The last night before gentrification: The 77' NYC Blackout

I remember my aunt (who will undoubtedly toss some cents at this post) telling us it was a blackout. 

My grandmother or maybe my mom, was skeptical. On this mid July day 40 years ago I was a tiny child and the day was still brightly lit at something passed 7:30 PM or probably later based on what came next.

Also the TV was on. Contradictory to any "Blackout" talk the house offered, Roger Grimsby a name who bore a a news man on Channel 7 to fit it, joylessly told the news of the day, and I'm certain (due to my strange memory) he was talking about power outages. The household debate between a girl, her adult sister and their mom raged on, loudly.

I'm pretty sure my mother pointed out to her youngest sister that the TV was still on. My Aunt, then a young teenager was frustrated and in full "nobody listens to me" mode.

Perfectly, during the conversation involving the TV, Roger Grimsby and the electricity in our building went out.

"SEE!!!" came rising from you-know-who.

We lived on the 12th floor. A rarity for a non-housing project non-luxury building in Brooklyn. Crown Heights in fact. Fun fact I can see that building from my current kitchen window. The universe circles.

Back 40 years ago, the TV off, the apartment now light by large unblocked city and sky facing windows the conversation finally had a chance to lurch forward. "What is happening" "How much" "How long" started new branches of conversation each digging into the topics and planting new roots.

My memory, and I trust it because at that age I'd seen nothing like this before or since in real life, tells me that before the TV went out, part of my mom and grandmother's argument, against "blackout" was that the city's skyline was lit up as the sky became twilight, that strange time when man-made light and sun we're both present and visible, windows making a mosaic of clear parallelograms each inlaid on rectangles themselves.

The memory I'm slowly baking to is seeing sections of the city in order from uptown to down, begin to go lightless. It looked like at least ten blocks at a time, switching off, orderly, a simple procession. That, as I recall was what got the debate stopped. I feel like my mother had pointed out that the city had lights "SEE!" and she pointed. And then the illumination of the dominions began to fall, and made way through the isle of olde Dutch robbery.

When all Manhattan was out, we all turned our heads or bodies, expectantly to the TV, where Roger, still without joy or even astonishment, continued speaking to us. It seemed to take a small pause in time for him to finally get the news and then in a flash, he the tv, our dining area lights, all gone.

It seemed to be connected says my memory, that within 1 minute there was a screech of tires and then a scream, from the intersection of Park Pl. and Classon Ave, 12 stories (and more) below.

We ran to our terrace (another rarity in Brooklyn then and now) and looked below to intersection:

Darkness punctuated by long swords of car headlights was most easily seen. At street level, people argued, glass broke, people ran. For light, for their lives. From their fears, and back then unlike now, many of those fears was likely.

Ironically in 2017 you could say it was lit, and yet the opposite.

When the dark was full, we lit candles, cautiously opened the apartment door to the knocks we heard in the hall. It wasn't risky, the building was full of doctors, nurses and the administrative staff whom all worked for the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital (now apartments! #gentrification) Our neighbors came around with flashlights, checking on everyone.

We stayed in that night, of course. The elevators didn't work, and who wants to take the stairs to a perceived and darken hell.

We could hear yelling, occasional screams, and car horns intermittently all night. It was probably the most chaos I ever or have since heard, but it didn't seem that much crazier than 1977 NYC to my tiny ears, just more consistent and without ebb. The sounds lasted until we finally fell asleep. At least I did.

During the 25+ hour long blackout, parts of Brooklyn burned; Especially, in Bushwick and along it's border with Bedford-Stuyvesant (back when Bushwick was still able to reach north west toward Marcy Av. Many apartments went up and many more small businesses were abandoned by small business owners, and later by insurance companies and bank loan officers. 

Some areas were not to return to prosperity until the plans drawn up in the weeks and years that followed that night, were set in motion.

#NYCBlackout

RIP PhifeDawg, aka Malik Taylor and some of 90's NYC

(Above a still from the music video for "Jazz/Buggin' Out" by "A Tribe Called Quest" (1991) featuring a then mostly desolate DUMBO waterfront in the background. Of course that building behind them in this shot is being made currently, into condos.)

Phife Dawg is dead at 45. This one personally hurts.

"Phife Dawg" aka Malik Taylor was a lyricist and key member of hiphop's ground breaking group "A Tribe Called Quest"

Some folks rant about people mourning the death of entertainers or celebs, and if you're kind of fan of "A Tribe Called Quest" then Malik Taylor aka Phife Didd-dawg was the energetic essence of that, but he was also the dude I'd see on the regular in NYC. Specifically in video game arcades where he'd hold down a machine for hours, beating anyone who foolishly stepped to challenge, or just rocking the machine by himself. If you have no idea who I'm talking about let me take a few lyrics from the man himself to explain:

"Now here's a funky introduction of how nice I am Tell your mother, tell your father, send a telegram I'm like an energizer cause, you see, I last long My crew is never ever wack because we stand strong"

From "Check the Vibe" by A Tribe Called Quest
(This video shot with contours of a desolate DUMBO in the Background)

Phife on his preference of women:

"I like 'em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian Name is Phife Dawg from the Zulu Nation Told you in the jam that we can get down Now let's knock the boots like the group H-Town You got BBD all on your bedroom wall But I'm above the rim and this is how I ball A gritty little something on the New York street This is how I represent over this here beat"

From "Electric Relaxation" by A Tribe Called Quest,

Phife On fidelity:

"Original rude boy, never am I coy You can be a shorty in my ill convoy Not to come across as a thug or a hood But hon, you got the goods, like Madelyne Woods By the way, my name's Malik The Five-Foot Freak Let's say we get together by the end of the week She simply said, "No", labelled me a ho I said, "How you figure?" "My friends told me so" I hate when silly groupies wanna run they yap
Word to God hon, I don't get down like that."

