A Sunny Picnic Under Cloudy Skies

More from the archives.

It was a cloudy day at Coney Island and all the benches were filled, but that didn’t stop these determined picnickers.

They knew how to make their own sunshine; they just plopped down on the boardwalk next to the school bus parking lot and munched on hot dogs and fries wrapped in the distinctive, bright yellow of Nathan’s Famous.

Nathan’s Famous

Selling Toilet Paper

Today was the opening of the “What’s the Hook” exhibit at the Kentler Gallery. The photo I submitted to the show, entitled Keeping the Toilet Paper Safe, was sold before the opening.

Kentler Gallery
Kentler Gallery: About

Bay Ridge Buddies

More previously unpublished photos from the Blather archives.

This man and parrot were hanging out on sunny 86th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, when I asked to take their photo. They had the same reaction.

Somber man and parrot

Laughing man and parrot

Wikipedia: Bay Ridge

Looking forward, looking back

Well, it looks as though I have to buy a camera. The repair shop examined the one I broke and gave me the bad news: fixing my old camera will cost about as much as purchasing a new one.

I haven’t shopped for a camera in years, and I do have a rather small budget, so I think I’ll have to do a lot of research and investigation. Do you have any ideas about the current crop of cameras? Any and all suggestions and advice are welcome.

In the meantime, until I have another camera in my life, I’ll be posting older images that — for one reason or another — never appeared in this blog.

This photo was taken last summer. It shows a mural entitled “Red Hook Works,” which is painted on the side of a brick building on Van Brunt Street in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

Red Hook Works

Click!

Did you ever look at something displayed in a gallery or museum and wondered why on earth the experts had chosen to show that? Ever think you could do a better job of selecting works worth displaying?

Well, now you can. Yes, you, too, can judge an art show in a major museum.

Here’s the deal: the Brooklyn Museum, the second largest art museum in New York (and one of the largest in the country) is holding a new photography show that allows the public to participate in the exhibition process.

The exhibit, entitled Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition, was inspired by a book, The Wisdom of Crowds, which says that a diverse crowd often makes wiser decisions than those made by the so-called experts.

For Click!, anyone who is interested can go to the museum’s Web site and, until May 23, rate how well the photographs reflect the theme: The Changing Faces of Brooklyn. The crowd’s ratings will determine which photos will be exhibited at the museum and how they will be displayed.

Um, yes, in case you are wondering, I did submit a photo and no, I cannot link to it on the museum’s site.

From the museum’s Web site:

What do you mean by “the changing faces of Brooklyn”?
Brooklyn, like most of New York City, is in a constant state of change. Population growth and environmental causes have altered the borough’s terrain, transforming commercial and residential areas and impacting the borough’s residents and activity. Considering Brooklyn’s transformation over the years, its past and its present, please submit a photograph that captures the “changing face(s) of Brooklyn.” We welcome a wide variety of visual interpretations of this topic.

Who is on the jury?
Anyone and everyone! We are asking as many people as possible to evaluate submissions. In crowd theory, it’s important that the crowd be diverse, so we encourage people from all backgrounds and geographic locations to participate.

Why can’t I send a link to a friend and tell them to vote for my work?
We don’t allow linking directly to works to avoid having the results skewed by promotional methods. Your work will be displayed without attribution [my name doesn't appear], and all evaluation data will be withheld until the exhibition in June. Although you can’t send a direct link to your work, we want you to encourage friends, family, and colleagues to participate in the evaluation process. Please help us spread the word.

Want to give it a try? Start here: Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition and register on the museum’s Web site. The rating period ends May 23, 2008.

PS: If you do come across my photo (below) I’d appreciate a good rating. Have fun!

Legalizacion Para Todos Los Inmigrantes

Brooklyn Museum: Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition
Brooklyn Museum: Click! exhibit blog
TechCrunch: The Brooklyn Museum Lets the Crowd Curate a Show
Museum 2.0: Brooklyn Clicks with the Crowd: What Makes a Smart Mob?

Project Looking Through

I enjoyed being part of Anna Carson’s Project Yellow and have decided to try another blogger project, Mark’s Project Looking Through. The object is to post a photo that gives the viewer the sensation of looking through something.

This photo was taken in Brooklyn Bridge Park, 12 acres located between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. This narrow stretch of land is separated from the East River by a paved promenade and a short iron fence.

