By KECIAH BAILEY
Quoting from the Book of Psalms, Mayor Bill de Blasio delivered his plan for education reform to thousands of churchgoers at Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn.
“For anyone who has read scripture this might be familiar,” he said at the Sunday service on Sept. 20, quoting Psalm 32. “I borrow from one psalm in particular and the quote from the psalm is ‘I will instruct you and teach you in the way to go. I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.’”
The mayor unveiled a series of measures, which he called “equity and excellence,” aimed at improving student performance and increasing access to resources, with particular attention to low-performing, low-income school districts.
According to de Blasio, the city has failed to distribute school resources fairly in its neighborhoods.
As such, the mayor’s vision includes computer science for all students across New York by 2025 and advanced placement courses in every high school. He aims to increase graduation rates to 80 percent within the next 10 years and get two-thirds of all high school graduates college-ready. The current graduation rate is 68 percent, and fewer than half of he graduates are ready for college without remedial work.
“We want to reach children who previously were considered unable to go as far as their God-given potential could take them,” de Blasio said.
The plan commits the city to spending an additional $186 million per year and is to be fully implemented by 2026, according to a press release from the mayor’s office.
Other steps geared toward educational equity include: all students having algebra by the ninth grade and a “Single Shepherd” program that provides one-on-one support for middle school and high school students in struggling districts to properly equip them for college. This plan, to be implemented by 2017, will begin with District 7 in the Bronx and District 23 in South Central Brooklyn.
“It’s as simple as this. We have to make sure that success is as common in East New York as it is in the Upper East Side,” de Blasio said.
The mayor’s visit to the church was part of a week-long campaign to promote his education vision.De Blasio’s message to the congregation was well received with rounds of cheers and roaring applause.
“Mayor de Blasio is all about equality. This is what makes him a good mayor,” said Tasha Stewart, parent of middle-school children in East New York’s School District 19. “He thinks about the underprivileged and so we just have to pray for his plans. The children’s future depend on it.”
“A lot depends on the parents,” said Gina Bennet, parent of high school students in Coney Island. “But it is true, the public schools in richer neighborhoods are better because they have more resources.”
By PRICILLA FERRERAS
During the spring, a video made a big splash on social media of a small teenage girl nearly getting beat to death at a Brooklyn McDonald’s on Flatbush Avenue, where a crowd didn’t step in to help but instead, cheered them on and used their phones to record it. The gang-style assault involved six girls, all who attend the near-by high school, Erasmus Hall. It isn’t the first time this incident has occurred after school hours at a local fast food joint.
“That fight was nothing new,” said Casey Johnson, 25, the manager in a peach-colored shirt, monitoring the workers closely as they quickly worked through taking customers’ orders. “Happens all the time. Except this one went up on Facebook and went viral. That’s the only difference.”
The incident raised the issue of whether the high school offers after school activities once classes are over for the day. Are there alternatives to fast-food restaurants and stores as hang out spots? When different teenage age groups or cliques hang together in the same place, it can potentially turn into a pot waiting to boil over with arguments and disputes. Erasmus Hall High School, which is organized into four small schools each with a different specialty, it is not clear whether there are enough programs available to students who have idle time on their hands.
“They know they can’t fight in here, because security will step in, so they all take it out to the fast food joints,” said Johanna Brown, 35, a security guard at High School for Youth and Community Development in Erasmus for six years. “The school isn’t doing enough to provide for the kids afterschool.”
Many community advocates in Flatbush, including Tony Herbert, the longtime voice for Flatbush residents, have pledged to do everything they could to prevent another brutal gang beat down from occurring in the neighborhood.
“I am sick and tired in being in a position where our children are using a McDonald’s as a recreational facility,” activist Herbert said gesturing with his hands. “The message to students must be sent very clearly, from their schools and parents, that this kind of violence will not be tolerated whether in the street or in fast food restaurants. Their future depends on it.”
Herbert, dressed in a brown flannel suit with a hint of a smile, said he recently joined other members of the community outside the McDonald’s at 943 Flatbush Avenue to announce the creation of the “One Family One Community” initiative, which he said will help connect after-school programs with funding, as well as help students from Erasmus with college scholarships and other mentoring opportunities.
Marie Prendergast, principal of Erasmus High School for Youth and Community Development at Erasmus said in a phone interview that she is disappointed that the violent incident occurred but refuses to let it occur ever again. “I am currently using it as a stepping stone to show the Department of Education that schools need substantial funding,” said Prendergast. “I am currently working on a bigger yearly budget for our school overall so we can implement a variety of afterschool programs to meet the needs of our students.”
Andrea Cunningham, 37, a Guidance Counselor for High School for Youth and Community Development at Erasmus, says she is currently working on mentoring students to use their time wisely beyond the campus. “I reached out to the parents of the girls involved in the brawl at McDonalds to discuss the aftermath and what to do next,” said Cunningham. “I am also making proposals to the principal to encourage the Department of Education to provide more funding for all the schools in Erasmus. So far they haven’t been responding, but it’s the effort that counts.”
A study conducted by Students Against Destructive Decisions in NYC found that 46 percent of teens in public high schools with a mentor reported a high “sense of self,” versus 25 percent of teens without a mentor. Cunningham said that those teens feel more positive about their own identity, and have healthier relationships with their peers than do teens with a low sense of self.
“I want to be a guidance counselor to the students, more than just helping them with course selection,” said Cunningham. “Currently, I encourage all of my colleagues to reach out to their students to see what mental and physical state there in. Also, I am working on having the deans report back to us with verbal and physical fights that occur in the hallways and lunchroom in order to consult students about the dispute and come to a calm resolution with all parties involved.”
The Church Avenue Merchants’ Association is a non-profit agency that offers services and programs in education and youth development, family support and children’s counseling. The Afterschool Program coordinator, Shonda Williams, 27, is currently reaching out to Erasmus facility members in hopes to aid their students with afterschool activities.
“Since multiple schools are located in Erasmus Hall, there are few resources for the individual schools because funding is based on the number of students currently enrolled,” said Williams. “CAMBA and I are currently in the process of working with the school that the six girls belonged to, to create minimum rage paid programs after school, such as tutoring and also recreation activities such as dance, clubs and much more.”
The Flatbush Development Corporation (FDC) provides positive social and academic learning opportunities such as job fairs to promote self-confidence, creativity, and civic awareness among youth in the Flatbush community. It also has been a safe haven for many Erasmus Hall Students for many years, even before news of the brawl broke.
David Smith, 29, coach of the basketball team organized by FDC, dressed in basketball shorts and a headband, said the FDC also runs football and tennis teams. There are other recreation activities offered afterschool such as movie day, video games, homework help, and tutoring in a variety of subjects.
“Many of the youths that come here where in the McDonalds the day that fight broke out,” said Smith. “Many said they couldn’t intervene because they were scared for their own lives. Our team here is working harder than ever to advertise at the campus the wonderful activities we have here to keep students occupied after dismissal.”
A cop from the 70th precinct, Officer Steve Pernelli, was getting coffee on a lunch break inside Flatbush Best Deli. Pernelli, while shaking his head in disgust, wasn’t surprised about the brawl that happened in McDonald’s that day. He says it is a common scenario during after school hours for the avenue strip and his supervisor and colleagues are working even harder to prevent aggressive outbreaks from happening ever again.
“Our precinct constantly is in contact with administration department of Erasmus to warn students to go straight home after school,” said Officer Pernelli. “Since the brawl going viral, the deans in particular, have asked us each day after school for our precinct to send out cops to help lead a calm dismissal and ensure that students don’t use fast-food restaurants for their recreational purposes.”
Waiting outside the school for her son to get dismissed from school, Crystal Rodriguez, 38, stood outside with a sun dress, shades, and a hat on, patiently waiting to pick her son up, who’s a freshman. Rodriquez expressed her concerns that there’s unwanted gang activity in Erasmus that she wants her child to be no part of. She waits for her son after school to ensure he doesn’t get mixed up with the wrong crowd. Although, her son, Kevin Gebon, 14, recently made try-outs for High School for Youth and Community Development’s football team, which was briefly on a break.
“The Department of Education recently awarded the team $10,000 to continue their season,” Rodriquez said excitedly. “It’s a good sport to keep him occupied after school and not on the streets.”
Shanice Davis, 15, a current sophomore exiting the campus after a long day of school, said that she doesn’t feel safe after school hours, and that it is the norm for groups of gangs and cliques to roam the streets of Flatbush Avenue looking for trouble.
“I’ve witnessed a boy from my grade walk up to an old man and just lay him out with a sucker punch,” said Davis. “Many of the gangs that go to my school also get into verbal disputes at the nearby Burger King and McDonalds which most of the time escalates into a violent fist fights.”
A junior walking out of the local KFC fast food joint, stood outside briefly observing the busy streets filled with many students from Erasmus Hall. When asked why she is isolated on such a warm, beautiful day, she had quite a response.
“I usually grab a bite to eat and go home to be honest, said Tishana Moore, 17, a junior of High School for Service and Learning at Erasmus Hall. “My friends are always looking to lollygag on the corner and in different stores. If there was a dance program offered at my school I would join. But since there isn’t, I go home to do homework.”
Selena Gomez, 45, a parent of a sophomore who attends High School for Youth and Community Development, the same school which girls from the gang-style attack attend, said that she fears for her daughter’s safety after school hours. She is aware that many students from the campus resort to stores and fast food joints for recreational purposes. She has signed up her daughter, Kayla Gomez, 15, for the step team at The Flatbush Youth Association, in hopes that she would focus on her school work and stay out of trouble.
“I just hope the campus pursues offering extracurricular activities for their students, because I had to pursue an activity for my child outside of the school,” Gomez said as she ran her fingers through her hair. “The incident that occurred at that McDonalds is every parent’s worst nightmare.”
Walking down the hallway, as she warmly greets fellow students who are fond of her, guidance counselor Andrea Cunningham says she isn’t happy about the video of the fight at McDonald’s going viral in news headlines, but she believes it’s what took the school facility overall to wake up.
“If it took a violent, angry mob of girls fighting to get the attention of our school officials, then so be it,” said Cunningham. “But rest assure that the school facility and I have been working every day to get the funding from the DOE to give these teenagers the resources they need to be successful.”