Also From "Electric Relaxation" by A Tribe Called Quest

Phife On life(kinda):

"I never half step cause I'm not a half stepper Drink a lot of soda so they call me Dr. Pepper(sad! He was referring to his indulgence of sugars that led to his diabetes) Refuse to compete with BS competition Your name ain't Special Ed so won't you seckle with the mission I never walk the street thinking it's all about me Even though deep in my heart, it really could be I just try my best to like go all out Some might even say yo shorty black you're buggin' out"

From "Buggin' Out" by A Tribe Called Quest,

Damn! Imagine being 20 years old and those lyrics play over Tribe's dope beats as you walk down the street, into the club, off to class, Phife aka #MalikTaylor made an introduction, lines for anyone feeling the vibe, especially someone young as he was then, trying to find their way.


It's very important to note these albums came out over 20 years ago, when HipHop was still a largely unknown genre, and when images of HipHop ranged from under budget to cliched. Yet A Tribe Called Quest powered by Q-Tip's fertile visual imagination, he and Phife's lyrical flows, Ali Shaheed Muhammad's dope beats and all three of their combined energies created videos which were imaginative, bugged out (sometimes literally, as shown above) and always full of Black and Brown faces.

Smiling faces, Hard Faces, Happy Faces, Dancing Faces, Living Breathing on the Block from Bk to Queens, faces. Us just living, being, us.

For a great example check out this video for "Oh My God" which was shot on Monroe (btw Marcus Garvey and Monroe *below) in Bedford Stuyvesant.

I can't begin to express what it was like in the 90's to click on "Video Music Box" (running on a public tv station channel 31 here in NYC at the time) and seeing the block my family lived on, and the people of Brooklyn I recognized as everyday people being the setting for the music of the moment. Tribe was a part of the culture that elevated an unseen NYC for millions of people.

If you're reading this and you've never heard of any of this, it could because while Phife and A Tribe Called Quest (#ATCQ) were pioneers in a jazz infused melodic hiphop that plotted the course for hundreds of lyrasis and producers to come, most notably The Roots, so you may not have heard Tribe on your radio but it didnt matter or as Phife might say:

No need to sweat Arsenio to gain some type of fame No shame in my game cause I'll always be the same Styles upon styles upon styles is what I have You wanna diss the Phifer but you still don't know the half.

From "Check the Rhime" by A Tribe Called Quest

"Rappin' is an art, coming straight from the heart So forget the chart because the action can start."
From "Hot Sex" A Tribe Called Quest (on the Boomerange Movie Soundtrack)

Me, I used to be a gamer, hardcore, and like others I'd go to the city to play the best in the land. I saw Phife regularly in the arcade. Occasionally I'd stand by and watch his gamer skills. He was totally unpretentious. A regular dude like everyone else, flexing skills at a serious hobby, concentrating mad hard, or cracking jokes.

Dudes would come and try talking him up, but usually not, cause Phife was busy leveling up. And if you know, you know how that goes. After a while my visits to the arcade were just to come and go. I'd step in and right back out cause if Phife was on deck nobody had next.

Phife is a part of my NYC, my Hip-Hop my memories. 

Seeing him struggle with diabetes in the "A Tribe Called Quest" documentary was rough, but like anyone would, I'd hoped he was recovering toward a happy ending.

45 is young. Way too young to go.

(Recent photo of Malik Taylor aka "Phife Dawg" Photo credit Andrew H Walker/Getty)

"You on point Phife?" Yo Rest in Peace man.

#RIPPhife #ATCQ #NATIVETONGUES #HIPHOP #FallenRappers #NYC #BROOKLYN #BKLYN #QUEENS #UPTOWN #BRONX #WORLDTOUR #LONGISLAND #VIBE #PEOPLESINSTINCTIVETRAVELS

(Apologies for the wack spacing throughout this, I will be overhauling this blog soon)

Oops: Live from Bedford-Stuyvesant Spike Lee/Doing the Right Thing

(Updated Sat 6/28)

Apologies.

I got the date wrong. Hopefully I'm the only person who had to miss out on the block Party.

----

"What is brooklyn?” is a question I find myself asking a lot lately. I’m willing to bet, New York being New York, that question is sincerely asked on average three times a week around the world. And that’s sincerely, add the ironic existential asks and I’m sure the question of what Brooklyn is, and my god isn’t runs like a metronome. 

For me to be wondering that, born here, having been, across the span of now five decades (I promise I’m still carded and I still think I’m supposed to be) it’s as bizarre as if I awoke this morning, swung my feet off the bed and looked down wondering, “who’s legs are these?”

But that’s where I’m at and I’m not alone. The amount of spontaneous conversations I hear and take part in on a daily basis asking the same questions, wondering as well whether we born Brooklynites are still attached to a living breathing factually member, this borough of whether we’re all suffering the pain of a phantom limb are countless. 

There are many Brooklyns. In each era for decades now, there have been many, untouched by the goings on of Manhattan, fairly oblivious to other corners of this same borough. Five decades lived and I’ve never walked the streets of Bay Ridge. I know of people who work a job, raise a family, live a life and never set foot out of Sheepshead bay, or Brownsville, or Greenpoint. It’s not unsurprising in a place like Brooklyn that has a population three times larger than San Francisco and if counted without the other four boroughs would be the 4th largest populated city in the United States.

I just watched an old episode of what I happily recall President Obama calling a “iiberal fantasy”, TV’s “The West Wing”. In this episode a congressman, and leader of the Black Caucaus tried to make the point that his constituents, young Black men in Bedford-Stuyvesant were being under-represented. The same episode referenced Colombia as proxy for a conversation about the drug war, and in a different region of the world (as well as the plot) “friendly fire” as short hand for the complexities of war. Bedford-Stuyvesant was referenced several times, each timing meaning impoverished, disenfranchised, and Black. That blanket reference doesn’t work today, barely ten years later. And that should be cause for celebration, but the problem for many people, many native New Yorkers, many born Brooklynites, is what definitions do apply to Bed-Stuy, today.

It’s good that as opposed to poverty and disenfranchisement, there are small businesses and home owners, forging new bonds and reaping dividends in Bed-Stuy. Fantastic would be if more of those people were the residents of that community that helped keep two nostrils above water when the floods of drugs, crime, and systematic neglect rained down upon that part of Brooklyn.

