Yes, the New Yorker

The New Yorker with a writeup of events going down at the Waterfront Museum:

“VESSELS & PROFILES OF THE QUADRICENTENNIAL” The Waterfront Museum’s ongoing lecture series about life in and around the harbor continues on July 30 at 7. Carolina Salguero, the director of PortSide New York, an organization housed in a nineteen-thirties coastal tanker called the Mary A. Whalen, talks with the designer Tim Ventimiglia, about the ship’s history and the potential future of Red Hook as a maritime hub and as a place for the arts (the vessel has already been the site of a live opera performance). (Pier 44, Red Hook, Brooklyn. For more information, visit http://www.waterfrontmuseum.org.)

Scholarship Opp. For Red Hook Students

Straight out of an email from the Red Hook Initiative:

In August, RHI will once again distribute the Joan Bennett Stewart College Scholarships, thanks to the Carver Scholarship Fund. Applications are being accepted from college students who live in the Red Hook Houses, until July 31, 2009. Over $10,000 will be awarded. (To get an application, contact sandy@rhicenter.org).

Check out BWAC’s Show This Weekend

With the doors opening at 1pm (staying open till 6), you have just enough time to check out the DTE hip hop classes and cool down with a seaside snack at the Fairway cafe before heading across the street to see the work of Brooklyn-based visual artists of all stripes.

The show is Brokelyn-approved, and if that’s not enough for you how about this?  One of the featured artists is DTE board member Audrey Anastasi.  Her beautiful portrait work will be be seen alongside three other featured artists (and another 200+ “unfeatured” but featured artists),  photographer (and Audrey’s husband!) Joseph Anastasi, painter David DiPasquale, and photographer Arden Suydam.

B61 Gets a Makeover

As a Crown Heights resident who makes the trek to Red Hook every day, there could be almost no more welcome news from the dark, confusing word of the MTA (exceptions:  “subway price back to $2!” “Teleporation introduced on the 4/5”).

The B61 bus, as I saw reported by Jess of “The Word on Columbia Street,” (who, in turn, it seems, got the word from CB6 District Manager Craig Hammerman) may soon be the B61 and B62.  The current B61 would be chopped in half in downtown Brooklyn, leaving one line to service downtown to Red Hook, and another from downtown to Greenpoint.

For anyone who’s ever waited 25 minutes for a bus at 8:30am on a weekday (“I was supposed to be on time”), this seems like a promising change.  Before you (or I) get too excited, though, keep in mind- the MTA board still has to approve the plan some time later this month.

Props for IKEA(?!)

Who would have thought, in all the hand-wringing and histrionics that accompanied the entrance of IKEA to Red Hook, that less than a year later they’d be winning awards for their service to the community?

Photo: Jacob Silberberg for the New York Times

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reports that our big blue friend down Beard Street was just awarded The Norman Buchbinder Award for Neighborhood Beautification.

OK, so the award was given by that finger-on-the-pulse-of-the-neighborhood organization…Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  Though there may be room for IKEA to continue to grow into its place and responsibility in the neighborhood, though, you’d  be hard pressed to deny that the esplanade is a nice bit of greenery in an otherwise fairly unwelcoming stretch of blocks:

“It features a paved bike and walkway, extensive new foliage and landscaping, well-lit seating areas and a publicly accessible pier extending into the Erie Basin. IKEA restored cranes, preserved shipyard artifacts, and constructed maritime mementos to highlight the waterfront past of the site.”

Just yesterday, as I was out distributing flyers for DTE’s Saturday hip hop class, I ran into a group of girls, from the neigborhood, taking a walk to the esplanade just because it was there.  Points awarded to IKEA on this one.

The Red Hook Chickens

Could be the name of the neighborhood’s new minor league baseball team.  In reality, it’s a family-run chicken farm run by Declan Walsh and his family, “The Red Hook Poultry Association.”  With fresh eggs and “meat birds,” it sounds like Red Hook has another outlet for delicious local food.  Check out the article for more info (did you know chickens were legal in the 5 boroughs?).  One problem, though:  they don’t list an address.

Does anyone know where the RHPA is?  Help a fresh-chicken-loving guy out- leave a comment!

Caught in the Act :: Brooklyn Independent Television :: BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn

We’ve got long overdue Red Hook Fest coverage of many different kinds. We’ll have some of our own footage of the great performances from later in the day at this year’s Fest, but for now check out a feature on Dance Theatre Etcetera produced by Brooklyn Independent Television’s “Caught in the Act: Arts in Brooklyn.” (Just use the right-hand menu to select the DTE video- it should be the 2nd from the top)

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A Triumphant Return

So we’ve sort of fallen off the map here while the website got a shiny new update.

After you check it out, read this nice little write-up on Fort Defiance, which I didn’t even know had moved into the neighborhood.
And to make up for lost time- apparently no one can get enough of the lobster rolls from the Red Hook Lobster Pound.

We’ll be back before three more weeks pass- promise!