By ANDRE JONES
A driving instructor, Debbie Thomas, 45, arrived late to meet her student for a 45-minute driving lesson in Mill Basin with a depressed look on her face. She informed her student, Andre Fong Choy, 22, that four of her students failed their road test that morning. According to a survey done by the New York Daily News, the number of driving students in NYC who passed the road test declined to only 46% from 2005 to 2012. If over half of people who take the driving test fail, is it really their fault? How well are the driving instructors teaching them?
“I got my license, even though I basically taught myself,” said Abraham Francois, 21, a Flatbush resident. “I paid really for the car, five hour class, and to set up my road test.”
“My instructor wasn’t that great of a teacher,” said Francois.
Francois’s driving school has since closed down and changed into a new school on Remsen Ave in Canarsie, Brooklyn. The school is now called CEN driving school.
According to Department of Motor Vehicles (dmv.ny.gov), to become a driving school instructor you must meet the requirements in the “Commissioner’s Regulations Part 76.16”.
A few of the requirements that must be met are:
The instructor must be at least 21 years of age, must have a driver license valid for operation in New York State that:
Nothing is said about proving they have the ability to teach.
Driving schools have their own requirements as well before their doors are allowed to open by the DMV. Driving schools must meet the requirements of the “Commissioner’s Regulations Part 76” and “Section 394 of the New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law”.
A few of the requirements for driving schools are:
According to DMV.gov, if a driving school is approved after meeting the requirements, the DMV may conduct periodical inspections and audits to make sure they are following requirements.
“Once certified that’s it, the school is fine,” said a phone operator at Image Driving School in Canarsie, who declined to give their name. “We haven’t had any visits or checkups.”
Fuzion Driving School, on Church Avenue in Flatbush, does see DMV officials visit their office.
“We get an inspection once each year,” said Raquel, a phone operator at Fuzion Driving School. “Occasionally twice out the year.”
Students such as Francois, are being affected by these lack of frequent inspections. Instructors whether bad or good aren’t being revaluated often and students are continuing to take tests monthly.
Darren Gordan, 22, was student at Difference Auto School on Rodgers Avenue received his license.
“They were alright and taught okay,” said Gordan. “Half the time I couldn’t understand due to my instructor’s heavy accent.”
“But he made me drive on mostly empty streets and we only took main busy streets once in a while,” said Gordan. “I drove like an old lady”
Image Driving School, despite lack of inspection, receives great reviews from students.
“Abraham, was his name, and old Spanish dude,” said Stephen Blount, 22. “He was real strict and wanted to make sure I did things right.”
“He was always quick to press the breaks,” but his teaching helped Blount receive his license last June.
“I have two instructors, an older guy and another one named, Andre,” said Brian Embrack, 23, another student at Image. “They’re both good, but Andre gives you great instructions for every situation you’ll see on the road”
Embrack’s road test is set to take place next month, so it will be determined how well his instructors taught him.
Some may argue, failing may be a result of the student.
“Some students get nervous and let the pressure get to them,“ said Thomas, Image School driving instructor. “The student will drive well in lessons and feel confidence, but once the test starts they forget all the lessons they had.”
“They have to learn to overcome that, some people aren’t good test takers.” said Thomas.
The driving lessons may vary based upon on schools and instructors, but there are reviews online of each school. A student should carefully research a school to fine one that will serve them best. There could be more state oversight done for schools as well to help increase percentage of students passing their road tests. Success on a road test starts with good teaching.
By JONATHAN GOMEZ
Inside of Common Grounds coffee shop at the corner of Tompkins and Putnam avenues, Tremaine Wright stands behind the counter ready to discuss the trending topic of gentrification that has plagued her beloved Bedford-Stuyvesant.
The first question I ask Wright, who is African American, is what she thinks about the racial implications that come with the trending topic. Her eyes immediately widen and she makes a face as if this question has become all too common.
“Although white privileged are the face of gentrification there is a stable wave of young black professionals moving into Bed-Stuy, so there is no difference,” Wright says as she foams a cappuccino for one of her customers. “There really is no difference when you understand what gentrification is. A gentrifier is a gentrifier, white or black.”
Wright, 42, opened the doors to Common Grounds nearly eight years ago and has served her community beyond the morning cups of iced coffee and “not too sweet” ring danishes; she has served as a key member of the Community Board 3 since 2002.
As she rings up her customer she uses “gentrifiers” again, catching the attention of Ron Hughes, a neighborhood resident and frequent customer of Common Grounds who seems weary of the word that Tremaine and I are throwing it around.
“Why do you keep saying black gentrifiers?” asks Hughes, a 70-year-old retired African American social studies teacher who has called Bedford-Stuyvesant home for more than 40 years. “Black people cannot be referred to as gentrifiers; it just isn’t possible.”
For Hughes gentrification boils down to one thing: race, the factor that leads the constant conversation on gentrification of Bedford-Stuyvesant.
“Black people become a fabric of the community. They don’t come into this community and push anyone out,” Hughes says with a reprimanding tone. “These young whites are just a forerunner for the settlers. They’re here to push us out and take over what is ours. That is the nature of white people in this country.”
Others are ready for a new discussion that will put less emphasis on the race of the gentrifiers and start to look for solutions that build on the neighborhood’s existing culture and history. It was that history which drew me into wanting to understand what the people in Bed-Stuy are feeling during this watershed moment. Having friends and family live in that community within the last 10 years also made me wonder what kept them there and why people suddenly began leaving.
On Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant. (Jonathan Gomez Photo)
Census data do indeed show a significant racial shift in Bedford-Stuyvesant, giving rise to a feeling among Hughes and many other longtime black residents that the black community is being systematically pushed out. But residents like Wright see the change as part of an economic evolution of New York City and believe that it is far too simple to point a finger at any single component of the process.
“I don’t think that the racial implications are helpful, and if you want to blame anyone you blame the developers and international corporations,” Wright says. “Ultimately it is a function of what is happening in the city, not just Bed-Stuy, and with escalating rents in this community of course people are going to have to leave and that is what’s going on here.”
What is happening in Bed-Stuy is a socioeconomic evolution that has been occurring in many neighborhoods throughout the city. With gentrification, the word “affordability” drops out of a neighborhood’s vocabulary; low-income families can’t afford rent. The bullet proof liquor stores are now replaced with coffee shops, trendy bars and expensive restaurants. Decrepit residential buildings are now becoming sleek and stylish apartment complexes.
Hughes sees it in racial terms.
“My homes are paid off, and I’m not going to sell. Instead I will help the people from my community stay in hold on to what is already theirs,” says Hughes. “Black people cannot have anything of their own without them wanting to take it away.”
The truth is that there is a large increase in the neighborhood’s white population. According to census data, Bedford-Stuyvesant has a population of 135,000. As of 2013, 63 percent of the community was black, a number much larger than the 25 percent that is white. But that is a significant change since 2000, when only 1.5 percent of the population was white. As black renters are forced out by rising prices, the tenants moving in are often wealthier whites.
But experts caution against seeing gentrification solely in racial terms.
Sharon Zukin, a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and author of “Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places,” says that a racial overtone is easily adopted when a neighborhood is being “overtaken” by whites, even though gentrification begins as a class phenomenon. She says that the history and cultural design of Bed-Stuy causes some of the disparity and tension between the races.
“There are a lot of black gentrifiers and mixed race gentrifiers; it isn’t just white people,” Zukin says. “White people are visibly different. Their culture patterns are different of the people who live in that neighborhood, so it becomes easier for them to be the ones at fault for the current state of a community.”
Non-white gentrifiers can walk throughout Bedford-Stuyvesant without being chastised by longstanding community members. Not only do they have the advantage of being on the same side of the racial divide, but culturally they may have a lot more in common than their white counterparts.
Caridad Hernandez, 26, a Latina who moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant from Miami in 2013, said she has done her best to adopt the local culture and community. She seems to get what this community is about, and isn’t blind to the changes it is going through.
“I walk around and see all these white faces and it makes me feel like this community is dying, whether it is a bar that used to be a majority black and Hispanic or it is just the basic places in this community, the change is noticeable,” says Hernandez, a public relations coordinator. “I have lived here for a year and came for the opportunities that New York City has to offer, but I came to Bed-Stuy to be with my people, not to be surrounded by gentrifiers who do not appreciate the culture that made this place special.”
Hernandez is sensitive to the neighborhood’s African-American culture, but notes that she and her two roommates pay over $3,000 a month for a three-bedroom apartment, which places her in the wave of gentrifiers.
“It’s different, because I didn’t come here calling the cops on Spike Lee’s father, no, I came here knowing that this was a historic community,” she says when I ask about that. “Sure our rent is a bit absurd, but we don’t disrespect this community or anyone who helped build it.”
Yet the willingness of newcomers to pay high rents that the market will bear is one of the reasons property owners feel they can push longtime residents out.
And so even as the debate about white gentrifiers continues, many feel that the conversation should focus on the socioeconomic shift rather than put races against one another.
“I would argue that my neighborhood is undergoing dramatic change, but the so called crisis that we’re facing in Bedford-Stuyvesant is a housing crisis for namely renters in low and moderate income who live in market- rate housing,” says Richard Flateau of Flateau Realty Group.
A report by Citi-data.com supports that. It shows that in 2011, the average rent in Bedford-Stuyvesant for a one-bedroom apartment was around $933 a month. Only four years later, residents are paying close to $2,000 a month for that same one-bedroom apartment. In a matter of four years there has been a 115 percent increase. In 2005, the cost for a one-bedroom apartment averaged $720 a month.
That trend makes it clear there will be few low-income residents in a matter of a few years. That’s why many longtime renters are starting to see that moving out of Bedford-Stuyvesant is their only option.
“We just had a son, our landlord was raising our rent again and my husband and I thought it would be better for us all financially and mentally to move to Atlanta,” says Kristy Wright, 38, who headed south to Atlanta in 2008 to find a more affordable place to raise her son Elijah. “We moved into a two-bedroom apartment here and that was about $1000 a month, something we would have paid close to double for back home in Bed-Stuy.”
Even so there are many who see a silver lining in the changes that have taken place.
“It’s no surprise that in a neighborhood that has some of the best housing stock in New York City that it’s now going to be wanted by people with means. So rather than say the white people are coming or claim that there is a crisis we have to, excuse the expression, get our shit together,” Mark Winston Griffith, director of the Brooklyn Movement Center, said last November during a panel discussion at Brooklyn College called “Bed-Stuy in Crisis.” “We have to push back and we have to create the neighborhood we want and we have to understand the dynamics that are creating this.”