I recently was invited to the home of a new business partner, he a professional was telling me about the Bed-Stuy brownstown he’d recently purchased. I remarked about how great he, not of Brooklyn, must be finding it all, and I rattled of some culinary and social points of interest. He had no idea where any of these places and the streets they belonged to were. “He doesn’t need to…” I thought to myself as he told me, sheepishly the story of the people who were foreclosed on, which made his purchase possible. To say the least, I felt conflicted. Part of me wanted to look down and ask where my legs were and why weren’t they moving.

This Saturday Sunday June 29th from noon to 6p, on Stuyvesant Avenue and Quincy, Spike Lee will be hosting a block party in honor of his seminal film “Do The Right Thing”http://www.okayplayer.com/news/spike-lee-hosting-25th-anniversary-do-the-right-thing-block-party-bed-stuy.html. The block is the actual and entire block the Oscar nominated film was shot on. 

If you truly know Brooklyn’s Brownstown belt and the skirmishes contained in, or your simply old enough, you know how much of the city’s ills then and sadly now Spike packed into that film with poignance and power. You then probably know of the scene in the film where a man white of skin walks his ten speed bike, and celtics basketball jersey up the block and into that character’s new brownstone. A lot of people relate that scene from twenty-five years ago to today, especially after Spike voiced the displeasure thousands of us feel at having neighborhoods we’ve lived in redressed around and without us, earlier this year at a Pratt Institute event. I recall watching the film and not understanding how that could ever happen, I was unfamiliar and undeserving of Bed-Stuy back then, I was a teenager. Spike knew what I wish more people knew today, Brooklyn is a place where people intended to live, that had fallen on hard times (for countless reasons) and it only took (and takes) a release of the yoke holding the neighborhood down, offered to those with means, to create a market and a marketing, that would invite people with means to come back.

Sadly, and what troubles me most is how difficult it is for a lot of us to be happy about Brooklyn's fortunes. If you would have told people in 1989 that Brooklyn would be undergoing the current renaissance we'd be partying in the streets. Surely people would have to presume the problems of drug wars, underfunded schools, over policing, banking discrimination, crime, would have been resolved. But they really weren't, despite the light Brooklyn basks in today, the instrument of change in most cases is a bulldozer. Pushing away, old structures and old cultures, pushing people off the reservation, tables held for the new. Crime hasn't be solved in Brooklyn of most anywhere in New York City as much as it's been made complicated by raising rents on the poor, people who are victims crime and relative to their population, occasionally suspects in crime. The Brooklyn Bulldozer Baby & Bathwater Bloomberg Policy is what happened. And after eight years of a hostile Mayorial administration, and the near two decades of urban decay preceding that, it didn't seem so bad at first, until you saw the baby's rolling down the street and off into cold night.

Yesterday I was randomly net-surfing (see I am old) and I came across a listing on Franklin in Bed-Stuy for an apartment. Fifteen years ago members of my family used to go to substance abuse treatment a few doors down. Not a nickel to rub between them, not a pot to do anything with at a all. 

The asking price for the apartment I saw online yesterday? 1.025 Million dollars. Seriously where am I?

Well like I said, Spike is having a block party on Saturday sunday and I don’t quite know what that means or where my legs will be, but I believe they’ll be doing the right thing. If you don’t have the house you gotta have hope.

"Where Brooklyn At? Where Brooklyn At?"

Snowboard Saturday Throwback

Everytime since I saw this video I think back to it when the first big Brooklyn snow falls.

It's basically about the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, albeit not in that order, and how it all revolved around snowboarding in Fort Greene Park.

Brooklyn: It Ain't Where Ya From It's Where Ya At.

"It's funny how money changes situations."

That line (which is opening lyric of Lauren Hill's) doesnt really express what I meant, what I'm thinking is it's funny when diverse sides of issues get broken down into their extreme aspects and then those extreme aspects are positioned against each other.

"Can it be that it was all so simple?"

Brooklyn was simple (wasn't it) just twenty years ago. It was the sample place it is now, rich with history (the Revolutionary War and Brooklyn Dodgers had still happened here, despite it being the Brooklyn of twenty years ago) but back then Brooklyn was so simple to peg into a whole.

It was full of beauty, Brownstones and Botanic Gardens, and danger; Brownsville shootings, beef fed beat-downs and random robberies at best. Taxi's? No, never. Had no restaurants. This was of course a judgement made by the Manhattan minded and dwelling. So did we have restaurants? By those standards nope. The restaurants in the borough went largely unseen and those visible from across the river (River Cafe & Peter Luger's) didn't belong to the Brooklyn geography they occupied (hell River Cafe is ON the river) a Micheline starred restaurant may brush up against Brooklyn suggestively in those days, but occupy, heavens no. If you wanted cheap rent and long commute and the implied danger from topics listed above, you went to Brooklyn. Once in a while a concert grew in Brooklyn that non-Brooklynites and some locals would be needlessly be nervous about attending. There was a college, somewhere, that was decent for art, or music, or science or occasionally an NCAA Basketball bracket. Which is how people I spoke with described Pratt, Brooklyn College & LIU respectively.

Basically Brooklyn was simply thought of back in the day. It wasn't a simple place it just conjured simple impressions, which lead usually to simplistic and short conversations.

Today much real estate, printed, virtual, and physical is given to the great discussion of Brooklyn, and what that means, should me, did mean, will mean. Damn B your therapy bills must be crazy.

New York Magazine ran this article with the cover copy "Brooklyn is Finished" written by Mark Jacobson back in Autumn and I wanted to tack on my comments to the piece, in this blog. It didnt bother me that I never got to it because the article in my opinion didn't need my two cents or anything it stands in my mind as the best expression of what Brooklyn was through differing eras, what it became, where it is now, and what stays unique and constent about this place.

A friend sent me this article "The Ins and Outs" written (I presume) by some of the many talented and encamped J-School grads that are easy to find around Frankin Avenue's Crown Heights these days. It's a good micro focused piece reflecting the dynamic causality and impact of large scale gentrification in the short period of time that has passed. It's very good too.

