Visit Cortelyou Road Park on Park(ing) Day, Friday, September 19

Posted on 2008-09-16 by admin

Cortelyou Road Park, Park(ing) Day 2007. Photo: Keka Marzagão

On Friday, September 19th, Sustainable Flatbush will transform a parking spot on Cortelyou Road in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn into a park, complete with grass, plants, and seating. “Cortelyou Road Park”, located on the corner of Cortelyou and Argyle Roads [GMAP], is one of 50 sites around New York City – twice as many as last year – participating in Park(ing) Day, an international event.

“Park(ing) Day is an opportunity to create a community gathering space, and to make a statement about how we allocate public space,” says Anne Pope, Founder/Director of Sustainable Flatbush. “In this neighborhood, despite all the beautiful homes and lawns and gardens, the amount of public green space per person is much lower than the city average.”

Cortelyou Road Park will be open from 9AM to dusk and include activities for children and adults – a school and several day care centers are located nearby – and an art exhibition in the adjacent plaza of the local Brooklyn Public Library branch. “Using 160 square feet of concrete for temporary storage of an automobile benefits only its owner. If we can take that area and transform it into something magical that is enjoyed by dozens of people, maybe that’s a better use of the space,” says Pope. “I hope it gets people thinking about how public space can be allocated for the maximum benefit.”

This year, park builders are putting new emphasis on site-specific designs that will reflect the social, cultural, and architectural contexts in which they’re situated. This approach will also generate innovative proof-of-concept designs for permanent public space reclamation. Seating areas, art installations, and community engagement will all make the case for a more sensible and human-friendly distribution of available urban public space.

Also new is Park(ing) Day Redux, taking place on October 18th. This capstone exhibit will feature a rebuild of selected parking spots on a closed street in front of Eyebeam Art and Technology Center on West 21st Street, photos and media from the September event, and a mixer with the city’s most imaginative public space interventionists.

Sustainable Flatbush brings neighbors together to discuss, educate, and advocate for sustainable living in our Brooklyn neighborhood and beyond. Their vision of a sustainable neighborhood includes equal access to healthy food and open spaces; preserving affordable housing (and the diverse population it enables) through innovative energy practices; and high-quality, resource-efficient transportation options (including cycling). As residents of one of the most culturally diverse neighborhoods in the nation, they strive to learn from each other and emulate global best practices in sustainability, whether that translates into cutting-edge technology or just living more simply.

The Flatbush CommUNITY Garden, Brooklyn’s (and NYC’s!) newest community garden

Posted on 2008-09-16 by admin

Completed raised bed frames, ready for filling and planting, on August 24, 2008

Brooklyn’s newest community garden broke ground at the beginning of July. We planted for the first time two weeks ago. Planning for the garden began at least as early as the Winter of 2007, when I first became involved.

The Flatbush CommUNITY Garden is a project of Sustainable Flatbush. The Garden is located at 1522 Albemarle Road, at the intersection of Buckingham Road, on property generously loaned to the Garden by the owner.

All 16 plots are already allocated for this season. As Brooklyn’s newest community garden, we are still working out our membership procedures. We hope to have these finalized by the end of the year. Announcements for future meetings, and procedures for new members to join, will be posted on the Sustainable Flatbush Web site when they are available.

Site visit, Sunday, June 1, 1008

The mission of the Flatbush CommUNITY Garden is to create space for a diverse group of neighbors to establish a community-led organic garden; to grow fruits, vegetable, herbs, and flowers, and create a multi-cultural, interactive, empowering space that fosters unity and pride within the community while supporting healthy eating and local sustainable agriculture. An additional goal of this program is to promote sustainable gardening and farming practices throughout the neighborhood, especially on publicly accessible land that is currently underutilized. Our gardens will serve as visible examples of sustainability practices such as rainwater harvesting, water-efficient landscaping, composting, and permaculture.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Say “Weeeeds!”

