Red Hook Star-Revue, February 2019 by George Fiala

the red hook

GOWANUS TUNNEL TO COST $1.3 BILLION â&#x20AC;&#x201D; PAGE 7

STAR REVUE

Exclusive Interview With Folksinger Greg Brown

page 19

FEBRUARY 2019 chronicling Red Hook and the world beyond

FREE

THE INSIDE STORY BEHIND THE RISE OF THE FORTIS TOWERS PAGES 3,4,5,6

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Just Say No to NYCHA Privatization page 27

Special Home Improvement Section pages 32-35

Meet the New Pioneer Works Residents! page 13 All things Valentiney pages 30 & 31

Lady Terriers and PAVE Squash back page

Red Hook StarRevue 481 Van Brunt Street, 8A Brooklyn, NY 11231 (718) 624-5568

STARREVUE COMMUNITY HAPPENINGS email george@redhookstar.com to list your event. For more listings, check out our online community calendar at www.star-revue.com/calendar

www.star-revue.com

february events

EDITOR & PUBLISHER George Fiala ADVERTISING

Liz Galvin Jamie Yates Joe Corrado

ARTS EDITOR

Matt Caprioli

MUSIC EDITOR

Michael Cobb

SENIOR REPORTER REPORTERS:

Brett Yates Nathan Weiser Erin DiGregorio

ART DIRECTOR Sonja Kodiak Wilder CONTRIBUTORS:

Sofia Baluyut Tina Portelli Kelsey Liebenson-Morse Ed Littleford Robbie Giordano

FOR EDITORIAL, ADVERTISING OR EMPLOYMENT INQUIRIES, email george@redhookstar.com.

The Red Hook Star-Revue is published monthly. Founded June 2010.

Community Telephone Numbers: Red Hook Councilman

Carlos Menchaca (718) 439-9012 Red Hook Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (718) 492-6334 State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (718) 643-6140 Gowanus Councilman Brad Lander (718) 499-1090 Park Slope Councilman Steve Levin (718) 875-5200 CB6 District Manager Michael Racioppo (718) 643-3027 76th Police Precinct, 191 Union Street Main phone (718) 834-3211 Community Affairs (718) 834-3207 Traffic Safety (718) 834-3226 Eileen Dugan Senior Center, 380 Court Street (718) 596-1956 Miccio Center, 110 East 9th Street (718) 243-1528 Red Hook East Dev. Office, 62 Mill St (718) 852-6771 Red Hook West Dev. Office, 55 Dwight St. (718) 522-3880 NYCHA Satellite Police Precinct, 80 Dwight St. Main Phone (718) 265-7300 Community Affairs (718) 265-7313 Domestic Violence (718) 265-7310 Youth Officer (718) 265-7314 Red Hook NCOs Damien Clarke — Damien.Clarke@nypd. org; (929) 287-7155 Jonathan Rueda — Jonathan.Rueda@nypd. org — 917-941-2185

Page 2 Red Hook Star-Revue

Compiled by Nathan Weiser

Stand up comedian Pete Davidson will be performing at the Bell House (149 7th Street) in Gowanus. Doors open at 9:00 Mon and the show is going to start at 9:45. Tickets are $40 to see the youngest member of the current cast of Saturday Night Live.

The 78th Precinct Community Council will hold their monthly mee�ng at the precinct (191 Union Street) from 7:30 to 9:00 pm. Wed You will have an opportunity to voice concerns and ask any ques�ons that you may have about the community.

Wed.

Street, 9B.

Hot Wood Arts will have their monthly First Wednesday ﬁgure drawing session. The cost is $10, and the session will go from 7:00 to 10:00 pm at 481 Van Brunt

Story�me with Monique Fields & Yesenia Moises: Honeysmoke.This engaging and beau�ful picture book follows a young Sat biracial girl who wants to ﬁnd the perfect color to understand her heritage, a color that isn’t brown or pink or black or white, by award-winning journalist Monique Fields (Ebony, NPR) and illustrated by Ms. Moises, 11am – 12pm at Books Are Magic, 225 Smith St.

Friends of Fireﬁghters (199 Van Brunt Street) will be having an evening with Gary Sinise to celebrate the book launch Sat of his book Grateful American. The VIP Dinner will be from 5:00 to 6:30 and the signing, book discussion and Q&A will be from 7:15 un�l 8:15.

TASTE presents Diana Kuan: Red Hot Kitchen with Ma� Rodbard In partnership with TASTE, Books Are Magic ais hos�ng Mon Diana Kuan for her new book, Red Hot Kitchen, a hot sauce manifesto focused on homemade Asian chili sauces and delicious dishes to make with them. 7:30pm – 8:30pm, Books Are Magic, 225 Smith St.

12 Tue.

The Red Hook West Tenants Associa�on will have their monthly mee�ng led by Lillie Marshall at 428 Columbia Street Tenant Room 1C.

The ﬁ�h rendi�on of Brooklyn Running Company’s annual Boyco� Valen�ne’s Day Pub Run is nigh. Whether single or in Thu a rela�onship, all are welcome on the 14th. Join your fellow boyco�ers on February 14th at 7pm at 222 Grand St, Brooklyn $25. Reserve your spot on eventbrite.com. Limit 100 runners.

18 Mon

20 Wed.

26 Tue.

The Heights Players will have a general membership mee�ng from 8:00 to 9:00 pm at the John Bourne Theater (26 Willow Place). Contact Corrine Contrino at 718-237-2752 for more informa�on. The Red Hook East Tenants Associa�on will have their monthly mee�ng from 6:30 to 9:00 pm at 167 Bush Street 1B. The Gowanus Community Advisory Group will have their monthly mee�ng from 6:30 un�l 9:00 pm at St. Mary’s Residence (41 First Street).

ongoing: On Thursdays at 3 pm, Street Soccer USA and Soccer Shots will be partnering up with toddlers. This soccer program will take place at the Red Hook Rec Center from 3 pm to 3:40 for 2 to 3 year old’s and from 3:50 to 4:30 for 4-5 year old’s. For more informa�on, contact Coach Ziham at @redhook@streetscoccerusa.org or 646-918-9839. Every Monday of the month Jalopy Theatre and School of Music (315 Columbia Street) will host an open mic night from 8:30 un�l 11:00 pm. Sign up in person by 9:00 pm. Each performer gets two songs or eight minutes. Resume, cover le�er and interview prep will happen every Friday of the month from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm at the Red Hook Library (7 Wolco� Street). The gym, theater, weight room and computer room will be available for ages 13 and up at the Miccio

www.star-revue.com

Community Center (110 West 9th Street) every Saturday of the month. This is a program sponsored by Good Shepherd Services, and it will go from 10 am to 5 pm. Call 718-243-1528 for more informa�on. Every Thursday of the month Broadly Entertaining will be hos�ng Thursday Night Trivia at Rocky Sullivan’s (46 Beard Street). The trivia starts at 8:00 pm and is free to play. The first-place winner a�er trivia finishes will get 50 percent off of their tab. On Thursdays, the Red Hook Community Jus�ce Center will be hos�ng CARES Wellness Support Group from 5 un�l 7 pm. Learn about coping strategies for dealing with stress, learn ways of relaxing and taking care of yourself. There will be a focus on healing and restora�on Dinner and Metrocards will be provided. Call Red Hook CARES at 347-404-9017 to learn more informa�on.

February 2019

AS FORTIS CASTS SHADOW OVER COBBLE HILL, NYU LANGONE SITE SITS IDLE BY BRETT YATES

n late 2017, at 347 Henry Street, construction began on 5 River Park, the first of four planned high-rises built by developer Fortis Property Group that will soon loom over the Cobble Hill Historic District. Designed by Romines Architecture, the building’s 15 stories will hold 25 condos, with an average price of $3.15 million per unit. Work will finish on the tower sometime next year. The ascending frame of concrete and steel beside the low-rise brownstones on Pacific and Amity streets marks the beginning of a new phase in the topographical history of the neighborhood, and in the long, painful saga that began in 2013 when, amid protests and lawsuits, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, under Governor Cuomo, decided to close Long Island College Hospital (LICH), which it had acquired less than two years earlier, in order to offload the increasingly valuable land on which it sat. Fortis, a little-known private firm founded by a Cuomo donor, submitted the winning bid to redevelop the property in 2014.

COMPLICATED OWNERSHIP SCHEME The sale agreement between SUNY and Fortis dictated a multi-part closing, whereby Fortis would make two payments of $120 million each, several years apart – an arrangement that arguably resembled an interest-free mortgage. As of 2019, SUNY – or, more precisely, its Downstate at LICH Holding Company – still technically owns a large portion of the former LICH campus: the Henry Street Building (340 Henry Street), the Polak Pavilion (363 Hicks Street), and the demolished Fuller Pavilion (70 Atlantic Avenue). SUNY currently leases the Polak Pavilion to Fortis, which, as a

Red Hook Star-Revue

condition of the sale agreement, subleases it to NYU Langone, the academic medical center affiliated with New York University, which operates a freestanding emergency department at the site as a measure to mitigate in small part the loss of LICH’s wider-ranging healthcare services. The agreement established that, while Fortis would pay for the value of entire LICH premises (six core lots totaling roughly 200,000 square feet, plus assorted small properties in the surrounding area), the second part of the closing would transfer ownership of the 33,345-squarefoot lot at the corner of Hicks and Atlantic from SUNY to NYU, at no cost to the latter, for the construction of an ambulatory care clinic.

AS-OF-RIGHT PREVAILS In 2015, Fortis presented Cobble Hill with two design choices for the rest of the property: a ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) proposal and an AOR (as-of-right) plan. ULURP is the public process by which developers negotiate for land-use changes. Fortis’s proposal requested an upzoning that would have allowed for almost twice as much residential density on the LICH site in exchange for the construction of affordable housing (20 percent of the units), a public school, retail space on Hicks, and a park at 347 Henry Street. It also would have positioned the development’s tallest tower between Hicks and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) – as far as possible from the Cobble Hill Historic District. Following advisory review by the community board and borough president, ULURPs require a thumbs-up from the City Planning Commission, the City Council, and the mayor, while the general pub-

lic weighs in along the way. On the other hand, AOR projects accommodate existing zoning regulations and require only statutory approval from the city – as long as the builder isn’t breaking any laws, they can do whatever they want, whether the neighbors or elected officials like it or not. Fortis’s AOR offered no community benefits as they needed no government sweeteners to make it happen. Although significantly smaller than the ULURP, the AOR still includes a 470-foot skyscraper on the north side of Pacific between Henry and Hicks. Only nine buildings in all of Brooklyn are taller. This was possible because, when the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) created the Cobble Hill Historic District in 1969, representatives from LICH complained that the new zoning regulations – including a 50-foot height limit – would inhibit future growth of the hospital. The community, which had pressed for Cobble Hill’s historic designation, conceded the point and LICH was cut out of the district. The AOR’s other key enabler, as

www.star-revue.com

pointed out in an article by the Municipal Art Society (MAS) last year, was a zoning lot merger (ZLM) to which Fortis, SUNY, and NYU officially agreed in an amendment – dated September, 2015 – to their 2014 sale agreement. When buildings don’t take full advantage of the FAR (floor area ratio) that their zoning permits, ZLMs give their owners a chance to sell their unused square footage to the owners of adjacent parcels. New York City has no discretionary authority over ZLMs. “They can be done as private business deals, without public review, and the sky is literally the limit,” wrote MAS in 1999, just after ZLMs had allowed “Donald Trump to plant the world’s tallest residential tower in a midrise neighborhood” of Manhattan (where Trump World Tower now juts 861 feet into the skyline). Today, MAS advocates for a revision of the zoning code that would set “limits on the amount of development rights that could be transferred” via ZLM.

Continued on next page

February 2019, Page 3

FORTIS RISING

Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP)

(continued from page 3) The ZLM in Cobble Hill moved 81,028 square feet of residential development rights from the site designated for NYU’s new medical facility (as well as another 34,989 from the Polak Pavilion and Henry Street Building) to a 33,108-squarefoot lot owned by Fortis, thus setting the stage for a residential skyscraper as large as 210,000 square feet within a medium-density R6 zoning district. The 1969 demapping of Pacific Street between Henry and Hicks, which gave contiguity to the LICH campus and zoning adjacency to its lots on either side, facilitated the transfer. These circumstances ensured that Fortis could make a handsome profit on its development – which it came to dub River Park – even without a zoning change, which reduced the city’s leverage during the ULURP negotiations. After Fortis’s oversized ULURP proposal met the disapproval of the Cobble Hill Association (CHA), an influential civic group in the area, and subsequent condemnation from local politicians (including state assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon, state senator Daniel Squadron, and congresswoman Nydia Velazquez) in late 2015, Fortis decided in 2016 to plow ahead with its AOR scheme. No one in the vicinity of LICH liked that plan, either.

LANDER BLAMES STATE Cobble Hill’s city councilman, Brad Lander, believes that New York State had put the neighborhood into a no-win situation. “When New York State, the Governor, and SUNY Downstate decided to close and sell the hospital, they could have established provisions to make it work for the community,” he said last month. “The state owned the property. They could have decided to keep operating it as a hospital, but even if they were going to decide to close the hospital and sell it, the decent thing to do would have been to establish parameters to make it used in the best possible way.” Lander reiterated the point: “This is a publicly owned piece of land that SUNY Downstate and Governor Cuomo decided to sell off with no urban design guidelines and no affordable housing or other public benefit requirements. I just want to be clear: that’s what got us into this mess.” While New York State’s culpability indeed seems clear to most observers, it’s not necessarily obvious that New York City was any more determined to prevent overdevelopment at the LICH site than Cuomo was. Some Cobble Hill residents hoped in vain for a historic district overlay from the LPC for the LICH campus – a move that, if executed late in the game, likely would have provoked a lawsuit from Fortis. It didn’t happen. But more damning, perhaps, was City Hall’s refusal in 2014 and 2015 to exercise a clause in a document

Page 4 Red Hook Star-Revue

signed by LICH and the city on November 28, 1994, which would have reduced the size of the hospital campus property and thus the allowable square footage under Fortis’s AOR plan. In 1994, in exchange for the right to build a parking garage on Upper Van Voorhees Park, LICH agreed to build and maintain three privately owned public spaces on Henry Street: two playgrounds for children on the west side and one sitting area on the east side. This obligation carried over to any future owner of the property. But the Agreement and Grant of Easements also stipulated that the hospital or its successor must turn over the title to these parks to the city “if so requested in writing by the City’s Mayor, Deputy Mayor, or Commissioner of Parks and Recreation” at any point “in the period beginning August 15, 2009 and ending 20 years and 305 days from the date of this Agreement” (meaning September 28, 2015). Leaving these parks in private hands didn’t jeopardize their future as open space for public use, but it meant that their square footage continued to contribute to the total square footage on each of the lots that contained them, which in turn determined the possible square footage of the structures on those lots under zoning.

DEBLASIO DOUBLE-DEALING As a mayoral candidate in 2013, Bill de Blasio campaigned against the closing of LICH and then, once the battle to prevent SUNY from selling was lost, advocated that the site should remain a hospital. After his election, however, he helped broker the deal between Fortis and SUNY, and suspicions of a pay-toplay scheme earned him a federal investigation by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. “I think a lot of people rightly blame de Blasio for exploiting the closing of LICH for political purposes and then proceeding to ask the bidders of the LICH site for contributions to his [Campaign for One New York] and then ultimately betraying the community that he used as the basis for his campaign,”

“Every Every city planner that we spoke to agreed that [the ULURP] was a better solution,” even if it would have brought “900 more people” than the AOR into the neighborhood. .” —Roy Sloane

commented Peter Bray, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association (BHA), the civic group representing the neighborhood that borders the north side of the LICH campus. “He is a pro-development guy. He doesn’t have it in his DNA to support community concerns about overdevelopment over the aims of the real estate community.” In 2015, the mayor’s office publicly acknowledged its disappointment that Fortis had chosen the AOR instead of continuing to work toward a feasible ULURP. Upon taking office, de Blasio had prominently pledged to create 200,000 units of affordable housing; the Fortis development could have generated about 200 of those. Lander recalled that he was “surprised” when Fortis chose the AOR route. “I read it in Crain’s. I sure thought they at least would have gotten back in touch with us,” he lamented. “I guess, to be fair, when they proposed doubling the density, they said, ‘This is our offer – take it or leave it.’ But that’s what they all say.” The councilman believes, however, that, when the CHA and their elected officials rejected the ULURP, they did so in full awareness that Fortis might choose the AOR instead of creating a new proposal, and they took the gamble only because “a strong majority” (in Lander’s words) of Cobble Hill residents had deemed the AOR the better of two bad options. While both Lander and the CHA hoped that Fortis would come back to the table with “something in the middle” –

www.star-revue.com

that is, a ULURP with a 50 percent (or so) residential density increase over the AOR, instead of 100 percent – they were prepared to accept the consequences if the developer retreated. “The community made that decision with a lot of information and with its eyes open. I really pushed people to be clear,” Lander recounted. “There were hundreds of people involved in the meetings and feedback and decision-making. We had hundreds of survey responses.” Lander’s account of the Fortis negotiations is one story about what happened in Cobble Hill in the year 2015. That of Roy Sloane, who led the CHA between 1980 and 2015, is another. Sloane’s tenure at the CHA ended when its members threatened to impeach him. He resigned instead. Sloane had deemed Fortis’s AOR plan vastly inferior to the ULURP proposal. In December, he called the AOR “just horrible. It destroys the low-scale quality and light and air and parks of our neighborhood.” In Sloane’s recollection, “every city planner that we spoke to agreed that [the ULURP] was a better solution,” even if it would have brought “900 more people” than the AOR into the neighborhood. The most important factor, for him, was not quantity but distribution: “900 people in your living room is a problem, but if there’s 900 more people over by Brooklyn Bridge Park and fewer people in your living room, you’re better off.”

Continued on next page February 2019

As-Of-Right Plan (AOR)

sen the other route. Once completed, that tower will block the sunlight in Sloane’s backyard on Pacific Street.

AN EVIL PLAN

Fortis (continued from previous page) ROY SLOANE’S STORY Sloane disputes Lander’s history of the ULURP proposal, which Lander remembered as an offer generated independently by Fortis and received more-or-less concurrently by the politicians and the CHA, who then “talked and consulted” and together agreed that the plan was “too much.” According to Sloane, de Blasio, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, and Lander had, in fact, collaborated with Fortis to design the ULURP plan, which the city officials “overloaded” with community benefits (added to Fortis’s preexisting obligation to donate a significant chunk of the land to NYU), turning the project into a “showboat piece.” In Sloane’s telling, Fortis tentatively consented to these burdens – the affordable housing (not yet automatically built into the ULURP by de Blasio’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing policy of 2016) and the school – only because of the hugeness of the density increase that the politicians had promised in return. By the time the plan reached the CHA, it was obvious to Sloane that the square footage was nonnegotiable and that the reason it couldn’t be reduced was that the politicians wouldn’t allow a reduction in the number of community benefits, which they thought would impress the public. In this version of events, Lander disassociated himself from the ULURP plan only after it had proved unpopular. On August 7, 2015, the Star-Revue published an account of “the first in a series of ‘Public Planning Meetings for the Long Island College Hospital Site’” and reported that Lander was “urging the zoning change process (ULURP) sought by FORTIS, calling it the best of a bad situation.” He came out against the ULURP proposal three months later, pushing for a revision that would better satisfy the neighborhood. Ultimately, Lander may have overestimated Fortis’s commitment to the ULURP process – which, if it doesn’t work on the first try, means additional design fees and delays for the developer – while simultaneously underestimating the crypto-conservatism of Cobble Hill’s

Red Hook Star-Revue

solidly Democratic homeowners: per Sloane, many of them didn’t actually care about the ULURP’s community benefits – what they cared about was the quantity of new people in the area. After all, they didn’t need affordable housing, and they sent their kids to private school. Sloane recalled that “they said things like, ‘Oh, well, we don’t want to have a [public] school. You know what kind of kids go to those schools.’ Basically, my community turned down affordable housing, a school that was needed desperately – they didn’t want to have ‘poor people.’” Amy Breedlove, who now serves as president of the CHA, stated last month, “The community expressed in block meetings held throughout the neighborhood that they would not accept the extra square footage for so-called amenities.” Deemed soft on Fortis by the CHA, Sloane – who, earlier in his tenure, had negotiated the parking garage deal with LICH – had been willing to work with the developer on the ULURP without demanding a size decrease: Fortis had shown to him a readiness to shift the square footage around to accommodate the community’s preferences, but none of it would ever disappear. In Sloane’s view, the CHA scapegoated him for the oversized ULURP that the city had pre-negotiated, scorning his efforts to work pragmatically within undesirable conditions. During this period, he received angry phone calls and a rock through his window. He claimed that the regime change at CHA owed to the misguided belief of the group’s “elite lawyer-banker types” and “politicos” that they could “get a better deal.” In the end, as he put it, “they got nothing.” Sloane’s own sources told him that, after just one meeting with the new CHA board, Fortis abandoned talks. When the developer stopped returning the CHA’s calls, its leaders must have suspected that the AOR plan was now unavoidable, Sloane pointed out. Sloane believes that, in order to cover its tracks, the CHA subsequently embarked on a campaign to persuade the rest of the neighborhood that the ULURP proposal

was worse than the AOR – even reassuring residents that the AOR, which Fortis could execute without public input, could be improved further by means of legal action (possibly an environmental lawsuit). Hoping to find a “legal silver bullet” or “unicorn solution,” the new leadership hired fresh lawyers and “consumed the entire treasury of the CHA in like six weeks.” While Sloane recognized that his neighbors organically loathed the ULURP, he insisted that, if Cobble Hill residents had truly understood that rejecting it would mean a 15-story tower on the east side of Henry Street, they would have cho-

www.star-revue.com

On the other hand, Peter Bray – a relatively neutral party, as his BHA stayed out of the CHA’s Fortis negotiations – echoed the verdict of Sloane’s opponents: “I would say that the Brooklyn Heights community felt that the AOR plan was the lesser of two evils. That’s a lot different than saying that they were satisfied or pleased or happy with the outcome. It was the lesser of two evils, but it’s still an evil plan.” With the “evil plan” now set irrevocably in motion, the CHA keeps busy by monitoring “the day-to-day stuff” (Breedlove’s phrase) on the construction site, including “things like tarps and tie-downs that have blown loose because of the wind,” parked trucks on the sidewalk, and “the lights in the superstructure at 347 Henry Street,” which have been “shining in everyone’s houses” at night. “This is a developer who doesn’t like to answer to anybody but themselves,” Breedlove said, “so it is a daily task to keep them on track, hold them accountable, and make sure they’re doing the right thing” with regard to “safety issues and quality-of-life issues.” Last October, the Department of Buildings (DOB) issued a “partial stop work order” at 347 Henry Street after a contrac-

Continued on next page

February 2019, Page 5

FORTIS RISING

(continued from page 5) tor hit a gas line, and in December the DOB the ruled that the builder had failed to submit “acceptable proof” of having enacted “adequate measures to safeguard existing utilities.” As of this writing, the violation (which cost $2,500) remains active. The backyard at 347 Henry has also turned into a battleground. Unlike the rest of the property, it falls within the Cobble Hill Historic District, which means that here Fortis must tread more carefully. When its architect proposed a brick wall on the south side of the yard, along Amity, Community Board 6 rejected the design, and the CHA requested a fence instead. The ensuing three-part fence design – a short fence in front, followed by a wall of vegetation and then a taller fence in back – went before Landmarks on January 15. The renderings submitted by Fortis also showed various backyard features, including a pool. The CHA issued a statement condemning “any items, such as the proposed trellis, outdoor kitchen, light poles, or outdoor shower, that would be visible from the street” and “any swimming pool that would be visible from the street.” The question of visibility from the street, which determines whether backyard features fall under the purview of the LPC, had emerged specifically because the CHA had asked for a fence instead of a wall: the fence’s sole claim to opacity, its dense shrubbery, might someday die. But the LPC formally demanded that the building’s owner permanently maintain the proposed barrier of holly, which in turn removed the issue of the historic appropriateness of the pool from its concern. The plan earned the LPC’s approval with two additional stipulations: that the size of a brick storage shed facing the street be reduced and that the front fence be made of wrought iron instead of steel. The CHA still hopes that the DOB will revoke its permission for the pool, which, contrary to zoning regulations, sits less than 100 feet back from the property line. In November, the DOB granted an exception because the planned pool “is proposed below the cellar roof space and as such is within the building” – thus, the “distance provisions for pools not within the building are not applicable.” If the CHA wants to pump the brakes on the pool, it wishes Fortis would speed up its progress elsewhere. According to Breedlove, the developer is “running way behind schedule on everything.” River Park’s Polhemus Residences and Townhouses – 17 condos within the restored Polhemus Building, an 1897 Beaux-Arts landmark on the south side of Amity, and eight adjacent rowhouses – will open this year, but the 48 condos at 1 River Park by FXCollaborative and the 103 condos at 2 River Park by Hill West Architects currently exist only as digital renderings, though workers have cleared the site for the former and begun foundation work for the latter. In September of

Page 6 Red Hook Star-Revue

2017, Fortis acquired a $297 million loan from Madison Realty Capital to fund their construction. 3 River Park and 4 River Park, which will occupy the block between Hicks, Henry, Pacific, and Amity, remain more enigmatic. Since the ZLM had shifted a portion of the lot’s residential development rights to 2 River Park, Fortis considered putting a freestanding college dorm (to count as a non-residential “community facility”) at 363 Hicks in 2015, but Breedlove has since heard that the building will become a private school, which will house its lower grades across the street at 350 Hicks. She expects 4 River Park to consist of a residential conversion of the Henry Street Building.

