Celebrating Community
According to the Pew Research Center, 97% of Americans own a cellphone. In 2024, nine-in-ten Americans are smartphone users, which is up from 35% in Pew Research Center’s first survey of smartphone ownership from 2011. My own relationship with technology is a standard story for someone born in 1989. I enjoyed my childhood with the most aggressive form of technological […]
A chopped cheese, bread swapped for a Jamaican beef patty. Bacon egg and cheese, but coddled between raspberry Pop-Tarts instead of a roll. Halal chicken with Salsalito turkey and spicy Doritos, all sandwiched between pancakes. Ingenuity is alive at the TikTok-famous Red Hook Food Corp (603 Clinton Street), where Rahim Mohamed has grown a following for his wild off-menu creations. […]
April 30, 1789. Our first President is sworn in and announces: “I exchanged more letters again with King George, a very fine monarch, one of the best in my opinion and I agreed with him that we were very unfair to the British in how we fought, like guerillas in a jungle. To be honest, we should have fought more […]
A BOOMER-TO-BOOMER DIALOGUE with JOE FORD After several columns talking with millennials I’m switching it up this month and talking with a fellow boomer Joe Ford. Joe is a recording engineer and music producer, and full disclosure I grew up with him in Sunset Park Brooklyn. This change is sparked by a comment in a previous column describing boomers as “too old […]
Patricia Wirth Sweeney, affectionately called “Patsy” and “Pat” passed away in Red Hook at the age of 93 on Oct. 15. She was born on June 27, 1931. “She always said she was born in Red Hook and that she was going to die in Red Hook,” said her son, Thomas Wirth. “She loved Red Hook and she took a […]
The ninth annual Red Hook Open Studios took place the first weekend of October with a kickoff Scrappy Reading event. Artists and makers throughout the neighborhood open their studios and give the public a chance to see (and buy) their work. The Scrappy Reading event took place on Van Brunt Street and featured Jax Preyer, Dean Haspiel, Lilly Dancyger, Niguel […]
Red Hook is long overdue for its close-up. And this month, it gets one. Running November 1-10, the 2nd Annual Red Hook Community Cinema film festival showcases 25 films made in, about, or that feature the neighborhood. The series opens Friday, November 1 with Isaac Dell’s Boys at Twenty at 7 pm, followed by a costume party at 9. Like […]
It smells like harbor, I thought as I walked out to the end of the pier to which the barge now known as the Waterfront Museum was docked. Unmistakable were they, even for someone like me maybe particularly for someone like me, who’s always lived far enough from the ocean to never get used to its sensory impressions, but always […]
Back in 2019, before COVID, there was this looming feeling of something impending. Not knowing exactly what it was, only that it was going to impact the economy for better or worse. Erring on the side of caution, I planned for the worst and hoped for the best. My mom had just lost her battle with a rare cancer (metastasized […]
The first Brooklyn Rotary Club was founded in 1905 and met in Brooklyn Heights. Their successor club, the Brooklyn Bridge Rotary Club, is once again meeting in the Heights in a historic building at 21 Clark Street that first opened in 1928 as the exclusive Leverich Hotel. Rotary is an international organization that brings together persons dedicated to giving back […]