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Park Slopers For Obama!

October 14, 2012 By admin Filed Under: Community

We asked a number of the artists who illustrate for us to rend their take on a Obama campaign poster. Some of the artists included their comments on President Obama and the upcoming election. We thank all the artists that participated.

Obama-Daquino — **Artist: Andrea D’aquino**

It pretty much goes without saying that most Brooklynites, Park Slopers in particular, are Democrats. It is assumed that if you ask anyone on the street, in shops, or at playgrounds in this small town in a big city, they will proudly, happily and unabashedly say “I’m a Democrat!” Why, I know a New Yorker who voted for a dead guy rather than vote Republican. I wanted to put this theory to the test and hit the streets, the shops, and the social media. My mission was to ask people here in Park Slope, are they voting for Barack Obama? And if yes, could they please tell me why? The answers, almost — almost (more on that later) were a resounding “YES!” and “More than happy to. Why, thanks for asking.”

I know, I know. This is stating the obvious, “Gee, a Brooklyninte voting Democrat?! Why, I never…” It is redundant — sorry. But I wanted to get quotes, actual cogent thoughts, as to why Barack Obama is, in fact, so awesome, just in case anyone is a “swinger” as my foreign friend puts it — she means “Swing Voter”, of course (sorry, this is not that kind of story.) So, a post or two on my social media page, a couple of electronic communications, and many, many face-to-face “why is this woman coming up to me and talking to me?” moments later, I give you the following:

Before I hit the bricks, I took a shortcut and turned to my husband, Peter, a trial lawyer, and asked him. “Seriously? You need a reason?” “YES! Pretend I’m six.” My six-year-old quickly chimed in, “Well my reason is I trust him.” Whoa, rewind. “What?” “I trust that he is spending our money on new schools, museums, and hospitals.” Dumfounded, I asked him where he got his information, and he told me that is just what presidents do, and that’s what his class talked about when the children wrote him letters in kindergarten this February (Obama not only wrote back, but also sent a bunch of great photos. Thank you public school and amazing kindergarten teacher!) Now, back to my husband who is an intelligent (and handsome) father of two, slightly over 39 years old: “In  Barack Obama’s first four years in office, he has done more to make my life and the lives of my children better. [Not his wife’s????] Barack Obama established the credit card bill of rights that prevents credit card companies from imposing arbitrary rate increases on customers.  I benefit from that. [Yay! I can buy more stuff and not feel guilty. Sorry, I digress.] He signed into law healthcare reform that, among other things, ensures that nobody in my family will be denied health care coverage based on a preexisting condition, and that my kids can stay on my health plan until they are 26 if their employer does not offer health insurance.”

Obama-Kircher — **Artist: Ashley Kircher**
President Obama is a compassionate, measured, articulate and educated leader. These qualities are what make him the best equipped to lead a country that is only becoming more diverse, in a world that is increasingly connected. His moderate stances on issues, sometimes leaving him in the position of pleasing no one, are the wisest in a time when pleasing a political party can mean reducing an issue to black and white. Things do not get simpler, only more complex, and someone with a flexible mind should be the one to guide.

That’s a lot of good stuff. In 20 years, when my son is 26 I hope we will be retired and living off my son and not needing to pay his insurance. Unless, of course, he indeed decides to become a lunar paleontologist, in which case he will still be in school and we will still be working to pay for his education (unless Obama becomes president!) I digress.

All kidding aside and editorial comments omitted, I continue with Kevin. Kevin not only owns and runs a hiking tour and gear rental shop called Gear to Go Outfitters, located on Garfield Place, he is also a former lawyer, and…wait for it…a veteran. And he’s super smart and articulate (ladies, as of press time he is single). I knew his reply would spell it out — he is smart, but he was also in the military, so he cuts through the crap. He had this to say: “ I think the theory that the Republicans would be better for small business died with Ronald Reagan.  Trickle-down economics has been shown to be a failed policy that only benefits those at the top. I can’t stay in business if only the top 1% can afford to purchase my products and services.  The more people who have disposable income, the better my business and the economy, overall, will do.” Yes, Kevin!  Raise your hand if you have disposable income! Anyone? Anyone? No? Well, don’t worry; Kevin still sells things you need (portable wine flask, rain gear, head lamps and kids’ lunch box items), so shop local! He continued on, saying that “Obama also appeals to me as a veteran.  Though he never served, he does seem to deliberate before using force which I much prefer to Bush’s ‘shoot first and justify later’ policy.  There’s supposed to be a contract of sorts between those in the military and the civilian population of our country.  As a member of the armed forces of the United States, I was prepared to lay down my life to defend my country, but it’s supposed to be for a damned good reason.  Historically, those presidents who have served in the military (I don’t consider George W. Bush in that category) have been the least likely to use force and have done so only when it appeared absolutely necessary.  I want a president who takes a minute to think whether it’s absolutely necessary to send us into battle. A president who seeks to exhaust all alternate solutions besides the use of force, and a president who then evaluates whether the ends the use of force seeks to obtain justify the potential sacrifice of our nation’s finest men and women. Obama has demonstrated these attributes.” Well said and well spoken. I owe this guy at least two beers.

Obama-Pincsak — **Artist: Jackie Hahn**
Americans are notorious for seeking out quick fixes for change. Whether it be losing pounds fast with a diet pill or winning the lottery, our lack of ability to see the scope of the greater problem, and subsequent bitterness when we don’t see immediate results, has hindered our progress and turned us into skeptics and pessimists. President Obama is able to visualize a bright future that is fundamentally different from the past. This drastic shift in perspective is ultimately what our impatient nation needs, but we also need to trust and understand that this change will not happen overnight.

Amanda, who is a mother of two and runs Row New York, a non-profit empowering youth from under-resourced communities through the sport of rowing. She is a born and raised New Yorker with a Harvard advanced degree, a 30-something mother of two, and a long time Park Slope/Windsor Terrace Resident. Amanda had this to say: “Why Obama? Because, for the most part, I agree with his policies. I support gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose abortion, cap and trade legislation, higher taxes for the wealthy, keeping religion out of schools, making healthcare accessible, and gun regulation. I really believe that Obama has the interests of more Americans at heart. Like Obama, I am opposed to privatizing Medicare. I think Obama cares about the greater good for more Americans than Romney does. Romney would be good for those who are doing well — wealthy Americans, big business — but those people are already okay. I am more interested in those who don’t fall into that category … first generation college students, the poor, the sick, the elderly. As Michelle Obama talked about in her convention speech, ‘we can’t get through the door of opportunity and slam it behind us.’” This woman was very passionate, informed and very suspicious of the one Subaru on her block who has Romney/Ryan sticker.

Another female 30-something mother of two, who has lived in Park Slope for 11 years, agreed. Steph, a columnist for Brooklyn Paper and blogger for GoldStar4trying.com, also had a soft spot for helping others (maybe it’s a mom thing, but shouldn’t we ALL care about taking care of those in need?) Steph said, “I’m voting for Obama because he still has hope that every single person in this country deserves a chance. Is he the perfect leader? No. Does he have all the answers? No. But unlike Romney and his cohorts, Obama is at least trying to figure programs that help the ‘poor, lazy, slobs’ making less than $250K a year, so I’m giving President O my vote and a big gold star.” I hope Steph gives the Park Slope Reader a gold star. She is a really good writer and dresses cool.

Marcus, a 26-year-old Asian-American male (he asked to be indentified as such) who works in one of our important community centers, told me why he was voting for Obama. First of all, he blames Bush for his prior period of unemployment and credits Obama’s legislation for obtaining this new, current job. Marcus was required to attend career readiness workshops while he was unemployed, and he says if it weren’t for that, he never would have gotten the boost he needed. And we would be deprived of his welcoming smile and attention to detail when we lose our membership cards … He also stated, “Bush got eight years to put us in this hole, why can’t we give Obama eight years to get us out?” Good point! Marcus also told me that his older, conservative Chinese parents registered and voted for the first time in 2008. “That says a lot,” he said.