5 River Park. Photo by Brett Yates

NEW MEDICAL FACILITY FUTURE UNCLEAR The largest delay, however, owes to NYU Langone, which announced in 2015 that it would spend $120 million to build a medical facility at 70 Atlantic Avenue by 2018. Work has not yet started. SUNY still holds the land where NYU planned to build, although court documents show that NYU was supposed to close on the property “no later than June 30, 2016.” The lot was expected to be ready for new construction by then. That turned out not to be the case. Breedlove pointed to “issues in the excavation of the site. There were subterranean foundations from the old hospital and utilities… that could not be severed.” The Brooklyn

tory surgery center; “primary and preventive care”; “comprehensive women’s services, including perinatal care”; and “a FQHC” (federally qualified health facility). Unlike the other services, the FQHC could be located off-premises. According to the federal government’s Health Resources and Servic-

Although Fortis’s promise to retain medical care at the LICH campus helped legitimize its bid, the sale agreement doesn’t guarantee a permanent medical facility. Paper reported in March last year, however, that Fortis’s demolition of the Fuller Pavilion had finished, and the 2014 LICH sale agreement specified that the transfer of ownership from SUNY to NYU “shall occur on the date that is thirty (30) days after Purchaser has completed the Demolition Activities.” Although Fortis’s promise to retain medical care at the LICH campus helped legitimize its bid in eyes of the public, the subsequent sale agreement didn’t fully guarantee a permanent medical facility. Rather, it created a set of requirements and obligations whose timely fulfillment would yield the property at Hicks and Atlantic to NYU “on the condition that it may not be used for any purpose other than the delivery of health services and activities ancillary thereto for 20 years.” In the event of a failure by NYU to live up to the terms of the bargain before the closing, SUNY would retain ownership with “the right to use the New Medical Premises for any use permitted as a community facility, not limited to medical use.” Otherwise, upon receipt, NYU promised to provide “an Emergency Department, including not less than four (4) and as many as twelve (12) observation beds”; an ambula-

es Administration (HRSA), FQHCs “are community-based health care providers that receive funds from the HRSA Health Center Program to provide primary care services in underserved areas.” The 2014 agreement noted that NYU intended to “cause the FQHC to be operated in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York,” rather than Cobble Hill. Nothing has materialized of this yet – per NYU spokesperson Lisa Greiner, “the FQHC does not need to be operational until Cobble Hill opens” – but it may still happen. This assumes, however, that the medical clinic in Cobble Hill will happen. Thanks to the project’s missed deadlines, SUNY is no longer under any legal obligation to hand over the property to NYU, and NYU is under no obligation to receive it, but both parties may still choose to carry out the deal. “It is my understanding from recent conversations with NYU that they are still planning to move forward to build the promised medical facility,” Lander asserted. In 2015, NYU hired architects Perkins Eastman to design its new clinic in Cobble Hill. Starting in September of that year, the DOB rejected the new building plans submitted by Perkins Eastman ten times. “It’s not uncommon for project applications

www.star-revue.com

for new buildings to go through several rounds of plan examinations before receiving approval,” DOB spokesperson Abigail G. Kunitz explained. “The application for 70 Atlantic Avenue was disapproved because not all the required items have been submitted to the Department.” The last failed examination, however, was in March of 2017. Last year, in December, a new construction fence replaced the old one at 70 Atlantic, and the architectural renderings that had adorned the fence were not put back up. “NYU, as we understand it, has taken their facility back to the drawing board,” Breedlove reported. The delay at 70 Atlantic has, in Breedlove’s words, “been extremely problematic in many ways.” In particular, it means that its eventual construction will coincide with that of 1 River Park and 2 River Park, instead of preceding it: “Now we are faced with three major construction sites on the logistically challenged block of Hicks and Atlantic Avenue, which as you know is pinned between a public park, a highway and off-ramp, a major thoroughfare, and a pedestrian easement and closed roadway.” The CHA is working with the DOB and the Department of Transportation “to come up with the best planning and staging of these projects. Cranes, cement trucks, road closures and all that comes with it will heavily impact this block and area for 2019 and well into 2020.” All in all, Breedlove expects another six to eight years of construction at the former LICH campus – a period that will also see a disruptive, large-scale repair in some form of the adjacent BQE, “the start of the borough-based jail at 275 Atlantic Ave.,” and possibly the building of the Brooklyn-Queens Connector, whose latest design had the streetcar running along Atlantic. “There is a meteor of major construction careening toward us!” Breedlove warned.

February 2019

DEP’s CSO proposal explained to Gowanus CAG by Erin DeGregorio

he first Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group (CAG) meeting for the new calendar year was held on Jan. 22 without Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s presence due to the partial federal government shutdown – the longest shutdown in U.S. history, which had reached Day 32 by the meeting’s date. CAG member Brad Vogel facilitated the night’s agenda that featured the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)’s latest idea for preventing raw sewage from being dumped into the canal, as ordered by the EPA. The Gowanus was named a Superfund site back in 2009. At the last meeting, in November, DEP announced that they would like the EPA to consider having a storage tunnel built, instead of two storage tanks, as had been ordered originally The CAG, composed mostly of representatives from local community groups, including the Gowanus Alliance, FROGG and Community Board 6, has maintained many of the same representatives for the past 8 years. They have all been through the melodrama of NYC’s seeming recalcitrance at spending money to take care of the sewer shortcomings. In retrospect, that might have been partly caused by the somewhat arrogant attitude and tactics of the previous DEP commissioner, Emily Lloyd, and her second-in-command Eric Landau, since moved on to the fitting position of the also somewhat contentious Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation. The new DEP representative to the CAG is the sincere and affable Project Coordinator Kevin Clarke. He has been much more successful at projecting a friendlier DEP presence in front of the somewhat suspicious CAG. Clarke’s January presentation was about their tunnel proposal. He explained that the soft-ground tunnel would be 125-150 feet underground and run a half-mile-

Red Hook Star-Revue

“I wanted to throw those up there to share with you that New York City can benefit from literally decades of national and international soft-ground tunnel programs, including lessons learned and significant advances in soft-ground tunnel technology,” Clarke said. “If anything we’re probably a little bit behind from some other municipalities … but that’s almost a good thing because we get to learn a lot from those programs.”

POSSIBLE FUTURE TUNNEL EXTENSION Clarke noted that, should the tunnel be pursued, it could be extended in the future, potentially down 2nd Avenue or further along the alignment of the Gowanus Canal. This was presented as the overriding benefit of tunnel vs. tank. Other stated advantages were that more wastes would be captured; improved neighborhood resiliency; reduction of street flooding; and accommodate of future development and population (Gowanus is about to be rezoned, greatly increasing population density). Other benefits of tunnel are said to be: increased storage capacity, less disruption to the neighborhood during construction, reduced annual CSO discharge events, and more design flexibility for the public open space next to the head house. Complete construction for either proposed project would be complete by 2030 – the tanks expected to be done by July 2030 and the tunnel done by Dec. 2030. Since EPA Project Manager Christos Tsiamis and Facilitator Doug Sarno were not there, leaving DEP’s contentions virtually unchallenged as regards cost or science. Questions from the audience were plentiful but mostly benign. EPA will be the decider of whether the tunnel alternative can be pursued. DEP has already spent over $30 million on the container design, as stated by Clarke. The next CAG meeting is Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 6:30 pm at Mary Star of the Sea (41 1st Street). CAG meetings are open to the public – one need not be a member to attend.

long underneath the canal. Possible diameter sizes and combined sewage overflow (CSO) retention rates weren’t explicitly mentioned. He also said the storage volume would be 4 million gallons more than the combined storage volume A representative from AECOM was of the two proposed tanks – 16 milin the packed audience. AECOM, lion gallons instead of 12. The tuna multinational engineering firm nel approach would cost about $50 that provides design, consulting, million more than what the tank construction, and management project is estimated to be (which services to a wide range of clients, is roughly $1.2 billion), primarily has worked with DEP since the due to construction expenses. Ad1990s. Their first project was leadditionally, Clarke said about $30 ing a Citywide research program million has already been spent on for nitrogen removal from treated design work for the tanks. waste water in the late ’90s. They He also mentioned the two othare also the City’s CSO Long Term er New York CSO projects DEP’s Control Plan prime consultants. involved with: Flushing Bay and AECOM is currently involved Newtown Creek. The Newtown with the Flushing Bay and NewCreek project, for example, has a town Creek project proposals and proposed 2.5-mile long rock tunwere the main engineering and nel alternative – with a diameter design consultants for the new Secof 19-30 feet – to capture 39 milond Avenue Subway that opened in lion gallons of sewage runoff. DEP’s Jan. 2017. “Newtown Creek CSO Long-term Red Hookers will remember Control Plan” presentation, given that is AECOM’s Chris Ward who to the Newtown Creek CAG in July is leading a fight to rezone all of 2017, stated a tunnel with that diRed Hook’s waterfront to allow the ameter would cost $730 million. construction of large, luxury, resiClarke explained to the Gowanus dential skyscrapers, to be served by CAG that soft-ground and rock tunan extension of the subway system nels (of different lengths and diamthrough the neighborhood. eters) are being built not just here Tunnels are an AECOM specialty, in the U.S., but around the world whether they be for travel or sewage, as well. He then showed slides and and it makes sense that they would data related to the DC Water’s Clean be a behind-the-scenes promoter of Rivers Project and the Thames Tidetunnels instead of containers. way Tunnel in London – two projects that DEP’s been closely looking at, while working on these tunnel alter native proposals, because they have “very similar conditions [to the Gowanus Canal].” CAG members and guests listen attentively (photo by George Fiala)

AECOM

www.star-revue.com

February 2019, Page 7

Ex-Blockchainers Are Still Confusing, But They Want to Help by Brett Yates

ast year, in June, Ashley Taylor and Cayla Huppert leased a 2,500-square-foot disused warehouse at 22 Commerce Street. Taylor and her fiancé, the designer Tymer Tilton, refurbished the interior, which now operates as an upscale event space for birthday parties, baby showers, bar mitzvahs, and photo shoots. Amenities include a 15,000-watt QSC sound

system, a projector and screen, a fog machine, and security upon request. Dubbed RE:GEN:CY, it rents for $175 an hour, with a minimum fee of $1,250 on Fridays and Saturdays. An upstairs recording studio rents for $35 an hour. RE:GEN:CY also functions as the headquarters for a more complicated endeavor called the Regenerative Resource Network (RRN), an

experimental enterprise founded by Taylor and Huppert with an aim “to promote sustainable growth through localism, a belief that people living in a community are better at making decisions that affect them rather than outside parties.” RRN intends to “bring together people, projects, resources, and ideas about how to improve local support networks and help communities become more self-sufficient, equal, and diverse.” For this purpose, RE:GEN:CY will use funds from the abovementioned parties and photo shoots to host public talks and workshops to facilitate the inclusive, democratic development of projects and technologies that, ideally, will help transform Red Hook.

BLOCKCHAIN SPECIALIST On her Twitter profile, Taylor, age 27, describes herself as a “regenerative systems designer inserting long term perspective into digital infrastructure focusing on blockchain.” Blockchain is the public ledger that records cryptocurrency transactions. A Red Hook resident for the past two years, Taylor grew up in hilly, small-town North Carolina and, after graduating from Duke University with a degree in cultural anthropology and visual and media studies, found work as a studio manager for data visualization artists at the Office for Creative Research in Downtown Brooklyn. Here, Taylor, whose father had worked in local government in her hometown, “started to get interested in technology, because I was realizing that a lot of the ways people were designing digital infrastructure was for profit and not taking into account what were local community development ideas.” Her own ideas evolved at a subsequent think tank job at the Cen-

Page 8 Red Hook Star-Revue

www.star-revue.com

ter for Planetary Culture, where she discovered the concept of alternative currencies. “We must make a rapid shift from a debtbased financial system that forces constant growth to a regenerative economy, based on cooperation, sharing of resources, [and] peerto peer production, where value is linked to the health of communities and the restoration of ecosystems,” she wrote in 2014. “An alternative economic system would provide an ecosystem of tools for particular purposes, rather than a monoculture where value is controlled by a single monopoly or cartel. It would include a number of instruments for exchanging value that support different behavior patterns and beliefs.” Taylor liked, for instance, the notion (as she put it last month) of “a time bank, where the units of account, instead of being a dollar bill, are time. So if you had one in Red Hook, people are contributing to go clean up the pier, and they’re earning credits, and they can spend those in other ways. That idea was interesting, and that obviously led me to the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency movement that was going on.” When the think tank dissolved, she went to work for a new company, ConsenSys, whose platform, called Ethereum, “was building upon the idea of Bitcoin, which is creating a money that can be sent around with a particular rule of how the currency is created and particular rules about how the currency can be traded,” she explained. “Ethereum was trying to take that idea and then make it into a programming language, so that you could create a bunch of rules about how money or resources or whatever you want to call them – digital

Continued on page 28 February 2019

P.S. 15’S PARTNERSHIP WITH CAFETERIA CULTURE by Erin DeGregorio

.S. 15 students were invited to celebrate the New Year with Mayor Bill de Blasio as he publicly announced the enactment of a Styrofoam ban. NYC manufacturers and stores can no longer sell or offer cups or plates made from the crunchy white synthetic material. There will be a six-month grace period from the ban’s Jan. 1 start date before fines are imposed. The Red Hook school’s connection to the ban stems from their partnership with Cafeteria Culture, an environmental education and advocacy organization that works with children to achieve plasticfree, zero waste, and climate-smart schools and communities. Students are given a chance to have a voice in the environmental movement, thanks to learning and working in the classroom, cafeteria and community. It initially started out as a campaign under the name ‘Styrofoam Out of Schools,’ a decade ago. The goal then was to eliminate styrofoam trays from all NYC public schools. Executive Director Debby Lee Cohen explained that about 30 schools then, mostly located in Park Slope and the Upper West Side, were raising money for compostable trays through their parent-teacher associations. Cafeteria Culture began working with P.S. 15 three years ago when they were piloting a Plastic Free Waters program. The organization received a grant from EPA Region 2 to work in three schools and pilot educations specifically around marine plastic pollution issues. “We wanted to develop something very hands-on that also took kids out into the community that included citizen science, but also [something that] gave students the opportunity to debate the issues, take their data and go to their policy makers and government agencies, and accelerate change on a local level,” Cohen explained. One of the curriculum’s community-based projects was taking a class field trip to Jamaica Bay to compare street litter data and beach litter data. Fifth graders spoke with the National Park Service and learned about local combined sewer overflow issues. They also collected microplastics from dirt and water samples at Valentino Pier during another trip.

GETTING RECOGNITION FROM THE CITY Cohen said those students also spoke with officials from the Department of Sanitation, recorded and broke up their data, and gave different reasons why there should be recycling bins in Red Hook. The students later organized a rally of 200 students from across NYC at City Hall on May 30, 2018. They shared their data, showed samples of how plastic degrades in the ocean, and spoke up for the original Styrofoam ban that was first passed in Dec. 2013 by the City Council.

Red Hook Star-Revue

“[The rally] helped our students learn, not only is their voice important, but also heard by elected officials,” said 5th grade teacher Ieman Elzoghby who helped spearhead organizing the event. “In addition to the clear environ-

P.S. 15 and Cafeteria Culture break down the ecological cycle of plastics for kids.

mental role these students played, I’m also hoping they learned a little about how our government works.” A judge upheld the ban a week after the rally on World Oceans Day (June 8). “It was amazing to see their efforts pay off,” said 5th grade teacher Sara Popow, whose class worked with Cafeteria Culture last year. “Cafeteria Culture did an amazing job guiding our students to becoming advocates for causes they believe in.” P.S. 15 alumna Maggie Dalencour, who is now a 6th grader at Brooklyn Urban Garden Charter School (BUGS), started working with Cafeteria Culture three years ago when she was a 3rd grader. She shared her experiences and thoughts with other students and parents at Citizen Squirrel’s Civic Engagement Workshop for Families with Young Children (held on Jan. 23, 2019 at M.S. 51). “I’ve learned a lot of things, not just the cycle of Styrofoam and plastics,” Dalencour told the RHSR. “I’ve also learned how to communicate with my peers better; I was kind of quiet, but it gave me a way to open up.” “My school is very big on ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ and we talked a lot about the Styrofoam ban in classes, so I think a lot of Cafeteria Culture carried on to my new school,” Dalencour said.

FUTURE PLANS Cohen said one of Cafeteria Culture’s goals is to share free piloted curriculum, so “teachers can easily use it and help drive change forward from the ground up in schools and get students interested.” They also hope to continue building upon what was done at P.S. 15 with middle schools in Red Hook. And just because P.S. 15 made big strides doesn’t mean their time with Cafeteria Culture is over – the organization’s currently working with the 5th grade. They’re doing a small pilot

program that’s about plate waste and looks at the connection between the amount of food waste in school cafeteria and plastic packaging. Cafeteria Culture is also producing a feature-length documentary called “Breaking It Down - Brooklyn Kids Take on Microplastic Pollution,” which details P.S. 15 students’ two-year-long journey in the Plastic Free Waters program. Cohen said the intention is to share this movie with companion curriculum for teachers all over the country. “We’re ready to build a youth

movement/campaign for plasticfree waters because we think what they did, and what they did with the support of their teachers and school, can spark a movement nationally,” she said. Cohen explained that “Breaking It Down” will be shared for free as a YouTube and Vimeo series in the future. The movie will be broken down into five chapters – with each chapter having its own set curriculum. “Breaking It Down” is set to premiere in April.

ESTATE PLANNING ELDER CARE SPECIAL NEEDS • Wills • Trusts • Health Proxies  • Power of A�orney • Special Needs • Life Estate Deeds • Asset Guardianship • Medicaid

ROBIN N. GOEMAN A�orney At Law

718 866-5373

robin@goemanlaw.com

Everyone Needs A Plan

*Free half hour phone consulta�on *

www. Goemanlaw.com 26 Court Street, Ste 913 Brooklyn, NY 11242

www.star-revue.com

February 2019, Page 9

PS 15 still seeking buses for field trips, by Nathan Weiser

S 15, The Patrick F Daly School of the Arts Red Hook’s elementary school on Sullivan Street, needs buses from the MTA so its students can go on field trips. The school at 71 Sullivan Street is about a 20-minute walk from the closest train station. Field trips that would be helpful for the kids are very difficult for the school to take. Cateia Rembert, whose son is in the 4th grade and in his first year at the school, started her effort on this project in November joining other parents working on increasing bus access last year. Rembert found out from an MTA customer service representative that they have charter buses that are potentially available for use so she and the school hope to have access to one of those to take kids to the train station. Another option would be free bus passes. “We would be happy if we could get on our local buses, the B61 and B57, for free,” Rembert said. “I mean there would be a lot of us. One class is 30 something kids with a few chaperones. I don’t know how that would work, that is why we thought a charter of some sort.”

