People’s Firehouse to become the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center
By Nicole Brydson
Marty Markowitz and Steven Levin teamed up to give some cash to further the cause of building North Brooklyn’s first Town Hall.
Marty Markowitz and Steven Levin teamed up to give some cash to further the cause of building North Brooklyn’s first Town Hall.
Author Jhumpa Lahiriwas was honored with a Bobi Award today at the 6th Annual Brooklyn Book Festival, for a body of work that exemplifies or speaks to the spirit of Brooklyn and has had a broad impact on the field of literature.
Today, with the resignation of Schools Chancellor Cathie Black, it seems like a lot of folks are toppling over each other to point and yell at Mayor Bloomberg. Here’s what arrived in our inbox today.
Borough President Marty Markowitz loves to make a splash – especially at his annual State of the Borough address, known for its fanfare. This year, Marty rode into the Sunset Park High School Auditorium on a tricycle to the tune of Queen’s “Bicycle Race.” Click through for the video and full text of Marty’s speech.
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.
On a nondescript block of Lafayette Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which was an empty lot less than a year ago, sits Habitat for Humanity’s current $6.8 million construction project of four row houses in Bed-Stuy, which received a $50,000 donation from Absolut Vodka. Read about Habitat’s work in Brooklyn here.
“Brooklyn is the ‘Caribbean Capital of America’—by some counts, we have the largest Haitian population in the United States—and our hearts go out to our Haitian brothers and sisters in need,” said Borough President Marty Markowitz and Deputy Borough President Yvonne Graham. “Brooklyn and Haiti share the common motto ‘In Unity There is Strength,’ and Brooklynites have been united once again—as we were in 2008 following a series of devastating hurricanes and a tropical storm—in opening up their hearts, wallets and pantries to the victims of this catastrophic earthquake. Our office will be working closely with the Caribbean community in the days ahead to lend support to Brooklyn and New York City-based relief efforts.”
To find out what you can do to help relief efforts in Haiti, call 311 or visit Brooklyn-Usa.org. If you are trying to connect with a loved one in Haiti, call the U.S. State Department hotline at 1-888-407-4747.
