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 A rendition of the New York & Brooklyn Brewing Co., whose brewery once stood on the corner of Scholes St. and Bushwick Ave. — Photos by Diego Cupolo At the turn of the century, there were 45 breweries in Brooklyn. Today, only three breweries operate in the borough – quite a small number considering Brooklynites used to make one-fifth of the nation’s beer.
But now, thanks to the hard work of walking tour company Urban Oyster founders Dave Naczycz and Cindy VandenBosch, anyone can revisit those foamy glory days by hopping on their weekly Brewed in Brooklyn Walking Tours, which take participants to old brewery sites along the East Williamsburg-Bushwick border. I tagged along for the ride last Saturday and was pleasantly surprised by the tour’s blend of fascinating information, first-hand historical accounts, and delicious beer tastings.
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 Athom Café on Broadway at Dodworth, across from Goodbye Blue Monday. — Photo by Diego Cupolo One day about a month or two ago, seemingly out of nowhere, a café opened on Broadway and Dodworth. There was no Grand Opening sign, or any sign at all — bodegas and 99-cent stores often open to more fanfare. But bodegas and 99-cent stores come a dime a dozen here in the Washing Machine and Refrigerator District of Broadway, and cafés owned by real-life Parisians are more unexpected. And so Athom Café, located inside a former appliance store — and next door to another — has no problem standing out on Broadway. Especially with its new hand-painted sign.
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The 4th of July snuck up on me… It’s suddenly summerish (about damn time), so get out there and celebrate independence day! My very informal research (methodology: I asked everyone I come into contact with yesterday and this morning) indicates that a lot of people are getting out of here for the long weekend. Those of us who are holding down the fort need to step it up.
Tonight, get started on the long weekend on Moore St. The Glass Door (formerly known as Retox for those of you keeping score) and JD Tattoo invite you to a BBQ situation with "Open Bar (5-7), Discount Tattoos, DJs and bands (Aquadora and HTR — more tba)." All ages, $5.
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 Boogie Boarder jamming at Northside Festival. — Photos by Andres Jauregui As the weather gets sunnier (finally!) and unemployment claims rise, it looks like many of us are cruising for a summer of lazy fun. There are those among us that can afford a severance vacation: rock climbing in Thailand, bungee jumping in Belize. But since most of us didn’t get golden parachutes — federal or otherwise — we’ll just have to get our kicks from loud music and cheap beer.
The great thing about Brooklyn is that there are always a lot of awesome local tunes around to help make summer a splash. Leading the pack this season is Bushwick’s own Boogie Boarder. Their irreverent new album, Pizza Hero (released June 23rd on Famous Class), is a fast ride down a slick wave of fun. Too intricate to be punk, too weird to be pop, and too freewheeling to take themselves too seriously, Pizza Hero is the soundtrack to your summer of funemployment.
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 Local volunteers cultivating vegetables in the Secret Garden. — Photo by Diego Cupolo On July 29, 1977, a terrified Avellar Hansley watched as the large furniture store on the corner of Broadway and Linden Street burned down only a few yards from her house. Tomorrow she will see a farmers’ market open for the second year in a row on the same plot of land – in what is now a community garden that she helped create with her own bare hands and selfless determination.
The Bushwick Farmers’ Market will hold opening day celebrations on July 1 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Linden-Bushwick Block Association Garden and many of the day’s events will be dedicated to Hansley’s work to preserve the open space over the last three decades. As a tribute, graffiti artists from Big City Walls and YOUnity will be painting a large mural with her name on it during the event.
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 A still from Even — As You and I, one of the films screened Friday night. What more effectively cures a rainy day than catching a movie? No, no, not sitting at home re- watching Annie Hall on your laptop without putting any clothes on – though that works pretty well too – but braving it through the downpour to a local cinema to enjoy something new and different on the big screen. We’ll take it a step further than new and different, in fact, and go for something nearer the realm of avant-garde (cause you’re in the mood). And to seal the deal: free beer.
Rain? What rain?
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 Greg, left; and Chelsea. — Photos by Laura Feinstein. Click to enlarge. In an attempt to re-start-up some of the hot Bushwick clothing porn that was the short-lived "Street Style," we’ve contracted fashion buff Laura Feinstein to harrass you people on the streets of the neighborhood and show the rest of us what weird/fabulous ideas you may have in the way of dress. Or maybe you are just rocking your v-neck in a particularly amazing way — you know, like, you actually have some sort of chest to fill it out. We hope it gels into something solid, regular, and above all, entertaining — please also chime in with comments about what we should call this feature. –BushwickBK
Last Sunday, New York was turned into one huge concert as musicians all over the five boroughs took to the streets, nightclubs, and parks as part of Make Music Festival NYC. Here in Brooklyn, BushwickBK — when not being rained out of our own Make Music gig — roamed some of the local haunts to scope out some of the area’s most fashionable music lovers.
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 Assemblyman Vito Lopez and City Council candidate Maritza Dávila, left, and Councilmember Diana Reyna. — Photos by Aaron Short. Why has Bushwick’s largest social service organization chosen to close a key youth center, claiming a lack of funds, while refusing hundreds of thousands of dollars from a city councilmember? Aaron Short digs deep into a petty and bitter political contest between Assemblyman Vito Lopez and Councilwoman Diana Reyna that leaves the children of the neighborhood’s low-income working families as the real losers.
For two months, Councilwoman Diana Reyna and the leaders of the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council (RBSCC), one of the largest youth and senior service providers in Brooklyn, have been locked in a bitter funding dispute, resulting in the elimination of a popular summer camp and afterschool program for Bushwick children.
After twenty years, the Hope Gardens Multi-Service Center’s youth program will be discontinued today and ten staff members will lose their jobs. Hope Gardens is one of the centers managed by RBSCC, and the program serves over 70 children, many of whom live within several blocks of the Center in Hope Gardens, Bushwick proper’s only public housing project.
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So, how ’bout that fabulous weather we’ve been having, eh? Here’s hoping the weekend is gorgeous! Kudos to those of you who were able to make it work for MMNY despite the weather, and everyone please stay tuned for a rain date for the Bushwick Music Festival at María Hernández Park. It will happen… someday!
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 “Animalia” at the House of Yes. — Photo by Andres Jauregui "Animalia: Stories of Collapse, Calamity and Departure," a surreal aerial/musical event performed at the House of Yes on Saturday, mixed dreamy premonitions of ecological collapse with haunting melodies, honeybees, makeshift sailors and trapeze. Created by multimedia artist and musician C. Ryder Cooley, the performance took place in an aerial theater at the House of Yes known as the Sky Box, and I spotted several attendees in the room still decked out in glitter and shells from the Mermaid Parade that occurred earlier in the day.
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