Click on the image to see the details. Shot through the rails of the fence, it shows the Manhattan skyline, the Brooklyn Bridge and the 32-story Verizon Building, one of the world’s first art deco skyscrapers. All you way to the left, on the far side of the river, you can glimpse the domed roof of the World Financial Center.

Look closely at the surface of the river, between the iron bars, and you’ll see two boats heading beneath the bridge — a long, dark barge and a small, bright vessel with an American flag flying from the stern.

Brooklyn Bridge Park
Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation
Wikipedia: Verizon Building
Wikipedia: Brooklyn Bridge

Hi, do you wear a button?

This sign was posted at the top of a stairway inside the Clark Street subway station. I can’t help but wonder whether it worked.

Have you ever posted (or answered) an ad looking for love?

I Believe In Harvey Dent

Spring is here!

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils
– William Wordsworth

The trees are still bare, the grass is still brown, but the winter is officially over and the signs of spring have appeared. These, the year’s first blossoms, appeared “all at once,” bursting out of the cold, hard earth of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Tree peony bud

Tree peony buds

Snowdrops

Daffodil

Daffodils

Drift of crocuses

Crocuses

Crocus

Small yellow flowers

Blossom breaking through the winter cover

Vinca

Violet

Iris

Camellia

Camellia

Camellia bud

Empty benches and bare branches

Soon, these limbs will be covered with flowers

Ducks swimming in the spring sunshine

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Signs of Life in the Subway

The Metropolitan/Lorimer Street subway station features Signs of Life, a series of mosaics by Taiwan-born artist Jackie Chang. The project, completed in the year 2000, was commissioned by the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority. It brings a much-needed touch of wit and beauty to an otherwise dingy underground section of Brooklyn.

Faith - Fate

Same - Sane

History: Your Story

Use Less

MTA: Permanent Art
Dephography: Jackie Chang
NYC Subway: Artwork
Art in Context: Jackie Chang

We protest!

The crowd gathered in front of the Federal Courthouse was loud and passionate. They carried signs, chanted and marched on Cadman Plaza in a small circle. Very small. In fact, the police and court officers on the scene almost outnumbered the protesters.

The demonstration took place at lunchtime. Organizers plugged in their sound system, cranked up the speakers and drew spectators from nearby homes and businesses. A group of students said that they’d come over to investigate because the noise had disrupted their classes (”Our school is a few blocks away but we heard it,” they said.).

The marchers seemed committed to their cause, but few of the observers understood what the group was protesting. The signs and speeches made it clear that the demonstration had something to do with Puerto Rico, but not the specific nature of the problem.

When asked what the protest was all about, the observers shrugged their shoulders and confessed that they didn’t have a clue, but they were enjoying the little show in the sunshine. I took a few photos, but didn’t learn the nature of their cause (they want Puerto Rico to be independent of the US) until I found a report online.

Women making a speech

The marchers

Anti-FBI sign

Protester with tape over his mouth

Jury resistance campaign

More marchers

Protesting the FBI

Newday: Pro-independence Puerto Ricans subpoenaed by NYC grand jury

Decorating the Tree at Columbus Park

I was walking along Court Street when the white aerial lift atop a bright orange bucket truck caught my eye. As I drew closer, I saw two workmen were using the vehicle to lift them as they decorated the Christmas tree at Columbus Park.

Although the sky was gray and the air was chill, the men were having a wonderful time, hanging ornaments on the bucket, the tree and themselves, swooping through the air, mugging for the camera and helping all of Downtown Brooklyn get into a holiday spirit.

The orange bucket truck

A workman secures the star at the top

The men switch positions

The second worker attaches ornaments

High in the air, posing for the camera

Brooklyn doorbell

This startled-looking doorbell is mounted on a Van Dyke Street house in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

Get a Free Laundry Basket

This sign was posted in the window of the Laundry King laundromat on 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Trick or Treat!

On Halloween, suburban children dress up and wander from house to house to gather candy and treats. But — for many reasons – that approach to trick or treating doesn’t always work so well for city kids.

In Brooklyn Heights, the tradition calls for costumed youngsters to walk through the historic commercial district on Montague Street and collect candy from the neighborhood shops and businesses. This year, I was lucky enough to catch some of the little monsters (and the workers who gleefully welcomed them) in the act.