Traveling with a whole grade level at a time could take up the whole city bus, which makes a bus dedicated for PS 15 necessary. “We are open to all options at this point, so we could get the kids out and experiencing field trips,” Rembert said. The MTA has said no so far, regarding the bus access, but Rembert is not sure if she was contacting the right person. This was the representative’s response: “We regret to inform you that there are no free-transportation privileges for groups of students on MTA New York City Transit buses or MTA Bus Company buses.” Rembert has been in contact with Riders Alliance hoping they could assist their efforts. Their focus is to advocate for better bus service in different boroughs especially concerning low income families or organizations that need better service. Yellow school buses, which are another possible option for getting to the Smith 9th Street station, are not realistic because those buses can’t get to the school until 9:30 am, which is too late, due to the 2:30 pm dismissal time. This does not give them enough

time to enjoy a field trip location since they would have to leave by noon and might not arrive until 10:30 or 11:00. They have used the yellow buses in the past but that is a last resort. Another drawback of the yellow buses is the safety hazards that they present. “The seat belts are broken most of the time and they are in horrible condition,” Rembert said. “It is not safe in many ways so many parents do not want to go with that option. We definitely need something better. We were hoping the MTA would work with us considering the uniqueness of where we are and our school as a whole, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.” The school would like to take its students the Brooklyn Children’s museum among other museums, the botanic gardens, the zoo as well as other landmarks that could be beneficial for the students. Since PS 15 not a private school, it does not have the funds to pay for a private charter bus. They are dependent on the MTA and the yellow bus, which isn’t safe. “We should have an option that is safe and reliable, and it should

not matter that the majority of students are from a low-income family,” Rembert said about the need for bus service. “I feel that because of that fact, we are being overlooked at it is bothersome. There is more that can be done with the MTA considering where we are located and the uniqueness of the school and the work we are doing.” Lambert, who has lived in Red Hook for over 10 years, initially had her son go to PS 32 in Carroll Gardens, and then had her son home schooled for a few years after he was unfortunately bullied. Before coming to PS 15, David enjoyed dance class at Cora Dance at 358 Van Brunt St and he also enjoyed often playing at the PS 15 playground and made many friends through doing that. As a result of these positive experiences, they decided that they should give PS 15 a chance back in September. “We love it here,” Lambert added about PS 15. “We have so many obstacles from budgeting to transportation. There is just so much going on. It is such an amazing school that is just overlooked in so many areas.”

Actor Gary Sinise launches book at Friends of Firefighters

he Friends of Firefighters (199 Van Brunt Street) will host Gary Sinise’s firehouse dinner and book launch for Grateful American on February 10. The VIP Dinner will go from 5:00 to 6:30 and the program will start at 7:15 and go until 8:15 pm. Sinise, who is an award-winning film and TV actor/humanitarian, and the Friends of Firefighters invite everyone to this special firefighter-prepared dinner to celebrate Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service (Publish Date: February 12).

The VIP Dinner will be followed by a book discussion and Q&A of Sinise’s life and work, with Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade, as well as performances by FDNY Ceremonial Unit Color Guard, FDNY Emerald Society Pipes & Drums, and U.S. Marine Corps Veteran and Gotham actor J.W. Cortes. This is his only book tour stop in NYC. The VIP Dinner is limited to the first 30 people and the live signing, book presentation and Q&A is limited to the first 50 people. The $250 ticket includes an intimate meal with Sinise, catered by

FDNY firefighters, including Master Chef finalist Chef Eric Howard, as well as a photo opportunity with Sinise, VIP seating for the program, a signed book and a Friends of Firefighters t-shirt. There will be a limited amount of program-only $50 tickets that will be available. This will include the book discussion and a signed book. In Grateful American, Sinise shares the story of his journey from a trouble-making Chicago kid, to cofounder of the Steppenwolf Theater Company, world-famous actor and tireless advocate for America’s

Gowanus by Design Discusses Rezoning Framework Before Big Meeting Story and photo by Erin DeGregorio Gowanus by Design, a local non-profit urban design advocacy, made a presentation at Community Board 6’s Landmarks & Land Use committee meeting held on Jan. 24. Team leader David Briggs talked about some of the goals and impacts of NYC Department of City Planning (DCP)’s Gowanus Rezoning Framework. “What we’re trying to do is give the community a tool and some information, so that when information comes to us we can evaluate it with some simple metrics,” he said.

“Gowanus: A Framework for a Sustainable, Inclusive, Mixed-Use Neighborhood,” which has seven chapters for different community priorities, was published by City Planning (DCP) in June 2018. It outlines the community’s and DCP’s goals and offers ideas about policies and investments to “achieve a thriving, more resilient neighborhood.” Briggs began with the advocacy’s mission statement, which is: whatever urban growth happens in the community should be sustain-

able and inclusive. He noted that the pros to the framework were affordable housing, public open space, mixed use, increased resiliency and improved mobility. Some risks, however, included loss of the neighborhood’s historical character, overcrowding, and insufficient capacity to existing infrastructure (particularly transportation and schools). Four schools were over capacity by 300 students as of Oct. 2017. Briggs determined that, if schools get built within the proposed framework, 6,000 and 7,600 seats

active duty defenders, veterans and first responders. He founded the Gary Sinise Foundation with a mission to serve and honor American’s defenders, veterans, first responders, their families and those in need. Funds raised from Sinise’s Firehouse Dinner and Book Launch will allow Friends of Firefighters to continue their mission of providing independent, confidential and free counseling and wellness to active and retired FDNY firefighters and their family.

will be needed, based on low-density and high-density dwelling unit predictions respectively. In terms of subway transportation, Gowanus by Design also projected that 12,300 additional riders could be expected. “This is a starting point and we want to have more conversations about [the framework],” Briggs later added. DCP, who was invited to this committee meeting by Briggs, did not attend. The next chapter in this elongated planning process, which will end up with walls of 17 story luxury residential towers, will release the follow-up Draft Zoning Proposal at the “Next Steps in Planning for Gowanus” meeting this Wednesday, Feb. 6. It will be held at P.S. 32 (317 Hoyt Street), 6-8 pm. The public is invited.

RED HOOK STREETSCAPE EMBODIES PARANOIA IN LOCAL SHORT FILM By Brett Yates

n January 9, the NewFilmmakers Series at Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan screened Followed, a short by local filmmaker Georg Schmithüsen. New York’s longest-running yearround film festival, NewFilmmakers holds weekly events in the East Village, showing hundreds of movies a year by up-and-coming directors. A cryptic, visually expressive portrait of psychological instability, Followed begins at night at Pier 44, where a man (Vincent Sicilio) spots a woman (Tia Andriani) and follows her through the shadowy streets of Red Hook to a bar. In the midst of their subsequent romantic encounter, a violent memory or hallucination of an older man, played by Bait and Tackle owner Barry O’Meara, invades the mind of the protagonist, who increasingly feels stalked by this enigmatic presence. “I just kind of let my subconscious write,” Schmithüsen described. “I just used notes on my phone. I kept it very simple on purpose and wrote whatever came into my head without judging it or trying to make a ‘screenplay’ out of it.” According to Schmithüsen, the story reflects the vulnerabilities – the self-doubt and buried trauma – that can surface during physical and emotional intimacy, but much of the film, which has the qual-

Skin deep

n my experience, middle schoolers are often pragmatic, logical beings. Each Friday, I teach current events to my sixth graders. This leads to fascinating discussions as I get to see the cogs turning inside each young brain, unencumbered by the desire to look or sound smart. Middle schoolers might not have a large repository of information to draw from, but this leads to impulsive responses based on what they think is right and wrong, what they’ve been taught at home, or possibly, an individual opinion they’ve formed. Eleven-year olds, at least at my school, a Yeshivah populated almost exclusively by Syrian Jews, speak their minds. On a memorable afternoon, a student of mine, Sarah, spoke passionately about Ava DuVernay, the female African American film director who received the first Golden Globe nomination for Selma. Sarah mentioned how her own sister is fair skinned with blonde hair and blues eyes, while she has darker skin hair and eyes. Looking vaguely embarrassed, as if to make her point, Sarah shared with the

Red Hook Star-Revue

ity of a dream or nightmare, is left open to interpretation, including the identity of its unreliable narrator and, especially, the reality of the character played by O’Meara. Local viewers will recognize O’Meara as the former owner of the Bait & Tackle, of which the movie, shot shortly before the bar’s closing, provides one last nostalgic glimpse. A no-budget production, Followed has style and atmosphere thanks to Schmithüsen’s editing and his camerawork, for which he used a Sony Alpha 7 II. With only one other crew member (who functioned as the director’s “bodyguard” and “helped schlepping stuff”), he utilized available light like streetlights and bedside lamps and filmed several scenes inside his own Van Brunt Street apartment. The absence of a sound mixer necessitated some dubbing in postproduction. “A lot of times, it was just me and Vincent on the streets. We just kind of waited till nobody was around and shot wherever we wanted to go,” he recalled. The filming of the 18-minute short took almost a year. None of the three cast members had had extensive experience in film acting. Sicilio, who works at Pioneer Works, was the brother of Schmithüsen’s former upstairs neighbor. Schmithüsen met Andriani while eating at Mimi’s Hummus in Ditmas Park, where she

Above: Vincent Sicilio and Tia Andriani in Followed. Right: Followed ofﬁcial poster. waited tables. “I never saw any of these guys act before I hired them,” Schmithüsen admitted. The score, composed by Jeremy Blackman (who, as a child actor, appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia), borrows from Blackman’s 2014 album Verstiegenheit, recorded under the pseudonym William Irish. Blackman worked with Schmithüsen’s wife at the local cafe Rita. A native of Aachen, Germany, Schmithüsen came to the United States as a ballet student but, after a back injury, embraced film. He’s worked primarily as a location scout for movies like Café Society and Wanted and TV shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Person of Interest. In 1991, he earned his first professional credit, as a camera assistant, for the crime drama Straight Out of Brooklyn, which, coincidentally, was shot in Red Hook. A few years later, he directed his own self-financed debut fea-

ture, shot on expensive 16mm film stock. Unable to recoup costs, he retreated temporarily from directing, focusing on writing scripts. To save money, he also moved from the West Village to Red Hook, where he’s now lived for 18 years. Followed had its first screening at Hometown Bar-B-Que, with a crowd of about a hundred friends and neighbors. Schmithüsen has submitted it to a number of film festivals and is now waiting on responses.

By Kelsey Liebenson-Morse class, “My dad says I’m his middle eastern princess.” “It’s just not fair,” she continued, her voice getting higher and higher. “To judge people based on

the U.S. map and traced my finger across the border between the U.S. and Mexico my students exclaimed, “It’s so big!” When I explained that Trump was proposing

In one class, a few students suggested that their hired help would suddenly disappear if the wall was to go up. their skin color. They can’t help it.” She struggled with saying what she meant, what she felt, unable to sufficiently draw a connection between her dark skin and what it meant for a female African American director to come into the limelight. ”I…..I just….” she trailed off, wringing her hands in exasperation. “Maybe you understand DuVernay,” I asked gently? My student looked relieved, and nodded. I wrote: “Empathy” on the board in big letters. Last week, when I pulled down

to build a wall to separate us from Mexico, to keep immigrants out, the majority of my students looked skeptical. “But wouldn’t you just go around?” one student asked quizzically. “Couldn’t you just fly here?” another student asked. “What would the wall be made out of?” asked another. One student raised his hand, clearly agitated. “But why don’t we just use the money to help the Mexicans, instead of try to keep them out?” he said. “We could give them food and money!” he exclaimed. I could’ve hugged his sen-

www.star-revue.com

sitive liberal self. This generosity of spirit did not extend to all seven of my classes. In one class, a few students suggested that their hired help would suddenly disappear if the wall was to go up. “Well, do you know what country your housekeeper is from?” I asked. “It’s also very likely your housekeeper is a U.S. citizen,” I added, somewhat lamely. Another student said, in a voice I imagined to be his father’s, “Mexicans do bad things. They sell drugs and steal.” I nodded, hating myself for remaining neutral when I wanted to say: “You’re wrong.” I wanted to say that illegal immigration is at an all-time low, and that the majority of people who enter America do so legally. Furthermore, I wanted to point out that most of my students, aforementioned student included, are the children of immigrants, families who left Syria to pursue a better life in America, a life where they could be Jewish without repercussions. When I drew a chart on the board, “for” and “against” the wall, against won out in most classes, but by a slim margin.

February 2019, Page 11

STARREVUE ARTS

art, culture, books and more fun stuff from brooklyn and beyond

SAY HELLO TO PIONEER WORKS 2019 RESIDENTS Photos courtesy of the artists

BY CHRISTIEN SHANGRAW AND MATT CAPRIOLI

ow in its 7th year, Pioneer Works continues to find trend-defying artists. We wanted to forecast a few artist we’re especially excited to see and hear from. The music residents range from the classic virtuoso of Yumi Kurosawa to the powerhouse vocals of Quenton Stuckey. The visual residents show socially engaged artwork with piercing insight and visuals that keep pulsating when out of view. Each residents receives a commission from Pioneer Works and generous space in the studio. The glass space fosters a community vibe where cross pollination is encouraged. The Red Hook community is welcome to meet current residents during PW’s Second Sunday program, where the sprawling space is open to the public 4-9pm. This month’s Second Sunday is Feb 10, and features music by The Sunwatchers.

FEATURE

PW’S 2019 MUSIC RESIDENTS by Christien Shangraw As they’ve done each year since 2012, Pioneer Works will welcome new artists-in-residence in music throughout 2019. Their mission is to create of a community that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries and activate alternative modes of thought. The monthlong residencies are invitation-only and based on peer review, and this year’s crop of artists reflects the high standards and inclusive spirit

Rachel Cline’s new book looks at MeToo page 16 Red Hook Star-Revue

of the place. None of the incoming artists could be described simply as a practitioner of a form, or master of an instrument. They draw variously upon musical forms, instrumentation, recording techniques, critical theory, visual arts, aroma, and other media and ideas, alongside more traditional disciplines such as cinema, feminism, and cultural geography--these things and more in countless permutations.

MV CARBON

MV Carbon (February 2019) incorporates sculptural sound objects, gongs, amplified objects, oscillators, and various hand-constructed instruments with her primary instrument, the electric cello.

through momentum,” she writes. “The cello resonates like a human voice and I often let it speak for itself. I am interested in activating and enhancing the sonic and architectural features of a given space.” The effect is to challenge the definition of a musical instrument, and in performance, to “heighten our senses through spatial, psychic, and temporal based explorations.” See MV Carbon at Pioneer Works on Monday, Feb 25, along with Nate Wooley’s Columbia Icefield.

LUISA MUHR

Luisa Muhr (April 2019) is an accomplished vocalist-turned multidisciplinary artist. She’s Austrian by birth and comes to New York by way of a productive artistic tenure

“I find music within form by producing patterns onto objects

REVIEWS

Bird Box, Vice, Cold War, Echo www.star-revue.com

Continued on next page

CALENDAR

Good stuff to do! page17

page 24 February 2019, Page 13

NEW RESIDENTS continued from previous page in Montreal. She’s a Brooklyn resident and is no stranger to Red Hook, having performed at Jalopy Theater. “Most of my friends perform the all the time. A very homey and dear place. Will be a bit easier for me to get there from time to time now that I’ll be working at pioneer works!” She has no shortage of ideas for the recording studio, with plans to explore it as a rehearsal space and a movement space as well. “My brain thinks in a combinations of disciplines,” she says. “I have a bit of synesthesia. I see music visually and sometimes I hear visual experiences.” While she’s “mainly a vocalist,” her list of accomplishments is awfully diverse and lengthy for a 29-year old. She’s collaborated with artists like Ashley Fure, Kenneth Goldsmith, Frank London, Arturo O’Farrill, and John Zorn. Her experimental full-length solo “performance collage” Anna ran at the Austrian Cultural Forum in June of 2018 and just three months later she performed in the world premiere of Ashley Fure’s “Filament” with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, as part of the vocalmovement ensemble Constellation Chor (lead by Marisa Michelson).

She’s currently developing an opera with six-time Grammy winner Arturo O’Farrill, and she’s performed at venues such as The Jewish Museum, The Stone, Park Avenue Armory, Judson Memorial Church, The New School Glass Box Theater, and the Albright Knox Art Gallery. And she shows no sign of slowing down now. “I will be working a lot and very hard. I always do, honestly. Work is basically what I do, like, 24/7. I sleep not enough and miss out of a lot of amazing things happening, but the constantly working part is fine - the upside is that work is my main life, my main center.” Luisa’s own performing arts company is called FENGARI, through which she runs her series Women Between Arts, which fosters multiand interdisciplinary performance among women. “I run Women Between Arts through FENGARI Works,” she says. “But that distinction has become somewhat arbitrary, because they’re both basically me.”

ZIEMBA

Ziemba (March 2019) is the performance moniker of NYC-based musician, composer, perfumer, and feminist geographer Rene Kladzyk. She reports no memories before singing. “My mom and dad said I

“Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.” ~Rosa Parks

Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pie www.keylime.com 718-858-5333 inquiry@keylime.com

Page 14 Red Hook Star-Revue

was singing when I began talking. I feel very fully myself when I’m singing; it’s fundamental to my identity.” While Ziemba’s work seems organically nondiscriminatory regarding what she allows it to be impacted and informed by, the principal three-way collision in her work seems to have happened among vocal performance, feminist geography, and scent.” When asked about how she first discovered the possibilities inherent in combining conventionally separate disciplines such as sound and smell, or smell sound, and movement, geography and feminism, etc., she offered that, “I think that perhaps my background in geography is responsible for me never really considering these disciplines as separate. In geography, for example, you can study any phenomenon on earth and it can be geography, which is really about perspective; you’re paying attention to spatial and temporal connections. I studied this with Amy Lobben, a geographer who works a lot in neurology, how the brain processes spatial information. I worked with her on tactile mapping software for blind people, who develop spatial maps differently than the rest of us, who see the world in a very ocular-centric way. It wasn’t a direct mentor-type relationship--I was just a research assistant, but it’s insinuated itself into my work. Of course I like performance because it’s an opportunity to create while immersed, and immersive experience. And fragrance was kind of a new discovery for me, something I didn’t grow up with or anything. I first explored fragrance when my dog was dying and I used aromatherapy and found that it really worked.” Ziemba has a newly-released song and video for, “El Paso,” which explores the underground history of the U.S./Mexico border. Her debut album, Hope Is Never, was accompanied by scents that bloomed from the flowers that grew in the garden of her childhood home. She has composed for the Fire Organ, a fascinating contraption built by Guerrilla Science, who fabricate art/science/education inventions for diverse factions from The Smithsonian to Burning Man. They call the Fire Organ, “the ultimate analog sound visualizer.” Using any sort of sound input, it demonstrates the shape and movement of sound waves through a dance of flames. It’s worth checking out. During her month-long residence, Ziemba will be writing new material and working on fragrances, but mostly recording new music. “I don’t want to be more specific than that because I don’t want to let anybody know what I’m up to yet.” After a pregnant pause, she added, “Well I will say this. There will be a full choir and a pretty eclectic group of musicians--harp, bass, clarinet, flute. synthesizers. There will be multiple fragrances, many costumes. She’ll perform at

www.star-revue.com

the Second Sunday on April 14th, presenting the first full-length, multi sensory musical performance of her new album, ARDIS.

LUCAS CRANE

G. Lucas Crane says that the simplest, most accessible way to understand him is as a “tapemanipulation artist.” He started recording sound on tapes (actual tapes, like cassette tapes, remember those?) when was in college & has continued to do so for more than a decade. It means he has to lug around a huge crate of tapes all the time, but he says that this laborious physicality is a critical part of his process. He describes it as a kind of low-tech approach to memory and sound as it lives as a diary of reality. “My tape equipment requires me to be in a certain rhythm, actually pick up a tape and insert it into the machine, and physically engage with the past and the present at once - there’s less of the multilayered user interfaces that you get with today’s technology. It’s like an interweaving of time itself.” Mr. Crane was raised in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, so his residency at Pioneer Works is a homecoming of sorts for him. “I live in Brooklyn now and I’m from Brooklyn originally. I spent a lot of time in Red Hook as a child, so when I’m at Pioneer Works it’s like I’m visiting my childhood home, back when Brooklyn was gnarly and my Dad had an art studio in the neighborhood. It’s great.” He has an intense way of talking about his work, which lately seems to stem from a deep reading of the work of William S. Burroughs in general, and the Nova Trilogy in particular. In this trilogy, as in his most famous work, Naked Lunch, Burroughs undertook a radical reinvention of the narrative form that used the “Cut-Up Technique” that Burroughs developed with artist Brion Gysin. The technique involves cutting up text and rearranging it to form a new text, a sort of association by disassociation. The relationship to splicing and reordering sound recordings, particularly analog ones, is had to miss. “The bare fact of being able to record something, cut it, insert something into it - the physicality of being able to insert the reality of one time into another time is pure magic to me - even though we’re all walking around with sound studios in our pockets we take it for granted; we often don’t know how to distinguish where the reality of the work begins and ends. I mean, the needs of the machine were different at the time it was invented.” While he’s in residency at Pioneer Works, he’ll focus on Decoder 2017, a piece directly informed by his study of Nova Express. “It has three parts,” he says. “Each associated with one of the three parts of Nova. Our goal is to use Pioneer Work’s studio and facilities to get

Continued on the following page February 2019

PW Continued as good a recording as we can of The Ticket That Exploded [the first novel in the trilogy].Doing it live we never get good recordings; we always f- at least one little part of it up! Decoder 17, which will be featured at Pioneer Works’ Second Sundays event on July 14, 2019, is, he says, “as much about engaging with my physicality at the time of creation as it is about anything. As a veteran of several bands, including Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, he seems like less a conceptualist and more engaged with the idea of what he calls, “being in the moment and doing the thing on stage as it happens. You don’t have to do a lot. I appreciate being able to come up with the work in these contexts as an artist.”

PW’S 2019 VISUAL ART RESIDENTS By Matt Caprioli

AVRAM FINKELSTEIN

The work of AIDS activist and artist Avram Finkelstein has always been political. His parents were members of the American communist party when he grew up in Red Hook Houses. “My grandmother was to the left of Ethel Rosenberg.” As a co-founder of Silence=Death (1987-1993), Finkelstein created collaborative, socially-engaged images and performances that effectively brought global attention to the nation’s complicitness in the growth of HIV/AIDS. The group’s artefacts are now represented at MoMA, The Met, The Whitney, and countless other museums. Two years ago, UC Berkeley Press published Finkelstein’s “After Silence: A History of AIDS Through its Images,” which complicates the victim-to-hero tale of the AIDS crisis by looking at the continued prosperity of big pharma. His experience of art-making in turbulent times drew the curator and sculptor Will Corwin to interview him for Clocktower Radio, the regular broadcast housed in Pioneer Works. In 2017, he joined PW and The Yes Men WTF: What We We Do Now?. He toured with founder, Dustin Yellin, the mammoth art space. “I was so impressed with how concrete and comprehensive his ideas were about what might constitute an at space and the responsibilities it has to participate in the communities that surround it.” He plans to make good use of PW’s extensive space and technology.

generous and the labs are exactly what I need to produce the body of work.”

bridge, connecting the past with the present, the internal with the external.”