According to Griffith, some changes benefit the residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant: having better food options and safer streets, for example. What he does not want to see is the counterproductive blame game that does nothing but cause animosity and anger in a community that has dealt with that for way too long.
“Instead of looking at the white person that’s moving next to you and blaming it on them because they want to live in this beautiful home, why don’t we understand the government policies and corporate forces that have made that possible and have transformed our neighborhood,” he said.
Today along with Griffith there are people having a conversation that isn’t driven by the racial division, but instead focuses on drawing from the strengths of the black community.
“Community diversity, community growth, a blending of the past and present for a united future,” says Kristy Wright. “I go back and it makes me sad how it has changed, but I know that there are still people who are maintaining the culture of that beautiful community.”
Mike Brooks, co-owner of Bed-Vine wine and beer- across the street from Common Grounds coffee shop at Tompkins and Putnam avenues– is also trying to help the community maintain its culture. Brooks, who is black, says that he understands where the bitterness, outrage and frustration come from. But for him, he says, the gentrification issue is about what his and other black-owned businesses can do to sustain the neighborhood foundation that was established over 50 years ago.
“It’s important to have a black-owned business so that the resources will stay in the community,” says Brooks. “We’re trying to be a business that’s a part of this community so people will realize that you can thrive in your own community.
Before there wasn’t an option to spend your money in this neighborhood; with these black-owned businesses we offer hope for maintaining something special.”
Tremaine Wright said she understands that the changes in the community are hurting a lot of residents. She adds she would rather put her energy into helping the community than fall into a debate that is driven by racial implications.
Says Wright: “I expect for people to come here and support this community and I expect that anyone, regardless of their race, come in and treat this community like it was their own home, because this community deserves that.”
Photo, top: The Slave Theater was a cultural hub for Bedford-Stuyvesant.
By ALEXANDRA STEVENS
Robert Seidel, owner of a Brooklyn bed and breakfast, pulled out a card he keeps in the little side table by his front door. On it is a glossy wedding photo of a woman in a turquoise sari, embroidered throughout with intricate flecks of golden thread, holding the hand of a tall man in glasses. They wear matching smiles. Beneath them, in script, the card reads “Anjali & Raffaele, 2011.”
Anjali Rao is from Cleveland, Ohio, and went to visit family in India during the summer of 2009. During a four-day solo trip to Goa, Rao happened to book a room in the same bed and breakfast as a man named Raffaele Spazzoli, who was visiting from Italy. Spazzoli was in India for business, extending his stay afterwards for a bit of sightseeing, when he first saw a beautiful woman in the lobby. Rao didn’t notice him at first. Spazzoli spotted her again on a beach the next day, then on another beach shortly after, and then finally inside the same restaurant he had chosen for lunch. The number of coincidental sightings seemed to be telling him something– they ended up eating together, then meeting again for dinner that night.
After spending the next day exploring Panaji together, Spazzoli and Rao went their separate ways. About six months later, after keeping in touch via email and Google Chat, they decided to meet again in person to see if their friendship could become something more. In December 2009, the two planned a stay in Brooklyn, neutral ground somewhere between Ohio and Italy to test the possibility of romance. They booked their stay at the Loralei Bed and Breakfast, an early 1900s Victorian-style home in Ditmas Park. When Rao arrived at the Loralei, she regaled the owner, Robert Seidel, with the story of how she and Raffaele had met that summer.
The morning following their first night in Brooklyn, Seidel came down from his third floor bedroom to find Rao and Spazzoli already at the kitchen table, holding hands. Less than two years later, the couple was married. They just welcomed their second child earlier this year, and Seidel continues to receive letters and cards from the happy duo and their growing family.
Seidel couldn’t stop smiling as he told their story, and how his neighborhood of Ditmas Park, an area entirely unknown to most people living outside of New York City, had made itself a landmark in the romance of a couple from thousands of miles away. While he and other homeowners in the area have been clued in to the charm of Flatbush for years, it seems like the rest of the city is just starting to catch up.
The hotel business is expanding rapidly in Brooklyn, and not only in the brownstone belt in neighborhoods close to Manhattan. Popular room-share platform Airbnb shows over 77 rental options available in the Flatbush area now, no matter that it is a half-dozen and more subway stops from Manhattan. And over 20 new hotels are scheduled to open in Brooklyn within the next two years. Construction has begun on a 69-room boutique hotel on Flatbush Avenue, set to open by 2016, complete with a fitness center and a restaurant. Directly across the street in the heart of Flatbush, the newly restored Kings Theatre (a $95 million project) glows brightly, sandwiched between a worn-looking Astoria Bank and an array of wigs in the window of Feel Beauty Supply.
Original stained glass panel at the Loralei, built in 1904. (Alexandra Stevens)
Seidel and his partner, Lance, moved to Ditmas Park in 1994. This summer, their three-story 1904 home will celebrate its tenth anniversary as the Loralei Bed and Breakfast, one of several historic houses that call themselves “The Bed and Breakfasts of Victorian Brooklyn.” Most of these bed and breakfasts are spread out within the area south of Prospect Park generally referred to as Flatbush, which includes neighborhoods such as Ditmas Park, Kensington, and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens.
There, historic homes sit on tree-lined streets, their arching facades and ornamental brackets serving as reminders of bygone eras in a borough now best known for its trendy northern neighborhoods and its celebrity-studded basketball games. The more suburban areas tucked here and there in southern Brooklyn provide a sense of tranquility and community (translated for some as less traffic, friendly neighbors, and parking spots), a seemingly impossible feat in much of the rest of the borough. And as Rao and Raffaele found out in 2009, the hospitality options in Flatbush offer a personal experience that just can’t be imitated by a stay in a hotel chain.
“That weekend in December was so magical,” Rao said of the days in Brooklyn that solidified the connection with her husband-to-be. “I remember that it actually snowed in New York! I credit the Loralei with setting the stage for our relationship to blossom,” she said, happily reminiscing on their romantic experience. “It’s nice to be reminded of our beginnings,” she said, “since right now our lives are overrun by diapers, napping, and feeding schedules.”
Sue Fishkin and her partner, Michael Hurwitz, own the Rugby Gardens Bed and Breakfast. The cheery, crayon-bright house on Rugby and Cortelyou roads is part of the “Bed and Breakfasts of Victorian Brooklyn” network.
“I used to say that this neighborhood was a well-kept secret,” Fishkin mused. “But not so much anymore.”
In the past five years, Cortelyou Road has become a destination in itself, with the variety of fine dining, bars, and boutiques increasing with each passing year. Eateries like The Farm on Adderley and Oxcart Tavern offer creative culinary options that rival Manhattan’s in every way but high price. These Ditmas Park eateries boast plates like lamb lasagna, toast topped with goat butter and maple sugar, and craft cocktails with ingredients like lemongrass-infused genever, a type of Dutch gin. Nothing on the Farm on Adderley’s brunch menu clocks in at above $13, in comparison to the proliferating pre-fixe brunches throughout Manhattan that start somewhere above $25 per person.
Seidel recalled the amazement of an Australian couple that recently returned for a second stay at the Loralei. They marveled at all of the changes the neighborhood had seen since their first visit to the area seven years ago. Part of that shift seems linked to an overall demographic change in the area as younger couples and families move in, according to 2010 U.S. Census data.
And along with migrating millennials comes a market for bars, brunches, and visitors. While the bed and breakfasts of Brooklyn often house intrepid tourists, they also frequently function as extended spare bedrooms for people living in the area. Younger people are at the stage in their lives where milestones like weddings and babies bring extended family members and friends for visits, but a lack of space often means that a visit from grandma requires additional accommodations.
Seidel estimates that about a third of his guests are Europeans, interspersed with the occasional Canadians, Asians, and Australians. Flipping through guestbooks reveals the thank you’s and signatures of guests from Italy, Belgium, France, and Taiwan. Many of his international visitors bring gifts like souvenirs and chocolates. Seidel takes out a plastic sleeve filled with ornate origami creations, hand-made presents left behind by Japanese guests he hosted several years ago.
“Intrepid visitors love to explore less traditional destinations,” said Dena Libner, the director of Communications and External Affairs for NYC & Co., the city’s official tourism organization. “They want to experience something novel and unique, and will stay in and visit neighborhoods outside New York City’s most popular tourist destinations.”
According to NYC & Co., visits to Brooklyn saw a 14 percent increase between 2012 and 2013. In that same period of time, spending by visitors to the borough increased by 8 percent, and jobs supported by tourism increased by almost 6 percent. In contrast, the number of people visiting the city as a whole experienced only a 3 percent increase in 2013.
“Spreading visitor spending even farther is great for New York City, since it helps support local businesses and job creation,” Libner added. NYC & Co. credits its global campaigns, such as “Neighborhood x Neighborhood” and “NYCGO Insider’s Guide,” for introducing lesser-known neighborhoods to potential visitors.
A look at the construction plans for Brooklyn in the coming year reveals that corporate America has caught on to the appeal of a stay far away from Times Square or Central Park. According to Survey Technology & Research Center, a hospitality research firm also known as STR, at least 11 hotels are scheduled to open in Brooklyn this year, with another 10 and counting anticipated for 2016. The number of hotel rooms in Manhattan experienced a 13 percent increase in 2014, while Brooklyn doubled that number with a 26 percent spike. And the number of rooms isn’t the only thing increasing: the average nightly rate for a Brooklyn hotel room went from $144 to $170 from 2010 to 2014. But the research center’s data shows that despite the steady climb, Brooklyn still offers a better deal than most Manhattan locales. With average room rates in Manhattan averaging at $292 in 2014, the choice to stay in Brooklyn can still save visitors over $100 per night.
Most of the Victorian bed and breakfasts in Flatbush offer nightly rates slightly above $100, providing a New York experience at an affordable price. While a trip to Manhattan’s Museum Mile might be an hour away on the subway, transportation is easily accessible, and a plethora of less-touristy options are within walking distance. Prospect Park offers ice-skating, a zoo, and a summer concert series, and the 560,000-square-foot Brooklyn Museum houses one of the largest collections of artwork in the city. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden features 52 acres of flora and fauna, and the recently restored historic Kings Theatre hopes to revitalize the surrounding area of Flatbush Avenue. The Green-Wood Cemetery, founded in 1838 and granted the status of National Historic Landmark in 2006, spans over 478 acres and is the final resting place of figures like Horace Greeley, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Leonard Bernstein.
