Review of Carroll Gardens by the Brits

From the Guardian:

"What's going for it? In the canyon of differences between the US and Britain, there is one that stands out and proud: urban America's capacity for ridiculous neighbourhood names. NoLIta, TriBeCa, Dumbo, SoLaTeeDo (I made that last one up). But BoCoCa is stretching it. Newly compiled from three Brooklyn neighbourhoods – Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens – BoCoCa is where you move when you've tired of Williamsburg's twentysomething hepcat shenanigans. Skinny jeans just don't look good crammed with post-childbirth girth (and that's just the dads). You're still, ahem, "with it", just not that "with it". The area has everything a gentrifying couple could want – from leafy brownstones to bespoke cupcake suppliers. Red Hook used to be BoCoCa beyond the pale, a decaying crack den past the Gowanus Expressway. Since Ikea moved in, though, that desolate, post-industrial, miles-from-a-subway-look is so Age of Austerity.

The case against Terribly Bugaboo. Smug and moneyed and not cheap – until you get to Red Hook."

Unfortunately, and sadly, this is quite accurate...

An Evening at the Bell House for George - Guest Post

N.B. Today's post is authored by a friend and contributor, Mike Benigno. You can find more of him over at Lines in the Street and On Your Fork.

The Universal Thump, named after an obscure line from the allegorical Melville masterpiece Moby Dick, is a collaboration of over 20 performers, songwriters and composers all from their own individual bands, who, under the leadership of musicians Greta Getler and Adam Gold, first started working six months ago to cover the classic George Harrison solo album, "All Things Must Pass" in its entirety. ATMP remains as true to a Harrison masterpiece today as it was when first released in 1970 as his first post-Beatles release. The Nov. 29th show at the Bell House marked nine years to the day since Harrison died, and the performance was both a tribute to his music, his spirit and the fund that bears his name at UNICEF.

 So, what did that look like? First, nothing but a stage full of wires, amps, mic stands and more. Then, a stage full of people - as many as 20 at one time, and no fewer than five or six at any given point - playing before rear-projected Harrison black and whites to an intimate crowd. The album was done cover-to-cover, beginning with the bang-up hits "I'd Have You Anytime," "My Sweet Lord," "Wah-Wah," and "Isn't it a Pity," in arrangements complete with a string and horn section, two drummers, several keyboard and guitar players, upright and electric basses and, of course, the pedal steel guitar. Arrangements of many of the complicated tunes were done with such dexterity that you'd wonder if these guys had been practicing for a lifetime, and, in a way, they probably have been. The program given out before the show - which was an impressive directory of talent - sums it up best:

In a year when band after aging band filed into America's Halls and Plazas of music to perform their "classic" albums in their entirety, to remind us all of a time when their albums were important, or when albums were important, it seemed a natural [idea]. "Why don't we pay tribute to a true classic? An album we all love?" And then, what would this band even look like on stage?... Most everyone seemed thrilled by the idea... Nine years to the day of George's death, and just days after the 40th anniversary of the three discs' original release. This was to be a tribute indeed, and an ambitious one.

What was the show like? It was like being at the tribute concert of your life, but, somehow, only a couple hundred people were were there alongside you. One performer after another came out, joining and re-joining those on stage, performing each piece with creativity and, more than anything else, reverence for the songs, their complexity, their underlying spirituality, their writer, and their legacy. John Wesley Harding stole the show with "Wah-Wah," but Carol Lipnik's "My Sweet Lord" was the be-all-end-all performance. Perfection. If you saw it live, you'd beg for a recording or video.

Performers included:
Corrina Albright
Amy Allison
Oren Bloedow
Zach Brock
Amy Correia
Therese Cox
Robert DiPietro
Lee Feldman
Pete Galub
Greta Gertler
Adam Gold
John Wesley Harding
J. Walter Hawkes
Art Hayes
Missy Higgins
Byron Isaacs
Courtney Kaiser
Dayna Kurtz
Gary Langol
Carol Lipnik
Jonathan Maron
Barney McAll
Rick Moody
Chris Moore
David Nagler
Rozz Nash
Clinton Newman
Phil Rodriguez
Sean Sonderegger
Leigh Sutart
PT Walkley
Shara Worden

Lines in the Street

On Your Fork

Gowanus Canal

Interesting Twist on Gowanus Colors

Another club trying to be really hip has opened in Gowanus. From the New York Post:

"“We wanted to give people around here a place to dance — every night of the week,” co-owner Turan Kiremitci yelled over a speaker pumping some intense house music last Saturday. “When the grand opening hits, there’s always going to be something different going on.”

There’s also something different on every floor, each with its own music and feel. The basement of the club, which is near Seventh Street, has the most expansive dance floor in the joint and easily features the most shades of purple. The second floor has more couches and drinking space than the other two, and the first floor is something in between — with booze flowing, booties shaking and music bumping.

Some of the locals complained that the music was a little too loud and that the rooms were a little too purple — but they had to squeeze past the others, who were obviously high on this purple haze."

Being colorblind myself, I know I do not get a full appreciation for the Gowanus colors. Is Purple a dominant color in the canal? Cause if so, well done club guys, well done.

Baroque Dancing? Ok....

From NBC New York:

"Sure, Baroque dance hasn't been popular since...oh, the reign of Louis XIV, but the performance troupe Company XIV is bringing this predecessor of classical ballet from the court of Versailles to Carroll Gardens. Only this time around the dance floor choreographer Austin McCormick is throwing in a few other things from the last four centuries of dance, theater and storytelling.