A lion caught outside a pharmacy

A little bride on the street corner

A family maneuvers the scaffolding outside a drug store

An M&M candy standing before a rack of dresses

Supermarket worker greets a little rooster

The ice cream parlor handed out samples

A pussycat stands before a revolving door

A foil-wrapped candy kiss inside a shop

Cowboy in a drug store

A pirate and Snow White stand with antique furniture

The poor guy in the middle just wants to shop

A group inside a thrift shop

Thrift shop staff coated with stage blood

A chicken naps while trick or treating

A group crossing Montague Street

Pair of Spidermen invade a shop

A dragon & his dad in front of the grocery store

A.G.A.S.T.

It is time once again for the Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour (A.G.A.S.T.), a weekend when visitors are welcomed in many of the art studios in the area around the Gowanus Canal.

The Gowanus Canal is one of Brooklyn’s most notorious neighborhoods. Built to connect a marshy inland area of South Brooklyn with New York Bay, the canal was intended to serve two purposes: draining the land (thus enabling development) and serving the transportation needs of a rapidly growing industrial region. When it opened in the 1860s, the Gowanus was hailed as one of the world’s most important waterways.

Unfortunately, the factories, mills, tanneries, slaughterhouses, gas plants and coal yards that stood alongside the Canal produced great quantities of toxic materials, most of which were dumped directly into the water. There, the industrial pollutants mingled with the raw sewage and household waste discharged from the nearby worker’s homes. 

Due to a lack of sanitary methods and sound management practices, the canal rapidly became stagnant and poisonous. By the time of the outbreak of World War II, it had gained fame as one of the world’s dirtiest bodies of water, a foul, opaque pool locally referred to as ”Lavender Lake.” The filthy passageway was renowned both for the stench that rose from its depths and the debris, including corpses, that often rose to the surface.

In recent decades, governmental agencies, technological developments and community activists have combined forces to improve the quality of the water. Their efforts are bearing fruit, as the waterway is widely acknowledged as “stinking a lot less.”

Many of the large commercial buildings and warehouses along the canal, no longer needed to support the much-diminished shipping industry, have been converted into residences, shops, restaurants, bars and – most notably — scores of artists’ studios. 

This weekend, more than 130 of the visual artists in 26 different Gowanus-area locations invited the public into their studios, free of charge. Visitors were able to meet with painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers, glassblowers, videographers and others in their working environments and gain insight into their creative philosophies and processes.

Banner on Smith Street across from subway entrance

Corridor in building with many studios

Tamara Thomsen speaking with young visitors

Visitors discussing a painting

This artist keeps a photo of his grandmother in the studio

Artist and her mother greet visitors

Daniel McDonald speaking to an admirer

Wall of Curtis Wallin

Couple falling in love with a painting

Large canvas propped up in corridor

Pop gun

A.G.A.S.T.
AGAST Brooklyn
Curtis Wallin
Tamara Thomsen
Ernest Concepcion
A.J. Mascena
Annie Leist
Kathleen Collins
Kathryne Hall
Hilary Lorenz
Dave Marin
Rachel Zindler
Daniel McDonald
Joshua Dov Levy
Ilan N. Jacobsohn
Lavender Lake

33rd Annual Atlantic Antic

Time once again for the Atlantic Antic, New York’s greatest street fair. The event stretches for a mile and a half on bustling Atlantic Avenue, attracting tens of thousands of Brooklynites who mix, mingle and munch the day away.

In fact, the food is one of the primary attractions, as the cafes, bars and restaurants that line the street bring their signature dishes (and often, their seating and entertainment) outdoors and members of religious congregations raise funds by proffering homemade specialties.

As a result of the focus on food, this year the event’s organizers created the Atlantic Antic Food Map, enabling fairgoers to quickly zero in on their favorite dishes before they sell out. There’s nothing as frustrating as queing up and waiting for a snowy hunk of homemade coconut cake (or a dish of fragrant paella or grilled sausages or peach cobbler) only to see the last bit sold to someone else.

Of course, it isn’t just the food that draws the crowds; people flock to the Atlantic Antic to have fun, listen to music, shop for bargains and handicrafts, see how much the neighborhood has changed in the past year and meet their neighbors in one of the most diverse, lively and historic sections of the city.