Despite the frequent appearance of cranes and bulldozers nearby, both Seidel and Fishkin said that most bed and breakfast owners in the area are unfazed by all the construction. Seidel said that traditional bed and breakfasts provide a personal experience that a hotel, or even a listing on popular room sharing sites like Airbnb, inherently lacks. He feels as though there is little overlap in their customer base, and those who seek out rooms in the hotels being built in the coming years would most likely not have booked a stay in a bed and breakfast anyway.
James, an Airbnb user in Flatbush, has been offering a private room in his apartment for only $40 per night since December of 2014. Because of the recent increase in lawsuits and evictions of Airbnb users in New York City, hosts on the website refused to divulge their full names when commenting on their experiences. James said that his guests are either tourists or in New York on business, with an estimated two thirds of his visitors being foreign, mostly from Europe and Asia. James thinks that the success of his listing comes down to cost, attracting people who want to stay in New York City on the cheap. According to the Elliman Report, the average rent in Brooklyn has increased by 4.5 percent since 2013. As the cost of living increases, more people in the borough are turning to alternative ways to pay rent, such as converting their homes in bed and breakfasts or opening up their spare bedrooms to guests via room share platforms.
“When you live in an old house, you have to marry the house,” Fishkin of Rugby Gardens said with a laugh about her 1920s home. She explained how a large portion of the money made through guests goes towards the upkeep of an old house, helping alleviate the cost of repairs and maintenance of loose floorboards and clanking radiators. “You’re not going to get rich, but the benefits are so wonderful,” she said of her choice to open up their doors to guests. “It’s a very familial kind of business; it creates the sensation of a personal experience.”
Al, another Flatbush Airbnb host, has been using the website since 2012. He offers the master bedroom of a shared apartment for $55 per night, and said he has been consistently booked since he first up the listing. Al said he’s heard “quite a bit of hubbub” about the boutique hotel being built on Flatbush Avenue, but isn’t concerned with it encroaching on his flow of guests because, like Seidel, he thinks that “people that stay [in] Airbnbs and people that stay in hotels are two different animals, more of less.” Based on his experiences, Al thinks that the people who use room sharing platforms tend to be looking for a more interactive experience. He offered several bizarre anecdotes about past guests, including one about an elderly couple from the rural midwest that eventually divulged their love for sadomasochism.
Joe Brancatelli, a travel writer, publication consultant, and the founder of business traveler website Joe Sent Me, recalls a story that he published in the summer of 1998. A native of Sheepshead Bay, Brancatelli was visiting his home borough to write about the much-heralded opening of a Marriott in Brooklyn.
“What’s the big deal about another Marriott?” he wrote. “Every place has a Marriott. Moscow has a Marriott. Why should it be news, why should it matter, that Brooklyn had a Marriott?” It mattered because, despite a population that would make Brooklyn the fourth-largest city in America, it was the first hotel to open in the borough, a signpost of serious changes in the coming years.
“Brooklyn was not hip in 1998, just like it wasn’t hip when I was growing up there,” Brancatelli said. “The tourism influx, I think, is totally bound up with Brooklyn’s resurgence as a place to live and hang.”
Brancatelli recalls the term “bridge and tunnel” (a Manhattan-centric reference to new Yorkers from outside Manhattan) appearing, then disappearing, from the city’s lexicon. The phrase originates from the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, now known as MTA Bridges and Tunnels, in reference to people who came in to Manhattan via the outer boroughs. According to data from New York University Wagner School’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, the estimated number of commuters from Brooklyn to Manhattan was over 357,000 in 2009, beating out every other borough in the city. The rarely heard “bridge and tunnel” label now seems reserved solely for those coming in from New Jersey and Long Island.
Subway stations in central and southern Brooklyn have featured row after row of advertisements for the opening of Nike’s first Brooklyn retail store, a 20,000-square foot space slated for 2236 Nostrand Ave. in Flatbush. The historic Kings Theater re-opened with a February performance by Diana Ross, filling the following months with shows by stars like Sufjan Stevens, Bjork, and Crosby, Stills & Nash. On May 6, The New York Times released its second story in a one-year span profiling the neighborhoods south of the park, officially declaring them “on the map.”
“The concept that everywhere in the world wants to be the next Brooklyn is funny, because I grew up in Brooklyn when those of us who lived in Brooklyn didn’t want to be there,” said Brancatelli. People want to be in Brooklyn now, and the appeal of a stay south of Prospect Park is no longer a secret.
Photo: Top, Robert Seidel at the Loralei Bed & Breakfast in Ditmas Park. (Alexandra Stevens)
By SAWAN DOUGE
From as young as 10, Sean Williams has been playing football. He started with a youth team in Brooklyn, and then played for South Shore High School.
Now 42, the Canarsie resident is the head coach and president of the Mill Basin Mariners youth football team, passing that same love of the game to his players.
“Football has always been part of my life. It is like another family member and I can’t see my life without football,” Williams said. “My sons play now and I love that I am able to coach them. I can’t lie; it is scary at times ’cause I hate seeing them get hit but it is part of the game.”
Even though there is mounting evidence that head traumas suffered on the gridiron can lead to serious long-term damage, football survives in youth leagues and high schools. Participation nationally is down, according to data reported by the nation’s largest youth football program, Pop Warner. But Williams says he has no more than a “little trouble” in finding players—no major difficulty.
For the past decade the sport has been under attack. Former National Football League players have sued over head traumas they have experienced along with the lack of care for their injuries. In April, a federal judge approved a settlement that is expected to cost the NFL as much as $1 billion over 65 years to deal with thousands of lawsuits.
Head injuries are nothing to take lightly. Although they may not show any serious damage when they occur, over time they can lead to insanity or even death. The NFL has made changes in the style of play in an effort to prevent concussions.
Currently, children as young as 5 years old are allowed to play in youth leagues. Critics say that children so young should not be playing a game that asks them to risk their health. Parents are scared that their kids will get severely hurt while playing, so many of them choose not to let them play.
The Esquire Network’s television show “Friday Night Tykes,” which portrays youth football organizations in Texas, has been highly controversial due to the hard hits that children as young as 5 and 6 take when they are tackled.
In an Associated Press-Gfk poll taken last July, almost half of parents said that they felt uncomfortable letting their child play football because of questions about the long-term impact of concussions. The poll, which surveyed 1,044 adults, found that 44 percent of the parents said that they are not comfortable with letting their child play football.
But that still has left many parents who encourage their children to play football, and young people who still take to the field with dreams of stardom. As a result, Williams and the Mariners play on, holding pep rallies and parties to build team chemistry.
Youth football organizers say they are trying to fix their style of play so fewer kids experience concussions and big hits. One way of improving the game was changing the technique for tackling. In past years many kids would lead with their heads down as they tackled an opposing player, thus exposing their necks. Now they are taught to always keep the head up and lead with the shoulder. The new rule is not only being used at the youth level, but also in high school, college, and the NFL.
“Injuries happen in all sports. You can’t run scared because the minute you think about getting injured while playing, that’s when you roll an ankle or dislocate a shoulder,” Williams said.
Last year, Newsday reported on Tom Cutinella, a high school football player on Long Island’s Shoreham-Wading River team who died on the field after a hit.
“About two days later, I go to a high school football game to ask parents if Cutinella’s death will make them think twice about letting their kids play,” Newsday reporter Laura Albanese recalled. “The answer was almost universally no.” The parents, she said, felt that “you can get hurt doing anything.”
Steve Orr, director of the Brooklyn Hurricanes youth football team, said he loves the support he is getting from the families who live in Marine Park, where the team has been based for decades. Orr is always accepting of new players coming into the program but he does know that some just are not prepared for the risk playing football has.
“Let’s be honest: This game isn’t for everyone,” Orr said. “Only families that are really dedicated are going to play and it’s easy to spot a dedicated family. I think that is why people hate football so much cause not everyone is made to play it.”
Other sports can also pose the danger of concussions. “Girls’ lacrosse is one of the most dangerous sports out there,” Albanese said. “It’s non-contact, so most of the girls don’t wear helmets, but once lacrosse sticks start swinging, there’s a good chance you’re going to get a bop to the head.”
But lacrosse, lower in profile than football, doesn’t get the same attention.
Despite the heightened scrutiny of football, Williams says his Mariners team continues to attract players and rarely loses any. The majority return season after season until they become ineligible to play, he says. According to Williams, he does not even have to recruit kids to join sometimes.
“My kids win and have a ton of fun. They tell their friends or some parents tell their friends about the team and next thing I know we have four new kids on the team. It amazes me sometimes but I love it,” said Williams.
It’s the same for the Brooklyn Hurricanes. With their home office only a block away from Marine Park, the team is visible in the neighborhood and continues to find football-loving families. Orr said that even after football season is done, parents still walk in to help their kids join the team.
“It doesn’t matter what sports season it is or what else is going on,” Orr said. “We will always get a mom or dad walking in with their son ready to sign him up for this season or the next.”
Photo: The Brooklyn Hurricanes at a practice session in Marine Park. (Courtesy of Brooklyn Hurricanes)
By CHRIS MOONEY
Stylish and smiling, Errol Shaw relaxes on a bench, observing the New York City hustle as he awaits an interview. Although he sits in a park across the street from his office, his mind seems to be on everything except his job.
“Once I get home, all I do is write. I’ve always been able to self motivate and dedicate enough time to writing,” he says. Shaw recently had his sixth book published and is currently working on his seventh. He works at NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases Center, but is sure that writing is his true career calling.
“For a long time I’ve wanted to be a writer. In college I had the opportunity to read so many different works from different authors. It really motivated me to do this,” Shaw says, reminiscing on his days as a student at Brooklyn College. “There are some great teachers there and they’ve shaped me into the writer I’ve become. Brooklyn College really is a great school.”
Shaw’s sixth book, entitled The Travel Experience, is a memoir and his first travel book. He wrote it from start to finish in 2013 and it details some of his wildest adventures, such as being detained in the Tel Aviv airport for hours. It was Shaw’s opportunity to blend his knack for writing with one of his favorite pastimes.