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Friday, August 29, 2008

Picking up compost from the Fresh Kills Composting Site on Staten Island

Links

Sustainable Flatbush: Community Garden, Projects 2008, and Flickr photo set

Sycamore

Posted on 2008-09-15 by admin

Potted plants and gardening tchotkes on display at Sycamore

Not the tree, but a new flower shop/bar that opened last week around the corner from me. During the day, it will operate as a flower shop, evenings, as a bar. This new venture from the owners of The Farm on Adderley, Gary Jonas and Allison McDowell, replaces Cortelyou Vintage at 1118 Cortelyou Road in my neighborhood of Flatbush.

When the street front was renovated, they discovered the original stained and leaded glass lights of the store windows. They had been painted over, but were in otherwise good condition; they were restored with lots of cleaning, plus some replacements and repairs. The flower shop occupies just the front of the space, visible from the street.

Storefront, Sycamore, 1118 Cortelyou Road

The bar occupies the rest of the space.

The garden theme continues to the shelves behind the bar.

A backyard deck extends the space to the outdoors, likely to the dismay of the neighbors.

A wall of Boston Ivy, Parthenocissus tricuspidata

Every new business on Cortelyou Road is examined under the collective microscope of the community, sometimes on blogs, but mostly on email discussion groups and in casual conversation. This block of Cortelyou, in particular, has seen a lot of change in the 3-1/2 years I’ve lived in the neighborhood. As in other neighborhoods of Brooklyn, change highlights tensions between “old” and “new” Flatbush, especially around the issues of economic sustainability and neighborhood and cultural stability. With specialty roses at $2 a stem, not to mention beers at up to $8 and $10, Sycamore will amplify those concerns.

That said, this is, at least, a neighborhood enterprise. Gary and Allison live just two blocks away in Flatbush. The architect, Ole Sondresen, who also designed The Farm on Adderley, is also a neighbor of mine. They are investing their energy and creativity into the neighborhood where they live. That, I think, is a good thing.

Links

Ole Sondresen
Flatbush Vegan
Ditmas Park Blog
Brooklyn Paper

Seven years

Posted on 2008-09-10 by admin

This morning I went to Battery Park to sign my name on a beam which will be used in the construction of the National September 11 Memorial at Ground Zero. This beam-signing opportunity runs through 6pm today, and again tomorrow, September 11, from 10am to 6pm.

I went alone. The collective spirit of those assembled felt strange to me. People waiting to enter were talking with each other, laughing, catching up. For many of these people, it seemed to be a reunion, or even more causal, like a ride in the elevator.

Those of us who arrived before 10am had to wait nearly two hours to sign. Everything had to wait for the arrival – and departure – of Mayor Bloomberg. He played the role of the bad dinner guest, who arrives late, so everyone else’s food is cold, and lingers far too long, straining the patience of even the most gracious hosts.

While I was waiting, reporters trolled through the crowd. Shortly after I arrived, I was interviewed briefly by 1010WINS, a local radio station. They asked my name, asked me to spell it out, asked me where I worked. Then they asked me, something like: When you think about that day, what comes to mind? I looked up at the sky, as blue this morning as it was that morning. My eyes filled with tears. I choked out a response: It’s an atrocity. For anyone to do that in the name of their god is an atrocity.

Ground Zero, September 27, 2001

They also asked what I was going to write. I told them I was going to write the name of the Memorial Cobblestone Campaign I started: Gardeners for Recovery.

Eventually we got to actually wait in line, instead of muddling about in the cattle pen on the sidewalk. Some of this drudgery was relieved by the company of a bulldog. His name was 6, the number. With his underbite and watery eyes, he reminded me of a deep-sea anglerfish. He was very sweet and affectionate. His person said he hated to get his picture taken, but we seemed to have developed a rapport. Perhaps it was the butt-rubbing and ear-fluffing that won him over.

Each of us was given a commemorative marker with which to sign. A magnetic template on the beam constrained the area in which we could write. I had hoped to write the statement of the cobblestone campaign I started:

Gardeners for Recovery recognize the importance of gardens and gardening for individual, community, and global healing and recovery.

There wasn’t enough room for that, so I simply signed it with my name and that of the campaign.

