged on Linden Boulevard. When Harry Roulston died in August of 1949, Harry Socolof was encamped only a couple of blocks away at 9 Prospect Park West. Shortly thereafter Harry bought the Roulston empire, lock stock and barrel. Wholesale became retail. The 9th Street warehouses became superfluous – the Socolofs were swimming in them up in Williamsburg. The
EGYPT (continued from page 1)
who imagines a great ancient Egypt Museum right in front of the three Giza’s pyramids.
As a matter of fact, Egyptian society had a solid hierarchy (Pharaoh, priests, aristocracy, warriors, common people, and slaves) and, as a consequence, even the objects had a hierarchy based on their practical or political-religious purpose, rather than merely aesthetic, which is why it’s impossible to say that egyptian artefacts are art, even if they’re often studied so. “It’s better to call them material culture indeed” remarks the Director.
Carlo Vidua and Charles Felix’s original purpose to make Italy a cultural landmark for Egyptology scholars has managed to be achieved.
Among the material culture preserved in the museum there are many statues, tablets, grave goods, sarcophagi, papyri (like the Turin King List, the most extensive list of pharaohs we know, dated from the reign of Ramesses II) and even an entire temple: the Ellesija’s Temple devoted to the gods Horus and Satet and to the Pharaoh Thutmose III (1430 BC), a big gift the museum received back in 1965 from Egypt, after Italian scientists saved this building from being submerged during the construction of the artificial Nasser Lake in South Egypt. After that the two countries still cooperate and Mr Greco is counsellor for the Egyptian Minister of Antiquities, Mamdouh Mohamed Gad Eldamaty,
Page 16 Red Hook Star-Revue
The fame of the museum is due to the incredible scientific research that is done there, where scientists and scholars work together on finds, papyri, but even mummies, as every Egypt lover wishes. The research is not conducted only by Turin’s scientists, but on a global net, with partners like NY’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Paris’ Louvre. “Nowadays the research is one of our main activities, which has increased during the latest years thanks to the technological devices that allow us to compare finds from different collections from all over the world, that would be otherwise distant,” comments Mr Greco, “Moreover the scientific research is the only way we have to promote the museum globally, as we don’t have enough money to set up a global advertising campaign, like the London British Museum does.” In the Egyptian Museum Mr Greco is both a cultural director and a manager, appointed by a private foundation that controls the collection, which is not a common situation in the Boot.
Roulston stores were carved up and as Fairway customers can relate, were rebranded, King Kullen chief among them, as groceries became SUPER and shopping carts de rigueur. And there the story drags to an end. The Roulston-Socolof buildings were leased to various entities until dwindling industrial demand led to artist lofts followed by a Gowanus rebirth, evictions and now food courts and cubicles. But we can’t close without noting that the Socolofs were as generous as the Roulstons. They were particularly supportive of the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital (now Interfaith) and the Industrial Home for the Blind. And I don’t mean open-your-checkbook-and write-acheck-on-December-31st supportive. I mean play-Santa-at-the-Christmasparties- and-be there-for-everydamn-monthly-event supportive. I mean help-serve-turkey-dinners-foreveryone-on-Thanksgiving-Hanukkah-and-Christmas supportive. Like the Roulstons, the Socolofs generosity must have been genetic. Harry Socolof’s brother, Lee, a US Army veteran of the European Theater in WW II, got his 15 minutes of fame in December 1966 when the Miami Herald profiled his many eccentricities as he turned 60. When not parading around Coral Gables in thongs and long red hair, it seems Lee had devoted much of his considerable fortune to aiding the blind and the deaf. Imagine, as John Lennon liked to say. Ever since Ramadan ended in May, there have been food banks operating
The Museum, while still regarded as a successful model in Europe for its 13 million balance last year, suffered a lot from the lock-down, as its only source of earnings has always been the money from the tickets, rather than public funds as it happens for a few museums in the country. Without firing anyone the Director had to reduce the expenses by 40%, guaranteeing the finds’ safety and even the links with people. “It was a difficult time, but even before the pandemic Italy had a problem of shortage of money invested in culture. I hope things will change, following models like Germany, who spends roughly the 5% of its GDP in culture” states the Director, who coped with the impossibility to have visitors by publishing video-tapes online, everytime talking about a different part of the collection, with an average audience of 147k viewers. Thence, even if the Museum lost 5 million euros because of the lock-down, it did not lose contact with its communities of visitors, many of whom happily attended the reopening last June 2nd. The reasons why such a huge interest for the Museum was experienced during the outbreak seem to be obscure, but Mr Greco has its own explanation: “We were all afraid of death and
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on Coney Island Avenue. The South Asian community, like all immigrant neighborhoods, has been hit hard by COVID. When you’re undocumented, you’re not eligible for a check signed by Donald “I’ll Be On Mount Rushmore One Day” Trump. And so the lines on Friday wrap all the way around a long city block. A wise man once told some Corinthians that Jesus preached only three things: faith, hope and charity. “But the greatest of these,” Paul/Saul said, “is charity.” As a singer of simple songs once reminded us during another grievous time almost two decades ago, “Faith, hope and love are some good things He gave us, and the greatest is love. And the greatest is Love.”
The museum in Turin
maybe it sounded comforting knowing that, millenia ago, a society in the deepest Egypt created an own and organized thought about death, seen as a new beginning, rather than the end”, which is why they were so careful to preserve the mummies in great sarcophagi, surrounded by grave goods, statues and papyri. So, the Egyptian Museum still grasps our feelings, not being only a depository of ancient stones, but a workshop for new comparisons between past and present, with the latter able to be enlightened by the glories of a society that still prompts interest amidst international scholars for its ability to create a state that was both grandiose and cruel (who built the pyramids? Slaves), majestic in his daily life, accurate in defining death, but so careful to leave us evidence of its existence, suspended between real and transcendent.
October 2020
Skaterobics community: Black love on wheels
I
n my teens, I remember going to the movie theatre to watch ATL, Rapper TI was at the time, nearing the height of his pop culture presence. I had a crush on Lauren London who played TI’s love interest, Nunu – a standard infatuation for many boys at the time, and now (as she is still fine). ATL was my introduction to a unique Black Rollerskating world–– rhythm, swag, routines, brotherhood, and sisterhood, all on wheels. After ATL, the rollerskating rink Cascade became a pride point for many young Atlantans like myself. Now in NYC over a decade later, I’ve been reintroduced to the creative rollerskating culture I grew up admiring. However, this time, with a deeper understanding of the Black Rollerskating community, all thanks to Tanya Dean, founder of Skaterobics. Roderick Thomas: Hi Tanya! How are you? Tanya Dean: I’m good, busy but good. I work around the clock [laughs]. RT: Let’s jump right in. What’s your story and where are you from? Tanya Dean: My story takes so many turns. Well, I’m from Jamaica Queens, New York, but my parents originally came from Baltimore, Maryland. RT: Were you always into skating? What did you do before you entered the rollerskating world?
