Celebrating Community
They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the auditorium at PS 32, but by the end of the night the members of Community Board 6, local politicians and their representatives, and various interested community members were having such a good time re-meeting each other that you might have thought it was an early holiday party. Since the beginning […]
It’s always been the view of this paper (and me) that the Columbia Street waterfront, the stretch of coastland between Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Red Hook Cruise Terminal should always remain a containerport. Actually, in addition to the shipping facility, it is also home to the beer distributor Manhattan Beverage and also the Waterfront Commission, a leftover from the […]
We are lucky to have Food Bazaar in the neighborhood Before I ever made Red Hook my stomping ground, I had been to Fairway, Food Bazaar’s antecedent. Not so much to shop, but to take various people, including my daughter, for a fine lunch of a whole broiled chicken with sides, and the Statue of Liberty in the background. One […]
Believe it or not, I think COVID has given me a precious gift. It’s kind of a long story but I’ve got the room this month so here goes. It all started in December 2019, when a friend of mine who just happened to start the Brooklyn Paper back in the 1970’s, Ed Weintrob, told me that if I hadn’t […]
Last month we did sandwiches. This month we were going to do another food item, but we decided instead, because of the tragic stuff happening in the Ukraine, we decided to take a look at what’s going on in NY’s Russian and Ukrainian neighborhoods. It’s not a perfect view, we didn’t go millions of times, we only went to three […]
I’ve lived in the United States all my life. But both my parents were from a part of the world that has been hugely in the news since the end of February. They came here from Czechoslovakia after World War 2, pretty much as refugees, my dad as soon as he could, my mom waited for her visa and just […]
Not much space to write this month, but that’s fine. I was actually going to write about how much of news gathering, as well as politicking, is done not in person anymore, but via Twitter and other non-social media thingies. So this can be like an expanded tweet. I’m not sure if Red Hook yet knows this, but for the […]
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer is known for concluding that earthly life is mostly misery, but making it all worthwhile is art, specifically music. While I’m a bit more positive about life, his comment about music resonates. Last week I took time off from everyday living to travel to Washington DC to hear Robert Earl Keen, who brought his Christmas […]
Last month we wrote that a long-planned plan to protect Red Hook from future hurricanes failed to protect places like Food Bazaar, the Beard Street Warehouses, and the Red Hook Container Terminal, despite the city’s claim that they consulted with the stakeholders from all those places. The claim was true, but they didn’t listen to the stakeholders. A major property […]
In the earlier days of this newspaper, I only occasionally wrote a column. There either had to be something compelling in the local news that I wanted to opine on, or there was extra room in the paper that needed to be filled. But now, as I’m starting to grow up, along with the paper, I’ve made a commitment to […]