Ellen, a retired school teacher and former real estate broker who currently leads tours at the Brooklyn Museum, said “Obama wants to improve the economy for everyone, to make sure everyone has healthcare, protect the environment, improve education, keep bank regulations in place, make sure the social safety net stays protected, and protect the rights of all people, including women and gays. Romney will take care of the rich, the corporations, the oil companies, the bankers, and let everyone else go to hell. A Romney presidency would deprive us of everything that is good about America.” Spoken like a true Brooklynite! Her colleague Jim, also a retiree and a 44-year resident of Park Slope, was the first one to talk about Obama on a personal, human level, which I found interesting and touching: “His sense of humor and the obvious sense of mutual love and respect he exhibits with his family [as well as] his calm and coolness in a crisis” are some of the reason Jim likes the guy and will give him his vote. Why, yes! These are indeed qualities the leader of this great nation should have, not something to be taken for granted. Jim made another good point: “His life story, which shows the power of the American Dream — the idea that anyone, no matter his or her origins, has the potential to succeed through hard work, determination and persistence.” Now, THAT’S a role model I want for my kids. By the way, people who seem soft spoken are NOT when it comes to politics or art.

Obama-Leigh — **Artist: Torie Leigh**
I don’t know if I’m going to vote in the upcoming election. If I do I’ll vote for Obama, but not because I think he’ll protect my rights, or the rights of others, but because he’s the lesser of two evils. Politics leave me feeling stuck between a rock and hard place because the conspiracy theories make more sense to me that what I see in mainstream media.

I do need to mention the few residents I encountered who did not feel the lOve (capital O intentional). Three people, who shall remain anonymous, are “sitting this one out”. They are a bit disillusioned with the whole democracy thing. When pressed for a reason, one Park Sloper, wrote this to me: “If people would stop to see how the candidates are both bought out by the same corporate sponsors and how misled they are by a highly unethical media, they might actually make demands on our government that are unseen in today’s system. People are co-opting into thinking that they are creating change when they go flip a lever every four years, and that’s just the way our government wants it.” He is an active member of Occupy Wall Street and is, himself, being a part of the change he wants to see by protesting and writing about these issues. I admire a man who stands by his principles and actually acts upon them.

So IT IS true! Yes, Virginia, there are NO Republicans in our neighborhood! Well there’s one, but she was raised in New Orleans and is re-registering as “Independent and will probably be voting for Obama.” But we are Park Slopers, after all, and are tolerant of other people’s beliefs, even if they are not our own. All kidding and digression aside, I did talk to a lot more people and they are ALL going to vote for Obama. I wonder if the owner of the Windsor Terrace Subaru has that bumper sticker because they lost a bet, or alternatively, if that’s what they truly believe, then maybe they really are the one percent and should support their neighbors’ businesses, nonprofits and cultural institutions.

New Kids on the Block

October 14, 2012 By admin Filed Under: New Wave

I’m sitting behind the register at the lovely boutique where I work on 5th Ave with the door open. Crunchy little leaf friends blow in from the sidewalk as mommy after mommy traipses into the store effortlessly swaddled in light-weight, oversized, sweaters. They’re drinking hot coffee and talking weekend apple-picking. The kids are back in school, so, they’ve gotta run, they’ve gotta make it in time for pick-up.

It’s fall in the Slope, and with every change in the season comes new bars, restaurants, and stores. Now, you’ll find at least four bars on every block, which means seasonal craft beers and hard ciders with every step. And there’s plenty of autumnal eats on the tables of the new bistros and cafes in the area. Also thrown into the mix of new openings in the nabe? An urgent care walk-in center, so if you cut yourself carving pumpkins — you know where to go!

The Owl Farm
297 9th Street | 718.499.4988 | theowlfarmbar.com
A harsh reality: all of the Park Slope bars that I’ve made “memories” at are closing. First it was O’Connor’s (RIP) and I was forced to pour one out for Harry Boland’s on 5th Ave and 9th St. It’s cool though, it’s just the circle of life (Park Slope bar life, that is). Anyways, the “idiots behind Bar Great Harry and Mission Dolores” opened up the The Owl Farm in the space where Harry’s once stood. If you appreciate beer (you do) then the chances are that you’ll dig the new Owl Farm; they’ve got 28 beers on tap and two casks — combine that with their slammin’ happy hour (well drinks/specified beers are 2/$5 until 7pm) and set up shop at one of their three pinball machines, and you’ll be saying “Harry who?”

67 Burger
234 Flatbush Ave | 718.399.6767 | 67burger.com
If 67 Burger were a person, their heart would be made out of burger meat. But seeing as this new Park Slope spot on Flatbush Ave and Bergen is a burger joint, not a hamburger-human, the owners still put their heart into serving the community a substantial variety of viciously delicious burgers. You and yours can choose from a whopping 13 different styles of burgers at 67 Burger, and while I am more than partial to the Parisian ($8.25: hello white wine sautéed onions, mushrooms, and dijonaise) your order can really go a number of ways — try the Oaxaca ($10: avocado slices, homemade chipotle mayo, cajun spices, and cheddar cheese on a chicken patty) or the Italian ($8.50: fresh basil pesto and shaved parmesan). Wherever your order takes you, you won’t be disappointed. Actually, you might be disappointed if you skimp on the fries; 67 Burger makes the most scrumptious seasoned curly fries I’ve ever had (and I’ve inhaled A LOT of curly fries in my time), so at $3.95 a serving, you really can’t pass those spuds up.

Woodland
242 Flatbush Ave | 718.398.7700 | woodlandnyc.com
I’ve always wanted to act like a Satyr in public. You know, those half-man/half-goat creatures that prance within the canon of Ancient Greek mythology? Satyrs were known to roam the woods guzzling wine, playing musical instruments — essentially just letting loose and relishing in life’s pleasantries. Woodland incorporates the ways of the satyr in their approach at a new American grill that opened in May on Flatbush Ave. Before you’re seated, take a moment to gawk at the interior of this bi-level Park Slope dream that features exposed brick walls, a 12-seat bar, a lounge downstairs (where the owners intend on hosting live music performances), and a spacious backyard. The menu lists a number of meaty meals like the Lava Lake Lamb with cauliflower pencil leek gratin, Westfield goat cheese, and spearmint ($26), and the Riesling Braised Rabbit with yellow tomato bernaise and frites ($25). Veg-heads can wine and dine at Woodlands too; take it from me, the Leaf Salad ($11) is nothing to scoff at when it incorporates intriguing ingredients like dandelion, mizuna, filberts, grilled Northfolk apricots, and rye bark in a pickled sunchoke vinaigrette. Beyond the woodsy fodder, however, is the opportunity you’ll have to imbibe like Satyr, seeing as Woodland’s drink menu is dripping with top wine picks, imported drafts, and even ciders!

Pink Berry
161 7th Ave | 718.788-0615 | pinkberry.com
Breaking news on the Slope’s frozen yogurt front! Last issue, I told you all about Culture, the new and niche fro-yo shop on 5th Avenue and 4th Street. This time around, I’m giving you a sweet scoop (all puns intended) on not one, but TWO new frozen yogurt places in the ‘hood! This summer ushered in the presence of Pinkberry, the self-proclaimed “leading frozen yogurt brand for franchising” that has been publicly praised by Hollywood big-wigs, on 7th Ave and Garfield Place. Rated #1 in their field by Zagat, those who are fond of fro-yo may select between Pinkberry’s orginal flavor (best described as “classic” and “tangy”) or a handful of “seasonal flavors” like chocolate hazelnut, pomegranate, peanut butter, mango or coconut. The real draw here is their toppings bar, though: a peak behind the cold glass that harbors all of Pinkberry’s toppings yields the magnificent sight of a rainbow of tiny treats like sliced kiwi, fruit loops, cheesecake crumbles, raspberries, and chocolate chips. It’s also worth note that I saw Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz cut the ribbon (it was pink) for PInkberry’s grand opening.

Yogurberry
77 5th Ave | 718.399.2898 | yogurberry.com
But wait, there’s more! Another frozen yogurt place opened up this summer on 5th Ave and St. Mark’s Pl. YogurBerry (also a chain) one-ups its neighboring competition with their self-serve frozen yogurt machines which, with just the pull of a lever, swirl out natural fruit sweetened product at 49 cents per ounce. You can sample and then choose from their original, green tea, strawberry, peach, and raspberry flavors, and then sprinkle on the nutritionally satisfying toppings yourself (granola, almonds, fruit, cookies). Essentially, this place successfully functions as a means in which the health-conscious can treat themselves to dessert; you can control your portions (the same goes for toppings) and can lick your spoon confidently knowing that YogurBerry’s fro-yo is 100% natural, nonfat and low calorie.