Tanya Dean: Funny enough, I was a corrections officer and I also did boxing. RT: That’s not what I expected. Talk to me about your time as a corrections officer and a boxer. Tanya Dean: People don’t expect me to say that. I used to box with folks like Yoel Judah and his son Zab Judah, who was a well-known, up and coming welterweight at the time. Zab actually went on to fight Mayweather. I was also a corrections officer, and that was incredibly stressful. RT: How do you go from corrections officer to rollerskating? Tanya Dean: [Laughs] As I said, being an officer was stressful. One night I went skating to blow off steam, and I felt so alive and free. It was an amazing feeling, so I just kept going. RT: When did rollerskating become more than a hobby, what made you
SWEDEN (continued from page 9) predestination, as last year the country was ranked 8th in the list of countries by Human Development Index (for comparison USA was 15th together with UK), while it was 12th in the List of nations by GDP per capita. With destiny smiling, there’s no reason for a Swede to believe anything is getting worse, because even if this happens, the Nordic Protestant fatalism will justify it as not a human fault.
Red Hook Star-Revue
by Roderick Thomas
start Skaterobics? Tanya Dean: I used to have a dance troop. We started skating at Empire Rollerdome in Brooklyn and Skate Key in the Bronx. However, when Empire and Skate Key closed down, we had to go to New Jersey to skate. Jersey wasn’t easy for everyone to get to, so I created Skaterobics in 2010 and officially launched it in 2015. The history behind Black American Rollerskating Rinks is much like other stories of Black American culture/ pastimes. Despite major issues with civil rights, Black People find ways to access joy and creativity, transforming any art form. Although many of the Black Rollerskating Rinks have closed down since the mid-1980s, it might be inaccurate to say that Black Rollerskaters went ‘underground.’ Ms. Dean describes an active world of skating parties, multi-state competitions, and conventions, that would almost be invisible to those who weren’t paying attention. Skating went ‘underground’ to some people, but not to us. After the big Disco era, John Travolta, Cher, the “Staying Alive” era, skating lost mainstream popularity. However, those who had been skating outside of the mass appeal of Disco kept on rollerskating. There’s Icy Hot in Ohio, Rollin’ in the Carolinas in North Carolina, Dawg Pound in Alabama. I could go on and on. I recently attended a weekly Skaterobics Sunday event in Queens. I didn’t put on skates I just watched. I was overwhelmed with the images of laughing Black Children, happy Black Families, and couples, gliding over the colorful concrete. I was struck by the diversity of people skating. I saw Black Men holding and supporting other Black Men as they skated for hours, while DJ Nyjae Jordan played perfect sets. Not a single, “no homo” or “pause” statement to be heard, as queer and straight Black Men and women skated, protecting each other — I was about to tear up. I thought to myself this is Black Love, we need to feel this now. At the Skaterobics event, there was free food, Collard Greens, Mac and Cheese, burgers, and hotdogs. I scarfed down my Collard Greens and Mac, then walked over to Tanya to
Of course Swedish and Nordic protestantism is very different from the others, as in the Protestant Germany 82.2% of people wears always or frequently a mask, but such a religious confession is an appropriate key to understand why such a rich and famous country developed an own way to cope with an international disease which has caused so much death and is still doing so. We can barely afford to ignore the reasons for the Swedish methodology, as in a globalized scenario every country is deeply intertwined with the others
Tanya Dean leads a skating afternoon.
congratulate her. RT: Tanya, the event on Sunday felt like a safe place for all Black People and others to be themselves. It was great to see healthy masculinity, and everyone was so protective of each other. Why do you think that is? Tanya Dean: Its two things. One, skating creates a euphoric feeling, especially to the music. People come here to feel good. Second, I set a standard, if it’s not about love I’m not tolerating it. Skating is a sharing of energy and you will feel love, that’s all. RT: I’ve interviewed various people Black Cowboys, DJ’s, folks in politics, etc. I often find Black Women at the helm of community-centered organizations. What do you think about that? Tanya Dean: Black Women are incredible nurturers. For so long we’ve had to deal with our own traumas, but still care for the family and Black Men. Many Black Women instinctively think about the community. Its that creative spirit, the no-nonsense spirit that’s in us. That bit of matriarchy has kept Black Women surviving in the community, and we’ve continued to care for our people. RT: How has the pandemic affected Skaterobics? Tanya Dean: I just had to pivot my approach. The skating events are outdoors, and I teach classes online now. Funny enough, I broadened my reach. I’m now teaching folks in California, Australia, the UK, and the Netherlands. You can do something fun outside, or online. All you need is yourself.
and the stand one country takes may have aftermaths in a country distant miles away. Even if we are not supposed to know if this would be or not God’s plan, knowing how religion still influences political choices even in very progressive countries may be helpful to face the same issues in our own motherland. Sweden’s weak handling of the pandemic is not caused by ignorance, as for many COVID deniers, but it is based on the entire cultural and religious legacy of the country, which is
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RT: As we continue to see violence and protests, what do you think Skaterobics’ role in the Black Lives Matter movement is? Tanya Dean: I was a corrections officer, my sister is a retired police officer, so I understand the world of law enforcement. However, no one wants to be killed by anybody, especially by the state. So my role now is to spread love and peace, through rollerskating. I don’t mean a foolish love either, I just mean prioritizing love as the standard. RT: What do you want people to know about Skaterobics and your community work? Tanya Dean: We need to love each other, not be afraid of one another. We’re in dark times, I know that people need to be out, feel joy, a sense of togetherness, and be safe. I’m using my time and Skaterobics to build love and share love from in, and outside communities. RT: Tanya thank you for this amazing conversation! Any upcoming events we should be aware of? Tanya: Of course, thank you! For now, meet us in Queens on Sundays at St Alban’s Park. Come ready to have a great time. You can also join our Zoom classes online. Also, we’re currently doing some voter registration events and have several pop-ups throughout the city, so keep up with us on social media. You can catch some upcoming Sunday Fun day, Skaterobics events at St. Albans Park in Jamaica Queens, on Merrick Blvd. Be sure to check the Skaterobics Instagram, for upcoming
not meant to change its mind, proving how traditional common sense is still the key of every political attitude, even in the alleged most rational age of the human being.
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@redhookstarrevue October 2020, Page 17
Kennedy, Dylan & Me by Joe Enright
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n June 1968 I was working my way through college as a backoffice clerk in a brokerage house at 2 Wall Street. It was a deathly dull job. I sat across from Bob Kennedy who supervised reconciling the firm’s trading records for the First National Bank of Boston. In truth, there was only one way a newcomer would be able to distinguish Bob’s desk from mine or the four others he managed: we didn’t have a phone. Not that we minded. Back then when you left home, it was assumed you’d be out of reach for the next nine-plus hours, assuming the subway wasn’t terribly delayed, like that rush hour in November three years earlier.
