Two men were shot at dinner time on July 30, at a restaurant on Franklin Avenue and Dean Street.
Author: Nicole Brydson
In spite of the menial attention garnered by Brooklyn’s violent and pervasive drug trade in the local news media, borough residents are making sure you’ve heard about their loved one, or even strangers, senselessly gunned down – but they’re not snitching.
At first sight it’s obvious that the Gowanus Canal is filthy. Yet, residents continue to congregate around it, canoe across it, build vessels to tour it, and wonder if its beauty will ever again surpass its usefulness as an industrial center. Efforts to revitalize expansive industrial lots in the area have advanced, with bars, restaurants and music venues opening along Second and Third Avenues. Artists work in nearby studios, and the BKLYN Yard, a venue alongside the canal, draws young people from all over the city to afternoon dance parties, barbecues and swap meets on summer weekends. However, over 150 years of heavy industrial activity combined with sewage and storm water run-off, and its proximity to factories and gas refineries have made the canal a site of controversy since the Environmental Protection Agency announced in April that the waterway is a candidate for the Superfund National Priorities List.
Thirty 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.
As I lit my cigarette and Man in the Mirror wafted through the air, screams burst from the pedestrians standing on the opposite side of Joralemon Street. A hooded man in tattered rags with a dirt-encrusted face had emerged from the Borough Hall subway station with the intention of spooking the civilians.
With the recent controversy over a condo development turned homeless shelter on East New York Avenue in mind, I looked up the city budget for homeless families on David Yassky’s new site ItsYourMoneyNYC.com. On average, according to the budget, the city pays $32,400 per year to house homeless families.
That’s about the same as what the city has offered per family to Avi Shriki and HQ Marketing Partners for housing 67 families in their failed condo development on East New York Avenue in Crown Heights.
The 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.
The morning after residents of Crown Heights took the Police Commissioner to task for drug dealing, prostitution and quality of life issues in the neighborhood, Ray Kelly was awarding the Deputy Inspector of their local 77th precinct a unit citation at Medal Day ceremonies.
The same precinct where, according to department statistics, crime has plummeted 18%.
“If you look at statistics at this precinct, they are very, very impressive,” Commissioner Kelly had told the crowded basement of Berean Baptist Church. “If you’re the victim of a crime, you don’t want to hear about statistics, I understand that, one crime is one crime too many – but the numbers here are really an indication of the work that’s being done.”
With all the talk about statistics, it sounded like the crowd was watching The Wire.
There was an elephant in the basement of Berean Baptist Church in Crown Heights on Monday, when Police Commissioner Ray Kelly spent an hour addressing the questions of residents concerned with violence, drugs and quality of life issues on the streets of the 77th precinct in Brooklyn.
That elephant came in the form of allegations that officers from the 77th assaulted two lesbian women outside of a local nightclub while spewing anti-gay remarks. The question never came up during the meeting and the commissioner gave a terse “no comment” when confronted with it on his way out the door.
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.