Cafe Dada
57 7th Ave | 718.622.2800
After a successful 18 years in the neighborhood, the caffeinated Park Slope institution, Ozzie’s, has closed its doors. But all is not lost: the owner is slated to open a new location, under a different name, a few blocks away from where Ozzie’s once stood at 7th Ave and Lincoln. Now, Cafe Dada has taken its place and they’re calling for all the creative types in the area to embrace the atmosphere of old Dadaist cafes in early 1900s Budapest and 1920s Paris, where coffee shops were the breeding grounds for artists and writers to gather and create. Patrons are encouraged to grab a cup of coffee (they brew Blue Bottle and Brooklyn Roasting beans), socialize with other customers, and exist as a member of our community. And when you’re exhausted from exerting all your creative energy, Cafe Dada’s French-Hungarian menu will impress and then fuel you with their unique offerings; when was the last time you had Potato Pogasca ($6.50, Hungarian style potato biscuit with ham, eggs, and asparagus) or a wood board of Padliszan Spread (10.50) at a cafe in Park Slope? As an added bonus, their art-based philosophy is put into practice at poetry readings, which they host in the cafe from time to time.

Pork Slope
247 5th Ave | 718.768.PORK | porkslopebrooklyn.com
Road houses across the states are typically situated on major highways and serve as a place for travelers to stop for a full meal and light entertainment. In August, all of us weary travelers making our way down 5th Ave were greeted by Pork Slope, a new road house bar opened by Dale Talde and John Bush where you can grub on barbecue and sandwiches while simultaneously drinking beer and whiskey to your heart’s delight (or until you run out of cash, because Pork Slope is cash only). But don’t judge a road house by its name — yes, Pork Slope serves pork dishes (they make a mean pulled pork sandwich at $8), but this is first and foremost a place to recharge (read: imbibe) after your grueling workday. They offer a selection of 25 beers, three wines on tap, and place a passionate emphasis on American whiskey. Pork Slope even has a coin-operated pool table on its premises, just don’t let the taxidermied boar’s heads and beer lamps lining the walls distract you from your shot!

Robert Henry Vintage
683 6th Ave | 718.473.0744 | roberthenryvintage.com
In 2006, Robert Henry Vintage opened a storefront on 6th Ave and 19th street. They sold furniture, objects, dishes, and glassware that they’d personally selected from an inventory of items from the 1940s to the 1980s. In August, the duo behind Robert Henry Vintage converted their South Slope store into a storage unit, placing vintage tea kettles for sale in the space’s window alongside none other than a prominently displayed set of…QR codes! Their “new wave” method of sales takes “window shopping” literally: instead of interacting with a salesperson, customers walk up to the window with their smartphones to scan the QR code that represents the item they’d like to purchase. Then, they are prompted to pay for their 1960s cocktail shaker using a credit card number, before arranging their pick up or delivery preferences. The concept behind Robert Henry Vintage’s window-store is both novelty and innovative, and speaking from experience, when I walked by the “store” it felt as if that Waterford Crystal goblet in the window’s QR code was staring back at me, screaming, “THE FUTURE IS NOW.”

Die Koelner Bierhalle
84 St Marks Pl | 347.227.7238 | thekbh.com
When I first heard that a new German “bierhalle” opened up in August on St. Marks between 4th and 5th Aves, I gave a figurative “thumbs up” to Park Slope for ushering in yet another place for me to get drinks after work. Die Koelner Bierhalle serves authentic German Kolschs, Hefeweizens, Lagers, Pilsens, and Ales at $11-17 a liter, warm bavarian pretzels ($6), the best ‘wursts: bauenwursts, bratwursts, curry wursts, wiesswurts ($5-8), and all the other bierhalle favorites that make for a Deutschland dream. Then, I heard that Die Koelner is hosting Oktoberfest from September 15-October 6, and you better believe that I used a whopping FIVE “thumbs up” emojis when I tweeted that I intend to participate in the most important event in the beer-guzzling world at Die Koelner. My reason? When you realize that most of the beers at Die Koelner are 300-500 years old, it makes pretending like you’re at the real Oktoberfest in Munich so much easier.

Greenwood Park
555 7th Ave | 718.788.7850 | greenwoodparkbk.com
I recently read a yelp review that referred to the new beer garden/bar/restaurant that opened in June in “Greenwood Heights” as “Chuck-E-Cheese in South Slope” and stated that the space is overpopulated by children. This is because parents are not only allowed to, but are encouraged to bring their children to the family-friendly Greenwood Park on 7th Ave and 19th. Sure, the 13,000-square-foot space is wiggling with hoards of hyper kiddies skipping and singing from table to table, but come on! The only people getting a Chuck-E-Cheese experience here are the parents of these children who, for once, are afforded the luxury of day drinking at a bar without spending big bucks on a babysitter. Greenwood Park opens for business at noon and serves outdoor happy hour drinks ($3 drafts/$4 well drinks) until 7pm, which sounds like prime-time for mommies to gather and gossip over Fresh Basil Vodka Lemonades while their little ones keep themselves entertained nearby. But if you’re just not one to get tipsy in front of toddlers, head to the beer garden after 7pm, when the bar is 21+; they have 60 beers on tap, 24 of which are local, and a fairly priced bar menu with limited vegetarian/vegan options.

Premier Care
420 5th Ave | 718.965.2273 | premiercaredoc.com
Attempting to book an appointment with your primary care provider when you have the flu in New York can sometimes be a joke, a terribly unfunny joke. Meanwhile, waiting for hours in the emergency room after you’ve sliced off your finger julienning sweet potatoes can feel like an actual nightmare. At last, we have Premier Care, a walk-in urgent care center that opened in July on 5th Ave at 7th, who will treat your little one’s persistent cold and attend to your sprained ankle shortly after you walk-in, no appointment necessary. They are open 7 days a week (9am-9pm during the week, 9am-5pm on the weekends), and accept all major insurances. Premier Care’s staff is friendly and boasts board certified emergency doctors, so you can utilize their full range of services with confidence. And as a public service announcement directed at the select singles of the Slope: they provide full STD testing! My only gripe is that Premier Care’s facade is a top-to-bottom window that reveals the center’s “waiting room”, which means there’s a real possibility that the next door neighbor you’ve been flirting with could walk by at any moment and see you sitting there, slumped over in your sick clothes, hair unkempt, with a runny nose. HOT.

Brooklyn Crepe
169 5th Ave | 718.622.2849 | brooklyncrepe.com
File this under, quickie brunch options — the popular Brooklyn Crepe and Juice on Flatbush has opened up a second Park Slope location on 5th Ave and Lincoln. They’ve carried the same menu over to the new creperie/juice bar, which includes savory crepes like the Park Slope ($7.50, spinach, goat cheese, tomato), and the Bay Ridge ($9.70, smoked salmon, goat cheese, spinach, caramelized onion), or sweet crepes like the Gowanus ($7.90, seasonal fresh fruit, brie, honey). They also allow patrons to custom order their crepes (salads and juices, too), and they can be made vegan and gluten-free, too!

If you have a new business opening in Park Slope, South Slope or Prospect Heights, let us know! office@psreader.com

There’s No Taste Like Home

October 14, 2012 By admin Filed Under: The Reader On Food

They say that one out of seven Americans can trace their roots to Brooklyn. As “America’s hometown,” the multicultural heritage defines the borough. To me, the center of culinary nostalgia may be Brighton Beach, with its blintzes and pierogies. For others, it may be the Italian bakeries and butchers of Carroll Gardens, the taquerias in Sunset Park, or the oxtail stew in Crown Heights. When you’re in Brooklyn, you can always go home again. Not only do these restaurants and shops celebrate where the people of Brooklyn have come from, but where they are going.

To Schlep No More

“I think it’s the smell that really draws people in,” Peter Shelsky says from behind the counter of his appetizing shop, Shelsky’s (251 Smith Street), in Carroll Gardens. “That sense of nostalgia hits them right when they walk through the door.” But, really, all five senses are transported back in time. The store looks like an old black-and-white photo come to life: glass jars of nuts, dried fruit, and penny candy by the window, halvah and rugelach under domed glass, trays of pickled herring, latkes, lox, and schmear, shelves filled with matzo meal and rye bread, a refrigerator with Dr. Brown’s and Cel-Ray. Shelsky — a New Yorker, born and raised — grew up with the same memories as his growing base of regular customers. He lived in the Upper East Side, but would accompany his grandmother to the Lower East Side for bialys and appetizing, and the Upper West Side for groceries at Zabar’s. As an adult in Brooklyn with a family of his own, he grew tired of having to schlep over the bridge to recreate the experience. After years of working in the food industry, he decided to open a place of his own.