Finkelstein calls the work a sort “Jacquard Billboard,” a blend of the early 18th century Jacquard Loom that greatly accelerated the weaving process.

The process of photographing, moving the subject, then photographing again of course demands a lot of patience. He made it slightly more complex and figurative with he decided to paint memories of his commute against a wall then produce a stop-action film in the end. The result “At the Same Moment” (2013) resonated with thousands when it was screen on several major screens at midnight, a project of Times Square Arts.

“The Jacquard loom was like a punch card system,” Finkelstein says. “It worked on a zero and ones that early computer programming worked on. It’s not unrelated to how we think of digital production, but this particular work is about gender.” Finkelstein will be continuing the work of forwarding voices from previous generations, as his past oral history projects did. “I think of our social spaces as folk spaces. They are communal spaces whether we like that or not, or the way it represents how we think about communities. The handing down of traditional ideas about ourselves is very much a part of how social spaces function. As a Jew and as a queer, it’s particularly true. How we think about our elder tribespeople, for lack of a better description, is an essential part of how we constitute our identities.”

EZRA WUBE

The Ethiopian, Brooklyn-based mixed media artist Ezra Wube makes beautiful juxtapositions of time and place. After finishing graduate studies at Hunter College, Wube made “Indamora” (2009) a mysterious stop-action film where Sumi ink is poured on glass to make quasi-words that our poured away. Construction workers in bright right and yellow move about behind a window made opaque through acetate. “The purpose of documentation is not to preserve,” Wube writes on his website, “but to serve as a

improve your written identity!” Her work is coated with a genteel absurdism that initially downplays the insight it locates. Chao routinely captures the absurdity of many rituals that seek to mask the overwhelming inequalities in daily actions. There’s an ickiness that begins to sink into the viewer, a weightfulness upon realizing Chao is describing their everyday. Chao describes herself as one who prefers to work with people who don’t frequent art museums; it’s a social stance that meshes well with the community-oriented vibes of Pioneer Works.

Sounds became more rushing and integral to his work in “Pattern Synthesis” (2018). Designed for Manhattan’s Children’s Museum, the animation takes hundreds of patterned canvases, mostly of white, black, and silver, and adds the sound of a lobby and mysteriously that of the ocean.

Along with Josephine Devanbu, the RISD Presidential Scholar started, “Look at Art. Get Paid,” a trenchant evaluation of who really has access to museums and what purpose they serve.

Wube is a global connector whose work has a present at communitydriven sites like Pioneer Works by in South Korea, France, Senegal, and Brazil.

MAIA CHAO

The interdisciplinary artist Maia Chao studied cultural anthropology, and it shows. Whether dragging the desk of a white guy on his computer (Myth of Meritocracy, 2018)) or naming blobs of glass after routine and asinine questions part of the hiring process (Hiring, 2017), Chao’s performances highlight the lunacy of behavioral scripts. In “Point of Purchase (POP),” Chao acts as a smiling service attendant, responding to people through windows that mirror the “customer,” asking for their keys and just to shrink wrap them, handing people a nonsensical brochure with the headline -- “try out these tips to

Chao notes that free days tends to serve people who already are positioned to visit a museum. The project gives cash to people who rarely visit museums as a “guest critic,” all with the hope of asking this vital question: “How can the museum be enlightened by those who are not presently served by it?” The ethos of her work couldn’t find a more productive home than Pioneer Works. Check out Pioneer Works’ at www. pioneerworks.org for more information on the artists-in-residents in music, technology, and visual arts, and for one of their great gifts to Red Hook and the surrounding community of Brooklyn and New York City in general: Second Sundays. Second Sundays is a free event series presented on the second Sunday of every month featuring open studios with current artists in residence, live music, exhibitions and participatory programs exploring art, science, technology and education.

Healing & Recovery in an Urban Setting C R E AT I N G A C O N T I N U U M O F C A R E I N R E A L L I F E S I T U AT I O N S

Urban Recovery provides residential treatment for a myriad of conditions with a primary emphasis on substance use disorders. Our new facility, just steps from Brooklyn’s waterfront, offers a level of comfort, compassion and privacy our clientele deserves. URBAN RECOVERY IS NOW OPEN AND ACCEPTING CLIENTS

T O S C H E D U L E A P R I VAT E C O N S U LTAT I O N P L E A S E C A L L ( 6 4 6 ) 9 6 0 - 6 6 5 6 U R B A N R E C O V E R Y. C O M | A D M I S S I O N S @ U R B A N R E C O V E R Y. C O M

“The space at Pioneer Works is so

Red Hook Star-Revue

www.star-revue.com

February 2019, Page 15

FEATURE

The author at 14

Author Rachel Cline’s new book looks at MeToo — years before the movement started by Matt Caprioli

RACHEL CLINE wrote the first page of what’s now described as a MeToo novel nine years before Christine Blasey-Ford testified. “At last everyone is seeing how ubiquitous this experience is,” Cline, who was born and raised in Brooklyn Heights, says. “Especially when people spoke who don’t often reveal themselves. The consequences are not all good. It was a moment that had to happen and needs to continue to happen.” The good, painful, and ambiguous consequences of MeToo is the subject of Cline’s third novel, The Question Authority, which is slated HE NOVELIST

Page 16 Red Hook Star-Revue

for publication on April 18. The title comes from the well-worn slogan — question authority — that Cline grew up with in the ‘60s and ‘70s when she went to an elite private school. The “question authority” button was even worn by her 25-year-old male teacher whose well-known secret was having sex with girls 14-16. “We didn’t have a concept that a guy of 25 could be a pedophile,” Cline says, even as she grew up in very liberal circles where America was occasionally spelled with a K to remember its barbaric origins. “That wasn’t a thing. He was just a randy, young dude.”

The Question Authority alternates between the 1970s and 2009. The protagonist, Nora Buchbinder, has just lost her fortune in the 2008 financial collapse. She reunites with a childhood friend, Beth, to figure out if their eighth-grade teacher could be called her lover or her rapist. “You have empathy for these girls. You hear these young girls saying this was my choice, I love him and he loves me, and you want to honor their agency, but you know that 30 years down the road they may look at that very differently.” If the title, The Question Authority, is an odd one, it’s because it reflects the girls confusion in experiencing this reality, and their nascent reckoning decades later. “If you want to get on with your life, and who doesn’t want that, it’s easy to diminish the importance of things that are really stuck deep in your soul.” Though she wasn’t involved with an older authority figure, the question of consent, power, and justice has haunted Cline ever since. With the R. Kelly documentary looming large in the background, the question remains just as pressing. Kelly was 27 when he married Aaliyah, then 15. “There’s almost this lifecycle in adulthood in your ability to understand what happened to you as a young person. Even in your 20s, you think you’re an adult and you can do all the things an adult can

www.star-revue.com

do and you have that intellectual capacity, but your sense of significance of events in your life, you just lacked the perception to understand what impact something has had on you.” Cline, the novelist of the criticallylauded “What to Keep” (2003) and “Big Liar” (2008), has been churning through the experience her entire life. Though the teacher clearly took advantage of young women, he was also an inspiring figure. Cline credits him with sparking her love of writing. “This guy was a scoundrel, but he was also a tremendously influential teacher. He taught me to write.” Her goal with The Question Authority was to see all perspectives of the issue, the benign and the menacing. The perpetrator is young and married with children. Cline looks at how his actions impacted that family. Nora and Beth consider how the wife may have enabled the young teacher. Getting in the head of the perpetrator was essential for Cline; she even writes a couple chapters from his perspective. “If I can get inside the head of the perpetrator, I get it. They feel like they’re just doing what the culture told them to do. it was normative five seconds ago. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the diseases that are part of America.” Cline is of the opinion that whatever form of justice should come from the victims, but she admits the issue gets complicated with teenagers and the power to consent. She still doesn’t have all the answers, but says there is power in giving people space to even conceive of themselves as aggrieved upon, and to question the dynamics behind even well-intentioned actors sporting feel-good slogans. Throughout The Question Authority, Cline refers to pop songs that lazily praise the idea that older men should poach and score girls 15-17. In letting her characters revisit their childhood as mature women, she wants us to face the most pressing questions that MeToo raised: how is inequality truly seen, what does justice look like, what good does questioning authority do when the authority is so skilled at dodging questions? The Question Authority will be published by Red Hen Press on April 18.

February 2019

REVIEWS

What do Bird Box’s creatures show that makes people want to die? Bird Box, probably by Matt Caprioli Netflix says that at least 45 million people saw Bird Box in its first week. If they’re not lying, they’re criminals--they just confessed to wasting the equivalent of 146 human lifetimes. In a just world, I wouldn’t even review this movie-it’s just a A Quiet Place knock-off, like those Transmorphers straight-

FILM:

Vice; Cold War by Briana Murphy

VICE

to-DVD movies that only get made to grift gift-shopping grandmas. The only difference is that the producers of that garbage don’t pretend not to be hacks, while Bird Box was slapped together by people I had sincerely believed knew better. At its core, Bird Box has nothing but contempt for you. It thinks that you’re the dumbest person it has ever met and is so focused on condescendingly leading you by the nose (because it’s worried that you’ll get lost if it lets go for even a second) that it doesn’t look where it’s going and tumbles down a ravine to its death. The rapids are dangerous, especially for children. How do I know? Because the movie tells you five separate times. Why do they lug around the eponymous Box of Birds when

Cheney’s political career, from his expulsion from Yale to the beginnings of his long-standing relationship with Donald Rumsfeld in the Nixon administration, to his role as vice-president from 2000 to 2008. If that sounds like a lot to cover, it’s because it is.

Adam Mckay’s latest film “Vice” begins with a dramatically posed question from an unspecified narrator: how is a man Like Martin Scorsese’s like Dick Cheney (played unconscionable threeby Christian Bale)- a man Vice Photo: Annapurna Pictures hour re-telling of the who as the vice-presicrimes committed by dent expanded executive penny-stockbroker Jordan Belfort power and drastically increased in The Wolf of Wall Street, Mckay’s America’s foreign influence almost film doesn’t constitute any sort of invisibly-made? critique of Cheney’s actions. It simply For all its initial emphasis on airs them, despite the fact that much Cheney’s subtlety and self-erasure of the history is (very recent) public from politics, the film mirrors none record. Rather than engage with the of that in its telling of the story. multitude of sins Cheney committed Nor does it really even broach the during his long career in politics, the subject of Cheney’s evolution into film simply assumes that viewers a seemingly amoral demagogue, vaguely agree that things done in the despite promising to do so in the Bush administration were “bad” and first scene. What follows is two moves on. The entire film is an ironic hours of a heavy-handed, superwink to the audience - it doesn’t feel ficial, boxticking account of Dick obligated to convince anyone.

Echo at Brooklyn Israel Film Festival by Shayna Goodman

At the Brooklyn Israel Film Festival, hosted at Kane Street Synagogue in Carroll Gardens, you’ll find an intergenerational crowd of Brooklynites. Young parents mingle with octogenarians in kippot in a rec room, full to the brim. One can assume that there is by no means a consensus in the viewing room on current politics in the region. Yet they are brought together by an interest in art from the region. The festival opened with a screening of “The Siege” (Gilberto Tofano, 1969), made soon after the Six Day War. In 1969, the new state was celebrating a surprise victory, yet the film focuses on the fallout of that event: the suffering of a war widow, played by Gila Almagor. As Almagor plays a woman struggling to find an appropriate way to cope with her personal loss, the audience is asked to reflect on the collective trauma of a fragile nation.

Red Hook Star-Revue

Photo courtesy of Netflix

they do not actually do anything, other than get stuffed in a freezer? Shush, little one, you’re interrupting storytime. Because of the harebrained decision to start this “horror” movie in medias res, you know within the first fifteen minutes that every other character you meet is going to die, and so you shouldn’t care. Not that you would care anyway, because the characters are so paper-thin that you couldn’t even use them to cover up the windows of their safehouse (which is just

as devoid of personality as they are). And yet, somehow, Bird Box manages to bungle characters this underwritten. Why would the male lead, whose only trait besides “was in the army” is “sure is a fan of pregnant people” be fine with co-parenting a pair of kids for five years without once bothering to give them names? But it would be a waste of breath to talk about everything this movie does wrong, in that I’d run out of breath and then Netflix’s kill count would hit 147. If there’s one thing that Bird Box does with a modicum of finesse, it’s to imply that the protagonist seriously considers killing a young girl as some kind of postmortem revenge against her mother. Not even A Quiet Place made me like A Quiet Place this much.

COLD WAR

dominated the world order throughout the In contrast to the dogCold War constantly foil matic politics dominating the lovers’ attempts to “Vice,” the Polish film reunite, to live together, “Cold War,” written and to simply love each other. directed by Pawel PawCold War Photo: © Lukasz Because love is definitely likowski and filmed in not just love. black and white, unfolds in shades of gray. When Zula finally joins Wiktor in Paris (via a marriage to a Sicilian, It’s a love story, plain and simple, which allowed her to emigrate between an uneducated, uncullegally) she realizes, even if Wiktor tured country girl and an accomdoes not, that her lover of former plished, classically trained pianist artistic integrity has traded suband composer. When Wiktor, the jugation to communist powers composer decides to flee Poland for capitalist ones. He is slavishly rather than be subjugated to the obsequious to those that have government’s “requests” for what access to capital and influence and is essentially communist propaworries constantly about how they ganda, he arranges for Zula to acperceive him and Zula. company him. She stands him up. “Love is love, and that’s that,” he She is Polish, of the country and he says years later when they meet in belongs more to his art. They both Paris. Simple. Black and white. belong to each other, but it’s not enough to uproot them from their But Zula responds that she’s certain other identities and of course not! she couldn’t have escaped without Their polarities propel them togethhim and of course she’s right. The er even as they drive them apart. massive political complexities that

communicating with. On the surface, the Brooklyn festival’s Avner appears incapable next feature film, Echo of managing his ag(2018), is concerned gression at work and at with entirely different home. He shoves his topics: love and betrayal. coworker and slams on The protagonist, Avner, Photo: Dori Media Paran, Tel Aviv his daughter’s door. is a loving a husband and Echo is not so much a contractor played stoic and melantale of ordinary marital strife, but a choly by Yoram Toledano. commentary on a culture plagued At the start of the movie, he grows by rigid masculinity and unprosuspicious of his pretty wife, Ella cessed grief. It is trying, by which I (Yaël Abecassis) after receiving a mean, tedious to sit with a character printed traffic report in the mail like Avner for 98 minutes. We are that includes a photo of Ella in the asked to empathize with Avner, a car with another man. Rather than stunted, jealous man, incapable of asking Ella about the photograph, vulnerability, throughout his misAvner buys an in-home recording steps. device and begins monitoring her But the film, to its credit, is contelephone calls. scious of Avner’s limitations, which The scenes of Avner skulking creates an interesting subplot and around their pristine Haifa aparta connective thread that runs from ment are reminiscent of a cinematic 1969 to 2018: In a state founded on depiction of a covert military opnationalist ideals of the new Jewish eration. After Ella’s sudden death, man, physically strong, connected explained away as an “accident,” with the earth, and by today’s stanAvner is left alone to cope with dards notably disconnected from his anger and parent his elementheir feelings, there is a culture in tary school-aged son and teenage which citizens struggle to process daughter, the latter he has trouble

www.star-revue.com

the horrors they witness during their required service to the country. Echo can be read as an imperfect reflection on the ways in which Israeli men, and by extension, the Israeli people struggle with communication and loss. The movie has much in common with another recent Israeli film, “The Cakemaker” (Ophir Raul Graizer, 2017), now available for streaming on Netflix, which focuses on similar themes of romantic betrayal, loss and grief. We appear to be in a moment in which Israeli film is grappling with the subjects of how to talk about the trauma that was once overlooked in the interest of moving forward with building a new state. Moviegoers had the opportunity to evaluate movies on forms that asked them to rate movies on a scale from 1-5. “I give it a 5!” one man loudly declared as he exited the movie, “Echo.” And while I did not agree with his enthusiastic endorsement, I recognize the movies goals to probe the topic of loss in a time of continued political unrest.

February 2019, Page 17

Menu 1st Course

Fried Artichoke

Lightly fried imported artichokes over whipped parmigianino cream and toasted pistachios

2nd Course

Maltagliati

Homemade Pasta with wild mushroom ragu

ENTREEâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; CHOICE OF

Chicken Sorrentino

Baked chicken with eggplant, mozzarella and tomatoes

Salmon Saffon

Sauteed salmon in saffon sauce and roasted potatoes

Veal Marsala Truffle

Sauteed veal with asparagus, mushrooms and truffle oil

Dessert

Cannoli: Semifreddo

$85 per person includes beer, wine, soda, show and gratuity. Make your reservations today by calling Marco Polo Restaurant (718) 852-5015 Page 18 Red Hook Star-Revue

www.star-revue.com

February 2019

STARREVUE MUSIC

reviews, previews, happenings in the neighborhoods you love

Photo courtesy of the artist

Americana Legend

GREG BROWN AT CITY WINERY SATURDAY FEBRUARY 9TH BY MIKE COBB

reg Brown is one of America’s most highly regarded singer-songwriters. He has released over 30 critically acclaimed albums and was a regular performer on A Prairie Home Companion in the 1980’s.

Brown’s work has always had a literary quality. His mother taught him to play guitar and raised him on books and poetry. His 1986 release Songs of Innocence and Experience was set to the poems of William Blake. Brown has won The Association for Independent Music’s award for Best Folk Album and been twice nominated for a Grammy. His songs have been covered by Ani DiFranco, Gillian Welch, and Shawn Colvin. He has three daughters and is married to esteemed sing-songwriter Iris Dement. Most importantly, Brown writes incredibly well-crafted folk songs in a singular style. With a baritone as deep and rich as the soils of his native Iowa, Brown’s earthy anthems contrast country imagery with modern themes that are often imbued with a wry sense of humor, as in the last lines of “Whatever It Was” from his 1996 release Slant 6

Red Hook Star-Revue

Mind. “A Native American told me this whole deal’s a mistake And this implosion is just icing on the cake If the Great Spirit is gambling, I’d say the con is a bigger con I was looking for what I loved, whatever it was, it’s gone” Live, Brown is a master storyteller and excels in spinning yarns to captivate audiences. He often uses his voice as an instrument by uttering sounds for rhythmic effect somewhat like Tom Waits. I interviewed Brown by telephone recently. SR: As you travel around the country, how do you see the state of the nation? GB: I think it’s just about to fall apart. It may hang on a few more years, but I don’t expect the United States to last much longer.

SR: Do you ever get any pushback for your song “Trump Can’t Have That”, and if so, how do you handle it? GB: The crowd I draw is pretty much people who are familiar with what I do. But once in a while people walk out. I always tell them, go ahead; it’s a free country. SR: You’re from Iowa. What’s special about that place? GB: Southern Iowa is where I’m from, and I love that country. But most of it I wouldn’t give you a plug nickel for. It’s turned into just a big GMO factory farm place. The family farm is dead, and farms are now run by corporations. The groundwater is some of the worst in the country, and the Republican run state house and governor have turned violently mean. We’ve got the most restrictive abortion law in the country, and they did away with collective bargaining for public employees. They should change the name to “Koch State” because they’re the ones running it. Iowa’s in real bad shape. The local government is just supportive of Agra-business with no concern

www.star-revue.com

for education or the environment, just money. That’s the Republican agenda; that’s all they care about. If I was younger, I’d move. But I’m old, and my family and friends are here. SR: Do you feel like you can change people with songs? GB: Not really. Most political songs I don’t care for, including my own. But sometimes, like during the

Continued on page 21

FEATURE

Records are in page 20

PROFILE

the Chills

CALENDAR

page 23

Things to do! page 24 February 2019, Page 19

The Return of The Record Shop By Mike Cobb

As online streaming becomes the dominant method of listening to music, the sale of physical units has plummeted with one exception: vinyl records. The once nearly abandoned record has made a surprising comeback as the only growth sector for the music industry, and today is a billion-dollar business with 40 million units sold in 2017. While still a niche market that only accounts for about 6% in revenues, vinyl record sales have risen over the last seven years consecutively. Why is this? In an increasingly digitized world, many are overwhelmed by a glut of intangible content. Like photos, music files pile up and run the risk of becoming meaningless. Who cares if you have every album available if there is too much data and not enough time to listen? And while platforms like Spotify undeniably expose listeners to new sounds, they leave many yearning for something deeper. Afterall, it’s hard to connect with an mp3. Music remains one of the most intense sensory pleasures and still carries the power to effect emotion. Perhaps more than ever, people seek real experiences in order to counter the emptiness of overabundance and digital disorientation. With their built-in time limitations, creative album art, and arguably higher fidelity, records offer a complete package that no mp3 can hope to match. Scientifically speaking, vinyl produces soundwaves with more peaks and valleys resulting in fuller, richer tones, something digital 1’s and 0’s can never compete with. And by nature, records are tactile. The process of putting wax on a platter and cuing the needle requires participation and demands that the listener slow down and consider the music. While these qualities may be out

of step with the 21st century culture of convenience, they help create a bond between the artist and the listener perhaps surpassed only by seeing a live concert.

Black Gold Photo by Joshua Kristal

Fortunately for aficionados, the record shop has returned, and there are now plenty to separate you from your money right here in Brooklyn. Located at 461 Court St in Carroll Gardens, Black Gold doubles as a coffee shop and a record store. Open from 7am-7pm, you can start your day with an espresso to fuel your fingers as they search through a small but decent selection. It’s part of the enterprise that takes up half the block and includes Frankie’s Spuntino and Frank’s restaurants. Nearby, Almost Ready Records is located at 135 Huntington Street, open from 11am-8pm. Its well-lit interior features a diverse selection of new and used records and tapes. Also an independent label, Almost Ready features more punk than many shops. You can contemplate your purchase at a listening station and gaze on high-priced rarities like original copies of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of The Moon” displayed on the wall. Head further south, cross Hamilton Parkway (under the BQE), and you’ve officially entered Red Hook. There is public bus service, but if you’re prepared to walk some desolate blocks it takes about 20 minutes to get to Bene’s, located at 360 Van Brunt St and open from 12-7pm. The funkiest of the bunch, Bene’s has a strong selection of World Music and obscure treasures. I recently purchased a vintage copy of James Brown’s “I Got the Feeling” for $4 in

Bene’s R ecords photo c ourtesy of Ben

e’s

the “Beat But Not Busted” section and a Promotional Copy Only version of Mary Clayton’s first release for $30. Used books, turntables, and musical equipment are also for sale. Bene can usually be found at the front of the shop spinning groovy 45’s.

