In his first book, Making Rent in Bed-Stuy (HarperCollins, 2017), New York-based writer and filmmaker Brandon Harris uses his memoir of “trying to make it in New York City” as the starting point for a complex, multi-layered discussion of race, class, and gentrification.
(Photo: Nicole Disser)
Deathdays aren’t usually cause for celebration, but in the case of Christopher Wallace– better known as Biggie Smalls– it only makes sense to organize an art show dedicated to the late rapper around the afterlife. Without it, 20 Big Years would have denied the necromancy that runs throughout the life work of Notorious B.I.G. (his mere two studio albums are a clear sign that his life was cut too short), and that has come to define his persona after death. Even if all these ghosts still give his fans the willies. As one visitor, pointing to an altered version of Barron Claiborne’s famous photo of Biggie wearing a crown, said to her friend: “That one with the skull–it’s so morbid, but so deep.” (The friend agreed.)
Everything Sticks & More, a catering startup at the newly launched Brooklyn FoodWorks (Photo: Nicole Disser)
Get anywhere near the old Pfizer building these days and you’ll be overwhelmed not with the smell of medicinal byproducts, but with the delicious aroma of cookies, coffee, and freshly baked bread. Pfizer left the massive industrial plant empty in 2008 and it was bought up by a real estate investment firm a few years later. Today, it finally saw the opening of Brooklyn FoodWorks, an educational institute, incubator, and communal kitchen that will offer low-cost co-working space for small food startups.
Nightlight, an ongoing project of Flux Factory “explores creative uses of the sun” at the Bed-Stuy Community Garden. Flux Factory has teamed up with New York Restoration Project to install an oven that cooks food solely with the power of the sun. For three Tuesdays in July, a different chef or team of cooks, chosen by the Nighlight crew, will prepare a free meal. And don’t expect hot dogs and corn. Past meals have included dehydrated kumquats, beef tongue, and fresh ricotta cheese.
Each dinner is accompanied by some form of entertainment. The next to last Tuesday in July, Nightlight will incorporate a solar-panel workshop into the menu of pork shoulder and vegetables, both served by a local solar educator, Cynthia Tomasini.
Events start at 7pm except for July 21, which starts at 6:30pm.
Read more here.
Nightlight, an ongoing project of Flux Factory “explores creative uses of the sun” at the Bed-Stuy Community Garden. Flux Factory has teamed up with New York Restoration Project to install an oven that cooks food solely with the power of the sun. For three Tuesdays in July, a different chef or team of cooks, chosen by the Nighlight crew, will prepare a free meal. And don’t expect hot dogs and corn. Past meals have included dehydrated kumquats, beef tongue, and fresh ricotta cheese.
Each dinner is accompanied by some form of entertainment. The next to last Tuesday in July, Nightlight will incorporate a solar-panel workshop into the menu of pork shoulder and vegetables, both served by a local solar educator, Cynthia Tomasini.
Events start at 7pm except for July 21, which starts at 6:30pm.
Read more here.
All week, we’re bringing you a series of deep dives into the surprising histories of storied addresses. Back to our usual after the New Year.
St. John the Baptist, boarded up.
St. John the Baptist is ghostly, towering moribund over a row of vinyl-sided apartment houses on Willoughby and Hart Streets. The 120-year-old granite edifice lies a stone’s throw from the Myrtle-Broadway stop in Bushwick — you can spot its cross-topped cupolas over Bed-Stuy’s roofs as the train pulls into the station. The Tablet called it “a castle out of the past.” And that was in 1968.
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Inside Sincerely, Tommy (Photo: Nicole Disser)
A brand new, shiny anomaly has opened its doors on Tompkins Avenue in Bed-Stuy, Sincerely, Tommy. And yes, the designer clothing and furniture boutique, which doubles as a coffee shop, is actually being quite sincere with a few price tags upwards of $1,000 and a slick minimal white, grey, and glass interior.
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