Red Hook Star-Revue, November, 2018 by George Fiala

NOVEMBER

GODZILLA VS. SANDY

Celebrating another Barnacle Parade Story by Brett Yates, with photos by Micah B. Rubin, page 3

INSIDE: BASIS talks trucks, page 9 Gangs of Red Hook, page 14 CB 6 shoots down developers, page 5 Red Hook Star-Revue

Casserole Contest page34 www.star-revue.com

Alsarah and the Nubations, page 21 November 2018, Page 1

481 Van Brunt Street, 8A Brooklyn, NY 11231 (718) 624-5568 www.star-revue.com

E & P George Fiala

A Liz Galvin

A D Sonja Kodiak Wilder

C E Matt Caprioli R: Nathan Weiser Erin DeGregorio C: Laura Eng, Religion Emily Kluver, Features Steve Farber@gmail.com Mary Ann Pietanza, Sofia Baluyut, Tina Portelli Ed Littleford, Brian Abate 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

ª Revue Community Star Events Community Calendar SEPTEMBER November

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The New Mothers Support Group will meet to empower women as they search for answers and address emo�onal concerns Tue. including caring for yourself a�er pregnancy and rela�onships and in�macy concerns. This will happen at the Addabbo Family Health Center (120 Richards Street) from 11 am to 12 pm. To RSVP contact the WIC oﬃce at Tue. the Addabbo Family Health Center at 718-945-7150 ext. 6110, 6108 or 1814 or Lisa M. Simon at 718-945-7150 ext. 3239. Sat.

Wed Thur.

Thur Wed.

Tue.

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 Street, 9B.

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

Free Qiqong Class with Re�red FDNY Fireﬁghter and Qugong Instructor Jonathan Henderson, at Friends of the Fireﬁghters, 199 Van Brunt Street, 7-9 pm

The Well Red Black Girl and Pioneer Works present the second annual Well Read Black Girl Fes�val, a celebra�on of Black women Sat. readers and writers that seeks to ini�ate meaningful conversa�ons within literary arts. This year’s fes�val includes Jacgueline Chambers, Renee Watson, Blair Imani and many more. The fes�val will go from 11 am to 7 pm at Pioneer Works (159 Pioneer Street). General admission is $45 and premium admission is $55. The premium op�on includes a copy of Well Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves by Glory Edim.

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There will be a dance performance with a DJ Mike Palms a�er Good Shepherd’s Thanksgiving feast at PS 15 (71 Sullivan Tue Street). There will be a lineup of professional dance companies that will include Rajonna Lewis with live drumming and dance from African diaspora, Solomon Goodwin and the MVP Dance Company. Fri. . The Red Hook West Tenants Associa�on will have their monthly mee�ng led by Lillie Marshall at 428 Columbia Street Tenant Room 1C. .

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There will be a college fair at the Miccio Community Center (110 W. 9th Street) from 4:00 to 6:30 pm. This is your chance to speak to college representa�ves and explore your op�ons. For more informa�on, call 718-923-8261 or 718923-8242. Sun Sat Thu

email email george@redhookstar.com george@redhookstar.com toto list your list your event. event. For For more more listings, listings, check check out out our our online community calendar at online community calendar at www.star-revue.com/ www.star-revue.com/calendar calendar

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).

There will be an open house at PS 15, Patrick F. Daly Magnet School of the Arts (71 Sullivan Street). Addi�onally, there will be an open Fri. house on January 9 and February 7. Come meet teachers and administrators, learn about the innova�ve educa�onal program and tour the bright classrooms. Please RSVP with parent coordinator Melissa Johnson at mjohnson98@schools.nyc.gov or at 347-5635380. Fri

Homework help will happen every Thursday of the month from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm at the Red Hook Library (7 Wolco� Sat Street). Teen tech �me will happen every Friday of the month from 3:00 to 5:00 pm at the Red Hook Library (7 Wolco� Street). You will be able to play various games in a friendly compe��ve environment.

Wed Saturday of the month there will be a free fast track Every hybrid HSE (formerly GET) class at the Red Hook Library. Register by calling the library at 718-935-0203 or emailing hse@bklynlibrary.org. The class will run from 10 am un�l 2 pm.

The gym, theater, weight room and computer room will be available for ages 13 and up at the Miccio 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.

ONGOING

Red Hook StarRevue

ONGOING

The

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 Wednesdays, the Red Hook Community Jus�ce Center will be hos�ng a support group for women who have experienced violence in a rela�onship. Join this group (5 un�l 7 pm) to find support, speak openly about your experiences and begin the healing process a�er experiencing in�mate partner violence. Dinner and Metrocards will be provided.

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

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September November 2018 2018

GODZILLA VS. SANDY

Barnacle Parade Marches Again

by Brett Yates Photos by Micah B. Rubin

n the streets of Red Hook on October 29, the iconic Japanese sea monster Godzilla took on his fiercest opponent yet: extreme weather. He won, saving the neighborhood from a second natural disaster and keeping its citizens dry and happy over the course of the Barnacle Parade, which has annually celebrated local resilience since the first anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. Red Hook’s volunteer-built Godzilla stood over 25 feet high (setting a Barnacle record), a colossus of landscape fabric, plywood, two-byfours, and chicken wire, pulled by a team of at least seven, with additional children holding up the tail, plus some internal puppeteers. The lifelike creature could swing his arms, bend at the waist, crane his neck, and even breathe smoke from his red-illuminated mouth. The hurricane – a shopping cart adorned in blue parachute cloth, PVC, and upholstery batting – kept its distance. Led by drummers, a trumpeter, and a saxophonist, with stops for free snacks and beverages at Steve’s

Photos clockwise from top right: Godzilla representing Red Hook; epic battle between the Sandy monster and Godzilla; Council Member Menchaca gets into the spirit; Ben of the Good Fork served as chief engineer for the day; Fort Defiance’s St. John is having a blast!; bartender James in pre-Halloween costume; a big day for kids; rest stop at Steve’s Key Lime; The T-Shirt, sales of which helped fund the parade.

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Red Hook Star-Revue

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November 2018, Page 3

After three decades on a changing Van Brunt Street, Tony from Red Hook Coffee Shop will hang it up By Noah Phillips It’s 4:30 on Monday morning. An empty school bus rolls up Van Brunt Street. The flag outside the VFW flaps in the pre-dawn October chill. And the plate glass windows of the Red Hook Coffee Shop shine brightly in the dark, illuminating 80 year old Jose Antonio Piraquive, aka Tony, kneeling on the floor putting vegetables into the refrigerator. Tony hasn’t missed a day of work due to illness or other symptom of human weakness since 1973, when he opened his first restaurant in Williamsburg. “I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to work. I’ve got to make a good future for my daughters,” remembers Tony. “I think my medicine, what keeps me healthy, is the responsibility.” There can be no doubt that Tony has borne that responsibility well. The Red Hook Coffee Shop is a holdover from a time when the neighborhood’s businesses served truckers and factory workers—hence the early hours—but Tony’s discipline and acuity put both of his daughters through college and provided comfortably for himself and his family. Yet, after many years of early mornings spent on Van Brunt Street, Tony will be hanging up his apron and retiring in a matter of months, or even weeks. “No matter what you do in life, it always comes to an end,” Tony reflects. ”I feel strong still, I want to still work, I love to work. But, in the same way, I’m eighty years old. It’s a lot of years.” Tony was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia, and came to New York City in 1963 at the age of 21. “I love New York,” says Tony. “This is the most beautiful place in the Earth. All kinds of people go together here, no problem. It’s like a big symphony, there’s different nationalities but everything is harmony.” Shortly after arriving Tony enrolled in an English course at New York University while working in an auto body shop. One day in 1964, it was raining, and business was slow. Never a man to waste a productive day, “I said, ‘how can I kill this day?’ So I went to the unemployment office to get a better job. I wasn’t looking for a job, I was looking for a better job.” What he found instead was a wife— after translating for a young Colombian woman he met at the unemployment office he gave her a ride back to her home in Corona, Queens. She introduced him to his future wife, who was “a young girl, all that, and more beautiful than the other one, so I liked her!” He lent his future wife some English books from NYU, and within a year they were married with a daughter on the way. “My wife is very sophisticated, very educated,” says Tony. “If we met in Colombia we’d never get married, because over there, with the classes, the last name is very important.” Over the next few years Tony got two degrees—one in electronics and another in computer technology. Immediately after graduating from the latter he got a job as a computer engineer, but he didn’t like the company culture. “I was used to being face to face with the

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owner of the business, and here I was a number,” remembers Tony “I didn’t like that, so I quit and went back to the body shop. Today, I realize that was a big mistake [to leave computer science].” 1973 was a big year for Tony—it was the year his second daughter was born, the last time he got sick, and the year he decided to “go independent.” His daughter’s godfather owned several coffee and donut shops, and he offered Tony the chance to be part owner in one for $10,000. “He set up the place very easily, with maybe $5000,” remembers Tony. “Now, it’s very difficult to start your business.

And people started to tell me ‘you’re going to Red Hook, are you crazy?’ —Jose Antonio Piraquive, aka Tony In those days, you could decide everything yourself, no big deal. There were no regulations, no nothing in those days.” The coffeeshop thrived. “In those days there was really tremendous business, because there was still a lot of factories here in Brooklyn, a lot of activity,” remembers Tony. Everybody made money. There were a lot of working people, a lot of factories.” But there were some difficulties— Tony says he was almost run out of business by his own employees, who would steal from the cash register. “In those days there was no cameras, no nothing. So for six months I was selling

a lot, but there was no money! I started to say, ‘what the hell is going on here?’ Then I realized I had to be in the front of the business all the time.” Eventually he bought out his daughter’s godfather. His rent in Williamsburg was $2500 (a lot in in 1985), and when one of his customers told him about an available storefront in Red Hook going for only $600, he jumped on it without really giving the neighborhood itself much thought. “I don’t know how I made it here, to be honest,” says Tony. “I didn’t know Red Hook. I just saw the business, and I came. And people started to tell me ‘you’re going to Red Hook, are you crazy? Are you stupid? They’re going to kill you!” But he says he’s never had any problems. It’s now 5:30, and Tony’s first customer of the day enters the shop, buys two coffees, and leaves. “25 years ago, this hour was extremely busy,” remembers Tony. “Busy, busy, busy, busy. And now it’s nothing, because now there’s no people, no enterprise. There was tremendous activity here.” He says this matter-of-factly, and it’s hard to tell whether Tony is nostalgic for those earlier times or feels content in the knowledge that it’s all the work of the invisible hand. “I think this is the country of opportunity for everyone,” Tony says. “Here, people who want to make it, he makes it. People who want to work, they get a job.” The American dream came true for Tony, at least—his hard work put both of his daughters through school and has allowed him and his family to travel and enjoy sophisticated tastes. “One of my daughters is a lawyer, she’s independent, she’s got her own office, her own business. Very respectable, very disciplined,” says Tony. “The other one, I cannot complain. She’s worked almost fifteen years for the Department of Education as a psychologist. She’s pretty smart, too.” Tony is a regular at Lincoln Center— he played Tchaikovsky and Beethoven

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Tony

in the coffee shop until he realized it was alienating his blue-collar clientele—and is looking forward to spending more time playing chess with his grandchildren. “I like to travel,” says Tony. “I went to Europe already, so I’d like to go again. I’d like to go to China. China, I like the history, I’d like to see the Wall. I’d like to see the Galapagos, maybe the culture of the Incas in Peru. And I like to read a lot, so I’ll have time to read a lot.” It’s almost six o’clock in the morning, and Tony is behind in his work because he’s been talking to me. During our whole conversation, he’s been working: he’s finished putting the vegetables away, cleaned the grill in the kitchen, and made the coffee. His tone has been cheerfully stoic, the tone of a proud man who chose independence and self-improvement and is satisfied with the result. He now politely begins to hint that it’s time for me to leave so he can get on with his work. Before I go, I ask him how he feels about leaving Van Brunt Street, where he has spent so many years. “You don’t seem very emotional,” I say. “Oh yes, I am emotional,” he says. “This is like, better than my house. I’ve spent half of my life here. Really, I feel very sad. Like I said, I never had problems here. But, everything comes to the end, you know what I mean? I feel good, I feel my mind is working properly, and my body, I don’t take no medicine at all, nothing. So, so far so good. I’d like to come back twenty years from now and see the wonder of Red Hook. Red Hook is a tremendous place. It’s going to be

October 2018

Peter Flemming, left, watches as David Rosenberg, right, presents a rendering at the October CB6 Landmarks and Land Use meeting

CB6 shoots down crazy plan for 41 Summit St.

Story and photos by George Fiala

pect Park South and Ocean ParkA young fellow named David Rosenway in Brooklyn, Jackson Heights in berg started off the October CB6 Queens, and in Harlem and along the Landmarks and Land Use meeting avenues in the East Village in Manby professing to be a little nervous. hattan. He didn’t expect a full PS 15 audiThe rendering that Rosenberg torium. They came because of two produced showed a rather ordinary controversial issues on the agenda. seven story building, sticking out Rosenberg’s presentation involved from the rest of the low rise block a zoning change request for three like a sore thumb. However, were the lots surrounding the Chase bank on change enacted by the City Council, Hamilton Avenue was one of them. the three lots could be combined into The petition was made specifically one tall, dense, apartment building. about a building next to the Chase His justification was that this area parking lot. That building, 41 Sumis really on an Avenue (Hamilton), mit Street, was once home to a coffee facing a park. However, Ickes Park is distributor. It also distributed cocaine. not Central Park. It was seized by the Feds in the early Rosenberg made clear that he was 1990’s following a memorable bust, representing only the owner of 41 and was sold at auction a few years ago. Summit. When asked whether the Evidently, some developers owner had been in bought the building, contact with the other which had been reproperty owners, he modeled and offered responded simply that for rent as a commerhe didn’t know, probcial property. Much ably not, but whether of Summit had been they might have had zoned industrial back coffee together he when the city thought couldn’t say. the whole area would Other issues raised become a containerincluded shading of port, and little by little the adjacent gardens, it has been changed 41 Summit Street now including the beautiful back to residential. community garden on the corner of Much of the surrounding area is Hamilton and Van Brunt. Rosenberg now zoned R6B, which is defined by responded with the traditional dethe Department of City Planning like veloper response, saying that “shadthis. R6B districts are often traditioning studies” had been conducted, al row house districts, which preserve and assured everyone that every the scale and harmonious streetscape four out of so many hours the plants of neighborhoods of four-story atwould receive a little sunlight. tached buildings developed during In any case, the foolishness was the 19th century. Many of these housshot down by the committee 15-1. It es are set back from the street with does, however, proceed to the Borstoops and small front yards that are ough President’s office, where it will typical of Brooklyn’s “brownstone” be heard in a public hearing at 6 pm neighborhoods, such as Park Slope, at Borough Hall on November 27. AfBoerum Hill and Bedford Stuyvesant. terwards it goes to City Rosenberg’s proposPlanning and finally al was to change the lot to the City Council, that he was representwhere it will be voted ing, plus two other adon. jacent lots, to R7A. City The opinion of Planning describes councilmember Brad R7A as follows: The conLander, who was in the textual Quality Housaudience to testify on a ing regulations, which Cobble Hill matter, will are mandatory in R7A be vitally important to districts, typically prothe future of this part duce high lot coverage, of Red Hook. seven-to nine- story PS - the other matapartment buildings, The crazy plan ter, a walled-in swimblending with existing ming pool to replace part buildings in many estabof Long Island College lished neighborhoods. Hospital, also failed. R7A districts are mapped along Pros-

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Everyone Needs A Plan *Free half hour phone consulta�on*

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

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October 2018, Page 5

Photo by Mike McCaffery

In case you were wondering what those bumpy things are that have suddenly appeared on just about every corner in this city and beyond By Erin DeGregorio

Photo by Erin DeGregorio

e often go through our daily routines without giving a thought to some of the little things that surround us – like loose change on the ground that seemingly never gets picked up or sliding doors that automatically open and close at stores. But one of those things that we all encounter and walk over constantly are the brightly colored rubbery pockmarked mats that have lately been showing up on curbs all over Red Hook and behone. Detectable warning surfaces are strips of small, raised, color-contrasting circles on pedestrian ramps. They are required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to be installed at transition points where there’s a street crossing and when the right-of-way changes, like from a sidewalk to a roadway. These detectable warning surfaces are intended to alert visually impaired and blind pedestrians to a change in environment and surface conditions, as they

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walk and cross the street with or without a cane. ADA HISTORY, STANDARDS AND COMPLIANCE The ADA, which was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, provided fair treatment and new opportunities for millions with disabilities across the United States. As a result, it required state and local governments to meet certain curb cut specifications, including that curb cuts be built wherever pedestrian walkways intersected with a curb. Curb cuts received detectable warnings in the form of truncated domes that could be felt via a cane and with the feet through the soles of most types of shoes. These domes must contrast in color with the surrounding street and sidewalk (either light-on-dark or dark-on-light), which is why we often, for example, see red or dark gray detectable warn-

‘Safety red’ bumps at Union St.and 3rd Ave

ing strips on light gray-colored sidewalks today. Additionally detectable warnings must be slip-resistant to keep shoe heels and cane/crutch tips from sliding on walking surfaces. However, ADA criteria were revised and released by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2010, including modifications to detectable warning surfaces. The ADA 2010 Standards for Accessible Design expanded on the previously set standards by setting minimum and maximum dimensions for dome size and spacing, according to a May 2012 post by the New Jersey Bicycle and Pedestrian Resource Center. The original standards specified that the truncated domes have a diameter of 0.9 inches and a center-to-center spacing of 2.35 inches. That was changed, with the new design standards setting a base diameter between 0.9 inches and 1.4 inches and spacing between 1.6 inches and 2.4 inches. The height of the truncated domes remained unchanged at 0.2 inches. As a result, these raised truncated domes (in a consistent grid pattern) provide a distinct impression on the bottom of individuals’ feet while walking. Curb cuts must be at least three feet wide, and a 24-inch strip of detectable warnings should be installed across the bottoms of curb ramps, which may have a maximum slope of 8.33 percent. The ADA also stipulates that the curb cut has to be a minimum of two feet from the transition of a pedestrian walkway into a potentially dangerous, vehicular way. The biggest change regarding detectable warning surfaces, however, had to do with where they were re-

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quired. The 2001 ADA guidelines required detectable warning surfaces on curb ramps, in front of doors to hazardous areas, at dangerous vehicular areas, on transit platforms, and at the edges of reflecting pools. The 2010 revised standards only required detectable warning surfaces on curb ramps in the public right-of-way and on transit platform edges. ADA SOLUTIONS, INC. One of the companies that installs detectable warning surfaces onto curb cuts across the country is ADA Solutions. The Massachusetts-based company has been manufacturing detectable warning products since 2001, and is a leading manufacturer of the products in North America today. According to its official website, ADA Solutions makes cast-in-place surfaces, durable surface applied panels for existing concrete or new construction, radius system warnings for curving surfaces and more. All of its products adhere to the current requirements set by the ADA Accessibility Guidelines and Public Rights-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines. ADA Solutions’ surfaces are made from a reinforced fiberglass, carbon and glass composite for enhanced durability. Brad DeAndrea, senior vice president of international business development at ADA Solutions, said the fiberglass polymer composite is “undoubtedly the most effective” and yields the best results for ‘stop’ ratios, in comparison to brick, rubber and concrete composites. “Detectable warnings – in a short

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November 2018

Warning surfaces continued from previous page

Photo by Erin DeGregorio

sense – is a stop sign; it simply means, ‘Stop. You’re about to transition from a safe pedestrian path of travel into a potentially dangerous vehicular way,’” he said. “It means stop and access your next step.” The slip-resistant detectable warning products are also not affected by extreme low or high temperatures, and are not affected by salt, according to lab testings. However, the most important aspect is the “sound on cane” element, which is the sound canes make during a sweeping motion against the products. As per its website, ADA Solutions’ composite material and design features

this paper it was hard to determine the exact number of tiles and square feet that have been installed in New York City by the company. While the purpose of detectable warnings is intended for the blind and visually impaired, they also help those who are not visually impaired. “The unintended benefits of detectable warnings [are for] visually distracted pedestrians, particularly in urban areas, that are married to their mobile devices,” DeAndrea said. With their contrasting colors and raised truncated domes, the detectable warning surfaces alert those who are scrolling through social media, texting and/or making phone

