Through December 11, local investigative theater company The Civilians are staging In The Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards at Fort Greene’s Irondale Center, mere blocks from where this long-debated project is currently underway. We caught up with Michael Friedman, the show’s lyricist and composer, to ask him about process, community dialogue and his personal views on the project.
December 2, 2010 Boroughing, Classic, Theater
According to Laurie Cumbo, founder and director of the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporic Arts in Fort Greene, gentrification is our 800 pound gorilla in the room. In their new exhibit, “The Gentrification of Brooklyn: The Pink Elephant Speaks” it is her hope that the 22 participating artists will utilize the power of their voice to address it.
February 12, 2010 Art Reviews, Boroughing, Classic, The ArtShot last month, this seven minute short features skateboarder Mike Vallely lamenting the soon to be shuttered Brooklyn Banks, a lengendery NYC spot for generations of skater kids at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. The Downtown Express reported last October that “The city plans to use the internationally known Brooklyn Banks skate park as a staging area during the Brooklyn Bridge reconstruction, which is starting later this year and will last until 2014, said Ralph Musolino, a district manager for the city Parks Dept.” The city plans to shutter the area beginning this Friday, January 15, and it will remain closed until 2014.
January 12, 2010 Classic, Multi/Media, The People, Video
Minutes before performing at Brooklyn The Party last week at Public Assembly, the fearsome sparrow gave me an insight into their creative process, whether their music has evolved since they first formed, and what’s next for them. Though reluctant to tell me what their latest single, “maryland,” is really about, they did divulge that, despite the name, it’s not about the state. Find out more after the jump!
December 8, 2009 Boroughing, Brooklyn Beats, Classic, Music ProfilesAt the corner of 20th Street and 5th Avenue in Windsor Terrace is an unassuming and apt place for Quarter Bar, named for its cross streets (20 + 5!). I recently rolled in very close to last call after working a bartending shift.
October 20, 2009 BarsDavid Byrne played Prospect Park this summer, bringing with him a version of his Radio City show that has been turning heads with Talking Heads classics and tunes off of his latest Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. He chose Park Slope spot High Dive for his nightcap and for good reason.
October 13, 2009 Bars, ClassicIssue Project Room, an art collective based in Gowanus, lost Suzanne Fiol, the organization’s founding artistic director, to cancer on Monday. Ms. Fiol, 49, dedicated herself to creating an experimental, avant-garde space for performing and visual arts in Brooklyn.
October 6, 2009 Brooklyn Beats, Music Profiles, Theater
In light of the increasing number of newly painted bike lanes, and the cars who like to defile them, we’ve created a list of new road rules for everyone to help prevent catastrophic crashes between bikes and cars.
September 15, 2009 Classic, Culture, Environment, The Locals, The People
The 4th floor of 717 Prospect Place – in the heart of Crown Heights – has been transformed it into a gallery space for Brooklyn-based artists to show their work during the month of September.
September 12, 2009 Art Reviews, Boroughing, Classic, Real Estate, The ArtSenator Chuck Schumer, Beyonce and Jay-Z were the notable guests at Williamsburg’s final pool party of the summer. Check our our highlights, plus video.
August 30, 2009 Brooklyn Beats, City Politics, Classic, Music Profiles
Cinema loves Brooklyn. In classic films like Dog Day Afternoon, Do the Right Thing, and Saturday Night Fever, Hollywood takes us to the bumper cars at Coney Island, through the Bed-Stuy of the 1980s, and across the Brooklyn Bridge. But in Brooklynite Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia, our borough is present only through its absence—as the beloved home that one of our protagonists wishes she weren’t leaving. Here, Brooklyn represents comfort and familiarity, rather than the brand new adventure that it does for so many of the young people who are now settling into it.
August 20, 2009 Film, Read FeaturesThirty years later, on our Independence Day Jimmy Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” speech is still apt. The televised warning to Americans was given just shy of 30 years ago on July 15, 1979 and quickly derided by republicans for attacking American values, government and way of life.
July 4, 2009 ClassicSad news for the fashionable man. Williamsburg menswear shop Yoko Devereaux will be closing after its parent company Wing Son Garments / WS & Company became saddled with financial issues and pulled the plug.
June 28, 2009 Culture, Fashion, Real Estate, The LocalsThe Bushwick Biennial opened last week and we caught up with NurtureArt gallery director and curator, Ben Evans, to ask him about the show, emerging artists, and the art scene in Brooklyn.
June 14, 2009 Art n' About, Classic, The ArtThe young people of Iran have taken to the streets in protest of the fraudulent election results that favor incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over reformist candidate Hossein Mousavi.
June 13, 2009 City Politics
Nancy Balbirer was wearing flip-flops when she walked by Bergdorf Goodman on a hot summer day in 2003 and happened upon a serene Yoko Ono.
“I never would have imagined my reaction to meeting Yoko Ono would be thus: ‘OH MY GOD YOKO ONO! I LOVE YOU!” the author recounted recently. “And I threw my arms around her.”