The 1965 total blackout caused no looting or arson. New Yorkers who took to the streets that night carried flashlights to direct traffic, not Molotov Cocktails. But there was mounting tension in Harlem and Bedford Stuyvesant that spilled over into violence in the Summers of 1964 and 1967. In February 1968, the Kerner Commission, in examining the nationwide spread of rioting in Black communities throughout the “long hot summer” of 1967, concluded that poverty and institutional racism were driving inner-city violence: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal,” they announced. They didn’t know it then, but the “Great Migration” of six million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North and West was nearing its end, just as the market for unskilled labor hit rock bottom. The result? Fully one-third of Blacks were living in poverty by 1968. Then on April 4th, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, and riots exploded in a hundred cities. But thanks in part to the uncanny insight
and personal courage of Mayor John Lindsay (who, by the way, died penniless) the disturbances in New York were minor. But race remained front of mind that June, as I shifted from part-time to full-time now that my semester was over. Most of my co-workers hewed to popular beliefs that Blacks just needed to get off welfare and work harder. The fact that not a single Black could be found among our clerical colleagues or in the white-only neighborhoods we inhabited led people to openly espouse their views in rather virulent terms, with the words “jungle” and “monkey” frequently invoked. My boss Bob Kennedy would have none of that. He was a hard-driving recently discharged Army grunt who was taking business courses at night thanks to the GI Bill. Unlike most of the middle class strivers all around him, he seemed to have a betterrounded view of the world beyond our desks. He was even-tempered but loved to joke with the junior executive trainees in starched white shirts who dropped by. There would inevitably be banter about his namesake, our New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of another assassinated leader, who was then locked in a dogfight with Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Based on what we presumed to be his military service, which he steadfastly refused to talk about, Bob believed we needed to hold the line against Communist expansion in Southeast Asia and therefore favored Richard Nixon’s “peace with honor” approach (although it eventually came out that Nixon was secretly urging the North Vietnamese not to sign a peace deal until he was elected). At the time I
styled myself a future CIA spy, studying Russian language and history, and therefore agreed with Bob’s domino theory. But illogically I supported Bobby Kennedy. RFK seemed to ooze empathy and I thought the country needed some of that. Hell, I needed some of that. My large first-generation Irish Catholic immigrant family was so dysfunctional, they hated the Kennedy family. Why? The Kennedys didn’t attend Mass often enough. Oy vey. Anyway, Bob had a knack for imitating accents, and he nailed RFK’s unique Massachusetts patois. Hard to believe now, but some comedian sang The Troggs’ “Wild Thing” as “Senator Bobby” in 1967 and had a hit record with it. That was part of Bob’s set list, along with a funny rendition of “Bobby” talking his way through the Doors’ “Light My Fire.” Then on the evening of Tuesday, June 4th, most New Yorkers went to bed hearing that RFK was the likely winner in the California primary. But as we slept, Kennedy, after declaring victory, was gunned down while shaking hands with dishwashers in a hotel kitchen in Los Angeles. The morning news radio reported he was in surgery. On the way home the afternoon papers reported he was still fighting for his life, but that night, as New Yorkers slept again, he died. Thursday was a difficult day for all of us at work. No matter where you fell on the political spectrum, it just seemed like things were falling apart. Somebody said his body would lie in state at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the funeral would be Saturday. I asked Bob if it would be OK to come back a little late from lunch Friday because I wanted to pay my respects. Before he could answer me, one of the starched shirts called out, approach-
ing Bob’s desk with a smile, “Hey, that nigger-lover with your name finally got what was coming to him!” I stood up, infuriated, wanting to say something, do something, but I said nothing, standing there motionless as Bob Kennedy decked him with a solid right cross. Down the junior exec went, broken jaw and all. Back then, when somebody got fired, there was none of the “Security will escort you to clean out your desk” ceremony. You were just gone. The next day I thought I saw Bob up ahead on the long thick line that stretched from the Cathedral down East 51st Street for what seemed like forever. I’d been waiting for an hour by then and didn’t want to lose my spot, but I needed to say goodbye to Bob more than Bobby. It wasn’t him. In the Fall of 1967 Bob Dylan recorded songs in Tennessee which seemed to presage the year we were about to experience. In “All Along the Watchtower” he told us “the hour is getting late.” But it wasn’t until late June of 1968 that I fully appreciated Dylan’s prophecy. Murray The K, a popular AM disc jockey, had switched to FM and miracle of miracles, my Flatbush Avenue pizzeria had tuned him in one night while I sat eating a Sicilian slice on my way home. And for some reason, Murray The K played Dylan’s slow Biblical lament: “I dreamed I saw St. Augustine, alive with fiery breath. And I dreamed I was amongst the ones who put him out to death. Oh, I awoke in anger, so alone and terrified. I put my fingers against the glass and bowed my head and cried.” I still think of Bob Kennedy when I hear that song. And I plan to cast my vote for empathy, not hate, this Fall. The hour truly is getting late
“Remember What My Number Is” RIP Toots Hibbert
5
4-46 was Toots Hibbert’s prison number. He sang it out loud on the electrifying track 54-46 That’s My Number (1969), one of a crop of tunes that made Toots and the Maytals a household name on the island of Jamaica and soon thereafter in a lot of other places too. Toots Hibbert, the reggae singer, passed away on September 11 at 77 years. He died from the COVID. While Bob Marley might have been the international human symbol of reggae, Toots was regarded as its Otis Redding. He in fact coined the word “reggae” to introduce his music and that of the Wailers, the Heptones, Desmond Dekker and Jimmy Cliff to the rest of the world. He wrote a song called “Do the Reggay.” He later explained, “In Jamaica, we had a slang. If we’re not looking so good, if we’re looking raggedy, we’d call it streggae. That’s where I took it from.” Toots Hibbert bore a remarkable resemblance to another West Indian legend, the cricketer and captain of the national team in the 80s and 90s, Vivian Richards. Viv’s nickname was Smokin’ Joe because he in turn looked a lot like the heavy-
Page 18 Red Hook Star-Revue
by Mike Morgan weight boxing champ Joe Frazier, Philadelphia’s own favorite son. Viv Richards was also called the Master Blaster due to his prowess with the cricket bat. So Toots was in good company. Toots was his own Master Blaster. He had jabs and left hooks that nobody else could see coming. My friend Christian wrote this on his social media site: “One of the originators of reggae, pioneer of what would be that mythical sound of ‘69, a godfather to 2Tone, fav(s) of the punks, contributor to a soundtrack for rebellion (The Harder They Come), icon for rudies, skins and punks for decades upon decades. Part of that wave of inspiration for millions of black youth from Kingston to Brixton and beyond, giving voice to the toughness, frustrations, and oppression they faced, but also, joys of life and hope and optimism for something better. It really is near impossible to overstate the impact on music and culture he made. We owe this man and his generation and peers much. Play that Funky Kingston reggae LOUD.” In the summer of 1980, I saw Toots and the Maytals perform in Kansas City, Missouri, of all places.
