Red Hook Star-Revue, November 2023

NYCHA fixes a Red Hook apt page 5 the red hook

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NOVEMBER 2023 INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

Barnacle 2023

The 11th Annual parade remembering Sandy, held every October 29, brings out our neighborhood artists and families. One day we'll get the inside story, but for now, the homemade outside story is just tremendous. photos by George Fiala

Celebrating Community

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POLITICS: Why I am writing-in Miriam Tyrk for City Council

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Founded June 2010

by George Fiala and Frank Galeano

by Howard Graubard

Part One: The Person I Most Admire.

B

ack 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 were ready to fight the Germans. Two days later they marched into town without firing a shot.”

Once time, just before my son was leaving for his summer of Reform Jewish recreation in the Berkshires, he asked “Bubbe, did you ever go to camp?” and she said, “no we had an attic.”

Later she told me ‘they called it an attic; the Franks had a attic; we had a little space.” Mostly she occupied herself by keeping her only companion, a younger cousin, from crying. Most of her family was killed (“my sister was 11, she never saw 12”).

As a bar mitzvah project, my son did visits with Holocaust survivors; a gentleman we visited in Sheepshead Bay proved more responsive in Polish and Yiddish than English and my wife decided to bring Miriam on the next visit.

“Where were you?” the gentleman, a former resident of Auschwitz asked. “I was in hiding,” said Miriam.

“Hiding?” said the man, “you had it good” “Good,” said Miriam, “at least in the camp you got to see people; you had a social life.”

After liberation, some Jews left Poland as soon as they could; like many other Jews, her cousin eventually left for Israel; others returned to their towns, where the Poles who had taken over

their property often greeted them with pogroms. Many more got the message and left. Miriam’s husband never got the message, even after 1968, when Jews were expelled from the party, and their government jobs.

“How can I leave?” said her husband,

But mostly she watched CNN. She stopped going to survivor events when she found them too full of Trump followers.

“They want to complain about blacks; I told them a black man didn’t kill my mother.”

Hershel “I have the keys to the cemetery; who will let the Bobov in when they come to mourn at the Rebbe’s grave?”

Communism left opportunities for those so inclined; Hershel, the town’s only capitalist, opened a shoe store (known as “The Jew Store”) but mostly, between bouts of prison, he ran the local black market.

Once, they interviewed Miriam on television to counter the notion that Poles were anti-Semites. They asked her if it was true that Poles had saved her life. She said “it Is true that Poles saved my life; it is also true that they informed upon my mother.”

One daughter visited New York in 79, and overstayed her visa, applying for political asylum. After her husband died, Miriam left in 83, with her other two daughters, and sought asylum while staying in a shelter for refugees in Vienna.

Their house was sold at a discount to an American priest, who promised to bring them back them their money later (and mostly did). They snuck out through Slovenia. The train was delayed and they had to sell their umbrella for some food money.

Six months later, they finally arrived in New York. Her son and a grandchild arrived years later.

After a bout with breast cancer, Miriam sat at home and leaned English watching soap operas and becoming a voracious reader. She eventually got a job in a Chasidic owned Williamsburg drug store, where most of her conversations took place in Yiddish.

She worked there until she was 89.

Her family is like something preserved only in amber, a fantasy version of what postwar Eastern European Jewish intelligentsia would be like, if only it had been allowed to exist. I call them “The Rootless Cosmopolitans.”

Almost exactly two months after 9/11, on her first date with a ne’er do well political operative, Miriam’s youngest daughter was told, “I have no money and I live over a funeral home.”

She thought he was joking and she laughed.

She responded “My life’s ambition is to sit home all day and read Proust.”

He thought she was joking, and he married her.

That he would be me.

Anyway, to Miriam’s distress, Trump won.

“Mr. Graubard, what are we going to do now?” (continued on page 13)

with thanks to my folks

Page 2 Red Hook Star-Revue

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November 2023

GEORGE'S OPINION

W

It's November, and I'm giving thanks!

hen I started this paper back in 2010, I would have been surprised to know that it would still be going strong today. What's kept this paper going has been the contributions of our talented crew of writers, our advertisers, the local merchants who allow us to distribute the paper at their locations, and finally and equally as important, the interest of you, the reader.

The advertiser is the unsung hero. In a different era, print advertising was a very important way for businesses to get their message out. NYC papers used to have pages and pages of ads from all sorts of merchants, including department storesand car dealers.

Not to mention classifieds. The Sunday Times almost required a wheelbarrow to bring home from the newstand, with ten or more large sections.

Even in those days community papers had some trouble competing with the daily papers, not to mention local shopping magazines. Not a small portion of the ads were taken by local businesses who felt that their community paper was not only a means to reach customers, but were performing a public service for the community, and worth supporting.

Today is a whole new world, the dailies have their own problems, and a huge portion of advertising dollars are spent online. People don't have to buy a paper or even watch TV, they just have to look on their phone for personalized messages from businesses.

While we do believe that advertising in our pages is a good business decision, as we are in fact a local paper with a local audience, we understand that businesses can easily reach their neighbors with paid and even free

promotions on the local Facebook and Instagram pages.

Yet we have a nice group of community minded local businesses who do help support us, and while we don't often say it, we really appreciate it!

And we would love for you to complete the circle and when appropriate, patronize our sponsors.

Movers, Not Shakers!

I've had some interesting conversations with Mark Ehrhardt, especially one after an meeting at the South Brooklyn HS discussing the possibility of leaving dredged Gowanus Canal soil in Red Hook. Another time he sat in on drums at my band gig at Bait and Tackle on his birthday, playing a spirited version of Gloria. If I remember correctly, he's played with Billy Joel as well. In any case, he has built a highly successful moving business, and has occupied page two of the Star-Revue for many years.

Wet Whistle Wines

When we started the paper, Botta Di Vino occupied 357 Van Brunt Street.

Owners Jeff and Triciann decided to sell and in 2017 Cory Hill and Megan Mardiney turned it into Wet Whistle.

Among other things, Megan is a graphic designer, and gave us a series of ads to run. The original ads didn't reproduce that well, but after a while, the newspaper printer that we use upgraded their presses and the complaints have ceased and the ads look better.

Cory has become a business friend and we never fail to have a good conversation when I drop off the papers.

Frank's

I don't know Frank that well, but well enough to know that he's an all

around good guy. He owns a bike shop on Delavan Street, a little off the beaten track, and has become a valuable addition to the neighborhood.

He is a seasonal advertiser, as business drops off in the winter.

came not from the water but from Con Ed turning on and off the power after the storm. Tony is a great community supporter, not only with us, but many organizations to whom he donates free pizza for their events.

Evergreen Liquor Store

I don't have to tell you to support Tony, you already know what great pizza they serve. And wings too!

I forget who first sold this ad (we have had different salespeople from time to time, but I do know that he has the same landlord that I did years ago when I was on Court Street, right where Court Street Grocers is today.

The landlord, David Greenbaum, is a great guy, and he actually once told me that he helped Greg O'Connell buy his first building. He always has good tenants and I'm glad that the nice people at Evergreen are his tenants. I'm also happy to have them as very long-term advertisers.

Keg and Lantern

Our history with Keg and Lantern goes back before they came into the neighborhood. We wrote a few articles about Beard Street residents worried about a brewery opening up on their block, as they already had a number of bars nearby. But Kieran, who already operated a successful Greenpoint bar, established a good relationship with the neighborhood, and have been one of our biggest advertisers in the years since they opened.

Marks Pizza

Tony always tells me that we will make each other famous. I first met him after Sandy when he showed me all the damage the hurricane caused.

I especially remember the red water in his basement - red from tomato sauce. He also explained how the biggest damage to his electrical devices

The Lobster Pound

We love having the Lobster Pound's beautiful ads every issue - for years now! Back when I started the paper, Susan Povich's restaurant was also quite new, occupying just half the space they have now, if I remember correctly sellng mostly live lobsters and lobster rolls. Over the years they have built out their beautiful maritime themed restaurant/bar. They also began selling out of their distinctive truck, which they brought to the festival we used to sponsor at IKEA every year.

PS - SUSAN SENDS THIS OUR WAY: Immerse Yourself in Unique Pop-Up Theater in Brooklyn “poolsides” by jose sebastian alberdi Premieres at Red Hook Lobster Pound Friday November 10 - Sunday November 12, 2023 @ 9:30pm

When Celine’s preplanned pregame plans go awry, she’s left alone at the Red Hook Lobster Pound with her only company being a bartender from her past and friendof-a-flaky-friend J. The drinks and conversation flow as the trio gets to know each other, but something seems weird about J… A play about those weird nights in your late 20s where you’d talk to anyone to feel less alone. poolsides was commissioned by the pebble collective as a part of their Red Hook Lobster Pound Commission.

PPS - I WILL GET TO STEVE'S KEYLIME PIE NEXT MONTH!

Cartoon Section with Marc and Sophie FUNNY SIDE UP

BY MARC JACKSON

GARY,THis JUST ISN’T

mj

WORKiNG.