And on Friday the Grey Lady herself dedicated much space and writing talent to this piece, titled Brooklyn, the Remix: A Hip Hop Tour. Also a great piece which seems in part inspired by this art piece (in which a variant of street artist, fabricated faux street signs with classic location specific hiphop lyrics written on then, and then the artists mounts those street signs on existing poles in the name-checked neighborhoods and streets. Many of those streets have since dramatically changed often for the lifestyle betterment of some, so there is an added contrast & impact of the installations.

Personally I want to imagine a creative coup within the Grey Lady led by writers who live in the borough and had grown weary of under-informed pieces written about Brooklyn, published in her name, I'm looking at you Real Estate section. But I digress.

The New York Times piece covers various Hip Hop landmarks and emotional sign posts of their own,  around the Borough. There's mention of old Sarah J. Hale nicknamed Sarah Jail because of it's often less than civil students, which is on a stretch of dean street that is now tony and gentrified. There's a reference to the Plaza movie theater on Flatbush near Park Place which became the Plaza Twin, then the Pavilion and finally now, an American Apparel store. In the article the person who invokes the movie theater reflects with irony that he say "Do The Right Thing" in that spot.

It's a testiment to the lightning rod that Franklin Avenue has become, the 180º turn around it's undergoinf that all three pieces make references to Franklin in the case of the New York Mag article it was where the writter's grandmother lived some 50 years before code words like "Craft Beer" & "Artisanal" became synonymous with Franklin.

I was sucked into the online New York Times comments following their article. One comment by a reader going by "IRS" seemed to whine a lament, writing:

I am getting sick of articles like these. I understand the nostalgia with how life "used to be" in NYC. My neighborhood is the epicenter for some of my favorite hip hop. I get it. What people fail to acknowledge is that their NYC of the past is just a blip on the overall story of the city as a whole. This city has changed EVERY DAY, since its inception hundreds of years ago, and that is what makes it so beautiful.

People need to stop complaining and holding on to some rosy memory of what NYC "was," because "it" isn't coming back... Furthermore, those same people clamoring for the city to go back to its "gritty" days, that so many yearn for, are the same people who will complain the most when all of the street crime returns right along with it and they're afraid to walk down the street without looking over their shoulders.

It is time NYC to get over it and move on. Our city will be better for it.

I find that comment interesting because I hear it alot. It's one thing to say the past does and doesn't matter, but I'm impressed by the amount of residents ( I presume them to be new) who think it's time for people to stop having reminiseces. What an intersting suggestion, thought policing.

The conversation of this moment's Brooklyn is only halfway finished. Obviously the borough, city, country and much of the world will go on changing whether we like it, want it or not.

I think the impetus for all the dialogue is most eras take longer to switch and show visible signs. I myself often write that all these changes clearly started back in the late 70's right after the smoke cleared from the looting aftermath of 77's blackout. But the speed of change in Brooklyn, has been blinding and that's why we can't stop talking about it, besides all the other details that go into the conversation. The way a magic trick or lightning is fascinating and elicits fascinated analysis is partially because in the blink of an eye it's so dynamically different. And in Brooklyn the focus and who different groups are impacted is so extreme. There really was no breather before or after the crack era. Brooklyn was not much different that the rest of the city in 1970. By 1980 there were more extreme differences. By 1990 more so and by 2003 you could wallpaper your studio apartment with articles proclaiming Brooklyn the new Manhattan. By 2013 on some streets it is.

It's the change, its the speed, it's the cultural and socially effected and disconnected.

Basically, no one cared enough to think as deeply and consistently as people do now about Brooklyn. But I thought the NY Mag article and the NY Times HipHop remix article does a great job of pointing out a key detail of the neverending Brooklyn discussion. It's not that we want to go back to the gritty days specifically, its not that we want to close the artisanal cheese shops, its that we dont want to be resigned to the past, and a negative one at that, while we continue to live here. We who were in Brooklyn lived and exprienced like everyone else and in some cases we mined and polished social and culutral riches that are exploited and enjoyed today, in our borough and we wonder if the way we were generally ignored back then isn't happening now.

Nobody wants to be forgotten or ignored, especially not while we're still here.

And now I found what I was tying to say through the poetry often born of these Brooklyn streets.

Planet, Earth, was my place of birth
Born to be the soul controller of the universe
Besides the part of the map I hit first
Any environment I can adapt when it gets worst
The rough gets goin, the goin gets rough
When I start flowin, the mic might bust
The next state I shake from the power I generate
People in Cali used to think it was earthquakes
Cause times was hard on the Boulevard
So I vote God and never get scarred and gauled
But it seems like I'm locked in hell
Lookin over the edge but the R never fell
A trip to slip cause my Nikes got grip
Stand on my own two feet and come equipped
Any stage I'm seen on, or mic I fiend on
I stand alone and need nothin to lean on
Going for self with a long way to go
So much to say but I still flow slow
I come correct and I won't look back
Cause it ain't where you're from, it's where you're at
Even the (ghetto)

-Rakim

Photo Wednesday 3/27/13 - Sometimes the Past Sees You Edition

Its been a while since the last "Photo Wednesday" so considering I didn't stop taking photos (everyday even!) I am stocked with visual moments to share from many points Brooklyn.

"M. H. Koski, Inc" was apparently a pawn shop, this Brooklyn Eagle link shows an advertisement for the business from 1946.

I wanted to post a shot from what I think is about as far away in Brooklyn as a person can be from everything and still be in Brooklyn, but for now this one I picked up wins the day. I know this corner intimately.

I recall being about nine and standing across the street from this corner waiting and desperate to leave. Standing next to my little feet was a box big enough to hold a starship and it did. The Millennium Falcon. My mother bought it from Mays' Department store (Corner of Fulton St & Bond) and we'd stopped off from the bus to meet a friend of hers. The only thing that made the wait tolerable was the thrill I got from each kid walking by who's wide eyes spied the classically 70's photo of the spacey plastic hunk of junk.

I was headed down Putnam (which I still can't believe no longer awkwardly flows into Fulton Street, when I noted this space of wall that had not been painted over since I'm guessing at least the 60's. That day as a kid there was a billboard covering that patch of wall. When I moved to my second adult Brooklyn apartment up the block on Grand a billboard still covered it. When I saw the painted old sign beaming waves of yesterday outward I had to take a shot of it.