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My friend Mark had a surprise up his sleeve. Toots and the Maytals were opening up for a pop reggae band named Third World. “I got us tickets, just for you and me,” Mark chortled. Neither of us cared much for Third World. They were the genre’s equivalent of what Kenny G was to jazz. But Toots and the Maytals, well that was another matter all together. Toots could change the waters of the river into red, red wine. The show was held downtown in one of those old movie houses turned into a concert venue, with the fancy marquee and all of the trimmings. Man let me tell you, Missouri is a relentlessly sweltering spot. Inside, Toots and the Maytals lived up to the temperature outside. They blew the roof off the joint. Toots, clad in his leather waistcoat, no shirt underneath, did his best Smokin’ Joe impersonation. We were beginning to feel a little sorry for Third World. Fortunately, I had smuggled in a bottle of Irish cough mixture. We didn’t need it for Toots, he was far too mesmerizing. Once he and the Maytals had left the stage, we medicated
(continued on next page) October 2020
Holding up the building POLITICS BY HOWARD GRAUBARD
Brownstone Brooklyn Voters’ Guide 2020
F
rustrated as we are the almost complete irrelevance of our vote in the Presidential race to the ultimate result, the desire of Brownstone Brooklyn voters to at least send a complete up and down the ballot repudiation to the GOP in its entirety has been cleverly frustrated by the Brooklyn GOP’s decision not to run candidates. Local Republicans in my area have failed to nominate a candidate in either state legislative district I reside in. Likewise, voters in Red Hook and much of Sunset Park might feel they are living in the former Soviet Union, for in their races for State Senate and State Assembly, they have the option of either voting for a Marxist, or for no one at all. In the four Assembly Districts overlapping into this newspaper’s distribution area, only one, AD 44, has a Republican candidate. He is Salvatore Barrera, a Senior Administrative Assistant at the NYC Board of Elections, who faces Democratic incumbent Bobby Carroll. Barrera has apparently failed to answer a single candidate questionnaire available on-line, even from friendly groups, and his candidacy can be best described as merely “holding the line,” giving the voters in his AD a choice more analogous to present-day Tsarist Russia than to the USSR. But in the context of the Brooklyn and Citywide GOP, he is practically a hero to his partisan cause (and has been rewarded for it with a job with a very decent salary and ample opportunities for overtime). In AD 52, incumbent Jo Anne Simon faces no opposition of any kind, nor does Democratic primary victor Marcela Mitaynes in AD 51. In AD 57, Democratic primary victor Phara Souffrant faces the ghost of the incumbent she beat in the primary, Walter
TOOTS (continued from previous page) ourselves literally and liberally. My only memory of Third World was trying to find the bathroom during the long version of The Rivers of Babylon. Songs about water have that effect on me, not whiskey. In the on the BBC website, the journalist wrote that a teenage Toots found work at a barbershop in Kingston. What is it with people from the islands and barbershops? There seems to be an indelible link. Here’s an example. My sister’s expartner in London was a real interesting character by the name of Clem Maharaj (RIP). Clem was from the Caribbean. He was a writer, an activist, a former jazz drummer, a not too shabby cricketer, and was well respected in the West Indian ex-pat community in London. He was close mates with Max Roach, John Coltrane’s drummer. Clem was also a rich storyteller. He told me
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Mosley, still lingering on the Working Families line, a painful irony, both because Mosely, still a Democratic District Leader, has the fiduciary duty to oppose himself, and also because most Working Families voters would probably prefer Souffrant. Things are no better at the State Senate level, where two of the four seats overlapping into this paper’s catchment area are unopposed. In the 21st, incumbent Kevin Parker, who is seemingly always spoiling for a good fight, has none, and neither does Democratic primary winner Jibari Brisport in the 25th. In the 20th, incumbent Zellnor Myrie is opposed only by a Libertarian. Only in SD 26 does incumbent Brian Kavanagh face a GOP opponent, Lester Chang, an “international shipping consultant” whose Ballotpedia page actually lists a campaign website, Twitter page and Facebook page. It should be noted, that the campaign page is actually from prior race for Assembly and contains nothing but a notation that it is still under construction. By contrast, the Twitter page does contain content, but still notes Chang as an Assembly candidate, and has not had a new post since 2016. The Facebook page does acknowledge Chang is running for Senate, and features pictures of him, and most of them, in a daring display of independence from Party, show him wearing a mask. One of them shows him with an unmasked Curtis Sliwa. There is even a long, but not quite readable, policy statement about mass transit, though it is a reprint of someone else’s thoughts. It should be noted that there has not been a new post on this page since April 27th, but compared to the other Senate choices offered to voters in brownstone Brooklyn, Chang shines like a mackerel at moonlight.
The GOP has done better in filling its Congressional slots. Every one of the Brownstone Brooklyn area seats has a candidate, but apparently not much more than that. In CD 7, incumbent Nydia Velazquez faces Brian Kelly, who’s previously run for office in 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018, never hitting 4% of the vote. A search for further info mostly leads to a perennial Pennsylvania candidate of the same name. If that’s not enough for you, Velazquez also faces a Libertarian. In CD #8, Hakeem Jeffries faces Garfield Wallace, a candidate, the evidence of whose existence appears to have been written in invisible ink. In CD #10 Jerry Nadler faces Cathy Bernstein, who has an actual website, where one learns little more than that “she is witnessing the city decline again due to the progressive policies of Mayor Bill de Blasio and Congressman Jerry Nadler of the 10th Congressional District. As a fellow constituent, Cathy cares deeply about the quality of life in the 10th Congressional District.” Beyond that, she is a financial consultant somewhat active in GOP and Jewish causes, as well as the East End Hospice, Harlem Junior Tennis and ACC of New York in Harlem. Nadler also faces a Libertarian. But the prize-winning Republican candidate in Brownstone Brooklyn is easily Constantine Jean-Pierre, facing incumbent Yvette Clarke, in addition to Libertarian Gary Popkin, a former member of Community School Board #15, as well as a candidate from the resolutely strange SAM Party. Unlike other area Republicans seemingly trying to avoid association with Trump, or anything else for that matter, Jean-Pierre’s Facebook page makes
clear that he is a full-bore, fire breathing, MAGA-hat wearing Teapublican, who admirably calls Chinese President Xi Jinping a “fucking bastard.” Somewhat less admirably, he reflects, without any signs of sadness, that “G-d called #RBG to be judged!” “Elsewhere, it is unclear whether it is Ginsburg or Hillary Clinton who JeanPierre calls a “shedevil” who despises Jesus. He also offers helpful advice to CNN’s Don Lemon “Why don’t we start by blowing up your rectum you confuse for a women’s vagina?” And that’s all in just 24-hours. Finally, with the Supreme Court so central to our thoughts, I should add that the one judicial race Brownstone voters participate in is for our own (trial level) Supreme Court, where the GOP has nominated candidates for all six seats, although five of them are Democrats. In addition, the GOP has also given its line to Beth Parlatto, a defeated GOP Congressional candidate from the Buffalo and Rochester exurbs who, in a process charmingly known as “backfill,” was dumped here to get her off the Conservative line in the Congressional contest. Beth is very concerned about building the wall, the “right to life,” socialism, indoctrination in our schools, which bathrooms we use, and Christian values being mocked; as such, left and liberal voters looking for catharsis might find it voting against her. Aside from that, there is the Presidency. Since there is likely to be a lot of controversy over the legitimacy of the results, helping to build a larger popular vote victory for Joe Biden might actually have some impact, although the President will undoubtedly tell us he did really well, “if you take out the blue states.”