©COPYRIGHT 2023 MARC JACKSON AND WEIRDO COMICS

Red Hook Star-Revue

#6 www.star-revue.com

November 2023, Page 3

SHORT SHORTS:

BY STAR-REVUE STAFF

Council Member Alexa Aviles' Upcoming Events

On Nov. 15 from 5-7 pm there will be a safety town hall at the Miccio Center hosted by the Red Hook Justice Center.

ble and more frequent storms,” said HPD Commissioner Adolfo Carrión Jr. “We are witnessing the direct impacts of climate change, especially in the city’s coastal floodplain, where many homeowners live. We are committed to equipping homeowners to face that reality. Through this process, we will bring on a new partner to deliver vital repairs and improvements to homes across the city.”

On Nov. 16 at 10 am the Redemption Church food pantry, 27 Huntington St. and Council Member Aviles are partnering for a Thanksgiving food giveaway. There will be turkeys and the event is first come, first serve.

HPD seeks help

The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is searching for a partner organization to help with the expansion of a program that helps low- and moderate-income homeowners pay for repairs and upgrades to their properties. The program is called HomeFix and was initially launched in November 2019.

Right now HomeFix offers loans of up to $60,000 per one-unit home, with an additional $30,000 per additional rental unit, with an anticipated maximum loan amount of $150,000 for a four-family home. The requested repairs must address building system(s) or housing deficiencies or conditions that may be hazardous to occupants/ residents. The expanded program, HomeFix 2.0, will be funded through a contract with the City for the first time, allowing for the program to cover sustainability and resiliency upgrades to reduce energy costs.

“Just weeks ago, torrential rains and flooding underscored the critical need to help homeowners protect and prepare their homes for inevita-

NYU Langone in Red Hook

NYU Langone educated the public about PrEP as an Accessible Option to Promote HIV prevention and sexual health at their Red Hook Family Health Center (168 Van Brunt St.) The event took place on Oct. 26 as part of PrEP Aware Week.

Still no movement on moving trucks through Halleck

The Red Hook Coastal Resiliency (RHCR) held a Zoom meeting on Nov. 1 updating the community on their progress and goals. One of the key points Eric Ilijevich of the NYC Department of Design and Construction made is the importance of optimizing the project’s design flood elevation (the elevation of the highest flood) and how the project will be using both past data and projections about sea level rise in the future for their designs.

Additionally, there was some concern about the fate of local trees that might be lost because of the flood wall foundation, pedestrian access, the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway (BWG,) and existing tree health. Part of the proposals for the project include planting over 200 new trees. Another point many leaders from the community including Jim Tampakis, Carolina Salguero, and Matias Kalwill made is that they would like the RHCR to explore the possibility of opening up Halleck St. and using it as a truck route. Right now, leaders from the project do not seem interested in that possibility.

PrEP stands for pre-exposure prophylaxis and is a medicine that is available for people who do not have HIV but are at risk of getting HIV. The theme for the week was “PrEP is for every body.”

The Family Health Centers (FHC) at NYU Langone, one of New York’s largest Federally Qualified Health Center networks, is bringing more primary and preventive outpatient care to Brooklyn area residents. The FHC’s mission is improving the health of communities by providing high-quality primary care to adult and pediatric patients, regardless of their ability to pay.

Red Hook Tenant Leader Frances Brown speaks at RHI event. (photo by George Fiala)

Borough President Allocates $108,000 to Support NYCHA Tenant Associations

Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso announced an allocation of a total of $108,000 in discretionary funding to be distributed to 69 NYCHA Tenant Associations across the borough for general programming support, including family days, backpack giveaways, and other programs for NYCHA residents. Developments were each awarded up to $3,000. The amount allocated to each development was based on each development’s population.

“NYCHA Tenant Association (TA) presidents make magic happen every day. Despite extremely limited resources, our TA presidents organize incredible programming that sup-

ports residents and builds community. I’m so proud to acknowledge their hard work and dedication to service with this funding to boost programming like family days or backpack giveaways,” said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. “Thank you to NYCHA, the TA presidents and members, and the NYCHA residents who show up every day for our neighbors and to make our communities brighter.”

New Art Gallery

Andrew Logan Projects presents: A Season In Ecstasy / Un effort de Groupe Opening 11/11/23; 6-9pm Show runs Through 1/2/24, 384 Van Brunt St. Gallery Hours 2pm - 8pm, Thursday - Sunday and by appoinment. Participating Artists include Lars Fisk, Tanda Francis, Zaq Landsberg, Sarah Baley, Max Heiges, Raphaele Shirley, David J Wilson, M. Dustin McBride, Diego Anaya, Qiaosen Yang

LETTERs Priorities

The 160 page MTA 2025 - 2044 Twenty Year Capital Needs Assessment Plan documents future capital needs. Funding for $7.7 Second Avenue Subway Phase 2 and $5.5 billion Brooklyn/Queens Light Rail Connector would be better spent on first reaching a state of good repair, safety, bringing most NYC subway stations into compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act and having more open clean safe bathrooms. Any independent survey of riders would tell you an overwhelming majority of 5 million plus pre-COVID 19 customers would prefer on time, safe, reliable services at a fair price before system expansion.—Larry Penner

Beware of Real Estate Developers

Follow the money and the promises.

Lander is a Fifth Avenue Committee stakeholder. Lander and DeBlasio are profiting from developers.—Jimmy@ gmail.com

Femi adds

Great story George. An eye opener.

Loved your un apologetic way of presenting the facts, allowing your readers to come to their own conclusion.

—Olufemi Falebita, Boerum Hill

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November 2023

Michael Eaddy gets his NYCHA apartment repaired in record time after reaching out to local TV station

by Brian Abate

T

here have been a lot of cases in Red Hook where the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has failed to make repairs in a timely matter. However, Michael Eaddy, a longtime resident at 453 Columbia St., shared a positive experience he had with NYCHA. Though Eaddy originally grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, he had family living on Lorraine St. which meant he spent a lot of time in Red Hook.

He then moved to the neighborhood while he was in eighth grade so he has lived in Red Hook for more than 50 years.

“My experience with getting repairs done has gotten better but it hasn’t been great,” Eaddy said. “When I first moved to this apartment about 30 years ago, we went through summer with no problems, then during the winter, I was waiting for some heat and nothing. I called it in and got a ticket, but nothing happened. The whole winter went by with no heat. It took a long time before that situation got resolved.”

Additionally, Eaddy had a prob-

“All in all, from what it was then to what it is now, it’s 1000 percent lem with pests, especially mice in his apartment. They got in through a small hole in the wall in his kitchen. He used some scrap material that workers were using for a construction project to block the hole and that kept new mice from getting into the apartment. With help from an exterminator, he heard about Advion (pest control) and was able to use that to eliminate the pests.

“We didn’t have any more issues with the mice until this most recent problem,” Eaddy said. “When they were doing the repairs, they left a small hole, and four mice got in the apartment.”

Eaddy had a big leak in his kitchen that was damaging the kitchen fuse box.

There was also damage in the bathroom which needed to be repaired. Michael Eaddy and his daughter Michelle Eaddy reached out to Monica Morales from PIX11 News and their story was featured on the news channel.

“I definitely think being on PIX11 put some pressure on NYCHA to get the repairs done, and afterward they came in and got to work,” Michelle Eaddy said.

“They tore the top part of the wall over the kitchen sink, so that was how the four mice got in,” Michael Eaddy said.

“We caught three of them but we’re still trying to catch the fourth one.

“The problem started with a leak on the fifth floor from a busted pipe, so we didn’t know about it right away. Every time the people on the fifth floor would run the water in their kitchen, it would come out of the pipe on the ceiling of the people on the fourth floor. It eventually deteriorated the ceiling and then it went down to the third floor and tore that apartment up. Then it reached us on the second floor.”

That’s when the leak reached the fuse box and caused it to spark. Eaddy

called the fire department and they shut off all the breakers and said to call the housing emergency services.

“A few days later they went in and fixed the leak and from then on they were in here every day from Monday through Saturday,” Eaddy said. “They didn’t do a perfect job but they were here working every day except Sunday. They knocked down the wall in the kitchen. They took all the old wiring out and put new wiring in. I’m not sure about the first floor but I know they were working on two, three, four, and five all at the same time. They would come in around 9 in the morning and the plasterers didn’t leave till about 7 at night.”

After two weeks on the job, all the parts of the house that were damaged from the leak were fixed up and working again. With the exception of a handprint which was left in the paint job on the wall, everything looked nice too.

“All in all, from what it was then to what it is now, it’s 1000 percent better,” Eaddy said.

Civic Association forges ahead

T

he Red Hook Civic Association, which restarted with new leadership earlier this year, made a notable impression in the NYC media world with a major story about its push for a new express bus taking Red Hookers to lower Manhattan. This is a long term with of the Civic Association, and almost came to pass in 2008 until the financial crisis took caused the MTA to cancel it before even starting.

StreetsBlog is an advocacy blog, and they featured an article by former Brooklyn Paper reporter Kevin Duggan about the new push.