White bumps on corner of Pacific and Bond Streets

“enhance sound attenuation, making them the best choice for true detectability.” DeAndrea said the material of the detectable warning surface makes a distinct resonating sound when a cane is tapped against it, and that there is a vibrational element as well. FUNCTIONS One of the primary functions of detectable warnings is to be visual, meaning there is a color contrast between the tactile warning surface and the surrounding concrete surface. DeAndrea said this allows people – including not those who are blind or visually impaired, but also pedestrians who are distracted – to recognize the difference in color as they’re walking along and approaching a curb cut. In terms of colors, ADA Solutions offers the most popular colors used nationwide: yellow, clay-red, brickred, black, gray and blue. DeAndrea explained that yellow is the universal color for caution and that yellow also appears to be the brightest color in the spectrum. However, he said safety-red is becoming more popular to use for detectable warning surfaces nowadays. “A lot of municipalities are going toward the red because red implies ‘stop,’ and red sometimes has a better contrast if you have a light concrete sidewalk,” DeAndrea explained. “The yellow doesn’t provide as strong a visual contrast as the red.” Paul Schiloski, a regional account manager at ADA Solutions, said the New York area has a lot of gray detectable warning surfaces because that was New York’s color preference. But he’s found that New York and New Jersey are switching over to the safety-red color instead. While Schiloski said ADA Solutions does thousands of tiles a year in New York, he told

Red Hook Star-Revue

1,209 curb cuts canvassed, only 154 (11.3 percent) had proper detectable warnings – meaning that 88.7 percent of the curb cuts did not have truncated domes. “Imagine driving up to an ‘all-way stop’ intersection in which one or more stop signs is missing,” Brewer wrote in the “Accessible Manhattan: Making sidewalks safe & navigable for all” report that was released in July 2015. “That’s essentially what blind and low-vision New Yorkers face every day as they travel on Manhattan’s sidewalks.” Following this project the Manhattan Borough President’s Office announced that the Disability Task Force, made up of members and advocates from the disability rights community, would be reassembled. Brewer’s report stated, “A primary agenda item for our Task Force will be facilitating discourse between the disability rights community, the DOT, and property owners regarding the findings and recommendations in this report, with the goal of finding the best methods for ensuring proper maintenance of our city’s sidewalks and streets.” Fast forward to today. When inquiring about how many corners in Brooklyn have detectable warnings,

People are often on their phones nowadays and may miss the curb without detectable warnings.

calls that they are about to walk off or walk onto a corner. According to a Governors Highway Safety Association report released in February 2018, the number of pedestrian fatalities from 2007 and 2016 increased 27 percent. The report also stated that nearly 6,000 pedestrians were struck and killed by motor vehicles in 2017. Though reasons for the rise have not been scientifically determined, experts believe the increased use of smartphones could be one of the contributions in the trend. CURB CUTS IN THE CITY In September 2014, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and her team of volunteers conducted a canvassing project about existing curb cuts’ ADA compliance in Manhattan. More than 40 staff, interns and volunteers were recruited and trained to measure curb cuts along Broadway, from Manhattan’s southern tip at Bowling Green to its northern tip in Inwood. Less than a year later, they found that only 115 measurable curb cuts – out of the 1,209 they had canvassed – were fully compliant with the ADA accessibility standards. Additionally of the same

a NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) spokesperson told this paper, via email, that the DOT “is currently conducting a Citywide survey of all corners that will result in a comprehensive inventory.” Council Member Carlos Menchaca released the following statement to this paper, regarding the topic, via email: “The bottom line is that curb cuts should be present on every street corner and crossing. The reason is self-evident: everyone needs easy access to sidewalks and streets. We’re not just talking about the seeing-impaired. We’re talking about parents and caretakers with strollers, small children who are still learning to walk and run, our neighbors with grocery carts or who are using wheelchairs, or those with disability that make it difficult for them to walk. Not to mention that people are often on their phones nowadays and may miss the curb without detectable warnings. We need to ensure that curb cuts and especially those with detectable warnings are not only present, but properly maintained. I am committed to making that a reality to the best of my ability and welcome any constituent or group that is dedicated to achieving that goal.”

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THE IMPORTANCE OF PROPER ORIENTATION Ed Plumacher, an adaptive technology specialist for vocational rehabilitation at Lighthouse Guild, has been a sight cane user since 2011. He commutes to the Upper West Side from Long Island everyday, via the Long Island Railroad and MTA subway. Plumacher said he encounters detectable warning surfaces constantly, and emphasized how important they are for him while traveling and walking to and from work. “They help me orient myself, and I know when I cross over and step off of the curb cut-out and walk straight, I hit the curb cut-out on the other side and I’m perfectly oriented to the sidewalk and can continue,” he explained to the paper. “The more consistent they are in design and implementation, the better it is for the community as a whole.” With that being said, one of the issues Plumacher has previously experienced is the lack of consistency regarding slope and orientation. “If [tactile warnings] are not there and the [curb cut’s] slope is very gradual, you can actually end up in the intersection before you even know you’ve hit a street corner,” he said. “It’s important that they’re properly oriented in angle because I’ve run into a few curb cut outs where they’re set not directly across the street and they might be a little more catty-cornered; that you might end up in a four-way intersection if they’re not oriented properly.” But Plumacher said orientation and slope are not only important for cane users like himself, but for guide dog users as well. “The guide dogs are trained to stop at a curb, so if it’s a wide, gradual slope they may not pick up on it and properly stop at the corner,” he explained. STATISTICS The World Health Organization estimated in October 2018 that 1.3 billion people around the globe live with some form of vision impairment, and that 36 million people of that number are blind. There were almost 40 million listed Americans with a disability in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The National Federation of the Blind stated on its website that, of the 40 million, about 7.3 million individuals (age 16 and older) had reported significant vision loss. Approximately 387,900 people in New York reported having a visual disability in 2015, as per the 2015 American Community Survey results that were interpreted by Cornell University’s Employment and Disability Institute. While there are no reliable current stats regarding the use of canes or dog guides, the Guiding Eyes for the Blind estimated that there were 10,000 guide dog teams working in the United States last year. They also cited on their official website that about two-percent of all people who are blind and visually impaired work with guide dogs.

November 2018, Page 7

Gowanus CSO Facility Updates: October 2018 By Erin DeGregorio Edition

owanus residents and nearby neighbors were satisfied, overall, with the new schematic designs for the incoming CSO tank facility, which were unveiled at the Community Board 6 Parks/Recreation/Environmental Protection Committee meeting on October 17. This follows community suggestions made at the first North Gowanus Visioning session, hosted by Council Member Stephen Levin’s office, on July 25. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has announced more head house details, a revised list of materials that will be used and an outline of proposed open space features. The EPA, which is overseeing the Superfund project, has required the city to build a Combined Sewage Overflow (CSO) facility at the head end of the Gowanus Canal at Nevins and Butler Streets. The purpose of the CSO facility, which will have an eight-million-gallon capacity, is to limit the amount of sewage going into the Gowanus Canal. In addition to cleaning the canal, EPA has to make sure it doesn’t get polluted again. The canal is polluted not only by chemicals, but by a century of raw sewage that floods the canal every time it rains a lot.

Prospective View of CSO Facility from Nevins and Douglass Streets. By Selldorf Associates

Kevin Keating presents schematic designs for the Gowanus CSO Facility

Head House The head house, slated to be where the Gowanus Station Building is now (234 Butler Street), is projected to take up 2.4 acres and will be slightly shorter in height than the old publishing plant for R. G. Dun & Company (located across the way at 255 Butler Street). Alicia West, director of pubic design outreach for DEP, said the head house is going to have electrical and mechanical components, odor control, and screens that will remove debris that comes in with sewage as it enters the facility. The building will have some areas of transparency for individuals walking

by to partially see the CSO tank and machinery inside. Kevin Keating, an associate and studio director of Selldorf Architects, continued the conversation by presenting the updated design for the head house. While the building’s exterior was announced to be whitecolored terracotta in July, Keating said the color has changed since then – now becoming brick-colored, based on the public’s initial reactions. It will also feature aluminum, concrete, copper, corten steel, galvanized steel, and terracotta louvres that will rotate on the building. “Gowanus is a little bit gritty, it has character. We looked around the

Superfund group feels neglected By Erin DeGregorio

owanus Canal Community Advisory Group (CAG) members expressed their frustration at their general monthly meeting, held on October 23, that schematic designs for the incoming Gowanus CSO Facility had not been shown to them. This follows the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)’s latest presentation at the Community Board 6 Parks/Recreation/Environmental Protection Committee meeting that took place on October 17. Doug Sarno, the Gowanus Canal CAG Facilitator, said he invited the DEP to come to CAG’s October meeting, but DEP couldn’t make it, although they promised to send someone to a meeting in the near future. The group also complained that for the second month in a row, the Superfund project Chief Engineer Christos Tsiamis was not in attendance to provide his usual pithy project updates. “We would like to be a part of whatever design happens as a CAG,” said Chrissy Remein of Riverkeeper. “Part of the magic of this CAG is that

Page 8 Red Hook Star-Revue

we get to ask very technical questions and, while we’re here, have those technical answers. So in order for this CAG to function we need access to that.” It was also brought up that information tallied from the first North Gowanus Visioning session (hosted by Council Member Stephen Levin’s office on July 25) could be improved and updated, as it did not represent all of CAG’s perspectives. Peter Reich, the formal CAG liaison to the North Gowanus Visioning Committee, has been encouraging CAG members to submit their thoughts, so the tally can be updated and forwarded to the city. Following that, EPA’s community spokesperson, Natalie Loney, who did attend, reassured members that Tsiamis and attorney Brian Carr will make subsequent meetings. “The conversation is expanding as we’re getting further and further along in the process,” she said. “I really encourage as many perspectives as possible because we want to be

supported by the entire community, rather than a portion of it.” In other business, Janet Aitchison was admitted as a new member-atlarge. The October meeting had the highest amount of members in attendance this calendar year so far – 24 members, when the average for quorum is 10. CAG members agreed that future meetings should be held in other locations throughout the area, similar to what CB6 does every month. The next and last general CAG meeting for 2018 will take place on Tuesday, November 27, 6:30 pm at St. Mary Star of the Sea Senior Apartments (41 1st Street). All CAG meetings are open to the public – one need not be a member to attend. If anyone is interested in joining the Gowanus Canal CAG, visit gowanuscag.org.

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neighborhood and absorbed that,” Keating explained. He also said that they worked with the engineers to pull back the building a bit from the property line. A walkway to the facility will be made at the corner of Butler and Nevins Streets as a means to engage with and educate the public. This will allow people to come up to a digital display affixed to the building. “We hope we can curate this – show the history of Gowanus, what it’s about, what the facility is about, [and] what the DEP does overall as an organization,” Keating said. Gowanus Station Building During the community roundtable portion of the North Gowanus Visioning session in July, some felt the Gowanus Station building’s façade could be deconstructed and reused when making a potential entryway to the canal; others were all for preserving the building. However, it was announced at the meeting that some pediment, brickwork, terracotta scrolls and granite sills would be salvaged and reintegrated into the canal’s future esplanade and a brick wall along Butler Street. A few members from the Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group (CAG), who were in attendance, voiced their disappointment that DEP had not consulted their group with design plans/presentations. One member also said the Gowanus Station building is “significant” in the neighborhood, as it is eligible for the State and National Registers of Historic Places. “The EPA is working with the State Historic Preservation Office to determine the direction that they would like us to take with the preservation aspect of this project,” West responded. “We are waiting on them to give us some sense of the direction they’d like us to go.” Public Open Space While the mostly underground tank is expected to take up one acre, 1.6

continued on next page November 2018

Gowanus CSO continued from previous page acres of land over the tank will become publicly accessible open space for passive recreation and quiet contemplation, as per DEP. West had previously presented in July the proposed renderings of what the open space could like look. The slides then had shown green spaces with integrated seating areas, and potential opportunities for passive recreation, like pop-up movies, tai chi and outdoor performances. Josh Price, a landscape architecture from DLANDstudio, said this open space design is inspired by Gowanus itself, as it reflects the “historic fabric” of the streets’ cobblestones, the bulkhead’s weathering steel and the “wild, opportunistic nature” of some plant life. Price also explained there will be access hatches that DEP will need to get to for maintenance and operations, saying some of that access will be infrequent while other access will be more often. “Only once every few years will the largest trucks navigate the space,” he said. “However it’s important we provide the proper access for those trucks and kind of work the open space design around them.” His studio has tried to extend out the green space to accommodate vehicular circulation, but also with the goal in mind to “steal back as much open space” as possible. Schematic renderings showed social seating, standard benches, opportunities for park patrons to go right up to the canal’s edge, areas of green infrastructure that would be on top of the tank, and an abundance of plant life. “We’ve done our best to plant this site as lushly as possible, given the soil limitations,” Price said. “It’s not an easy task, but what we tried to do is plant it smartly and that means planting small, multi-stemmed trees close together – near seating to provide as much shade as possible.” What’s Next? As the design is currently 30-percent complete, DEP will meet with the NYC Public Design Commission on November 14 for a preliminary level review. DEP owes a 100-percent design for all the below ground portions of the work (i.e. the support of excavation, the tank itself, and foundations for the head house) to EPA by April 2019. DEP then owes a 100-percent design for the superstructure and all of the electrical/mechanical equipment inside it to EPA in September 2019. As part of the Land Use agreement and approval, DEP will continue to work with Council Member Levin’s office and will coordinate quarterly meetings to provide updates about the project, design and construction to the community. West told attendees towards the end of the meeting that DEP will also have a community liaison in the future. “We’re working up against a pretty aggressive timeline that’s been set for us by the EPA,” West said. “We are doing our best to navigate this process and make sure we do as much public outreach as we can.”

Red Hook Star-Revue

BASIS Independent Brooklyn’s Jo Goldfarb Talks Trucks, Traffic and Warehouses

Story and photos by Erin DeGregorio

s reported last month, Red Hook Civic Association copresident John McGettrick informed residents that three giant warehouses will be built in Red Hook. One will be located at 537-555 Columbia Street, just northeast of the BASIS Independent School; another at 640 Columbia Street, just south of BASIS Independent and next to IKEA; and the third at the old White Rock/Snapple building, which will be torn down and rebuilt as a state-of-the art UPS facility. The million square feet of new warehousing would most likely create more truck traffic and air pollution. “I would assume that the new sites on Columbia Street may well have to do environmental testing and cleanings,” McGettrick said during meeting on September 26. “So we’re probably looking at a year to two-and-a-half years down the road when something is actually opening.” Passers by will have already noticed the demolition of the old dye factory on Columbia and Bay, a block formerly owned by the local plumbing and contracting company, T. Moriarty & Son. The factory, H. Kohnstamm, fell upon hard times in the 1970’s, losing one of their prime products, Red Dye # 2, which was outlawed in 1976. Trucks and Traffic Jo Goldfarb, director of communication at BASIS Independent Brooklyn, attended that meeting and voiced her concerns, from both neighborhood and academic perspectives. She spoke with this paper two weeks later, elaborating on what could happen and what would need to be considered for the future – especially with those warehouses slated nearby BASIS Independent Brooklyn. “It certainly would change traffic patterns and we stand by what McGettrick called for, which is just the appropriate studies, due diligence on the impact of these two new warehouses, on the anticipation of the increase in traffic, and what – if any – impact on emissions in the community.” In the meantime Goldfarb’s goal is to find some way to connect with the warehouse owners, since the buildings are within a school zone. “As with any business in the neighborhood, we would welcome the opportunity to work with the owners of the warehouses on when we see the

most traffic at arrival and at dismissal,” beginning in 2021, while the city reconstructs a 1.5-mile stretch of the she added. Naturally the streets surrounding Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Mcthe school, located at 556 Columbia Gettrick also explained during the Street, are the busiest in the mornings September meeting that the closure and reconstruction could for student drop-offs and in take between five and sixthe afternoons for pickand-a-half years, if the ups. While planned promenade’s comtraffic routes to and pletely closed. Anfrom the warehouses other option on the are still undetertable is to reconstruct mined, Goldfarb the expressway one pointed out trucks lane at a time, which would also have to would take six-andwatch their speed lima-half to seven years to its from Creamer to Halcomplete. Either way, Red leck Streets. Jo Goldfarb, Director Hook and other neighbor“We definitely want to of Communications hoods would have to deal work well with our neighat BASIS Independent with more vehicular traffic bors. We came into this Brooklyn and congestion. neighborhood and made McGettrick had brought up that sure we had the proper people outside directing traffic during arrival and dis- he hopes the warehouse owners missal, so there wouldn’t be conges- are aware of this major closure and tion,” she said. “We’re committed to change. Goldfarb thought that was a continuing that and would hope that valid point to make and bring up, as any new additions to the neighbor- this is the time to start talking about hood would also try to work well as a all these aspects. community together.” Another concern Goldfarb has re- One-Way Street Outside of BASIS gards increased foot traffic from the Sigourney Street, between Otsego whole community to the various ball and Columbia Streets, currently is a fields, which are anticipated to fully two-way road. Goldfarb explained to this paper that the flow of traffic in the mornings and afternoons typically goes down from Columbia to Otsego – with so little traffic going in the opposite direction. As a result, she said drop-offs and pick-ups often get congested with four different vehicles sometimes in motion outside the school. “We have children and parents crossing quite a bit in the morning and the afternoon and, to have the 537-555 Columbia Street site two-way street, it made it more challenging to focus on,” she said. open by Spring 2023. BASIS Independent Brooklyn talk“By the time these warehouses finish there needs to be thought about ed to their neighbors down the street how many trucks [are driving] and about the traffic, and sent an official how many kids are crossing the street,” request to CB6 for Sigourney Street she said. “Right now we don’t have to become one-way, instead of twoa huge number of children crossing way, in September. The motion to make the street onethe streets to those fields, but – once they’re open – I would imagine that way westbound unanimously passed many directions would need to be at last month’s general Community Board 6 meeting held on October 10. considered.” “I’ve actually been the crossing guard out there many mornings, so Brooklyn Heights to have one less direction to worry Promenade Closure The Brooklyn Heights Promenade about will be helpful,” Goldfarb said. could be closed for at least five years,

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November 2018, Page 9

My airplane story

My bus story

was recently thrown into the NYC Transit Bus System when having to make several trips to the VA Hospital to visit my father. As a seasoned subway rider, I am used to having my nose in my book, not noticing my surroundings. After ten pages of reading, I’d arrive at work. Nothing to see below ground but grimy tile, marked up walls and rolling soda bottles on the floor. Everyone keeping to themselves as heading for a day of work. The bus is different. Especially in the middle of the day. I wonder where all these people are going or coming from, and think, don’t they have jobs? I thought everyone except seniors and some young mothers did. Being above ground

Page 10 Red Hook Star-Revue

many crew members that were ready to go. We got all the safety gear that we could onto the boats and utilized the safety gear that was already there and began heading out to where the crash site was. Once again, we didn’t know what the conditions were. I was expecting to be picking bodies out of the water. We put our safety suits on, we had all of our life gear on the front of the boat – ropes, throw rings, boat hooks. Again, I was quite unsure of what we were going to find. As we got closer we could see that there were already quite a few rescue boats, NYPDS, Coast Guard and several other recreational and com-

the coin. I looked at the coin again and I couldn’t believe what I had read earlier – “so that none shall perish.” I thought, “I fthat is not a positive omen, I don’t know what is.” Several weeks later Tom Fox approached me and asked me if I would like to represent the water taxi in a ceremony that they would be having on the Intrepid. I said, “Sure, Tom, it would be my pleasure.” I felt kind of honored and a little bit special seeing that I was the one that alerted Tom to the situation and was instrumental in organizing the rescue. I thought it was appropriate. My buddy, Kenny Powers, a captain, was going to join me and drive

Once again, we didn’t know what the conditions were. I was expecting to be picking bodies out of the water.

time, were there. At this ceremony everyone was being recognized and all the other people who were not on the stage who were part of the rescue. Then there came a point in time where we got to meet the governors. I am waiting my turn. I was excited. Then, all of a sudden, the wind kicks up. There was an American flag and other flags that were on the back of the stage, and only the American flag was knocked over and fell off the back of the stage. Nobody did anything for a few moments. My first thought was, “Here we are, we are men and women of action, someone should do something.” I didn’t give it another thought. I jumped out of my chair. The goverUS Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, on 15 January 2009

—Robbie Giordano

muter boats that were there standing by. I began to notice that there was a large object sticking out of the water that the boats were around and it was the tail of the aircraft. I could see the last of the passengers climbing off the wing into the safety boats. It was unreal. It was unbelievable. Although we did not directly assist passengers to safe grounds, we were standing by and ready and for the amount of time the coast guard and the director of homeland security honored the five entities that were responsible for responding and assisting the coast guard and their duties. We came back to port. The river was now shutdown at that point, so our commuter runs were done for the evening. As we were packing up the gear and getting ready to go back home I reached into my pocket and felt something there that was not there, that I didn’t notice, and it was

me there. I must say that I was a little bit hungover from the evening’s activities prior. It was a beautiful sunny day, I had my sunglasses on, looking pretty dapper, suit and tie. We get to the Intrepid and we hustle up to the back deck where the ceremony was. I introduce myself to one of the curators and she goes Mr. Giordano, please take you seat on the stage. I said, “Excuse me?” I looked up and there were five chairs on the stage with one of them empty and that was to be my seat. There were approximately 200 to 300 people in the audience with TV cameras from all over the place. I was a little bit nervous. I took my position on the stage. My buddy Kenny got a front row seat to the whole ordeal. It wasn’t so much an ordeal as it was a gratifying event, a ceremony. The governors, Corzine of Jersey and the interim governor of New York was David Patterson at the

by Tina Portelli

made me want to view the scenery, the blooming trees, blue skies and my fellow my passengers. Sitting on that bus daily forced me to look at people. And listen. Bus passengers seem more outgoing. Looser, more relaxed. My curious imagination made me wonder what kind of lives they had. Probably younger than myself, her shoelaces were untied, and I suspect she could not reach them because of her excess weight bulging her middle. She wore red spandex pants, not shy about her shape. Her black bra stood out from her dingy white tshirt and her poor dye job needed a touch-up, wash and cut. Her broken nails and rough hands needed attention as well. This is

not a criticism, but an observation touched with sympathy. As she sat at the front of the bus, in earshot of the bus driver, I was drawn to eavesdrop. She spoke so loudly that I did not have to strain to do so. “I played 555 last week with my last dollar until my check. I hit, I knew I would, the number came to me in a dream. My daughter’s baby shower is this weekend and I’ll be doing a lot of cooking, I already started.” Her Brooklyn accent reminded me of my own, the one I used to live with, the one I used to hate. I felt it had made me sound dumb, and she was the living proof. I was right, it rung dumb, she sounded dumb. Her voice was harsh and

loud, hurt my ears. She hadn’t the least bit of consideration, that the bus driver or the passengers might not be interested in all this. But on she went on, blah, blah, blah. I truly felt sorry for her. While she seemed happy I could not believe that she was, because I knew I would never be if I were in her untied shoes. I imagine that she rides that bus every day. I am sure the driver has many passengers on his route that do the same. Share their stories. I am positive he tunes them out while nodding politely as part of his job. I know I would. I’m happy to be back on the F train!