this one. (For more on Clem, here’s a link to an article about him written by my sister, Jenny Morgan https:// jennymorganfilmswrites.wordpress. com/2018/12/03/a-small-slice-ofprivate-life/).
ing his clientele that he (Al) was Nat King Cole in the photograph and that Nat King Cole was a valued customer. I was reminded of this story when reading about Toots working in the barbershop.
the gold, which I believe he deserved. Black soul musicians in America had to work extra hard for recognition. There were obstacles at almost every turn. You should all know this, so I don’t have to carry on here.
For years, Clem had been going to the same neighborhood barber, let’s call him Al. The haircutter was a dead ringer for Nat King Cole, the crooner. In fact, Al the barber had won the annual Nat King Cole lookalike contest for many years in a row. It was like Rafael Nadal and the French Open tennis tournament. He couldn’t lose. Al had managed to convince himself that he actually was Nat King Cole. He even had a celebrity shot of himself posted up on the mirror at the barbershop. In fancy handwriting at the bottom of the photo were the words. “To Al, the best barber in Notting Hill Gate, good luck and keep on clipping, (signed) Nat King Cole.” Al would take a perverse pleasure in convinc-
It has been told often enough that the main influence on Bob Marley and the Wailers was the super cool soul sound of Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions. Certainly The Heptones, who spent a number of years in Liverpool, regarded themselves as the Lennon and McCartney of reggae. Toots Hibbert’s contribution was mostly identifiable with US Southern black soul music. It had that muscle, that raw edge, that “on the outside looking in” feel to it. If you don’t believe me, listen to his later 1988 album Toots in Memphis. On this one, he covers old Al Green and Eddie Floyd songs amongst other well-known tunes. Perhaps it was this identification that relegated Toots to the silver medal award, not
Finally, Toots Hibbert had a profound effect on others that mattered. It was no mistake that The Clash covered his song Pressure Drop. Toots was playing world music long before that term became popular to the music industry suits and their demographics. And it wasn’t that We are the World nonsense either, or “listen to this stuff, it’s by an actual African from Africa” kind of bourgeois come-ons that made liberal listeners feel more self-righteous or hipper. Toots was an internationalist in the true sense of the word. And you know what they say, “You can take the person out of the ghetto, but you cannot take the ghetto out of the person.” Toots Hibbert will be sorely missed.
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October 2020, Page 19
The Evil That Men Do: Confessions of a Reluctant David Lynch Fan by Kurt Gottschalk
D
avid Lynch is a problem. A big one. David Lynch is a problem because he doesn’t punish his villains. He’s a problem because he doesn’t explain the motivations of his villains or even so much as resolve his stories. David Lynch is a problem because he won’t tell us what to think of him. Storytellers runs the risk of being seen as complicit with, or at least indifferent to, their villains if they don’t take a moral stand in the telling. This is a problem for white men in particular, by virtue of their inheritance of the mantle of power. This is a problem that leaves Alfred Hitchcock open to criticism of his 1960 film Psycho for telling a story about a man who assumes his dead mother’s identity in order to kill other women. This is a problem that leaves Steve Reich open to criticism for sampling and repeating the voice of a black man beaten by police in his 1966 composition Come Out. It’s also a problem that makes those works possible. Not taking a stand is a privileged position. A value-neutral film Spike Lee film about race relations would just seem weird. This is an essay by a white man about an issue that effects women, but it’s also an essay about another white man whose art addresses sexual violence in ways both disarmingly direct and unnervingly abstract. This is an essay about an uneasy relationship with fandom, made possible by a book a woman wrote about a man who addresses sexual violence through his art. Courtenay Stallings spoke with fans, critics and people who have worked with for Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak About Twin Peaks (being published October 20 by Fayetteville Mafia Press). The ghost is Laura Palmer, around whose death Lynch’s Twin Peaks television serial (1990-91), the 1992 prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and the 2017 third season Twin Peaks: The Return revolved. The interviewees—as the title proclaims, all women—include Sheryl Lee, who played Laura, and Grace Zabriskie, who played Laura’s mother. Both speak highly of Lynch, as does every other interviewee in the book. This is not surprising; Laura’s Ghost is in some respect a fanzine. But it’s not only that. Some of the women in the book (including the author) speak of their own histories of trauma, and speak of the catharsis they found in Laura’s story. They may not have encountered the evil spirits that inhabit Lynch’s imagined Pacific Northwest, but they’ve experienced the trauma. (A portion of proceeds from book sales will go to the "Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network".) Twin Peaks is modern day mythology. It’s an invisible realm of supernatural beings invented to explain evils that can’t otherwise be explained. Lynch is the mythmaker. (As a storyteller, he has a talented collaborator in co-writer Mark Frost, but Lynch—as evidenced by his other works—is the dreamer). The world in the fable is one where people are basically good. Violence is brought into this world by otherworldly spirits. The violence depicted isn’t comic book tableaux. It’s not Tarrantino cool. Twin Peaks is an attempt to explain the unexplainable. It’s an invention to explain how a man, himself a victim of childhood sexual abuse, can rape his daughter and how his wife can live in the house knowing it’s happening. It’s a mythology devised to symbolize intergenerational sexual abuse. How do we explain the unexplainable? By positing spirits and deities. How can we explain humans who commit inhuman acts? We can’t, at least not in any sensible way I have thought many different things about David Lynch since Twin Peaks first aired, and even before. I was entranced by his depictions of the darknesses hidden in American middle-class enclaves. I was later alienated by his casting the same scrutiny on Hollywood and the movie industry. The Return brought me back into the fold. It made the Laura Palmer saga into an epic triptych, spanning half my life and played out as quirky comedy, crime drama, supernatural science fiction and art house cinema. The shifts in style between Twin Peaks, Fire Walk With Me and The Return made it a narrative of Falknerian proportions. That, at the most basic level, is what The Return meant to me. But just as the secrets of the storyline are for each viewer to decipher for themselves, the sig-
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October 2020
Rock’s out and Bach’s in on Patrick Higgins’ TOCSIN
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by Kurt Gottschalk
The biggest surprise about Patrick Higgins’ 2015 record Bachanalia was how straight he played it. Maybe best known as a guitarist for the experimental trance group Zs, Higgins approached a variety of Bach’s works for solo strings and keyboard on their own terms, adapting them to his instrument without trying to repurpose or contextualize. It’s that part of Higgins’ head that’s heard on his new TOCSIN, coming out Oct. 16 on Telegraph Hard (the same label that issued the Bach set) in CD, double LP and download editions. His compositions for string quartet and mixed ensemble don’t much reveal his rockish leanings, but his hand is apparent in the drive, in the immediacy of what Higgins terms “crisis music.” The album opens with his SQ3, played by the exceptional Mivos Quartet (who recorded his String Quartet No. 2 in 2013). It’s hard to escape the trappings of the string quartet, it’s pretty much the lifeblood of chamber music, and Higgins doesn’t exactly try. Instead he meets it head on with a keen sensibility for arrangement. The titular work, for piano and two cellos, is stronger. The instrumentation allows more texture and Higgins embraces the contrasts, as do the players. Pianist Vicky Chow and cellist Mariel Roberts both play with the Bang on a Can All Stars, an outfit well versed in energetic music, and Brian Snow (Björk, Meredith Monk, Max Richter) completes the unusual trio. The two movements race from one repetition to the next with dramatic shifts in volume and tempo, Chow’s prepared piano at times providing adding, metallic rhythms. The near percussiveness of TOCSIN is followed by some actual percussion on Emptyset [0,0]. Fantastic oblong clockwork on snare, woodblocks and piano setting a stumbling pace for an octet of strings and reeds. The album concludes in a bold and beautiful move with Higgins’ string quartet arrangement of the final section (left incomplete, intentionally or otherwise) of Bach’s The Art of the Fugue. Performers all too often try to resolve the piece, either by tacking on another of Bach’s works or writing their own finale. Higgins lifts it from the set of 18 fugues and canons, treating it (as on his arrangements of Bach for guitar) with reverence while presenting it in isolation, letting its broken phrase ring in the air. There’s no lack of humility in borrowing what are often considered to be Bach’s last words. Fortunately, the rest of the album excuses the hubris.