StreetsBlog describes itself as having "an influential audience of public officials... passionate about improving

Red Hook Star-Revue

by George Fiala

the streets in their neighborhoods."

The article quotes Civic Association member Dave Lutz and links to a letter sent out to public officials that the Association sent last month.

Under the presidency of John McGettrick, the Red Hook Civic Association was instrumental in bringing attention to Red Hook from city agencies, as well as informing locals about things affecting the neighborhood.

One difference today is that there are more people handling Association business, and committees have been set up to attend to different matters.

A web site created by member Matias Kalwill lays out the schedule of all the meetings, including the monthly General Meeting, and the com-

mittees, which consist of Infrastructure and Development, Mobilization and Communication, Organization, and City Services. This offers full transparancy to Association doings, and makes it easy for people to become engaged.

In addition, there is a section devoted to position papers, which lays out current goals of the Association.

Right now these include the bus proposal, the Truckpocalyse, and emissions from the Cruise Terminal.

The next General Meeting will take place on Monday, November 27 at the Red Hook Rec Center, which is next to the pool on Bay Street. All are invited and in fact encouraged to attend.

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November 2023, Page 5

Breast Cancer Walk Against Recurrence

by Brian Abate

N

YC Parks and Recreation held a breast cancer survivor walk which began at the Red Hook Recreation Center on 155 Bay Street on Oct. 27. The event included speeches from survivors and community leaders. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Activist and leader Lillie Marshall spoke, saying she wanted to bring awareness about Red Hook residents who have gotten cancer which she believes is related to the dust and toxins that came to Red Hook after 9/11.

The event was held in the Park's facility to bring awareness and make sure that both men and women are checking themselves for any lumps or other symptoms of cancer. It is also crucial that people see their doctors regularly and make sure to routinely have tests including mammograms.

Another key point the speakers raised was the importance of making sure that Black and Hispanic residents are getting the proper resources and medical care to prevent and treat cancer.

Isiah Forde and Gilbert Gonzalez from the Rec Center both spoke about the importance of getting tested and

Red Hookers display the number of years they have survived breast cancer (photos by Abate)

Gonzalez spoke about his own experiences as a cancer survivor. Many survivors from Red Hook spoke about their own experiences as well. They included people of different ages with different backgrounds who were diagnosed at different stages. The goal for all of them was to spread awareness.

The day concluded with a walk around Ballfield 9 and a celebration of the survivors.

Lillie Marshall, who served as Tenant Association President of Red Hook West for many years, leads the cancer survivors in a walk through the refurbished Red Hook ballfields.

929-329-8367

Tune ups Overhauls Flat tire repair/change Accessories Bicycle sales and Frank’s Bike Shop T-Shirts

between Van Brunt and Richards

A Red Hook Treasure Page 6 Red Hook Star-Revue

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November 2023

School celebrates Hispanic Heritage

by Nathan Weiser

O

n October 18, PS 676 hosted a Hispanic Heritage art night for the students after school in the cafeteria.

Hispanic Heritage month is from September 15 to October 15 and this event was a culmination of it for the students. They learned about important hispanic figures the previous month and then on this night they got to wrap it up with art in the style of Hispanic artists.

Rivero, who was born in 1981, is from New York City. His paintings and drawings explore the many layers of identity from his experience as a Dominican-American growing up in Washington Heights.

His art includes references to his Afro-Caribbean identify, religious faith, music and family. His work includes recognizable figures, objects and places that come together to tell a story and invite mystery.

Carmen Herrera and Kenny Rivero were the two featured artists that Pioneer Works chose to have the kids learn about. They got to see their well known drawings on the table and do collages inspired by their art.

Herrera was born in Havana, Cuba in 1915 and recently passed away at the age of 106. She was trained as an architect and was always interested in the precise and technical process of making art.

The organizer from Pioneer Works thought the two artists complimented each other well. She thought those two made sense for Hispanic Heritage night.

She explored interactions of color with angular shapes. Many of her paintings and sculptures are large fields of color with simple compositions. She spoke about her process with the saying, “less is more.”

They brought construction paper, scissors, markers, brushes, glue, and pencils to help the kids imitate the drawings of the above artists. The kids were in the zone and got to concentrate on their art with the materials and art from the acclaimed artists as their guide.

There was pizza for the students after working on their collages.

Other artists whose bios and art were displayed in the cafeteria were Frida Kahlo, Justin Favela, Lee Quinones and Camila Rosa.

Rosa, who now lives in Brooklyn, is a Brazilian artist whose brightly colored illustrations promote personal strength and political consciousness.

In 2020, Instagram asked Rosa to create one of their Latinx Heritage Month stickers. She also designed a line of tshirts for Old Navy.

Quinones is a Puerto Rican artist who became famous in the 1970s and 1980s for creating massive New York City subway car graffiti that carried his moniker LEE. Quinones’s style is rooted in popular culture and often has political messages. He also painted huge handball court murals in the Lower East Side.

Favela is a mixed-media artist who is known for making large-scale installations and sculptures in the piñata style. His work references pop culture, art history, society, cultural commentary and his Guatemala-MexicanAmerican heritage that’s rooted in growing up in Las Vegas.

His art often celebrates his identity as a queer person of color raised in Las Vegas while challenging cultural appropriation.

Pioneer Works noticed that the kids respond well to visual art programs since they are able to easily express themselves. There is a limited amount of interference or instruction from adults, they just give the prompt and the kids did their collage.

Pioneer Works brought over supplies and also ordered supplies from Amazon. They were available to give advice and answer questions.

There was a student run portable library that the students could take a book from. Spanish music was playing during the event chosen by Pastor Pacheco.

In addition to PS 676, the educational outreach of Pioneer Works extends to PS 15 and the Good Shepherd Services program at the Miccio Center.

Harbor Middle School collects pennies to sponsor exciting student events

by Nathan Weiser

T

he PS 676 PTA is having their first Penny Drive to raise funds for exciting end of the year trips and events for the students.

Jars for the pennies will be in all the PS 676 classrooms. There is also a community jar next to the entrance of the school by the security guard.

The class that fills up their penny jar first will get a special prize at the end of the school year.

According to PTA co-president Joyce Bethea, possible prizes for the class that wins the contest will be a gift card, a class pizza party or a taco night.

They have put fliers for the penny drive around the neighborhood and have put the jars in various stores so that anybody who wants to can participate and then they will go around and collect all of the money.

The inspiration for this penny drive all started from a penny drive that happened in Red Hook in the months following Hurricane Sandy.

Bethea does a lot of volunteer work for the tenant association and she found out about the penny drive organized by the Tzu Chi Buddhist foundation. They are an international organization that helps during natural

Red Hook Star-Revue

disasters.

Tzu Chi collected pennies around the neighborhood during the time when the hurricane hit the neighborhood hard and they were able to get enough money to where they were able to give many people $500 gift cards.

“I thought that sounded great for us for our school for the whole year,” Bethea said. “We do not know how many it will add up to at the end of the year. It could be a lot. We will never know until we collect it.”

struction workers to donate since they are always in the neighborhood as well as at the school.

Carolyn Grant, who is the PTA copresident, added that they are focused on a trip for the elementary school children since there is usually something nice for the middle school students.

The main focus of this penny drive is to collect enough money so that the students can go on a memorable trip at the end of the school year.

The drive officially started on October 10 and will continue the rest of the school year. It does not have to just be pennies but that is what they are encouraging. The community is welcome to donate other change or bills as well.

One idea was having the students go to the Museum of Natural History. Tiffany Fowler, the PTA secretary, thought this is a plus since it is close and great for kids to see.

In addition to putting the fliers around the neighborhood, the donation jars were going to be in places like the Spanish restaurant on Lorraine St, at Food Bazaar, and corner stores like the one on Columbia and Huntington Street that’s close to the school.

“Especially since this is the Harbor School, we could find somewhere where they could go to a lake and that could be sponsored because that ties in with the harbor theme,” Bethea said. “It would be good to get out of the city into the country.”

“We are trying to do gift cards as well,” Bethea said. “We are trying to do something nice for the community.”

Carolyn Grant’s daughter is in the third grade. Her main focus outside of being involved with the PTA is organizing events.

They are thinking of asking the con-

Another idea was zip lining or a trip out of Brooklyn to be in nature.

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This can include baking, making party favors, organizing baby showers and birthday parties. “Show your face and help with any concerns that are needed,” Grant said. “You want the people in your child’s school to know who you are.”

Bethea has three children at the school. She has a daughter in seventh grade, another daughter in fifth grade and her son is in third grade.

This is her first year as the PTA president. Fowler also thinks that it’s important to be involved with her child’s school.

November 2023, Page 7

Matías Kalwill, Jasmine Szympruch and Crockett Macnie are the creators.

Play original video games at BWAC

R

by Brian Abate

aices, a Latinx and Hispanic heritage art exhibit has come to Red Hook! The exhibit had its grand opening on Oct. 28 and is open on weekends from 1-6 pm through Nov. 19. There is a possibility that the arcade may live on past November.

exhibit on the first floor but it was so popular that this year they decided to move the exhibit to the second floor where there is more space.

