Take a Seat
Caroline Woolard wasn’t trying to make a statement when she affixed functional blue seats to various street signs in Brooklyn, but art wasn’t the only response gathered from it.
At 22 years-old Woolard, a Cooper Union student, has gotten more press than most people her age for an art installation she did in the streets of Williamsburg and the East Village for the Conflux Art Fair in mid-September.
“I was torn between making them my project or making them more general,” Woolard said. “I wonder if people even realize that this is about claiming public space.”
Blocks by Block
Neighborhood Street Names Deciphered
Ever have a conversation that is moving along smoothly until it comes to a point where you stumble to pronounce a name? This mishap occurs quite frequently given the numerous oddly-named streets in Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Bushwick. Instead of using a sneeze to muffle a mispronunciation, take Part I of this crash course in North Brooklyn street names to expand your vocabulary and brush up on the neighborhood’s history...
The Architectural Character of Williamsburg
The architectural character of Williamsburg has changed and with it, the essential character of the place that has drawn so many to it since artists began “discovering” it in the 1980’s...
But beyond the socioeconomic reasons for this change, it is important to examine the dynamic that has set Williamsburg’s “evolution” apart from the previous gentrification shifts experienced in Tribeca and Soho...The alteration of the Williamsburg skyline is startling because the lack of an appreciable architecture that seeks to connect with the area has damaged the very character that draws people to it...
Southside Flavor
There is a problem abound in Williamsburg. Many people have made this section of Brooklyn their home yet continue to remain oblivious to all the culinary delights that are to be had around the neighborhood. Of course we all know of the many sushi and Thai spots that dot the Northside, as well as the places one can get a plate of buttermilk onion rings before diving into a big bowl of tempeh stew.
The most consistently overlooked places are the ones that have been here long before brunch at Sea and an afternoon of shopping at Beacon’s Closet became de rigueur, the dozens of Spanish restaurants that dot the neighborhood, especially on the Southside. At the places reviewed below no hard feeling will come your way, just a belly full of good food with plenty of money to spare in the wallet for those Northside brunch/shopping outings...
Revolution NYC at Pete’s Candy Store
On an unusually balmy Sunday afternoon before Christmas, the narrow back room of Pete’s Candy Store was packed, people spilling into the cramped middle area and into the more generous front room. It was the last service of the year for the recently established Revolution NYC, a nondenominational church founded in Williamsburg in September and led by Jay Bakker.
The 31-year-old is the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and the subject of a documentary series currently airing on the Sundance channel. He has, of course, been around religion his entire life, his last name nearly synonymous with televangelism...
Woodhull Medical Center
Brooklyn’s Best Kept Secret for Expecting Parents
Gisburg Smialek delivered her first baby at a large well-respected hospital in Manhattan three years ago. Her birth ended in a cesarean section and when she became pregnant again she knew that she wanted to try for a natural birth. “I started to see a midwife who was on my health plan and I really liked her,” said Smialek, “When I found out she worked out of Woodhull I was a little scared.” Smialek’s midwife is part of a group of midwives working at Woodhull, including the Director of Midwifery Services Debbie Paley, a longstanding member of the birth community in New York. “ I had a great birth experience,” says Smialek, “ I had a doula and the staff pretty much gave us space and it was very peaceful...
Representing Greenpoint
The Lawsuits against ExxonMobil
Legal pressure continues to heat up for ExxonMobil regarding the 17 million-gallon oil spill at its storage facility in northeast Greenpoint. Four cases are currently filed against the company on behalf of some 400-500 Greenpoint residents, two in state court and two in federal court. A fifth case may be pending from state attorney general Eliot Spitzer, who is now in negotiations with the oil giant.
The trials are still about a year away, but 2007 will be a time of unprecedented investigation on the 50 year-old incident. By spring or early summer, the US Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release its independent study of the spill, in the midst of the courts’ pre-trial deposition period...
A Graphic Novel for the Williamsburg Soul
Gabrielle Bell’s Lucky
Gabrielle Bell has had it with herself: her five roommates, her lack of permanent employment, her drawings, her relationships, her lack of knowing how to use the scanner at the internet garage, and darn it, everything. But the next day, life is looking pretty good. For all the same reasons.
A graphic novel about life in Brooklyn through the lens of seemingly perpetual PMS, Lucky is Bell’s opus to the everyday of the young struggling artist. In 2003, Bell moved to Williamsburg and began sketching a comic strip diary of her life. While moving from one apartment to the next, juggling freelance illustration assignments, and making the brunt of her rent payment from nude artist modeling and other odd jobs such as jewelry assembly and teaching drawing lessons to rich, precocious children, Bell kept a detailed account of each day...
Electronic Voting Comes to New York State
Paul DeGregorio believes you can trust electronic voting. Delivering a presentation entitled “Making Sure Every Vote Was Counted: Evaluating Election Administration in the 2006 Elections”, Mr. DeGregorio sited a poll taken on Election Day 2006 that indicated that 88% of those asked whether they believed their vote had been recorded accurately answered ‘yes.’ Were there problems? Of course.
Take the 13th Congressional District in Florida, which is still embroiled in a post-election legal battle because electronic voting machines showed the Republican candidate the victor by fewer than 400 votes, despite a discrepancy of 18,000 “under-votes” or votes that did not get recorded. However, Mr. DeGregorio is quick to point out that these cases are the exception, not the rule, in the nations 67,000 election districts...
OPEN MAG: Local Short Fiction
Tomorrow, a Blankness
Little green cabs, like bullets, washed across the streets. Spiky drops of rain fell, splattering across the trashy sidewalks. Drizzling on a billboard for Joya sodas. Walking home, Catarina Fernandez, wearing an orange coat with big plastic buttons, showing her flashy side at 58, was thinking of her daughter.
Gray hair and wrinkles that grew with each day made Catarina look like a soap opera actress on TV. But, when people told her that, she would smile, shake her head softly and forget she heard anything. Villoro, her neighbor, was outside watering his plants. Light blue raindrops fell on his T-shirt of President Miguel Hurtado, his slimy hair darkened by the rain, which was getting heavier...
Galleries Galore
Cinders, Outrageous Look & Momenta Art
The Cinders Gallery at 103 Havermayer between Hope and Grand Streets feels like it might be an old record store or the hollowed out remains of a once-diminutive American Apparel.
The space is packed too tightly and a great deal of material suffocates during the “Dirty Hands” exhibition that already closed.
The artists of “Dirty Hands” are all printmaking specialists, plying their imprecise craft over etchings, tracings or out-and-out drawing. Cinders uses the tiny space as well as they can manage, emphasizing the stronger pieces while using weaker ones to glue it all together...
Pfizer to Shut Down Williamsburg Plant
The largest drug making company in the world, Pfizer, whose company began in Williamsburg in 1849, announced that it will be shutting the historic plant eliminating 600 jobs. The 600,000 square foot facility located on 630 Flushing Avenue manufactures some of Pfizer’s largest drug sellers including Zoloft, Cardura XL, and Zyrtec are all manufactured at the plant but because the companies patents for the drugs will run out later this year allowing competing companies to make cheaper versions of the drugs.
