The best thing about Conni’s Avant Garde Restaurant is that it is a good idea that was kept alive through dedication, aspiration and motivation. Its storyline and classic rock inspired song numbers are beautifully tongue in cheek, reek of irony, and rolled in delight.
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.
The New Brooklyn Cookbook, out last week from William Morrow, was written by Melissa and Brendan Vaughan, recipe developer and magazine editor, respectively, who are sensitive to the idea that “New Brooklyn” is both difficult to define and somewhat polarizing.
On the eve of Greenlight Bookstore’s one year anniversary – actually next month – Jessica Stockton Bagnulo and Rebecca Fitting, the Fort Greene duo who founded the shop, are also set to ring in their first year at the Brooklyn Book Festival. On Friday from 7:30-9PM they’ll host one of the festival’s bookend events, The Brooklyn Indie Party, featuring locals like Melville House and Akashic’s own Johnny Temple, the night’s resident DJ along with music writer Dave Tompkins. We caught up with Jessica to talk birthdays and books.
The neighborhood of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill is many, many things, but it doesn’t matter how you describe it; the area is a blooming hybrid of everything we love about Brooklyn. The only thing that matters is how fast you can get there.
Rakesh Satyal, friend of BrooklynTheBorough.com and author of the novel Blue Boy (Kensington, 2009), recently won the Gay Debut Fiction Award at the 22nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards. Upon being presented with the award, he broken into song – something that he’s well known for doing – and this time he caught the attention of the New Yorker. We caught up with the Fort Greene-based author about the award, his speech and what’s in store for a potential second, musical career path.
As much as Annabelle hated to admit it, the neighborhood really had changed. More progressive types had moved to Brooklyn in the past few years and their liberal antics sometimes made her seriously consider moving back to Montana. Annabelle wasn’t from Fort Greene originally, but she’d lived in the neighborhood a hell of a lot longer than these yo-yos. She was taller and longer than each of them, by at least a foot in both directions. Her tail and claws were much more serious too.
