Part One: The Person I Most Admire. Back when The Great Trumpkin first descended the escalator, we were visiting Grandma Miriama at her house in the Slope, at first, she softly growled in gradually ascending volume and then she spat out, “I know his type well; I remember when they marched into Poland.” Miriam recalled “The Prime Minister announced we […]
Feature Story
Pio’s German Baedeker, by Darius Pio Muccilli, EU correspondent
All major European tourist destination are filled with German tourists. Not young ones, but mostly the elderly, in groups, walking the streets slowly, driven by their guide talking to them through headphones. This situation gets worse in the mountains, where every European camping spot and hiking route is invaded by German tourists of any age, fully equipped, moreso than any […]
On Love & Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt by Ann Heberlein, Reviewed by Kelsey Sobel
“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” ― Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind In today’s sharply divided political world, Hannah Arendt’s words, (in reference to the Holocaust) ring true. Arendt’s assertion that people are not inherently evil is an optimistic worldview – the real […]
A SOMEWHAT BIASED SERIES OF DIGRESSIONS UPON A 2023 VOTER’S GUIDE FOR BROWNSTONE BROOKLYN, by Howard Graubard
Searching for a topic for this month’s column, I realized I had forgotten what most New Yorkers never knew, which is that we had an election coming up. The menu Brownstone voters are being presented with consists of barely contested City Council and Supreme Court races, and an uncontested Countywide Civil Court race. Much of the area also has an […]
A story of Dumbo, Fort Greene, Williamsburg, Gowanus and Red Hook, by George Fiala
I was working at the Phoenix, a community newspaper headquartered in Boerum Hill that was known as the newspaper for Brownstone Brooklyn, when a funny term started floating around the office. This was in the late 1970’s, when formerly industrial neighborhoods in lower Manhattan began changing their names to SoHo, Noho, TriBeca, even LoLita. These terms were understood to be […]
The bar may be gone but the team is the 2023 champion! by Brian Abate
Bait & Tackle capped off an improbable run to win the championship of the Red Hook Locals Softball League on August 17. The league, which has been around since the 2000s, resumed play last year after a long hiatus while waiting for construction at the Red Hook ballfields to be completed. Fields 5-8 were closed in 2015 after toxins were […]
Unveiling the Power of Representation: The QVNYC Film Festival Opening Party, by Roderick Thomas
The QVNYC Film Festival’s Opening Party set the stage for a remarkable showcase of diverse stories to come, shedding light on the lives and struggles of marginalized communities. One film, Vice’s series Transnational, brought attention to the devastating murder of Kelly Stough, a Black trans woman in Detroit by pastor Albert Weathers. Through the eyes of journalist Eva Rayne, who […]
Despite Barbie’s Best Efforts, Blondeness Prevails , by Kelsey Sobel
By the time August rolled around and I hadn’t seen Barbie yet I was beginning to feel I was on an island far far away from womankind. Along with the rest of humanity living in the developed western world, the summer had turned pink. Like many, I had Barbies growing up and cherished looking at mom’s dolls who lived in their original […]
A local haven for beer mavens, by Katherine Rivard
I have never been one to hanker for a beer, but recently, late on a hot, summer afternoon, my boyfriend called me to meet him out for a pint. While Brooklyn has no dearth of spots to grab a drink, finding the right atmosphere, and particularly the right drink, can prove a bit more challenging. In search of something with […]
On Politics: Conventional Wisdom, by Howard Graubard
There has been a bit of hue and cry lately concerning the fact that the Brooklyn Dems have nominated a candidate for Supreme Court who, as a law student, once questioned Roe v. Wade, and later chose to write about it in a smug, self-satisfied manner. This was hiding in plain sight, on a link on the candidate’s own Wikipedia […]