While the artists participating in the exhibit come from a variety of locations, many of them are from Red Hook, including Matias Kalwill.

The video game gallery is located at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC) at 481 Van Brunt St., Door 7A on the second floor.

Comic book

The event is curated by Tamavis, who said that BWAC had a similar

Kalwill’s FIERA comic book which is set in Red Hook and follows the adventures of two kids, a robot, and a wolf will be featured in the exhibit.

There will also be posters of the different characters in the FIERA comic book.

video game he is making. In addition to the arcade games, there will be board games.

The exhibit features a FIERA arcade game called Ride or Die which includes many of Red Hook’s landmarks. There are also be two oldschool arcade games: Asteroids and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Though Ride or Die may give off oldschool vibes, it is energy efficient.

Kalwill is interested in getting feedback from the community and incorporating that into another FIERA

I got a chance to play Ride or Die and assure you that it is fun as much asit is an homage to video game pioneers. Patch is a great character that appears throughout the video games and publications. The event is going to be a lot of fun and it also provides an opportunity to support local artists including Kalwill.

Purple People Eater inspires Jam'It Bistro interview

W

hile I was distributing the Star-Revue last month, a purple plant outside of Jam’It Bistro, 367 Columbia Street, caught my eye.

After going inside and dropping off papers, I chatted about the plant with Dawn Skeete, who opened up Jam’It in 2019.

I went back later and in addition to finding out about the purple haze, I spoke to Skeete about her experience as a restaurant owner in the neighborhood.

Skeete is Jamaican by birth but grew up in east Brooklyn before moving to Westbury, Long Island.

“Opening up a restaurant wasn’t something I always planned to do,” Skeete said. “I worked for TIAA CREF for 17 years and in my later years there I was a management consultant. The company then made the move to Charlotte, North Carolina and I didn’t want to make that move.

“My family has always been in the restaurant business here in New York.

We had a property on Nostrand Avenue and my husband ended up deciding to open up a restaurant there.

So when the company moved, rather than looking for another job in corporate America, I decided to get into the restaurant business.”

Jam’It Bistro opened in February of 2019, and while Skeete initially had a lot of support in Red Hook, the restaurant has survived some difficult times in its four years.

Page 8 Red Hook Star-Revue

by Brian Abate

“For the first three months there was a lot of support from the community but after that, the love affair began to die, and the support from the community wasn’t there like it was before,” Skeete said. “Then COVID came, and I’m honestly not sure how we made it through the pandemic.”

When Jam’It opened, Skeete relied on customers coming in for meals for about 80 percent of the restaurant’s earnings while the other 20 percent came from catering.

“We had to start looking at some of the factors that caused a decrease in business,” Skeete said. “One thing was some people complained about prices but the prices were comparable to other businesses in the neighborhood when we studied them, especially considering the amount of food we were providing. I think a big part of it is we have Caribbean food and there aren’t many Caribbean people in the neighborhood.

“When things were really difficult during the pandemic, Susan Povich from Lobster Pound came in and asked how she could help me keep my doors open. From that conversation along with talking to local leader Jacqui Painter, I was introduced to World Central Kitchen [a not-for-profit nongovernmental organization devoted to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters.] A contract with them has allowed me to provide service as a catering company. I had to re-think the business model and now the restaurant has made a pivot so we’re 80

“When things were really difficult during the pandemic, Susan Povich from Lobster Pound came in and asked how she could help." percent catering and 20 percent foot traffic.”

In addition to relying more on catering, Skeete is planning on making foods like tacos and sandwiches since some customers said they preferred smaller meals. The hope is that more customers will get those smaller meals for lunch.

It's called Purple Heart

Dawn Skeete and one of her purple plants. (photos

by Abate)

unwanted plants in the flower pot out front,” Skeete said. “I didn’t even know what the heck she was talking about so I just told her ‘Yes, go ahead.’ When I went out and looked, I thought to myself ‘Why would she dump her dying plants in my flower pot.’

“I forgot about it and then maybe a month or two later that unwanted purple plant bloomed and it produced these beautiful pink flowers. She came back and actually transplanted the plant into the rest of the pots. I’ve never seen anything like it before, but I’m hoping it’s a sign of good things to come. We’re still here and we’re just hoping that community will support us and help us stay open.”

Skeete also told me the backstory to the purple plant which initially caught my attention. Another customer looked up the plant and found out that it’s called a purple heart.

“I was in here one day and my neighbor next door came in and she asked me if it would be ok for her to put her

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Dawn Skeete inside Jam'It.

November 2023

8,000 years of making wine but new in Brooklyn

by Brian Abate

T

he Tipsy Grape Wine Bar is providing Carroll Gardens with great wines and great music.

ly import much wine into the U.S. After that we thought if people love the wine then we should sell it here.

“I’m not originally from the neighborhood but my partner Zura used to come here for the restaurants on Smith St.,” said Alex Golant, co-owner of Tipsy Grape. “There’s also Clover Club which is a famous cocktail place that we liked and used to go to a lot.

We’ve been coming here for over ten years and when it came time to open the wine bar, we looked here on Smith St. first.”

“One of the big things is we didn’t want this to be a place for only people with extensive knowledge of wines. This is a place where we want everyone to feel welcome and comfortable coming in.

We want to make sure everyone has a good time even if they aren’t coming in with a lot of knowledge about wines.”

Both Golant and Zura work together as attorneys and both enjoy going out to eat or going to Clover Club in their free time. At first, they were looking to open a restaurant but about five months ago they decided on a wine bar instead.

“Another factor was that Zura is actually from Georgia, [the country next to Russia]” said Golant. He brought back a really good bottle of wine from Georgia and gave it to a friend of ours. Some time went by and then this friend’s wife tried it, loved it, and asked where to buy it. We had to say ‘You can’t buy it here’ because Georgia does not real-

I sampled a glass of saperavi, which is a red wine and it was sweet and smooth.

“A lot of people haven’t heard of it before but once they try it, they love it,” Golant said. “Saperavi grapes are exclusive to the country of Georgia and Georgia has a very long history of winemaking. It actually goes back 8,000 years and the original winemaking was using saperavi grapes.

Also, our wines here are natural which means biodynamic, sustainable, and organic because that’s the tradition in Georgia. It’s been very rewarding having customers getting to know Georgian wines and responding so well to them.”

Golant recommended Chateau Buera,

which is also from Georgia and his personal favorite. In addition to wines, Tipsy Grape also has live jazz music every evening from 7 to 9:30.

“There are a lot of little details and no matter how much you prepare, there will always be some problems that come up,” Zura said.

“We get to experience it firsthand, we see them putting their heart into it, and then we get to share it with the neighborhood,” Zura said

Both Golant and Zura still work at their law firm (Golant Legal Group) where they are partners and begin their work day there, doing estate planning and estate administration. Afterward, they come to Tipsy Grape and check in on the musicians to make sure they are creating a nice atmosphere.

“It’s been great seeing people enjoy the atmosphere here,” Golant said. “The musicians have reached out to us and we’ve been able to develop a small following in the jazz community. A lot of it is through word of mouth. The most heartwarming thing is most of the musicians we have are people who live around the neighborhood. Usually, the musicians get most of their gigs in the city so they don’t have a chance for steady gigs here. A lot of times they can play in front of friends and family, so that’s been a great experience for us.”

While there have been a lot of positives, there have also been some challenges.

“We didn’t realize how busy we would be after opening up here until we experienced it for ourselves,” Golant said. “We’ve been learning as we go but we’ve been managing.”

“A lot of artists have been priced out of Manhattan and one of our hopes is to create a music venue and a good community here for artists, especially those who have been struggling,” Golant said.

Though Tipsy Grape has only been open for a few months, it is already becoming an important part of the community.

“Whether or not you’re a wine connoisseur, or if you’re interested in the live music, we want everyone to feel welcome here,” Golant said.

Tipsy Grape Wine Bar, 110 Smith Street, (347) 588-3955

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November 2023, Page 9

The Brooklyn Borough President offers his own housing and resiliency plan

by Katherine Rivard

O

n a rainy Saturday afternoon in October, about a dozen transportation enthusiasts assembled at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering in Downtown Brooklyn, their predominantly male bodies warming the room and filling it with the scent of body odor. Each room had a different scheduled presentation or discussion topic as part of 2023 Transportation Camp—a conference for those passionate about transportation—and the attendees in this particular room had chosen to learn about the new Comprehensive Plan for Brooklyn. The plan was released earlier in the month and now Bryt Byrd, Planner for the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office, stood poised to share the plan and receive feedback. For the next forty minutes, he walked the room through the plan, but by the end of the presentation, there were just a few questions, largely about methodology.