The big draw at Shelsky’s is the lox, particularly the pastrami salmon, and the sandwiches it adorns. But, Shelsky considers his specialties to be the appetizing underdogs, like his whitefish salad and pickled herring. While the salmon may be smoked elsewhere, the salads and pickling are done in-house. Some of the baking is homemade as well, including the rugelach with a modern twist of unusual flavors like clementine or ginger. They also update the classics with their unique sandwiches. Take the Dr. Goldstein Special, for example: duck fat-laced chopped liver and apple horseradish sauce, served between two schmaltz-fried latkes. Or, there’s the Sweet and Smokey Blintz: lean kippered salmon, apples, red onions, and horseradish crème fraiche rolled in a crepe. Don’t worry, they have bagels and bialys too, from Kossar’s during the week or Davidvich on Shabbat. Try the Holy Mackerel, which is smoked peppered mackerel with cucumber salad and vegetable cream cheese.

It was important to Shelsky to help revive the tradition of Jewish foods in the wake of its near disappearance from the borough. This has always seemed like a strange phenomenon to me. After all, so much of New York City is even more quintessentially Jewish than Jerusalem. Shelsky attributes it to a few things. First, is the obvious change of the skyrocketing prices of living in Brooklyn, as well as the ingredients. But, he also notes that the people you would expect to support appetizing stores most are the least likely customers. “I’ve gotten complaints from the religious community about not being Kosher. They can’t eat here.” But, he bristles at the accusation that this disqualifies him as running a Jewish store. “I refuse to accept the idea that Jewish food begins and ends with what’s Kosher.” (This is true, but the day Katz’s started offering Reuben sandwiches was still a tragedy.) Shelsky continues, “Eastern European Jews brought this food to this city and this country. It’s what our ancestors ate. It’s our heritage. People connect with the food more than anything else. There’s this saying that captures the Jewish attitude about food perfectly: ‘They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat.’ That’s what I care more about.” Amen.

Complimenting the Heart and Soul

If Brooklyn’s food scene is defined by its multiculturalism, then Kimchi Grill (766 Washington Avenue) perfectly encompasses this classic feature in a fresh direction. The restaurant, which opened in the spring at in Prospect Heights, serves up the unusual and intriguing fusion of Koren and Mexican cuisines, with a dash of Italian and Middle Eastern influences thrown into the mix. Food truck fiends will recognize this combo from the popular Kimchi Taco Truck, which has been a favorite since its arrival on the scene in March, 2011.

The plan was simple: Make Korean cuisine more accessible. Phillip Lee had been working in the restaurant business for years with different types of foods, but when he decided to break out on his own he knew that it would revolve around the dishes of his heritage. Korean food, it seemed, was difficult to approach for the average American audience, with the main exception of Korean barbecue. He thought back to his uncle, who owned one of the first Japanese restaurants in Long Island in the late 80s, and how that food began to become such a hit. Most of the patrons started out slowly, with California rolls and tempura, before they worked their way up to sushi or sashimi. He figured it would be best to take the same approach with Korean cuisine, making it a bit friendlier and more casual by combining it with more familiar dishes.

Lee knew that the foundation of his menu would be kimchi, which he calls “the heart and soul of Korean food.” (Kimchi comes in many different varieties depending on the season and the region, but is generally a combination of fresh, pickled, or fermented vegetables and meats with spices and condiments.) Knowing that the concept of kimchi was still foreign for most of his would-be customers, his dishes are mainly rooted in barbecue. When choosing which cuisine to experiment with, Mexican seemed like a natural fit. Both nationalities love their spice; the possibilities for combinations were endless, giving him a lot of room to work with toning down or amping up different flavors.

While Kimchi Grill does have the fan favorites from the truck, the menu has been greatly expanded to include dishes that require the space of a full kitchen. Lee worked with his chef, Mike Calderon, to create new dishes. They both drew on their childhood favorites, pinpointing the best part of their best dishes and finding room to grow. After a ton of trial and error, they’ve developed a menu that is a truly unique experience. Of course, there are the tacos, like the Korean BBQ Beef Short Rib (with red cabbage apple pear kimchi slaw), and the Korean Fried Chicken (tossed in blue agave nectar and ginger garlic Korean pepper sauce, with pickled daikon, queso blanco, and sesame seeds). You can get any of their tacos in a burrito, bowl, or ssam (lettuce wrap) as well.

But, where you can see Lee and Calderon really having fun is with their side dishes. The six current items are split between Korean and Mexican standards being given a twist with elements of the opposite cuisine. Popular Korean street foods, like rice gnocchi or arancini (crispy rice balls), are paired with queso blanco and quesa Oaxaca, respectively. The Kimchi Goat Cheese Quesadilla is one of the most elaborate dishes, with goat cheese, provolone, and sautéed kimchi in the tortilla, and fresh kimchi, pico de gallo, kimchi, chipotle aioli, and miso crema on top. The BBQ Nachos are another highlight, with marinated barbecue beef and pork with queso blanco, cheddar, black beans, kimchi, pico de gallo, and miso crema. The combinations of flavors and textures of each of these offerings are expertly thought out, and the ubiquitous kimchi really makes each dish with the addition of a delightful crispness and freshness. Despite kimchi’s reputation for heat, it tended to be what toned down the spice, and essential to balancing the flavors.

Keep an eye out throughout the Fall: Lee and Calderon are still hard at work, and the menu’s only going to get bigger.

Breaking Bread

Peter Endriss of Runner & Stone (285 Fifth Avenue) has been infatuated with food his whole life. As a little kid, he would hang out in the kitchen with his father while he prepared dinner, or prepped for parties. At 13, he began working in restaurants, and he knew it was what he loved to do. But, when it came to choosing a career path, he ended up as a civil engineer. “It wasn’t so much how I transitioned from being a civil engineer to a baker, but a question of what I was doing as a civil engineer in the first place. But everyone told me to pursue an academic career. They warned me about the hours of the food industry, and the difficulty of the job, so I tried something else.”

But, after 10 years as an engineer, he could no longer stand it. He left for Germany, where he worked in a bakery. His father was from Germany, and Endriss went there every year with him to visit his family. Every morning, his father would walk to the small town’s bakery to buy bread and pretzels for the day, and now, Endriss was learning to make them himself. From Germany, Endriss spent time in different bakeries and restaurants in New York, France, and Italy. After a few years, the entrepreneurial tradition of his family was too strong to ignore, and he decided to open up a place of his own.

Back in New York, Endriss teamed up with Chris Pizzulli (of Blue Ribbon) and came up with the concept for Runner & Stone, a neighborhood gathering place that will carry you from early morning to late at night. The day begins with a coffee shop and bakery. This is Endriss’ specialty. Using techniques he learned in Germany and France, he’ll offer a selection of breads, pastries, and pretzels. You may have seen these at Smorgasburg and the New Amsterdam Market. The almond croissants with seasonal fruits, walnut bread, and olive ciabatta were all smash hits. Liquid sourdough gives the breads a greater depth of flavor. Around lunch time, soup and sandwiches will be available, providing an outlet for their charcuterie that’s made in-house, including pastrami, lox, and pickled herring.

In the evening, the café will open up for a full dinner service, accompanied by a full bar. This is where Pizzulli steps up to the plate, with a menu mostly inspired by his Italian upbringing. The star of the show will be the homemade pasta, perfected by the combination of Pizzulli’s childhood memories and Endriss’ education in Italy. The details of the menu will change with the season, taking care to reflect what’s happening in the markets, but you can expect a big seafood presence and updates on traditional dishes. “We were really drawn to the old-school Italian feeling of the neighborhood, and we want to do our best to blend in and serve that community,” Endriss says. Runner & Stone will be opening late September.

From Commerce to Karma

October 14, 2012 By admin Filed Under: Yoga

Meditating on the Yoga Journal Conference

The Yoga Journal Conference was coming to New York, and as a long-time practitioner and teacher, I thought it was time to check in with the scene and see how American yoga has evolved. I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m., and from the high-flying F train, saw dawn over Brooklyn.

Arriving at the midtown Hilton welcome desk at 7 a.m., I greeted one of my yoga students, a volunteer registering us sleepy mendicants with props slung over our shoulders. I had signed up for six yoga classes in two days. I wondered: Will everyone there be 23, in Lycra, popping into handstands in the middle of the room?