 Brownstowner and Faded Ad Blog beat me to publishing the pic (steamed) so here's links to them as well: http://www.fadingad.com/fadingadblog/?p=10347 & http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2012/03/signage-archaeology-on-grand-avenue/ Brownstoner was kind enough to point out that corner of the expose sign was an open air drug market in the "70's and 80's" a commenter posted they should include the "90's, 00's & 10's" yeah... as mentioned I lived right up the block, and I swear a more industrious and consistently staffed drug spot I've never seen. Hell I've worked in corporations were people weren't at their station as often as these guys were (are?). My question has been and still is what kind of economic model were those corner hustlers working in the 90's? They'd have more guys on the corner than customer regularly, yet everyone seemed paid. That's Buffet math.

Also I'm going to include a little "Best of.." Photo Wednesday this one from February 3rd 2010 when the Lowes Kings Theater was featured. I'd taken a few cools shots of the exterior and meant to post it, when months later the new broke that the formerly palatial long since condemned theater on Flatbush was poised to be restored to greatness. A few months back the plans were confirmed. Here's a quick look back with a personal story to boot:

http://umbrooklynborn.blogspot.com/2010/02/photo-wednesday-020310-retouched.html

I didn't think there were any fixtures left on Ludlow to go

Unfortunately I was wrong. Another piece of the Lower East Side 90's & 00's went the way of the Dodo. 

Courtesy of the NY York Times

The Pink Pony closed it's doors, likely for good, on Jan 31st.

Detailed below by the New York Times, the story talks about the neighborhood leaving the familiar and moment essential bar more so than the bar leaving the neighborhood. 

Damn this thing change. Same thing that made Reagan a Republican. Damn, Damn, Damn. The article photo of the cafe front features a posted, leaning Jim Jarmusch at the entrance. I myself ran into Jim often there and made an ass of someone, probably me, by asking a few too many questions of him during dinner.

Ah youth, it goes so fast.

Well, now we know who's the last one to turn out the lights on Ludlow Street. To paraphrase Bugs Bunny, "There. Sports Bars...Take it away"

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/11/another-90s-fixture-of-lower-east-side-is-gone/

Sandy Aftermath, Sights Seen

Yesterday I took the bike into Lower Manhattan for a look around. Flooding aside with the power out there were no subways rumbling, no red lights for people to ignore or linger of front of which meant no horns blasted in disgust. Granted there was vehicular movement, but it had the ebb and flow more in common with country intersections than city speedways (although the cab's did all seem powered by Red Bull). Here's a lot more of my musing from the trip:

The food in most of the small biz food spots, diners etc was being eaten by the staff as they sat in front of the establishments.

People have realized you electric outlets are everywhere, saw people sitting on the floor at the bank charging laptops and phones

I was busy standing almost in the street taking photos of a flooded tunnel when I noticed a city bus creeping up on me. I quickly got out of the way and walked passed, only to realize the bus driver was taking pictures of the same thing.

Homeland steaks started cooking their entire inventory on the street at 9th ave btw 15th & 14th streets. smoke billowed a line formed (most people not exactly sure for what) and smiles floated through over the sidewalk along with the scent of marinated steak grilled to perfection. Then the police showed. Their window rolled down and a steak was offered to them as to the other New Yorkers and soon they were on their way. It was the kind of classic New York scene you only find in memory or a movie like Ghostbusters. Steak was delicious by the way, I'll have to go their for dinner when the world is a little less upside down.

(as mentioned) It's weird how quiet manhattan is if you just take away the subway and red lights. seriously I heard almost no horns. because no one was reminding someone to go through the green light. drivers for the most part have to look to see whether they can drive. much more attentive that way.

had this thought,"The Street Lights have fallen!! Give over your allegiance to our new lord and road masters the taxi!!"

Cabbies were speed demons.

Streets were nearly to totally empty. If ever you wanted to film a dystopic future set movie or that zombie apocalypse that everyone is so found of, now's the time. early morning especially.

I had a "I Am Legend" moment as I approached a barricade at the South Street Seaport not far from the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. The moment got more surreal when suddenly two blackhawk helicopters appeared and landedgreated by reporters and troops. I don't know what that was about.

I only saw three people who looked hilariously stereotypically shady to me. I mean pick any movie with a criminal and these three dudes (of diverse backgrounds but essentially the same grimy gear) fit the mold. the were trying doors at an office building.

Someone mentioned cab drivers would rack up because of the lack of transportation. I disagree. Cab driving in this situation is risky because most fares looked packed to get the hell out of dodge. If that happened the cabbie would spend way to much time on one-way fares.

Who was racking up? Food cart dudes. Matter of fact if you know anyone with a coffee truck, send them to astor place stat. (Gothamist posted a story about this later)

North of 30th Street no one seems care, they aint waiting, they aint worried.

Having a bike is gonna be so awesome when the electromagnetic pulses start.

Brooklyn Baseball

I found this is sort of throwback Brooklyn story in the NY Times, I couldn't understand the headline so I had to read the article, which I guess is the hallmark of a good headline.

The article is an obituary of Nat Allbright, who was a baseball announcer, of games he never saw.

Intriguing right? Here's the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/sports/baseball/nat-allbright-voice-of-dodgers-games-he-did-not-see-dies-at-87.html?hpw

Speaking of baseball (but in the present) for the second year I've attended a Brooklyn Cyclones game out at Coney Island. The minor league Cyclones (affiliates of the National League NY Mets, of course) pounded the Aberdeen Iron Birds (Baltimore Orioles farm club) pretty good.


In my more than humble opinion a game with the Cyclones is a good time to be had. The stadium is small but feels full and expansive. There are great sight-lines throughout the park and the background dressing of the Parachute Jump on one side, and the Cyclone rollercoast in the distance add to the easy summer atmosphere. Games also manage a lovably corny air with enjoyably hokey family friendly entertainment between innings and lots of local characters. Best enjoyed with a group, sitting behind home plate. Oh and if you sit along the foul lines, be ready to catch or duck.

Photo Wednesday 03/23/11 :"The End is Far Away" Edition

"The End is Far Away", originally uploaded by b'klynborn.

Jeez I had this photo taken and post written this morning and the day got away from me.