At that point, I had waited so long, I didn’t know what to do next. I was actually shaking a little, so I sat down on a park bench just outside the signing area. I half-collapsed when I sat down. Each beam weighs 4 tons. I was feeling the symbolic weight of what we were all doing there this morning, why each of us felt, in our own way, we wanted to do this.

When I left the beam-signing area, I walked over to The Sphere. Battered and bent, it was relocated from the plaza of the World Trade Center to Battery Park. It will eventually be returned to the site when construction is completed.

The Sphere, Battery Park, September 2003

The radio guys had asked me if signing the beam would make a difference. I don’t really believe it does, certainly not one signature. I told them, “it’s a gesture,” an expression of the hope for recovery. Maybe the collective weight of all those signatures can have an impact, can make a difference on someone. Maybe we can reflect on our own collective responsibilities as a people, as a nation.

The Sphere, yesterday

Flags, flags, flags … flags waving everywhere. I understand the impulse, yet I don’t feel it as a defiant gesture. It feels like a concession to me. That we have no greater symbol than our nation’s flag makes me sad. What evil has been committed in the name of that flag? How is it any different from the evil committed against us seven years ago?

Anti-war graffiti on the base of a statue of George Washington in Union Square Park, September 24, 2001

It has taken far too long to reclaim that void. It will be several more years, and billions of dollars, before we can really reclaim it. I am comforted that the vision for the memorial is essentially a garden: a plaza filled with oak trees, waterfalls plunging into the earth where the towers stood, stairs to lead us down into the earth, where we can be surrounded by emptiness and the white noise of the leaves of the trees and the rushing waters, where we can be alone together, and reflect.

[bit.ly]

Gardeners for Recovery
9/11

Links

National September 11 Memorial
The Sphere

Frolic in Flatbush this Sunday, September 14

Posted on 2008-09-09 by admin

This is not your ordinary, generic, same-vendors-at-every-event street fair. For the second year in a row, the Frolic is organized completely by staff and volunteers from FDC and the Flatbush community.

Via press release.

The Flatbush Development Corporation is proud to announce that the THIRTY FIRST ANNUAL FLATBUSH FROLIC neighborhood street fair is set to take place on Sunday, September 14, 2008 in Victorian Flatbush on Cortelyou Rd. between Coney Island and Ocean Avenues, from 11.00am to 6.00pm, rain or shine.

This year’s FROLIC theme is “Flatbush United Nation AKA F.U.N.: From Many Places, Many Shining Faces.” The Cortelyou Road farmer’s market, a chili-cook-off, bake-a-rama, arts & crafts shows, environmental showcase, and Sports Challenge with Martial Arts, Gymnastics and Basketball Tournament will be just some of the attractions showing the diversity back of this stretch of former farmland in Brooklyn. “We want to celebrate with great local artists and music acts from the heart of Brooklyn, and capture the spirit of the community unity, with participants who’ve come from all over the world but who’ve chosen to live work and play here in Flatbush,” said Mannix Gordon, FDC’s director of economic development, who’s organizing the event.

With an annual headcount of over twenty thousand attendees, the FROLIC is the ultimate celebration of this unique Brooklyn neighborhood and all it has to offer: its history, diversity, character, Victorian architecture, tree-lined streets and its charming feel of Americana in the big city.

Fairground attractions will include a wide range of local food and retail vendors, children’s rides and activities, and information booths detailing the neighborhood and its local businesses.

This year we’re proud to bring three stages of live music to Cortelyou. The main stage at Rugby road will showcase an eclectic mix of top Kid Rock, Hillbilly Blues, Reggae, Experimental Jazz, Hip Hop Soul and R&B acts.

– The Dirty Sock Funtime Band: the highest energy kids’ rock band ever to break out of NYC

– Alegba & Friends w/Jeanine Truly and funky band; intense diva vocals and all-female horn players. Alegba & Friends Band: local roots reggae jazz superstars

– Sean Nowell Band Cerebral Music, but played with soul and feeling; ballads that somehow build into frenetic climaxes

– Tah Phrum Duh Bush & Coole High presenting Off the Dome Flatbush Hip Hop & Phat Beats

– 37 Deep Showcase: Radikal is a live fusion of SOUL, R&B, HIP-HOP, and World music

– The Waywords Hillbilly Blues for the New Millennium with Slim Dixon

– Carlos Jimenez Orchestra & The Latin Fever Dancers High Energy Horn Blowin, Roof raising Toe stomping Latin Jazz with the fabulous and famous dancers form Cortelyou Road.