My first 8 a.m. workshop with Dana Flynn allayed those fears. “Do whatever the fuck you want!” she cried. Ah, my kind of gal. Funky music played for us in Radical Movement for Yogis: Unleash the Teacher Within. The feisty, decoratively tattooed Dana — creator of Laughing Lotus — gathered us for her introductory talk. “How many here are teachers?” Hands went up. Then she asked, “What about maintaining your own practice? Do you wait until you’ve finished your list of administrative chores, or do you make sure to take care of yourself?” Got my number! “Do your own practice, first thing! Go deep down inside.” Dana had us dancing through a rhythmic flow of challenging poses. Exhilarated, I relished her exuberant hug. This is what I’ve come for: inspiration, refreshment, an infusion of wisdom.

In the next workshop, the elegant Elena Brower suggested we let the negativity go and release our blame and shame. How often class lectures are addressed to some mood I’m not in. Knowing Elena to be a much-loved teacher, I wondered about the strictures of leading conference classes. As I sat on the floor lengthening over my tired right leg with my left bent in janu sirsasana, an assistant came over to push that bent knee down further. “No!” I said, popping up. After many miles of running, high-impact African dance classes, and years of teaching aerobics, my knees have survived, just. They will descend on their own, thank you. Startled, she breathed a nervous apology.

So many stretches for my already over-stretched hamstrings! Now into my fourth hour of class, I gave up to lie on my back with knees bent. Elena came over sweetly to inquire, and I whispered: “I can’t stretch my hamstrings any more!” With a sympathetic nod, she leaned her body into my bent legs, her weight gently sending my thighbones into my hip joints. I sighed with relief and gratitude.

Gliding up the escalator and along the corridors, with all shapes and sizes and ages, I wondered, “Where are the guys?” Among the mat carriers, I’d seen hundreds of women, two people of color and barely a handful of men. Just past the hastily printed “Women” sign taped to the restroom door was poignant evidence of male absence. Waiting on the inevitable line, I peeked behind the tasteful blue curtain hung along one wall to see, in the shadows, a line of urinals, standing like loyal sentries awaiting their next patrol.

Done at 12:30 with my next class at 3:30, I could see that the schedule was geared for ample time to recover, lunch and shop. I passed through the Marketplace portals to observe the profusion of products and services that have sprouted like weeds around the ancient practice of yoga. There were videos, jewelry, togs and colorful variants on the ubiquitous yoga mat.

“Americans spend $5.7 billion a year on yoga classes and products, including equipment, clothing, vacations and media (DVDs, videos, books and magazines),” says the Yoga Journal page inviting sponsors to do their bit for attendees. “Place your products and services directly in the hands of your best prospects: affluent, health-conscious consumers.” And so they have. Everywhere was someone’s brainchild responding to the trend, iPads poised to snag your precious email address. Here were 50-buck gel discs to cushion tender knees and hands; there were frozen stevia-sweetened coconut bars. I chatted with the sparkly reps offering to make my instructional video. Just inside the entrance was the ultimate shrine to yoga status: white paper background unrolled with a smiling Yoga Journal photog to fulfill your fantasy of being cover girl or boy. Enthusiasts volunteered their most acrobatic pose.

I had brought a change of clothes, anticipating some evening activity — a panel, a kirtan, a party, but no. I was free to stagger home and sink into a hot bath. Before collapsing into slumber, I unpacked my gift bag containing a product for every bodily system: GitOn for my gut, Omegas for my heart, Arnica to heal my bruises, ginseng for my adrenals, melatonin for my sleep, Tea Tree gum for my teeth, antiseptic cream for my skin, Ester-C to buck up my immune system and accelerate my metabolism, fish oil for memory and mood, blueberry pomegranate balm for my lips, a supplement of turmeric, ginger, cayenne and, for my joints, willow bark — hey, isn’t that aspirin? — a Luna bar and coconut milk for a peckish interlude and CleanseMORE for the reluctant digestion that might follow. The notoriously challenging Jivamukti studio distributed free China-Gel for the relief of six different kinds of pain. There was cleansing renewal for my mat, Yogini Cleanies botanically-based body wipes for my sweat (lavender to Zen you out, lemongrass to Zen you up!) and a gold coin from Abacus Wealth Partners, looking suspiciously like Chanukah gelt. Maybe all the spirit is in the accessories.

Eight a.m. on Sunday, I got my first look at the legendary Ana Forrest, known for her athletic, challenging style. Oy, I thought, I’m already zonked. How will I survive?

Out strode this Texas macha wearing weightlifting gloves, exuding the stored kinesis of a jungle cat. “Let’s practice!” Striding around the room, crying out encouragement and flinging her dark waist-length braid with a dramatic flick of the head, Ana was female ferocity made magical. The work deeply warmed my muscles, some moves like physical therapy exercises on a foundation of standing poses. I’m plenty bendy and a little too free in the joints, so the harder we worked, the better I felt. As Ana’s muscled assistants toured the room to help us into arm balances, my fibers screaming for a rest, she counseled, “Stay with it!” Sending us beyond the familiarity of routine, this kind of pain was not the sharp shock of injury, but the weird, burning discomfort of challenging new areas and changing old habits. I realized this is what I need! I’d follow her anywhere.

From there, body buzzing, I went on to the delicate, blonde, balletic fairy princess Natasha Rizopoulos for the workshop Rock the Boat: Navasana and Core Integrity. Many of my students rest one hand on their mid-belly and say, “I have to engage my core,” with little idea of what that means. What, I wondered, would Natasha say of this much-touted and misunderstood zone?

She whipped through a functional anatomy lesson and gave a divinely evolved class on the subject, offering an analysis of the many muscles involved, jumping up to demonstrate with her hyper-mobile slender limbs and crystal clarity. We worked ‘em all — from the deepest tiny muscles joining one vertebra to another, to the abdominals that wrap all the way around to the spine. She, too, asked us to explore whether the mind’s cry to stop came from flagging of the flesh or fatigue of the mind.

When time for home practice is short, she suggests an efficient series of five planks, five boats and a few long prone backbends — shalabhasana. Challenging the popular over-emphasis on the strong rectus abdominis — the fabled “six pack” — as a cure for back problems, to my delight, she articulated the orchestral nature of our musculature — some instruments prevail, but all are playing.

I ended my day with Gary Kraftsow, purveyor of Viniyoga, specializing in adjusting the practice to the person. You will never see a Viniyoga teacher move a crowd through their uniform paces. Viniyogis use asana and meditation to spark change by addressing each person’s unique needs. “Yoga is about transformation of mood, thought and behavior,” he said. “Our intention then becomes stronger than our habit.”

He reflected, in his rabbinical manner and immaculate Sanskrit pronunciation, many years of exploration with a primary branch of yoga: sons of the pioneer Krishnamacharya each created his own approach: Iyengar, Patabbi Jois for Ashtanga and Desikachar into this individualized method. The meaning of the word asana, Gary reminded us, is “seat.” We sat, we listened, we chanted. My mood was, indeed, transformed.

With their theatricality, their love of the crowd, the refined instruction born of deep inner exploration, in these teachers I was seeing the full flower of American yoga, tradition in transit. Even the recent storms reverberating over the contemporary landscape — John Friend’s sex & money scandal, William Broad’s New York Times piece on yoga injuries, the closing of Om Yoga Center in downtown Manhattan — are rumblings in an extraordinary movement with marvelous variety, at its best, awakening us to our higher selves.

The weekend zipped up my practice. For my personal practice, committed as I am to body awareness as a value, opposed to the no-pain-no-gain cliché, I saw the efficacy of effort beyond comfort. When we are well-guided, that burning effort can be therapeutic. I had gone from the funky dancer to the scarred, generous acrobat to the delicate fairy princess to this gentle Hindu scholar whose depth of understanding and whisper of Talmudic tradition — the love of questions, discourse and practice — emerged from the migration of western seekers to eastern wisdom. Looking at these teachers, too seasoned to be young, all with their tales of injury, one sees the alchemy of yoga. Here is this plethora of styles and tones, all called yoga, refined by masters to help us forge ease and understanding on the crucible of universal human suffering. Thus my journey ended, and what a trip it was.

From shallow to profound, from mountaintop to mall, yoga has its charlatans and geeks and giants to nudge us along on our rugged path. As it continues to evolve, this seems to me to be a peak moment, with all the light and shadow of a very lively art.

He’s Just Walkin’

October 12, 2012 By admin Filed Under: The Reader Interview

Exploring every corner, intersection, doorway, garden, and street side oddity, Matt Green has a mission: walk every block of all five boroughs of New York City. This might seem like too hefty a task for even a long-time New Yorker, but Matt comes qualified for the job — in 2010 he completed a cross-country walk from Rockaway Beach, New York to Rockaway Beach, Oregon and catalogued all his small-town discoveries via photos and small blog entries on his website imjustwalkin.com.