I've mentioned many reasons for having "photowednesdays" on this blog. some reasons are current events love of Brooklyn and keeping my idle hands from being the devils playthings. I've probably also mentioned it's not always easy to find a new pic of something Brooklyn-centric or born that's interesting. I never want photo Wednesdays to turn into a catalogue of cliched pics of the bridge or the arch.

all this to say i wasnt clear or looking forward to this photo wednesday. its winter i work almost nonstop and so whatever uniqueness goes on i feel i miss lately. sometimes i cant imagine what there is to see that hasnt been seen already in Brooklyn, and then there's images like this I found today.

I'm a morning facebook checker and I found a professional friends announcement that his mom had passed. a few weeks back I and thousands like me lost a great friend and I couldn't help notice the last few weeks on facebook how many personal condolence messages there have been.

then on a bit of a tangent there's slot of conversations I've found myself in lately with people expressing the end of days coming in 2012 (which I'm not a believer in) and the frequency of these conversations, not the actual topic, but that so many people are subscribing.... leaves me a little speechless.
all that to say this morning I felt as grey as the day.

and then there's image and it's message waiting to be seen.

happy Wednesday y'all

That New York Spirit (from NYT 10/18/10)

Just read this Dan Barry article in today's NY Times, its the eulogy of a beautiful dynamic vivacious woman, who was more character than words could account. She in my mind is quintessentially the vanished New York City that's celebrated, conjured and missed.

I recommend reading it: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/nyregion/17annie.html

Photo Wednesday: Evangelical Street Edition

"God is Good"(above, written in pink)

A child's chalk musings on a Bedford Av sidewalk this week.
Interestingly there was a tombstone drawn as well (which I didn't capture well) just above this part of the drawing. The tombstone only had one date "1986"

I was going to write "hard to argue against the message", then I started debating with myself about whether the phrase "God is Good" is arguable or not.

Recently I was enjoying an appropriately summer styled bit of lounging on an Eastern Parkway bench near Franklin. I lay out on the three planks of wood like a banana man in his tropical hammock enjoying all aspects of the moment. After a while delibrately strolling down Franklin, hunger grabbed me so I headed for a local longtime food spot. Just as my mind began to taste my soon to be purchased morsels, it became clear I had no wallet. Worse, I had a wallet it simply wasn't with me any longer. Worst than that, I had only minutes earlier used my ATM card to withdraw $80 and I'd placed that cash in my wallet which was no longer with me.

The store proprietor asked, "anything else?" I answered "be right back" and I tore out of the store a man possessed. Seconds and shortness of breathe later I was back at my lounging spot on Eastern Parkway. I saw a mirage. My wallet lay under the bench visible to me from twenty feet away. It was open like a young girl's prom night heart. So surreal was the sceen, if my wallet would have shut itself, or better began to flap it's panels around the center crease, taking flight in the process and fluttering away all elusive butterfly like, I would not have been shocked at all. Either of those outcomes would be no more unbelievable than finding the wallet, ten minutes after dropping it, in broad daylight on a Saturday in July, with a twenty sticking up like a bookmark no less.

Later back at the food shop I answered the proprietor's question by telling my lost&found wallet story, to which she replied "God is Good!" Never knowing how to respond to that phrase personally, I didn't and instead offered a meaningless clump of loosely connected words. She again said "God is Good" and added as punctionation, (with the same cadence) "...all the time".

The provocateur in me chimed in. "well it wasn't a good time when that guy got shot earlier" referring to the verbal exchange that ended in gunfire on these same streets two weeks ago. The proprietor paused, I couldn't tell if she was going to lay into my irreverence or what. Finally she stopped her ponder and resumed her speech completing with, "...well those who ain't good, God gets".

HOT BIRD returns?! (same as it never was)

"Nostalgia" is in fact named for a mental disorder in which one seeks to find something that doesn't exist anymore.

The "Ace" song "How Long...Has This Been Going On?" was stuck in my head as I rolled through the Fort Greene night. (to really enjoy this post, jump to the bottom and hit play, then read on...)

As for the song in my head, there was nothing romantic or broken to inspired it, it simply was there, bouncing off the rubber walls in my mind. And then I came down Clinton Av, spotted a giant arrow illuminated by marquee light bulbs and the song became real apropos.


Apparently "HOT BIRD" is back.

Where it never was.

Right there on the corner of Atlantic and Clinton, it's open for business and respectable filled with patrons. The corner was enclosed last year and I heard about the desire to open the spot up, but when exactly did all that happen?

And is this as weird to anyone else as it is to me?


Back Story

When I was a kid growing up nearby there were several attempts to jumpstart businesses on Vanderbilt Av. Few lasted long, (with the exception of Bob Law's Seafood Cafe) One of my favorites from that time mid 80's was Ice Cream Park, but that's another story. One of the last I remember toward the end of the 80's was "Hot Bird".

There was some local chatter about it being tasty fried chicken, and that's all I know. What long out lasted the chicken spot were the painted signs. Unavoidable, like magnets to the eye, with their giant screaming yet somehow modest black letters on baby chick yellow walls. The largest on the side of a building at Clinton and Atlantic Aves.

(Photo source: Threecee on Flickr, all rights reserved)

Having been here and always associated the signs garishness with the failed chicken spot, I clearly lack the vision that a newcomer gets of that sign. I've heard people talk about it like it was a stone tablet from deities, taunting overhead, never leaving the mountain top. I've seen hundreds of photos of the sign. (which is why I never take a photo of it) I felt it reached the zenith when pictures of the old yellow and black evocative description made it into a show at the Brooklyn Museum. All I could do was shake my head. For me, a life long resident of the area, it was no different than walking out one day and seeing all the teenagers wearing something ridiculous, in unison, in the name of their own sense of fashion.

I just don't get it.


As mentioned, last year I heard tell of a group opening up a business to be called "Hot Bird" and I think I heard some newcomers mention the people who started it "had come back" which I highly doubt. I just don't imagine the folks I jonesing to bring the bird back.



I image this is a newcomer operation, I could be wrong, it's happened. But as I've often written about, I'm not the biggest fan of sprawling recontextualizations, especially when a Newcomer stripes all that was, save the sign above the door which with its loss of context becomes interesting simply because of irony and disconnect.