“Man, I just love to travel. It’s always exciting, it’s always fun,” Shaw says. His positivity is contagious and his eyes gleam as he remembers his experiences overseas. He laughs boisterously as he tells about the time he was robbed by a camel driver in Egypt. “That may have been one of my worst moments traveling, but it was still a great time,” he says. He is as vivid a storyteller with his words as he is with a pen. He attributes his storytelling abilities, as well as his desire to travel, to his origins.
Born in Saint Andrew, Jamaica, Shaw grew up in a rural setting, raised at times by his godmother, at other times by his father. He speaks in metaphors as he describes his childhood, as if preparing material for a future literary work. “I remember the nights on the farm where I grew up. We used to gather and tell stories. The nights were as black as your shoes man. But we would sit around preparing peas to sell at the market the next day, and that was story time. My dad always had wild stories for us,” Shaw says.
Now Shaw shares his experiences through his own stories, sometimes through his books, sometimes to those lucky enough to have a conversation with him. “The most interesting part about marrying a writer are the many stories he has told me about the many countries he has visited, the weird food he has eaten, and the crazy encounters he has had,” says his wife, Yemellett Shaw. “Every time I pick up one of his books, his weird encounters make me laugh. I can’t wait to visit some of these places he has been to,” she says.
While his father helped make him into a storyteller, his mother played an equally influential role in making him the person he is today. For years his mother traveled back and forth between the United States and Jamaica, but she never took her son with her to New York. “I remember as a kid, watching airplanes fly overhead. I always wondered where they were going to or coming from. I wondered if I’d ever be able to travel like my mother did. Then one day, my mother finally decided to take me with her to New York. And I haven’t stopped traveling since,” Shaw says. Now he takes airplanes all over the world at every opportunity he has.
Living in the United States is another aspect of Shaw’s life that he credits as a factor that made him a writer and a traveler. “If I was living in Jamaica I may not have had the opportunity to go to college and get an education or even finish high school. Plus I have been fortunate enough to be able to travel thanks to the living I am able to make here in the United States. I am so grateful to be here,” Shaw says.
When asked if he had a most memorable moment from traveling, his answer led him to China, a place he has visited multiple times, and right back to him being a storyteller. “When I was in China, we went to a restaurant and ate dog. It was so weird, man!” Shaw says laughing. “Sometimes you need to be adventurous to fit in with the culture.”
Shaw’s travels have given much sustenance to his life. He not only has experiences, stories, and memories, but his travels have also shaped his art. The trips that he has been on greatly influence his writing. His nephew, Lionel Moffatt, has been a travel companion and first hand witness to this. “His travels give him a different perspective on how to illustrate what he sees. It is simply amazing how he puts some of his crazy encounters into writing. I always wondered how he could remember such detail from our trips together,” Moffatt says. “When I travel, I always bring a journal because those details flee fast,” Shaw says chuckling.
Shaw highly values travel, as well as sharing his stories with other people. He says that he wrote a travel book to share the experiences with those who have not or cannot see the world. “Travel is an amazing experience. It makes you richer, more knowledgeable, more spiritual, more of a people person. You learn to embrace more. It just makes you a better person; kinder, friendlier, just a better human being,” he says.
By DANIEL STEIN-SAYLES
This article appeared in the August 14, 2014 Gotham Gazette.
John Randall gestured to a pile of wood stacked to the ceiling in the corner of his company Bien Hecho’s nearly 4,000-square-foot suite. He explained that some of the wood was a section of the Coney Island boardwalk that was thrown away that he had personally pulled out of dumpsters. These discarded boards will eventually become a set of chairs, tables or cabinets.
Mark Lovci explained how his company, Duggal Visual Solutions, turned a toxic building into a state-of-the-art laboratory called the Duggal Greenhouse. According to Lovci, the Greenhouse is the only one of its kind in New York City. It utilizes solar energy, organic air purification and eco-friendly building practices. It has even been used as a rehearsal space for the singer, Beyoncé.
Once bustling with around 70,000 workers building ships for the United States Navy, environmental issues were not given a second thought. Today, however, the Brooklyn Navy Yard looks a lot different than it once did.
What connects a wood shop, a visual solutions company, and an over 200-year-old naval yard is nothing more than a mindset and a willingness to act.
This shared mindset is one of sustainability.
Sustainability is a tricky concept. It has a different definition depending on whom you talk to, but its importance must be understood, according to Adam Friedman, the Executive Director of the Pratt Center for Community Development.
He described sustainable practices as a way to combat climate change, an issue he called perhaps the greatest threat civilization will ever face. He predicts that every person will need to adopt sustainable behaviors and ultimately every business will have to be green.
Tucked away in North Brooklyn, bordering the East River is the 300-acre industrial park that has embraced the importance of sustainability. The Brooklyn Navy Yard has internalized this significance and become a hub for both environmentally friendly initiatives and businesses.
For years after the 1966 decommissioning of the Brooklyn Navy Yard by the federal government, the Yard became the perfect picture of neglect; home to a crumbling infrastructure with trees growing on rooftops and piers crumbling into the East River. A buyout and subsequent financial support from the City of New York and the leadership of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC) – a non-profit charged with running the Yard, has had transformative effects. The Yard is now home to over 40 buildings, 330 tenants and a committed effort to be environmentally friendly.
“We have embraced sustainability as part of our core mission,” Aisha Glover, Vice President of External Affairs said, in a phone interview. “We figured if we’re getting all of this money to invest in the yard, we had better think about developing sustainably… it was almost a no brainer.”
Like any structure or idea, a commitment to sustainable practices needs to be built from the foundation upwards and that is what has happened. New buildings at the Yard are now built to meet the Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) silver accreditation or better, LEED is recognized around the globe as the leading standard for design, construction, operations and maintenance in green buildings. Energy star roofs adorn many buildings, and the water and sewer systems have been improved. Even when stepping onto the Yard, the ground underneath your feet has likely been created with the idea of sustainability in mind.
This infrastructure has not only been physical. The BNYDC also fosters an environment committed to innovation for themselves and their tenants.
The Pratt Center – a community organization connected to Pratt Institute published a 130-page report about the Brooklyn Navy Yard last year that described the Navy Yard’s most important policy.
“The policy that sustainability has to permeate their [BNYDC] decision-making,” Friedman, also a member of the BNYDC board of directors said in a phone interview. “[This policy is] not in isolation it has to be reflected in their building development, it has to be reflected in their energy supply, it has to be reflected in how they route traffic or move people and goods throughout the yard. It’s not one decision, it’s adoption of a vision.”
This confluence of policies is a result of the Yard’s mindset and actions. It is why, when stepping onto the Yard, a visitor does not have to look far to see it at work. Wind and solar street lamps are visible across the Yard, there are nine Citi Bike locations on or within one block of the Yard to promote environmentally friendly transportation. New York City’s first building with mounted wind turbines is also located there, just to name a few.
Even the Yard’s visitor center, BLDG 92, which was a $25 million venture and opened in 2011, follows this same mission of sustainable practices. The building has received LEED Platinum Certification, the highest certification for sustainable buildings and it has a giant solar screen across its southern façade.
“I think every program, project or initiative is really valuable and unique in its own right, but I think what is really mind-blowing about the Navy Yard and why people are often amazed when they visit, is its concentration,” Glover said referring to the many environmentally friendly initiatives on the Yard.
BLDG 92 typifies a trickle down from the BNYDC mindset to their tenants.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard reached out to local businesses on the Yard to work on BLDG 92, according to Randall, 36, who founded his company, Bien Hecho, seven years ago and has been located on the Yard from its inception. His company was contracted to do the millwork for the project.
Bien Hecho, is one of the companies on the yard that markets itself as a green or environmentally sustainable company. According to the 2013 Pratt Center report, 19 percent of firms on the Yard, market themselves in this way.
Randall estimated that his company uses 30 to 40 percent reclaimed materials, even though their eventual goal is for that number to be 100. Bien Hecho also uses low volatile organic compound (VOC) water-based finishes in their work, which is mainly millwork and building custom furniture. These environmentally friendly initiatives are used both for his business plan and what he calls his “social responsibility.”
“My main aim is to shift that paradigm to a more well-sourced product,” Randall said as a power saw blared in the background, before continuing about the Navy Yard. “They [BNYDC] are pushing their tenants to come up with solutions in creative ways to switch themselves over to environmentally friendly practices.”
This transmission of beliefs from the BNYDC to their tenants is shown in the Pratt Center study. The report showed that 47 percent of the tenants surveyed stated that the investment in green infrastructure is either crucial or important to their business, while 33 percent said that they have adopted sustainable business practices as a result of being located at the Navy Yard.
The Yard houses a lot of small niche manufacturers like Bien Hecho, but it is also home to larger environmentally friendly businesses, such as IceStone and Duggal.
IceStone is a manufacturer of durable surfaces that are often used as countertops or bathroom vanities. These surfaces are made out of 100 percent recycled glass and cement and the company has won nine awards for their sustainability efforts.
Duggal, a company with nearly 300 employees and a total of seven buildings has been lauded for their own environmental efforts as well, including their innovative Greenhouse on the Navy Yard, according to Lovci, Duggal’s Vice President of Business Development.
Duggal provides printing, computer imaging and other services, while their sister company Lumi Solair built the wind and solar powered streetlights that are stationed around the yard. Since these lights generate their own power, they were some of the only lights working in the area after Hurricane Sandy struck the city in 2012.
Lovci sees the BNYDC’s mindset on the cutting edge, and their commitment to sustainability to be the new normal, and moving in the same direction as the city of New York.
Greenery covers the roof of building three on the Yard. Kale, bac choi, carrots, pepper and other produce are grown on the 65,00-square-foot Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm. The farm helps capture and divert one million gallons storm water run-off each year, according to Glover. The farm was financed by a Green Infrastructure grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
This grant represents just a fraction of the support the Navy Yard has received from the government and private investors. The Yard has received approximately $250 million in public capital funding for wide scale improvements over the past 18 years – compared to $3 million the Yard received during the previous 30 years, demonstrating a commitment to the Navy Yard and their mission that had not been there in the past. This, at a time while under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city launched a number of environmental initiatives like plaNYC and the Greener Greater Building Initiative. Both programs were created to combat the dangers of climate change and address the environmental factors that can negatively affect living conditions in the five boroughs.