So far, Matt has covered a little over 2,000 of his 8,000-mile inter-NYC journey since he started this past New Year’s (his trip across the country was, by contrast, a mere 3,100 miles), and on a Friday night last month, I met up with him on Crosby Street for an interview that took us over bridges, next to on-ramps, through parks, and down alleyways between the borders of Little Italy, Chinatown, Soho, and Tribeca.

So why, after walking across the country, did you decide to walk every block of New York City?

Partially this was a complement to the walk across the country where I saw the entire width of the country, but for like a second in every town, whereas here I’m spending years walking around and around the same place. So it’s just a much more in-depth understanding of one place. The walk across America was a good lesson in how people are the same all across the country, kind of like a breadth way of learning, and this is all about depth, just picking at this one place over and over.

You left your job as a civil engineer to start your walk across the US, and now New York. How did you mentally make that transition?

It feels scary particularly coming from that kind of background, because in no means am I close to starving, but it’s all those little things that I’ve just always had that you never give another thought to — like whatever TV show you like watching every week. It almost sounds silly to say it in hindsight, but at the time you’re like, “Man, I’d hate not to be able to watch this’ like that factors into this big life decision you’re making.”

I can definitely relate to that feeling.

[laughs] So yeah, that was tough. It was kind of a leap of faith, but I was really encouraged on my walk across the country because I spent so little money doing that walk. It’s just this very low-budget vacation, in a sense, and I had this reassuring feeling that if all else went wrong in my life, I could just keep doing this and I would survive. I’m sure it’d get old after a while, but I’d be relatively happy doing that. That made me a lot more secure in the idea that there are all these things that I don’t have that I used to have, but that I don’t need. I like music a lot, but I couldn’t listen to music on my walk — I didn’t want to burn through batteries in my phone listening to music, and I wanted to be able to hear what was around me while I was walking.

For a lot of people, the music thing specifically is a big thing for them. They’re like “I couldn’t go five months without listening to music.” We’ve convinced ourselves that we need all of these routines that we have, and I just didn’t have them. The bottom line is transitioning to this lifestyle where you need very little, and where you rely on the world to provide you with entertainment. Not to say the world’s providing you literally with all your sustenance, but you just free yourself from so many of the costs of life that you think are required.

What have you learned or come to understand from all the miles you’ve walked so far?

The thing that’s most important about it to me is not just the physical act of walking, but walking in an environment where you’re walking because that’s what you’re doing for the day, not because you’re rushing to get somewhere else or trying to get in shape. When you’re walking just for the sake of being out there and moving around and seeing new places, I think that it’s a very interesting and different way to see the city and start to get to know a place as big and as overwhelming as New York. Because for the vast majority of people — myself included — how do you even start with this city, you know? It’s such an enormous, unknowable kind of place. So you buy a tour book or a guide book, or you talk to a friend you know who lives there, or somehow you refer to these other experts to get advice on what’s worth seeing — like what’s historical or cultural, what are the important things that I’d be remiss to not check out. And when you do that, you’re letting these other people tell you what New York is. You’re just kind of following along passively, whereas if you just go on a walk and you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know anything about it, you’re freed from those expectations and start to see what catches your eye. I think about it as a sideways way of learning about the city.

The diversity of the knowledge you start to acquire is pretty phenomenal. I’ve learned about all sorts of plants in this New York walk — like who would have thought — but you constantly see gardens and you start to wonder, “What is that flower that I’ve seen over and over?” Then you look it up, or in my case you call your mom and she tells you what it is. And I’ve learned about all these edible things that are growing in New York; I think I could survive eating plants I’ve run into.

Do you know about the little museum in this alley? This place blew my mind the other day.

Matt then took me down Cortlandt Alley between Franklin and White Streets to show me “The Museum”, a tiny, unmanned display of toothpaste bottles, misspelled food labels, and homemade self-defense weapons that works under the catchphrase “A SMART MAN’S GARBAGE IS A FOOLISH MAN’S FORTUNE & VICE VERSA.” We both took some photos and Matt jotted a few notes in his flip pad.

I bet you’ve run into tons of little surprises like that place.

Yeah definitely. Maybe I’m more interested in this because of my engineering background, but there’s so much fascinating infrastructure in New York, like layers of things under the streets and inside buildings that accomplish all these tasks that we take for granted. For example, there are all these vent towers that come out of the sidewalk, and most of the time you don’t even notice them, they’re just another thing in the city. There’s one in particular that looks like an air raid siren — it kind of sweeps up and there’s a little pyramid thing on top. So I started noticing these, then I finally had seen enough of them and I got really curious and took a photo, and someone on my blog actually knew what it was — it was a regulator vent for a natural gas line. Then I started noticing all these other vent towers of all these different shapes and sizes and designs, so I started learning about them, so it’s this funny journey that starts taking place when you notice something weird for the first time.

Hey have you ever seen this?

Matt leads me across the street to a small fenced-in patch of grass separating the intersection of West Broadway, Varick, and Franklin Streets called Finn Square.

This square is named after this guy they call Battery Dan. For part of his career he was a judge. These two kids got into a fight over this girl and got sent into court, and Battery Dan was the old-timey judge who would give you advice instead of lecturing you… [reads from sign] “Don’t try to compel a girl to love you if she prefers someone else. Get another to take her place. Don’t wreck or sell your body and soul for diamonds and automobiles.” And he was going to court one day in the Bronx and a dog chased after him and he climbed up a lamppost and started yelling for help. [notices a flower by the sign] Also, I just like this flower — it’s called a plumed celosia.

You’ve been exploring Brooklyn recently. What have your experiences been like there?

A lot of people talk about Brooklyn as if there’s something about “Brooklyn” — especially people who talk about Brooklyn hipsters like that’s what Brooklyn is. But man is that the tiniest little proportion to what Brooklyn is! I mean, it’s like two and a half million people or maybe more than that, so it’s essentially one of the largest cities in the country just by itself.

But in that way, that’s a good reminder of how incredibly vast Brooklyn is and how much diversity there is inside of it. I overheard this past summer someone talking about a meal that they had eaten that was prepared by this chef from some restaurant in Brooklyn, and he described it as “so Brooklyn” — “such a Brooklyn meal” — and I had this idea that at the end of this, to take a whole series of photos that I took in Brooklyn and just have “That’s So Brooklyn” on all of them, ranging from the Hasidic guys to the Hispanic guys playing volleyball to the black guy to —

The perfect ad campaign.. So how much do you plan out where you’re going every day?

I don’t plan it out too far ahead of time, mostly because I’m always running behind on the website trying to get my photos up and everything, so generally it’s the last thing I do before I set out. Today I scribbled half the route before I left the house, then I sat in the park and figured out the next segment. If I’m in an area where I haven’t walked much, it’s easier to just pick a street and go. But once you start filling in the streets, you have to be careful about where you’re going so you don’t end up stuck amidst these streets you’ve already walked.

You removed the donation button on your blog because you have enough funds to get you through early 2013. How has the experience of living off donations been?

When I first started the walk, every donation was really exciting. Like before that, when was the last time I was excited about $15, you know? So that was a really cool feeling. Then after the New York Times article came out, a lot of people started making donations, and I got enough to get through the whole year. It almost reached the point where it was routine, so yeah … the risk is that you run low and no one cares anymore, but it’s more exciting this way.

You’ve mentioned in interviews about your cross-country walk that people had these fears you’d get hurt or mugged, but you learned that people are a lot nicer than you’d expect. Would you say the same for New York?

Definitely. The major difference is that when I was walking across the country … [pauses] Oh, do you know what these are?

Matt stops us in the middle of Kenmare Street to show me a white tile embedded onto the road called a Toynbee tile. We cross the street, wait for a red light, then go back to read the tile while Matt tells me more about them. This one says “HOUSE OF HADES / BLACK GLOVES VS / THE MEDIA MACHINE / IN SOCIETY 2009.”

What did you think of the New Yorker/Tourist sidewalk lanes a couple years back?

Well I guess I’d have to walk in the tourist lane. You can look down on the tourist lane or you can look up to it, to people who actually care about what’s around them. And you know what? I think that mentality, like this anti-tourist, “— we’re the real New Yorkers” mentality, is an extremely lazy way to deal with the infinitude of New York. If you were a tourist every day and you were just breathtaken by all this stuff around you, you’d never get anything done. You’d always feel like you were missing out on something else. And the easy solution is to just be like “oh that stuff’s stupid, I’m gonna go to work and make my money like a man,” you know, like there’s this weakness or something about actually being interested in the world. It’s my belief that it is laziness and an unwillingness to experience it.

