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

Whole Foods is on!

The intersection of 3rd and 3rd will no longer have just one attraction; sounds like the Whole Foods project is back on! In an e-mail to Community Board 6 District Manager Craig Hammerman, Mark Mobley from Whole Food wrote the following:

"Our property, which was formerly home to a number of auto repair shops, warehouses and other industrial uses, has now been fully cleaned and remediated under the strict guidelines of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's brownfield program and is ready to return to a positive, productive, job-creating and community service use.

Our planned new store will be approx. 52,000 square feet, which is about 25% smaller than the store we had previously proposed for this site. We believe this site plan - which continues to feature a 40 foot public esplanade for our neighbors to enjoy - will simply work better within the parameters of the property.

We have reduced the number of parking spaces on-site from 430 to 248, which eliminates our previous need for a separate parking structure and allows all of the parking to be at-grade in a surface parking lot. The store will feature parking for both energy efficient vehicles as well as specially designated recharging stations for electric powered vehicles. The lot will also include bike parking in front of the store and along the promenade. Whole Foods Market will also offer delivery for area residents.

With parking now no longer needed on the store roof either, we have been presented with the opportunity to include one of the most exciting and innovative features ever included in a Whole Foods Market: A 20,000 square foot greenhouse located on the roof of the store that will grow fresh, organic produce right on-site!

Rather than construct the store below-grade as previously proposed, we now plan to build it above-grade, which will require a variance from the Board of Standards and Appeals due to the physical hardships associated with site development (there is a high water table and, as you know, environmental cleanup requirements on the property). These factors have a large impact on the development costs that will be encountered on this site.

As always planned, the two-story, 19th century brick building situated at the property's corner at Third Avenue and Third Street - which is not owned by Whole Foods Market - will remain in place. The Whole Foods Market will "jog" around the existing building at that corner and Whole Foods has committed to investing in improvements to the building that will include a new roof and exterior repairs. "


Lets hope that this doesn't exacerbate the nightmare that is traffic on 3rd Street at times, but the reduction in parking spaces and 40 foot waterfront access is a great thing!

Gowanus State of Mind

Super Fun Superfund Site Profiled

From The Dirt (a blog published by the American Society of Landscape Architects), some "love" for Gowanus:

"The Gowanus ”micro-neigborhood,” surrounded by Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill and Park Slope is filled with ”half-empty warehouses and semi-derelict factories,” post-industrial scenes that give the area a “special cultural edge, like a miniature Baltimore or Detroit.” Except, in this case, The New York Times writes, terrifying pollution is substituted for crime. Still, the site attracts many locals: Jennifer Prediger, a producer of environmental videos, said: “There’s no place in Brooklyn, or in New York City, that feels kind of more pleasant than being right here, which is odd given that that is a toxic waterway. But it’s actually quite lovely. It’s the loveliest toxic waterway I’ve ever spent time on.”"

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.

Environmental Work Finished at Whole Foods Site?

Relief? Maybe not...from the Brooklyn Paper:

"“Whole Foods is now reviewing the possibilities for a future location at this site,” said a Whole Foods spokesman, Michael Sinatra. “While there is no timetable set, discussions are active and we remain hopeful to bring a store to this community in the near future.”

Two weeks ago, contractors working for Whole Foods finished excavating toxic soil and removing three underground oil tanks. The area was then capped with two feet of clean soil."

Though we'd love to see something happen to the corner, lets not hold our breaths. With the current state of construction financing, it will take a few years to even line up funds to begin construction, if that is the direction that Whole Foods chooses to go.

Could Rhazel Show Up in Gowanus This Weekend?

I usually try to refrain from posting too much about the hip stuff going on in Gowanus these days, but this is just too cool to miss. From the Brooklyn Paper, news of a human beatboxing competition!

"So on July 31, the World Beatbox Association throws its first American Beatbox Championships at Littlefield in Gowanus, where the best of the best here will show off their spitting skills. Throughout the weekend, the venue will also host the Sixth International Human Beatbox Convention, traditionally held in London.

“Overseas, it’s become so huge. I felt there was something that needed to spark the growth of the culture here in the United States,” said Chesney. “And it was really important for me for this to happen in Brooklyn. There’s just something about the grassroots style of community here. It would not have felt right for any place else to host the first US championships.”"

If your mother only knew...

Breaking: Toll Brothers Gives Up!

Luxury home builder Toll Brothers has apparently given up on their current quest to line the shores of a toxic waste dump with condos. From the The Real Deal (and the Brooklyn Paper):

"As threatened, Toll Brothers has walked away from its $5.75 million down payment on the Gowanus Canal site of a would-be 477-unit mixed-income housing development because of the waterway's recent designation as a Superfund site, the Brooklyn Paper reported. "It just didn't financially make sense to close on the properties and then have to wait 15 to 20 years until we could develop them," said Toll's David Von Spreckelsen."