“When you look at something like the Brooklyn Navy Yard, I think that is where you get to see exciting opportunities,” Adam Freed the former Deputy Director of the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability under Mayor Bloomberg said in a phone interview. “It’s not just building by building, block by block, but you get a campus. You get a large economy of scale that you can have for green infrastructure.”
The new 220,000-square-foot Green Manufacturing Center on the Yard that is targeted to lease to green manufacturers is an example of these exciting opportunities. The center alone has brought in $18 million in grants according to the Pratt Center report, highlighting the support for green projects.
“Under the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation’s leadership, the Navy Yard has been transformed from the nation’s largest ship building facility to a national model for sustainable industrial parks,” said EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck in an email.
While the government and organizations such as the New York State Pollution Prevention Institute, who recognized the BNYDC last year for their recycling program, have acknowledged the collective efforts at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, they recognize there is still plenty of work to be done.
The BNYDC has instituted a pilot waste-management program that has encouraged more recycling and has helped reduce truck traffic on the yard by 90 percent, according to Glover. However, Randall, who had opted to participate in the program until recently, described some flaws in the program, including glitches and a dramatic rise in costs, demonstrating that a mindset where sustainability is a significant factor has to be continually adapted.
“What is green today is not going to be green tomorrow,” Friedman said.
There is no easy solution of how a company or organization can be perfectly sustainable, or how to offset the environmental footprint each person leaves on the Earth, but the BNYDC seems aware that in order to continue to be sustainable, they must change as technologies and the world change around them.
“Overall I think we need to continue to challenge ourselves and push the envelope and make sure we are constantly looking at how can we improve,” Glover said. “Quite frankly, I don’t think it’s enough that we have one roof top farm, we should have several.”
By MARCO POGGIO
It had rained unceasingly for a few hours, but that did not prevent more than 400 residents from showing up in the basement of John Hus Moravian Church on Ocean Avenue last April.
The town hall meeting was convened to discuss a 23-story luxury tower that was going to rise at 626 Flatbush Ave., on the edge of Prospect Park. In the weeks previous to the meeting, word had been going around in the community that the development would cause more harm than good.
The meeting began with a prayer, as often happens. But grace and silence did not last long. People anxious about displacement lined up at the microphone in search for answers.
“We are fearful, we are just asking for help,” said Natasha Worden, whose family has lived along Flatbush Avenue for nearly 50 years.
“I’m asking for the same treatment Mayor de Blasio’s neighborhood gets!” said Quest Fanning, 35, who has lived all his life in the neighborhood.
“What can the borough president’s office do to stop the building or at least reduce the height?” asked Carl Blake, who said he owns a toy store nearby.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams was there to respond: his priority was to boost housing development, not oppose it.
“We have a housing problem in the city, and Brooklyn is at the heart of that housing problem,” Adams said. “I don’t sleep well at night when I go home to a warm house every night and other Brooklynites don’t do that.”
Whoever came to find comfort in the words of the borough president ended up disappointed. But to many in the audience that night, his pledge to fight for affordable housing sounded sincere.
In the months that followed, however, things would change drastically.
During the summer, a fierce anti-gentrification sentiment set in among the residents who live in the blocks south and east of Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, prodded by the fear that new luxury developments will lead to higher rents that force them out of the neighborhood.
That fear was underscored by the displacement trend they have seen in nearby Bedford-Stuyvesant and many other Brooklyn neighborhoods.
A problem began to arise for politicians like Adams, who like most of the city’s elected officials receives a big chunk of his campaign donations from the real estate industry. Constituents started viewing with skepticism the extent to which their elected officials were willing to protect low-income communities from the forces of gentrification. Grassroots movements found their footing in the public arena, and they are questioning the legitimacy of the politicians who were supposed to represent them.
“I think that the rage of some of the residents is definitely justified,” said Jerome Krase, a professor emeritus of sociology at Brooklyn College. “But they don’t realize that most of the people they are complaining about, including Eric Adams, don’t really have much power over the zoning, variance, and general development process.”
According to Krase, author of the book “Ethnicity and Machine Politics,” the African-American community mistakenly believed that politicians of color would serve them just because they share the same racial background.
“Historically, it has been the expectation of members of ethnic groups that when their own members get into political office they will see their primary mission as helping out fellow ethnics,” Krase said. “This has never been the case.”
* * *
Community Board 9 manager Pearl Miles with petition letters to the mayor collected by the Movement to Protect the People. (Marco Poggio Photo).
Community District 9, which takes in South Crown Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, and part of northern Flatbush, became a political battlefield. The fight over the tower at 626 Flatbush Ave., became the focus as a court battle went to state Supreme Court in Manhattan.
According to court documents, Hudson Companies received $72 million in state loans from the New York State Housing Finance Agency.
Prospect Park East Network, a collective of local activists based in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, sued both Hudson Companies and New York State Housing Finance Agency, the former for failing to engage with the community while drafting the project and the latter for pouring out taxpayer money without compelling the developer to produce an environmental review that would consider population density and other questions.
“It is so urgent that we address this problem, before it is too late,” said Suki Cheong, a member of Prospect Park East Network. Cheong, 37, grew up in Washington Heights but moved to Prospect-Lefferts Gardens nearly three years ago because, she said, she was charmed by the friendliness of the people in the neighborhood and she loved walking in Prospect Park.
During the town hall meeting at John Hus Church, Cheong made a name for herself after leading a 40-minute presentation in which she explained in detail all the various issues connected with the luxury tower Hudson was building half a block away from Prospect Park. One of her PowerPoint slides was a map showing the population density across the borough.
Many people were caught by surprise by the discovery that their local community district was the most densely populated in Brooklyn. According to the 2010 U.S. census, Community District 9 has more than 66,500 people per square mile.
Prospect Park East Network argued that a new residential tower would not only increase density, but attract more development in the future.
Hudson Cos. won the right to build at 626 Flatbush Ave., overcoming local objections. (Marco Poggio)
It especially infuriated the residents that 626 Flatbush Ave. was a luxury tower. Very few tenants in Prospect-Lefferts Garden could afford to pay $1,875 for a studio, $2,200 for a one-bedroom or $2,800 for a two-bedroom, according to market price provided by the developer.
Hudson posted on its website that the building would follow the so-called “80/20 Program,” meaning that 20 percent of its 254 apartment units would be made affordable, rented to families with a combined income between $33,400 and $41,750 per year.
SIDEBAR: WHAT IS `AFFORDABLE’ HOUSING?
Last May, Justice Peter Moulton of State Supreme Court in Manhattan issued an order that temporarily stopped Hudson Companies from building the foundation of the tower until he determined whether the project needed a new environmental study to proceed. But in June, Moulton found that Hudson was legitimately building “as of right,” allowing the work to resume.
It was a major victory for developers in Brooklyn, clearing the way for Manhattan-scale development in the low-rise neighborhood near Prospect Park.
In May, The New York Times real estate section had published a story describing Prospect-Lefferts Gardens as “on the map” for developers. Ten new luxury projects, scattered in the area comprised between Empire Boulevard and Clarkson Avenue, were in the works; 626 Flatbush Ave. was only one of them.
“They let the cat out of the bag,” said Edward Snajdr, an anthropology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He suggested that the attention of the media made the transformation of Prospect-Lefferts Garden likelier to happen than it already was.
Snajdr, who has studied in depth the Atlantic Yards redevelopment and its impact on low-income communities, became an expert in gentrification studies in Brooklyn in recent years. During his two-year study, Snajdr said, he had a chance to observe the entire process in which real estate developers acquire property at relatively low cost and then turn it into a billion dollar revenue machine.
“The big controversy becomes ‘how do they get their stake on the land,’” Snajdr said, referring to real estate firms.
“They often get public subsidies to help it, in the name of development, which is politically OK to a lot of residents, not necessarily who lives in the neighborhood,” Snajdr said. “But the people who live in the neighborhood and did not have voice in that process, they get upset.”
Hudson Companies received the “421a exemption,” a tax break reserved to developers who create multi-family residential buildings and satisfy certain requirements for affordable housing.
Shonna Trinch, who is a colleague of Snajdr at John Jay College, and took part in his study, said the rent gap existing between neighborhoods triggers gentrification. Trinch said gentrification itself is an increase of the value of the land.
“Undervalued property begins to accumulate value through new development and ‘desire to be there,’” Trinch said.
She used an example to illustrate how the process takes place: a person who wishes to move to Brooklyn, but cannot afford to live in an affluent neighborhood like Brooklyn Heights, might decide to move into Crown Heights, where she is wealthier than the average resident.
Once she moved into the new neighborhood, the various services in the area suddenly turn their eyes to the new more affluent customer.
“It all starts with commercial, with retail,” Trinch said. Restaurants, dry cleaners and supermarkets begin to cater to new crowds with lots of money to spend. Prices will gradually go up and those who lived in the neighborhood for years are cut out of the process, soon finding out they cannot afford living in their old neighborhoods anymore.
Trinch’s example is the kind of scenario the residents of Prospect-Lefferts Gardens feared would ultimately take over their community. They don’t want to be priced out of their homes.
“Rents will go up. Where will the people go?” said James Betts, a long-time Prospect-Lefferts Gardens resident. When he moved into the neighborhood with his family 25 years ago, Betts said, he was attracted by its diversity and its affordable housing stock. Now, he is among those who are concerned the affordability will die, ironically, with the coming of new development that claims to provide affordable units.
“Someone mentioned that if rents rise then perhaps more opportunities for rental will be available,” said Rachel Hannaford from South Brooklyn Legal Services, one of the attorneys who assisted Prospect Park East Network in the legal filings against Hudson Companies.
“As an attorney who is in housing court every day representing poor people who can’t afford to stay in Brooklyn neighborhoods, I can tell you that, when rents rise, people are evicted and become homeless. And that is what could happen here,” Hannaford said during the town hall meeting last April.
Having witnessed Hudson’s success in building “as of right” thanks, local residents began asking their elected officials to push for a rezoning of the entire area. Their aim is to avoid more high-rises.
* * *
At the beginning of the summer, the focus suddenly turned to another and even more attractive portion of Community District 9. A mile-long portion of Empire Boulevard stretching from Prospect Park to New York Avenue presented all the features that made it vulnerable to overdevelopment: land at low cost, ample lots, and a zoning that allowed tall buildings.