So out of all your New York walk experiences so far, do you have any favorites?

The great thing about New York City — and the great thing about just walking — is that you don’t really have a favorite part or area. There are certainly areas I’d like to live in more than others, but when you’re just walking through a new place, who cares? You’re just seeing somewhere new — some are more exciting, some are more peaceful, and there are all kinds of goods and bads mixed up, but the bottom line is it’s just exciting for me to be somewhere new, wherever it is.

You can follow Matt’s progress on his website www.imjustwalkin.com.

Home Grown

October 12, 2012 By admin Filed Under: Local Ecology

The climate-controlled rooftop greenhouse allows Gotham Greens in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to grow an assortment of greens and herbs year-round.

Urban farming in New York City is not just another hipster hobby to be added to the list along with home brewing and screen-printing. While your typewriter and sewing machine sit unused in the corner of your room, urban farms are taking over rooftops, abandoned lots, and even truck beds throughout the five boroughs, ranging from the communal to the commercial level, and improving the quality of life city-wide.

One would think that the obvious problem with urban farming — the utter lack of farmland — would be New York City’s big downfall. However, urban farms in New York City are actually revolutionizing the food network, giving us New Yorkers even more bragging rights.

To combat the space problem, many farmers have taken to rooftop farming, employing hydroponic methods — growing plants in nutrient-rich solutions rather than soil. Hydroponics has actually increased farming efficiency, requiring less space and water than a traditional farm. Gotham Greens, located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, boasts producing 20 times as much produce in their rooftop greenhouse than would a traditional farm of the same square footage.

Agricultural engineering has tackled the farmland problem by overcompensating when it comes to controlling traditionally indomitable environmental factors, such as extreme weather and pests. Gotham Greens coddles their greens and herbs in a rooftop greenhouse using Controlled Environment Agriculture, maintaining ideal growing conditions for their produce and allowing them to provide superior quality produce year-round.

One of the biggest advantages of farming directly in the city is decreased shipping distances. “Locally grown” has been a buzzword for years, and it’s easy to see why: the benefits are invaluable, especially in a city plagued by food deserts. Urban farms generate easily accessible produce to the community, all while reducing the carbon footprint. Local also means fresher. According to Jon Perri, the produce manager of Dean and Deluca, “There’s a demand for certain products that just don’t ship very well. For example, basil, because basil needs to be stored at a different temperature once it’s harvested than most other produce, so local growing cuts down on the damage of cold storage on basil.” Talk about being “green,” literally and figuratively.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Johanna Dyer, the environmental benefits of urban farms expand beyond those of providing easy access to local and nutritious food. “Urban farms can help support wildlife in the area — from migrating birds to butterflies. They also help clean up the city’s rivers and beaches by absorbing rain before it can reach storm drains, preventing runoff pollution and sewage overflows. On top of that, the added green space cleanses the air, and helps make the city an all-around more enjoyable place to live.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has gotten behind the “going green” trend, instating a package of laws last year to promote the consumption of local food, as well as facilitate the process of starting an urban farm. These laws allow farmers to forego neighborhood building code restrictions that previously obstructed the construction of rooftop farms. Farmers also have access to a searchable government database of city-owned property with farming potential, including buildings and empty lots. Besides the environmental and health benefits of encouraging urban farming, commercial farms also create tax revenue for the city. Says Gotham Greens CEO Viraj Puri, “We’ve got the support of a lot of politicians and elected officials who are really excited about the job creation. We’ve created 20 full-time jobs.”

Other urban farms remain on the ground and focus on building the community. Added Value turned the need for quality produce in Red Hook into an opportunity to reach out to the residents. Since it started laying the groundwork in 2001, Added Value has provided local teens with the chance to learn new skills while promoting social responsibility. Taqwa Community Farm in the Bronx and Battery Urban Farm in lower Manhattan also teach farm-based education to students of all ages, instilling the ideals of urban farming into the next generation.

The big question about urban farming is of its future. As the prevalence and promotion of urban farming continue to grow, more and more proposals for urban farms keep popping up around the city, and more people are getting involved in their community gardens. BrightFarms, an experienced founder of urban farms, is seeking a retail partner for its proposed farm in Sunset Park, Brooklyn to be the largest urban farm in the world. Likewise, the city’s Economic Development Corporation is in search of private developers to build a much-welcomed farm atop a warehouse in Hunts Point in the Bronx. Current farms are also looking to expand, like Gotham Greens, which has two new bigger and better greenhouses in the works.

However, despite the countless positive outcomes of urban farming, it is still a fledgling endeavor. Viraj Puri of Gotham Greens recites the anthem “one step at a time.” “We’d like to be able to feed more New Yorkers, diversify the products we’re growing, sell to more restaurants, more supermarkets, more farmers markets. We’re taking it one step at time but we’d definitely like to increase operation, especially in New York.” With patience, urban farming has the potential to revolutionize food production in this country, and what better guinea pig for such advancement than New York City — a city full of innovative thinkers and veggie-lovers?

Ye Olde Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again

October 12, 2012 By admin Filed Under: Dispatches From Babyville

“Guess what’s happening this weekend?” I asked my husband on a recent Friday evening. We were folding laundry, each of us tackling our specialties — he pairing socks and I stacking sheets. “Ugh,” David grumbled. I didn’t fault him for sounding unenthusiastic. After 10 years of marriage and two (soon to be three) kids, he was familiar with my tendency to cook up overly ambitious weekend plans, plans which always hinged on his manual labor and stamina for double-parking.

“Go ahead,” he rallied, “tell me what’s happening this weekend.”

“The medieval festival!” I squealed.

“Am I supposed to be excited about that?”

“Every year we want to go.”

“We do?”

“And every year, we have something else to do. But not this year. This year, we’re wide open.”

“Great,” replied David, with enough sarcasm to rival Archie Bunker.

“It will be great,” I told him, “It’s at the Cloisters and you love the Cloisters. Primo will go crazy for the quidditch match. Seconda will get to wear a princess gown. Everyone will love the jousting. And — fanfare please — it’s free.”

David’s facial expression had not changed during my hard sell. It was still programmed at the maximum setting of “Beleaguered” and “Dubious.”

“This time, I’ve done it,” I went on, “I’ve found the perfect weekend activity. Fun for the whole family.”

“It’s going to be mobbed,” David groaned.

“Mobbed?” I laughed, shaking the wrinkles out of a Lord of the Rings twin sheet, “I highly doubt it. I mean, how many people want to go to a medieval festival? Its so…esoteric.”

“What are you talking about?” David replied, “Medieval festivals are incredibly popular.”

“Well, maybe that’s true in Tennessee,” I said, never missing an opportunity to remind David that I’m a native New Yorker and he’s not, “But in the city, it’s a niche thing. It is not going to be ‘mobbed.’ Trust me.”

If at this point in the story, it is dawning on you that I am
a. Kind of a jerk
b. Domineering
and
c. Woefully ignorant
you are correct on all counts, at least as far as this particular outing was concerned.

Because there were 60,000 people at that medieval festival.

That’s not an exaggeration or a speculation. It’s the statistic NPR reported, which we heard in the car Sunday morning while waiting to get off the Henry Hudson Parkway at the Fort Tryon Park exit for 45 minutes.

My enormous stupidity became clear to me within the first minute or two of traffic, when I leaned out of the window and asked a cop who was re-directing cars if there was some sort of accident or something.

“What, this?” he replied, gesturing at the gridlock, “Nah, it’s just festival traffic.”

The way that he tossed that phrase around so casually tipped me off to the fact that this was probably going to be an afternoon to remember, just not the way I’d planned.

We probably should’ve turned around right there, but you know how it is when you’ve already sunk time and energy into something. You feel like you have to see it through to the finish, no matter how excruciating it is for everyone involved.

After 10 minutes of traffic, the kids were wilted. After 20, they were whining. After 45, they’d devolved into a bunch of snarling, feral animals.

“I’m hungry! I’m tired! I’m hot! I’m so hot! I’m so so so so so hot!” yawped my five-year-old known in these parts as Seconda. My daughter, who has a drawer full of princess dress-up which she insists on wearing to all sorts of occasions at which princess garb is not appropriate, decided that on this occasion, where everyone else would be wearing princess gowns, she would be donning a full-body fleece tiger costume.