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Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Greg L

n the corner I saw it in the snow as I was walking to Fairway to get my dinner. It was a shiny coin. The day was January 15, and it was bitterly cold. There had been snow on the ground but the night before the temperatures must have plummeted into the single digits. When I was returning from getting dinner my buddy called me in a frantic, excited and terrorized voice. He goes, “Robbie, I just saw a plane go down into the Hudson while I was driving over the George Washington Bridge.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “Robbie, it was a large passenger plane. I don’t know where it was coming from or what happened but I watched the plane go down into the river.” I said, “Oh my God, are you sure.” He said, “I just saw it, Robbie, I just saw it.” I am thinking, wow, that is incredible. Then, immediately I thought about our ability here at the water taxi to potentially save passengers. I didn’t know how many. I didn’t know what the situation was out there. I immediately ran to their office at 499 Van Brunt and came to the first office where most of the accounting and so forth was done. I popped my head in and yelled out “a plane crashed into the river.” Everybody looked up at me like I had three heads. I knew that was not going to get me too far. My next move was to go directly to Tom Fox, who was the CEO at that time. I went over to his desk and I said, “sorry to interrupt you Tom but a large passenger plane just crashed somewhere beyond in our direction of the George Washington Bridge.” He said, “Are you sure, Robbie?” I said, “Yes, absolutely, my friend saw it and it is not a hoax, it is really happening, it just went down.” He looked up at me and said, “Organize a rescue team.” I came back down and I got ahold of as many captains as I could and as

by Robbie Giordano

nors were almost right there to shake my hand, one at a time. I jumped off the back of the stage. I wrested the flag back up into position. Another one of the honored rescuers who had already met the governors jumped off with me and assisted me. We took our positions back up on the stage and at that point I had missed my opportunity to meet the governors. I said, “Well, you know what, that is not such a big deal. It would have been cool.” As the governors were getting ready to leave the side of the stage and go back down into their guarded positions someone whispered to them. Now they both got back up onto the stage and began walking over to me since I was the only person who had not yet met them. Now I have Governor Corzine and Governor Patterson standing in front of me. Patterson was quite a bit shorter than Corzine and very limited in his ability of sight. Patterson put his hand out, a good 15 inches away from where I was standing and I gently corralled his hand back in front of me and shook it. Upon shaking Patterson’s hand, I go to shake Corzine’s hand and I proceeded to play out the role of Spies Like Us. I go, “Governor, Governors, Governors, Governors.” Patterson did not really understand what was going on but Corzine most certainly did. A big smile came over his face and I could see him holding back laughter. He gave me a little wink and the governors moved on. There was a Japanese film crew there, and I told the story about the coin I found that said so none shall perish. To this day I still think that was definitely a bit of a coincidence, maybe a bit of foreshadowing. What a great job Sullenberger did in landing that plane. There were so many valuables. Had it been a few hours later the ice chunks that were coming down the river would have been where the plane landed and would have ripped the plane apart upon impact. It was amazing. I was very privileged to be part of it and so thankful that none did perish.

November 2018

76th Precinct talks crime, films, and parking Story and photo by Nathan Weiser

and discuss with them any probO’Malley requested seeing the week. he 76th Precinct is the lems,” Jerry Armer said. “You don’t pictures that he has and thanked Community Board Six has their neighborhood police dishave to wait until you come here. him for bringing this issue to the premeetings the second Wednesday trict. Once a month they You can stop them on the street but cinct’s attention of the month. The LinkNYC kiosks hold a public meeting in you can also go to the meetings evhave details in bright green detailing their basement, on Union Street beery quarter.” The meetings are called NCO Officers where the meetings will be. tween Hicks and Henry. Jerry Armer Build the Block. Armer then had the Neighborhood hosts the meetings, and the top cop, The next meeting for sector C will Coordination Officers introduce The politicos Officer Megan O’Malley, answers be on December 12 at the Red Hook themselves. Sargeant Kimberle AuThere were representatives from a questions from anyone who comes Library. Sector D will have their gustine, who is the NCO Supervisor few elected officials at the meeting to to ask. share information. At the October meeting, Carlos Menchaca is the she pointed out a few isNYC Council Member for sues in an otherwise quiet District 38, which includes month for policing. Red Hook. A worker in his “We did see an increase office said that they have in grand larceny autos, kicked off participatory which was mostly a pattern budgeting season. Input we had earlier in the sumfrom community members mer with VESPAs,” O’Malley directs spending decisions said. “We made several arwith $2.5 million of the capirests and we seem to have tal budget. abated that problem. There Karen Broughton, Aswas an occasional motorsistant Speaker Felix Ortiz’s cycle here or there.” Chief of Staff, said that they The precinct has seen are planning a few events an increase in bicycle roband one of them will be one beries. Recent thefts have around Thanksgiving. included bikes left in courtThey have also been yards, in front of buildings working on projects relator ones without sturdy ing to the NYCHA’s Sandy locks. O’Malley reminded reconstruction in Red Hook. everyone that bike owners “The corridor on Clinton can come to the precinct street is basically vacant with their vehicle and have now,” Broughton said. “Eva secret code etched onto Mathews Mallex and Corran Nazere, Offi cers of the Month, with Deputy Inspector Meeryone has moved out. That it. That way recovered bikes gan O’Malley is because they have to raise it can be returned to owners. to flood level. Drunk driving arrests have meeting on October 24 at the new introduced herself first. It is unknown now how long evincreased this year. This increase is Red Hook Senior Center at 6:30 pm. Officers John Asanesco and Laueryone will be in temporary housas a result of the midnight officers, The Build the Block is on the 76th ren Maragni are in sector A. Officers ing. The temporary apartments are two of which were at the meeting. Justin Fausto and Kelsey Mahne are on the corridor on Columbia Street Two of those were October’s Cops of Precinct Facebook account. in sector B in Gowanus. Officers Vegacross from Ms. Marshall’s office. the Month . nel Jovin and Krystal Class are in secThe 76th Precinct Community Too many movie shoots tor D, which covers Van Brunt Street. Council meets monthly except in the Cops of the month Roberto Gil, who is the owner of Casa Officers Damien Clarke and Jonasummer on the second Wednesday One night, around 3 am, Officers Kids on Ferris Street between Coffey than Rueda are in sector D, which of each month. Meetings are in the Mathews Mallex and Corran Nazere and Van Dyke (106 Ferris Street), said covers most of the public housing basement. Everyone is invited and were at the corner of Douglass and that he missed getting an important development. able to bring their complaints, and Hoyt observing a suspicious male, in package on the day of the meeting “Depending on which sector you people usually do. possession of construction materials. and wanted to know what could be live in, you are invited to meet them The officers approached him since done about this. they were aware of past burglaries at “There was a huge crew that was construction sites in the area. filming so the UPS truck could not “In doing so they observed a large back up and come back to the busiquantity of copper wire labeled with ness,” Gil said. “Is this the proper Con Edison’s logo,” O’Malley said. place to complain about excessive “The male admitted to his participafilm shoots?” tion in a ring of construction site rob“The mayor’s office of film and TV beries.” production and also the Community Board is the best place to complain,” Police Parking Armer told Gil. “Unfortunately, the A neighborhood resident who lives 76th, as does a few other precincts, is close to the precinct has noticed isa prime place and location for filmsues with parking, especially right ing movies and TV shows. NYC goes near 191 Union Street. He wanted to out of their way to make these proknow how parking is authorized on duction companies welcome.” the block in front of the precinct. Gil added that every other week O’Malley said that the police cars he has complaints regarding film have authorization from the Departshoots. Customers can’t find parkment of Transportation (DOT) to ing. This was the first time that a film park the way they do outside the precrew prevented a package from becinct. ing delivered. The resident said that the issues he has seen don’t just relate to squad The Community Board says hi cars but also people’s personal vehiMike Racciopo, who is the new Dis—Jerry Armer cles on the sidewalk. He added that trict Manager for Community Board he has many pictures with cars with Six, came to remind everyone about placards that don’t have license plate the October full board meeting that numbers or tags. was going to be happening the next

“The mayor’s office of film and TV production and also the Community Board is the best place to complain [about movie shoots].”

Red Hook Star-Revue

www.star-revue.com

November 2018, Page 11

Star Revue Focus

Coffee House Round-Up

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Smith Canteen. Photo: instagram/Smith Canteen

Hello November! The time of year when we’re right between pumpkin spice and peppermint; when we start to think about Thanksgiving Day; and when we can sleep an additional hour, thanks to Daylight Saving Time. But it’s also one of the best times to enjoy a hot ‘cup of joe’ – at any hour of the day – as the weather becomes brisk. So java lovers, or coffee connoisseurs, here are some local cafés and shops to visit where you can celebrate National Cappuccino Day (November 8) and National Espresso Day (November 23), or any old day.

Smith Canteen

Smith Canteen (343 Smith Street) serves up coffee, tea and house-made baked goods in Carroll Gardens. Head baker/culinary director Gabriella Vigoreaux and her team make a lot of glutenfree, vegan and refined sugar-free options, which Vigoreaux said is rare in the neighborhood. In November the café will be expanding its savory and made-toorder food menus, including adding soup, grab-and-go sandwiches and maybe a grain bowl or two.

Wall o fB Photo: eans at D’A m Facebo ok/D’A ico Coﬀee. mico C oﬀee

“I’m personally jazzed about this new sweet potato toast we’re doing,” Vigoreaux told this paper. “We make a mash with cider caramelized onions and pile that onto some Hot Bread Kitchen sourdough, along with a good schmear of homemade almond ‘ricotta.’ Drizzle that with some turmeric and black pepper-laced honey that is basically nectar of the Gods.” The most popular items on the menu are the lemon poppy muffins and gluten-free & vegan banana bread (maple sweetened with dates and almond flour), best when right out of the oven. Vigoreaux’s personal favorite item is the hippie scone.

o aming io l F k c la or The B rin DeGreg E Photo:

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“They are these deliciously golden, craggy, oaty things that feel really wholesome because they are full of coconut, dates, nuts, seeds and whatever else we have lying around. They change slightly every day depending on what we need to use up,” she explained. “I came up the name because it’s basically like you went to the health food store bulk bin section and took a little bit of everything and threw it into a breakfast pastry.” Fun fact: Owner Kerry Diamond launched The Green Canteen Project earlier this year, with the end goal of becoming the borough’s greenest cof-

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His personal favorite blend is the Alphabet City, sourced from Brazil. Fun facts: In the late 90’s Nye owned a bar in the East Village called 9C. He was obsessed with coffee and complained regularly about the fact that he could not get good quality, freshly roasted coffee in New York City.

! k a e r B e e f f o C ra

o f e Tim

By Erin DeGregorio

Regular cup from The Black Flamingo Photo by Erin DeGregorio fee shop and one of the most environmentally responsible shops in the nation. As a result, the establishment will no longer use or offer single-use plastic by January 1, 2019. Patrons who bring their own reusable cups receive a 10 percent discount on their drinks. Smith Canteen is open every day, 7 am to 3 pm.

D’Amico’s

Carroll Gardens staple D’Amico Coffee (309 Court Street) is still selling coffee beans in its original location, as it celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. Emanuel D’Amico, a sea merchant from Palermo, Sicily, came to the United States in the late 1920s and opened D’Amico Foods in 1948, with his wife. He became one of the first small batch, roast-toorder Brooklyn roasters, using an AJ Deer Royal Roaster with a maximum capacity of 10 pounds. The family owned and operated business continues to use the same techniques and approach to roasting used seven decades ago. They still boast some original customers as well! D’Amico offers five signature Brownstone Collection coffee blends that pay homage to the immediatesurrounding neighborhoods: Red Hook (mixture of three beans from Africa and South America that has a “smooth yet dark with a slightly sweet finish”), Carroll Gardens (breakfast brew sourced from Central America and Africa), Cobble Hill (blend of Central American, Indonesian and African

beans that has a smooth and creamy taste), Gowanus (a rich brew inspired by the glory days of the Gowanus Canal dock workers and created by Frank D’Amico Jr.), and Park Slope (that has a “sweet and tangy winelike flavor”).

Velvette Brew

Velvette Brew, which opened in July 2017, sells a variety of tea, coffee and espresso. The barista owned and operated espresso bar uses Intelligentsia’s Black D’Amicos is open Cat Analog blend, Mondays through which produces Fridays (7 am-7 pm), sweet and chocoSaturdays (7 am-6 latey espressos pm) and Sundays (9 and is directly am-3 pm). traded from Brazil. And those who enjoy iced beverages all yearThe Black Flamingo round, have no fear – iced The Black Flamingo, located lattes are also available. at 281 Van Brunt Street, has The shop has both indoor been serving up cups of coffee Sesame Coconut and backyard patio seating. ash Black Latte and tea to Red Hook residents Its Carroll Gardens location at Velvette Brew since 2015. It receives freshly (251 Smith Street) is open roasted coffee beans from its Photo:Instagram/ Mondays through Fridays (6 own micro roaster in Concord, Velvette Brew am-6 pm) and Saturdays and Massachusetts, every week. Sundays (7 am-6 pm). According to their Instagram page, medium and dark roast blends are Ninth Street Espresso available for espressos – medium Ninth Street Espresso (333 Douglass roast (blend of lighter roasted beans Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenues) from Central America, with milk chocis one of the six locations scattered olate, floral and nutty notes) and dark throughout Manhattan and Brookroast (a bold and intense blend of lyn. Its beverage menu is “honest Colombian, Ethiopian and Indonesian and simple” - hot coffee, iced coffee, beans roasted on the darker side). It espresso and espresso with milk. also offers sandwiches and pastries to The coffee beans are sourced from accompany one’s cappuccino, mocha select specialty farms and roasted lolatte, or macchiato. cally throughout the week. Ken Nye, The shop has indoor and outdoor owner of Ninth Street Espresso and garden seating, and Wi-Fi available to Ninth Street Roasting Co., said the patrons. It is open Mondays through most popular drink is espresso with Fridays (7 am-6 pm) and Saturdays milk, served to the customers’ tastes. and Sundays (8 am-6 pm).

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Red Hook Star-Revue

“One night at 9C, a good friend looked over at me and said, ‘Why don’t you shut the f*#k up, stop complaining and go open a coffee shop,’” Nye said. “So I did.” Less than a year later he opened the first shop on Ninth Street in 2001. “In this rapidly changing coffee landscape, we are stoked to still be doing our own independent thing, after almost 18 years. Ninth Street is a labor of love,” Nye said. “If I could ask anything of the coffee drinkers out there it would be to support local, independent coffee shops. They are the ones that bring passion and drive innovation in everything they do, everyday.”

Ninth Street Coﬀee Photo: Facebook/Ninth Street Coﬀee

The Gowanus location is open Mondays through Fridays (7 am-6 pm) and Saturdays and Sundays (8 am-6 pm).

East One Coffee Roasters

East One Coffee Roasters (384 Court Street) is a Nordic-inspired café that offers a selection of freshly baked pastries and specialty coffee drinks like lattes, mochas and cappuccinos. It also sells seasonal house espressos and single origin espressos. Eatery menu items include – but are not limited to – grilled cheese sandwiches (featuring fontina fontal & onion jam), asparagus & goat cheese quiche, and fried chicken with bread & butter pickles. Coffee hours are Mondays through Fridays (7 am-7 pm) and Saturdays and Sundays (8 am-7 pm). Eatery hours are Mondays through Fridays (8 am-4 pm) and Saturdays and Sundays (9-4 pm).

s ee Roaster ﬀ o C e n O East orio in DeGreg r E y b to o Ph

Camila’s Cafe

Camila’s Cafe, which has been in Red Hook since January 2014, offers herbal tea and coffee (classic, French vanilla, hazelnut and caramel flavors) in 12 oz. and 16 oz. sizes. It also serves cappuccinos, espressos, lattes, Caffè Americanos and caffè mochas. Plus, patrons can have tasty sandwiches, bagels, pies, cookies and croissants with their choice of beverage. Indoor and window-side seating are available, and laptops are welcomed. The café was built entirely by hand by its owner, who used repurposed woods and other unique materials from the neighborhood, as per its website. The walls are dedicated to vintage maps and paintings from local artists. Camila’s Cafe (358 Columbia Street) is open seven days a week and delivers.