At Stratford Road at the Western Stage, in front of the Vox Pop café, bookstore and performance space, performers from Victorian Flatbush will showcase the best the neighborhood has to offer. Jenny Hill & Liquid Horn [Brazilian Jazz] Demander [Indie Rock] is a post-sexy, post-punk, post-gregorian/ambrosian trio that sets fire., My Sister in 1994 (indie rock), Robbers on High Street – (indie rock), Andrew Thomas and the Believers (alternative) Rene Collins (reggae folk) Proud Simon (indie rock) a whirlwind of sounds and stories.

A Third stage at the Eastern end will have latin dance lessons all day, by Marisol of Latin Fever Dance Studio, DJ Copa and Tah Phrum The Bush will host an open-mic in the afternoon. Sure to please and get you dancing. And if that’s not enough check out Midwood Martial Arts all-day activities in the ‘Just For Kids’ area & the ‘Cortelyou Station’, Cynthia King Dance Studio and CASYM Steel Pan Orchestra B (Calypso), Traditional Pakistani, Chinese Music & More!!

Fairground attractions include: a carnival amusement park, baking contests, basketball tournaments, games of chance, double-dutch contests, Cortelyou Station martial arts exposition, interactive dance and arts & crafts. Environmental attractions sponsored by Flatbush Food Coop and Sustainable Flatbush will challenge you to think, act and promote green technology.

Stay tuned for more special events, guests, elected officials and public speakers.

FOR VENDING & GENERAL INQUIRIES: please contact Joyce or Jean @ FDC @ 718.859.3800

FOR MUSIC, PRESS & SPONSORSHIP INFORMATION: please contact Mannix Gordon @ 718.859.4831 mgordon@fdconline.org

Links

Flatbush Frolic Web site
Flatbush Development Corporation (FDC)

More love for the Q train

Posted on 2008-09-09 by admin

Part of the Beverly Road subway platform on the Q line.

A writer in today’s New York Observer romances the Q:

I love the Q train. O.K., I love the B, too, but it’s the Q that’s stolen my heart.

When I moved back to Brooklyn in January, the biggest factor in finding an apartment was its proximity to this train line, and especially to the 7th Avenue station (a nice change of pace after riding the G train for three years). It’s just far enough into Brooklyn that I am in a quiet, residential neighborhood, but also only the third stop into the borough, easily depositing me anywhere I need to go in Manhattan.
– Brooklyn, The Borough: Can the Q Be the Next L?, Nicole Brydson, The Observer

She parrots the fiction that “Ditmas Park” equates “Flatbush.” And she heralds what may be the death knell for the livability of my neighborhood: the arrival of celebrities. Comparing the Q to the L does not bode well.

Like the L train of the early ‘00s, the neighborhoods along the Q/B line have seen new crops of people popping out of its stations along a path rumbling through central and southern Brooklyn, from Downtown, Park Slope, Midwood and Ditmas Park, through Sheepshead Bay and, via an expert right turn, Brighton Beach and Coney Island. The Q line even has some of the same digitally enhanced trains that graced the L line a few years back.
…
Not only is the Q/B line convenient, with a recent sighting by Page Six Magazine of Brooklyn celebrity darling Michelle Williams dining with new beau Spike Jonze at popular Ditmas Park eatery The Farm on Adderley (off the Cortelyou Q stop), the perception of southern Brooklyn seems to be getting a makeover.

Flatbush by rail with Francis Morrone

Links

Brooklyn, The Borough: Can the Q Be the Next L?, Nicole Brydson, The Observer

Sunday, September 21: Brooklyn Blogade

Posted on 2008-09-08 by admin

NOTE CHANGE IN DATE

The next Brooklyn Blogade is Sunday, September 21, at 1pm, at Juliette in Willliamsburg. This month’s Blogade is hosted by Christine Brodigan of HuffPo and PlumTV. Topics will include personal branding, social media, and audience-building.