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nificance of the tale itself, the way in which it’s received, can dramatically. For the women in Laura’s Ghost, it’s a story of the abuse that happens to women, and the silence under which it’s often endured. The pain is real, the violence is visceral. It can be extremely hard to watch the brutality against women Lynch puts onscreen, and charges of misogyny aren’t hard to understand. Film critic Marya E. Gates addresses such charges in Laura’s Ghost: “There is a perception by some that Lynch is misogynistic, but I don’t think that’s accurate. […] The thing about Lynch is not that he hates women. I think he’s acutely aware of the violence that women face, both emotional and physical. I think he’s not afraid to show that. […] He’s so great at showing emotional violence and not afraid to show you that when these people are out in public, they may be perfectly fine, but behind everything the emotional violence is so deafening.”
CAFE!
As human as his stories can sometimes be, though, Lynch deals in types. He’s not interested in believable characters. He sometimes pushes his actors into absurd portrayals and other times gets painfully believable performances from them. His male characters are just as much types as his female. They are strong and assured or, if not, cry to show weakness. Lynch fetishizes a post-war, Norman Rockwellized and very Caucasian American Dream in order to disrupt it.
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In season two of the original run of Twin Peaks, FBI forensics specialist Albert Rosenfield (played by the late Miguel Ferrer) speculated about the unknown evil they were investigating. Maybe, he said, it’s “the evil that men do. Maybe it doesn’t matter what we call it.” The line pivots on patriarchal language. Is it the evil that mankind does or the evil of the males of the species? The raw facts of the story, and of the real world, suggest it’s the latter.
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For further consideration on Lynch’s problems with race, see “What Does David Lynch Have to Say About Race? In the filmmaker’s vision of America, whiteness is the source of all evil” by Frank Guan in the Vulture and Niella Orr’s “It Is Happening Again: David Lynch’s ‘Twin Peaks’ returns—to its white fantasia,” both from 2017
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For further reading on Steve Reich’s Come Out, see Ellen Y. Tani’s “Come Out to Show Them”: Speech and Ambivalence in the Work of Steve Reich and Glenn Ligon,” published December 23, 2019 in Art Journal Open.
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October 2020, Page 21
Jazz by Grella Canon Song Beethoven was born 250 years ago this year. What this fact has to do with jazz, in the musical sense, is very little. But it does have to do with the formation of a body of work that represents the aesthetic virtues and values of an art—in other words, what the academies and institutions call a canon. Classical music did not even exist as a genre before Beethoven died, and it was the revolutionary, astounding greatness of his work that formed the foundation on which classical music, and its canon, was built by musicians and composers, critics and audiences. Since then, this canon has been the subject of constant modification and growing debate, not only as to what’s in it (and particularly who’s been left out) and why, but why it even exists. This is not the place for that discussion, instead, this is about the jazz canon, and who gets in, how, and why. Part of this is plain as can be; musicians who were instrumental in the origins of jazz are of course part of the canon. Jazz would not exist without King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and others. You can’t take them out (which is also why you can’t remove Beethoven from the classical canon). Revolutionaries and modernists are also ensconced—Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Hancock. Much of modern music, including rank and hip hop, would not exist without those figures. (By now I’m sure I’ve left out one of your favorites, like Sonny Rollins. I apologize, these lists are representative, not in any way comprehensive. There’s only so many inches on this page.) At this point, the canon is pretty clear and safe, all these musicians are the subject of every meaningful jazz training program and performing institutions like Jazz at Lincoln Center and SF Jazz, not to mention their legacy is fundamental to every jazz musician’s practice. From here, things get more interesting, more ambiguous. Should we include Jackie McLean and Steve Lacy, two superb and unique musicians who, in each their own way, bridged tradition and the avant-garde? I do, but only McLean’s influence is at all clear. And that criteria means that Michael Brecker, who has been immensely important to at least two generations of tenor saxophonists, is in. He should be. What about Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, who used
ALBUM REVIEW: Otis Gibbs -
Hoosier National BY JACK GRACE Otis Gibb’s album, “Hoosier National” released officially on Sept 18th, 2020 and he has some thoughts on his timing here “I think it’s safe to say, this is the absolute worst possible time to release a record. Most people would give up at this point, but I’m not most people. “
fusion to develop a world music connection? I say yes, again. There’s no guitarists so far mentioned, and though there have been so many grant jazz guitarists, from Charlie Christian to Julian Lage, I have trouble fitting them into the canon, as in, did the music’s existence depend on them? This is likely controversial, but I don’t think it does until Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell came along (the canon is not primarily about greatness but importance, which is why Beethoven is in but Franz Berwald, who wrote wonderful symphonies, is not). Singers are also tricky. Which ones shaped jazz? Billie Holiday did, so did Frank Sinatra. Bing Crosby did too, even though he and Sinatra weren’t jazz singers. But I don’t think Ella Fitzgerald did, as much as I love her (I listen to her much more then the other three). Betty Carter has to be in the canon, not only for creating a new way to sing but for training so many young musicians in the art of modern jazz. Then there’s the unusual subject of jazz composing. Inside that is the conflict between composition and improvisation, but if anything is at the center of a canon, it’s the established body of material from which musicians work. So, Ellington of course, Monk, Mingus. Also, Gershwin and the Great American Songbook composers. This is very much like Beethoven—musicians wanted to play what Beethoven wrote, they wanted to return to it again and again, and so a music that was always new became a past that was repeated and, hopefully, renewed. A classical music. Jazz composers are still with us, of course. Shorter is one, his tunes are secure in the modern repertoire. There are others who face the Steve Reich problem; they write for their own ensembles and don’t yet have others adopting their work, or they’ve made a lot of good recordings which people dig, but the pieces haven’t yet become part of any repertoire. An example is the composer and big band leader Gerald Wilson, whose work has been justly celebrated this year, but so far mostly belongs only to his own legacy. This just takes time. Other musicians and groups eventually started to play Reich’s work—there are now a half-dozen recordings of Music for 18 Musicians, and I’ve seen more performances of Yes, Otis has more been known as the man with the acoustic guitar. I first heard of him when we were both playing, The Rhythm and Roots Festival in Ireland back in 2009. I was with my bawdier 3 piece electric unit and Otis was playing in the other room solo on that day. I did not get to hear him. But I saw the crowd exit from his show and everyone was clearly exhilarated from his performance. It stuck with me. I am enjoying re-playing this album over and over. I think the purchase of the vinyl will be nice. I can tell it has the right kind of warmth that will make the grooves of a record breathe.