"“These were never just idle threats,” Von Spreckelsen said. “I spent five years of my life working on getting this done, and I don’t think anything is going to happen there for a very long time.”"

Sounds pretty bitter, especially when we keep in mind that there is a similar situation down the canal a few lots where planned housing IS being built. Sounds like Toll Brothers (like John Quadrozzi before) are using Superfund designation as a convenient means to abandon projects for other reasons.

New Barber For the Neighborhood: The Family Hair Salon on Third and Bond

It’s Japanese Head Massage meets Scandinavian  Furniture Style at Fumi’s Hair Salon which opened at Third and Bond on  June 1. Hair Stylist Fumi Inoue, who worked at Salon De Quartier Smith for 8 years, felt it was time to go on her own and created a place where the local community could get great hair cuts and relax in a homey atmosphere.

With a dining table and cookies visible through the front window, some people mistake the salon for a café. “I don’t sell coffee,” laughs Fumi, “but I can give it to you.” She hopes her clients will find the space (which she designed herself ) inviting and that it will allow “people to meet people and talk to each other…and things will come up.”

Fumi believes that communicating with her clients and listening to what they have to say is very important to creating a great hair cut. “Of course I want to make people beautiful. A hair stylist is an artist, but also a collaborator,” she explained. “We are making art together.”

Using organic products and ammonia free color treatments from many different companies, Fumi already has a following on Yelp. “She really knows what she's doing, is talented and super sweet.,” wrote Nastasya F of Brooklyn. “She is economical and…helping me grow in my grey beautifully which no other hair colorist in the city has been capable of,” wrote Erin K.

Client Julie Schettina and Assistant John (Just John) sharing a book featuring another of Fumi’s talents – photography.

Fumi
121 3rd Street @ Bond St.
(347) 763-0413/0414

Weekdays 11-8
Weekends 11-7
Closed Mondays

Prices:

Cuts:
Men $45
Women $70
Kids under 7 $30
Kids 8-12 $40

Coloring:
Single Process $70+
Highlights $100+

By Special Guest Star Marie Manuto-Brown

Say What? Native Americans STILL in Gowanus?

The name Gowanus is derived from the name of a local Native American chief from the indigenous Canarsie tribes. To my knowledge, the Canarsie do not have any communities to speak of in the area. But another Native American tribe may. From the Middletown Press:

"“To Brooklyn and Back: A Mohawk Journey” tells the personal story of Tarbell, who is a Mohawk herself, as she explores her roots and traces the connections of her family to the Mohawk community in Brooklyn. The stories of the Kahnawake Mohawk women who lived in the North Gowanus section are rarely heard, but Tarbell would like to change all that."

Anybody out there know anything about the Mohawk Community in Brooklyn or its location? According to the ever reliable Wikipedia, a large community of Mohawks worked on construction projects in the early part of the 20th century, which resulted in a settlement in somewhere in Brooklyn called "Little Caughnawaga", which Ms. Tarbell's film documents. I will look forward to watching it.

New Tax Proposal Could Help Put The Fund in Superfund

The biggest problem with Superfund designation of the Gowanus Canal (which we were in favor of) stems from the availability and speed of funding to pay for the program. Opponents were quick to (correctly) point out that the funding would ultimately come from adjoining property owners, who collectively branded as "the taxpayers". What they also conveniently forgot to mention is that the property owners responsible for cleanup are also those responsible for the mess.

In any case, a new proposal is making it's way around which would pay for Superfund cleanup with a tax on current polluting industries, such as oil and gas. From American Public Media (NPR's Marketplace; download the mp3 here):

"...when Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, they did away with a tax on the petrochemical industry that funded the clean-up of almost half of all Superfund sites. These were sites where nobody accepted responsibility for the contamination. Funding for these projects dried up seven years ago. Since then, taxpayers have had to pick up the tab."

In the current national political climate, I doubt that the implementation of a new tax, even one on an industry with such deep pockets who have the public's wrath right now, would be received well, however anything that cleans up the canal can't be a bad thing. I do question the rationale of seeking funding from current gas and oil companies though; isn't a large point of the Superfund program to go after past polluters as well?

Ax Comes to Area Services: Fair?

There has been much consternation lately about cuts to city services in the area, and there are many. Some others are picking up on the issue. From the New York Times:

"Within a 10-minute walk, three day care centers, one senior center, one swimming pool, one after-school program and a health clinic are to close. Venture 20 minutes more, and six additional facilities — two day care centers, two after-school programs, a senior center and a health clinic — are also to shut down on July 1, the start of the new fiscal year. Making matters worse, the nearest public transit option — the B37 bus along Third Avenue — is being eliminated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority"

You can add to this the elimination of the B71 and other local bus routes.