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Cookie s at Ca mila’s Photo by Erin C DeGre afe gorio,

September 2018, Page 25

Star ÂŞ Revue Arts art, culture, music and more fun stuff from brooklYn and beyond

Finding Home With the Gangs Of Red Hook

Photo: South Brooklyn Boys 1963 by Robert Loncar and James Kempster, Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery

by Lisa Gitlin see page 14

picks

Morton Lichter at Court Tree Collective page 16

Red Hook Star-Revue

reviews

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are on a Red Hook Barge page 18 www.star-revue.com

Profile

Andrew White, NZ musician & photographer shoots Brooklyn page 19 November 2018, Page 13

Finding Home With the Gangs Of Red Hook By Lisa Gitlin

I WAS FOURTEEN and already in love with New York City, where I spent vacations with my cousins in Queens, I got hold of a book called The Shook-up Generation, which was about New York street gangs. I had been fascinated with New York street gangs since I was 10 years old and read a magazine article about a Brooklyn gang called the Gowanus Boys. (Seeing West Side Story turned my fascination into a crazy obsession.) The Shook-up Generation begins with the great American journalist, Harrison Salisbury, describing his journey to the wilds of Red Hook on the F train, where he was greeted by a wall of graffiti that he called “a living newspaper of the streets.” He crossed Court Street and described the neighborhood he entered: “Ahead were the wharves, grim and empty on a Saturday…On the side streets (were) rows of three-storey houses, most of them owned and occupied by their owners. Red petunias bloomed from windowboxes.” The “small town” atmosphere was deceptive, because the area constituted the “turf” of a well-known street gang. “No one on this street is surprised to hear shots ring out after dark,” he wrote. “Or to see grim-faced, HEN

didn’t identify with them. I identified with the bad kids. At home I was the token rebel in a group of well-behaved academic kids, and when I misbehaved it was as a solo actor prowling around my orderly school and quiet suburban streets. I couldn’t imagine anything more glamorous than marauding through exciting city streets with a colorful gang of accomplices. What intensified my envy of gang kids was that I was gay, and of course closeted like all Midwestern gay kids back then. Not only was being a closeted teen horribly boring, because you couldn’t experience any of the sexual excitement of teenage life, but the real “me” was painfully invisible. In contrast, gang kids got all kinds of attention and were even written about in the newspapers. MOVING TO NEW YORK FOR REAL After finding some of my coveted excitement in college during the Vietnam War, I dropped out after my junior year and moved to New York to be a writer. My best friend in high school moved here as well and we got an apartment on the Upper West Side. For the next five years we ambled through the

The “small town” atmosphere was deceptive, because the area constituted the “turf” of a well-known street gang. —Harrison E. Salisbury, in The Shook-Up Generation

leather-jacketed youngsters leap into cars and roar off in the direction of Red Hook houses….” I wouldn’t set foot in Red Hook for more than fifty years. But after I read Salisbury’s book an image of Red Hook lodged in my mind. I pictured rough waterfront streets where teenagers banded together, playing hooky, swarming over the docks, scrawling their nicknames on playground and subway walls, blaring jukebox music in candy stores, and engaging in rumbles with zip guns and switchblade knives. Native Brooklyners would sneer at this idealization of a poor neighborhood full of messed-up kids, and older Red Hookers would point out that they themselves were good kids who skipped rope and rode bikes and played kick the can and went to school. But I

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detritus that was Manhattan in the 70’s, stepping over the dog shit, riding the graffiti-slathered trains, wandering the mean streets of Times Square, drinking and smoking weed, and listening to music while the Bronx burned up north and the raffish neighborhoods of Brooklyn loomed in the east. I was getting my fill of funky, dangerous New York, right there in Manhattan, and even though I was still intrigued with Red Hook it seemed as inaccessible. I came out in a big explosion at the age of forty-four and fell madly in love with a woman from Cleveland who lived in the DC area. We were physically intimate, but she never wanted an actual relationship with me, even after I moved to DC to be near her. She just wanted to be friends, but I stayed in love with her for years, and she broke my heart over and

Lisa Gitlin and a 1967 edition of The Shook-Up Generation Photo courtesy of author over. Meanwhile I wrote a book about coming out and falling in love for the first time, which became my debut novel, “I Came Out for This?” After the book was published I started making plans to move back to New York, in all my authorial glory. But my mom had gotten old and I spent most of my spare time driving to Cleveland to be with her. I was devastated when she died, in the summer of 2013, but it freed me to finally go back “home.” But this was the 21st Century, and I wasn’t going to live in Manhattan. I was going to live in Brooklyn. And if at all possible, I was going to live in Red Hook. My cherished image of Harrison Salisbury’s Red Hook had transformed into an updated image (based on voracious online reading) of a destination for the most adventurous New Yorkers, not typical urban gentrifies, but outliers like myself who liked the idea of living in an unpolished, post-industrial waterfront neighborhood, which also happened to be the site of the largest public housing development in Brooklyn. FINDING HOME One weekend I drove to New York and my cousin Barbara, who lives in Staten Island, drove me around Brooklyn so I could explore my options for affordable housing. I knew I couldn’t confine myself to Red Hook – affordable housing was scarce. We drove to Coney Island, which I’d always loved, but it was too far from the city. Crown Heights felt cluttered and disorganized, and Bed-Stuy looked like generic Brooklyn (which was just my subjective impression, not based on reality), and Bushwick felt stark and unwelcoming that day. I said to my cousin, “Let’s go to Red Hook,” and we drove across Brooklyn and onto Hamilton Avenue and turned onto Columbia Street. As soon as we made that turn I had the oddest sensation. I turned to my cousin and said, “This is it. This is where I’m going to live.” All Red Hook-

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ers know that the intersection of Hamilton Avenue and Columbia Street is nothing special. But for some reason it felt familiar. It felt like home. My apartment building used to be a school. It’s two blocks from the water and has high ceilings, hard wood floors, and big windows. I can see One World Trade Center from my window and walk down the street and look toward the water where the world’s greatest statue stands tall and proud. I know my neighborhood as well as I know my own home. I love the old brick buildings that still buzz with industrial activity. I love hanging out at the tip of Van Brunt Street where the water sloshes against the rocks and water taxis zip along the harbor. I love walking at night down quiet streets occupied by only one or two old houses, surrounded by (still undeveloped) wasteland. I love the funky independent businesses and the glow of Sunny’s Bar at night, and the ear-splitting groan of the Queen Mary, announcing its return to open waters. I love how people greet me wherever I go, often by name but always in that familiar way of people in Red Hook. Anyone who lives here, anyone who comes here, knows Red Hook’s mystique, and our greetings are kind of like a secret handshake. SOUTH BROOKLYN BOYS GROW UP Some of the gang boys that I envied way back when are still here. They sit on chairs in their yards with their dogs, looking grizzled and somewhat wistful. I guess you can get wistful in your seventies, when so much of your life is behind you and so little ahead of you. I’m in my sixties, and I feel that way sometimes. But I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life, because I’ve come home. Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again. I’ve only been in Red Hook for four years and eight months, but it’s been my home since I was born. Your home isn’t always where you grew up. It’s where you belong.

November 2018

RED HOOK OPEn BROOK

LYN

STUDIOS NOVEMBER 10th & 11th 1 pm to 6 pm

Maps available at Fairway Market and at various locations around Red Hook Afterparty in conjunction with:

SECOND SUNDAYS AT PIONEER WORKS 4 PM TO 9 PM

FREE & open

to the public FOR A LISTING OF ARTISTS & STUDIO LOCATIONS, VISIT:

www.redhookopenstudios.com www.facebook.com/redhookopenstudios www.instagram.com/redhookopenstudios

MEDIA PARTNER

The Revue is an independent newspaper founded in 2010. We have had a lot of fun chronicling this wonderful and diverse community. We have been here through Sandy and the fight for our ferry. This year we have greatly expanded our arts coverage, and we hope you can find a little place for us in your reading habits. Have a great day in the neighborhood.

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Take the NYC Ferryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s South Brooklyn Route to the Red Hook Landing

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November 2018, Page 15

Star ª Revue Picks Morton Lichter at Court Tree Collective

efore the birth of their daughter but after the two graduated from the School of Visual Arts, the photographer Stephen Lipuma and graphic designer Amy Ng opened Court Tree Collective in Carroll Gardens. Now in its fifth year, the space provides a community center for cooking events, fine art exhibitions, and just about anything else the community finds itself curious about. Court Tree Collective has a strong cooking component, thanks to Ng’s grandfather, who was a chef. They’re worked with Yana Gilbuena from The Salo Project, Charles Cann of Tropical Ghana, and Chitra Agrawal of Brooklyn Delhi. They love noodles. But the visual component was always in the wings as the two freelanced their way through creative fields. Last year in particular they’ve focused on film and photography. They’re now featuring the work of Morton Lichter in an exhibition, “Two Sides of the River,” running through Dec 8. Lipuma fell in love with Lichter’s work while traveling through Italy. It’s easy to see why. The thick impasto of “I know a bank where the wild thyme grows” (2016) looks at beauty distilled with the colors both welcoming and distancing intimacy. The composition is smart, with the thrust at to the left at 15 degrees, and a sort of whirlpool at the bottom right base.

From 2006, you have the strangely effecting “Address Unknown,” where a skyscraper skyline is decked out in brought would-be monochromes of towers. The exhibition also features older work, like the Fernand Léger-like “Cloudless Sky” from 1984. Lichter, 85, hasn’t shown for decades. When Lipuma approached him for a possible showing, he learned Lichter had over 300 similarly encaustic bound paintings in storage on the Upper West Side. Choosing which to display out of 300 in the small gallery was understandably a trying processing. Lipuma had to bring each to the gallery, photography, and see what worked. It was all trial and error. Lichter started painting in the 1950s. He and his husband, the Yale theater professor Gordon Rogoff, lived all over the world. He won an Obie for writing the 1976 play “Old Timers’ Sexual Symphony” while his partner won another for directing it. Lichter exhibited through the 80s, but was largely reclusive by the early 90s. Stephen says the 50s work was true to the period: figural, academic, traditional. But by the mid 2000s, there’s a notable change: the abstracts are full of color, sinuous, bursting with life and driven by story-driven titles, but with knowledge of life’s more dangerous it’s limitations. Imagine Francis Bacon arm wrestling Renoir, but

Detail from I know a bank where the wild thyme grows, oil on canvas, by Morton Lichter. unexpectedly the Frenchman wins. After a Parkinson diagnosis, doctors didn’t expect Lichter to keep painting. But the prognosis simply fueled his determination. “His partner says he feels rejuve-

nated by painting,” Lipuma said, “even on the bad days.” -Matt Caprioli

Opening reception for “Two Sides of the River” is Nov 9, 7-9pm. Court Tree Collective is at 371 Court St.

Graphic novels-comic book clubs at Greenlight

f the most recent graphic novel in your memory is Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Greenlight Bookstore, at their Fort Greene and Prospect Lefferts Gardens locations, have Graphic Novel Book Groups to get you into the contemporary scene. Come get your graphic novel on! On Oct 2, the Fort Greene group, led by Nicholas, featured writer Kelly Sue DeConnick and artist Valentine De Landro’s Bitch Planet Vol. 1: Extraordinary Machine, “a critically acclaimed and deliciously vicious sci-fi satire.” A “feminist send-up of the exploitation film genre that takes place in a dystopian reality where noncompliant women are sent to an off-planet prison,” according to Greenlight’s website. Fitting for our conflicted times. Salon.com calls it “one of the most unique and subversive artifacts of pop culture in recent memory.”

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journal Freeman’s showcases a selection from an underway graphic nonfiction project “that bears witness to the Syrian uprising and refugee crisis in comic form” by journalist Patrick Hilsman and artist Chris Russell. Greenlight hosted the launch of Freeman’s: Power, in which the selection appears, on Oct 24.

The Prospect Lefferts Gardens group, led by Emily, on Oct 3, discussed Hawkeye Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon, Matt Fraction’s “reimagining of the Avenger Hawkeye” who “fights for justice… and to pay the rent.” Don’t we all? It’s a “thriller that spans the globe...and the darkest parts of Hawkeye’s mind,” Greenlight reports. Greenlight hosted, on Oct 3, the launch of Nora Krug’s “Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home.” A Professor of Illustration at Pratt, Krug read and showed artwork from her graphic novel, which explores those in her family who were Nazis during World War II and seeks reconciliation for the horrors with that past. Her presentation showed a rare humility and profound bravery.

appears to be on the rise. The medium suits the attention span of our historical moment and blends immediacy and depth difficult to reproduce with other storytelling vehicles.

The graphic novel, especially those with sociopolitical themes,

Even the upcoming edition of the much praised biannual literary

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Though Maus introduced the graphic novel to mainstream audiences, and won Spiegelman a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, the form continues to evolve, and has maintained a certain currency since Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, published in 1978, which most in the comics community agree was the first graphic novel. Visit Greenlight Bookstore to find out where the graphic novel is now and where it will be. https:// www.greenlightbookstore.com/

November 2018

Star ª Revue Picks

Change Your Life with Three Pages

Head to the Park Slope Barnes & Noble and Discover How to Get Published in 5 Weeks

‘E

verybody has a story. But few know how to tell it well, where to send it, or how to convince an editor to pay for their words,” writes Professor Susan Shapiro in her latest book, The Byline Bible: Get Published in 5 Weeks, which is the print version of her wildly popular class, Instant Gratification Takes Too Long. The inspiring bestseller began as a packet Shapiro used to hand out to students. It included how-to articles she’d written for Writer’s Digest, as well as examples of her favorite essays crafted by her students. Finally, after editors and pupils alike got after her to make the document official, Shapiro put it into publishable form. “I’m glad I waited. I have a stronger platform now,” says the writing mentor, who for twentyfive rewarding years has shown 25,000 students her method to success, from which there have come countless print and online essays, and 150 book deals. So, how did this black-clad, Michigan native with an MFA from NYU emerge as a literary guru? “Since the ‘80s, I’ve been obsessed. My whole life revolved around writing and getting published.” But what began as a way to make a living, became a calling. “I saw that writing is a way to turn your worst experiences into the most beautiful. Essays then led me to books.” The next logical step was to help launch other voices. “It’s good karma.” So much so, that not only have exciting and great things happened for Shapiro’s students, but for her too. The Byline Bible is her twelfth published manuscript, being used in graduate, college and high school classrooms, as well as by professionals, and novices trying to break in. Its publication means that now even more writers can gain from Shapiro’s experience with thousands of editors. Former student Elana Rabinowitz, who didn’t even have to wait until Shapiro’s class was over before getting published, says, “Sue has a rare gift. Aside from the fundamentals, she gives her students support, guidance and direction. She pushes you to be your better self.” Proof that her generosity goes be-

Red Hook Star-Revue

Elana Rabinowitz is just one of the authors reading from The Byline Bible at Barmes and Noble Nov. 14 6-8 p.m. yond giving students the heads up about writing gigs or the names of editors at specific publications is how Shapiro often creates book events to benefit charities. Her current altruistic effort is a Barnes & Noble fundraiser for the Brooklyn’s Ronald Edmonds Learning Center M.S. 113, where Rabinowitz is an ESL teacher. “I’m usually asking Sue for favors, but this time she approached me,” says the educator. “RELC is a lowincome school. I’m always writing grants and looking for donors to try to get basic supplies and technology. With the right tools and resources, my students in particular, who are immigrants, could soar.” The middle school, located in Fort Greene and the alma mater of Spike Lee, has as its motto: The Home of Scholars, Artists and Champions. Its mission is to motivate and develop urban children into tomorrow’s leaders through an accelerated curriculum with fine and performing arts, science, and technology. Any purchases made in-store on the day of the event, November 14th (or online until November 19th) will have a percentage of the sales donated to the school. The Bookfair voucher number to benefit RELC is 12432696. Rabinowitz, who will be reading at the function, often shares the techniques she’s learned from Susan Shapiro in her own classes. “My hope is that my students will one day be published, especially in today’s climate when the voices of immigrants need to be heard.” The Byline Bible reading is with Susan Shapiro, Elana Rabinowitz, Seth Kugel, Gigi Blanchard, Judith Glynn, Branden Janese, Eli Reiter & Darnell McGee on November 14 from 6-8 pm at the Park Slope Barnes & Noble, 267 7th Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11215, 718-8329066, and will benefit students at the Ronald Edmonds Learning Center—M.S. 113 in Fort Greene, Brooklyn

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November 2018, Page 17

Star ª Revue reviews

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are on a Red Hook Barge (and yes. They’re probably dead). By Matt Caprioli

or a month-long run at the Waterfront Museum & Showboat Barge, the Bushwick based theater troupe, Cave Theatre Co., is giving a solid production of “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead,” the 1964 Tom Stoppard absurdist comedy whose characters, plot, and meaning are all wrapped up in its title. After the Waterfront’s ship captain removed the plank, and rang a bell a few times, the play began. The first act opens to an optimistic and quaint Rosencrantz (Alex Etling) and the dourer and more strategic Guildenstern (Jessie Atkinson) figuring out what’s their role in this play. They’re dressed in McDonalds colored vests and slim messenger pouches, which somehow makes them look serious and superfluous. The stage (and audience) float on a barge that’s lit by three parallel standing lamps that are flicked on and off in various waves to great effect, particularly at the end when the play’s more terrifying themes are focused. The two blab on, mixing up their names and their roles in whatever is this thing they’ve found themselves performing. Rosencrantz says they should just choose a direction — any direction — to go to find Hamlet. Guildenstern says their minds are too arbitrary to make such lasting decisions. It’s an enjoyable ride if Heidegger is

your thing, but Stoppard’s wordplay, allusions, and winks are so unremitting and commanding, that there’s only so much a cast can to do make the play their own and an audience can do to feel like they’re not in a philosophy seminar. The themes won’t stop: death, agency, authenticity, dramaturgy, memory loss, obligation, friendship, betrayal, psychic torment, human connection, emotional opaqueness, feeling overdeter-

Above: Alex Etling as Rosencrantz, Jessie Atkinson as Guildenstern. Left: Arshia Panicker as the Player (center) and Rosie DeSantis, Sarah Joy Gugel, and AJ McDougall (clockwise from left) as Tragedians. Photos courtesy of Cave Theater Co.

mined. Through this sled ride of constant questioning, Stoppard asks what are the limits of theater; how is “Hamlet” both immensely foolish and terribly wise; how can we laugh through the unsavory matter of being human? Speaking of which, the hilarity of a

mad Hamlet is brought out in full relief by Esther Ayomida Akinsanya’s portrayal of the vaping, giddy, sunglass touting, prince of Denmark. Khalid Bilal’s Claudius was boisterous, ludicrous, and fiercely alive, a welcome spark in Stoppard’s lecture hall. It’s best when the actors go full out maniacal. The player (Arshia

The privileged memoir

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ur toys took up so many boxes when we moved,” Brittany Ackerman writes in The Perpetual Motion Machine, her debut memoir/ essay collection. “The other kids should be so lucky to get to come over and play.” The Perpetual Motion Machine is, really, two books. The first sixty pages are an utterly banal memoir about the tribulations of a privileged New York childhood: tear them out and you’ll have missed very little. The second half takes a more disjointed approach, jumping literally from grade-school show-and-tell to a police confrontation with Ackerman’s suicidal brother, Skyler. This continues for the rest of the book, hopping between snippets from Ackerman’s life seemingly at random, until the book ends as abruptly as it began. It’s difficult to review a memoir—

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critiques of the book may come off as (and may well be) attacks on its author. Ackerman herself states that this book is an attempt to “save” her brother. I find this hard to believe, not just from the events of the text itself (when Skyler injures himself ice skating, Ackerman weeps over the missed opportunity to get pizza; when, later, he falls ill, she refuses to visit him in the hospital), but from the brother’s conspicuous absence in any scene where he isn’t directly impacting Ackerman’s own immediate emotional state. Skyler’s perpetual motion machine, from which the book draws its title, is mentioned, in passing, only twice. Toys feature prominently in The Perpetual Motion Machine: the Barbies Ackerman prefers to her family on one of their innumerable tropical vacations, the Lego house she insists Skyler build for her, the video games she

plays as a child and again as an adult. At various points in the memoir, Ackerman will upend a box of trinkets on the floor and painstakingly list each one. The book is at its most pure when it does this, as excruciating as it is to read: Ackerman has dumped out a box of Legos in front of us: some of the pieces seem to go together, but they’re so scattered among the other brightly colored bits of plastic that you can’t really be sure. They all sit there, all wellconstructed, some even quite beautiful, but piled up like this have very little to say other than just how much money it must have taken to collect them all. —Will Drickley “The Perpetual Motion Machine” by Brittany Ackerman

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Panicker) was an easy favorite in her unrestrained melodrama that was (in Stoppard fashion) unceasing. When she cries out “We, are, actors!” the tragic side of the play clarifies: they (and we) are actors hooked to a play, hooked to fate. Despite Stoppard’s overwhelming hand, there are personal flourishes here. Beside the neat fact that much of the play is set on a ship and now the audience is literally on a ship, Gertrude has a beard. At 2 hours and 15 minutes, it’s impressive how seamlessly the actors delivered their cerebral lines, yet it was visibly tiring on the audience. When Stoppard wrote the play, it clearly broke down so many conventions that people couldn’t look away. Now, the tricks are rather routine, and without some editing, can feel tedious. Director James Masciovechio did a fantastic job blocking characters to emphasize various aspects, but an abridged version (with shorter coin tosses at least) may be appreciated, even among the most stalwart of theater-goers. Ultimately, it’s Stoppard’s eye that comes out full force. The audience can’t get away from that cerebral sensation that they are being watched watching a play. The actors (and audience) are beholden to Stoppard, so much so that the production doesn’t gain its own voice or point of view. But I guess you can say that’s the point.