Coworking for Red Hook

DESK AND OFFICE SPACE AVAILABLE IN OUR DESIGN-CENTRIC COMMUNITY OF CREATIVE INDUSTRY PROS

185 Van Dyke Street Brooklyn, NY 11231 347-927-8141 sharedbrooklyn@gmail.com www.sharedbrooklyn.com

DESK AND OFFICE SPACE AVAILABLE IN OUR DESIGN-CENTRIC COMMUNITY OF CREATIVE INDUSTRY PROS 185 Van Dyke Street Brooklyn, NY 11231 347-927-8141 sharedbrooklyn@gmail.com www.sharedbrooklyn.com

Page 20 Red Hook Star-Revue

www.star-revue.com

Almost Ready Records Photo by Jeffrey Silverstein

There is a small selection of records for sale at the Jalopy Theatre (315 Columbia St) most from their own label Jalopy Records. Hot picks include early folk music collections by John & Alan Lomax and the old timey sounds of “The 4 O’clock Flowers.” Union Max on the corner of Union and Columbia St has a tiny vinyl selection as well as vintage clothes and items for sale as does Beacon’s Closet on 92 5th Ave in Park Slope. Hot tip: in warmer weather, seek out the record dealer in front of Trader Joe’s near the corner of Court St. and Atlantic Avenue. He’s there nearly every day, has a small but interesting selection, and decent prices. In addition to providing hours of analog pleasure, records help us keep a grip on reality in an increasingly weird and wired world. All signs indicate that vinyl has weathered the whims of the music market and is here to stay. Mike Cobb is a writer accepting donations in the form of vintage records.

January 2018

Lucrecia Dalt At the Issue Project Room February 16th By Stefan Zeniuk

On February 16th, Colombian composer and sound artist Lucrecia Dalt will be giving her first U.S. performance since 2014 at Issue Project Room, in Downtown Brooklyn. Dalt calls on her training as a former geotechnical engineer to create hypnotic and poetic improvisations, fusing a sense of time and space, earth and breath. Sounding like something between Laurie Anderson and early Aphex Twin, she mixes performance art, electronic ambient music, and sound improvisation, and, drawing on her background in Geology, the music often feels like it’s coming directly

GREG BROWN cont.

from page 19

Bush years and now with Trump, I feel like I’ve got to add my little voice to choir. I think what music can do is solidify communities that are struggling, which is useful. In terms of changing hearts and minds, I don’t see that most Republicans are even open to that as a vague possibility. But I do think artists need to speak out when they’re really feeling it. SR: Can you describe your songwriting process? GB: It’s just a part of my life; it’s not a separate thing. I don’t have any certain hours. I play and sing a lot and try to be ready if anything shows up. SR: What inspires you these days? GB: I’ve been listening to a series of CDs called “The Secret Museums of Mankind”, which are recordings from around the world when recording first started. It was before the recording industry existed, so there’s a freshness and spontaneity that I really enjoy. Really beautiful stuff. SR: I know you grew up in a musical family, your father was a Pentecostal preacher, and your mother was an English teacher. What did you learn from them? GB: Certainly the old hymns. And the music I grew up playing with my grandparents, which was mostly Appalachian style fiddle and banjo music. That music had a lot of spunk and a rough and ready quality to it that I still really enjoy. All that had a big effect on what I do. SR: Do you have any new projects in the works? GB: I might, but recording has become problematic because you don’t get paid with streaming now in place. CDs are dying. So, it’s a little bit like asking a plumber to come fix your toilet and then saying, “see ya.” So, unless you’re

Red Hook Star-Revue

out of the earth and dirt we stand on. The songs unfold slowly, and the poetic musings flow in and out of earthy pulses, meandering like dreams. Using traditional Colombian and South American rhythms, which contrast beautifully with the futuristic electronic sounds, the introspective and heady poetry and concepts disappear behind a mysteriously engaging and organic tapestry. Her live show will straddle the line between electronic Spaceman/Rocket Scientist imagery and primal intuitive improvisations. Bringing music like this into frenetic downtown Brooklyn can feel schizophrenic, and in deep contrast to the exploding Brooklyn skyline. How does one settle into allowing the music to transform oneself, slowly and subtly, to another plane in today’s smartphone-centric lifestyle? “The set cares for dynamics, for space awareness, there are moments of almost silence, if the

room and the audience allows for that.” But this performance at Issue Project Room will be perfectly set to bring the audience on such a journey. ISSUE is one of a handful of spaces left in this city ruthlessly dedicated to the new and the experimental. Founded in 2003 in the Lower East Side by Suzanne Fiol and Marc Ribot, it existed in the last days when experimental music spots littered the landscape of Lower Manhattan. ISSUE now rises as a beacon of unending imaginative programming and support. Called “The Carnegie Hall for the avant-garde” by the NY Times, it took several venue changes, as

touring a lot, which I’m not, in fact I’m going to stop touring after my birthday, there’s not a big reason to put CDs out. You can sell some at gigs, and they kind of work as promo for musicians for their shows.

was just a hick from the woods. So, I learned a lot hanging around New York.

I feel bad for the younger musicians because when I was coming along you could make a living, but it’s getting harder and harder for the younger ones. It’s really all on the internet now. You’ve got to get a presence there, because that’s what’s happening. But yeah, I might make a few more.

SR: Are there places where your music resonates most? GB: Each crowd is different. People are quieter in New England and more raucous in California. You’ve just got to hook up with the people wherever you are and try to get your deal across. I like all the parts of the country in terms of playing.

Lucrecia Dalt Photo: Regina de Miguel rents continued their barrage on the arts throughout the boroughs, before they settled on the current venue at 22 Boerum Place, where they are 8 years into a 20-year rentfree lease.

SR: Any new year’s resolutions? GB: Laughs. Nah, I haven’t even thought of that! Greg Brown will be performing at City Winery Saturday, February 9 with his longtime guitarist Bo Ramsey. Don’t miss this rare occasion to see one of America’s living legends. For more information, see www.gregbrownmusic.org Mike Cobb is a writer, musician, and producer based in Brooklyn.

SR: I know vinyl is one of the only sectors where there’s been growth in sales. What’s your take on that? GB: I love records. To me they sound better than anything else. You put the needle in the groove, and the air moves. It’s hard to top that with a bunch of 1’s and 0’s. SR: What’s the folk music scene like today? Are there other new musicians you like? GB: Well, I don’t really listen to much new stuff, honestly. But there’s a guy named Malcolm Holcombe from North Carolina. I really love what he’s up to. He’s about my favorite acoustic singer-songwriter. There’s nobody like Malcolm. SR: Looking back, how do you view your long career? GB: It was hard getting going. I didn’t really start making a living until I was about 30. But I’m really glad I chose this path. It came real natural to me, so I just went with it. I’ve been really lucky to have a working life doing something I love. I feel really grateful. SR: I know you spent time in New York when you were young. What was that like? GB: I started out in New York when I was 19 playing at Gerde’s Folk City. It was a big eye opener for me; I

www.star-revue.com

February 2019, Page 21

Prospect Heights’ Bar The Way Station Offers A Social Cure For Dr. Who Fans.

The Way Station

The Dr. Who themed space redefines the bar experience with events curated to a nerdy clientele.

by Briana Murphy The Way Station, located in Prospect Heights, certainly offers a healthy variety of traditional bar activities: it’s the Prospect Heights’ venue for Geeks Who Drink, the national trivia company where losers who can’t free up RAM in their brains for more useful knowledge get to compete for *bragging rights* for their ability to call up the year Arizona was granted statehood. It offers a wide variety of live music acts (The Crevulators, February 2nd; Ghost Component, February 15th; more information available here: www.thewaystationbk.com But in the era of personal brands and infinite marketing capabilities,

Page 22 Red Hook Star-Revue

in number (the bar boasts only a few taps), but the selection is prestigious, including beers from craft breweries around the country. Above the tap list, scribbled nearly illegibly on a chalkboard, beer aficionados can find the date the tap lines were last cleaned.

Although the bar itself is too small to offer the luxuries of a kitchen, a close relationship with Citrico, a nearby Mexican restaurant renders this absence almost negligible. Patrons are welcome to bring their orders over to the bar, and even on the occasional evening trivia night, a lull in questions will be punctuated by a query of “Who ordered tacos?”

Photo courtesy of venue The Way Station has established itself as a certified nerd bar. The interior decoration offers winks to Dr. Who and Stranger Things fans; a string of Christmas lights hanging along a wall asks Stranger Things fans if they’re out there? It even offers “nerdeoke” every Sunday night and if you’ve ever marveled at the omission of They Might Be Giants songs from the musical menus at other karaoke bars, this may be your calling. If that’s not enough, The Way Station’s website offers a full calendar of events, including even more unusual bar activities, like nights of biology and astronomy on tap (the 13th and 20th, respectively, this month). These evenings revolve around themed talks where cus-

tomers can bond over a shared interest that is often-let’s face it-somewhat overlooked by venues catering to the nightlife crowd. The decor and the bar’s nerdy vibe is also reflected in the cocktails: the 11th Doctor and the Mr. Pond match the bar’s TARDIS (the restroom) and other Dr. Who references. But customers can also order select galactic-inspired cocktails from the new cocktail cookbook THE COCKTAIL GUIDE TO THE GALAXY authored by none other than Andy Heidel, the Way Station’s owner himself. (The book, published by the venerable sci-fi publisher TOR, is available for purchase through amazon.) The craft beer selection is not huge

www.star-revue.com

In a city where rent drives us to co-habitate in small spaces with strangers, New Yorkers are often forced to find communal spaces beyond the comfort of their own homes. The Way Station offers a nerdvana oasis for Brooklynites and New Yorkers to converge around a mutual passion for all things sci-fi and geeky.

February 2019

New Zealand Band The Chills Play Their First Major U.S. Tour In Over 20 Years

With 15 dates throughout the country in February and March, including Brooklyn’s Bell House on February 19th.

By Andrew B. White Led by Martin Phillipps, The Chills are one of New Zealand’s best-known indie rock bands and foundation of the famed ‘Dunedin Sound’ (cited as an influence by the likes of Pavement and R.E.M.). Starting-out out in the early 1980s on the Flying Nun label, the band achieved cult status in Europe and on US college radio, before being signed to Warner Bros’ subsidiary Slash Records (BoDeans, Grant Lee Buffalo, Los Lobos) in the early 1990s. Chills songs such as ‘Pink Frost’, ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’ and ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ are considered college radio ‘classics’. It’s often noted how many musi-

Lust at Lot 45 Friday, February 15 On February 15th, Abby Hertz will be presenting her final LUST event. After three years, she is ending the series that has fused music, fire performance, art history, and eroticism. Begun on Valentine’s Day 2015, it has more of a nod to Meret Oppenheim’s 1959 “Cannibal Feast” than to an erotic party. While guests eat a feast of food off of semi-naked actors and models, the meal is followed by a series of performances, featuring a “fire ritual”, the alternative latin punk jazz band Gato Loco, playing music that blurs the boundaries between traditional Cuban music with Verdi’s Requiem and cartoon

Red Hook Star-Revue

who really get us and are enthusiastic and knowledgeable about our much broader range of material.

cians have rotated in-and-out of the Chills over the decades – this writer included, unsuccessfully applying for a position as bassist – sometimes referred to as “The Curse of The Chills.” On several occasions these lineup changes ultimately foiled Phillipps’ attempts at getting the band in front of a wider audience. The current lineup has proven that curse inactive, having been together since the 2000s, outlasting previous lineups combined.

The music industry has changed a lot since the Chills were signed to a major label. Do you feel more relaxed now about recording and touring, without those major label pressures?

The Chills This version of the Chills Photo courtesy has also just released their of the artist second album together (the sixth Chills studio album Do you have any particular memoin total). “Snowbound”, released ries of playing New York City? through UK’s Fire Records, contains ten new songs that will instantly Martin: Our second-ever gig in the sound familiar to long time Chills States was on the 11th of July 1987 fans. Phillipps’ signature motifs at Maxwell’s, Hoboken (with Peter are all here from maritime-tinged Holsapple as support – he would waltzes to fizzing 4/4 numbers. work with us five years later on Production-wise, “Snowbound” the ‘Soft Bomb’ album) and as The seems poppier and polished than Chills had flown directly from exprevious efforts thanks to producer tensive touring throughout Europe, Greg Haver (Manic Street Preachwe were jet-lagged to hell but on ers). Keyboards have always been fire! It was a magic night and, while a mainstay of The Chills’ sound but N.J. wasn’t officially (yet) New York, on “Snowbound” they take on even that gig set the tone for the quite more emphasis for a more sonicpersonal connection the band has pop sound. It will be interesting to had with the city ever since. hear the “Snowbound” tracks in a Do you think American audiences live context. differ to New Zealand ones? II was able to get the Chills’ Martin Martin: In New Zealand The Chills Phillipps to answer a few questions are one of the best examples of in preparations for the upcoming an indie-band that successfully tour: crossed over into popular awareness in the ‘80s and ‘90s with songs like ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’ and ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ but the average “Kiwi” might still only be vaguely aware of our name. In America there has always been a much more significant fan-base

spy soundtracks. It’s a high-concept all-inclusive event that makes the search for ecstatic euphoria its focus, rather than the seeming acts of decadence. This will be the last event like it in New York City for quite a while, and possibly unlike anything else in the world. This is happening at Lot 45, 411 Troutman St., Bushwick.

Martin: When we were younger and had the energy for those long but necessary tours the major-label backing actually helped to make things smoother rather than add even more pressure. These days it is so expensive for us to tour that every trip away from New Zealand means the constant stress of possible financial ruin! One can only focus on the joy of performing live music for friends as the only sensible reward. What can Chills fans expect at the Bell House show? Martin: I’m eternally grateful that we are not a “one-hit wonder” band but our catalogue is now extensive enough to mean that people will always want to hear songs we are not performing at present. Having said that, we agree with the older fans who think that the current mixture of old and new material in our set is just about perfect! The Chills will play five dates throughout the country in February and March, including Brooklyn’s Bell House on February 19th. To find out more about The Chills and their upcoming dates go to www. thechills.band Andrew B. White is a Brooklynbased musician.

Discover what you love. 357 Van Brunt Street Brooklyn, NY 11231 T: 718-576-3143 WetWhistleWines.com mon

4-9pm |

tue-thu

SEMINARS • CASE DISCOUNTS CORPORATE GIFTS • DELIVERY

Weekly Tastings

12-9pm |

fri

12-10pm |

sat

Open 7 days

10am-10pm |

sun

12-8pm

Stefan Zeniuk is a saxophonist, composer, animator and inventor. He leads the bands Gato Loco, The New York Fowl Harmonic, Baritone Army, and The Green Mambo. He created The Flame-O-Phone, a fire-breathing baritone sax. Among others, he has recently performed with The Jayhawks, Father John Misty, The Violent Femmes, Patti Smith and Vampire Weekend. His stop-motion animations have been featured in Billboard, NPR, and other online publications.

www.star-revue.com

February 2019, Page 23

ARTS CALENDAR Feb 1

NARS Foundation in Sunset Park has two exciting exhibitions coming up. “On Volcanoes and other Transfigurative Bodies” (Feb 1 - 20) showcases startling work by Caitlin Berrigan and Jemila MacEwan. The two artists look at volcanoes, creation, and the idea of becoming. NARS opens a second exhibition, “Women’s Work,” (Feb 8 - 20) on another floor. Curated by Priscilla Dobler-Dzul, the pieces explore women’s domestic labor. 201 46th Street, 4th fl.

Feb 2

“Sympathy for the Future,” paintings by Marcy Brafman described as “oracles of the miraculous and the tender” at Court Tree Collective, ends today. 371 Court Street, 2nd Fl.

Feb 3

“Souls of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power,” showcasing 150 works from 1963 to 1983, closes today at The Brooklyn Museum. The eagerly

awaited “Frida Kahlo: Appearances can be Deceiving” (Feb 8 - May 12) will be the largest US display of Kahlo’s work in a decade. 200 Eastern Pkwy

Feb 3

A.I.R, the three-decades plus running collective of female artists pushing the limits of expression, wraps up its 13th biennial today. 155 Plymouth Street.

Feb 6

The writing workshop series Get Lit at Grumpy Bert Gallery starts a new round of classes every Wednesday night for seven weeks. The improvised method is friendly for aspiring writers and revitalizing for professionals. 44 Court

Feb 9

It’s the last day to see “A Strange Form of Life” at Peninsula Gallery. Featured artists include Lars Fisk, Clare Grill, E Hause, Matt Kleberg, Jim Lee, Meg Lipke, and Graham Wilson. Open weekends 1-7pm.

MUSIC CALENDAR * critics pick

Bene’s RECORD SHOP* 360 Van Brunt St. 718-855-0360 Shows 8:30PM unless otherwise printed. Check local listings! DE-Construkt 41 Seabring St. de-construkt.com Check local listings!

IBEAM 168 7th Street between 2nd and 3rd Ave. ibeambrooklyn.com

Shows at 8PM unless otherwise printed. SAT 2/2, 8:30PM Fujiwara/Dunston/ Leon* Tomas Fujiwara drums Nick Dunston - bass David Leon - saxophone

Through Feb 3. 352 Van Brunt St.

Both exhibitions are well worth your time.

Feb 9

Feb 16

The House of Love celebrates its annual Valentine’s Day show with the talented Courtney Hartman and Tōth, a new solo project by the multi-instrumentalist Alex Toth of Rubblebucket. Show at 830pm. Suggested GA is $20. Location revealed after rsvp to houseofloveconcerts@ gmail.com to reserve a spot.

Feb 10

Two exhibitions in the heart of Red Hook close today: Maria Antelman’s “Disassembler” at Pioneer Works (159 Pioneer Street) and Meridith McNeal’s “A Portrait of my Mother” at Kentler Drawing Space (353 Van Brunt). Antleman’s work looks at the American west through eight installations and questions the boundary between the organic and the seemingly inorganic. McNeal displays evocative drawings of objects her mother, a lifelong New Yorker, was attached to.

WED 2/6 Russ Lossing Trio Preview for “Motian Music” on Sunnyside Records Masa Kamaguchi bass Russ Lossing - piano Billy Mintz - drums Playing the music of Paul Motion + Adam Kolker/Russ Lossing Quartet “Whispers and Secrets” Record Release Concert FSNT Records 2018

Adam Kolker - saxophone Masa Kamaguchi bass Russ Lossing - piano Billy Mintz - drums Original music by Lossing, Kolker, Mintz FRI 2/8, 9PM Novoa/Kamaguchi/ Cleaver Eva Novoa - piano Masa Kamaguchi bass Gerald Cleaver - drums SAT 2/9

SUNNY'S BAR FEBRUARY 2019 ALL SHOWS 9PM UNLESS LISTED OTHERWISE

Bushwick’s Sardine Gallery hosts the quixotic sculptor Daniel Giordino’s “The Big Linguini” through March 17. 289 Stanhope St.

Feb 16

Now in its 20th year, Five Myles in Crown Heights features new work by Dionis Ortiz in an untitled exhibition running through March 17. Artist Barbara Campisi continues showing her installation “A Sound Of Light appearing around the bend” in the main stage. 558 St Johns Place.

Feb 16

Through Feb 16, the late New Zealand artist Julian Dashper shows his second posthumous exhibition at Minus Space. Expect affecting reductive patterns that echo Ellsworth Kelly and Lucio Fontana. 16 Main Street, Suite A.

String solos, Duets, and Quartets Tom Swafford - violin Zachary Swanson bass Leonor Falcon - violin/ viola Sana Nagano - violin/ electronics Mixed groupings, compositions, and improvisations. SAT 2/23 Haeun Joo Trio Haeun Joo - piano Doug Wiess - bass Ronen Itzik - drums

The Center for Fiction has left its entrenched abode in Midtown Manhattan for Boerum Hill. It officially opens Feb 1, but the grand opening party is Feb 19 at 7pm (GA is $35). Check out the new space for more information on readings with James Wood, Amit Chaudhuri, and Morgan Parker. The sprawling center boasts a 160 seat auditorium and nearly 2,000 square feet for a cafe/bar, reading rooms, writers’ studios, bookshops, and outdoor terraces. 15 Lafayette Avenue.

Feb 23

Brooklyn Historical Society ends its “Business of Brooklyn” exhibition today, which looks at the 100 years of commerce in New York’s largest borough. “The story spans booming factories, family shops, iconic innovation, and labor struggles. The exhibition showcases images and objects from companies large and small that thrived in Brooklyn, including Domino Sugar, Squibb Pharmaceuticals,

Every Tuesday Night, 9PM Open Mic Night, sign up by 9 sharp! Each performer gets 2 songs or 8 minutes. Every Wednesday, 9PM Roots n’ Ruckus. Real deal folk music in NYC. Free! SUN 2/3 11AM Little Laffs A Kid’s Variety Show

JALOPY TAVERN 317 Columbia St. 718-625-3214 jalopytavern.biz

12:30PM Beyond Strumming W/ Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers Guitar Workshop

Shows at 9PM unless otherwise printed.

FRI 2/8, 7PM Ashni Davé/Shai Yuval/ Kat Lee/Rebecca Zola

Every FRI Papa Vega and the Rocket 88’s SAT 2/2 AVO/Skalopy! WED 2/6, 8PM Nat Myers THURS 2/7 Dime Store Romeos SAT 2/9 Wyndham Baird and Band TUES 2/12, 8PM Fatboy Wilson WED 2/13 Jan Bell and Will Scott!* Jan Bell’s Birthday Show SAT 2/16 Wyndham Baird and Band TUES 2/19, 8PM The Hip Trendersons WED 2/20, 8PM Hannah Lee Thompson SAT 2/23 Wyndham Baird and Band JALOPY THEATRE 315 Columbia St. 718-395-3214 jalopytheatre.org

Page 24 Red Hook Star-Revue

Feb 19

www.star-revue.com

SAT 2/9, 8PM Mississippi Cotten Liana Gabel & The Star Sisters La Huerta SUN 2/10, 11AM Princess Backpack and Benjamin 3:30PM Oldtime and Folk Slow Jam w/ Hilary Hawke FRI 2/15, 8PM* The Mid-Winter Jug Band Rendezvous Little Nora Brown The Queens of Everything Steel City Jug Slammers Crisco Dreams SAT 2/16, 8PM* MW Jug Band Rendezvous Night 2 Dirdy Birdies Wahoo Skiffle Crazies The New Found Country Homebodies Brotherhood of the Jug Band Blues

Schaefer Beer, Drake Bakeries, Abraham & Straus, Gage & Tollner, and many others.” 128 Pierrepont St.