The scarcity of questions about the plan itself underlied a few important points, the first of which is that a forty minute presentation could only provide the broadest overview of the 201page Comprehensive Plan. Its 100+ maps, which visualize the plan’s data, alone would take hours to thoroughly dissect. Given that this is after all, a comprehensive plan, the length is forgivable, if not necessary. The plan was produced by the Office of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, in partnership with the Regional Plan Association, the New York Academy of Medicine, and Hester Street.

Beyond insights from these collaborators or their engagement, the plan pulls its frameworks, goals, and objectives from various other plans and resources, serving more as a synthesized understanding of city and agency goals—from housing to sustainability—than as a new or unique vision for Brooklyn.

The plan received little criticism from the group of transit enthusiasts, as it promoted all the things that urbanists love best—pedestrianization, improved transit, and using data to make informed decisions. Using data to un-

"Although the feedback and openness are strengths of the plan, timelines or clear processes for how the Borough President’s Office will proactively work towards the report’s objectives are lacking. " derstand existing conditions throughout the borough, the plan very effectively weaves together its multiple objectives. For example, southern Brooklyn has fewer subways, higher automobile usage, and, in turn, more frequent and deadly collisions with pedestrians. Providing transit options to underserved communities in southern Brooklyn would likely decrease traffic deaths, while also potentially improving health outcomes as people use more active forms of transportation, and improve air quality.

Housing, one of the most critical topics for the city, is also one of the plan’s main focus areas. The plan first looks at many aspects of housing, from crowding, to rent prices, to housing construction in each neighborhood.

It also connects housing to transportation and public health, repeatedly noting that safe, affordable, quality housing is a critical factor for public health. Of course, this insight isn’t especially novel, nor is the plan’s housing goal: to increase access to safe and healthy affordable housing across the borough. Nonetheless, sometimes important things do not need to be overly innovative. It is heartening to see the office list 12 recommendations to develop new affordable housing, in addition to recommendations for how to support transit-oriented development, and preserve and improve government-regulated housing.

Other goals included increasing access to quality, affordable health care and preventative services; reducing

exposure to hazardous environmental conditions, including those exacerbated by climate change, that affect the most vulnerable Brooklynites; increasing and supporting local community-based organizations that focus on reducing health disparities in the borough; increasing access to employment opportunities and support pathways to well-paying jobs; and integrating planning for accessibility.

Each of the plan’s seven goals is broken into multiple objectives, which each have recommendations for the Borough President’s Office to pursue.

South vs. North

Many of the specific trends highlighted in the plan focused around the needs of southern Brooklyn versus the high affluence of North Brooklyn, but there were a few findings related to Red Hook and Carroll Gardens that may be of particular interest to readers of this paper. For example, despite increasing or stagnant housing supply in most parts of Brooklyn, “neighborhoods such as Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and Brooklyn Heights saw the largest declines in their housing supply, in some cases losing as many as over 100 units per census tract.”

The plan also highlighted Red Hook’s dearth of primary care physicians, poor access to the subway, and increasing coastal flood risk. Among the recommendations for these problems were to ensure Brooklynites live within a half-mile of a quality health care facility using various tactics, strength-

_________

__________

N IN ITALIA ISH GL N E H IT W S_ IT__L__E__ UP__E__R__T__ S__ __

PRESENTS

Verdi’s

ening Brooklyn’s bicycle, pedestrian, and bus networks based on the NYC Streets Plan and Vision Zero goals, and to identify opportunities for nature-based solutions for stormwater capture in the public realm to mitigate flooding.

Perhaps the weakest portion of the plan is its section entitled “Next Steps,” which wraps up the entire report in four short paragraphs, noting that the Borough President will use this document to guide projects moving forward and that it is a living document that can and will be revised and improved based on feedback and new data. In fact, the office welcomes Brooklynites to share feedback by emailing testimony@brooklynbp.nyc. gov. Although the feedback and openness are strengths of the plan, timelines or clear processes for how the Borough President’s Office will proactively work towards the report’s objectives are lacking.

In his introduction to the plan, Borough President Reynoso puts the need for the plan plainly: “Instead of doing what most large cities across the world do by creating a long-term comprehensive plan to guide our growth and development, in New York City, we zone. That’s it. We don’t plan, we just zone.” Though the content may not be groundbreaking, and any Borough President’s initiative is hard to review without wondering how much of it is just angling before their eventual bid for mayor, the comprehensive plan can also be seen as a dare to the rest of the boroughs and the city. Who else will step up and take initiative, connecting the dots on the laundry list of changes the city needs? For now, the transit nerds and I are just thankful to live in Brooklyn, where the Borough President recognizes that housing, health, transportation, and sustainability are overlapping issues in desperate need of attention.

LINKS: The Plan: https://www.brooklynbp.nyc.gov/the-comprehensiveplan-for-brooklyn/

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Page 10 Red Hook Star-Revue

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November 2023

Taking a voyage through a large expanse of Red Hook art

by Roger Bell

T

he work of five American artists, mainly New Yorkers and five German artists, mainly Berliners is the subject of the exhibition titled International Waters which opened recently as part of the Red Hook Open Studios program in The Wall Gallery.

The Wall Gallery is an artist-run space which specializes in exchanges between Brooklyn New York and Berlin Germany. International Waters is the fifth exhibition since the gallery opened in spring of 2021. Each of the ten artists chosen for this trip have two works on display grouped in 10 pairs with an artist from the USA and from Germany hung closely together. Chad Abbley’s intense geometry lands next to Petra Flierl’s block print, struggling for a meaningful relationship; the two works settle on shared shapes of dense black forms. Bill Nogosek’s fluxus inspired drawing on a magazine page, manipulated through innumerable edits and re-edits finds Frank Lambertz’s surreal figures in a strange ritual, similarities overwhelmed by the uniqueness of each author’s focus. Next we find Richard Dennis’ new painting from his Snowman series which posits an intense painterly field, an icy witness facing a storm laden sky and facing Martin Colden’s small and powerful calligraphic, a portent of an abstract meaning as brittle as Dennis’s comic narrative. Anna Patalano’s vigorous black and white drawing is hung like an animal hide next to Gregor Wiest’s ink drawing, which

is also black and white. The two works aspire to almost parallel figurations but collide nevertheless as if pages torn from separate texts. Dennis’s second contribution is another episode of his snowman’s apocalypse and hangs next to the masterful serenity of a Hagen Klennert’s landscape. The shared subtleties seem to knit the sequence of horizons into an oblique cinematic narrative.

In the next couplet we find a drawing from Chris Costan’s Red Hook Intervention series which presents a deeply modeled monochrome sea atop a handwritten message, as though taken from a castaway bottle. Next to her is Petra Flierl’s sensational response through a hand colored print, a cluster of figures seemingly washed ashore after a long voyage. On the back wall Anna Pataloano’s second contribution, unprecedented in its effect, wildly launches a contrasting vortex upon the calm foreboding of Klennert’s second offering, a pensive landscape populated by wonderful and subtle marks. This pairing is the centerpiece of the exhibition and constitutes the most challenging. Motives expressed by color and scale collide and struggle to find a reluctant compromise or at least a willingness to stay aboard.

In the next berth, Nogosek takes another turn at mapping the uncharted sea of meaning next to Martin Colden’s second offering. This pairing provides the astrolabe for International Waters. These

Please credit Marc Schwaer

two deeply committed late career artists, whose marks cannot help but convey the conviction and discipline of a lifetime artistic voyage, are designated co-captains of this international experiment.

In the next chapter of our logbook we find the beautiful spoiled sister of Chad Abbley’s broken color grid next to Gregor Wiest’s depiction of a lost naked seaman, who curses the shore where he has landed. Between the two a myriad of choices represents the fragile trickery of this show’s curation. Pairs are not pairs, pipes are not pipes. As a conclusion to these stormy couplings Chris Costan drops another message from the deep with her pigmented pool, it is a message made more urgent by its

repetition. And confirming her urgency one finds Frank Lambertz’s small masterpiece populated with creatures from the depths of a splendid and tragically lost imagination. But it is dreams like these that attempt to describe the voyage to which we are all conscripted and the artists of this exhibition provide charts of those otherwise uncharted seas.

International Waters, October 7-November 11, 2023, The Wall Gallery, 41 Seabring Street, Red Hook thewallgallerybrooklyn. com International Waters is open by appointmentt. The gallery will have a closing reception on Friday November 11th at 41 Seabring Street. Open to all.

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November 2023, Page 11

Dispatch from the NY Film Festival: Of Documentaries and the Civic Need for Movie Theaters

A

t this year’s New York Film Festival, the marquee documentary event was the American premiere of 93-year-old Frederick Wiseman’s latest opus, Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros. La Maison Troisgro, a three-star Michelin restaurant in central France, is at the center of the film, which radiates outward to explore the supply chain of farms that provide much of the place’s food and the lives of the staff. Mouth watering, perhaps, but also, at four hours, eye watering. Anyone complaining about the three-and-half-hour runtime of Killers of the Flower Moon should be immediately dropped into a screening of Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros to be set straight. Not to say Wiseman’s film isn’t worth it; he’s the American master of observational non-fiction cinema and can do what he wants. It’s just that asking audiences to spend 240 intermission-free minutes in a theater watching a documentary about an exclusive French restaurant is a bit, how you say? Decadent.