November 2018

Star ª Revue profile Photos by Andrew White. Left: Yellow buses, Red Hook Below: Bensonhurst Bottom: Dog walker, Midwood

Andrew White

Photographer Outside Looking In Andrew White is a photographer, videographer, musician, graphic designer, and multi-media producer from New Zealand Being from another country but having lived in New York for many years, his photography allows him a unique perspective on American life. He has both the objectivity of an outsider and the intimate vision of an insider. White’s expertise in graphic design gives him a strong eye for abstraction, which can be seen in his pictures of architecture. But he is just as interested in poetic moments like swans on the lake in Prospect Park. In terms of equipment, White is just at home shooting with an iPhone as with an SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera. I came to know Andrew through the world of music but he has many other talents as well. He possesses a dry humor and quick wit. RHSR: Where are you from originally? AW: I was born and raised in New Zealand, spending my childhood in the well-known tourist destination Rotorua (complete with active geysers) and then moving to the ‘big smoke’ of Auckland city to further my career. How long have you been taking photos? AW: Although my dad wasn’t a photographer, he had a Kodak

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Box Brownie that was only really used on vacations. I was interested in that camera but being very young at the time, I never figured it out. When I was nine years old, I was given a 110-film camera and took quite a lot of photos with it, setting up scenes and photographing them. After that I played around with a borrowed 35mm SLR camera in the late ‘80s and took a bunch of moody B&W stuff, eventually getting my own 35mm compact camera which I shot music and travel with. I was also working as a graphic designer and I operated a process camera that was used to produce press-ready copy. This was in the days before computers and I spent a lot of time in a dark room. That camera was also an opportunity for me to manipulate prints of photos I had taken. As a graphic designer, and then art director, I was involved in a lot of photo shoots utilizing professional photographers. In those situations, I was happy to leave the photographic process to the ‘pros’ and direct.

by Mike Cobb

creatively inspiring. From that point on photography became a big part of what I did. What do you focus on? AW: I’m interested in shooting everything. Street, documentary, architecture, portraits, concepts, live music, landscapes, nature you name it. Being in New York City means street photography is a given – there is great material available to you every minute of the day. My graphic design background means I’m able shoot to a brief or a concept and as a musician I have a natural way of photographing live performances. I’m also very interested in documenting the city. As photographers we can take a snapshot of a place, a sign, a building, people. These become important records of a changing city.

What inspires you as a photographer? AW: The fact that you can never take enough photos. It’s always exciting. If you walk out the door with your camera you never know what you’ll come across. Add to that the particular time of year, the weather, time of day, the light and the location – it’s all served up to you and you have to be a ready to take it on and shoot it! Equally as exciting as taking the photos is coming back home and looking at your results, finding the best shots and those unexpected gems. The editing process can be almost like taking the photograph again, reviewing your composition and finessing to get it exactly how you want it. Then you have the final part of the process – the end-result, your vision, a finished photograph.

continued on page 29

In the early 2000s I moved on to digital cameras which opened up more creative avenues for me, but wasn’t until the advent of the iPhone that I became serious about photography. The fact I now had a camera with me at all times, in the form of a phone that had some cool photography apps, led me to start shooting at every opportunity. The resolution wasn’t great, but it was fun and

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November 2018, Page 19

Star ª Revue culture news Nov 1 The first Thursday of the month sees the Canadianborn artist David Craig Ellis open his studio. Each month is unpredictable, but tarot readings, karaoke, and fog machines are all in the cards. Be sure to check out his artist book, “Doing Lines with David Craig Ellis,” which is a pure delight. 68 Jay Street, Unit B26. 646-246-8407 Nov 2-3 A pre-emptive celebration of the L train closing, Club Transit, a pop up bar for this occasion, provides the headquarters of a Haunted house hosted by David Kirshoff & Adrianna Varedi. The haunted house portion, stretching over 40,000 square feet, runs 8-12pm. The club will be running till 4am. 53 Scott. $20-35. Nov 3 Sing your heart out every Saturday at Sunny’s. Bluegrass, Folk, & Country encouraged. “Bring your acoustic instrument, your songs, your friends, and make new ones!” 9pm. 253 Conover St. (718) 625-8211 Nov 4 And on daylights savings day, Rocky Sullivan’s fights the cruel master of time with a dance party. The 4th iteration of “Sunday School” will feature Leedsborn James Arnold, sobriquet: Agent Trevor. “Agent Trevor has been collecting and sharing his favorite sounds since his early twenties. An initial fascination with house music, hip hop, drum’n’bass and similar genres; and the soul, jazz, funk etc. they were sampled from, informed his early recordshopping trips to nearby cities Manchester and

Leeds. This continues to be reflected in his DJ sets today, blending soulful music from around the world, old and new, classic and obscure.” 46 Beard St. (718) 246-8050 Nov 4 At Jalopy Theater, the writer Leslie Fierro hosts a six week writing workshop. In the cozy comfort of Jalopy, writers meet each Sunday 11am-1pm to go over techniques that will spark some more creativity into the writing process. It’s a great way to meet neighbors and the great variety of people into creative writing -- lawyers to teachers to candlestick makers -- and to get some friendly feedback on your work. Fierro’s unique processes this time around include slingshots, day-players, and your cell phone. All genres welcome. 315 Columbia St. WritersCastOff.com Nov 7 Every first Wednesday of the month, Hot Wood Arts host figural drawing classes. For a modest $10, you’ll receive in-depth advice and three hours to practice your craft. 7-10pm. 481 Van Brunt Street, 9B. (718) 596-4000 Nov 10 At Kentler Drawing Space, the London-based Portuguese-born artist Diogo Pimentao presents “Drawn Towards.” The reception on Nov 10 (4-7pm) features a live drawing performance by Pimentao. Through Dec 16. 353 Van Brunt. (718) 875-2098 Nov 10 - 11 Red Hook Open Studios offers the rare chance to meet artists from around the neighborhood. Art-

Nov. 10 & 11, Red Hook Open Studios offers the rare chance to meet artists from around the neighborhood. Photo: Megan Suttles

ists present their wares, and it’s a fantastic chance to support the local arts scene while sprucing up your own office, house, or stockpiling gifts for the holidays. Over 70 studios are available with the good chance you’ll find something affordable. Maps are at www.redhookopenstudios.com and around Red Hook this weekend.

the Good Shepherd’s Thanksgiving Feast with Red Hook Move It. This year’s lineup include “Rajonna Lewis with live drumming and dance from the African diaspora, Solomon Goodwin and the MVP Dance Company, Baila Society, and a dance party emceed by DJ Mikey Palms.” 71 Sullivan St. (718) 330-9280

Nov 11 The last night to see the revival of Target Margin’s critically-acclaimed “Pay No Attention to the Girl,” a trenchant recasting of “One Thousand and One Nights.” GA $20. (718) 398-3095

Nov 14 Every Wednesday at Pig Beach overlooking the Gowanus Canal, rockblues-country-Americana bands take over. 480 Union St. (718) 737-7181

Nov 12 First anniversary of Butterboy at Littlefield! the comedy group Butterboy — Aparna Nancherla, Maeve Higgins, and Jo Firestone — host a night of debauchery with a rotating roaster of comedians and more! 8pm. GA $8. 635 Sackett Street. 877-435-9849 Nov 13 For families and children, PS 15 Patrick F. Daly hosts

Nov 17 At Pioneer Works, celebrate the 10th anniversary of Mexican Summer, an indie record label based in Greenpoint. Over the decade, they’ve released work from Ariel Pink to Cate Le Bon. The all day event will feature “Jefre Cantu-Ledesma; Arp; Pill; Drugdealer; Tonstartssbandht; the first ever New York performance of FJ McMahon and Quilt; Jess Williamson; Allah-Las; Part Time performing the music of What Would You Say? and PDA; Ariel Pink; and a very special Swedish guest.”159 Pioneer St. (718) 596-3001 Nov 24 Brooklyn’s most proudly licentious club, House of Yes, has a roller party. “Studio50 H brings his Roller Wave skate party to the legendary House of Yes for an evening of roll bouncing, boozing, and boogying. Get your workout and your happy hour on at the same time.” GA $10; $15 at door. $20 with skates. 7-10pm. 2 Wyckoff Ave. (646) 838-4973

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NOV 27 Every Tuesday at 6pm, Red Hook Justice Center hosts professional dancers giving a rotation of workshops. All are welcome. 88 Visitation Pl (718) 9238200. Nov 29 Sunset Park’s Target Margin theater premiers playwright Lisa Claire’s “The Making of King Kong,” a reimagination of the “the classic 1933 monster film for the Information Age. Directed by Eugene Ma, this Kong is a bizarre, subversive, and absurdly hilarious dissection of America’s white patriarchal history as told through the stories of Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, and that Big F%*cking Monkey.” Through Dec 15. GA $20. 232 52nd St, Brooklyn. (718) 398-3095 Nov 30 Here’s the last day to check out the Southwest Brooklyn Biennial at Kustera Projects. What started off as a joke (indeed, what the world needs now is not another biannual) has become a highly useful, rare, and intriguing survey of the best art in any neighborhood. Curator Anna Kustera searched through 60 students in Southwest Brooklyn and selected 15 pieces here in the simple one room studio. In a less well-trafficked area, it’s well worth the voyage. 57 Wolcott St. (718) 5223811

November 2018

Star ª Revue Music reviews ª previews ª happenings in the neighborhoods you love

Alsarah And The Nubatones at C’mon Everybody

ecently, I’ve been reflecting on the empty space in Brooklyn since Zebulon closed in 2012. Among aging New Yorkers, there’s always a fond nostalgia for the unique vibe of every music venue of yesteryear. The intersection between local bar, world-class music venue, and creative culture hub is a thing of legend in this city. Zebulon was one of those spots, impossible to recreate or accurately define. Its owners’ embrace of world jazz, in the Alice Coltrane-mold, had a wonderfully open-ended aesthetic, but more importantly, it is remembered as a hub of mid-2000s Williamsburg; a world-class music venue, a latenight musician hang, a local bar, the ultimate after-hours destination. But perhaps most importantly, it helped define this millennium’s turn of NYC venues towards multiculturalism. Zebulon didn’t focus on jazz, or rock, or “world music”, and today’s clubs embrace that same panoply of styles. The dying directness of a “jazz club” or a “rock club” or a “salsa club” is aging. One of the newer clubs picking up that mantle is C’mon Everybody, in Bed Stuy, whose mission statement is “To Create An Environment Where All Walks Of Life Can Co-Exist As One, United By The Power Of Music & Art.” A vague and open-ended enough statement, but many of the freethinking world-dance bands that had cut their teeth at Zebulon have moved over to C’mon Everybody, along with plenty of retro dance parties. MUSICAL MIGRATION Alsarah and the Nubatones are playing at C’mon Everybody for two nights, on November 29th & 30th. Alsarah embodies the crux of the New York musical landscape these days. Born in Khartoum, Sudan, and identifying with the politically nebulous Nubians, an ancient culture that is divided between modern day southern Egypt and southern Sudan, Alsarah has lived in Brooklyn since the early 2000s, and thus created that most precious of Brooklyn sounds living in the interstices of

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time, both modern and ancient, traditional and progressive. The music sounds like a mix between the soaring lyricism of Egyptian superstar Oum Khaltoum (to the north), and the 1970s skronky funkiness of the Ethiopian Ethiopiques recordings (to the east).

hints of asian-inspired pentatonic music. However, one of the most refreshing aspects is that they are doing this all with traditional instruments including Oud, percussion, bass, and lush vocals. The music feels and sounds ancient, and yet completely modern.

I only mention those two musical references from neighboring countries as familiar focal points. Nubian music is, perhaps, less familiar to the larger public as a whole. It is soulful, lyrical, but also extremely funky, and Alsarah is doing amazing work connecting to her roots and heritage, while bringing the music to a broader audience in a non-historical and modern context. Instead, by focusing on the music’s universal appeal, she’s able to bring it into the story of the “modern” worldmusic movement. She speaks of the music as founded on the ideas of “modern migration patterns and the cultural exchanges between Sudan and Egypt.” In this age of global expansion and the fear of migratory patterns, this music is a testament to the power of multiculturalism. At times it sounds like there’s elements of electronica, indie-rock “hooks”, and even

In recent years, the group has become a major international act, playing on world music stages across the globe, and garnering all the coveted NPR enthusiasm a band wants. Yet, they’ll be playing two nights at C’mon Everybody. Make sure to hear them at this tiny neighborhood club in Bed Stuy, November 29th and 30th, at 8:30pm. These are the kind of New York shows that make this city, still, remarkable. Be sure to catch them! https://www. cmoneverybody.com, 325 Franklin Ave. (btw. Clifton Place and Greene Ave.). Stefan Zeniuk is a Brooklyn-based musician, writer, DJ, and animator. You can reach him at szeniuk@gmail.com

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Venue Revues Bar Chord and Eris p22

Recordings Woman Folk p24

comedy John Hammond p25

November 2018, Page 21

Star ª Revuevenues Inside Bar Chord

Bar Chord Resounds with Positive Vibrations by Mike Cobb

CORTELYOU ROAD in leafy Ditmas Park, Bar Chord has become one of the best places to see and perform live music in Brooklyn. With colorful band posters adorning the windows, proprietors Jonny and Christy Sheehan have created a space that is open to all and hosts live music every night of the week.

us. It’s just part of who we are.”

OCATED ON

The Sheehans live by their motto “Music Is Love.” It’s something you can feel the moment you walk through the door. A small stage with guitars for sale hanging on the wall is located immediately to the left while a long bar with craft beer on tap and a wide variety of spirits extends towards the back. To the right tables adjoin a colorful mural painted by a local Nigerian artist Laolu Senbanjo, known for doing Beyoncé's body paint in the “Lemonade” videos. Photos of the bands who have performed here hang above. Head towards the darker depths, and you’ll find a well-stocked jukebox with a wide variety of music from all over the globe. The back door opens to a lovely garden with tables where patrons can eat, drink, and smoke under a colorful mosaic featuring images of musicians, regular customers, and local personalities. MEET THE SHEEHANS So how did the Sheehans end up here? Music has always loomed large in both of their lives. Christy recalls growing up on great vinyl records by Leon Russell and Tom Waits and cites their travels as having opened their minds even further to world music. She states: “Music is like breathing to

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Jonny plays guitar, mandolin, and has been known to join bands onstage on his Cajun rub board. He was a member of the Michael Parrish Band and has jammed with big names like Ivan Neville. Jonny’s brother Bobby played bass with Blues Traveler for many years. He cites all of these experiences as “hugely formative.” Prior to running Bar Chord, both worked in the music business, Christy writing for TV, Jonny running sound and performing. They met through the East Village music scene, fell in love, got married, moved to Ditmas Park and began their own video production company, all while continuing to harbor the dream of opening a bar.

‘I believe New York has to be a place where working artists can live. ‘

When a Mexican bakery on Cortelyou Road became available, “We decided to take the leap,” states Christy. It seemed like the ideal music room. Jonny remembers: “It was an energy that you could just feel; that it would be right for a live music room. When we found this space, it was pretty much a disaster, but we had a great team, and we were able to unearth the bones, including an original 1927 tile floor and a huge outdoor garden. Then we did acoustic treatment of the space.” The Sheehans had a vision of how to design the layout. “One thing we do differently is have the music in the same room as the bar. Otherwise, you don’t get that surprise turn on if the band is in a different room. A lot of people discover music that they otherwise wouldn’t have. That was all based on the bars we loved,” explains Jonny. “Like the Maple Leaf in New Orleans,” adds Christy. Shortly after opening, the word got out and soon musicians were beating down the door with local Haitian legend Alegba Jahyile being the first to knock. Jonny explains: “He was just dying to get on stage. Alegba hosts an incredible monthly revue with reggae, traditional drumming, horns, keyboards, all mixed into a great gumbo. They do these really cool Haitian full moon celebrations in the backyard. He’s one of our favorite bands. He really is a unifying figure and a great life force.” 'MUSIC IS LOVE' The Sheehan philosophy “Music Is Love” is also palpable in how they treat their musicians,

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Jonny and Christy Sheehan Photo: Mike Cobb which is to say with respect and by paying them decently, something increasingly rare in New York. When asked why more venues don’t do it this way, Christy laughs: “Because it’s not financially advisable. Our accountant thinks we’re insane. But Jonny and I have had many heart to heart talks about it, and we’re willing to give up a certain amount of income in order to support art. I believe New York has to be a place where working artists can live. I watched the drain of artists move to Austin or Nashville all those places. I grew up in New York where there was music everywhere. I miss that and love that.” About not charging a cover she adds: “Cover charges are a barrier and paying bands is something I believe in my heart because the musicians are working. I wish we could pay more because I think everyone deserves a lot more, but we give what we can.” Their generosity of spirit is clearly what keeps bringing people back. Jonny states: “What we’re about is creating the environment, letting the band work the room, and build their scene. They have the whole night. They can do three sets or arrange it however they want it. I think that creates a much more conducive environ-

November 2018

Star ª Revue venues

You can see the love of music from the outside of Bar Chord. Photo: Stephen Lovekin ment both for the musicians and the people in the bar.” Of course, running a bar is not without its challenges.” It’s a hard business. It’s exhausting as you get older, you’re putting our little business fires constantly. But music creates community. For me personally, the live music experience is one of release and connection. It’s something that’s desperately needed,” explains Christy. BEST BAR NONE When asked about some of the best moments over the years, Christy recalls Scott Sharrard , the guitarist and musical director for recently deceased Gregg Allman. “Scott had a gig here the night that Prince died. The bar was packed. A lot of people didn’t know who he was, and he just played the shit out of the night. People were just in tears. His version of “Purple Rain” is one of the best renditions ever.” Jonny remembers muralist Laolu

Senbanjo playing with his Nigerian band while simultaneously holding an art show with “various musicians playing among massive canvases all over the bar. It was like you were in The Shrine, a famous nightclub in Lagos, Nigeria. It was awesome.”

The popularity and diversity of the scene also has the benefit of creating cross pollination. Christy explains, “The bands we have recommend other bands like Escarioka (a tropical punk band) who recommended ¿Dónde Estamos? a reggae, ska, Latin band from Newark, New Jersey.” Their appreciation for musical diversity translates to their politics as well. Signs exclaiming “RESIST” and “Refugees Are Welcome” hold a permanent place amongst the ever-changing band names in the window. Jonny expounds: “It’s certainly important in this community where there are so many immigrants, just to show solidarity. It goes such a long way.” Christy adds: “It’s hard to mix politics with public spaces, even though public spaces are the definition of where politics in its true sense, conversation, should be taking place. But you don’t want to really turn people off too much.”

The Sheehans have held fundraisers at the bar for city councilman Jumaane Williams and envision creating a Bar Chord foundation to benefit immigrant families. In terms of the importance of this kind of activism in the current political climate, Jonny adds: “Those beliefs are things that we stand up for. If you have someone who’s poison, you want to be the antidote.” When asked if music has the power to be that antidote

Christy firmly states, “100 percent yes. We’ll always continue to do it. There really is nothing like it. Just when people are feeling really down, it is soul lifting and makes you feel better.” Bar Chord is a unique place that

resounds with positive vibrations. Its seemingly casual atmosphere has been carefully crafted by the worldly Sheehans who are passionate about music and giving artists a place to thrive. With “Music Is Love” as their motto and business model, the Sheehans are intent upon creating community. In a city where great music venues are increasingly disappearing, it’s a rare and beautiful thing. Almost like a well-kept secret. Come feel it for yourself! Bar Chord is open from 4pm2am and is located at 1008 Cortelyou Rd, Brooklyn, NY 11210. For more information check them out online at www. barchordnyc.com Mike Cobb is a Brooklyn based musician, writer, and multimedia producer. Check him out online at www.mc-obb.com

Mike Cobb, second from right, and The Crevulators Photo courtesy of Bar Chord

Wilder in Brooklyn: Can Eris Get Its Groove Back?

t first, we were excited that PJay Nyex, a staple of New York's techno scene, was opening for Detroit techno legends John Collins and Mark Flash of Underground Resistance (known as UR) right here in Brooklyn at a new club called Eris. But then we found out that Eris had an ultra-smooth four-point Funktion One Resolution 1.5 sound system, and our interest doubled. Tickets were bought, and on the G train to East Williamsburg we went. Eris dubs itself an art space, and its entryway is a classic white walled space with a black curtain at the back. Some small paintings and sculptures give it a gallery feel. Push back the black curtain, and you are in the main space. Flashing lights illuminated a large dance floor with a wall-to-wall stage, a couple of industrial size wooden spools serving as tables where you can eat pizza and drink water and a small plywood bar with eight rickety stools. Hanging from the ceiling were remnants of burlesque shows: vines of fake

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white flowers and a large ring for a swing.

speaking with Collins, leaving and returning several times.