Sign on a tree

Barbequed pig’s head

Craftsman selling jewelry

Sauce bottles

Clown

Shucking oysters

Crafters selling jewelry

Drawing dog’s portrait (yes, the dog)

Jazz orchestra on the street

Modelling wedding gowns

Dishing up homemade desserts

Rocking the stage

Old friends meet on Atlantic Ave.

Shopping in drapery booth

Rabbi welcomes visitors to portable sukkah

Belly dancer with Eddie the Sheik

Selling dragon puppets

Dancing garbage can encourages recycling

Atlantic Antic Food Map
Atlantic Antic 2007
Atlantic Antic 2006
Atlantic Antic 2005

Brooklyn Book Festival 2

For the second year in a row, the Brooklyn Book Festival was held in and around Borough Hall.

Authors, poets, publishers, booksellers, writer’s organizations and (most importantly) readers gathered for discussions, recitations, meetings, entertainment and inspiration. Anyone who believes that the Internet has made the printed word obsolete would have gone into shock as thousands of books were eagerly signed, sold, swapped, coveted and devoured.

The day’s festivities included book-related crafts for kids, a poetry slam, acting troupes performing excerpts from classics, literary triva games and crossword puzzles, and the Brooklyn Public Library kicking off a borough-wide “Big Read” of Harper Lee’s beloved novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

Participating authors included:
Chris Abani, The Virgin of Flames, GraceLand, Hands Washing Water
Megan Abbott, Die a Little, The Song is You, Queenpin
Harry Allen, Hip-Hop Activist and Media Assassin
Sinan Antoon, I’jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody, The Baghdad Blues

Doreen Baingana, Tropical Fish: Stories from Entebbe
Dan Barber, Chef’s Story
Wayne Barrett, Rudy!, Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11
Moustafa Bayoumi, coeditor: The Edward Said Reader
Phil Bildner, Barnstormers, Playing the Field
Michael Ian Black, comedian
Shane Book, Gathering Ground, Revival, Breathing Fire 2
David Bouley, East of Paris, Chef’s Story
Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty; Rebel Angels
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, Race, Law, and American Society
Michael Buckley, The Sisters Grimm
Marina Budhos, Ask Me No Questions, The Professor of Light

Alyssa Capucilli, Biscuit
Jim Carroll, The Basketball Diaries, Forced Entries, Fear of Dreaming: The Selected Poems
Dominic Carter, No Momma’s Boy
Stephen Carter, New England White, The Emperor of Ocean Park
Ana Castillo, Peel My Love Like an Onion, So Far from God
Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone
Colin Channer, Waiting in Vain, Passing Through
Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
Staceyann Chin, Skyscrapers, Taxis & Tampons
Troy CLE, The Marvelous World: The Marvelous Effect (Book One)
Joseph Coulson, The Vanishing Moon, Of Song and Water

Steve Dalachinsky, The Final Nite & Other Poems
Edwidge Danticat, Breath Eyes Memory, The Dew Breaker, Brother I’m Dying
Randall DeSeve, Toy Boat

Daniel Ehrenhaft, The Wessex Papers Volumes 1-3, 10 Things to Do Before I Die

Mike Farrell, Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist
Jeffrey Feldman, Framing the Debate: Famous Presidential Speeches and How Progressives Can Use Them
Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End: A Novel
Laura Flanders, Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians
Paula Fox, The Slave Dancer, One-Eyed Cat

Mary Gaitskill, Veronica, Two Girls Fat and Thin, Bad Behavior
Laurie Garrett, Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health
Amitav Ghosh, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide
Myla Goldberg, Bee Season, Wickett’s Remedy, Time’s Magpie
Wayne Greenhaw, King of Country, Ghosts on the Road, The Thunder of Angels
Ben Greenman, A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both, Superbad, Superworse
Eliza Griswold, Wideawake Field: Poems

Kimiko Hahn, The Narrow Road to the Interior: Poems, The Artist’s Daughter: Poems
Ayun Halliday, The Big Rumpus, No Touch Monkey!, Job Hopper, Dirty Sugar Cookies
Pete Hamill, The Gift, Downtown: My Manhattan, Why Sinatra Matters
Dorothy Hamilton, Chef’s Story
Jonathan Hayes, Hard Death, Precious Blood
Tad Hills, Duck and Goose, Duck Duck Goose, Waking up Wendell
Steve Hindy, Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery
Jeff Hobbs, The Tourists: A Novel
A.M. Homes, The Mistress’s Daughter, This Book Will Save Your Life
Charles Hynes, Triple Homicide

Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation

Simon Jacobson, Toward a Meaningful Life
Joyce Johnson, Minor Characters, Missing Men, Door Wide Open

Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: Low Culture Manifesto
Seth Kushner, The Brooklynites

Anthony LaSala, The Brooklynites
John Leland, Hip, Why Kerouac Matters
Jonathan Lethem, The Fortress of Solitude, Motherless Brooklyn, You Don’t Love Me Yet
Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted, The Fairest, Magic Lessons
Tao Lin, Eeeee Eee Eeee, Bed
Phillip Lopate, Getting Personal, Waterfront, Totally Tenderly Tragically
Errol Louis, Grameen’s Lessons. (Grameen Bank): An Article from: Dollars & Sense

Kam Mak, My Chinatown, The Moon of the Monarch Butterflies
Melissa Marr, Wicked Lovely
Bernice McFadden, Nowhere is a Place, Camilla’s Roses, Loving Donovan, Sugar
Joe Meno, Hairstyles of the Damned, Boy Detective Fails, Tender as Hellfire
Susanna Moore, My Old Sweetheart, In the Cut, The Big Girls

Mohammed Naseehu Ali, The Prophet of Zongo Street
Gloria Naylor, 1996, Mama Day, The Women of Brewster Place
Sharyn November, Firebirds, Firebirds Rising

David Ottaway, Afrocommunism, Chained Together

George Packer, The Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq, The Village of Waiting
Antonio Pagliarulo, A Different Kind of Heat, The Celebutantes: On the Avenue
Gregory Pardlo, Totem
Christian Parenti, The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq
Matt de la Peña, Ball Don’t Lie
Neal Pollack, Alternadad, Beneath the Axis of Evil
Katha Pollitt, Reasonable Creatures, Virginity or Death!
Francine Prose, Blue Angel, A Changed Man, Reading Like a Writer

Sharon Robinson, Safe at Home, Jackie’s Nine, Promises to Keep
Anthony Romero, In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror

George Saunders, In Persuasion Nation, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
Jon Scieszka, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, Cowboy and Octopus
Ken Siegelman, City Souls, Through Global Currents, Urbania
Danny Simmons, I Dreamed My People Were Calling But I Couldn’t Find My Way Home
Joseph “Reverend Run” Simmons, Words of Wisdom: Daily Affirmations of Faith
Justine Simmons, God Can You Hear Me?
Amy Sohn, Run Catch Kiss, My Old Man
Martha Southgate, Another Way to Dance, The Fall of Rome, Third Girl from the Left
Elizabeth Strout, Amy and Isabelle, Abide with Me
Robert Sullivan, Cross Country: Fifteen Years and 90,000 Miles…, Rats

Mari Takabayashi, I Live in Brooklyn
Michael Thomas, Man Gone Down
Lynne Tillman, American Genius: A Comedy, This is Not It
David Dante Troutt, The Monkey Suit, The Importance of Being Dangerous, After the Storm

Eisa Nefertari Ulen, Crystelle Morning
Anya Ulinich, Petropolis

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, Dirty Girls Social Club, Playing with Boys, Make Him Look Good
Ivan Velez Jr., Blood Syndicate, A Man Called Holocaust, Static

Lauren Weinstein, Inside Vineyland, Girl Stories
Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, Apex Hides the Hurt
Eric Wight, My Dead Girlfriend
Mo Willems, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus
Patricia Williams, Open House, Alchemy of Race and Rights
Tia Williams, It Chicks, Accidental Diva
Brian Wood, Channel Zero, Demo, DMZ
Jacqueline Woodson, Feathers, Hush, Locomotion
C.D. Wright, One Big Self: An Investigation, Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil

Actors reciting Walt Whitman’s poetry

The crowd scrambles for tickets to author events

Onstage for discussion of Jack Kerouac

The Brooklyn Public Library brought their bus

Brooklyn Book Festival
Brooklyn Public Library
National Endowment for the Arts: The Big Read

Baby rabbit’s for sell

This sign (click on the photo to read it) was taped to a post in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall. It says:

Baby rabbit’s for sell. They are cute and fun so if you would like one come to Court St. The price is 30 per rabbit

No indication of who is selling the rabbits, when they will be available, where on Court Street they can be found, and whether the price is $30 or 30¢ each.