And, anyway, there were more compelling doc options on offer at the festival: Orlando, My Political Biography (103 minutes), about the intersection of Virginia Woolf ’s Orlando and trans lives; Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (103 minutes), a portrait of the poet as she reaches 80; The Night Visitors (72 minutes), focused on moths; Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus (102 minutes), a final one-man performance from Japanese composer and pianist Sakamoto. (Director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) also had Occupied City, his 262-minute “mammoth confrontation” with Amsterdam during World War II, at the festival, which feels more deserving of that kind of epic length and scope.)

Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Pictures of Ghosts, though, was a standout. A 93-minute interrogation of the civic role of public spaces centered on the faded (and lost) movie palaces of Mendonça’s hometown of Recife, the film is less nostalgia and more elegiac provocation. And it arrives at the right moment, when theaters in all forms are threatened by shifting industry priorities, changing audience habits, and a general cultural indifference.

Broken into three sections that generally track the rise, slide, and current state of Recife through architecture, demographics, and moviegoing, Pictures of Ghosts is an urban biography and a deeply personal memoir. The center of the film,

Page 12 Red Hook Star-Revue

by Dante A. Ciampaglia

literally and metaphorically, are Recife’s great movie palaces: Veneza, Art Palácio, Trianon, Moderno, São Luiz. Mendonça clearly loves them all. In fact, he draws on copious amounts of camcorder footage he shot, particularly inside the Art Palácio while documenting its demise for two student films he made in the early 1990s. He also has deep affection for the people who work there, with a special place reserved for longtime projectionist Alexandre Moura. In the footage and narration, he’s treated like the lord of the manor — probably because he is — even as Mendonça never backs away from the reality that Mr. Alexandre is, in the end, an employee. When the projectionist says, on the eve of the final screening at the Art Palácio, “I’ll lock up the cinema with a key of tears,” he’s voicing the sentiment of someone whose choices, vocation, and fulfillment are, in the end, controlled by some other, nebulous entity: a boss, a population, capitalism. (He also speaks for all of us who weep when a beloved place closes forever.)

Mendonça’s fondness for these spaces is boundless. He luxuriates on auditoriums, projection booths, interior design, box offices, marquees, poster displays — usually in archival footage, since so much of it is gone — then on what has replaced them: shopping malls, blank and painted walls, churches, sometimes nothing at all.

Only one palace, São Luiz, is still operating as a theater. It is a public cinema managed by the state, and remains a community hub, not just for cinephiles but the city as a whole. “I don’t know of anywhere in Recife as unanimous,” Mendonça says in the film. “A cinema like this helps build character.”

The others, the ghosts of the title, exist in the rutted groove of memory. The structure, the body, might still be there, but the guts have been torn out, the heart extracted. And what does that mean for the place itself? Nothing good, Mendonça argues. We get glimpses of Recife in the decades between the 1930s and ‘70s, when it was a beacon for Hollywood business interests and stars alike.

The city was roaring, elegant, important.

Then the industry began pulling back, theaters started sputtering then closing, and Recife lost its luster and, eventually, its people. While it’s possible these theaters’ fates were sealed in the 1980s and ‘90s — by changing viewing habits and the forces of benign neglect that went to work on cities all over the Americas — it’s clearly not the sole doing of the

invisible hand of the markets. There was a very real hand — many of them — not-so-gently pushing residents toward the suburbs and audiences to shopping mall-bound multiplexes (a moviegoing experience Mendonça has little love for).

People are the lifeblood of a city. Disinvest in the urban needs of a population and direct that money elsewhere, the people will follow, leaving the city blanched and half dead, like being visited once too often by a vampire. The infrastructure frays, crumbles, teeters.

Storefronts and restaurants and cultural institutions shutter, waiting for their turn in the revolving door of real estate speculation and quick-buck absentee landlordism. The people who sustain a city are abstracted, commodified, disdained, which repels more than it attracts. It’s the urban doom loop we’re all so familiar with, and there are shots of post-palace Recife that look strikingly familiar. As do the moments of contemporary Recife, a cityscape dominated by all-night pharmacies beckoning with their neon signs and blindingly antiseptic interiors.

But there’s another ghost haunting the film: Mendonça’s past. The first part, running nearly 45 minutes, is focused solely on the house he grew up in, his mother and her purchase of the home, and how he used it as a set for films as a kid and as an adult, ultimately turning the place into a throbbing hub of creativity and cinema activity. There are mentions of moviegoing, but they’re always background details to a larger anecdote or specific memory. It’s all interesting insight into one of Brazil’s most important working filmmakers (his 2019 Bacurau won the Jury Prize at Cannes and was an international hit), but it at first feels tangential to what got us into the theater to watch this documentary in the first place. But at some point it clicks that his home is also a kind of movie palace and focal point of film culture.

Mendonça, his friends, his family, his neighbors — everyone’s participating in cinema, be it making it, discussing it, or watching it. And it’s always communal.

(Yes, he must have watched movies on his own, but that’s not really important.

We’ve all been to movie theaters where we’re the only ones in attendance. That doesn’t change the meaning of the place.)

The section closes with the house empty, as Mendonça and his family move out.

And seeing this once vibrant space as an empty, hollowed out collection of rooms,

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it’s impossible not to feel moved. What will become of it? Will the new owners treat it as lovingly and fully as the previous ones? What history will stick to the walls, the ceilings, the floors, the air? They’re the same questions — with the same sad assumptions — that we consider when a movie palace closes, or when we walk into a stuffed-to-theceiling discount retailer and see a leftover detail and realize that it used to be something else, something vibrant and alive and communal. And in that way Mendonça mines his memory to prepare us for the journey of the rest of the film.

Pictures of Ghosts isn’t an in-your-face, echo-chamber statement the way so many other politically-minded documentaries are today. Mendonça doesn’t hide his allegiances or point of view — spoiler alert: he’s pro-city and critical of the capitalist imperative that destroys them — but his film is confident in its beliefs, and therefore can be comparatively more subtle in its voice. And razor sharp in its incisiveness.

It’s impossible to leave this film not wanting to book the first flight to Recife to catch a film at the São Luiz. But it’s also impossible not to see your city with fresh eyes. We’re used to being harangued by politicians that office towers and billionaire-vanity-project districts like Hudson Yards are the thermometer by which we gauge a city’s health. If they fail, it all fails. Mendonça, though, poses a different argument. If the centers of culture — like movie palaces — disappear, then people disappear. And if people disappear, cities disappear. Those office towers and new-build commercial centers are transactional, anti-people, allergic to permanence. Theaters, sites of continuity and shared experience across generations, root themselves into people and communities and allow both to thrive.

Is this a lot to make of and put on a movie theater? Probably. But if you’re given the choice of walking into an office building or a movie palace — or, yes, sorry Kleber, a multiplex — which would you choose? For all this talk of Return to Office being the salvation our civics and culture requires, watching Pictures of Ghosts is confirmation that we should instead be talking about a different return — to theaters.

I had intended to use this space to also discuss Wim Wender’s brilliant new film Perfect Days, which also screened at NYFF, but I got a little carried away. It’ll be in these pages soon.

November 2023

Italian Prime Minister unwittingly expresses her feelings on the Ukraine

T

elephone pranks are usually seen as an entertainment for kids – but international politics has actually discovered that it could also be a very serious issue, moreover if the victim is Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, a front-runner of Ukrainian support. On November 1st, a Russian comic duo, Vovan and Lexus, released online the audio of a prank where Meloni was deceived by one of the two comedians who pretended to be the African Union President.

The alleged President soon made Meloni talk about the Ukrainian crisis, after pretending to be focused on migration issues in Northern Africa.

Asked about the feeling towards the Ukrainian crisis among international leaders, she said that “I see that there is a lot of fatigue, I have to say the truth, from all the sides, we are near the moment in which everybody understands that we need a way out.”

Those statements, even if not public, would have been capable of sparking a serious outrage among the international community, but

by Dario Pio Muccilli, EU correspondent

"There’s no doubt that Tel-Aviv will do whatever it takes to foster the attention on its needs." the latter didn't blame Meloni for her words, as it has happened before that other leaders such as former German Chancellor Angela Merke or former British PM Boris Johnson were caught in the same trap. Moreover, the international community has no interest at all in dividing itself on a supposed joke which is just the product of Russian propaganda attempting to undermine the western public support for Kyiv’s cause.

Nevertheless, the “fatigue” expressed

by Meloni is somewhat a real danger

HOWARD

Part Two: A Person I Admire With Somewhat Less (continued from page 2) Enthusiasm “C’mon, Miriam, you’ve lived through worse.”

“Mr. Graubard, if you think reminding me of the Holocaust is going to cheer me up, you are probably not going to succeed.”