To attend, please RSVP Chrissie at christine dot brodigan at gmail dot com.

And save the date of Sunday, October 12 for the next Blogade after this one, when I’ll be your host at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Blogade

Links

Juliette [GMAP]

[where: Juliette, 135 N. 5th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211]

Brooklyn Bear’s Carlton Avenue Garden, Fort Greene, Green With Envy Tour, II.10

Posted on 2008-08-19 by admin

The Green With Envy Tour II at the Brooklyn Bear’s Carlton Avenue Garden in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

The final stop on the Green With Envy Tour II was the Carlton Avenue site of the Brooklyn Bear’s Gardens.

Check the links below for photos from the other stops on both Tours I and II. And watch for announcements for the next Green With Envy Tour, which I’ll post on this blog.

Street Entrance

This garden had the most-developed and luxuriantly planted streetscape of any community garden I’ve seen. This has a big impact even when the garden is closed.

Approaching the garden from the north, the first thing you notice is the three story mural painted on the side wall of the adjacent building.

Here’s a closer look.

As you get closer, the streetside planters demand your attention.

In the planter to the left of the entrance are the silver-white flowering bracts of mountain-mint, Pycnanthemum muticum. I recognized it because I grow the same species in my backyard native plant garden. In this garden as well as my own, at this time of year they are swarming with multiple species of bees, flies, and wasps, all important pollinators of food crops.

Opposite, to the right of the entrance, is another planter with a different design. Asymmetrical plantings like these entrance planters maximize the massing possible with a given plant palette. The greater variety of plants provide for longer, and more varied, blooms. All of these are strategies to attract both plant pollinators and insect predators close to the garden’s growing areas.

Every garden has a “garden is open” sign. This one includes several imperatives.

More ornamental plantings, including several mature trees, lie inside the fence.

Common Areas

The garden is built on a slope. The raised beds form terraces built into the hillside. This photo is the best I got to show this. I’d like to see this garden in the winter.

The picnic area, which appears in the opening photo, is part of the gathering area at the low side of the garden.

Composting

The mandatory composting area. This triple-bin arrangement was the most common. These weathered bins are still on the job. Signs moved from bin to bin let gardeners and visitors know where to add fresh material, and where they can obtain compost for use in their beds.

Glam

Marigold

Monarda

Achillea

Coreopsis

South Midwood Garden Tour and Art Show

Posted on 2008-08-19 by admin

Campus Road Garden, South Midwood, Flatbush, Brooklyn

This Saturday, August 23, from 3pm to 5pm, the Campus Road Garden at Avenue H and Campus Road is hosting an art show and garden tour:

Come view the garden, sit among the flowers and butterflies, and see art created by your neighbors.

Pakistani-American Festival, Sunday, August 17

Posted on 2008-08-14 by admin

via the NYC DOT Weekend Traffic Advisory:

Coney Island Avenue between Avenue H and Newkirk Avenue will be closed Sunday, August 17, from 11am to 6pm for the Pakistani-American Festival as permitted by the Mayor’s Street Activity Permit Office (SAPO).

The event is sponsored by the Pakistani-American Merchants Association. Today, August 14, is the 61st Anniversary of Pakistan’s independence.

Flatbush Gardener

Urban Habitat Gardening with Native Plants

Visit Cortelyou Road Park on Park(ing) Day, Friday, September 19

Links

The Flatbush CommUNITY Garden, Brooklyn’s (and NYC’s!) newest community garden

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Friday, August 29, 2008

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Links

Sycamore

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Seven years

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Frolic in Flatbush this Sunday, September 14

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More love for the Q train

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Sunday, September 21: Brooklyn Blogade

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Brooklyn Bear’s Carlton Avenue Garden, Fort Greene, Green With Envy Tour, II.10

Street Entrance

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Composting

Glam

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South Midwood Garden Tour and Art Show

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Pakistani-American Festival, Sunday, August 17