As President Macron surprisingly called a snap legislative election in the aftermath of his loss to the far right in the June 9th EU elections, France is today close to having its first far-right Prime Minister: Jordan Bardella, the rising star of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN). By the time of this writing, France has already held the first voting round, which […]
Feature Story
People of Red Hook, by Lisa Gitlin
I didn’t want to ruin a beautiful day at the harbor for people hanging out at Food Bazaar’s outdoor lounge, but it was the day after the Biden – Trump debate and I felt compelled to ask: What are your thoughts about the upcoming election? Karen Curley – I was saddened (during the debate) by Biden’s inability to express himself […]
Leaving The Classroom in the Rearview , by Kelsey Sobel
After a decade in the classroom, I’ve accepted my first non teaching job since starting my graduate degree in 2014. Even though the position is for an educational nonprofit, and I’ll be working in a school twice a week, it’s the first fall in many years I won’t be returning to a classroom. There will be no dusting off the […]
Looking for The Remote: Roaming Mass Media, by Joe Enright
For the first in an ongoing series, let’s start at the beginning…Before color screens, before video cassettes, before DVDs, before cable, before Wi-Fi, before Smart TVs – and the thousands of viewing options very few older Brooklynites know how to locate – television programming was sparse. Especially in 1948, when WNET (today’s Channel 13) made its debut with only one […]
Red Hook Softball: No change at the top of the standings, by Brian Abate
June 6, B61 jumped out to a 7-0 lead on MiniBar and cruised to a 17-6 victory. Across the street on Dovey Diamond, Bait & Tackle took an early 4-2 lead but the Record Shop scored seven in a row and won the game 13-5. The Soft Ballers jumped out to a 4-1 lead after 1, before the visiting RecKids’ […]
Audubon Society supports Red Hook Conservancy with a beautiful Bay Street mural, by Brian Abate
It seems like this is the summer of murals in Red Hook. The newest will border some of our new ballfields. It will feature eight at-risk birds that are native to New York. It was made possible thanks to the work of Marlene Pantin, the founder and executive of Red Hook Conservancy who is also involved with the National Audubon […]
Visiting a green space under the subway, by Brian Abate
I attended a tour of the new Lowlands Nursery, located by the Smith and 9th Street subway given last month by the Garden Train, a District 15 volunteer organization that was founded in 2017 and is made up of public school parents, school staff, and community partners They believe that all students deserve a school garden and advocate for school […]
History: It happened in Red Hook, by Brian Abate
While many Brooklynites associate Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest or fireworks with the Fourth of July, the holiday is also an opportunity to celebrate Fort Defiance. The solid land we know as Red Hook was once pretty much a swamp. In the 1630s Dutch settled in the area and began to turn the marshes into farmland. When the Revolutionary War […]
BASIS seniors present projects, by Brian Abate
Red Hook’s BASIS Independent Brooklyn seniors gave presentations on their projects last month in the school auditorium. A wide variety of subjects were chosen by the students. Students worked independently as they finished normal classes in mid-March. The requirement was to work at least 15 hours per week on their projects in the lead-up to their final presentations. In addition […]
Canonizing the Ordinary and Fantastical of “Chronicles of a Wandering Saint”, by Dante A. Ciampaglia
There is nothing the least bit remarkable about Rita, the protagonist of Chronicles of a Wandering Saint. She lives in a desperately rural Argentinian town. Her job, as a cleaning lady in the desperately old church, is, like, her marriage, desperately mundane. As if to prove that cameras do capture souls, her Facebook profile photos are either underlit smears or […]