Well, to hell with the pandemic, I’m glad this recording has shown itself. The production is nice and clean. It feels like every song has what it needs, no unnecessary reverbs, guitar overdubs, strings or indulgent extra vocals etc.
The drummer, Lynn Williams was the perfect player to introduce Otis’s writing to the electric world. He serves the songs tastefully, giving each number the right touch without blowing the classic Otis Gibbs mood off the recordings.
In fact, there are no harmonies here; just Otis’s gravelly and sincere vocal style.
Mr. Gibbs is a storyteller and a photographer and there are clues to both talents in his lyrics. But he also likes to massage his words. In the song,“Panhead”, he sings,
“I recorded this album at my buddy, Thomm Jutz’s place. It’s all electric and that’s a first for me. We pieced together a great band of musicians/ friends. Thomm played electric guitar, Mark Fain played bass, Lynn Williams played drums, Jen Gunderman played organ and piano, and I sang and played electric guitar. “
Page 22 Red Hook Star-Revue
it by groups that are not the Steve Reich Ensemble—as they eventually will play the music of Henry Threadgill and Darcy James Argue. There are a handful of Threadgill tunes on records by other musicians, and there are a growing number of players who have been through his band and picked up a good dose of his angular, funky rhythms and harmonies. And while Argue has worked mainly through his Secret Society big band, he’s been able to connect his work with the visual arts and moving images in ways that are unique in the history of jazz, and I have to believe this will lead to more groups picking up his scores, or at least arranging them. Hell, even Ellington started out writing music for just his own, special band. And all this is just a long way to say, pull out those records, dig through the streaming series. We’re still a long way from the nightclubs and other live venues opening for audiences. If the Metropolitan Opera’s recent announcement was a measure, and I’m certain it was, the performing scene won’t be making a substantial return until September, 2021, once a vaccine has had the time to work its way through the population. In the meantime, you, my Red Hook neighbor, can check out the live music composer and musician Julian Bennett Holmes organizes Sundays at 6pm on the corner of Richards and Commerce streets. Or keep track of what’s happening in the parking lot by the Mary Whalen at the ferry landing, because music kind of materializes there on the weekends. You can also watch a movie of Argue’s Real Enemies, an amazing musical treatment of political paranoia in American history, which will premiere at the Cal Performances website (calperformances.org) October 21, just in time to get you ready for Election Day 2020, when the shit hits the fucking fan. - George Grella writes on jazz each month for the Star-Revue from his native Red Hook.
“When he shut it off I remember asking why was it leaking oil, He said son that’s how ya know it’s a Harley, Cuz it marks it territory.” It’s satisfying to hear how he makes leaking oil and territory work as a
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sort of rhyme. Esquire said, “Gibbs has been likened to everyone from Guthrie to Springsteen — but his is the rare voice that stands on its own.” Ok, I’ll try the comparison game as well… This is Otis Gibbs with a JJ Cale like approach; simple, understated and skillfully to the point. I wonder if he will even tour with a band like this on the other side of the pandemic. Careful Otis, ya might become more of a rocker, and Pete Seeger isn’t here to cut the cable. https://otisgibbs.bandcamp.com or http://otisgibbs. bigcartel.com/
October 2020
music venues try to cope with The Virus
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ecently, I won tickets from a Hudson Valley radio station to see Margo Price perform live via a streaming platform called Fans. It was great to see a concert again and the band was excellent, but the experience was odd as there was no audience, aside from a few flashes of fellow spectators “Zooming” in. While I fully acknowledge the quality of the production, the streaming technology seemed to squeeze the excitement out of the show. Missing was an energy that can only be felt in person. And I was left with several big questions: How will smaller venues and less established acts navigate the pandemic? And is this the future of live music? Covid-19 has been tough on New York, which by nature relies on the free flow of people moving between indoor and outdoor spaces. It’s been especially brutal for music venues and musicians whose very livelihood depends on that freedom of mobility, not to mention the risk involved in performance basics like singing. Sadly, Brooklyn has lost musicians like Homeboy Steve, and hip venues like Prospect Heights' The Way Station, shut down forever. Others survive, for now. Nick Green, proprietor of The Flying Lobster on the corner of Union and Hicks street, has done his best to make the most of the situation but says, “Cuomo and the State Liquor authority aren’t helping us at all. They’re threatening to heavily fine or close bars down if people so much as hold their drinks while standing up. They’ve required that all venues that sell liquor now serve food, which is an additional expense for bars.” “Cuomo also banned the sales of tickets at bars and restaurants specifically, which makes zero sense because if you sell all your tickets that creates a maximum capacity which makes bars safer, and if people pay with credit cards that helps create contact tracing. It was really a poor move that’s been crippling. It was reported in the NY Post that 90% of bars in New York City have shut down due to these kinds of regulations.” “I understand the need for safety, but it’s been proven that when music happens outside, it’s safe. Outdoor seating and music has been a real positive thing for us and the musical community.” “One of the greatest things this country has to offer is the arts. I feel lucky to provide a place for musicians to play. I’m proud of that because this is a family business. It’s been really difficult, but there’ll always be music and the show must go on.” Donald O’Finn is the owner of Freddy’s Bar and Backroom in the South Slope. For decades he’s faced huge challenges including losing the original, iconic bar to the development of the Barclay’s Center. But the Covid crisis has been his toughest trial yet. O’Finn says, “The terribly prophetic and ironic nature of the closing of NYC bars on Saint Paddy’s day (our most lucrative day) was not lost on any of us. It was the punch in the face as the door opened to our hell. It has been impossible. “We are facing the same challenges that all businesses and individuals are facing with Covid-19. In addition to those hardships, we suffer atop the most endangered businesses list. Covid-19 completely shut us down. It stopped all our music, our art shows and reduced sales to a trickle. It has taken us deep into debt. Parts of our staff have chosen not to return. The bar is near broke.” “But we are now serving food and drink in our new store front space and our new backyard, and that is helping. Soon, the opportunity for some inside dining will help us as well. Recently, we started some live acoustic music again (by law referred to as ‘incidental’) with Freddy DeBoe. These will be mellow shindigs until things change.” “It is only the heroic nature of this long-lived bar, the stubborn and loyal staff, and partners that has managed to propel us forward and keep us afloat. Freddy’s has survived Hurricane Sandy with our doors open, survived millionaires criminally misus-
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by Mike Cobb