Feb 24

It’s the very last date to apply to Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition’s annual recycling show (early bird submissions are Feb 4). The annual show gives $3,000 in cash to the winners and is curated by Janice Jacob and Mary Anne Kinsella; John Cloud Kaiser, director of education at Materials for the Arts, is the juror. BWAC will showcase its selected pieces May 11, 2019.

Feb 24

The painter Tom Bennett showcases monotypes and other new works at Welancora Gallery and hosted at NU Hotel until today. 85 Smith St.

SAT 2/23, 9PM Joe Crookston/Pat Wictor SUN 2/24, 11AM Family Fun with Suzi Shelton 6PM Exceedingly Good Song Night LITTLEFIELD 635 Sackett St. littlefieldnyc.com SAT 2/2, 11PM Reggae Retro 1st Saturdays Party SAT 2/16, 11PM Be Cute Brooklyn Dance Party PIONEER WORKS 159 Pioneer St. pioneerworks.com Shows at 7PM unless otherwise printed. SAT 2/2* Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force a collaborative project between Senegalese saber musicians and German techno pioneer Mark Ernestus. SUN 2/10* Second Sundays w/ SUNWATCHERS Psyche Out n Watch the Sun THURS 2/14 Panda Bear Home Blitz FRI 2/15 Panda Bear Home Blitz

SUN 2/17, 11AM Matt Heaton ToddlerBilly Riot

MON 2/25* False Harmonics #1 Nate Wooley’s Columbia Icefield Nate Wooley - trumpet Mary Halvorson - guitar Susan Alcorn - pedal steel Ryan Sawyer - drums + MV Carbon

4PM Step Up, Teach In, Sing Out Sunday JAM with the Poor People’s Campaign

ROCKY SULLIVAN’S 46 Beard St. 718-246-8050 rockysullivansredhook. com

Shows at 9PM unless otherwise printed. FRI 2/1 The Famous Geniuses Spaghetti Eastern Music Cam Darwin FRI 2/8 Jeannie Fry & The Lifers Hamish Kilgour Monster Over There SAT 2/9 Alegba: Acoustic/ Voodoo/Jazz/Reggae/ Caribbean grooves FRI 2/15 Memoirs of Addiction Decanted Youth Malcolm Tent THURS 2/21 Krissie Nagy: Swing Jazz Jam FRI 2/22 The B Band The Ziggernauts Brooklyn Bonez SUNNY’S BAR see ad on this very page! SUPERFINE 126 Front St. superfine.nyc EVERY SUNDAY Bluegrass Green Chile Brunch / Evening Jazz and Americana Noon - 3pm / 6 - 8pm Unless Otherwise Printed SUN 2/3 Abby Hollander Trio/ Elaine Amherd Trio SUN 2/10 The Haggard Kings/ Beat Kaestli THURS 2/14, 7PM The Lounge Leader Annual Valentines Show SUN 2/17 Steel City Jug Slammers/Ali Dineen & Feral Foster SUN 2/24 Hilary Hawke/Samoa Wilson & Arnt Arnston Trio

February 2019

COLUMN As I write this, I’m looking at a couple of nice paper tickets for a June 4th Rolling Stones concert in Philly that I’m going to. I got them in the mail after buying them on the Ticketmaster website a few months ago. I’m going with my daughter and I’m sure we’ll have a grand old time. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way for me at the Barclay Center. The other day, I spent a couple hours outside the stadium waiting for the game to end. A good friend of mine had two tickets for a Nets game, and sent me one. I was supposed to sit with him, but could only join him afterwards, as I was not allowed in, even though I had a legitimate ticket. I’ve had problems at Nets games

Space

before. Once I went with a group of people from the Justice Center, and we were all herded around the back and had to wait in the freezing cold with a big crowd. We all had to wait while one-by-one we were searched for weapons and other contraband. Earlier this year I had a tiny souvenir pocketknife seized. It was attached to my keychain and had been my dad’s. Who died 35 years ago. Also this year, I tried in vain to purchase a $6 bag of popcorn using a ten dollar bill. The booth did not take cards, and had no change. I could have bought popcorn at another stand that ONLY took credit cards, but that bag was $15! What happened this time was that Ticketmaster would not send me a new password. I did have a password, but it told me that for my own

safety they needed me to choose a new one. All I had to do was to click “lost password,” and they would email me a link to create a new one. This was on a Monday. That is when my friend transferred one of his tickets to me. The way it works is that the ticket shows up as an email, and then you have to transfer it to your phone. Believe it or not, you absolutely must have a cellphone with your Ticketmaster account able to put the ticket into your wallet on the phone. That’s the only way to get in. Paper is no good. Since I couldn’t access my account, I couldn’t get my ticket in the wallet. I tried in vain for a new password multiple times over 2 days No emailed instruction to get a new password was forthcoming.

I went to the game figuring that I could just tell them my story, and they’d check out my name and let me in. Nope. No cellphone ticket, no entry. No matter what. I showed them my email with the ticket notification. A supervisor tried to figure out how I could activate my Ticketmaster app, but he couldn’t. I was able to transfer the ticket to him, but it turned out his Ticketmaster app wasn’t working either. So we gave up. I did kind of get upset, and ended up calling a guard a communist. I did that because the Nets are owned by a Russian. He thought I cursed him and threw me out of the lobby. At least it wasn’t raining.

By Kelsey Liebenson-Morse

I Consuelo Kanaga. [Untitled] (Tenement, Child on Fire Escape, New York), mid-late 1930s. Gelatin silver photograph, 7 x 3 7/8 in. (17.8 x 9.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum

My Ticketmaster Nightmare, by George Fiala

live in a 1,200 square foot apartment with three other adults. I share a room with my boyfriend, Eli, and we live with his sister, Tara, and her boyfriend, Andrew. This familial setup can be difficult to describe in casual conversation, “My boyfriend’s sister’s boyfriend is also my roommate…” I enjoy our family arrangement and I like to imagine we’re living authentically in the style of “old New York” with tenement buildings occupied by floors of families. I joke about our parents someday moving in to the other two units in the building. All domestic bliss aside, our second floor walkup, 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom space on Van Brunt is absurdly cheap split four ways. It’s what most would declare “a steal” in New York. My boyfriend, on the other hand, who most recently lived in a 1,600 square foot house with a back deck and long driveway in Tahoe, California is often overhead referring to our apartment as a “shithole.” I politely disagree, finding the front facing windows and hardwood floors satisfactory, and I appreciate our two (two!) bedroom windows and the quietness of a back bedroom in Red Hook. What I’ve learned: space is an ideological quandary. How much space does one person need? Deserve? What’s excessive? What’s just impractical? When we have friends over they remark on what I consider the practically palatial size of our apartment, but Eli remains stubbornly unimpressed, floored by the permanent and questionable layer of grime in the bathroom or the drawer in the kitchen that has never been properly fixed or the unwelcome sight of roughly 25 pairs of shoes upon entering the apartment. “You know, there’s only 1 of 3 places I could possibly be in this apartment,” he muses. “Our

Page 26 Red Hook Star-Revue

room, the living room, or the bathroom.” We store the cutting boards in the oven. Our bikes stay on the street. Tara and Andrew often cook dinner around 11pm which, as a teacher, is past my bedtime. We run a fan to soften the clanging of pots and pans. Growing up in rural New England, one can easily, perhaps even inevitably, take space for granted. If not your own home, it’s the openness of land, of trees and fields unmarked by human life. When I was ten I moved into my own bedroom and never shared a room again until moving in with Eli this past October. Space, most especially felt in New York and other overpopulated urban spaces becomes a commodity achieved by the elite. The richer or more fortunate you are, the more personal space you can carve out. I’ve found living in such close quarters encourages the erasure of personal property and induces a community environment many find inhospitable, but I generally find cozy. Living in New York requires a certain departure from what we Americans refer to as “personal space.” On a memorable night Tara and I tried to make two different soups at the same time. Eli has dubbed the kitchen as a “one tush kitchen” and watched warily from the other side of the counter as Tara and I performed an elaborate dance to complete our dueling soups. Since we only had one soup pot at the time. I ended up cooking my soup in an old set prop roughly the size of a lobster pot that had been recovered from the top of the fridge. Eli and I both surreptitiously avoid entering the storage space above our closet; democratically split directly down the middle (admittedly my side is messier, and I have about 100% more clothing)

I like to imagine we’re living authentically in the style of “old New York” with tenement buildings occupied by floors of families. because when you open the hideyhole, it’s likely you’ll be bludgeoned to death by my backpacking pack. Other items to fall out might be my (entire) summer wardrobe or a sleeping bag. To add to the danger and inconvenience of removing an item from above the closet, one is required to balance precariously on a step ladder while blindly reaching into the dark recesses. Under our bed: the closet doors we removed for aesthetic reasons,

www.star-revue.com

medical supplies, and very likely, a few of my stray books. Eli has commented nervously, “It’s like the books are taking over,” as he eyes the growing stack on his side growing higher and higher. Recently, open entering our room Eli remarked absently, “It’s so interesting to have nothing that’s my own.” This comment was partially provoked by the fact that I’ve taken to placing a few seemingly innocuous items of atop the dresser which is ostensibly Eli’s. I understood why draping my bra on his dresser is poor form, but I’ve done little to remedy the error as my “socks and underwear” drawer is overstuffed and requires a hearty maneuvering in and out, each time. When my sister came to visit, I installed in her in the front room, which doubles as Andrew’s office. Since we don’t have room for extra bedding, I decided making her a pillow bed was the best route. Removing all the cushions from the couch meant there was no longer anywhere to sit in the living room. I attempted, fruitlessly, to lash together the pillows. My sister bravely lay down on the couch bed remarking without irony, “I haven’t been this uncomfortable since college.” In the morning she reported that the couch cushions had spread apart and she’d spent most of the night in a crack. So, what’s the solution to these woes, one might ask? Number 1. Have less shit. Number 2. Move out of Brooklyn. Number 3. Lean in. Eli and I might not see eye to eye on the issue of space, (he’ll go onto the roof in any weather just to take in some fresh air) but I like to remind him as we squeeze companionably into the bathroom together to brush our teeth: If we can make it here, we can make it anywhere.

February 2019

Brett Yates: The Tonnage of the World

Just Say No to NYCHA Privatization

ulián Castro, the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) between 2014 and 2017, declared his presidential candidacy on January 12, joining a rapidly growing field of indistinguishable centrists who’ll spend the next two years masquerading as bold progressives. His speech made use of Obama-style platitudes while highlighting a campaign platform that included “universal” healthcare (not “single-payer”) and “affordable” college (not “free”). HUD’s signature innovation under President Obama was Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), a program intended to facilitate the redevelopment of public housing in partnership with private investors. Unlike the Clinton-era scheme HOPE VI – which demolished high-rise projects and rebuilt them as mixed-income, privately managed New Urbanist communities, with drastic reductions in their numbers of affordable units – RAD seeks to preserve existing housing stock by tapping private capital to pay for the rehabilitation of buildings whose upkeep has become too costly for underfunded public housing authorities (PHAs). Under RAD, by converting public housing to Section 8 subsidies, PHAs replace fluctuating federal allocations of capital funds with guaranteed revenue streams against which developers, usually attracted by tax credits, can borrow from private lenders (a privilege not afforded to PHAs) in order to bankroll renovations. RAD authorizes PHAs to lease or transfer ownership of their properties to private entities, which are mandated to afford tenants “many of the resident processes and rights available under public housing,” in addition to providing funds for tenant participation activities, per HUD. Legally, RAD prohibits eligibility re-screenings of public housing tenants, all of whom must be “grandfathered in” after a RAD conversion. If a developer’s repair plan necessitates the temporary displacement of residents, they are officially guaranteed right of return. The National Housing Law Project (NHLP), a legal advocacy center in San Francisco, asserts, however, that developers often ignore these regulations: “RAD tenants are routinely re-screened at the time of conversion for income, criminal history, credit, and other requirements,” which “has resulted in evictions and monetary buy-out packages that force tenants to move from the property” after RAD conversion. NHLP also reports that owners of RAD properties have in many instances “explicitly impeded or prohibited ten-

Red Hook Star-Revue

ant organizing efforts” (which are protected by federal law) by preventing the distribution of leaflets, disrupting meetings and elections, threatening “to have non-tenant tenant organizers arrested for organizing tenants,” and refusing to distribute mandated funding to tenants associations. PHAs typically sell RAD to public housing tenants on the basis of two promises, neither of which is completely true: first, that RAD won’t lower the number of units for low-income tenants on any converted property, and second, that RAD won’t cause rents to go

urges greater oversight and tighter regulations rather than an abandonment of the program. Until 2016, NYCHA resisted the siren song of RAD despite the inducements of HUD secretary Ben Carson. But following the press’s dazzled reaction to RAD renovations at Ocean Bay in Far Rockaway (Bloomberg News: “As NYC Public Housing Tenants Suffer, a Glimmer of Hope Emerges”), Mayor de Blasio announced NYCHA’s intention late last year to use RAD to rehabilitate 62,000 homes by leasing a third of its properties to private developers, while retaining owner-

are aware – is that, given the right incentives, it can access the money needed to pay for NYCHA’s capital improvements, and right now, NYCHA can’t. But in the long run, the taxpayers will have to pay investors back for fronting the costs of public housing repairs – plus a little extra for their trouble, or else they wouldn’t have any reason to invest. Why don’t we just do it ourselves? The problem, as usual, is political will. Liberals and conservatives alike have given up on public housing, and it’s not because our

Liberals and conservatives alike have given up on public housing, and it’s not because our country can’t afford it.

up. RAD loosely purports to embrace both of these principles, but the fine print makes room for a few exceptions. First, it allows for a “de minimis” reduction of five percent of the total units in the development (with a cap of five units for large developments). After that, any eliminated unit is required to have sat vacant for two years at the time of the RAD application or, by its elimination, to benefit “assisted households” through “facilitating social service delivery (e.g., converting a basement unit into community space).” Efficiency units may also be reconfigured into a smaller number of one-bedrooms. Most public housing tenants in the United States pay rent equivalent to 30 percent of their income, and the same is true of RAD tenants. But thanks to provisions that ensure that even the maximum rents in public housing remain relatively low, many residents with higher incomes pay a flat rent instead – that is, if the flat rent designated by the PHA (in accordance with HUD regulations) is less than 30 percent of their income. RAD does away with the flat rent, and for those who used to pay it, the “new rent will be phased in over a few years,” by HUD’s account. According to a 2018 report by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), “HUD has not yet developed procedures to monitor RAD projects for risks to long-term affordability of units, including default or foreclosure” on debt-financed properties. Despite these problems, NHLP “support[s] the goal of the RAD program to preserve affordable housing” and

ship of the buildings and land. Following multiple scandals, NYCHA remains mired in ignominy, and as de Blasio scrambles to come up with a plan to avoid a federal takeover, even more RAD – along with the sale of NYCHA’s air rights and the construction of market-rate housing on its open space – seems inevitable. When de Blasio promised “brand new everything” at NYCHA in his State of the City address last month, this was what he was talking about. So far, no plan to privatize the Red Hook Houses has emerged, which may owe to the tremendous scope of the complex’s needs. Despite’s RAD’s conception as a program to finance repairs, the buildings that private companies find most attractive are the ones that need the least work, and PHAs have used RAD to offload properties in perfectly good shape, a practice that HUD has okayed. GAO found that about a third of accepted RAD applications don’t include a plan for new construction or rehabilitation. Many of RAD’s problems could be fixed by better implementation. But calls for reform miss the more essential point, which is that RAD is stupid, and it shouldn’t exist in any form. It may be worth stating the very basic fact that the provision of decent, well-maintained housing for the poor is not a financially profitable endeavor. It never has been, and it never will be. The involvement of the private sector in this task is, at bottom, incoherent. The only advantage it has over NYCHA – as even most RAD proponents

www.star-revue.com

country can’t afford it. We allow our elected officials to spend $700 billion on the Department of Defense and $40 billion on HUD. It’s a choice. We could make a different choice if we wanted to. Ironically, NYCHA has embraced privatization at a moment when the need for the decommodification of housing should be clearer than ever. The popularity of Medicare-for-All shows that Americans have finally come to understand that capitalist markets don’t always do an adequate job of producing or distributing essential goods and services, and that certain basic needs can’t be met by invoking the profit motive. If housing is a human right, then housing must be guaranteed to all, and only government can guarantee it. As gentrification threatens to push all but the wealthy out of America’s cities, we should be looking to expand public ownership of urban real estate, not decrease it. Left to their own devices, private developers will spit out luxury condos until the end of time. In the narrowed imaginations of our subservient political leaders, the only recourse is to offer these developers tax credits, subsidies, and upzonings in exchange for some small quantity of housing for the poor, the working class, and the middle class, at the edges of their skyscrapers for the rich. It’ll never be enough. The fundamental challenge ahead is not financial but ideological: we have to realize that we don’t need private developers. And while we’re at it, let’s please not vote for Julián Castro.

February 2019, Page 27

BLOCKCHAIN continued from page 8 assets – can be moved around, and there was a lot of talk about how that could, for example, automate cooperative companies.”

BLOCKCHAIN FOR COMMUNITY She put forth a hypothetical case. “If everyone in Red Hook had a local power grid, and we want to set up this entity that manages it, then what are we going to let ownership look like? Are we just going to let anybody buy in, and the richest people get the biggest portion of the ownership, which oftentimes is how capital functions today? Or are we going to create different rules? … An alternative way would be, if you have lower income, then the money you invest is worth more. That’s an alternative way to structure this. … And then that conversation gets programmed into the bylaws of this entity.” At ConsenSys, she “was interested in digitally updating the ways people organize, so instead of having to have a complicated process of submitting the shares of ownership [for a communally owned good] to be managed by some other entity

developing the technology,” a community could Interior. do it on its own. Taylor worked for ConsenSys for two years, during which she “started doing some research with a group of farming community activists in Upstate New York in Sullivan County, and there were some local meetings that people were having to talk about issues that people were having in the county, and we were say- Photo Courtesy of RE:GEN:CY ing, ‘Hey, there’s this new technology around. What do you stuff that was going on in the cryptothink of this technology?’” Taylor’s currency space.” Underemployment led her to rent concern that “technological development doesn’t normally take into out her apartment at the Monarch account” the needs of farmers had Luggage Factory, which she and Tilprompted her attempt, in this case, ton had decorated in a “funky way,” to solicit ideas from them directly. for photo shoots. This turned into But she soon “realized that the cryp- the business model for RE:GEN:CY, tocurrency company I was part of which she built with Huppert, a fiwas more interested in owning the nancial analyst at Citigroup. Taylor data and making a profit off of it manages the event space. “As Cayla than they were in actually creating and I started to discuss what kind something innovative,” so she quit. of business we would create to adWell before the Bitcoin crash, Taylor dress issues that were more abhad become “super critical of a lot of stract, physical space seemed like

Ronald D. Muñoz, EA

TAX, ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL PLANNING SERVICES

“Good Service is Good Business” • Tax Preparation and Planning • Business Entity Formation • IRS Representation • Financial Planning

ENROLLED AGENTS – AMERICA’S TAX EXPERTS! “The Best Minute You Spend Is The One You Invest in Someone Else” 204 25th Street, Suite 201 718-855-5515 Brooklyn, NY 11232 ron@ronmunoz.com

www.ronmunoz.com

Page 28 Red Hook Star-Revue

www.star-revue.com

a way that we could get the ball rolling on a lot of projects,” she recounted, “because we could start this process of educating people that live in a community about some of these ideas we have, and seeing what interest there was – and also seeing, well, are the things that we’re thinking about actually true?” Red Hook was the perfect spot because “there’s a higher proportion of people that are interested [in localism] than in other places,” owing to its geographic isolation. And thanks to Hurricane Sandy, residents are eager to build transformational projects and embrace the fight against climate change. To learn more about the community, Taylor reached out to neighborhood leaders like Samora Coles of the Alex House Project, Karen Blondel of the Fifth Avenue Committee, and Tiffiney Davis of the Red Hook Art Project (RHAP). Taylor emphasized that RRN would rather promote conversation than implement unilateral solutions. “We don’t have a grand plan,” she admitted. So far, RE:GEN:CY has donated space to a number of nonprofits, including the Red Hook Community Justice Center (for its Peacekeepers graduation) and the aforementioned RHAP (for a game night) and Alex House Project (for an end-ofyear party). RRN itself may or may not switch someday to nonprofit status, where grants and donations would fund its community development endeavors. “It’s not our intention to always be a rental event space,” Taylor said. Another possibility, however, is to focus on “impact investing” to produce revenue: “If we could figure out how to invest in some businesses we really believe in, that’s another way that we could make money.”

FEBRUARY EVENTS Over the course of four weekends in February and March, RE:GEN:CY will hold a small business growth and development workshop. According to the application, the “workshop will help participants design a plan for sustainable growth and assist with taking their business to the next level. Potential for financing is evaluated on a case by case basis. Cost for participation is free if you attend all 4 sessions.” Also, on February 8, RE:GEN:CY will host a public presentation by Resilient Red Hook (RRH) about the possibility of building a solar microgrid for the community, which RRN could help to organize and finance. Per RRH, microgrids are “local energy networks that are able to separate from the larger electrical grid during extreme weather events or emergencies, providing power to individual customers and crucial public services.” Similar events are likely to follow at RE:GEN:CY if Red Hook residents prove interested.

December 2018

Red Hook Neighborhood School hosts community Game Night By Nathan Weiser Carolyna Salguero’s Portside, who has been working with PS 676, set up an interactive fun and educational hands-on maritime exhibit near the cafeteria. Her time is paid for by a grant from the local councilman. The multi-faceted exhibit that Portside set up is called the Simple Machine Machine. Members of a painter’s union come help them set it up at PS 676. The exhibit had a pulley system that can lift 2,500 pounds that the kids experimented with. This pulley system is designed to make it easy to lift things that are really heavy. Assistant principal Karin Miller talked to everyone after Figueroa. She enjoyed the event and liked seeing so many parents at the Game Night after saying that it had been a struggle at times getting parents to come since 2009. “Let’skeepitup,”Millersaid.“Next time we have a parent event, bring

ACS & We accept rs HRA vouche & Enroll today r ﬁrst receive you pers month of dia FREE and formula

Musical Theatre Classes for 3 to 5 year olds

Music for Aardvarks

somebody else with you, so we can fill this whole cafeteria. In order to get better we have to bring people in.”