Ms. Balbirer, 43, was sitting at a table in the Chelsea Market, discussing her new book, Take Your Shirt Off and Cry: A Memoir of Near-Fame Experiences, published recently by Bloomsbury. The title refers to how David Mamet – once the author’s acting teacher at NYU – categorized the roles in which women are cast in Hollywood.
June 8, 2009 Classic, Read Features
On Friday night, as the Book Expo kicked off at the Javits Center, the crowd at PowerHouse Arena in Dumbo was kickin’ it with KRS-ONE, the zen master of their new imprint I Am Hip Hop. The first book to drop? The Gospel of Hip Hop.
May 30, 2009 Brooklyn Beats, Classic, Music Profiles, Read Features“The title of the show comes from [the movie] Juno,” said New York Magazine Photo Editor Jody Quon, standing in the middle of St. Ann’s Warehouse in Dumbo on Wednesday night. The opening night of the New York Photo Festival was already underway.
“It’s that moment when [Ellen Page’s character] tells her father that she’s pregnant and he says, ‘I thought you were the kind of girl who knew when to say when,’ and that’s when she says, ‘I don’t really know what type of girl I am.’ So that’s the whole loop.”
May 15, 2009 Art n' About, Classic, The ArtThe state has apparently removed part of a fantastical piece of work by design company Exhibitology in Dumbo.
May 12, 2009 Art n' About, The Art
At WNYC’s new Jerome L. Greene Performance Space today, on the ground level of their new headquarters on Varick Street, Rosie Perez moderated a panel called The Places that Bind: Examining Preservation and Culture in a Changing City.
May 7, 2009 City Politics, Classic, Real Estate
“We’re just going to do it,” said Kris Graves, sitting on an ottoman in the center of Kris Graves Projects, his new eponymous Dumbo gallery. “Fuck it.”
It was a recent Sunday afternoon and Mr. Graves, 26, was explaining the sentiment he felt when he and his cousin Gravelle Pierre, 29, decided to open the gallery. It’s a sentiment that seems to have pervaded Brooklyn’s creative class as of late.
May 7, 2009 Art n' About, Classic, The ArtIn case you fall into our specific – and possibly imaginary – stereotype, please apply here. So said an open casting call for 18-25 year olds on realitywanted.com for a “major network TV pilot about life in Williamsburg.” But whose reality are they seeking?
May 5, 2009 Culture, The People
Self-admittedly, Scott Matthew has led a Jekyll and Hyde existence for some time now – famous on one continent and struggling in another.
April 29, 2009 Brooklyn Beats, Classic, Music Profiles, Queer LifeDoes writing for a fashion magazine sound fun to you? It did to me, until they decided not to pay me for it.
April 9, 2009 Classic, Culture, Fashion, The Locals, The PeopleLovable, bearded bar czar Tracy Westmoreland has landed in Brooklyn. His new watering hole, Manhattans— at 769 Washington Ave. in Prospect Heights— will open on Friday, reclaiming the legacy of his former Hell’s Kitchen dive Siberia.
April 8, 2009 Bars, Night/Life, The Locals
On Thursday, I caught up with author, NYU professor and Brooklynite Clay Shirky after a talk he gave at the M Project Gallery in Tribeca. Shirky spoke on the opportunities and challenges presented by the revolution in online communication and social media tools. Afterwards, we talked about how technology has influenced the shifting demographics of Brooklyn.
March 20, 2009 Classic, Read Features, Real EstateFredriksson Fall 2009
It’s fashion week in New York City, but not everybody is flashing their luxury wares in the tents of Bryant Park. Out in the borough, designers and boutique owners are worried about the sour turn of the economy, and are coming together to promote locally produced garments, jewelry and crafts. Brooklyn The Borough caught up with Williamsburg designer Helena Fredriksson, owner of the eponymous H Fredriksson, to hear about her fall line, a new Williamsburg pop up shop and get her thoughts on the future of Brooklyn’s fashion community.
February 19, 2009 Classic, Culture, Fashion, Real Estate, The Locals“I love Brooklyn, and I love this part of Brooklyn, I don’t know if you know – it’s now called the BAM cultural district, it’s got a whole new name – but I love this district. I mean It’s just fantastic. It’s kind of like coming across the river to work in another…” said Bridge Project director Sam Mendes before pausing to find the right words. “It’s so quiet out here – it’s so calm. It’s away from all the craziness of Broadway, it’s been a really pleasurable experience.”
February 19, 2009 Night/Life, TheaterA few weeks ago a friend took me to see Blake Schwarzenbach play a few songs at Matchless Bar in Greenpoint, and now a live show of his new band, Thorns of Life, playing at 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California, has made its way onto the internet
February 12, 2009 Brooklyn Beats, Music ProfilesApparently the only trustworthy investment left in New York these days is art. Or so say the folks behind, who are encouraging you to use your cold hard cash and social network to raise awareness and money for public art projects – a few of which will originate in Brooklyn.
Trust Art works like this. Ten artists have envisioned social art projects, which you, the money bags, can invest in. Once the projects are completed they will be auctioned off and the proceeds will be split between the artist and each project’s shareholders. They call it a “stock market for cultural renewal.”
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