But here's the rub: if not here, then where? Does Red Hook deserve cuts more? How about Brownsville? Kew Gardens? Inwood?

The cuts have to come from somewhere. While I'm not exactly pleased about them happening here, I can't be so self-centered as to think that Carroll Gardens (or Gowanus or Cobble Hill or Boerum Hill) is a neighborhood in need or somehow "deserves" the service more than any other neighborhood.

It's easy to walk most places, there is great subway access and there are still numerous bus routes in the area. If my 85 year old grandmother can manage (which she does), so can you.

On the Edge: A Life on the Shores of the Gowanus

The Brooklyn Eagle did a nice profile on Pat Bruno, a man who has lived on the shores of the Gowanus his entire life, in the same house!

"Pasquale “Pat” Bruno, 77, still lives in the same house on Bond Street where he was born in 1932. For a year or two after he married, he lived a few blocks away, but he and his bride soon returned to the house he grew up in with his two sisters and two brothers in a neighborhood filled with other two- and three-family homes. It was a world bounded roughly by Smith Street, Atlantic Avenue and Nevins Street to the east and Third Street to the south, but he’s not sure what that neighborhood’s called today. “Sunset Park, Carroll Gardens, even I don’t know where that is,” Bruno said with a laugh. “When I was growing up, it was all just plain old South Brooklyn.”"

Mr. Bruno makes a great point about South Brooklyn/Red Hook. He also sounds like an endangered species.

Who is hungry for some crumb buns?

Gowanus Drug Boss Sent Away for Attempting to Assassinate...The Carroll Gardens Diary?

Scary stuff from Courier Life about a drug boss in the Gowanus Houses:

"Price was ordered to spend the rest of his life behind bars on May 14 after being convicted of racketeering, murder and four attempted murders — all of which were planned from his drug-dealing domain inside the Gowanus Houses.

Officials said that Price, his brother Robert and uncle Eddie Pressley, “ran a violent drug trafficking organization that dominated the sale of heroin and crack in the Gowanus Houses throughout much of the 1990s.”

Back in August 1990, Price allegedly shot Ronald Chavis and Michael Brown after luring them from the Gowanus Houses to another housing project in Bedford Stuyvesant.

He killed Chavis, but only wounded Brown, who managed to escape the assassination attempt."

Whew. Glad he's going away and glad I got away!

More Housing on the Gowanus?

4th Avenue and Smith Street, with their access to walkable commerce and public transportation, are excellent areas for dense development. Gowanus? Ehh. it's better than Gerritsen Beach, but not by much. So why is everyone looking to house more people there? From the Brooklyn Paper:

"“An environmentally restored Gowanus area could support an additional 1,500 to 2,000 housing units above those already planned,” the report states.

Those units, of course, are captive to the clean-up of the waterway, one of America’s most-polluted sites. Even under the best-case scenario, that process will take 10 years and cost $400 million.

Some development companies have said the lingering “Superfund Stigma” will make it impossible to ever build in the canal zone.

“There won’t be new housing until the cleanup is done [and] that is 20 years away,” said David Von Spreckelsen, a vice president for Toll Brothers, which opposed Superfund designation and withdrew its plan for a 447-unit luxury complex on the canal after the federal decision was announced in March."

You mean, except for the larger project that includes affordable housing, being done just a little ways down the canal from your proposed development, Von Spreckelsen. Was he in Goldmember?

Bond Street Rats

From the New York Post:

"Defonis caught one monstrous beast on tape, capturing it as it blithely sauntered through her backyard in broad daylight. She said that she’s also seen two or more of the creatures engaged in what scientists call social play behavior.

“They were playing like cats,” she recalled, adding that they show no fear of humans during their rambunctious rodent hijinks — or any other time.

Parking lot manager Mohamed Gamil said the problem has nothing to do with maintenance at the lot. “It’s not us — the canal is right there,” he said, stretching an arm towards the fetid Gowanus. “It’s the whole neighborhood. They come from everywhere.”"

Ehh. I've been watching that lot since they started parking carts there, and it's not exactly the bastion of health and cleanliness (also, plenty of street corner carts are there, it's not just the Red Hook Vendors). But Mr. Gamil has the better point: it's the canal!!! There are rats everywhere!

That's it! I have had it with these motherf**king sharks in this motherf**king canal!

A recent article in the Metro contained a little quote that shocked me a little. Seems like I would have heard about this.

"...the city is more attuned to nature than it was in the 1950s when a shark swam into Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. Startled by the sudden appearance of the large fish, cops shot it."

In my time we've seen seals and Sludgy the whale in the canal, but no large sharks. Sure, a stray sand shark or two probably make their way in from time to time, but one large enough to be spotted and shot? Wow. This deserved a little more research. The New York Times also corroborates this assertion, stating:

"In 1952, a large shark was photographed swimming up the canal; the police shot it."