At 2 am, the music abruptly PJay Nyex used synthestopped. sizers and mixers to Inside Eris create an abstract PJ Nyex announced loungey sound that we had been and got more dancing to the dancey as his set monitors, musiwent on, using cians’ on-stage different beats speakers, the whole including Reggae evening, not the and some Latin actual Funktion One sounds till about sound system we had 1am, when he introbeen looking forward to. duced John Collins from John Collins wanted the music to the Underground Resistance. sound right or he wouldn’t play anymore. Collins from UR was more traditional, using albums and mixers, combining all different sounds and The only response I could hear was someone in the crowd calling music, even Gospel, with dance out, “But what if the cops come?” beats, starting with a light and happy music, gradually moving Nyex asked them one more time to darker and heavier basslines. to power up the speakers. There That’s when we began to hear was no response. So, he told problems. everyone that the party would continue at Polygon, an indoor As the music began to need more and rooftop club a half mile away subwoofer power, it started to where they could party all night sound tinny. We also noticed a bit of commotion on stage, with Nyex without worrying about noise

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complaints. Eris was silent and empty in less than five minutes. This event makes it clear why the “hip” area keeps pushing west: the clubs need to be where the residential areas are not, but the club-goers want to move closer to where they are…We decided we wouldn’t want to return to Eris. On top of it being a bit distant, the noise complaint/sound system problem is not going to go away, as it is in a mixed residential/commercial area. And unless they had a hundred chairs hidden somewhere, it was too uncomfortable for a quieter evening of burlesque. Eris is located at 167 Graham Ave Brooklyn, NY 11206 (b/t Meserole St & Montrose Ave In East Williamsburg) For more information see their website: www.erisevolution.com Sonja Kodiak Wilder, graphic designer and comic creator, is now the Art Director for The Red Hook Star-Revue.

November 2018, Page 23

Genesis of the Barnacle Parade by Steve Farber

t. John Frizzell slides his namesake cocktail a couple inches away and leans on the bar at Fort Defiance, a regular among regulars nestled there on the evening of the Barnacle Parade. “The thing about the Barnacle Parade is that we had had the idea to do a festival or a parade before Hurricane Sandy happened. And it was to be called the Barnacle Parade or the Barnacle Festival.” The “we” Frizzell refers to is a core of

Red Hookers, including Ben Schneider of The Good Fork and Barry O’Meara of the missed Bait & Tackle. The place is buzzing with laughter, and the ratio of feathers and makeup to drinks gives the night the feel of a neighborhood Carnival. “Once we’d all gotten thru the storm, we all wanted to commemorate it in some way. It was not the fact that we’d all survived it, that nobody died, and so many of our businesses were able to withstand the financial hit of

it and come back, but we wanted to commemorate that moment, after the storm, when everybody in the neighborhood came together and helped one another. I can say this about myself, and about everyone else in the neighborhood, that your primary thought was about your neighbor, and helping out your neighbor, rather than helping out yourself, and there was a certain freedom in that, and there’s a feeling to it that is hard to recreate. And the Barnacle Parade is a celebra-

SUNNY'S BAR NOVEMBER 2018

tion of that moment and an attempt to recapture that.” Dealing behind the bar, Megan Hall sets up a neat row of drinks: a Hanky Panky, a gimlet and a deep amber experiment she sets in front of a reveler who sips and drawls, “oh, it’s goood.” The first year of the Barnacle Parade was 2013, and marchers wound their way down a few neighborhood streets rolling a Generator float - named Generhook (model number 102912 the date Sandy hit) decked out in costumes before the police intercepted them and kindly offered to stop traffic. They hadn’t thought to get a permit. Francis Kerrigan laughs about how the parade got its name. “We’re not mermaids, we’re not bathing beauties, but we’ve got lots of crusty things to hold on to, so... we’re barnacles.” Earlier, over coffee at Black Flamingo, Francis trots out memories of one of the first floats built in Red Hook. “One year, maybe 2004, there was a Whalephant. Half whale, half elephant.” That’s right, an elephant mermaid. Barry O’Meara sponsored the build as the Bait & Tackle’s entry in the Mermaid Parade. How big was it? “Oh, it was big, it was pink, it was articulate, it could raise its head, its trunk. It was over King Street.” This year, a laser spitting, smoke breathing two-story tall Godzilla roamed the streets into the night and battled a storm surge wheeled on a cart. Back at Fort Defiance, the crowd is restive and folks are migrating to the official afterparty underway at Hometown. Frizzell’s glass is empty and he pockets his phone. “If you needed a tool you didn’t have, you just walked down the street to your neighbor, and if they weren’t there you just grabbed it, brought it home, got her done and then brought it back. It’s hard to imagine that happening in any other neighborhood in New York. “The thing about natural disasters is it has the potential to bring out the worst in people. It also potentially brings out the best in people, your full natural instincts to help people... which I think is more true. It’s what happened here.” Last year’s parade sales raised over $6,000, all donated to Hurricane Maria relief in Puerto Rico. This year, all proceeds raised from Red Hook Barnacle Day tee shirt and raffle sales will support hurricane relief efforts in Florida and North Carolina via World Central Kitchen.

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November 2018

Star ª Revue recordings

“Hold Still”

Brooklyn local Mary-Elaine Jenkins’s debut album draws on the long traditions of southern folk to examine the perils of romance and loss.

has effectively erased the imperative to listen to albums start to finish, Jenkins’ album constitutes a thorough exploration of men and romance gone awry. Despite the often plaintive lyrics about failed relationships and disappointing forays into love, Jenkins’ balances the tone of the album well, interspersing love ballads with fun tracks that will get people dancing off their soul food. S STREAMING

“Hold Still” doesn’t try to expand or experiment outside of its genre, but it works as a solid debut and puts Jenkins on a list of rising stars to watch. The first thing you notice about “Hold Still” is her voice. Smoky and raspy, her tessitura proves throughout the album that it’s capable of communicating contradictions—vulnerable but controlled,

wispy but steady. Thus, runs the album’s general theme.

solid reminder that Jenkins is in control.

The music on the album is solid, classic, southern folk - twangy guitar, soul-soothing rhythms, and easy head-bobbing beats. But Jenkins’ voice is what really sets the record apart. It’s impossible for her jangling vocals to take a backseat to anything. Many of the tracks don’t necessarily explore new emotional truths, but Jenkins’ husk brings a depth to lyrics which would otherwise sound trite.

The funniest track, “Iggy” an homage to the greasy king of pop punk, demonstrates the full extent of Jenkins’ range. The scratchy, lo-fi guitar opening perfectly synthesizes the dream crush Jenkins vocalizes: “I wanna be your sweet sixteen, /Even though I’m almost 29”.

As emotionally weighty as Jenkins’ album is, it never feels unhinged. The eponymous “Hold Still”, which takes a nostalgic look at a past relationship, somehow manages to feel measured and balanced. “Still kind lost but mostly found,” Jenkins rasps, “I keep having these dreams about New Orleans/You’re always standing on the corner of law and desire.” Whatever it is a

As the weather turns cold, MaryElaine Jenkins’ album Hold Still offers the perfect soundtrack to bundle up to and watch the leaves fall. It’s lonely and melancholy, but defiant. On “Fools Don’t Stay” Jenkins sings “Tomorrow morning I’ll get an early start/Building a barricade around my heart.” It is a testament to Jenkins’ vocals that this comes across as her objective analysis of moving on from someone rather than

the jaded lyrics of a jilted lover.

For fans looking for a distinctive Janis Joplin-like voice, or homesick southerners stranded in Brooklyn, Mary-Elaine Jenkins debut album offers the perfect soundtrack for autumn. —Briana Murphy Hold Still by Mary-Elaine Jenkins http://maryelainejenkins.com/ .

Star ª Revue Comedy comedic director John Hammond

t’s 3am on a fall night in Williamsburg. In an apartment building on Jackson street between Graham and Humboldt a group of artists are scrambling around, preparing for what appears to be a comedy show. Comedians, writers, and crew are making last second adjustments to the set of Sofa Kingdom, a real-time variety show streamed on Facebook. Kelly Bauchman, a producer, reached out to John about the idea, and he agreed to direct and host the show in his basement. I met John in the winter of 2017 while looking for an actor to play the role of a racist cat breeder from Mississippi. He didn’t get that role but he did end up as photography director on another project. Since then, John and I have collaborated on several projects. John’s style can most easily be described as, weird. John wants to create things that make you feel uncomfortable. He’s a director at heart but believes that to be successful he needed to be competent in all aspects of the production process. He created a production house in his apartment at 181 Jackson St in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, offering writing, directing, editing, and consulting services to comedians,

Page 26 Red Hook Star-Revue

the tub only allowing my face to peak through the surface while a sang the lyrics to the song.

as well as space to host comedy events. His comedy tastes sometimes border on insane. The first of work I saw was a sketch he directed called Salsa Man, where John plays a man who loves salsa so much that he straps a bowl of salsa to his head. Through the course of the video Salsa Man can be seen making his way around the city, enjoying chips and salsa, his arms free to perform tasks while the salsa bowl sits on his head. Growing up in Huntington, Long Island, John initially wanted to be in front of the camera. He, his brother, and cousin would make funny videos that they would share with family and friends. To hone his craft John earned a bachelor of fine arts in Design from Parsons and a Bachelors of Arts from Eugene Lang in Film. While in school John gravitated toward the behind the scenes aspect of telling stories. He became a fan of such auteurs as Paul Thomas Anderson, The Coen Bros, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Christopher Guest, and Adam McKay. It’s Johns dream to build the enterprise he runs out of his apartment into a full-scale comedy production house that provides comics with top of the line resources to get out their ideas.

by Dekunle Somade

What I like about John is that he’s scrappy and prepared to do anything to produce a video. Recently, he directed a music video for a song I created called No Avocados in the Ghetto. The song is about food deserts in the inner city. John had the idea of having me drive through the city in a convertible, while the camera captured sights and sounds of the ghetto. I would then arrive at a Whole Foods and rob it of its produce. We called several grocery stores to gain a permit to shoot but got cold responses from management. We decided we would shoot at these grocery stores anyway. One by one John and I drove to stores in Long Island and Brooklyn. Patrons watched as I danced in the aisles before we were told by management to leave. There is a scene in the video where John and I filled my bathtub with a $100 worth of sugar. I then submerge myself in

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To make money, John works with Corydon Wagner, a commercial director based out of Manhattan. John wears many hats at the agency. He organizes proposals to pitch prospective clients, writes treatments, cast actors, and even operates the camera on occasion. John’s time with Wagner balances out the fringe comedic work that he’s doing and provides some perspective on how the production industry works. It’s very common to find John at comedy shows in the city. He’s become somewhat of a fixture with comedians. He’s known as the guy who makes the videos. Comedians who have ideas they want to present on screen come to him. It is difficult for a standup comic who gets up on stage every night to find the time to produce a video. That’s where John comes in. You can find Johns’s work at www.johnconnorhammond. com or the two monthly comedy shows hosted at his house, The Basement Comedy Show and Sofa Kingdom.

November 2018

The Rockaway Post Theatre Company Presents A View From the Bridge A review by Nino Pantano The Rockaway Post Theatre Company presented an exciting production of Arthur Miller’s play A View From the Bridge on Saturday evening, October 6th. The company is located in Fort Tilden, an old historic Army installation between Riis Park & Breezy Point in the Rockaways. This whole area is now part of Gateway National Park along with Floyd Bennett Field which was a prominent air field in World War I & II. A View from a Bridge was written by Arthur Miller in 1955 as part of a two, short-play production. He rewrote it as a two act play the following year. Miller,a renowned Brooklynite (1915-2005) lived in the Heights and we would sometimes see him or author Norman Mailer walking around the neighborhood. Arthur Miller and his wife Marilyn Monroe often dined at Cafiero’s Restaurant, a legendary eatery that is now an artist’s loft, nearby. My father Santo (Sam) Pantano had a Florsheim Shoe Store on Columbia Street in the 1940’s and 1950’s and he was privy to the gangsters and characters of South Brooklyn. As a young man, I would walk to the shoe store from my school, St. Francis College. At that time, St. Francis was on Court and Butler, which was near Ebel’s Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlor and the legendary College Bakery. The “old timers” still call it Red Hook or South Brooklyn and have never really embraced the “new” and uppity name of Carroll Gardens. The neighborhood has changed now but the Italian flavoring still strongly exists on Union Street with Mazzola’s Pastry shop, the famed House of Pizza & Calzone (operated in the “old days” by the legendary much loved Giovanni (John) Teutonico and Onofrio Gaudiso.) They still occasionally visit current owner Paul DiAgostino, and like all of us, are so happy that the tradition is held sacred and continues to this day with great pizza and calzone. Ferdinando’s Focacceria (Sicilian) has been a staple since 1904 and is among the oldest Sicilian restaurants in New York City. The great Italian actor Raf Vallone as Eddie Carbone. dined there when filming A View from the Bridge (with Carole Lawrence). Recent visitors include actress beauty Maria Grazia Cucinotta (IL Postino), Pierce Brosnan, (James Bond) Sean Penn and Martin Scorsese among others. Owner/Manager Francesco Buffa and friendly staff are proud of the Pasta con le Sarde, Vlastede, Panelles and Arangini (Riceballs) among other Sicilian favorites. On nearby Court Street, Court Pastry, Caputo’s Bakery, Monteleone’s Pastry, Esposito’s Pork Store, Mazzone’s Hardware and a few others are still active in the neighborhood. Eddie Carbone would still feel at home.

Red Hook Star-Revue

From left: Jodee Timpone as Beatrice, Robert Wilkinson as Eddie, Melanie Mahanna as Catherine, Guido Corno as Marco and Matthew Barrera as Rodolpho. Photo by Rob Mintzes

Virgilio Santamaria was a photographer who lived upstairs from my father’s store. He had a cousin, the nuclear scientist Enrico Fermi who told my Uncle Cologero (Kelly) in a moment of levity, that thanks to the unions, the longshoremen lived better than he did. The great tenor Enrico Caruso sailed back to Italy to die in May 192,1 with his wife Dorothy and baby Gloria from Pier 7 nearby waving to the multitudes who saw him off. A decade earlier, Caruso, surrounded by police and undercover, went to Van Brunt Street to capture suspected Ma-

The ominous sounds of horns and seagulls filled the theater with the cacophony of the Red Hook waterfront. fiosi who threatened him and his family. They were two out of work Italian immigrants who desperately needed money. Ever faithful to his fellow Italians, Caruso was the first one to sign a petition to have them released. Inspector Joseph Petrosino intervened years before to protect the great tenor from Mafia threats. (See the film Pay or Die (1960) with Ernest Borgnine as Inspector Petrosino). The legendary dwarf called “Mondo the Midget” was a Gallo family gangster wannabee whose job was to feed the pet lion the Gallo family “adopted” to put fear in the hearts of their creditors. It was a rich textured neighborhood and Arthur Miller, sitting in Montero’s Bar along the taverns on Atlantic Avenue, first heard the story that inspired A View from the Bridge. It is Italian oral tradition conceived in whispers, the disgrace and tragedy of Eddie Carbone. If only Eddie Carbone

had listened to the soothsayer, the lawyer Alfieri. The setting is Red Hook, Brooklyn in the 1950’s. The ominous sounds of horns and seagulls filled the theater with the cacophony of the Red Hook waterfront. Alfieri the lawyer, narrates the tale, like a Greek chorus and is very much a “Beware the Ides of March” prophet. Bernard Feinerman, a well known actor from Brooklyn Heights, was an almost Biblical figure, a “wise” man, a prophet raising his voice against a tide that Eddie Carbone embraced. His advice to Eddie is simple pure truth, but it falls on “deaf” ears. Alfieri warns Eddie repeatedly not to pursue what he is feeling, but Eddie stubbornly holds his old beliefs which consume him and swallow him whole. Feinerman’s excellent diction, emphasis on truth, nobility of utterance, wisdom in law and religion, made him a prophet without honor, an eloquent angel who could not break the wall that the devil set up. In Sicily, honor supersedes law! “You can NEVER have her, Eddie - only GOD makes Justice.” Alfieri’s advice to Eddie, “Let her go and give her your blessing!” was not heeded. Mr. Feinerman gave us a haunting and unforgettable performance that evoked Charlton Heston’s biblical Moses. The striking blazing reds of the backdrop gave us grandeur and the illusion of a Cinemascope film. Frank Caiati is a talent combo of Frank Capra, David Lean and Cecil B. DeMille. 2) Eddie Carbone was portrayed by Robert Wilkinson who gave a searing and soaring performance and was a stubborn and complex character who evoked sympathy from his audience, never contemptA question - in the final, fatal scene with Marco, perhaps subliminal - does Eddie fall on the knife to end it all? Melanie Mahanna was utterly captivating as Catherine, niece and the “adopted” child of Eddie and Beatrice. She had a sweetness that was beguiling and a “naivete” that was part of the adolescent package Jodee Timpone was superb as Eddie’s wife. Her slow awakening to Eddie’s problem was like watching a favorite painting melt from too much steam on a cold day. She slowly fell

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apart, the sameness of their life in Red Hook, his hard work as a longshoreman, hers, cooking and caring for their niece and feeling the chill still of his cooling feelings for her Rodolpho was in the skilled hands of Matthew Barrera. Rodolpho, illegal immigrant was “different.” He loved to sing (Paper Doll, a 1950’s song by the Mills Brothers) he could repair dresses and had an almost effete range of interests Marco was brilliantly portrayed by Guido Corno. Marco has a wife and children in Sicily who he helps support by coming to the United States to work and help. When he finds out that someone has called the immigration police (Submarines) he spits at Eddie. He and Eddie fight and Eddie gets stabbed and dies. This was a perfect performance of a great work and the wonderful and appreciative audience who applauded and cheered with great enthusiasm in the «wilds» of an oasis at The Rockaway Post Theatre. Red Hook today has Fairway and Ikea and some new buildings but some of the old “City Island” type areas remain. Sessa’s Bank is gone from Union Street as is Frank Sacco’s Department Store, several movie theatres such as the “Happy Hour” and “The Luna” are gone as are the Sicilian puppet shows (with Orlando Furioso - giant puppets Medieval armor battling Malagiggi the villain). Ocean liners come in now and dock nearby. Rents and property values have escalated. The iconic swimming pool and parks remain. The housing project,s once Scandinavian and Italian, are still here as is the imposing Church of the Visitation. The pushcarts and small family owned stores are gone. But Eddie Carbone’s days are memories and dust in the passage of time and a chill in the ocean breeze. Nino Pantano has been reviewing theater and opera since at least the 1960’s. He is a former schoolteacher and lifelong resident of Carroll Gardens (on both sides of the BQE). He still lives in the neighborhood with his wife Judy.

November 2018, Page 27

Theater of the Liberated Visits Red Hook Story and photos by Brett Yates On October 20, the Red Hook Public Library hosted a free performance of “Soft” by the Theater of the Liberated. Directed by Carolyn Ferguson, a resident of the Gowanus Houses, the play dramatized the administrative labyrinth that NYCHA tenants have to navigate when they request repairs for their apartments. Last year, the nonprofit Hester Street organized an arts forum called Making Gowanus, and out of this grew the Theater of the Liberated, which artist-activist Imani Gayle Gillison created as a means to promote the grassroots movement to reopen the Gowanus Houses Community Center, closed for more than a decade. “Soft,” which Gayle Gillison wrote, premiered on August 30, 2017, at Fort Greene’s BRIC House following rehearsals that took place at the aforementioned community center despite its official closure; that October, Mayor de Blasio promised publicly to reopen the center permanently, though, so far, it remains shuttered. For its second production, the Theater of the Liberated plans to parcel out the show across New York City, staging portions of the play in various communities. “When you do the performance, you don’t have to do it exactly as it’s written because the parts are more tailored toward the individual,” Ferguson said. For Red Hook, she chose a segment titled “Gotta Put in a Ticket,” in which, under Gayle Gillison’s direction, she starred last year, after starting out as a production assistant. As Ferguson recounts it, the Theater of the Liberated was “always a group project, and we were brainstorming on how we’re going to tell our stories, and [Gayle Gillison] asked us to name something you don’t like about NYCHA, so I said I don’t like when you call the call center and you say I need a repair done, and they send someone who just looks at the repair and then asks you to sign a ticket. It’s a whole big bureaucracy with that.” Gayle Gillison insisted that Ferguson take the lead role in the two-character sketch that followed, since she’d inspired the story. This time around, with Ferguson

directing, Lanown Faison of the Ingersoll Houses played the public housing tenant, and Lawrence Simmons of the Queensbridge Houses appeared as the maintenance worker. At the start of the play, Faison notices a leaky pipe in her bathroom and phones the NYCHA call center for help, summoning a worker to her door. As it turns out, his job is not to fix the problem but merely to verify its existence, thus allowing Faison to follow up with a second request for a plumber. The delay, however, compounds the problem, which ultimately demands both a wall repair and mold remediation for the floor, each requiring its own separate maintenance ticket. But, alas, not in that order: for safety, ordinary repairmen can’t enter the unit until a specialist has taken care of the mold, even as the tenant is expected to live with it every day. NYCHA residents are typically forced to skip work to wait on undertrained maintenance workers who frequently fail to address the reported issue adequately, and small repair jobs can stretch on for months or even years. Before the play, City Councilman Carlos Menchaca gave a brief address, in which he acknowledged the “incredible frustration” experienced by NYCHA residents when their maintenance requests go unheard but also celebrated “the empowerment that comes from organizing around that.” Karen Blondel – representing the Fifth Avenue Committee’s environmental initiative Turning the Tide, one of the show’s several sponsors (which also included the Brooklyn Arts Council, the NOCD-NY, Arts Gowanus, and the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice) – spoke between acts, advocating for a system in which public housing residents would be able to go outside NYCHA to report their complaints. Referring to the events of the play, Blondel observed, “Most of you don’t have to experience that if you don’t live in public housing, because you get to call 311. And when you call 311, they send out a certified building inspector to you, and that person writes up violations on your building, and your building owner is then given a

specific amount of time to remediate those problems. It’s really unfair that we pay taxes in public housing and we don’t have a right to call 311 like you do.” After the performance, Blondel offered a short verbal quiz for the audience, covering material from the play and from the Where We Live NYC workshop (part of “a process to promote fair housing, confront segregation, and take action to advance opportunity for all”) that she’d held at

Parade, continued from page 5

ter that inspired it. “This shows that we’re never going to be beat by another storm. Red Hook will always win,” said resident Lisa Gonzalez. Organized by a “non-organization organization” (as co-founder Ben Schneider put it) that meets at Sunny’s Bar, the self-funded event subsists on profits from souvenir Tshirts, printed at cost by Fulla Shirts, with a new design selected from a pool of submissions each year. Since 2017, Liz Galvin has coordinated an successful raffle, soliciting some great local gifts, whose revenue goes toward hurricane relief efforts: last year, for Puerto Rico; this year, for North Carolina and Florida. World Central Kitchen, which provides meals for victims of natural disasters, will receive the donation.