Infant-Toddler Program Now Accepting Preschool Applications for ages 3-5

Playing games and having fun at 676’s game night. Principal Priscilla Figueroa is in the circle (photos by Nathan Weiser)

48 Sullivan Street, Brooklyn Phone: 718-576-3443 Fax: 718-576-3840 learningwheelchildcare@gmail.com

Extracurricular activities vary by day! Spanish • Arts and Sciences • Music Cooking • Sports

Hours of Operation: Monday-Friday 7:30 am-6:30pm Serving breakfast, lunch and dinner!

sp a to ac be e

amily game night came to PS 676 on January 22 and it was the first of many similar events for the rest of the school year for PS 676 families and community members. The Red Hook Neighborhood School is trying to have events that families can enjoy at the school after parents get off work and after the YMCA after-school program finishes for the day. Pizza, cookies and bottled water were provided for everyone who came to Game Night. Parent coordinator Marie Hueston says that the goal is to have one event like this one a month for the rest of the school year. At Tuesday’s event, there were about 50 people, with some who had been at previous events and others who had not come before. There were staff from YMCA at the event. There was a literacy station, a math station and a science station and games that the kids could play included Connect 4, Jenga, Make 7 and Scrabble. Most popular game was a giant Connect 4 set that staff members brought in. This giant Connect 4 set is usually brought out for special occasions or if the kids are not able to go outside. There are many different kinds of events that PS 676 plans on having the rest of the school year. “We are going to have a movie night, a potluck, a family reading night,” Hueston said. We want to start doing evening family events, not just for our families but for the community. We told our families that they could bring siblings, neighbors, grandparents and that everybody was welcome.” Tuesday’s event went from about 6 pm until 8 pm and Principal Figueroa interacted and played games in the beginning and later on thanked everyone for coming. “Thank you, parents, for coming today,” Figueroa said. “Tell everybody in the community to come. The door is open for everyone not just 676 parents. Today was amazing and we would like to have more of these events.”

Music classes for infants to 4 yr olds

Birthday Parties

Book yours in advance We do a rockin’ roll “city kid” party

Locations in DUMBO, Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook

For more info visit audrarox.com

An arts and play space for children with disabilities and their families.

Sign-up for music and movement classes today! extremekidsandcrew.org 347-410-6050

71 Sullivan Street (within P.S.15) Brooklyn, NY 11231

RHSR’S BEHIND-THE-SCENES CHOCOLATE FACTORY TOUR WITH LI-LAC CHOCOLATES Story and photos by Erin DeGregorio

i-Lac Chocolates is an old time chocolate maker, operating in Greenwich Villance since 1923. They made a celebrated expansion to Sunset Park’s Industry City a few years ago. I visited them one one rainy Thursday morning in January, in anticipation of their busy season of February 14. When I got there, they were prepping and making chocolate cherry cordials. Master chocolatier Anwar Khoder, who began working at Li-Lac Chocolates in 1989, had a large tray filled with bing cherries on his left. He dipped two cherries at a time into the vat of fresh cream fondant in front of him. Once each cherry was fully covered, he gently placed them onto another tray to his right so the fondant could harden. The white-coated cherries were later brought towards the front of the facility, where people can look in from the outside through the oversize windows to see the chocolate-making in action. Another employee dipped the cherries, one by one, in milk chocolate and placed them on a conveyor belt to set and harden. Also going on in the back was the hand cutting of caramel walnut bars. Li-Lac President and Coowner Anthony Cirone, who led the tour, explained that the caramel had been made fresh the day before and poured into pans later that night so it could set. A big collection of specialty molds was located near that station; most were heartshaped ones with an inscribed cupid and “To My Valentine” on them. Cirone said their chocolate hearts, which are the most purchased item for Valentine’s Day, come in assortments that are all truffles; a mixture of milk and dark; and made up of dark chocolates only. Li-Lac’s Giant Heart, which has 210 pieces and stands two-feettall, sells for $375. Customers can also buy four different types of fresh chocolate hearts at the retail store’s

counter – peanut butter, raspberry marzipan, marshmallow and truffle. Valentine’s Day is Li-Lac’s single busiest day, with thousands coming into the store for day-of purchases. However, Valentine’s Day is not the biggest moneymaker for the company. “Christmas is actually a bigger holiday for us, in terms of dollars, compared to Valentine’s Day,” Cirone said. “It’s spread out over three weeks pretty much; Valentine’s Day is literally a two-day event.” Cirone also noted that, while truffles and hearts are synonymous with Valentine’s Day, February hosts other events that can be summed up with sweets too. Football fans can buy a life-size footballs Chocolate cherry cordials after being dipped (that contains more than two pounds of milk or dark chocolate) to celebrate the Super Bowl, and movie aficionados can be recognized as their own stars. “We do these in February for the Oscars; a lot of people buy them as awards,” Cirone said while pointing to shelves that filled with 8 oz. chocolate Oscar-esque statues. “We’ve started making them already [in late January] in milk and dark chocolate.” The factory makes more than 120 items – one of the largest selections of fresh gourmet chocolate in America – and offers five different types of chocolate (white, milk, dark, dairy-free extra dark and sugar-free). Cirone explained that all their cocoa beans are a blend and the blends are dif- Finished work, ready to eat! ferent for all the different types of chocolate. Most of the cocoa beans ness hours are Monday-Friday (9 packaged and non-packaged choccome from West Africa, but some am-5:30 pm), Saturday (10 am-5 olates. For more information, visit come also from the Pacific-Rim. pm) and Sunday (11 am-5 pm). The li-lacchocolates.com. The Industry City location’s busiretail store there sells a variety of

NYC Restaurant Week Winter 2019: South Brooklyn Edition

here’s no need to leave the borough for delicious food and fine dining, South Brooklynites! Here are the neighborhood eateries that are participating in NYC Restaurant Week Winter 2019 (Jan. 21 – Feb. 8), according to nycgo.com. Prices listed below are per guest and do not include beverages, taxes or gratuity.

Benchmark Restaurant – New American steakhouse (Park Slope)339A 2nd Street • 718-965-7040 • benchmarkrestaurant.com Chef Ryan Jaronik’s everyday menu features a selection of à la carte steaks in up to five different cuts, including a 24-ounce bonein rib eye. Days & prices: MondayFriday lunch (11:30 am-3pm), $26;

Page 30 Red Hook Star-Revue

Monday-Friday dinner (beginning at 5 pm), $42; Sunday brunch/ lunch (10 am-3 pm), $26; Sunday dinner (5-10 pm), $42.

Buttermilk Channel – vegetarian-friendly, New American bistro (Carroll Gardens)524 Court Street • 718-852-8490 • buttermilkchannelnyc.com Prix-fixe lunch menu items include beer-steamed mussels and fries, house-made buttermilk ricotta, buttermilk fried chicken sandwich and more. Prix-fixe dinner menu items include sweet potato soup, pan-roasted Artic char, buttermilk fried chicken and more. Days & prices: Monday-Friday lunch (11:30 am-3 pm), $26; Monday-Friday dinner (beginning at 5

pm), $42; Sunday dinner (5-10 pm), $42.

French Louie – vegetarian-friendly, Modern French-American bistro (Boerum Hill)320 Atlantic Avenue • 718-935-1200 • frenchlouienyc.com Prix-fixe lunch menu items include kabocha squash and sweet potato soup, Chicken Paillard, Burger Royale (double patty, Raclette cheese, lettuce, French dressing and lemon yogurt) and more. Prix-fixe dinner menu items include steak tartare, Mussels Normande, steelhead trout and more. Days & prices: Monday-Friday lunch $26; Monday-Friday dinner $42; Sunday dinner (5-10 pm), $42.

www.star-revue.com

By Erin DeGregorio

The Osprey – New American (Brooklyn Heights)60 Furman Street • 347-696-2505 • theospreybk.com Prix-fixe lunch menu items include wild mushroom soup, Fluke Crudo, quiche, The Osprey Burger (Brandt natural beef, cheddar, malt vinegar onions, paprika mayo) and more. Prix-fixe dinner menu items include cauliflower risotto, prime beef tartare, venison pot pie and more. Prix-fixe dessert items are ginger cheesecake, chocolate soufflé cake and fresh fruit sorbet. Days & prices: Monday-Friday lunch (11 am-3 pm), $26; Monday-Friday dinner (beginning at 5:30 pm), $42; Sunday dinner (5:30-10:30 pm), $42.

February 2019

STAR REVUE 

Valentines , ssidee a C y a Birthd e’s baby! h t 8 y Happ et Valentin e my sw

Rosy Jack world Oh Rosy Jack World Oh Rosy Jack World I’m your squirrel man Don’t you know about Rosy Jack World Rosy Jack World He’s an evil man

Painted up clown and you’re evil as hell Oh why don’t you find yourself A boy down inside The wishing well Wishing well —Your secret admirer

1200 miles can not keep us apart! One year later be my Valentin –Rich

e ng my Valentin Thanks for bei o g years! Let’s for the past 30 abe! —Jamie for 30 more, b

Much Love to ALL of my Red Hook Family I feel so blessed of the Lord that I am from RED Hook! I love the fact that I take Red Hook with me everywhere I live! I love all of the folks that I grew up with, and I still love and miss you Vicki Bush, Debbie Bush, Portia Hamilton, Edna “Queen” Williams, Mark Jackson, all those who have gone on before us, (too many to name), including all of our Red Hook Mommas. I just love to love you, Red Hook! JESUS IS LOVE, JESUS IS LORD! –Dee

Red Hook Star-Revue

nths Guy), y Irish & 5 mo e s M ( r a s e le y r h To Cha ged my life 2 alf, you are t n h than a r y h e a c h You re tod my ot le o e r m a u u o -Danie ago, yo smile. I love y I n ! reaso ve You ay!I Lo yesterd

www.star-revue.com

Happy Valentine’s Day to my Mom and Uncle Steve!!! Love you both!!! -Sonja

February 2019, Page 31

STAR REVUE CRAFTWORKS Brooklyn Craftsman Gene Manigo Rebuilds Life and Builds Custom Home Furnishings at Refoundry By: Erin DeGregorio

“GENE” MANIGO, 66, lifts a long piece of wood that looks like a door and places it nearby a saw in his workshop, Hammer Time Studios. He provides instructions to his apprentice, explaining what length and width he’d like for this piece and how thick the wood should be. The two discuss and confirm numbers before the electric saw comes to life and whirring noises fill the air. “It was weird how I got into furniture, but I learned while I was in prison,” Manigo explains in the hallway outside his workshop as the machinery’s noise becomes muffled. After serving 30 years in prison, Manigo has been home for five years. He says he took up different industries during his sentence – one being a chair shop and the other being a 30-millimeter woodworking shop – where he made frames for chairs and built office desks for state buildings. “While I was in prison I was able to see myself much better without all the distractions in my life,” Manigo says. “And, so when I came home, I ran into the Refoundry program that was opening up. I became one of its founding participants.” Refoundry, which launched in early 2015, is a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that trains formerly incarcerated people to repurpose discarded materials into one-of-a-kind home furnishings, and mentors participants into their own businesses or UGENE

Page 32 Red Hook Star-Revue

career-track jobs. Their curriculum includes mental health/addiction referrals, classes in Internet, finance, business, résumé-building and interview skills and more. Participants make various furniture pieces during the 18-month paid fellowship, and then they sell them at flea markets, earning and keeping a portion of the profits. The Refoundry training program will be starting a new cohort of 20 participants in early 2019. “When people buy home funishings made by Refoundry Entrepreneurs, our graduates see their value affirmed; at the same time it gives others a new perspective on people who have been in prison, which helps promote inclusion and opportunity,” says Refoundry co-founder and Executive Director Tommy Safian. Manigo explains that he was taught how to take discarded furniture and refurbish them during his first year with Refoundry. From there he moved on to building wooden furniture like coffee tables, end tables, platform beds and cabinets. Afterward he became a Refoundry Entrepreneur he established his own furniture business, which he called Kambui Custom Craft. Manigo says he is still struggling financially after two years, but he was determined not to fold. “Refoundry was the key; it opened up the door for me to see my potentials,” he says. “And once I saw my potentials and put them all together, I moved forward.”

Above: Gene and Ralphy Right: Gene waxing a surface. Photos courtesy of Refoundry

Last September he was introduced to the owner of Hammer Time Studios, who needed someone to help him out at his Brooklyn Navy Yard workshop. The studio owner, who wanted to retire, told Manigo that he wanted to sell the machinery from his business. One thing led to another and Manigo became co-owner. At Hammer Time Studios Manigo makes custom wall units, entertainment centers, bookcases, cabinets and radiator covers. He explains that radiator covers can be designed in a variety of ways, including just a regular cover or one with bookshelves on the sides. He’s working on a custom radiator cover for a NY State Senator. He has another order of 15 radiator covers for one house. “I love doing it because it chal-

www.star-revue.com

lenges me, and I’ve always been a person who likes to be challenged,” Manigo says. “It just fits into my character.” He finds that all of his projects – whether it’s making a radiator cover or a dining room table – are exciting because he can see the clients’ reactions and the glow on their faces afterward. Manigo adds that he’s not only tough on himself to do the best job possible, but also on those who work in his shop. He hopes to provide them with an opportunity to work and learn the craft and to help them find a second chance. “When I was in prison I made 45 cents an hour and I told myself, ‘If I can work for the state for 45 cents an hour, why can’t I have my own business and be able to give somebody a job for $18 an hour? To make them feel whole and respected, to take care of their family and of themselves,’” Manigo explains. “I ask for a lot. I’m an individual that cares and wants them to grow.” For more about Hammer Time Studios, visit hammertimestudios. com or text Manigo at his business number, 347-272-0364. To learn more about Refoundry, visit refoundry.org.

February 2019

STAR REVUE CRAFTWORKS Getting to Know Furniture Artist Joseph Cauvel and CAUV Design By Erin DeGregorio

AUV Design is located at 132 Van Dyke Street in Red Hook. Modern furniture artist and owner Joseph Cauvel had a knack for building since he was a kid growing up in northwestern Pennsylvania. His father was a firefighter, who would also work a second job for a contractor. “He always had a hobby workshop in the basement or in the garage,” Cauvel explained. “I probably cut my teeth that way without even knowing it, just wanting to hang out [with him] and be a part of it.” Cauvel later excelled in his high school woodshop class – to the point where he would finish the projects before the teachers had even demonstrated to the class what to do – because he already knew how to use the tools. “The teacher would have to come up with something else to keep me busy, so I became almost like a TA,” he said. “I would go around to other kids and help them get their tables done.” After graduating high school, Cauvel started working full-time and later moved to Chicago and spent six years working in film. He became burnt out from the grind of the industry, adding it was monetarily satisfying but not something he was happy with. He started to mess with very primitive welding, getting his own little welder and restoring a ’65 Chevy pick-up truck. Then he decided to make furniture for himself and some friends and family about five years ago – “as something to try out.” And the rest is history as Cauvel and his girlfriend moved to the neighborhood three years ago and set up the CAUV Design studio.

GOING THROUGH THE PROCESSES Metric Design Studio and CAUV Design are two entities inside of Red Hook Atelier where an idea for a furniture piece becomes a reality after much collaboration. “When people are moving in and maybe looking to customize their units, they can walk in here and have a conversation and a handshake with the person who’s going to almost hold their hand through it, if they want,” Cauvel said. “I don’t want to do it from behind smoke and mirrors where what you see is what you get [and] you can’t customize it – that’s more [like] big box stores.” He explains that the designing process alone can vary in length, depending on what clients are thinking. But every process always starts with taking site measurements and sketching renderings, which he initially does for free. “Some people come to me with a very vague idea and they need me to pick their brain with ques-

Red Hook Star-Revue

CAUV Design studio on Van Dyke Street. Below: Joseph Cauvel. Photos courtesy of Joseph Cauvel

tions and then narrow it down with them,” Cauvel explained. “Then there’s other people who come with a much more figured out idea, like a mom-and-pop home owner. Interior architects and interior designers already have a very good idea of what they want – they just need a very capable maker to sort of interpret it and make it for them.” But, like any job, challenges sometimes arise. “The challenge of custom, which I enjoy, is customizing my pieces to a different scale or finish. Every job that comes in here is different like a snowflake; there won’t be any other one like it,” he said. “Just like you can’t find two pieces of wood that are exactly the same with their grain.” Cauvel views furniture as interactive interior architecture for people’s everyday lives – which should be functional, in addition to looking good. Once a design is agreed upon, he chooses the best materials that will fit the project at hand. Since Cauvel specializes in wood, metal and concrete, any project can encompass one of those materials, a combination of two or even all three. But he said that, while it’s not necessary to add concrete to a potential piece, it’s fun when it does happen. While concrete’s uncommon for the likes of mirrors, desks and tables, Cauvel lets his clients know that it’s an interchangeable option. In terms of wood, his custom pieces are mostly made from domestic hardwoods, like oak and walnut that are obtained through sustainable or natural resources. For every piece sold a donation’s made to an organization that focuses on planting trees in national parks that have suffered losses due to disease, insect outbreaks and wild fires, according to CAUV Design’s website.

often reach out to surrounding craftsmen for support. “We have so many friends in different shops, just in Red Hook even, to where we can collaborate and join forces on larger projects,” he said. “It’s not just a random search for freelancers; it’s more of an artist network we each have.” For example, the wood Cauvel uses comes from a wood warehouse in Rockaway; solid surfaces like granite and marble come from a supplier in Gowanus; and metal finishes on pieces are done by a powder coater right down the street. He also exclusively uses all-natural oil/ wax finishes from Odie’s Oil, which is a family-owned and operated company based in Florida. Odie’s owner, according to Cauvel, saw him on Instagram a few years ago, when he was attempting to make his own natural finish, and reached out to him via direct message. He recalled that the owner, who’s been in the business for more than 30 years, had said his company had a finish that was exactly what he needed. So Odie’s sent Cauvel a jar to try and Cauvel found it was perfect, especially because it was long lasting, durable and safe to use (chemical-wise). As a way to show thanks, Cauvel has made some ‘how-to’ videos for Odie’s social media pages and website.

LOVING RED HOOK Cauvel certainly hasn’t regretted the decision to move to Red Hook and set up his showroom and studio here. One of things he enjoys most is the familiarity of the neighborhood and its residents. “I couldn’t envision myself in a place like Williamsburg that you almost never see the same people, unless you go to the same coffee shop,” Cauvel said. “To be so lucky to commute on my bicycle, when I’m not moving material, and to see the same faces – it’s like a little harbor town in Brooklyn.” For more information about CAUV Design, visit cauvdesign. com. To make an appointment to sit down and discuss a design for a custom piece, contact Cauvel at 814-282-7575 or submit an online form at cauvdesign.com/customfurniturebrooklyncontact/.

CREATING A NETWORK Cauvel said that while he and his business partner can handle a range of projects with different components and materials, they

www.star-revue.com

February 2019, Page 33

STAR REVUE CRAFTWORKS Uhuru Design’s Red Hook Roots and History By: Erin DeGregorio Uhuru Design, headquartered in Red Hook, is a multi-disciplinary design firm, founded in 2004. Bill Hilgendorf, Uhuru’s co-founder, explained that he had studied abroad in Sweden for a semester, which is when and where he really fell in love with furniture design and interior spaces. He and his business partner Jason Horvath both attended the Rhode Island School of Design to study industrial design. Hilgendorf initially came to know Red Hook when he completed an internship on Ferris Street during his junior year. “I really just fell in love with the neighborhood,” he added. “I went back up and finished school and immediately moved back down here.” He and Horvath packed their bags after graduation, and the two worked on their own respective projects for a year and a half before establishing Uhuru Design. They opened a communal studio in a garage space – with Uhuru starting out as a high-end custom/residential furniture company. “For the next 10 years we were in where Tesla is now,” Hilgendorf said. “That’s where we really grew and became the company we are today.”

BUILDING UP THEIR BRAND AND CLIENTELE During that time, Hilgendorf and Horvath really developed their aesthetic, which was not only a combination of reclaimed materials, but a combination of wood and metal as well. Plus, their original inspirations were a combination of Shaker Modernism and Scandinavian design. “Jason was more towards metal working and I had gravitated more towards woodworking,” Hilgendorf said. “But our design was very collaborative; most of our pieces are a combination of wood and metal.” As the two designers grew and cemented this aesthetic, they were hired for more commercial jobs. For example, they were introduced to the designer working on the new Williamsburg office for Vice Media in 2014. Hilgendorf said they initially went there to pitch a design for a conference table, but ended up supplying about 90% of the furniture. “They really liked our aesthetic and, at the time, the office market was a pretty bland offering. There really wasn’t anyone who was bringing that residential mate-

MINIM Rise Sit-Stand Desk rial and high material style into the workplace,” he explained. Uhuru also does all of the domestic and international seating for burger-and-fries franchise Shake Shack – and will be working on a complete interiors package with all-custom furniture and fixtures in an upcoming project, according to Uhuru’s website. They recently outfitted Shake Shack’s office headquarters in Manhattan with seats, stools, and custom conference and breakout tables.

COLLECTIONS Hilgendorf said they launched their debut collection, made mainly out of found objects and wood scraps, at BKLYN DESIGNS in 2006. “We didn’t have a lot of extra money to buy materials for our first collection, so resourcefulness became a core value and an understanding of sustainability,” he said. They continued doing custom work, but began to develop more collections as well. Uhuru’s second collection was a line made from reclaimed bourbon barrels. Hilgendorf explained that Horvath, who is originally from Kentucky, had a connection with a Bardstown distillery – which gave him a bunch of barrels that would be turned into furniture for the 2008 collection. They had also made a six-piece limited edition collection in 2010 out of the Coney Island Boardwalk. One of those pieces, a lounge chair fabricated from reclaimed Ipe

Q&A with Architect Allison Reeves

Email: info@recycledbrooklyn.com Phone: 917.902.0662 Workshop Location: 236 Van Brunt St., Brooklyn, NY 11231 Workshop Shop Hours: Monday-Friday, 9am-6pm; closed weekends for the Brooklyn Flea

Mention this ad for a 10% discount! Page 34 Red Hook Star-Revue

Architect Allison Reeves has been practicing her trade for the last 25 years – working on a range of residential, restaurants and small-scale retail designs to large-scale cultural and educational projects. Her goal has always been to provide modern design with a focus on the innovative use of materials and researchbased solutions. Reeves thought about going out on her own about six years ago, leaving a big firm to work with well-known Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, because she wanted to get experience with high-end residential work. Since then she’s been splitting her time between working for Ban on a condominium building

www.star-revue.com

Photo by Phoebe Streblow wood, was acquired by the Smithsonian American Museum of Art and became a part of its permanent collection in Fall 2012. Later Uhuru did a line out of the decking from the USS North Carolina, a World War II battleship that was built in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

WHAT’S NEXT? While Uhuru switched over from doing residential to mostly commercial work (with a focus on the workplace) in the last few years, they still do residential pieces. Hilgendorf said anyone who’s interested can call and make an appointment at any time. One of Uhuru’s goals for the future is to produce some of their classic designs in higher quantities. It’s Hilgendorf’s hope that, as a result, prices can come down and the pieces can become more accessible for people. He also said that when their original building was sold to make way for Tesla Motors, they moved to their current location, 185 Van Dyke Street, three years ago. “We recently took over a ground floor retail space and we’re going to open that showroom to the public within the next 12 months or so. That’ll be something to look forward to,” Hilgendorf said. Email info@uhurudesign.com, call 718-855-6519 or visit uhurudesign.com for more information.

in Tribeca and doing her own residential work. This month she’s planning to shift gears and focus on her own firm, arDesign, full-time. Reeves spoke with us and discussed her approach to designing; the biggest highlight of her career thus far; and some misconceptions about architects. RHSR: What’s your personal style/ aesthetic when designing? AR: I’m a modernist, but not I’m not a stark modernist or dogmatic about style. My work tends to be fairly organic and I use a lot of warm natural materials, and I like to get inspiration from my clients, so each project is different. RHSR: What’s the style people are looking for nowadays? AR: Residential clients in NYC seem to be looking for either very

continued on next page February 2019

CALL NOW!