Miriam spent four year knitting pussy hats and attending Black Lives Matter demonstrations, speaking at Synagogues and religious schools, when she got the chance, and once playing herself in a production at Yeshiva Flatbush. But mostly she watched CNN. She stopped going to survivor events when she found them too full of Trump followers. “They want to complain about blacks; I told them a black man didn’t kill my mother.”

Every morning she called to ask me the same question; “is he gone yet?”

We worried that when he was gone, she would have nothing to live for. But now, at 97, she still spends her days worrying that Trump will come back, alternating that with complaints that Bibi is running Israel.

The last few weeks have been difficult times for Miriam and her family. To them, the idea of a place which would take in Jews, when no one else would admit them and they had no place else to go, is not merely theoretical, because there is no way they can go back to the place my wife sneeringly refers to as “Sunny Poland.”

Red Hook Star-Revue

At a Democratic Club meeting in the 52nd AD, my soon to be former Councimember, Lincoln Restler, noted that he was losing a large chunk of the area to redistricting. He smiled and joked “I regret that I am losing Howard.”

“Not as much as I regret it,” I responded.

He may not have meant it; I did.

The Anti-Defamation League’s last annual report showed a 52% increase in antisemitic incidents across the city in 2022, with 395 reported incidents of antisemitic vandalism, harassment or assault in New York City, including 66 reports of physical violence, 52 of them in heavily Orthodox-populated Brooklyn neighborhoods.

On April 27, 2023, Councilwoman Shahana Hanif voted against a resolution introduced in response to this report, to recognize April 29 annually as “End Jew Hatred Day.” As I noted last month, there was an arguable reason (a line hailing an astroturf group of bad actors) to abstain on such a resolution, if one explained it, but when there is a resolution condemning acts of violence against a religious group, it is probably the better part of valor to raise your quibbles and then say, “but this is too important to do anything but vote Yes.” But the Councilmember didn’t abstain, she voted no.

On October 7, 2023, the terrorist organization Hamas, which governs

for Zelensky, who has made countless appeals to his allies in order not to lose their active support. Zelensky feels that an enduring crisis could have the potential to tire the USA and the European Union of Ukraine. That is why he’s also trying to capitalize on the current moment, as he stated that the Ukrainian goal is to obtain a political decision on Ukraine’s EU membership by the end of 2023.

If the goal seems unreachable, it’s clear that Ukraine is in a hurry, as the “fatigue” of the international community could be the actual end for Kyiv’s project to win the war without any major concession to Russia. That’s because it is clear that if all the weapons suppliers and political stakeholders supporting Ukraine want it to negotiate, it would be impossible for Zelensky, or whoever would come, not to. The current crisis in the Middle East will also weaken the attention drawn to Ukraine, as Israel is historically a closer ally and more strategic country for US interests. And there’s no doubt that TelAviv will do whatever it takes to foster

the Gaza strip by force, unleashed a violent attack on Israel, targeting civilians, in which 1400 hundred were brutally murdered, tortured and/or raped while over 200 were kidnapped and held as hostages.

According tom the Atlantic, one set of terrorists surrounded a Thai man they had shot in the stomach and discussed their next move. One shouted “Give me a knife!,” but sadly the cupboard was bare, so, being resourceful, he instead located a garden hoe, swinging it repeatedly at the man’s throat.

Another called his parents, telling them he was calling from a Jewish woman’s phone. He told them he was a “hero” and “I killed 10 Jews with my own hands.” He also told them they should open up WhatsApp, because he had sent them candid photos with the proof.

As Charles Sykes noted, the cruelty is not an anomaly; the cruelty is the point.

October 13, 2023, Councilwoman Hanif tweeted (https://ShahanaFromBK/ status/1712911136067076510) “The root cause of this war is the illegal, immoral, and unjust occupation of the Palestinian people. The Occupation has brought violence toward Israelis and Palestinians for over 75 years.

There will be no peace unless the rights of all people in this region are respected” Translation from Newspeak: Since the occupation actually began 56 years ago, in 1967, this is a clearly a declaration that the occupation is defined by the Councilmember to include the en-

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the attention on its needs, reducing resources available for Kyiv, whose diplomacy is also less experienced than the Jewish state’s.

Since the Ukrainian crisis broke out, multiple other heated scenarios appeared or kept burning. Therefore, Meloni’s words don’t help thinking that Kyiv’s issue will still be a top priority in the agenda, as anyone is starting to lose trust. Of course, Italian institutions, and the other countries’ mentioned before as well, did not show their best side.

The silence on that call by other leaders is good for unity, but not for reassuring public opinion which shares that “fatigue” in many countries and has the need of new wood to fuel its pro-Ukrainian will. Zelenskiy knows this now more than ever and it’s not hard to think that Meloni’s call, which had a wide international coverage, would eventually play a harmful role on Kyiv’s stance, exactly as planned by the comic duo, probably on behalf of the Russian State and its head in the Kremlin.

tirety of the State of Israel, and to signal to those who know the secret code that the Councilmember questions the legitimacy of the world’s only state which serves as a refuge for the Jewish people and that she wants that state abolished. Her last sentence here is a might ambiguous; she may mean she finds the actions justified, or it may be that she just finds them inevitable (hitting a gravely injured man repeatedly in the throat with a garden hoe is possibly neither, but there I go editorializing again).

The truth is. that if the Councilmember wanted to resolve the ambiguity, she would have done so.

It is notable that, nowhere in her statement, or in any statement since, has the Councilmember mentioned, let alone condemned Hamas. Instead, she gives us a shrug of her shoulders, and perhaps a sly wink.

On October 17, 2023 Councilwoman Hanif retweeted a post (https://twitter.com/nycDSA/status/1714386903791730810), in support of a rally sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America, which stated “No more helping Israel destroy hospitals.” This is either a blood libel, since many experts believe it to be disproven, or (if one believes the NY Times) a jump to conclusions not yet based in any evidence. At any rate, it wasn’t a hospital, but a hospital parking lot, and many experts believe the responsibility belongs to a terrorist group called Islamic Jihad. It must also be noted that, on the same date, as a result of the circulation of the

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Quinn on Books

This One Will Put You to Sleep Review of I Must Be Dreaming, by Roz Chast Review by Michael Quinn

H

earing someone tell you about a dream they had can make your eyes glaze over. It could be because dreams follow their own logic, unique to each of us. Dreams can feel specific, urgent and compelling after we’ve experienced them, but vague, meandering and uninteresting in the retelling.

Cartoonist Roz Chast understands this completely—but she still wants to tell you about her dreams anyway. Her latest book, “I Must Be Dreaming,” mines her lifelong interest. She writes, “I’m fascinated and thrilled by that moment when one’s thoughts stop being everyday thoughts and…fly away.”

The beloved New Yorker magazine cartoonist and New York Times-bestselling author has made a name for herself with her crabby, neurotic and anxietyridden observations about what’s weird, wonderful and ridiculous about urban life. In “I Must Be Dreaming,” she tackles the surreal inner world we all uniquely experience with her signature kooky humor.

What are dreams? Chast wonders. A way for our unconscious to convey important messages to our waking selves? A chance to tap into the collective unconscious, the hive mind? Or something disturbing we try to rationalize as nonsense? (Think of how, in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” Ebeneezer Scrooge, visited by the ghost of his old business partner, Jacob Marley, tried to dismiss him as a bad dream: “You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”) Are dreams messages from the beyond, predictors of the future, or just a way for us to creatively solve problems?

Chast doesn’t have the answer—she doesn’t think anyone does. Here’s what she does know: None of us has ever had a dream in which we didn’t appear or weren’t central to what was happening. (Even as an observer in dreamland, we’re less narrator, more main character.)

Chast has a near-lifelong habit of keeping a legal pad and pen beside her bed to jot down her dreams. Sometimes, she gets “a very specific, yet very idiotic, cartoon idea” (which The New Yorker has sometimes rejected). Yet Chast continues to scribble.

In “I Must Be Dreaming,” she shares dreams and fragments of dreams. She recounts recurring ones (being alone at a party, discovering a secret New York City neighborhood, losing her purse), lucid dreams (controlling how big or small she can make her body), celebrity dreams (in which Elizabeth Taylor and Danny DeVito make surprising cameos). Even nightmares (especially fears of disease, dentists and fire) are a source of fascination.

Chast illustrates all this in her signature scratchy style, depicting herself in glasses and a bob haircut, frumpily dressed. Throughout the full-colored illustrations, longtime fans will recognize familiar Chast motifs: wallpapered rooms, rotary telephones, printed aprons, and hats with flowers sprouting out of them.

Chast grounds the flightiness in “I Must Be Dreaming” with the wisdom of philosophers and poets. “A Brief Tour Through Dream-Theory Land” enlists the insights of psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, the mystic teachings of the Kabbalah (which Chast says indicates that dreams refresh the soul), and science. She tacks this section on to the end, but I would’ve put it at the beginning because it gives people more points of entry into the subject beyond the rectangular shape of Chast’s pillow. (If you get this book, trust me: Read this part first.)

Do dreams serve a purpose? Who cares? Chast seems to say. Dreams are free, everyone can have them, and if not always entertaining, they are always surprising. That said, you just might want to keep yours to yourself.