Alicia Boyd, a Sterling Street resident, began stirring up allegations that had Adams as at least partially responsible for using his power within the city’s land use process to invite development people did not want.
Boyd, 54, formed a tenant group she called Movement to Protect the People, which met every Tuesday. In August, Boyd and her group attended a meeting held by Community Board 9 that focused on the proposed study plan for a rezoning of part the community.
“The mayor’s plan talks about preserving 200,000 units, not just creating them,” Boyd said at the meeting, referring to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Housing New York: A Five-Borough, Ten-Year Plan.”
Citing census data, Boyd told the community board that the neighborhood was too densely populated to fit thousands more residents. She passionately opposed a proposal for rezoning that the board had submitted to the City Planning Department.
But the community board members, including Chairman Dwayne Nicholson, were visibly annoyed by Boyd’s demeanor and decided to dismiss the meeting. The meetings that followed often ended up in verbal clashes and sometimes insults.
Community Board 9 members tried to isolate Boyd as a radical who really spoke only for herself, and although a part of the community began keeping her at distance, her group kept enlisting members.
Some residents found more much in common with Boyd than they had with the community board members.
“We all want the same thing,” said Cheong, who although, unlike Boyd, favors rezoning, shares with her the goal of preventing what they regard as reckless development.
“The mayor made affordable housing a centerpiece of his agenda and this is clearly going against that,” said Cheong, who lives on Fenimore Street, referring to the luxury development that began spreading across the community with city officials’ approval.
“The politicians have sold us out,” Celeste Lacy Davis, a founding member of Prospect Park East Network, said during a Community Board 9 meeting in September. “The only thing we have left is community.”
Adams, who said his plan is to create 80,000 new units all around Brooklyn, was the first elected official to become a target of criticism.
“If they don’t preserve the current stabilized apartments, where am I going to live?” said Donna Mossman, who is the co-founder of the Crown Heights Tenant Union, a group that provides assistance to tenants who are victims of landlord harassment.
According to the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, a research center based at New York University, Community District 9 possesses the second-largest affordable housing stock in the entire New York City metropolitan area, with 89.3 percent of rent-stabilized units. It is preceded only by Community District 7 in the Bronx, with 91.3 percent, and is well above the second ranking affordable housing stock in Brooklyn, Community District 14, which includes East Flatbush, with 73.5 percent.
Census data show that Community Board 9 has a population of over 110,000 people, of whom nearly three-quarters are African- or Caribbean-American and 18 percent are white.
Overall, Brooklyn lost over 38,000 people of color from 2000 to 2010, around 4 percent, while the population of whites rose by over 56,000, an increase of about 6 percent, according to census data.
The numbers seem to point toward displacement of the poor, but Adams did not accept that.
“There are large numbers of African-Americans and Caribbean who have decided to return to the south,” he said during an interview at Brooklyn Borough Hall at the end of October.
“I can’t say this is the reason, unless I’m able to point to a specific report,” he added.
Coping with displacement is simply not Adams’ first priority.
He made clear he wants to develop Brooklyn, make it more attractive to investors, and turn the borough into a destination for tourists.
“I want tourists to come to Prospect Park, I want them to come to the Brooklyn Museum, the Botanical Garden. I want them eat at our restaurants, buy at our shops,” he said, adding that he has a plan to boost an economy based on mom-and-pop stores.
Adams has always been straightforward about his ambitions. During a public meeting in Crown Heights, Adams spoke in favor of large-scale housing development in the area surrounding Empire Boulevard, which brought him both favorable and hostile receptions.
“The Mayor, the BP and the Council are those we need to work with to get what we want in this neighborhood,” said Tim Thomas, a resident of Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and author of a lblog focusing of the neighborhood.
“He only comes out when it suits him,” said Sean Noel, 41, who lives in East Flatbush.
Despite criticism, Adams’s career appears to be on the rise.
He was elected borough president in 2013, running unopposed, becoming the first African-American to hold the post.
Adams had built his career based on issues important to Brooklyn’s black community. First, he patrolled the streets of Brooklyn as a police officer. In 1995, he co-founded 100 Black in Law Enforcement Who Care, an organization known for holding news conferences in which the Police Department was assailed as racist. After rising through the police ranks, he entered politics with the Democratic Party and won a seat as a state senator representing the 20th District, which includes Crown Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, as well as parts of Brownsville, Gowanus, Prospect Heights and Sunset Park.
During his six years in Albany, Adams was critical of stop-and-frisk policies, putting him at odds with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Because of his criticism of police tactics, Adams’ popularity grew. When time came to elect a new borough president to succeed Marty Markowitz, people largely believed Adams was the right person for Brooklyn.
Adams ended up running unopposed in the Democratic primaries after State Supreme Court Justice David Schmidt disqualified his opponent, former Councilman John Gangemi, for having submitted invalid signatures to appear on the ballot.
But a few months into his term as borough president, Adams’ pro-development position began to chip away at his image as a politician willing to oppose the status quo, at least for the activists who came to believe that he did not care about the issue of displacement.
Boyd and other members of the Movement to Protect the People began a campaign against Adams, an attempt to convince the community the borough president could not be trusted because of his ties with real estate developers.
Follow The Money, an online report published by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, presents a list showing that the real estate industry was the sector that contributed the most money to Adams in his four campaigns as a state senator. Second in the list were several public sector unions.
Just from the real estate industry, Adams received almost $150,000, with at least four real estate firms donating around $10,000. East 81st Realty, which also contributed to Andrew Cuomo’s race for governor, gave Adams nearly $15,000.
Advertising from Forest City-Ratner Cos. on the back of “One Brooklyn,” published by the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President.
When he ran for borough president, Adams received around $666,000 in contributions, according to the New York City Campaign Finance Board.
At least 15 names appearing in the list of his contributors also show up in the list of Community Board 9 members, some of whom he directly appointed, according to a list of community board members obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request submitted to the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President.
Around 70 names in Adams’s donors’ list are connected to real estate development or financing, while 12 appear to be contractors.
According to city Campaign Finance Board records, among the most generous donors were David Bawabeh of Bermuda Realty, Moishe Bergman of Penn Plaza Consultants, Yehuda Backer of the Backer Group, and Samuel Backer of BFN Realty, all of whom contributed the largest sum allowed by campaign financing laws, which is $3,850.
“I do not, nor have I ever, favor anyone or make policy based on a contribution,” Adams wrote in an email, adding that most of the contributions he received during the years came from independent individual donors.
When asked what kind of relationship he intended to maintain with the real estate industry, Adams said, “I believe it is important to work with everyone that has a stake in bettering Brooklyn,” adding again that he did not base his policies on the contributions he receives.
But someone didn’t buy it.
“That money is always going to affect whose interests they serve,” said Mark Winston Griffith, who is the executive director at the Brooklyn Movement Center, a non-profit, membership-led organization that mobilizes residents to tackle a wide range of issues affecting the community, including police brutality, sexual harassment, education and food awareness.
During a phone interview, Griffith said he wasn’t familiar with the figures in the Follow the Money’s report on Adam’s campaign, but added, “If that is accurate, then it’s a problem.”
According to Griffith, the interplay between development and politics is to be avoided.
“At the point you accept money from the real estate industry, then you are putting yourself in a position where you are going to compromise on development issues. There’s no two ways about it,” he said.
The flux of real estate money into political campaigns around the city, however, has never been so intense.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case allowed non-profits nationwide to sponsor political candidates with large amounts of money. Jobs for New York, an independent funding committee led by the Real Estate Board of New York, donated nearly $5 million to City Council candidates “who are committed to creating good jobs, affordable housing and strengthening the middle class,” according to the mission announced on the committee’s website.
One of the largest contributions contributions went to Council member Laurie Cumbo, whose district covers part of Community Board 9 as well as Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, Navy Hill and a portion of Downtown Brooklyn. Jobs for New York’s donation to her campaign was just shy of $230,000, the city Campaign Finance Board reports.
Cumbo tried to send a message of solidarity to the constituency by showing up at a rally organized by the Crown Heights Tenants Union, and held in front of Kings County Housing Court, in Downtown Brooklyn last October, in support of a tenant who filed a civil lawsuit against her landlord that alleged repeated harassment.
“As an elected official, particularly, of color, you always have to represent or fight over these types of tactics that are being utilized to displace particularly residents of color,” Cumbo told reporters. “This wave of displacement is happening. We’re seeing the change in demographics.”
While local politicians portray themselves as reformers, community activists continue to distrust them.
“We out put these black people in power, and this is what they do: they sell us out,” Boyd declared during a forum about gentrification held at Brooklyn College in November.
As she spoke about the elected officials in Brooklyn, Boyd’s voice trembled.
“Every time one of those politicians stands up and talks about creating affordability, you need to boo their asses down, because all they are talking about is luxury development in your community, all they are talking about is moving you out,” Boyd told the audience, which included activists from all over the community who made the journey to Brooklyn College to attend the session.
“This is real,” Boyd said. “You better start making those damn politicians accountable.”
Photo, top: Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams says he supports development that creates more housing. (Brooklyn Borough President’s Office)
By KATHERINE LLOYD
The rumbling of the elevated J train echoes along Brooklyn’s Broadway in the neighborhood where Bedford-Stuyvesant meets Bushwick. A few blocks over from the Halsey Street stop is a brownstone located at the corner of Evergreen Avenue and Weirfield Street, where a little black light shines from the entrance of a basement apartment.
Inside, beyond the corridor painted with black and white striped walls, Macy Rodman sits on her bedroom floor. Her room is located next to an altar that sits in the hallway with occult candles lighting framed pictures of Jesus Christ and Elvira, the black-clad “mistress of the dark” from a 1988 comedy horror film. Buried in a sea of wigs and garments in front of her mirror, she begins her makeup regime for the evening show.
Macy Rodman, a drag persona created by the performer Jacob Mason Chamberlin, is 6 feet, 4 inches tall with a beautiful full face, pouty lips, blue eyes, and a pair of cheekbones capable of cutting glass. She—Chamberlin stays in the character of his drag persona when it comes to gender identification–moved to Brooklyn from Juneau, Alaska six years ago, and in 2013 took the crown at the Mr(s)Williamsburg Drag Pageant.