But there are other Newcomers too, the ones I cherish for helping rebuild aspects of my Brooklyn. Ah... my valued Newcomers, one day I will sing the praises of your intrepid and die-hard devotion to anything new (and at least mildly interesting)

Which is I guess what interests me about HOTBIRD's rebirth. Understand, that for me HOT BIRD means as much as a manhole cover. Even though I've gone on at length about all manner of things destroyed and discarded, even the DKNY sign with the NY Skyline that used to be on Houston in the Soho, ironically.

But I never pined for HOT BIRD even when it was open. I mean despite visible claim on its sign of having been "The Best Bar-B-Q in New York" I don't remember anyone else thinking that back in the day. I mean yeah the chicken was tasty, but shit it was the 80's! At that time the second best "Bar-B-Q" probably came out of a Heinz bottle.

The twist here, what gives this situation interest to me is that it's an elevation this time.

So HOT BIRD is back, though it almost never was. Something from near nothing. That I like. That valuable quality of taking what is no longer in use, and finding it significant, even if it wasn't really all that significant to many in the first place, and then investing, projecting value into it. On the macro and micro scale, that's the incubator NYC reliably generally provides to new and old.

Once there was a HOT BIRD, now there is a HOT BIRD, as always the city is a fertile wardrobe waiting to be tried on and turned out.

BTW fans of "Ace", this one's for you. Link and video below:

Brooklyn experience #362 : Subway Connection

It's Friday, um headed home. The B train to Brooklyn final got enough joy out of it's stop and go approach to the station, when the doors open at Atlantic avenue I can't wait to escape. I'd be running up the stairs even if I weren't frustrated with my commute and ready to shed the stank of a work week. Little known fact is that Atlantic Avenue station soon to be christened in honor of corporate welfare is not only one of the ten largest metropolitan transportation hubs on the planet, it's also running on a schedule that causes all the trains running there to arrive at the same time.

Two steps at a time and in seconds I'm thirty feet higher, still underground, awaiting the south bound IRT. Nobody calls it that anymore, maybe a few but nobody new.

An indecisive jet of cool tunnel atmosphere surges over us and when the doors open, crowded platform meets crowded subway train. It's twister really. I've played that kids game and never contoured myself nearly as much as the way you need to do in a NYC subway car just to get to that strangely undesired oasis of open space always equidistant from the open doors.

This time instead of doing a Matrix-esque leaning rotation to avoid some enormous backpack, I'm avoiding a serving platter. My insta-punchline mind responses,"I knew brooklyn was gentrifing but this..." cue wiggling groucho eyebrows... It is an actual serving tray though, and while it may be made of cheap plastic, and its ornate clear lid made the same,the array of sandwiches "under glass" look very real, simply made and tasty. A young lady northern european in long lost lineage and likely now brooklyn based is holding the tray with one hand. she and a similar friend (sans tray) are having a completely incidental conversation, and all the while swaying, as we all do to the beat and drum of the express train to Utica Ave.

I continue musing, as I do, at the scene. The voice that bellows now is from another time. Loud. Amplified. Crisp. It's the way you expect a radio personality to speak in person, all clear and from the deep diaphragm. It's because of that sonic quality that I look. I never look, there are two many such voices periodically bursting through otherwise quiet of a subway car, even before opening the doors linking one car to the next, an making claims of poverty, basketball uniforms, senior trips, and blatant disregard for organized labor, for me to pay attention to. But the voice has gotten the attention of all of us. I see everyone looking wondering about this sound and the simple worn message it lifts.

Now is when I wish you could have been there.

How perfect. Can you imagine? This voice-keeper, explaining directly his desire for assistance, his willful surrender of pride, in order that he may get enough to make it through a day, a life, with barely anything. Or so he claimed. And unlike the men younger, probably more fit than me, whose sneakers cost more than my glasses and still beg for cash, this man seemed to be living his impoverished words. How perfect than when the young tray totting newcomer offered him a sandwich. As he was carrying a sack with one hand, a torn fast food cup cradling crumpled dollar bills in the other, it made sense and felt even better when the newcomer offered the entire tray and all it's probably conference room intended and ignored, deliciousness.

The image of the elder man stuffing the entire tray (I guess he couldn't just through the sandwiches in individually) into his bag was both poignant and comically. Somewhere my mind conjured a happy reverse Santa, irregardless of this man's umber glow and compact body. And we all smiled as a result, outward, inward, in chatter, in the distinctly New York way in which sudden color commentators inform their fellow eyewitnesses of what is happening and has happened, right before assuming how this story came to be and what happen when it's all out of eyeshot. this was necessary, though unplanned.

When I was a child, my grandmother got me into jigsaw puzzles, and there was always this uncomfortable suspension, waiting, watching, near limbo, gazing out the hundred and thousand pieces, waiting. Until finally a peak. When two pieces that seemingly had no business, suddenly clearly connect and complete. and only then did it seem plausible that the picture could ever improve. Friday in Brooklyn, on the IRT #4 to Utica Avenue, at the end of the work week we were so needing for the pieces to fit.

Photo Wednesday 02/09/10 : Snow Job Edition

As the flakes of NYC Blizzard 2,10 start to fall... the sign seems to be saying something....

Canceling school. A day early. Mannnnnnnn..... the Mayor must be missing my rants.

But I won't give in to the Mayor or anyone else. (I'm not your MONKEY!)

Nope.

But I will say the idea of school closures in New York City, shock and annoy me. Instantly I can't help but question the toughness of today's kids, and my peers, their parents. My sole anecdotal utterance would be that I once walked to school in nearly two feet of snow two miles and in two hours time. True story. If the city didn't closed the schools, I had to go to school. So I went. During that trek the swirling snow and I were the only things moving. When I finally got to school, I was one of about 37 students who showed up. We sat in the auditorium watching 16millimeter Bullwinkle films. I never liked Bullwinkle.

I found this in the NY Times coverage of the school canceling decision:

"On Jan. 8, 1996, officials closed schools as a huge northeaster approached, and kept them closed for two days under a blanket of 20 inches. It was the first time since 1978 that a snow day had been declared the previous day."

