The Bushwick Hotel has figured out something most bands only dream of: how to tour without having to pay for hotels or even sleep on friends’ couches like nearly all Brooklyn musicians do when on the road. How, you might be wondering? The Bushwick-based band (hence their name) decided to forego the whole tour van thing and went straight to an RV – RV Keitel, that is, sometimes referred to as Camper Van Beethoven. (The RV’s name is ever-evolving—the band jokes that when they go to San Francisco, they’ll call it RV Milk!)
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camper vans
The Bushwick Trailer Park Lives On! (Sort Of)
Ever wonder what happened to all those trailers from the Bushwick Trailer Park, the arts collective/trailer haven that popped up on a vacant Bushwick lot a few years ago? Shortly after the park’s demise in 2011, collective founder Hayden Cummings told City Room that a third of them were sold on Craigslist; but what about the rest? Well, a few — four Airstreams from the 1950s through the ’70s, to be exact — have made their way to a smallish lot on the border of Greenpoint and Williamsburg. And Morgan O’ Kane, a banjo player and subway busker, lives in one of them.
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He’s Not Just a Man With a Van; He’s a Man With a Managon
Some people get stopped on the street because of the exotic dogs they walk, or the outrageous fashions they sport, but Greenpoint resident Austin Huq frequently gets stopped for his ice-cream-cone-like tan and brown ’82 Volkswagen Vanagon. With the license plate “Managon,” no less. (Get it?)
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This Guy’s Front Porch Is a 42-Year-Old Mustard-Yellow RV
When I asked Ron, who’d like to remain last nameless as he looks for a new job, where his interest in collecting vintage RVs came from, he shrugged his shoulders as if the answer were obvious. “It’s a hobby. Everybody needs a hobby.” Ron, a 55-year-old handyman and musician who has called the East Village home on and off since the mid-eighties, joked, “I have a boat, a dog, two RVs, a band [Bluesco Band], all the things you can have if you don’t have a girlfriend!”
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