However, there’s no doubt that rabbits can be cute and fun — and tasty, too.

Itty Bitty Bunny
Rabbit Habit

Goodbye to the Floating Pool Lady

For most of us, it came as a wonderful surprise. On July 4, a swimming pool called the Floating Pool Lady opened on the waterfront below Brooklyn Heights. The occasion marked the first time in more than 200 years that the public has had access to this area.

For years activists have been working with officials to transform this section of the Brooklyn waterfront — long the site of abandoned piers, vacant warehouses, weed-filled parking lots and rusting storage sheds — into parkland. The pool and its adjacent 40,000 square foot sandy “beach” represent the first stage of the realization of their plans.

The brainchild of former parks department official Ann Buttenwieser, the pool was built on an old Lousiana cargo barge and moored among the piers on the East River. In addition to the handicapped-accessible pool, organizers installed an open-air shower, a snack bar, bike racks, volleyball nets, dressing rooms, porta-potties, chair and umbrella rentals and picnic tables.

Free shuttle bus service brought visitors directly to the pool from nearby subway stations. Due to its small size (maximum capacity is only 175 persons), gaining entrance to one of the tightly scheduled, carefully monitored 1 1/2 hour swim sessions was somewhat complicated.

First, potential swimmers waited for the announcement that it was time to line up to obtain wristbands for the next available swim session. The wristbands, which were distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis, served as admission tickets. They were color keyed to the day’s the scheduled sessions: on weekdays, four time slots were available; on weekends, six were scheduled.

Once wristbands were obtained, visitors waited for an announcement telling them it was time to line up for admisssion. Some people were turned away every day, and many had long waits, but they didn’t lack things to do.

Visitors could spend time lying on the beach, listening to the music, munching on food prepared at the concession stand, playing frisbee and volleyball, dancing and enjoying the astonishing views of New York Harbor.

Sadly, the Floating Lady was only a temporary feature. Its stay in Brooklyn was limited to two months (officals plan to move it to another borough next summer) and this was its final day. Fans of the pool rushed to the closing-day festivities and the chance to take one last dip, eat one last tofu dog, fly one last kite and get one last sunburn.

View of the barge from the Promenade

Sign on Furman Street

Entering the front gate

Butterflies walking the perimeter

Looking towards Manhattan

Access lift for disabled swimmers

Sitting on the edge of the pool

Swimmers lounging on the upper deck

Volleyball match on the sand

Playing hopscotch on the beach

The hula hoop contest

Human flower at entrance to pool

Pool rules

Brooklyn Bridge Conservancy: The Floating Pool
NYC Parks Dept: Floating Pool Makes A Splash
The Neptune Foundation
NY Post: ‘Float’ Leaving B’klyn
Athletic Business: East River Floater

Un Concierto Gratis en Coffey Park

The notice said:

Councilwoman Sara M. Gonzalez Te Invita A…
Futuray Sentimieto
Un Concierto Gratis en Red Hook
Live Performances: TITO NIEVES, OCHO Y MAS
Special Attraction: RAULIN ROSENDO Y SU ORQUESTA
Coffey Park, Red Hook, Brooklyn Para mas informacion: (71 809-7952 ~ (917) 309-6838

Translation: there’s a free party in Coffey Park!

Coffey Park is an 8-acre patch of green surrounded by vast public housing projects. It’s a rough neighborhood, in an often-overlooked corner of Brooklyn, where many of the residents are more fluent in Spanish than English.

The day was hot and the sky threatened rain, but the when the music started people flocked to the park, crowding around the stage, dancing on the grass and curved walkways, and catching up with old friends.

I beat a hasty retreat when the downpour began, but the locals stayed on, not yet ready to stop partying and go home. A little rain wouldn’t scare them off; they grow ‘em tough in Coffey Park.

Dancers ready to go onstage

Couple dancing on the grass

Dancing on the walkway

Slow dancing near the stage

Face painting at the Latin Fest

The band onstage

Security guards watch the crowd

The rain came but they kept on dancing

New York City Department of Parks & Recreation: Coffey Park
City Parks Foundation: Coffey Park
Councilwoman Sara M. Gonzalez
NYC Campaign Finance Board: Sara M. Gonzalez