Celebrating Community
Only Red Hook could birth a banjo throwing competition. During the 2011 Brooklyn Folk Festival, then held at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC), the founders considered how to use the waterfront to draw greater crowds. “At that point (the waterfront) was pretty decayed and terrible looking,” Lynette Wiley, a co-founder of the festival said. “Eli Smith and my husband […]
With summer wildfires in California, Montana, and Oregon, hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Jose wreaking havoc in the southern United States and the Caribbean, and the massive earthquake in Mexico City, Mother Earth seems angry. Whether you believe that Gaia is taking her revenge or hold more scientifically based beliefs, major shifts in climate and plate tectonics have been in full […]
The Brooklyn Americana Music Festival (AMF) will take place September 21-24. The first festival was in 2015. It has grown every year and this year will have 60 bands on seven different stages in Red Hook and DUMBO. Jan Bell, founder of the fest, produced her first live music event in DUMBO on a pickup truck stage outside the Between […]
Brooklyn welcomes The Heartland Passage Tour Commemorate the Erie Canal Bicentennial with songs, stories… …and a premiere of an Erie Canal Documentary Party Like it’s 1817 A bicentennial party is floating its way to Brooklyn’s Waterfront Museum, one of the ports of call of the Heartland Passage Tour as it travels west the entire length of the Erie Canal to […]
Leo Liebeskind, the front man of rock and roll band Lovechild, breathed on his fingers to heat them up. “We hope everyone’s warm enough,” he told the audience from center stage, shouldering his guitar with a star-spangled strap. “We sort of are.” The audience laughed, their coats and scarves still on. On Saturday’s cold and rainy night, Lovechild and two other […]
On Saturday mornings, in the small basement of the New Brown Memorial Baptist Church, Damon DueWhite and James McBride sit and wait for their jazz students to arrive. It doesn’t matter if the children come with no knowledge of music, natural talent, or even special needs. All of the kids in the projects are welcome, as long as they […]
It is not too often, for me at least, that I am unexpectedly blown away by a band I’ve never heard of. The Barr Brothers, who opened for the Felice Brothers at the free SummerStage Concert in Red Hook Park last Thursday, fall into that rare and cherished category. At first I thought that I had stumbled onto a band […]
For eight years, SummerStage has delivered high quality concerts to thousands of Red Hook residents for free. True to form, the 2015 lineup will include heavyweights like legendary rapper Scarface and homegrown Brooklyn talent like Troy Ave. For the first time however, the programming in Red Hook Park will also include dance, theater, film, and family fare. “Red Hook is […]
In a decision fraught in a bit of mystery, the Escape Music Festival, which was to bring two days of entertainment to the Columbia Waterfront District, at Pier 9a, abruptly pulled out of Red Hook and moved across the channel to Governors Island. This came as somewhat of a surprise to people who attended a recent Community Board 6 meeting […]
IKEA and The Red Hook Star-Revue presents Celebrating Red Hook, a first annual festival celebrating our unique community. It is a day to discover Red Hook’s artists and working people. A full day of exhibits, music and dance, not to mention a chance to eat Swedish meatballs! The festival takes place behind the IKEA outdoor parking lot, next to the ferry terminal. Among the […]