As Rodman fishes through her extensive collection of makeup, she comments, “If we blew up, I don’t know what that would entail. I don’t know if I’d have to do Carl’s Jr. ads.” She was referring to the possibility of achieving stardom and thus the chance of selling herself to a brand, Carl’s Jr. being a fast-food chain.
Her vehicle would be the weekly Monday night drag show she performs at Don Pedro, a bar located on Manhattan Avenue in East Williamsburg. “Bathsalts: A Drag Show for Fuck-ups,” is a zany event that has been described by Ilise Carter of the New York Times as “an off the wall experience.”
She prepares for her evening in the apartment she shares with Severely Mame (Shane Tenczar), her co-host, who is known in the scene as “New York’s favorite dead girl.” She continues to apply her cosmetics and chooses her look. The costumes are generally mismatched pantsuits from thrift stores, or random hand-me-downs. Occasionally a designer garment will be incorporated into her look. Her size 13 heels are duct-taped to her ankles, which was done originally for function, but has become a signature mark of her wardrobe.
Each week the duo hosts performances that follow a culturally relevant theme, this Monday’s being “Shebola,” mocking the recent Ebola scare in New York. “It becomes a place for people not to be PC, but it’s never been our aim to be underground or unreachable,” Rodman says as she sharpens her lip pencil.
Musician Patti Smith avowed that New York is no longer the place for young artists to go. The performance artist Penny Arcade declared that the city has lost its bohemian scene and turned suburban. Rocketing rents are forcing artists out of artsy neighborhoods, and the lament arises that New York’s cultural underground is deceased.
Yet, somehow with minimal resources, and immense creative drive, misfits like Rodman and Mame keep the essence of subversive New York City alive, and their brand has yet to be commoditized.
For over two years, Don Pedro has been a platform for Rodman and Mame to conduct outlandish avant-garde drag shows along with other live performers such as bands and performance artists. The night usually begins around 11:30 p.m. and opens with their mock talk show “Salty Talk,” in which the two discuss pop cultural hot topics.
They tell a “dad joke of the week,” wholesome humor that a dad would enjoy or express, which come from the audience or the website of Sandra Hill, romance novelist and joke writer. The talk show ends with a segment in which the two hosts have a website projected onto the wall and read poorly written fan fiction about contemporary sitcoms. The bar and its performers have been featured in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and Out Magazine, yet this particular scene and venue remain exclusive to local outcasts and likeminded artists, drawn to Rodman and her circus.
Rodman and Mame innovated a scene that began to surface in 2011-2012. Other parties such as DRAGnet and Hot Fruit, both at Metropolitan bar in Williamsburg, began around the same time. Both events similarly host drag shows and performance artists. As the popularity of the Brooklyn scene grows, promoters who are predominantly known for their Manhattan parties, like Frankie Sharp, creator of the party Westgay at Westway on Clarkson Street on the West Side, have crossed the bridge to promote. Sharp now throws a Friday night party called Girls at Lovegun on Grand Street in Williamsburg; Rodman is a host. While these parties have created a buzz and added to the notoriety of the scene, none have achieved the cult status that Rodman and Mame have managed with Bathsalts.
“I think we gained our popularity because at the time we began, nobody was doing what we were,” Rodman explained. “Our thing was obviously the super involved themes, which I’ve seen in other places, but ours were more specific, and based on insanity and the fact that we can be as ridiculous as possible.”
Both Rodman and Mame are frequently requested to host parties outside of the bar, working with “nightlife royalty” such as Susanne Bartsch, an event producer and party host who has been introducing them to a broader audience. Bartsch, known for her opulent gowns and regal headdress, was recently re-crowned the “Queen of New York Nightlife” by Village Voice columnist Michael Musto.
“When we get booked, we’ll be a part of it, but this is what it is. We’re not hiding the fact that we’re garbage people,” Rodman said. During her drag shows, Rodman performs her own songs live, or sings popular music with an ironic twist–combining, for example, the music to the Robin Thicke song “Blurred Lines,” which had been criticized as misogynistic, with the lyrics to Nirvana’s “Rape Me.”
Victor P. Corona, a professor of sociology at Hofstra University and New York University, explained that this is the cyclic way that New York nightlife runs. Corona is finishing his book on the lineage of nightlife in New York City from the Warhol Factory to present times, and notes that this could be the beginning of a transformation in persona for Rodman and Mame, since they are being plucked from the underground by Bartsch.
“Bartsch’s strategy for years is that she appropriates them, and I mean that in a good way. She finds interesting kids who are artists and performers and elevates them into a higher light of nightlife. What happens after that is up to the will of the individual,” said Corona. “It’s like she waits at the Port Authority for kids from out of town to exit the bus, as she should be applauded for that. She’s keeping nightlife alive.”
Corona noted that in a broader sense, Rodman and Mame are leaving their mark on nightlife. Their obscure performances and “DIY” (do it yourself) mentality and aesthetic appeal to young New Yorkers, who have little money and great ambitions. “In some ways they inspire kids to come and join in, or one-up them. They inspire people around them, even if those inspired won’t admit it. Inevitably it has an effect. It becomes known and becomes a reference point,” he concluded.
Even though the performers have achieved some notice as nightlife personalities, with references in the media and gigs at larger venues, Don Pedro tends to slip beneath the radar of institutionalized forms of culture and media.
“It’s extremely dive-y and not exclusively gay,” says Severely Mame, sitting at a table in the bar while dressed as a sad clown, waiting to appear at the Wednesday night “Freak Show,” a drag performance followed by a screening of the television program “American Horror Story.” “The bar lets us have it our way. Good staff too.”
Mame is generally quite stylized in handmade garments, mimicking a 1950s pinup girl spliced with a gothic punk. “There are three camps to nightlife–the ‘normal’ people who pay the fabulous people, the ‘club kids’ who are outlandish and over the top, then there’s the glamorous people, like Susanne [Bartsch], who exude money,” she says. “This place kind of defies all of that.”
This defiance is the result of having no budget from the venue for their performances, and no bottle service where liquor is distributed for the guests (compliments of the bar) as higher profile establishments generally offer this to performers or hosts. Rodman and Mame split 10 percent of the bar’s evening earnings and are not charged for drinks. Other performers are paid in cocktails and tips thrown their way on stage. The set and stage are created and orchestrated by what performers bring in, and sometimes guests. Anything goes.
“We’re not exclusively a gay bar, but we’re not exclusively a punk bar. We’re a whatever’s weird bar,” says Randy Mish, bartender at Don Pedro and bar manager.
* * *
Although this stretch of Manhattan Avenue is desolate in the evening, and only lit up by bodegas and streetlights, Don Pedro’s large orange awning and big yellow font seem to magnify the location. The bar is dimly lit with pink and white Christmas lights, and ornamented with novelty signs such as an advertisement for Colt .45 Malt Liquor featuring actor Billy Dee Williams. There’s amateur artwork hanging on the walls that looks like 9th grade interpretations of Keith Haring’s work. A Skee-Ball machine is passed the bar to the right, and the soundstage is on the left.
In front of the soundstage is the main stage, where artists and musicians perform before a lopsided banner that reads “DON PEDRO!” Across from the stage is a photo booth, which doubles as a dressing room for the performers. There is also a burrito stand in the back of the house, called B’klyn Burro, and a “Mystery Train Vintage” thrift store in the basement. When it rains, the already weak ceiling leaks, and at times there are lighting problems during performances. “It’s kind of become a safe space for a lot of people,” Rodman says.
The owner of the building, Medardo Murillo, has little input regarding the comings and goings of the venue, according to Mish, but bar owner Steve Solomon is involved in the bookings. Mish, alongside his counterpart Emily Lesser, says that the staff plays an important role in the activity conducted inside the bar. “This guy, Greg, is our booker, but we refer people too,” Mish said. Lesser then added, in reference to Monday evenings, “It’s Macy, honestly. Both Macy and Mame have an understanding of the world that certain people gravitate toward.”
Rodman said she hadn’t a clue that when she began attending Don Pedro on Monday evenings to watch a screening of RuPaul’s Drag Race, a television reality show about the search for the next drag superstar, she would cultivate such a following. “I never wanted to be ‘a host.’ That world confuses me. I hate promoting myself,” Rodman said. Possessing a certain camp, the bar continues to remain off the radar, but Rodman is frequently asked to host events by the upper tier of New York nightlife, those who fall in the “glamorous” camp that Mame discussed.
“Why does Macy get a lot of attention? She is very tall, very blond, and very beautiful … and I don’t think she cares. She is easily commoditized into what can be mass culture,” says Diane Dwyer, Rodman’s former professor at the Parsons School of Design. “If she cared about that, I think it would ruin Bathsalts.”
The two met about five years ago, and became close after Dwyer attended her first Bathsalts in 2012. Dwyer also said that the low budget trappings, the blurred gender lines of the party, and the feelings of inclusivity all contribute to the ambience of Bathsalts.
“Definitions of gender affect the drag scene. Macy’s drag most of all is duct tape et cetera,” Dywer said. Rodman’s drag is androgynous, and while her face is quite feminine, she mixes her costumes with male and female garments, and tailors her pieces with the use of tape. Both Rodman and Mame identify as males, but when in drag (and sometimes out) use female pronouns.
Gender roles do not apply in this scene. Rodman said that “Macy” was “Jacob” trying to live more comfortably. It so happens that her friends and relatives are accustomed to her drag name; therefore these pronouns persist while she is not in costume. Rodman is referred to as female in the media, but is not opposed to male pronouns. “I’m gender versatile,” she said. “I’m kidding, but I actually just don’t care.”
While Macy may be billed as a mere nightlife persona, her performance is aesthetic. Her ability to satirize anything and her singing voice, which can transform from a whiny soprano to a brash baritone, are her artistic tools. “I know that I will always be able to write something new, style myself differently, or have more insight,” Rodman says. “I am confident in my own capabilities and am not coming from a place of taking ideas from other people. Our goal is not to be contrarian.”
But they stand contrary to the notion that creative souls have stopped coming to New York City to cultivate their madness to further innovation in art and culture.
“If our influence is for people to lighten up and you know, call a spade a spade, then that’s amazing,” says Rodman, now dressed in a tweed women’s blazer and a pencil skirt covering a plastic-wrapped body suit. “If you take away a spirit of lightheartedness, then that’s great.” And then she walks out the door to head for the next show.
Photo and video: Katherine Lloyd.