Well. Not much more information there than in the Metro article. In a variation on a theme, New York Magazine says that:

"In 1952, a shark made its way in. (The cops shot it.)"

Wow. Those par ens make all the difference. But where can we find more of an answer?

I turned to John Waldman's book "Heartbeats in the Muck", a book devoted to New York Harbor.

On page 50, he tells of the sharks that once abounded in New York Harbor: "...the regular presence until the middle of the ninteenth century of the sharks along Manhattan's commercial waterfront, particularly the East River. Not little sharks, but eight- and twelve-footers, drawn to the shallows by the raw refuse of the markets and common enough that one market worker, well known for overpowering sharks witht he customary tug-of-war gear of handheld rope tied to a chain, landed seven in one day."

Cool. So sharks were all over the harbor. But what about the Gowanus Canal? From Page 111:

"Without doubt the most noteworthy biological event within the canal's industrial history was the appearance of a large shark in 1950. Ali showed me a scrapbook about the canal that included a photograph of the shark from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Fittingly, it is a dismal scene - policemens bullets spray the water near the creature as hundreds of people watch along the bulkheads."

This is great for so many reasons. Could you imagine the hysteria that abounded in the 1950s at sharks? So misunderstood, as they continue to be to this day, that the police thought it would be a public hazard to keep the fish alive?

Just another piece of the Gowanus Canal's long and storied history!


Images from the South Street Seaport Museum, Seaport magazine, Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Heartbeats in the Muck

Gowanus gets some positive (kind of) press!

Hidden in (and, because of) all of the news about Superfund designation happening on the Gowanus Canal, the New York Times published a quick, dirty story about "life" around the canal.

"The news did not interrupt the unhurried rhythms of life along the shadowy canal, the toxic dividing line between two fancy neighborhoods carved into wetlands more than 150 years ago.

On the water where the E.P.A found pesticides and the cancer-causing chemicals known as PCBs bobbed the boat where John Ziegler and a friend have stayed on and off for five months, aiming to “get off the grid.”

They collect sunlight in solar panels for electricity and burn wood for heat. Mr. Ziegler, a writer and an amateur ornithologist, has seen a family of mallards, and hawks. The walls of the canal mute the city noise. The full moons, he said, are “gorgeous.”

But after a big rain, slicks of various colors and toxicities drift by the barge, so Mr. Ziegler said he was pleased that the E.P.A. had stepped in to clean up. “It’ll take a lot longer,” he said, “but it will actually work.”

Upstream from his boat and down, fuel tanks were cleaned, trucks were parked, scrap metal was collected and cars were serviced. Gene Wayda, 68, has watched it all since 1970, when he opened his machine shop on Butler Street at the canal’s northern tip.

Then, Irish schoolteachers lived next door. A Dun & Bradstreet printing plant was on the corner. Mr. Wayda played his own role in the neighborhood’s remarkable commercial diversity, constructing those hand-powered unicycles called distance measuring wheels. His patch of Gowanus had deteriorated and then stabilized. The dirty canal was a piece of unfinished business."

Gritty Corner of Smith and 9th Gets Profiled

Metro recently profiled the corner of Smith and 9th Streets. Sounds about right.

"Young hipsters from Carroll Gardens stream off the G and F trains, as do residents of Red Hook’s public housing to the south. Winding past is the murky green Gowanus Canal, declared a superfund site this week by the EPA.

“It’s about time,” Victor Carino, 27, who works at the bagel shop, said of the decision, bemoaned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and would-be developers eyeing the area. “You don’t have to be an environmentalist to know how nasty and unclean that water is.”"

Community Board 6 turns down Charter School

We've already seen rough talk about the realities in Gowanus, and how it is not appropriate for school siting. Well, sounds as if Community Board 6 still agrees with their previous comments. According to Courier-Life, Summit Academy's application to be sited on Butler Street was recommended for denial.

"“This is outrageous,” said board member Debra Scotto, who voted against the special permit. “This is an absolutely horrible place to site a school — primarily because of the traffic, but also because there are prostitutes around the corner [from the site],” she said after the board’s March 10 meeting. “It’s abysmal down there.”

Despite the vote, Natasha Campbell, the school’s executive director, said Summit remains in “an exploratory phase, looking for a permanent home.”

Summit Academy is currently housed inside Public School 27, on Huntington Street in Red Hook. The charter school currently serves 92 sixth graders, and its population is expected to swell next year to 100 sixth graders and 100 seventh graders Campbell said.“We have a phenomenal relationship with PS 27, but the problem is that we are growing,” she added."

Although I sympathize with a fledgling school trying to make it, the fact that this is a charter school softens the blow. Also, let's not forget that the Community Board doesn't actually have any power!