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November 2023

Jazz by Grella Bucking the Tide

I

n art music (meaning music not designed for mass commercial success), there used to be a general consensus about forms and styles. That’s obvious when you look at classical music, but also things like folk music (in the English speaking world) and the blues; things were generally done within certain guidelines and outliers were less revolutionaries than eccentrics and avantgardists, working to extend tradition, not refute it.

This all started to change for classical music around the turn of the 20th century—there was Luigi Russolo and his noise music—then much more so after World War I and drastically after World War II. Since 1945, there hasn’t been one tradition in classical music, but multiple ones, some of which (John Cage, electronic music) are barely within that tradition, if at all.

A curious thing to me is that the same cannot be said of jazz. The music came about later and there’s certainly a sociological argument to be made that it itself is one of the fallouts from World War I, both psychologically and materially via James Reese Europe’s Harlem Hellfighters band’s presence in Europe for the war. From 1918 on, jazz has added new styles that build on the previous ones at the pace of modern life, an evolution rather than a branching away or a disassembly and rebuild. Even the free music revolution of the 1960s and the rock and funk of Miles Davis and others in the 1970s didn’t question jazz in any fundamental way, they just extended it further.

This isn’t a bad thing, and comparing this history to classical music is a useful way to see that advantages and drawbacks of these differing paths. Classical music, stylistically, has been fragmented for the past 80 years, which has meant some truly ex-

HOWARD

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unproven rumor, which the councilmember knowingly chose to recirculate, an historic Tunisian synagogue was destroyed.

On October 16, 2023, Councilwoman Hanif posted that the murder of a six year old boy in the Chicago suburbs had been “facilitated by rampant Islamophobic rhetoric stoked at the very highest levels of our government” and that “His blood is on our government’s hands”, thereby extending a blame to the Biden administration she has yet to extend to Hamas.

By her own twisted logic, this would make her personally responsible for

Red Hook Star-Revue

by George Grella

traordinary breakthroughs that questions the very nature of music, sound, and time—that’s the legacy of John Cage, Morton Feldman, Arvo Pärt, Alvin Lucier, electronic music, etc. It’s also meant a kind of dissipation of intellectual and aesthetic resources that has produced an accumulation of great music but few transformational works, ones that redefined the possibilities of compositional thinking and instrumental playing. The last was György Ligeti’s Etudes, which are almost 30 years old.

Jazz has had a pretty uniform aesthetic since it began, marked by progressive ideas that at first encounter have seemed outside of the music, but that in retrospect are easy to see as the natural development of the music’s possibilities. Cecil Taylor is a great example, a musician who seemed to be at odds with jazz at first but, through exposure and close listening, clearly connects in a straight line to Duke Ellington, just as one of his great musical partners, alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons, was a logical and even inevitable development from Charlie Parker. Being able to hear those origins in Taylor and Lyons is one of the great pleasures in being a jazz listener.

tends to drive an idea to stagnation, even death, innovations at first vibrant then turning baroque, then rococo, finally decadent. This happened with the formulas of swing and hard bop, and is always a danger with free improvisation, which can turn into a series of hollow gestures. And my accumulated listening to the 21st century has been raising warning signs about some trends that need some rethinking: Before IDM there was EDM, and the daring, complex rhythms from Autechre and Squarepusher were good.

So good that jazz drummers like Tyhshawn Sorey began to replicate them live, extending virtuosity and expanding the rhythmic possibilities of jazz— already a rhythmically sophisticated music. This moved from a flow to broken rhythmic patterns, compound meters that have become something of a way to prove bona fides, played not because they make any sense but because they identify the player as a certain kind of musician. This is mannerism, and has become complicated in an unmusical way, discontinuous to the point where it comes in irritating fragments.

György Ligeti

the piano to play “In a Mist,” jazz has adapted many great structural and formal ideas from classical composers. But, with a very few exceptions, this has meant borrowing from the same small group of composers for the last 100 years: Debussy, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, some Bartók. But what about the music, as seen above, since WWII; revolutionary ideas in spectral harmony, the timbral possibilities of electronic music; minimalism, microtonality? One of the exhilarating things about the Ligeti Etudes is how they incorporate Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell (and African and Asian music) into the classical tradition and not only renews the tradition but establish new ways to play the piano.

There were arguments between the mainstream and the avant-garde in the ‘60s, and the mainstream and rock and funk in the ‘70s. Those weren’t won so much as they disappeared in the face of the clear evidence that jazz could mix with, work with, and incorporate music that was happening around it while keeping the line of history going. And again, that dialogue with history that takes place inside the music is profound and unique, a simultaneous popular and art music that celebrates its own life in a beautiful and invigorating way every time it’s played.

There are vocal records, and singers, many good ones, and then there’s albums from instrumentalists that drop in a singer for a track or two. This is invariably a mistake. The vocalist changes the sound of the group so much that these tracks never fit with the rest of the album and don’t show a clear musical purpose. There’s also the problem with the songs themselves, which are never on the same level as the rest of the album, often made in a way that accommodates the singer rather than having them fit into the group, and that lyrically are sophomoric. That’s a high school sophomore.

This has meant, though, that jazz

Since Bix Beiderbecke sat down at

the destruction of the Tunisian synagogue

Hanif, in a somewhat justified slap at the Mayor’s failure to extend messages of consolation to his Moslem constituents, said “In every corner of this country, Muslim communities are asking for solidarity as we grieve. But at every opportunity, we are met with condescension from the people who claim to represent us. Muslim communities need support right now, not a stern talking to.”

Park.

So true, and I believe in every corner of the 39th Council District, there are many Jews who have the same problem with the Councilwoman who claims to represent us.

So, I’m writing-in the persona I most admire, my 97 year old Holocaust survivor mother-in-law, Miriam Tyrk.

Maybe we need to do something so she would find us worthy of an extension of her sympathy.

Call it a vote for the Shoah E’Nuff Party.

As reported in the Times, On August 3, 2022, a homeless man in Prospect Park attacked a woman and her dog with a wooden staff and a bottle of urine, killing the dog. With no arrest having been made, both the woman and another area resident, who was concerned about safety in the Park, separately went to Councilwoman Hanif’s office for help and “came away feeling her staff members were more concerned with the safety of the man — whom they presumed to be homeless and mentally ill — than with the threat he might pose to others.” The other resident was told “‘We don’t want the police involved in this.’”

On October 20, 2023, Councilwoman

It’s worth reflecting on that this year, which is Ligeti’s centennial. He was a music student, and when he escaped communist Hungary he taught in the West, but there’s nothing academic about his thinking, it’s all driven by his personal curiosity and the simple pleasure of making the sounds he imagined in his head. Academia took over jazz training in the last century, and pretty much every jazz musician born since 1970 has been through the conservatories. They come out as hellacious instrumentalists, but often disregard the original lesson of jazz education: learn everything, then for-

But I like dogs.

Nonetheless, something else might get her attention.

Having talked to the anti-vax conspiracy monger running as the Republican, I can’t give him my vote. And anyway such votes would be rightly dismissed as an embrace of reactionary lunacy.

You should do so too. The message of that vote will be unmistakable.

Maybe we could kill a dog in Prospect

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Marie's Craft Corner

Turn brown paper bags into Thanksgiving table accessories!

by Marie Hueston and Sage Hueston

Sometimes the simplest materials can lead to some of your favorite creations.

For this month’s column, we took brown paper grocery bags and cut them into strips. To those simple ingredients we added a little spice in the way of colored craft paper, then we played around with placement until we landed on designs we liked. Follow these steps to make your own table accessories!

What you’ll need. In addition to brown paper bags, you’ll need a pair of scissors and a glue stick. That’s it!

Optional to also use construction or craft paper to add color and dimension to your pieces.

Start cutting! Using your scissors, cut paper into strips. Try to make each strip for a particular project the same width, but they don’t need to be exact.

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For our placemat we used strips measuring approximately twelve inches long for the vertical lines and fourteen inches long for the horizontal lines. Our coaster measures about five inches square.

Weave your strips. Lay out all your horizontal strips and anchor them along one edge with a vertical strip.

Weave that single strip over and under the edges of the horizontal strips and glue it in place with the glue stick.

Working one at a time, add more vertical strips by alternating over and under the horizontal to create a basket weave effect. Secure each strip along the way with glue. Trim all sides when you are done to make the edges even.

to your design, try using a color that matches other accessories on your table such as a centerpiece or fresh flower arrangement. We chose a yellow border for our placemat to match our Thanksgiving dishes.

Get creative! We made a placemat and coaster. Depending on how much paper and patience you have, you might try something bigger like a table runner. Or you can make something smaller such as a narrow weaving that can act as a napkin ring. We hope you have as much fun making these crafts as we did.

Share your designs with us! Send photos of your creations to our editor at gbrook8344@gmail.com

December Preview: Start saving toilet paper rolls for a holiday craft.

Play with color. If you choose to add colored or patterned craft paper

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November 2023