Hook in the year following Sandy, 2018’s float bore the heart-shaped and it definitely feels like the end of insignia “B+T” to mark the January an era having it gone, and we’re glad demise of the beloved Bait & Tackle, that the parade is still going on.” which had stayed open after SanGiordano pointed out that, dy and served as “the hub, just two days before the the center of survival, 2018 parade, a Saturday the center of comfort nor’easter had left a foot and warmth,” accordof floodwater in some ing to former manager parts of Red Hook. Robbie Giordano, for “The community gets the otherwise parato survive something like lyzed neighborhood. Sandy, or whatever hits This September, a Guardian article posited climate Coloring in signs us, if we know each other, change and gentrification Photo: Brett Yates if there’s strong bonds and relationships,” City as dual existential threats Councilman Carlos Menchaca obto Red Hook. Hally McGehean, served at the parade. “And we’re just whose young daughter wore a Barry maintaining those relationships as O’Meara mask in honor of the fallen we remember that dark day that was bar’s owner, explained: “For us, the Sandy.” Bait & Tackle was the heart of Red

Authentic Key Lime Pies, Hometown Bar-B-Q, and the Good Fork, and followed by a block party at Van Brunt and Pioneer streets, the parade had the loose, inclusive informality of a New Orleans second-line, aided by a reasonably minimal police presence and plenty of maritime costumes: lobsters, mermaids, hermit crabs, flotsam. A woman dressed as a radioactive fish said that “the kids and the dogs” were always the best part. A trio from PortSide New York carried jumbo-sized teardrops. Famous enough in its sixth year to draw some curious outsiders, the Barnacle Parade remains largely a community-based gathering of oddballs, immersed in the memory of the disas-

Page 28 Red Hook Star-Revue

Lanown Faison of Ingersoll Houses plays a public housing tenant in the play, “Soft”

City Councilman Carlos Menchaca acknowledges the “incredible frustration” experienced by NYCHA residents

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the library in the preceding hours for much of the same crowd. She handed out gift cards for correct answers. Red Hook resident Ashley Taylor, who had played the harp as the stage was set up, contributed a voucher for a free movie night at the private, 15-person screening room at RE:GEN:CY, the new event space that she co-owns on Commerce Street, and Jeannine Bardo, co-founder of the climate change awareness project Ark for the Arts, won the ensuing raffle.

November 2018

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Andrew White continued from page 19

What kind of gear do you use and is that important? AW: I’m still a believer that “best camera is the one you have on you”. Of course, a better camera will give you a better technical result but it doesn’t automatically make you an artist. Some amazing photographs have been shot with minimal gear, just like some great records have been made on a four-track tape machine. I can attest to this, being a photographer that has used a ‘cell phone’ to take photos for nearly a decade. I’ve taken some pretty fine photos just with an iPhone! I’ve recently moved up to a state-of-the-art full-frame mirrorless camera that I (ironically) mainly pair with vintage manual lenses from the 60s to the 80s. This has given me an opportunity to shoot in ways that a smart phone currently cannot. That said, I still shoot with my iPhone every day – because I always have it with me! Did you ever shoot film and if so, what’s your take on the digital revolution? AW: I haven’t shot film since the early 200’s. As a musician who loves analog equipment I totally ‘get’ film, but having both a digital photography workflow alongside digital video and music production is something I find is more productive for me. Do you exhibit? How and where can people find or buy your work? AW: I have exhibited a lot of my iPhone photography in dedicated ‘mobile photography’ shows from Miami to Moscow. More recently I’ve shown work at small galleries and shows in NYC with limited edition prints. People are often amazed that a shot taken on an iPhone can be enlarged, printed and shown in a gallery. Several of these works can be seen on my website and I post work daily to Instagram. You’re also a musician, videographer, graphic designer, and producer. Am I missing anything? AW: No that’s all correct although

Red Hook Star-Revue

I’m also a husband, dad, cat ranger, and often inventor of ‘dad jokes.’ What’s the relationship between music and visual arts? Does one feed the other? AW: Totally. Without music, a film or TV show becomes lifeless. Alternatively, a visual can bring a piece of music alive. People love to see live music for the aspect of people performing; photographers love to capture those live moments and those who go to the shows love to look back at the photos of that experience. Album cover art reflects the style of the music held with the digital file or vinyl record. Promotional photography establishes the look of a musical artist. A music video solidifies an artist’s music and lyrics with a visual story. Photography and video can document the process of a band or artist’s journey form nobodies to megastars. Or just documents the fact they are nobodies! These things are all constantly feeding off each other. Tips for aspiring photographers and creatives? AW: The main thing is to find your own voice, your own vision and to move at your own pace. Particularly with social media, you can get caught up in comparing yourself to other artists and that can be discouraging. All artists are at different stages so don’t get discouraged – just keep on working on your thing, your way. Collaborating with other artists can also be a good way of maintaining creative energy and moral support. Love what you do and give it your best! To see and hear more of Andrew’s work, check him out online at www.andrewbwhite.com

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November 2018, Page 29

RELIGIOUS NEWS BY LAURA ENG

Papal Nuncio Celebrates French Mass at St. Agnes

rchbishop Christophe Pierre, the Papal Nuncio, celebrated the French Mass at St. Agnes Church in Cobble Hill on Sunday, October 7th. Joining the pope’s envoy to the United States in concelebration were Diocese of Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, Parish of St. Agnes/St. Paul Pastor Monsignor Joseph Nugent, Father Paul Anel, Father Willy Kingsley, and Deacon Leroy Branch. In attendance were many members of the French-speaking community residing in the Cobble Hill/ Carroll Gardens area who warmly welcomed their compatriot, Archbishop Pierre. According to Father Anel, who hails from southwest France and has lived in Brooklyn for ten years, a visit by the Papal Nuncio, a first for the parish, was “an important recognition for the French com-

Religious Services Christian

River Of God Christian Center

110 Wolcott Street, 646-226-6135, Secretary, Sister Roslyn Chatman. Sunday- Family Worship 11- 1 pm Scripture, Wednesday- At The Gate 12 noon, Prayer 7-7:30 pm, Bible Studies 7-8 pm, Thursday Prayer 7:30-8:30 pm, Fri. Youth ABLAZED Ministries 6- 7:30 pm, Senior Pastor, Donald Gray

Visitation Church

98 Richards Street, (718) 624-1572. Ofﬁce open Mon-Thurs. 9 am- 3 pm. Sat. Mass at 5 pm English; Sun. 10 am Spanish, 12:30 pm English. Community Prayer on Tuesday and Thursday at 8 pm. Call to arrange for Baptisms, First Communion, Conﬁrmation and Weddings.

New Brown Memorial Baptist

609 Clinton Street, 718 624 4780 Pastor A.R Jamal. Sun. School at 9:30 am. Sun. Worship at 11 am. Bible Study-Wed. at 7:30 pm. Communion every ﬁrst Sunday

Redemption Church Red Hook

767 Hicks Street (Red Hook Initiative), (347) 470-3523, RedemptionRedHook@gmail.com Pastor Edwin Pacheco Sunday Service at 10:30 am, Children’s Bible Study provided.

RH Ministries

72 Van Dyke Street (Corner of Richards Street), 718-624-3093, rhministries@bgtintl.com, Senior Pastor: Rev. David W. Anderson, Rev. Dr. Linda D. Anderson Sunday Worship Service at 11:00 am, Mid-week prayer on Wednesday at 7:30 pm, Pantry every Saturday at 9:30 am

St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church 157 Montague St., Brooklyn Heights. Phone: 718-875-6960, ofﬁce@stannholytrinity. org, Fr. John Denaro, Rector. Sunday Worship-Early Church at 9:30 am, Sunday School and Playgroup at 10:15 am and Holy Eucharist at 11:15 am, Weekday Worship on Wednesdays at 6 pm.

Stretching Far and Wide Global Ministry, Inc.

382 Hamilton Avenue, Studio B 1-800-948-9042 Archbishop Dr. Barbara Jackman, Overseer Rev. Dr. Dwayne Barnes, Pastor Services are held every Sun. @ 10 am Communion every First Sun. stretchingfar.webs.com stretchingfar@aol.com

Page 30 Red Hook Star-Revue

munity and a reminder that modest and humble as our community may be in terms of numbers, we are part of the larger, universal Church...part of something bigger.” The French congregation is comprised of a number of young families with small children who were no doubt attracted to the area by local French-English dual language programs, including the one implemented at P.S. 58 by the late visionary principal, Giselle Gault-McGee. In response to the influx of French families, Bishop DiMarzio had the idea to start a French Mass at St. Agnes in 2014. Father Anel estimates there are 20 to 25 French families regularly attending St. Agnes and he, in turn, came up with the idea to start a French religious education program. There are currently 15 children (ages

St. Mary Star of the Sea Parish

467 Court Street, (718) 625-2270 Rectory Hours: Monday-Thursday 9 am- 11:30 am, 1 pm-4 pm, Fri. 9 am- 12 noon. Masses: Sat. 4 pm, Sun. 10 am, Monday- Thursday, 9:30 am.

Saint Paul Saint Agnes Parish

Church Ofﬁce 433 Sackett St (718) 6251717 Hours: M-F 2 PM-5 PM. E mail: stpaulandstagnes@gmail.com. Saint Paul, 190 Court Street- church open daily for prayer and meditation 7 am- 8 pm. Sat. Vigil Mass 5:30 pm, Sun. 7:45 am, 11 am (Spanish). St. Agnes, 433 Sackett St. Sat. Vigil Mass 4 pm (English), Sun. 9:15 am (English), 11 am (French), 12:30 PM (Spanish). M-T-TH-F-S 8:30 am St Paul’s Chapel 234 Congress St.; Wed. 8:30 am St Agnes.

Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary- Saint Stephen RCC

125 Summit Street at Hicks Street, (718) 596-7750, info@sacredhearts-ststephen. com Ofﬁce Hours: Monday-Thursday 9 am- 5 pm, Fri. 9 am- 3 pm, Sat. 9 am- 1 pm Sat. Vigil Mass at 5:30 pm, Sun. Masses at 8 am, 10 am, and noon (Italian/English) Weekday Masses Mon. at 12 noon and Tue. thru Sat. at 8:30 am. Confessions: Sat. at 4:45 pm and by appointment. Baptisms every third Sun. 1 pm.

Archbishop Christophe Pierre, center 6 to 11) registered and there is also a monthly pre-school “éveil à la foi” (introduction to catechism) for children ages 3 to 6. The gospel read during the Mass was from St. Mark and included the passage in which Jesus instructed the disciples, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” With the many children present and the Mass punctuated by the sounds of crying babies and scampering toddlers, some even crawling up the center aisle, this reading was particularly appropriate. The offerings of bread and wine along with bouquets of flowers were carried to the altar by slightly older children accompanied by local restauranteur and chef Jean-Jacques Bernat. And when it was time for the collection, that too, was performed by children with several young French girls passing the baskets and carrying them to the foot of the altar. After Mass, I spoke to Archbishop Pierre who expressed his gratitude for being invited to St. Agnes and stated, “Being French myself and representing the Holy Father in this country, I’m very happy that the great number of French people living here have not forgotten to celebrate their faith.” The French Mass gives them

“the possibility to connect with their tradition, to celebrate their faith, but also to live as a community... living our faith in community can only contribute to society.”

Happenings/Upcoming Events Congregation Mount Sinai 250 Cadman Plaza West Kristallnacht Commemoration Join us for special Shabbat prayer and guest speaker on Saturday, November 17 at 10:30 am. Tot Shabbat for ages 0 - 5 on select Saturdays from 11 am - 12 noon. Immerse your child and yourself in Jewish and Israeli culture with song, story times, movement, play and holiday celebrations. Free of charge with kiddush lunch afterward. For more information, call 718-875-9124 or email admin@cmsbklyn.org. Kane Street Synagogue 236 Kane Street Open Beit Midrash, a creative, informal learning academy each Tuesday evening continues with “The Torah of Health” on November 6, 13 and 20 and “Our Greek Heritage” on December 4, 11 and 18. Dinner at 6:45 and class from 7:30 - 9:00 pm. Cost is $40 per each three-week course. For more information, contact BeitMidrash@kan-

St. Paul’s Carroll St (Episcopal)

199 Carroll Street, 718-625-4126, info@stpaulscarrollst.org, www.stpaulscarrollst.org, Sun. Mass at 11:00 am, Weekly Morning Prayer Mon.-Thurs. at 7:30 am, Weekday Mass on Fri. at 9:00 am, Church open for prayer on Sat. from 2-4 pm. Holy Days as announced.

Jewish Kane Street Synagogue

236 Kane Street, 718 875-1550 http://kanestreet.org/ Fri. night services, 6 PM Shabbat services, 9:15 AM Sun. Services 9 AM

Congregation B’nai Avraham/ Chabad of Brooklyn Heights

117 Remsen St., 718 596 4840 x18 www.bnaiavraham.com, www.heightschabad.com Morning Services: Sunday: 8:45am Monday- Friday: 7:45am Holidays (during the week): 8:45am Saturday: 9:45am Evening Services: Sunday: Shabbat candle lighting time Monday- Thursday: 9 pm Friday: Winter: 5 minutes before Shabbat candle lighting time Summer:

Congregation Mount Sinai

250 Cadman Plaza West, 718-875-9124, info@ cmsbklyn.org, www.cmsbklyn.org, Rabbi Hanniel Levenson Fri. services at 6:30 pm, Sat.

St. Mary Star of the Sea Displays Timely Banner During a fraught week for our city and country, in which multiple pipe bombs were mailed to prominent figures and a murderous attack was waged on the worshipers in a Pittsburgh synagogue during Shabbat services, a timely banner was installed by Charles Roussim outside of St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Carroll Gardens. Based on the Golden Rule, the banner expresses the sentiment of loving your neighbor no matter what your differences may be, with no exceptions. As noted by St. Mary’s Pastor Father Chris Cashman, “Christ’s message of love and respect needs to be embraced by all now more than ever!”

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November 2018

estreet.org. Drop-ins are welcome. Bialy Rock Music Class for Infants & Toddlers every Friday from 10 to 10:45 am. Children accompanied by caregivers will sing, dance and play instruments to English and Hebrew songs, led by Ora Fruchter and her puppet, Ketchup. Please sign up on-line at kanestreet. org/bialy-rock. The cost is $25 per class for drop-ins and there are discounted multi-class packs for members: 6 sessions for $70 and 12 sessions for $130; and for non-members: 6 sessions for $125; 12 sessions for $225. For more information, please contact Rabbi Valerie Lieber. River of God Christian Center 110 Wolcott Street Thanksgiving Generation Worship & Dinner on Sunday, November 18 at 11 am. Let’s all join in, give thanks to the Lord and break bread in unity. Sacred Hearts/St. Stephen Church Summit & Hicks Street Parish Thanksgiving Mass on Wednesday, November 21 at 7 pm. Food will be collected and delivered to Visitation Parish. Christmas Star Steeple Lighting on Saturday, December 8 following the 5:30 Mass. St. Agnes/ St. Paul’s Parish Hoyt & Sackett Streets/234 Congress Street Young at Heart Meetings on Wednesdays at 1 pm in St. Agnes Hall. Girl Scouts on Fridays at 6:45 pm in St. Agnes Hall. Boy Scouts on Fridays at 7 pm in St. Paul Hall. St. Boniface 190 Duffield Street Christmas Craft Fair on December 2 from 10 am - 3 pm in Newman Hall. Craft tables are available for $50 per table. Please contact lauriechaumont@ gmail.com to reserve a table. “What’s That Flapping Sound?”: An Advent Retreat on the Angels on Saturday, December 7 from 11 am - 4 pm. In our wrenching times, we need all the help we can get! Looking at what the Bible, the Catholic tradition, and great works of art say about God’s messengers, guardians and friends. Led by Nadine Hundertmark, M.Div., and Rob Meadows-Rogers, Ph.D., retired Fordham art history professor. St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church 157 Montague Street Book of Books Book Club will meet on the first Thursday of each month from 7:00-8:30 pm. The goal is to read the entire Old Testament/Hebrew Bible by May 2, 2019. Those who join the group can read the entire thing, read the essential stories chosen from each month’s reading, or read just the few stories/passages that we’ll discuss at the monthly meeting. A reading schedule is available at www.craigdtownsend.com. “Being Christian” Series continues on November 11 (Church) at 10:15-11 am or 12:45-1:30 pm. What does it mean to be a Christian? How does an Episcopalian approach the Eucharist and the Bible? In what ways do Christian worship, tradition and community draw

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us closer to God? “Being Christian” is a series exploring the Episcopal Church’s approach to fundamentals of Christian piety. Bring your questions, concerns, visions and hopes about what it might mean to worship God as disciples of Jesus in the 21st century. St. Mary Star of the Sea Church 467 Court Street Thanksgiving Day Mass at 9 am. You are welcome to bring an item of food that you will share with your family later at table to be blessed. 4th Annual Family Christmas Sing-ALong and Children’s Nativity on Sunday, December 16 at 2 pm. Reconciliation/Confession on Monday, December 17 from 4 - 8 pm. Our 167th Annual Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, Monday, December 24. Parish Family Christmas Mass at 10 am on Tuesday, December 25. Please visit our website www.stmarystarbrooklyn.com and click on the first picture on our home page... that will take you to our latest bulletin with all current events. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Clinton & Carroll Streets Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble on November 16 at 8 pm. $25 for general admission, $15 for students. Will include the works of American composers such as Elliot Carter and Aaron Copland and American poets such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes, to name a few, as well as the world premiere of New York composer Susan Kander featuring the poetry of Willliam Carlos Williams. 30th Annual Auction on Saturday, December 1. Tickets on sale after Mass. Great auction items, excellent food and fellowship!

vember 14 at 7 pm in Spanish and Friday, November 30 at 7 pm in English. Breakfast with Santa on Saturday, December 1 from 9 - 11:30 am. Cost is $5 per child/adult and one adult must be present per family. Call 718-624-1572 to reserve a seat. St. John Bread and Life Mobile Soup

Kitchen on Tuesdays from 1 pm - 2:30 pm and Fridays from 10 am - 12 noon (except first Fridays of the month). Extraordinary Minister, Lector and Usher Workshop on Saturday, December 1 from 9 am - 3:30 pm at Bishop Kearney High School, 2202 60th Street. Sign up at rectory.

Come Join Red HookÕs original coworking space for Creative Conference Room, Lounge and Kitchen with unlimited coffee.