And just like that the light came on. Within that period fits my entire Public School existence. All those mornings listening to the radio, watching the news waiting for my school's name to be called as closed. It never happened. No matter how bad, I never got a snowday off. Just left out in the cold.

Photo Wed: 7/1/09 : The Rainbow Connection

(by B'klynBorn from flickr: Fort Greene Park)

Considering the size and diversity of the planet it's probably true to say that rainbows are an everyday thing. But it's not everyday that you get so close to everyone watching one rainbow. Last weekend, on Saturday the 27th I saw one over Brooklyn and so did many others. It kept my attention for nearly a half hour of shining brilliance.

As I've told friends I've never seen a rainbow as well defined, vibrant, wide and long lasting as that rainbow. What a way to end a week of surprises good and bad.


("Rainbow over Brooklyn" by Barry Yanowitz, on Flickr: Downtown)

The rainbow which was observed by thousands at least (possibly millions when you consider that the populations of Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens and lower Manhattan alone, number in the 4 million range).


(by Danon' from flickr: East River)

My research comes from the search I did on flickr by topic and date. Dozens of shots began to load from flickr, all rainbows, all from Saturday all with Brooklyn center frame.


(photo by andyclymer on flickr: Williamsburg)

Dozens of pics of the same rainbow from various vantage points and angles all over Brooklyn and the surrounding areas.

(by B'klynBorn on Flickr: Fort Greene Park)

How ubiquitous was it? To give an idea how much of Brooklyn was covered by this one rainbow, I found a photo on flickr with a clear view of my residence framed by the rainbow (I wasn't home but it was nice to see what it would have looked like had I been there) there's almost nothing remarkable about that block of mine and yet someone was moved to photograph it and had an impressive view at that.


(by Alberto Vargas26 on flickr: Williamsburg)

I was so taken with the phenomenon that I created the flickr group "Brooklyn's June 27th Rainbow Massive" http://www.flickr.com/groups/1158831@N21/pool/and you should really check out the snapshot-in-time it offers in addition to the variety of rainbow orientations. It's not often you get to see what people are doing all across Brooklyn at roughly the same moment.



(top: by underwhelmer: Prospect Park / bottom by Rubys Host from flickr: Coney Island)

All the photos on this posting are also from the flickr group and besides catching the rainbow, in an impromptu (nearly) all Brooklyn snapshot, the photos in the group offer some great views by photogs with great eyes. Check it out.


(by RICHBRAT from flickr)

Which takes me back to the dynamics of the rainbow. Don't get me wrong I've seen rainbows before, and while they're pretty I've never thought much more than "oh look there's moisture in the air combining with refracted sunlight..."


(by yatta from flickr Clinton Hill)

But (cue the crazy talk) this rainbow was different, as you'll see in my flickr pics, it appeared briefly and then disappeared, reappeared suddenly and then grew from an almost totally vertical band to an arc that then grew until it seemed to connect both north and shout Brooklyn from Williamsburg to Coney Island. And it lingered.

(photo by petname on flickr Crown Heights)

Long enough that I called people in Bushwick and Flatlands from Fort Greene and was able to direct them to see it with enough time to walk around taking more and more pictures.

(by M505XL from Flickr: Flatlands)

The pictures don't do it justice, the two bands of the rainbow were visible, the thinner outer band less so but the colors against a fairly bright sky were vibrant and frankly, cheerfully fake looking to the point of seeming painted on.


(photo by petname on flickr Crown Heights)

And for the first time I looked up at a rainbow and thought,"water vapor my ass, that thing is magic!"

I think we did it. I have complete belief that the intangibles of life affects the physics of nature, and that human expressions such as emotion are just one of those affecting factors. I believe happiness, sadness, etc have manifestations in the visible world. My caveat is I don't think the small scale, one individual's emotional/spiritual affect on the world for example, is enough to be noticed. So if I win the lotto I don't expect anyone to see pot's of gold other than me. However on a large scale if we all feel the same way so to speak, I really think we can have an effect on the world around us.


(by Abhimanyu Lad from flickr: near Metrotech)

A week ago I was looking forward to my niece's high school graduation on Thursday. Thursday comes, I'm in an auditorium at Brooklyn College sitting with family waiting for the graduation to start when a ripple of conversation begins to spread. My family and the rest of the audience began checking mobile devices. Thus the news was broken, as well as some websites and communications networks and so the weekend was turned into a review and assessment of the life of Michael Jackson.

The sheer volume of people interested in the news was enough to motivate us to push the internet into a busy signal or at least Google for a few minutes. I know what you're thinking, "google is essentially a bunch of computers, a device, we pushed it, we broke it. The atmosphere is physics, we can't just change the laws of science and physics."(cap'n)


(from MariaTeresaCB from flickr: Prospect Park)

Well, okay. You can talk about refractionary forces on molecules of water, suspended in the atmosphere until you're blue (and every other color of the rainbow) in the face, but really isn't science a consistently repeatable, confidence inducing magic trick? And who's to say positive energy is any less potent or operational?


(from MariaTeresaCB from flickr: Prospect Park)

I was at a Michael Jackson party on Saturday night in Sputnik (thanks DJ Spinna) where the crowd was so deep with hundreds of focus points of personal nostalgic revelry and exhalation; that the air turned to steam. During the same weekend Pride celebrations filled the canyons of Manhattan expressing not only cultural joy and tradition; but did so in the most favorable political climate for that culture in over a decade.

(by The MikeD on Flickr: South Street Seaport)

For over thirty-five years I've lived in this borough and I've never seen a rainbow much less a double solid manifestation stretch borough to borough lasting nearly 30 minutes.

(by BarkerBell from flickr: Williamsburg)

Maybe there aren't enough occasions in our fractured world where we've all got the same topic in mind, or the same level of emotional out-pour, to really see what can be manifested en masse.

(by simply photo on flickr)


(by sarkeezy on flickr: Williamsburg)

Sounds crazy? Not to the lovers, the dreamers and me.

(by B'klynBorn on Flickr: Fort Greene Park)

(Wikipedia rainbow definition entry)