With music ranging from Vivaldi to Lady Gaga, McCormick's newest performance, Le Cirque Feerique, or the Fairy Circus, if you will, re-imagines classic fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen and The Brothers Grimm using a combination of flamenco, ballet, cabaret, and yes, baroque. The colorful costumery is elaborate enough for any of Louis' formal balls but also playful enough for, well,  the circus."

I guess if it's your thing, go for it.


Company XIV is the resident company of 303 Bond St. a 3,800 square foot rehearsal/performance venue located in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. The space was converted from a tow truck warehouse with the addition of a state of the art dance floor, glass facade, and theatrical lighting.

Anatomy of a Hipster

Ironic/Outdated T-Shirt: Check

Dress/Collared Shirt Underneath T-Shirt: Check

"Vintage" Jacket: Check

iPod Earphones, indicating Actual Wealth: Check

Sunglasses Worn In Inappropriate Setting: Check

Man-Purse: Check

Mohawk: Check

Jonathan Lethem on Brooklyn. Through British Eyes.

Motherless Brooklyn Author Jonathan Lethem gave an interview to the Observer (a British paper), on subjects ranging from Manhattan to writing to Dean Street. I must confess that I've always found Mr. Lethem a bit whiny, and it is hard to find a hipster who does not enjoy his work, but it's interesting to read how another culture gets it information about Brooklyn. The article does also do some serious journalist felating of Mr. Lethem.

Some highlights:

"This whole neighbourhood has become centred on the kind of middle-class families that were just one very small minority element then,"

"The dirty word hovering over all this is gentrification – "a Nixon word", as his parents saw it. The mother in Fortress of Solitude teaches her son to be proud of calling the neighbourhood Gowanus, rather than the nearby, more chi-chi Boerum Hill"

"As a teenager, Lethem left. He went to Bennington College in Vermont"

And my favorite:

"I didn't set out to write a great Brooklyn novel, or a Brooklyn novel at all. I set out to write the great novel of Dean Street between Bond and Nevins, on a certain summer's day in 1972."

via Curbed.

Staples: How is this Legal?

Everyone knows the Staples on Third Street and Fourth Avenue. Seems like any other Staples ever, no? Shared parking lot (which is VERY tight), rude managers, long lines - it has it all. But, there is something subtle that makes this Staples even worse than the average one. Take a look at this picture:

Notice anything?

How about now?

That's right. Staples hates you. Or, more accurately, Staples hates you if you don't drive.

If you are not a driver, you MUST venture into an active traffic lane to enter the Staples site. They managed to install a sidewalk that connects to the city sidewalk, but then put up a huge fence, so as to make a walk to Staples to pick up some staples a life-threatening activity. Down with Staples!

While Staples certainly deserves some negative press for this choice, more disconcerting for me is the fact that this situation is allowed to exist. How did the City Planning Department's ULURP process not catch this? How does the DOB not red tag the site? How does Transportation Alternatives not make a fuss about this?

Maybe the hipsters who re-painted the Bedford Avenue bike lanes need to head on down to Gowanus with some bolt cutters...

Ode to the G Train

Pretty funny post over at Scallywag & Vagabond entitled "Observations on the G Train". The relevant parts for Carroll Gardens are:

"The platform sign in front of me says Carroll Gardens and by the sight of the slightly vexed yuppies (vexed because they are yuppies supposedly forced to live in this part of town…) I can tell that everyone manages to take showers before they set out in the mornings and even dare to color coordinate the occasional dress or shirt. They stand there before me, lawyers, yoga aficionados and the usual cafe latte drinkers that they all purport to be. Everyone is apparently well behaved, dressed and mindful to never look one another in the eye (an unsaid law in the NY subway system). As soon as the train pulls in they are respectful, obliging and even mindful of not taking up too much space."

Scrooge Visits Brooklyn

For a good laugh, head on over to the Daily News for a really funny Denis Hamill envisioning of Scrooge in Modern Brooklyn. The relevant parts are:

"Scrooge marries Mrs. Dilber because she's with his child. When the baby's born, Ebenezer names him after his old partner, Jacob. 

Then Jake Scrooge 1st has a son, Jake 2nd, who starts working in the old man's shop. Jake Scrooge 2nd does a 20th century inventory and realizes that his father and grandfather are literally giving away the store to the Tiny Tim cripples and Oliver Twist orphans of London. He has a son, Jake 3rd. 

Jake 3rd places Ebenezer and Jacob in a conservatorship, takes over the shop, downsizes, then emigrates to Park Slope, where he buys up most of the rent-stabilized apartment buildings and fathers an in-vitro son, Jacob Scrooge 4th, who opens Le Parc Scrooge Realty on Seventh Ave. during the 1990s real estate boom. 

Scrooge 4th starts gentrifying out all the "old hardcore Brooklynites," converting the working-family-friendly properties to million-dollar condos for Wall Street yuppies, Manhattan movie stars and literati who have declared Brooklyn the new Greenwich Village, a great place to displace working people, for nannies to raise your kids and to rant against Atlantic Yards."

Ironic Ping Pong in Gowanus!

Stop the presses! Ironic sports in a hipster haven! From the Huffington Post:

"On Monday night the Bellhouse in Gowanus is hosting their semi-annual ping pong tournament. The competition is sure to be fierce, but the attitude is definitely all South Brooklyn."

If by South Brooklyn they mean skinny jeans, flannel shirts with ironic Ts underneath and lots of broke-ass imitations of Rivers Cuomo (who himself was doing a broke-ass Buddy Holly/Roy Orbison imitation), then yes, the attitude will be ALL South Brooklyn. However, if you expect to see anyone who knows what the South Brooklyn Casket Company is, good luck.