1-855-225-1434

your doctor or pharmacist if it is safe to grapefruit with your medications.

Get help paying dental bills and keep more money in your pocket This is real dental insurance — NOT just a discount plan

STAR REVUE CRAFTWORKS

Allison Reeves Continued from previous page

modern, or an updated and streamlined classic style that blends traditional elements with modern touches. RHSR: Who are inspirations? AR: The architects that inspire me the most are ones who use innovative materials in a spare, straightforward way so that the materials really shine. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Louis Kahn, Eero Saarinen, Le Corbusier, and Charles and Ray Eames come to mind as foundational influences. Architects practicing today that I admire include Tadao Ando, Herzog & deMeuron, SHoP Architects, Annabelle Selldorf and Jeanne Gang. RHSR: What’s been your biggest career accomplishment that you’re most proud of? AR: I did a full gut renovation on a townhouse [from the 1890’s] in the neighborhood [Red Hook] a few years ago that really jump-started my own firm. The project was published in Dwell magazine and a profile was written in Brownstoner. RHSR: What’s a common misconception you think people have about architecture? AR: I think most people don’t realize that architects do more than just “design.” We lead the team on most projects so we have an incredibly broad knowledge so that we can talk to the consultants and guide the project. We need to know a lot about structural engineering, mechanicals, plumbing, electrical, site work, lighting, sustainability, zoning and building codes, just to name a few. I think another misconception is that architects are expensive. Architects can work within any budget, and we are skilled at making sure the client gets the best product for the best price, and we can help avoid costly mistakes.

Squash at PAVE continued from page 36 us and allowing us to chat with the teachers all the time and help with their grades.” Another key reason that City Squash chose to partner with PAVE is that PAVE ’s founder is a squash player and has been involved with them for many years. Initially, the youngest members comes for two or three days a week. Their time at Poly is divided between squash training and academic enrichment. “By the time they are in the spring of their 7th grade year they are coming nearly six days a week because three days a week is squash - maybe they have tournaments, cultural outings to museums or school visits on the weekend - and then the other days of the week they are doing test prep, which is really intense and an important part of what we do.” The students travel to a variety of tournaments and summer camps. These opportunities have included getting kids into tournaments all over the United States as well as in Europe. “Just this past summer PAVE team members were at Williams and Amherst College in Massachusetts,” Galluccio said. “We had two students go to summer camps at the Lawrenceville School and the Choate School in New Jersey and Connecticut.”

Red Hook Star-Revue

Through the trips and summer programs that the PAVE students have gone on with City Squash, Fenelus has seen their self-esteem rise. “What I have noticed is that when they do programs like Choate or Lawrenceville, they get to see the world in a different way,” Fenelus said. “They think: I am as competitive, I am as good at doing this as other kids are. I’ve seen kids see that I am really good at things because I went to Choate/ Lawrenceville this summer this kid from Thailand or Texas were in my cohort, and they were supposed to be phenomenal students, and I was writing literature just as good as them.” To help their team members go to private day/ boarding schools, City Squash prepares their students for the SSAT, which is a standardized test that applicants have to take. “We actually have a dedicated staff member that works with students who are interested in applying,” Galluccio said. “They also take them on school visits and interviews so they know what they are getting themselves into.” The City Squash students from PAVE will have their academic enrichment session with a City Squash teacher for an hour and 15 minutes

1-855-225-1434

Taking medicine can be hazardous t health. You have to know what you’re d

NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES CLASSIFIED You can get coverage before your next checkup

Visit us online at

Don’t wait! Call now and we’ll rush you a FREE Information Kit with all the details.

www.dental50plus.com/nypress

For example, calcium-rich dairy pro or certain antacids can prevent antib TO ADVERTISE CALL 917-652-9128 OR EMAIL LIZ@REDHOOKSTAR.COM from being properly absorbed into the b REAL ESTATE stream. Ginkgo biloba can reduce the tivenessOPPORTUNITY of blood-thinning medication BUSINESS BUY AND SELL Have an the idea risk for anfor invention/new raise serious prodcomplications uct? We help everyday inventors try to as stroke.

Insurance Policy P150NY 6129

MB17-NM003Ec

Whether you are a renter looking to rent or buy or a homeowner looking to sell or rent,

Liz Galvin, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson Throughout Brooklyn Specializing in Red Hook and South Brooklyn

contact Liz Galvin!

egalvin@idealpropertiesgroup.com • 813-486-6950

patent and submit their ideas to compaeducate yourself so you nies! You Call should InventHelp®, FREE INFORwhat active ingredients are in the pre MATION! 888-487-7074

tion and over-the-counter medicines y

CABLE taking.& SATELLITE TV

Spectrum Triple Play! TV, Internet & people VoiceSome for $29.99 ea. 60 treat MB perover-the-counte second relievers as if they are harmless. The speed. No contract or commitment. More hurt youFaster if youInternet. take them improperly Channels. Unlimited Voice. Call 1-855-977-7198 contain drugs such as acetaminophen

profen, naproxen sodium and aspirin.

RED HOOK & RESIDENTIAL SERVICES

The ‘SUPER’ of Red Hook Residential & Small Business

■ Airbnb liaison ■ 24 Hour Emergency Services ■ Security ■ Private Fishing Instruction

■ Repair & Maintenance ■ Cleaning/Porter ■ Landscaping ■ Professional Audio Installation/DJing

For an appt call Robby (347) -263-1406 Red Hook Star-Revue REAL ESTATE

Liz Galvin, Licensed Real Estate Salesperson Throughout Brooklyn Specializing in Red Hook and South Brooklyn

Whether you are a renter looking to rent or buy or a homeowner looking to sell or rent,

contact Liz Galvin!

egalvin@idealpropertiesgroup.com • 813-486-6950 AUDIO

CAREER TRAINING aminophen is in Tylenol. Ibuprofen is

AIRLINE CAREERS Start Here –Get vil. Naproxen sodium is Techniin Aleve. trained as FAA certifi ed Aviation cian. Many Financial prescription aid forqualified students. or over-the-co Job placement assistance. Call AIM for medicines that treat multiple symp free information 866-296-7094

such as cold and flu medications, al clude acetaminophen and the other pa FINANCIAL ingredients. SoStill you have to be c 70lieving Years old, kids are grown. need not to take too much of any your life insurance? or is a big LIFE SET- one ingr TLEMENT CASHmore PAYOUT by ingesting thansmarter? one medicatio Call Benefit Advance. 1-844-348-5810 contains that ingredient.

Seniors take more medicines tha HEALTH

other &age group they have VIAGRA CIALIS! 60 pillsbecause for $99. 100 health problems. Taking several drugs pills for $150 FREE shipping. Money back guaranteed! Call Today: 800-4040244 HELPwww.star-revue.com WANTED

JOB OPPORTUNITY: $18 P/H NYC $15 P/H LI- $14.50 UPSTATE NY. If you currently care for your relatives or friends who have Medicaid or Medicare, you may be eligible to start working for them as a personal assistant. No Certificates needed. (347)462-2610 (347)565-6200

HOME IMPROVEMENT

BATHROOM RENOVATIONS. EASY, ONE DAY updates! We specialize in safe bathing. Grab bars, no slip flooring & seated showers. Call for a free in-home consultation: 888-657-9488.

MEDICAL SUPPLIES

Four Foot Studios

The Best Recording Studio in Brooklyn (according to someone probably) For recording, mixing & other audio needs

Contact Gabriel Galvin

(631) 327-0010 www.fourfootstudios.com

Attention Viagra users: Generic 100 mg blue pills or Generic 20 mg yellow pills. Get 45 plus 5 free $99 + S/H. Guaranteed, no prescription necessary. Call 877-845-8068.

MISCELLANEOUS

A PLACE FOR MOM has helped over a million families find senior living. Our trusted, local advisors help find solutions to your unique needs at no cost to you. Call: 1-800-404-8852

MISCELLANEOUS

INTERNET SERVICE BUSINESS OWNERS! SPECTRUM BUSINESS OFFERS: Phone 29.99-Unlimited Local Calls

200 Mbps Internet with Business Wi-Fi $49.99, and TV starting at $29.99 any combination of two.

Call 347.715.0463 for an appointment

joseph.e.corrado@charter.com

DONATIONS

D O N AT E Y O U R C A R Wheels For Wishes benefiting

Make-A-Wish ® Metro New York * 100% Tax Deductible * Free Vehicle Pickup ANYWHERE * We Accept Most Vehicles Running or Not * We Also Accept Boats, Motorcycle & RVs

WheelsForWishes.org Call:(917)336-1254 * Car Donation Foundation d/b/a Wheels For Wishes. To learn more about our programs or ﬁnancial information, call (213) 948-2000 or visit www.wheelsforwishes.org.

www.star-revue.com

If you or a loved one were diagnosed with ovarian cancer after use of TALC products sucah as Baby Powderor Shower to Shower, you may be entitled to compensation . Contact Charles H. Johnson 1-800- 535-5727 DISH TV $59.99 for 190 Channels + $14.95 High Speed Internet. Free Installation, Smart HD DVR Included, Free Voice Remote. Some restrictions apply. Call 1-800-943-0838. DIRECTV CHOICE All-Included Package. Over 185 Channels! ONLY $45/ month (for 24 mos.) Call NowGet NFL Sunday Ticket FREE! CALL 1-888-534-6918 Ask Us How To Bundle & Save!

REAL ESTATE

Sebastian, Florida (East Coast)Beach Cove is an Age Restricted Community where friends are easily made. Sebastian is an “Old Florida” fishing village with a quaint atmosphere yet excellent medical facilities, shopping and restaurants. Direct flights from Newark to Vero Beach. New manufactured homes from $114,900. 772-581-0080; www.beach-cove.com

February 2019, Page 35

STARREVUE SPORTS Squash Program PAVEs the Way to New Opportunities By Nathan Weiser

City Squash is a citywide program that offers training, travelling to tournaments, advanced academic assistance standardized test training. They have been working with PAVE students for the past three years. Each day, Robert Galluccio, the Brooklyn Program Director and former squash player at Middlebury College, take students from PAVE to Brooklyn Poly Prep, an elite private school in Dyker Heights. Geoff Fenelus, the middle school principal, believes that City Squash has been an outstanding partnership allowing students to develop in

many ways. “I would talk about the social and emotional development that they help our kids with,” Fenelus said. “Also, their presence and consistency and the additional resources that they help provide to make sure that kids are getting a holistic approach. Lastly, their network. They push to make sure our kids are getting access to the best schools. Not just in New York City, not just in New York State, but in the country. PAVE has similar values and goals for its students as City Squash, so the partnership is a fitting one.

PAVE squash team Photo by Nathan Weiser “PAVE is a little different than a traditional public school because PAVE instills from a young age that going off to these schools is something they should strive for,” Galluccio said. “I believe the entire middle school by the time they graduate will have visited a boarding school. Even something as simple as all the classrooms being named after college helps because that is our goal, to have these students graduate.” The enrollment in the City Squash program is kept small so they can concentrate as much as possible on having the highest possible impact

and benefit on each participant. Initially, the program spent a lot of time trying to find a suitable school in Brooklyn that would benefit from having a comprehensive after school program that they could work closely with. “We feel lucky to be here at a school [PAVE] where they value what we provide the students in terms of the extracurricular and athletic and travel opportunities,” City Squash Program Director Robert Galluccio said. “Also, in staying connected with

Continued on page 35

LADY EAGLES TIE FOR THIRD IN AA DIV! By Nathan Weiser

he Summit Academy girls basketball lost 59-40 at Midwood High School on January 18, in a game that was originally scheduled to be played in Red Hook. The 19-point loss ended Summit’s four-game winning streak. They edged Manhattan Center for Science & Math by one at home, beat Francis Lewis by three points, got a forfeit win over Boys and Girls and then beat Grand Street Campus on the 16th in a game that also could not be played at Summit. Asbestos was released in a gym class after a ball hit the rim. There can’t be gym classes or basketball games at Summit while the gym is being inspected. “I don’t know,” Coach Dytanya Mixson said about the gym opening. “It is up to the DOE. We have no control of that. We just have to sit back and wait. We are at their mercy.” As a result of Summit’s loss to Midwood, they now both have a 7-5 record and are tied for third place in the Brooklyn AA division. Summit has five league games left in the season. The Summit Lady Eagles beat

Lady Eagles Photo by Nathan Weiser

Page 36 Red Hook Star-Revue

Midwood 61-51 in December, also at Midwood, but this time they were not able to play up to the level they did in their first matchup with the Lady Hornets. “They came out to play and we did not,” Coach Dytanya Mixson said after the game Mixson thought Castro, whose 11 points were tied for the team lead with junior Aichata Ballo, was Summit’s best player against Midwood. “She played her heart out but that is nothing new,” Mixson said. In the first half, one Midwood fan was very vocal and after he almost ran onto the court after a call he did not like. The refs briefly stopped the game and told him they would call security if he didn’t calm down. Castro made a free throw to pull Summit within 36-23 before a Midwood timeout with 6:07 left in the 3rd. Then, junior Daishya Stallings converted a jumper close to the 3-point line before Summit got a steal and layup to get the deficit back to 13 points. Midwood would go on a 8-1 run in the last 4:00 minutes of the 3rd quarter to improve their lead to 48-28. Hodge continued her solid game with her deep jumper for Summit’s first points of the 4th with 4:37 left. Diminutive sophomore Tiffany Wiliamson was on the floor for a few minutes towards the end of game with a leg injury and the crowd cheered when she was able to walk to the bench.

Also, towards the end of the game, Summit’s inbounds defense was able to force Midwood’s second 5-second violation.

www.star-revue.com

Brereton made a 3-pointer and then Summit made a layup before the contest ended.

February 2019

Star Revue 

Bumble Bees R Us Child Day Care Center

Focus

Little Snowflakes Group Family Daycare

by Erin DeGregorio

n t on e e C r e s r a C Day

Strong Place for Hope Day Care

Strong Place for Hope Day Care Photo courtesy of Strong Place

Yoko’s Daycare

Photo courtesy of Muzi Melikoglu of Little Snowflakes Group Family Daycare

Bumble BeesRUs interior Red Hook Star-Revue File Photo

Yoko’s Daycare

Photo courtesy of Yoko’s Daycare

Below: Atsuko Murakami and Yoko Mimata at Yoko’s Daycare Photo by Erin DeGregorio

Bumble BeesRUs Exterior Red Hook StarRevue File Photo

Little Snowflakes Group Family Daycare Photo courtesy of Little Snowflakes Group Family Daycare

umble BeesRUs Child Day Care Center in Red Hook, which will be celebrating its seventh year this March, offers educational programs for children ages six weeks to five years. Their centers offer a multisensory “hands-on” approach to learning that helps kids nurture their creativity, self-expression and independence. It has an open-door policy, in which parents can stop by and also schedule time to volunteer in their child’s classroom. Caregivers are encouraged to participate in a variety of family events held throughout the year, including birthday and holiday celebrations, field trips and parent-child activities (like “Doughnuts with Dad” and “Muffins with Mom”). They serve morning snacks, planned lunch and supper meals that are catered and cooked fresh daily. Parents of infants (under the age of 12 months) are asked to supply all food items/formula for their babies, plus a detailed schedule of how their babies are cared for at home, so that their individual schedules can be replicated as much as possible. Director Jessica Figuly also said there are weekly extension courses available for music and movement, Spanish immersion, and yoga classes in some programs. The Red Hook facility (76 Lorraine Street) has seats available and is currently welcoming enrollment applications for their infant, toddler and preschool programs. It also has universal Pre-K, Head Start and Early Head Start programs for families, and accepts ACS and HRA vouchers. For more information, call 718-858-8111 or visit bumblebeesrus.com/child-day-care-centers/ lorraine-street-red-hook-brooklyn. It’s open weekdays, 7 am to 6 pm.

Page 12 Red Hook Star-Revue

Sunflower Child Care

Rainbow Palace Daycare Garden at Little Snowflakes Group Family Daycare Photo courtesy of Little Snowflakes Group Family Daycare

Photo courtesy of Strong Place

trong Place for Hope Day Care in Red Hook/Carroll Gardens is one of three locations in Brooklyn that’s been helping toddlers and preschoolers learn and have fun since 1970. They have a year-round program that offers two year old, three year old and four year old Universal Pre-K classes. Some of the program features in their weekly curriculum plans include music theory class, French immersion class (Pre-K), sign language, art exchange with schools in other countries and classroom cooking. Children are offered fresh fruit and vegetables daily and meals are freshly made on-site by professional kitchen staff. The meals also reflect the many cultures represented in their schools, with family recipes coming from Panama, Salvador and Turkey for example. Many of the lessons, taught by NYS-certified teachers, are presented in auditory, kinesthetic and visual methods, according to their website. Strong Place Day Care was renamed Strong Place for Hope Day Care seven years ago in honor of the late Hope Reichbach, an aide to Councilman Stephen Levin. Reichbach, who lived in Boerum Hill, believed in Strong Place’s curriculum and the necessity of having Strong Place in the community. The Red Hook/Carroll Gardens center is located at 595 Clinton Street and can be reached at 718-6242993 or strongplacedaycare@hotmail.com. It’s open Mondays through Fridays (8 am-6 pm). Website: strongplaceforhopedaycare.com

www.star-revue.com

Sunflower Child Care Activities Photo courtesy of Sunflower Child Care

Above and below: Rainbow Palace Daycare Photos courtesy of Rainbow Palace Daycare

“We don’t provide Japanese education, but [rather] conversations for the kids,” Mimata explained. “They can hear Japanese regularly, but we do also speak English.”

unflower Child Care Carroll Gardens (482 & 484 Smith Street) are two of multiple locations in Brooklyn that offer weekday programs for infants and toddlers, ages three months to five years old. Parents with infants must provide diapers, wipes, ointments, a change of clothes, and formula/baby food. Sunflower Child Care provides meals for kids ages one and up. Due to their multi-aged, home-like setting, there are many opportunities for interaction among all the different ages of Sunflower students, according to their website. Art, music, dance and Daruma Martial Arts classes are taught weekly by certified teachers and help children express their creative sides. The Daruma Martial Arts program, as stated on their website, is designed for kids to develop balance, strength, body awareness and technical ability. Director Natalie Baechko said the Carroll Gardens locations currently have open enrollment. They’re open Mondays through Fridays (8 am-6 pm), and offer flexible part-time schedules (first block being 8 am-1 pm, second block being 1-6 pm) for caregivers. For more information, including tuition rates, call 646-642-3439 or go to sunflowerchildcarecenter.com.

February 2019

oko’s Daycare has two locations in Gowanus: 183 19th Street (for two and three year olds) and 69 16th Street (for newborns to one year olds). A variety of activities are offered in their multicultural setting so that kids develop a sense of respect and appreciation for other cultures, according to owner Yoko Mimata.

For example, cultural lessons include reading classic children’s book in English and Japanese, singing songs in English and Japanese, and learning about Japanese culture through the practice of certain customs (like origami and using chopsticks). Mimata cooks every day, serving eggs and rice with some kind of soup, which she said is similar to the Japanese dish oyakodon.

ainbow Palace Daycare, which has been in the Columbia Street Waterfront District for the past five years kids up to five years old with book reading time, alphabet and numbers activities, outdoor activities and sports. There are also daily Spanish and music lessons, and a Pre-K class. Organic produce and homemade meals (breakfast, lunch and snacks) are. Rainbow Palace Daycare, located at 70 Carroll Street, currently has a waitlist. Call 917-702-0873 or visit rainbow-palace-daycare.com for more information. It’s open weekdays, 8 am - 6 pm.

Red Hook Star-Revue

Other curriculum activities include yoga, music classes (taught by a music teacher every Monday), physical body movement classes, sign language and cooking. Mimata said Yoko’s has an open door policy for parents to stop by, except during naptime. Both locations are open Mondays through Saturdays (7 am-6:30 pm), and have year-round registration with a 10% discount available for siblings (though Mimata said there’s a waitlist at the moment). Call 917-428-5151, email yokosdaycarenyc@gmail.com or visit yokosdaycare.com for more info.

www.star-revue.com

ittle Snowflakes Group Family Daycare in Cobble Hill is one of three locations in Brooklyn that has structured learning programs and experiential activities for toddlers and preschoolers. Owner Muzi Melikoglu believes that hands-on “learning through play” helps children better grasp ideas and helps enhance socialization, communication, cognition and conceptual skills. The toddler program includes arts and crafts, music activities, indoor and outdoor group games, reading, phonics and math exercises. The Pre-K program helps kids: learn to write letters, how to properly grip writing utensils, recognize shapes and colors, learn days of the week and months of the year, and play puzzles and board games. Melikoglu also said the staff and children have fun together by planting vegetables and herbs in their backyard during the warm weather – and that the children can bring home some veggies later on. She added that they hold cooking classes twice a month when the kids help make cookies and cake to celebrate a special occasion or holiday. “They have their aprons, and then I take photos of them that I send to the parents,” Melikoglu explained to RHSR. The Cobble Hill location (394 Henry Street), which currently has a waitlist, can be reached at 718-797-3539 or lsnowflakes2006@gmail.com. It’s open Mondays through Fridays (8 am to 6 pm) and has flexible schedules available to meet parents’ needs. Website: littlesnowflakesdaycare.com

February 2019, Page 25