ing eminent domain against the bar and an entire neighborhood, survived blackouts with candles in hand and drinks in the street, and served the shocked and ash-covered on 911 to the wee morning hours -- nothing has closed us ever! We have always had a ‘we NEVER close’ response against any tragedy. But now to support the public we must forego this credo, antithetical to all we know, but nonetheless necessary.” “Staff is making little money now, and owners have not yet taken a cent. We can only await a vaccine, and do our best in the meantime. We stay alert and positive about the future. NYC is the toughest place in America, and it will survive. Thank God for the forces of good.” Deeper into Brooklyn, Bar Chord lies on Cortelyou Road in Ditmas Park. Owners Christy and Jonny Sheehan received great support from their community, and pivoted in a similar way to O’Finn by increasing the use of their outdoor space. Christy Sheehan says, “The first challenge that we faced was being closed from March-June. We were able to have a successful Zoom fundraiser where many of our regular musicians donated their songs to a beautiful live online music event. That fundraiser along with an auction of memorabilia from the NYC music scene of the 80’s 90’s and 00’s was able to bridge the gap so we could reopen in June. However, we still haven’t been able to bring live music back inside.” “As far as adapting we were very lucky to have big outdoor space to use and a lot of regulars who hang at Bar Chord with or without live music. We have also partnered with luncheonette the burger grill across the street, and we serve their menu. Our business is still down by a significant percentage, but we are lucky enough to have a landlord who is working with us so hopefully we can survive to the other side.” Sheehan hopes for a better future while being realistic in her expectations. “I can’t wait for the day when Bar Chord is filled with folks dancing late into the night to the sounds of live music, but I do think it’s going to be a while. As the weather gets cooler we will try to have some weekend happy hour performances. Although I don’t believe music is ever ‘incidental’, these will not be ticketed events. We hope to make it through the winter of 2020/2021, but who knows?” “I believe live music will survive because people who love it and perform it can’t live without it, and I think there will be a huge nightlife renaissance when we are past the pandemic. There are venues that sadly will close, but as soon as it’s safe, I think new ones will open. I am optimistic that NYC will return to being a thriving more affordable city for artists. I hate that this is the way it had to happen, but we all need a little optimism these days.”
Adapting to a changing beat
As so many venues have shut or become severely restricted, performing musicians are struggling to find gigs and are also figuring how to adapt to the moment. Stanley Mitchell is a drummer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and music teacher also based in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. Originally from New Zealand, he came to NYC in the late 1970’s with his band The Drongos (Kiwi slang for ‘idiot’) at a time when the city was rough and edgy. He’s seen the scene go through many iterations and has a nuanced perspective. Regarding how the pandemic has affected musicians, Mitchell says: “Well the obvious problem is that the few venues that do have live music have very tight restrictions placed on them to the point of being impractical.” “The whole situation is a tragedy for musicians. Consider this: all through the 70s and 80s the evolution of synthesizers took a lot of work away from musicians. Then came the Internet and the downloading of music for free, which eradicated another revenue stream. Now with Covid the live venues
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have gone. Aside from home recording and recording studios there’s very little else to do.” “But, I am adapting by channeling my creative energies into my recording studio and streaming original music on digital platforms, and I am blessed that there is enough space in front of my house to set up a band. I gathered with some musician neighbors, and we ended up playing every night April thru June. It became a much beloved community event. The heat stopped us in the end, but it was great while it lasted. We recently reformed to play a set in Prospect Park. We called ourselves the BQE band - The Brooklyn Quarantine Ensemble.” Recording studios are maneuvering in creative ways as well. Eric Ambel is a producer and proprietor of Cowboy Technical Services in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. His business relies on musicians coming into his recording studio, which is by nature an enclosed space. He’s adjusted by staggering who’s in the room as well as by using technology that includes proper air filtration and UV lighting. “A recording studio is a soundproof space, and that means it should be close to ‘airtight’ limiting the exchange of air. In addition to applying a Covid19 cleaning routine, we upgraded the filters on our air conditioning system, reconfigured it to ‘exhaust’ and purchased a special UV light machine that we run after every session.” “We are currently limiting the amount of people who can come to a session. We are also using an innovative software called Audiomovers that lets us send hi resolution audio to other people who are working with us in real time so they can listen and participate remotely,” says Ambel. Back in Red Hook, Tone Johanson, proprietor of the iconic Sunny’s Bar has faced tough times before. She literally helped bail out Sunny’s from the inundation brought on by Hurricane Sandy. About the challenges presented by Covid, Johanson says, “My income is dependent on the weather. None of my expenses have gone down (the electric bill, the gas bill, insurances, are the same), but income has. It is simple math. We have to bring in enough revenue to pay for the expenses going out. The revenue is connected to the amount of people that we serve. It is also a challenge that people that make the rules rarely have experience on the ground floor - real practical knowledge of what consequences their rules have for real live small businesses. We have the added fear of punishment from rules that are not always clear and practical.” But like many others, she’s adapted by reconfiguring her business. “I tore down an old shed in the backyard, and made more space. I’m also selling more merchandise. I have some incidental music, solo or duos.” As to the future and the role of music and culture, Johansen says, “Bars, and especially Sunny’s Bar, and live music, have had a symbiotic relationship for a long time. I hope that this crisis has led to a widespread soul-searching. Music, and culture, have always been important to the health of a society. Sadly, we have come to value commerce more than the ‘Human Arts.’ But if we want to heal and grow as communities, and as a city, it cannot be done without culture. It is the foundation of any society. Through music and art, we express consciousness of who we are as human spirits.” The world has watched how Covid-19 has devastated lives and businesses. If musicians and venues are to survive in New York and elsewhere, they will need the help of city and state officials as well as adjusting their way of working in order to adapt. Continuing safe practices like social distancing, hand sanitizing, and wearing masks has proven effective in halting the spread of Covid. Literally thinking “outside the box” by moving events to street spaces, as long as weather permits, is key for survival. Collectively, we must remain vigilant, stay smart, and learn to dance around the virus.- Mike Cobb is a writer and musician living in Carroll Gardens.
October 2020, Page 23
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