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November 2018, Page 31

Cat Gentrification

Story and photos by Vicki McIsaac

You see them every day, the stray cats of Red Hook. Many have been around for years, some turned up more recently. Some are friendly and crave to be touched, some are feral and eye you suspiciously from under a car. You may love them or hate them, or perhaps fall somewhere in the middle. They are a rough looking lot. Scars, dirty paws, limps, tipped ears and crooked tails. A motley crew. On my block alone, there are twelve. Yep, twelve. There’s Little Bubba who my housemate lovingly refers to as Garbage Pail Cat, who has seen about 8 of his lives pass by on the streets. He rode out Sandy with the rest of us. He is an old skinny man with a limp and appears dirty. He’s really sweet though, and loves a good head pet and a warm place to sleep. The shelter my lovely neighbor made him has been moved by the lot owner due to the lot being sold. Now he often runs to my front door to try and come inside when it’s cold outside. He surely had a home at some point in his life, being that he isn’t feral. He would love nothing more than a human to call his own, a couch to lay on and a sunny window to pass the time during his Golden days. With so many kittens and less used up cats in the shelters, he doesn’t stand a chance at general adoption. So he wanders the streets, asking for nice pets and food, from kind humans. He has friends though, a family of sorts. A few nameless shiny black ones; one large, one small, an affectionate orange guy who rolls around on the ground craving belly rubs, a couple of shy Tabbies, and a Raccoon. Then there’s Big Bubba, a friendly large black and white cat, and his accomplice, a small shy calico who doesnt leave him alone—always butting her head up against him and following him around. They both come running for a pet on the head and a meal when they hear my voice. I’ve always been an animal lover, and seeing them suffer breaks my heart. These are not wild animals. They learn the the skills they need, to survive outdoors, but they still seek the comforts which made them domesticated in the first place. We humans created these domesticated animals for our pleasure and they deserve to be cared for and treated with respect. Like all living things, they need food and water and shelter, and when they are sick they require vet care. I’m not sure why Red Hook is home to so many. Is it because we have more space down here (fleeting), or maybe it’s because we have a large population of humans in a small area, and not everyone practices good pet owning i.e. not getting them spayed/neutered and allowing them to multiply, or dumping kittens when they become adults because they get big or aren’t as cute, or they have to move away and cant take the pet with them? Are they put outside due to their nuisance behaviors inside the home such as spraying, howling, aggressiveness etc, If so, that is really sad because these are easy fixes: Spay and Neuter. Working for the ASPCA as an advocate in a

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low income community and a personal rescuer for a few years, I was able to see these problems first-hand. I was also able to speak to the community and find out why some residents dislike the cats. They don’t like the spraying, the howling or fighting while mating. There is also an easy solution to that problem. It is again, spay and neuter. When said spay and neuter applies to strays it is called TNR—Trap Neuter Return. Trapping the cats, bringing them in for vaccinations and spay/neuter and returning them to their original domain. This allows them to live longer, healthier, happier lives and the nuisance behaviors are gone. There are a couple of amazing women in Brooklyn that volunteer to rescue, feed, and TNR when they can get down here to the Hook. They are completely overwhelmed by the amount of animals. There is Jose, an elderly man with a big heart who lives in the community and feeds appx 50 cats daily for many years in the NYCHA community. He also takes care of the squirrels. There used to be an more of us feeders, trappers, builders of shelters. The numbers have dwindled. We are being run out of Red Hook, as our feline friends are, They are losing their shelters and feeding stations due to construction. They hang out on the sidewalk as

their hideouts, lots, safety nets, are taken over by debris and noise. We are being forced out due to raising rents and sold buildings. As gentrification continues to spread, I worry what will come of the cats? Will the wants of proprietors of open air restaurants and breweries and of building developers supersede those of the cats who were here long before them? If history is any guide I fear the answer. When I am forced out of this apartment I have lived for ten years, I wonder—will my replacement feed and trap, tend to the sick? Will they take LB during the winter nights as I did? Will they see him at the window, looking in with those deep, longing eyes, pleading for food and shelter, a warm and peaceful rest if for just a few hours? Will they see the beauty?

If you would like to help with the strays of Red Hook, donate time, food, or money to the rescuers or feeders, if you are able to foster, or give Little Bubba a home in his last year(s) he so deserves, I can be reached at squeaknbear@gmail.com and can tell you how. Also, visit your local cat cafe just down the road, run by BBAWC.

The Healthy Geezer by Fred Cicetti

Q. It seems like a lot of my friends are watching TV with the volume way up, and accusing everyone of mumbling. How common are hearing problems among seniors? About one in three Americans over 60 suffers from loss of hearing, which can range from the inability to hear certain voices to deafness. There are two basic categories of hearing loss. One is caused by damage to the inner ear or the auditory nerve. This type of hearing loss is permanent. The second kind occurs when sound can’t reach the inner ear. This can be repaired medically or surgically. Presbycusis, one form of hearing loss, occurs with age. Presbycusis can be caused by changes in the inner ear, auditory nerve, middle ear, or outer ear. Some of its causes are aging, loud noise, heredity, head injury, infection, illness, certain prescription drugs, and circulation problems such as high blood pressure. It seems to be inherited. Tinnitus, also common in older people, is the ringing, hissing, or roaring sound in the ears frequently caused by exposure to loud noise or certain medicines. Tinnitus is a symptom that can come with any

type of hearing loss. Hearing loss can by caused by “ototoxic” medicines that damage the inner ear. Some antibiotics are ototoxic. Aspirin can cause temporary problems. If you’re having a hearing problem, ask your doctor about any medications you’re taking. Loud noise contributes to presbycusis and tinnitus. Noise has damaged the hearing of about 10 million Americans, many of them Baby Boomers who listened to hard rock with the volume turned up as far as possible. Hearing problems that are ignored or untreated can get worse. If you have a hearing problem, see your doctor. Hearing aids, special training, medicines and surgery are options. Your doctor may refer you to an otolaryngologist, a physician who specializes in problems of the ear. Or you may be referred to an audiologist, a professional who can identify and measure hearing loss. An

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audiologist can help you determine if you need a hearing aid. There other “hearing aids” you should consider. There are listening systems to help you enjoy television or radio without being bothered by other sounds around you. Some hearing aids can be plugged directly into TVs, music players, microphones, and personal FM systems to help you hear better. Some telephones work with certain hearing aids to make sounds louder and remove background noise. And some auditoriums, movie theaters, and other public places are equipped with special sound systems that send sounds directly to your ears. Alerts such as doorbells, smoke detectors, and alarm clocks can give you a signal that you can see or a vibration that you can feel. For example, a flashing light can let you know someone is at the door or on the phone. All Rights Reserved © 2018 by Fred

November 2018

Margaret Gregor, U.S. EPA, and Eric Mattes, Brooklyn Landscape Architecture Director, NYC Parks

Red Hook Handball Courts are here to stay By Erin DeGregorio

Key updates from the Red Hook Recreation Area Ballfields community update meeting, held on October 25: The eight existing handball courts, located nearby the corner of Bay and Columbia Streets, will remain and be reconstructed. This follows community suggestions made at Community Board 6’s Parks & Recreation/Environmental Protection committee meeting in mid-September. The proposed plan was to originally keep and reconstruct four handball courts and remove the other four to make way for a new basketball court. Red Hook Ballfields 5-8, adjacent to the Red Hook Recreation Center, were originally closed in Spring 2015 after soil samples showed elevated lead levels from the former Columbia lead smelting facility. They will be cleaned up by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) under formal U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) oversight. According to the EPA Community Update No. 9 handout, these activities will include: installing perimeter fencing; cutting down trees along Bay, Hicks, and Henry Streets; staging materials on the ball fields; installing tree guards; and placing temporary construction trailers along Bay

Do All Things With Love

and Hicks Streets. NYC Parks will also remove the top layer of soil, place a visual barrier over the contaminated soil and cover the barrier with up to one foot of clean soil or other material. “There’s going to be a retaining wall around all the fields, and a demarcation layer over the contaminated soil that’ll be left in place. Above that is going to be clean-fill, drainage and synthetic turf on top,” said EPA’s Margaret Gregor, the original project manager on the technical side in 2014. “This was the result of scoping meetings that Parks held to hear what the community wanted, what the concerns were, and what would be the best thing for this particular area.” Eric Mattes, the Brooklyn Landscape Architecture Director for NYC Parks, later explained that the ball fields are going to be raised above flood elevation – the equivalent of about three feet. As a result, bioswales (planted areas along the fields that collect stormwater that runs off fields when it rains) will be added around the site’s perimeter, directly adjacent to the fields and retaining walls. He also told those in attendance that 62 new trees, 900 shrubs, 5000+ perennials and ornamental grasses would be planted.

Mattes said approximately 4,900 cubic yards of contaminated materials will be removed, and about 10,900 cubic yards of clean fill and drainage aggregate will be brought onto the site. Based on those numbers, an estimated 500-600 trucks will be transporting materials to and from approved waste disposal facilities – which are currently undetermined at this point in time. The truck route established with the site’s contractor would mainly be along Bay Street (from Hicks to Smith Streets), with the intent of being kept away from as many residential buildings as possible. However, the exact truck route to and from Red Hook is unknown at this time. Mattes explained that there will be a double handling of soil, in which licensed trucks with materials would be loaded and driven on local streets and then unloaded at a pier. Currently there are no city-owned lots or appropriately licensed waste transfer piers near the site. It was also explained at the public meeting that barging is not feasible at Henry Street Basin: the land beneath the basin is privately owned; the water depth is shallow; and the city-owned bulkhead is in disrepair. Because these daytime construction

activities will generate dust, there will be continuous perimeter dust monitoring via soil pile tarps, frequent spraying of exposed areas with water, and perimeter fencing dust curtains. The air will also be monitored throughout the cleanup to protect people’s health. Construction is expected to start later this fall and be completed by Spring 2020. Council Member Carlos Menchaca, who was in attendance, closed the evening’s meeting, saying he would like to request the Department of Transportation (DOT) to come to the next meeting and provide responses to truck flowrelated questions. “I think those questions have to be answered,” he said. “It’s unfair because Parks doesn’t have to do that part, but DOT does, and DOT should be able to answer those questions.” For details regarding the cleanup process, visit EPA’s website at epa.gov/ superfund/columbia-smelting. The EPA has also established an Information Repository at the Red Hook Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library (7 Wolcott Street), where the public can review and copy records related to EPA’s investigation and the cleanup of Ball Fields 5-9. For more information about plans for other fields within Red Hook Park, visit nycgovparks.org/about/ whats-happening/red-hook-park-remediation.

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September 2018, Page 33

Local Home Cooks Tackle the ultimate comfort food at the Brooklyn Casserole Takedown Story and photos by Erin DeGregorio

mateur chefs battled for prizes and bragging rights at the Brooklyn Casserole Takedown, held on October 21. The Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club (514 Union Street) had hungry contest goers scattered about, as they were eager to name the top six dishes. For a 25-dollar ticket fee, they ate the participating casseroles in an ‘all-you-can-eat’ style and voted for the ‘yummiest’ via

Cheesy Broccoli Casserole (Recipe from Pillsbury Kitchens) Prep Time: 10 minutes / Total Time: 35 minutes / Ingredients: 6 / Serves: 8 Ingredients: 1 lb. fresh broccoli florets (about 5 cups) 1/4 cup onion, finely chopped 1 carton (12 oz.) condensed cream of mushroom soup 1/2 cup sour cream 1 cup finely shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (4 oz.) 1 cup Annie’s™ organic Cheddar Bunnies™ crackers, crushed Butter Steps: 1. Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter 2-quart casserole dish. 2. In large microwavable bowl, microwave broccoli uncovered on High 5 to 7 minutes or until crisp-tender. 3. Stir in remaining ingredients except crackers until well blended. Pour into casserole; sprinkle with crackers. 4. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, or until bubbly and thoroughly heated.

Page 34 Red Hook Star-Revue

ballot. Matthew Timms, organizer of the nationwide Takedowns, started these food competitions in 2004 after casually inviting friends over to his apartment for ‘food-offs’ in Winter 2003. The first takedown was chili-themed, because he was obsessed with the dish at the time, and was judging competitions after joining the International Chili Society. “Everyone’s super serious about chili [and] everyone’s got an opinion on it, so I thought I would do a chili competition in Williamsburg, and it went really well,” Timms told us. He explained that The Village Voice covered it and helped put Timms’ takedown competitions on the map. Soon after Timms started doing other themes/dishes, including the Brooklyn Bacon Takedown in 2009. Since then he has also done cookies, fondue and curry, all of which have taken place in major cities across the United States. Timms has held seven competitions in Brooklyn so far in 2018 alone – with themes of soup, meatballs, tacos, garlic, ice cream, homebrew, and macaroni and cheese. He emphasized that these competitions are about getting self-taught cooks, all from different walks of life, together in a laid-back environment that encourages passion, creativity and improvisation. “It’s very unpretentious that way, so it’s more of a party,” Timms said. “I was supposed to be an actor, but then I was throwing these parties and it became sort of this passion project.” The idea for a casserole contest came about when Timms went to Minnesota eight years ago and held the Hot Dish Takedown. He explained that he was looking for that one dish that people in Minnesota loved to eat, and discovered casseroles were a traditional staple there. Now nearly a decade later, he wanted to bring it to New York, and soon discovered that casseroles come in many different forms and with different names. “If you Wiki ‘casserole’ there’s like 50 different types – anything cooked in this high-walled, oven-safe dish with a lid on it,” Timms said. “Lasagna counts. Deep-dish pizza from Chicago – people call that a casserole as it’s

Clockwise from top: Crowd sampling casseroles, Alien casserole invasion poster by Jeremy Jusay, Daniel and Elyse and their spicy buffalo chicken casserole

cooked in a cast iron. If you Google it you can [also] see moussaka, a casserole from Greece.” Fifteen home cooks, all with their own unique interpretations of the

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hot dish, went head-to-head against each other at the Brooklyn Casserole Takedown. As per cook-off standards, each contestant made their dishes at

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November 2018

WINNING CASSEROLES: 1. Hannah Seabright’s “Korean Beef N Potato” casserole (Korean BBQ pot roast, pictured above) 2. Eric Hedden’s sweet potato casserole with candied bacon and pecans 3. Angie Marin’s Pastelon (Latin American lasagna) 4. Daniel Piestrak and Elyse Blake’s Spicy buffalo chicken 5. Bryan Gittleman and Carly DeLora’s “Chicken N Waffles” casserole 6. Margarita Tsyrulnik’s “Carousel Bites” with white button mushrooms, eggs, spinach, potatoes and mozzarella

continued from previous page home – with at least two trays on-hand for attendees to sample – and brought them to the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club the morning of. Katherine Anstreicher, who moved to Boerum Hill from Iowa in September, said this was her first time participating in a takedown. She said that her godfather had been in a few food competitions while she was growing up, and that they had always sounded

Red Hook Star-Revue

really fun. “Casseroles are near and dear to my heart because both of my parents grew up in the Age of the Casserole [the height of processed food amalgamations, 1950s-70s] and I grew up eating a few of their favorites,” Anstreicher said, explaining why she signed up. “This is also prime casserole season. There’s something so comforting about pulling out a rich, nostalgia-inducing meal out of the oven when it’s cold outside.” “Swing State Casserole” was based off a hash brown and corn flakes casserole her father used to make for potlucks and holiday parties. What made her dish special was that she decided to use fresh red and blue potatoes, instead of storebought frozen hash browns – “to spice things up and to capitalize on Iowa’s political standing in this election cycle.” Usually a panel of judges votes and awards their favorite dishes to the top three choices, but last month’s Brooklyn Casserole Takedown had a twist. The audience tallied their votes and named six, instead of three, People’s Choice winners at the closing ceremony. The winners received prize packages that included products from Anolon, Cuisinart and Microplane. Timms’s next takedown will be the Brooklyn Chili Takedown on Sunday, November 18, 5:30-7:30 pm at Murmrr Ballroom (17 Eastern Parkway). For more information or to enter the competition, visit thetakedowns.com.

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November 2018, Page 35

THIS COULD BE THE YEAR FOR SUMMIT BASKETBALL! Photo and story by Nathan Weiser

hil Grant, in his third year coaching the Summit Academy boys’ varsity basketball team, believes that they could win it all this season, which begins on November 17 with a tournament game against Taft, in the Bronx. The first home game, and official season opener, is the following Monday at 4:30, against local rival Cobble Hill School of American Studies. “Every year I coach, the goal is to win the championship,” Grant said. “It is not always realistic but this year I think it is more realistic. We have a good core of returning players.” Grant has had a lot of experience and success with basketball and it has taken him all over the world. He is trying to help these athletes improve and advance like he did. He went to Paul Robeson High, in Crown Heights, during its heyday in the 1990’s. He starred on two championship teams. He went to Iona on a full scholarship and his success continued, as he won three conference championships. Grant then played professionally for 10 years, in countries such as Argentina, Luxembourg, Belgium, Venezuela and Holland. “Argentina was the country I liked playing in most,” Grant said. “My last year playing professionally was 2011.” Playoff contenders Last season Summit lost in the 2nd round of the playoffs after losing in the first round of the playoffs the previous year. “For it to be our second year, and

Page 36 Red Hook Star-Revue

“Every year I coach, the goal is to win the championship.”

us making the playoffs both years, I think it was a successful season for us,” Grant added about the 2017-2018 campaign. “I wouldn’t say it was a lot better because it still was not where we wanted to finish but it was definitely an improvement.” Besides advancing to the second round of the playoffs, there was one major highlight of the season for the Eagles. “We beat a Double-A team (Martin Van Buren), us being a B team, we beat a team in the Double-A in the PSAL,” Grant said. “That was in the Larry Majors classic at Paul Robeson High where Council hit the game winner. It was a pretty good season.” There are four seniors on the team this year. Grant is looking forward to coaching Jalil Brown. “He is always at practice working hard, he comes in on his off days and works hard, he does a great job of leading by example. We are not the most vocal team but we have a lot of guys that work hard, guys push each other, they pick each other up,” says the coach. These team characteristics are ones that that could push the team to advance further in the playoffs than last season. Summit Academy has a small gym, like many high schools in the city, but the head coach loves this since their gym gets packed fast and the

Coach Phil Grant with Jordan Council

—Phil Grant Coach of the Summit Eagles

atmosphere can get intense. The kids who attend Summit are known to go wild and show a lot of support, and the team also gets support from teachers as well. Coach Grant has been getting increasing support from family members and is in touch with all of the parents of the kids on the team. Jordan’s father is one of the team’s biggest cheerers and supporters at games. In order to get increased community support, in the period leading up to their first game the team has done runs through the neighborhood so people could see the team and what they are building towards. “I am hoping that will draw some of them to start coming out to more of our games,” Grant said. “We are trying to get more community support.” There are kids from all over Brooklyn on the Summit team. There are kids from Bedford Stuyvesant, kids from Canarsie, kids from Flatbush, kids from Brownsville and three kids from Red Hook including Nicholas Mickens, Amir Ward and Tyrell Dennis. Mickens, who is a junior, has been a student at Summit since middle school, and Ward has been attending Summit since middle school as well. “Most of our players have been

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here since sixth grade,” Grant said.” Jordan Council came to Summit because he thought Grant, whom he had known about for many years, would be able to help him do things that other coaches might not be able to do. Coach Grant grew up in Bushwick and knew Jordan’s older brother Vincent previously, which is how the connection came to be. Council has been playing basketball since he was little, and it has always been his favorite sport. He comes from a self-described basketball family and his older brother is a major reason that he has a passion for basketball. “My brother went to Providence and was on the basketball team,” Council said. “I have always looked up to him.” His brother Vincent was on the basketball team at Providence, from 2009 through 2013, finishing as the all-time leader in assists. He has played professionally in Israel, Greece and Russia. Jordan has used his brother as an asset towards improving his game. “From my freshman year going into sophomore year I worked out with my brother every day,” Council said. “I worked on my shot, on my dribbling and on my IQ. I thought it made a big difference in the way I transitioned between freshman and sophomore year.” Summit played in a pre-season tournament with area schools and the team’s coach was impressed with Council’s performance as well as how the team played overall. “We have been playing against high level competition,” Grant added. “Most of the teams that we have played against are in leagues higher than the one we’re in. We have been beating a few good teams. He has been playing really well.” Grant, who is 6-7, said that he used the field level program to stay in contact with coaches and a couple college coaches have already expressed interest in Jordan coming to their school. He expects the recruiting to ramp up more very soon. “I am expecting a break out year,” Grant said. “After this year a lot more people should know who Jordan Council is.”

November 2018