“Please Mommy, I beg you, listen to reason!” shouted seven-year-old Primo in a Harry Potter cloak, “This is the most boring, awful adventure you’ve ever forced us to go on! I WANNA GO HOME!”

David said nothing, just sat behind the wheel stony-faced as the waves of whining crashed on him from the back seat. I’m sure he was too busy fantasizing ways to kill me to bother with “I told you so.”

“Ok, so you were right,” I conceded, “But don’t worry. I’m being punished for my hubris with morning sickness, not to mention being preggers with no place to pee.”

It was clear that the kids would internally combust if they had to stay in the car til we found a parking space so David dropped me and Ye Old Sourpusses off and said he’d meet up with us once he found a spot.

I hope you enjoy the prefix “Ye Old” because you’re about to hear a lot of it. It’s the just-add-water way to turn regular stuff into medieval stuff. I caught onto this trend after walking 10 steps and seeing signs for “Ye Old Information Booth,” “Ye Old Lemonade Stand” and “Ye Old Costume Shoppe — officially liscened Harry Potter items.”

“Ok kids, lets get excited!“ I ordered as we picked up a map, “Who wants to see a quidditch match?”

“Me! Me!” shouted the kids, perking up.

Unfortunately, as the schedule of events informed me, we’d missed that while we were waiting in festival traffic.

“Don’t worry,” I assured the kids, hurriedly scanning the schedule as Primo’s face scrunched up in preparation for a crying fit, “Look! We can see jousting soon! Jousting! With real horses! Hooray! Hooray!”

If you’ve ever been pregnant, you understand that using that many exclamation points drains your entire day’s worth of energy. This is why pregnant women should get a pass excusing them from excessive enthusiasm. They should also get excused from carrying five-year-olds on their backs. I was stuck doing both.

With a grouchy tiger slung over my back and the saddest Harry Potter impersonator in the tri-state area attached to my hand, I trudged through the hordes, observing points of interest along the way.

“Look! It’s Ye Old Barbeque Shoppe!” I shrieked, “Oh my God, would you look at the size of those turkey legs!”

I’m not sure what kind of a turkey they kill for that meat, but from the look of it, it’s possible dinosaurs are not as extinct as I’d thought. The people gnawing on those drumsticks needed two hands to raise the hunks of meat to their mouths. Being pregnant, the smell of sizzling animal flesh caused two equal and opposite reactions in me, making me gag and salivate at the same time. Deciding which reaction to act on was a moot point since the line at Ye Old BBQ Shop was approximately 100 people long.

On we trudged, through a sea of men in tights and buxom ladies swathed in crushed velvet. As impressive as the size of the turkey legs, so was the intricacy of the costumes the festival-goers were wearing. I anticipated gowns of the variety I purchase from Target for Seconda — polyester, with Velcro tabs on the back, $19.99 or less. These gowns, though, were the real deal, stuff that looked like it cost as much as my wedding dress, with buttons down the back and accouterments to boot. And it wasn’t just the women either — the men were just as finely appointed, plumes blowing in the breeze, ornamental swords hanging from their waists and vests, more vests than I’d seen since 1985. The kids weren’t terribly impressed, but I enjoy seeing people get Ye Old Freak On, so the costumes were the highlight of my afternoon.

That, and the zeppola we devoured at Ye Old Fried Dough Shoppe, where we paused for nourishment. As I waited for the long line of Guineveres and Sir Lancelots in front of us to be served, I tried reaching David on his cell but got no answer. He hadn’t left a message or even a text, which was odd because it had been almost an hour. Even on a bad day, parking doesn’t take that long.

But I had pressing business to attend to, namely dividing one overpriced zeppola equally enough that my rugrats didn’t maul each other in a battle over who had the bigger piece. Newly invigorated by the grease coursing in our veins, we hit the trail again, just another couple of pilgrims on the road to Canterbury… or a pop-up jousting stadium in Washington Heights, as the case may be.

With minutes to spare, we located the stadium, and it seemed as though the day might not be such a bust after all. Until we realized there were no seats. Because, of course, 60,000 other people were interested in watching the festival’s main event too and they were bright enough to get there a bit early. Not only were there no seats, there was no room to peer in on the sidelines because surrounding the entire perimeter of the stadium was a crowd of bystanders four or five people deep.

“Oh no, Mommy, oh no…” groaned Primo, alerting me to a major meltdown in the works.

Seconda, a pile of dead weight on my back, was too hot and tired to even form words. She just moaned.

I called David again, but was directed straight to voicemail. Had the man stopped for a Jamesons on the rocks on the way over from the parking spot?

“Ok, so maybe this wasn’t the best idea,” I conceded as trumpets blared to signal the beginning of the jousting we wouldn’t see, “Sometimes even Mommies make mistakes.”

Primo looked at me with an expression which roughly translates to “Duh.”

“But you know what we can do?” I announced, “We can get another zeppola!”

After I’d paid the man at Ye Old Fried Dough Shoppe the last of my ducats, I tried David on his cell again, and this time, he picked up.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“What do mean?” he retorted, “I’m in the (expletive deleted) car, looking for (expletive deleted) parking.”

“No!” I gasped.

“Yes,” he replied, “Oh yes.”

“But it’s been two and a half hours.”

“That is something I am keenly aware of.”

“Well, we’re done now,” I assured him.

“How convenient,” he said, “I’m about to turn the corner — for the five thousandth time.”

By the time the poor man drove us back to Brooklyn and found a spot to leave the car, he could hardly move his right leg. We decided to let the kids blow off some steam and give David a chance to rehabilitate his gimp leg at our favorite local patch of asphalt near the handball courts, across the street from the playground. It’s a perfect destination because, since it has no amenities or attractions, no one is ever there. David and I leaned against the fence, drinking cups of coffee from the bagel shop and watching the kids pretend to be vampire zombies devouring each other’s brains and blood supply. An autumn breeze picked up, clearing away our crankiness, airing our attitudes out.

On the walk home, Primo said, “See, Mommy? I told you we don’t need to go to Manhattan for a good time. Sometimes, you have more fun when you don’t look for it.”

Wise beyond his years. I think I’ll promote him to Head Coordinator of Weekend Festivities.

To read more of Nicole’s adventures in Mommyland, visit her blog at amomamok.blogspot.com.

The Ramblin’ Urge

June 27, 2012 By admin Filed Under: The Afterlife

The range of early hominids was small: probably a 3 miles radius. My own territory here in Geneva isn’t nearly so large. In the cold weather especially, it becomes a series of interiors: the house, the car and Wegman’s supermarket, punctuated only by the cold, wet walk to the bus stop in the morning. To be fair my Brooklyn range was probably even smaller since most places we went were within walking distance. Still, the sheer numbers of people we encountered made it seem bigger. So it is that our world has grown simultaneously larger and smaller.

For a long time, the daily trip to the supermarket was my lifeline.  I became one of the regular early luncheon crowd which mainly consist of retirees arriving in advance of the more youthful lunchtime rush at 12:30. I didn’t cotton on to the senior aspect until I complained to my neighbor about the lack of parking. Evidently, if I were a native Genevan, I would know that between the hours of 11:00 and 12:00 it is the custom for the local seniors to shop and have Italian Wedding Soup in the café; the parking lot is jam-packed.

I too have the soup – and with great humility. But for the grace of L’Oreal I would disappear into the silver crowd. And as the big Five-O draws nearer I become annoyed with disparaging comments about seniors like those I overheard from two Abercrombie and Fitch employees at the Eastview mall. They complained loudly that so many people in the Starbuck’s queue were “like, you know, old”. It was 20 degrees outside. They were wearing shorts.

I examine my roots in the mirror and picture myself as a grey-haired Boudicca hurling insults and spears at the Abercrombie and Fitch employees. It’s a darkly satisfying image even though it’s unlikely anyone would follow me. Shouting curses is rude and anyway, letting them shiver half-dressed in some dark and throbbing retail cave for minimum wage seems like divine retribution.

When not indulging in warrior queen fantasies over Italian Wedding Soup, I try to imagine what it must be like for Wegman’s two full-time sushi chefs.

Wegman’s Supermarket has a seemingly unshakable faith in the potential for sushi to go mainstream. The sushi station has been poised between the produce section and the café for a year and counting. Cheerful banners announce new creations like Spicy Shrimp Jalapeño sushi or Mango Chipotle rolls (Wegman’s has a “ Sushi Innovation Team”). Last week they launched “Crunchy Cajun Sushi”. But I don’t see many people buying it.

The sushi chefs try. They jump at any opportunity to explain the boxes on offer or to make recommendations. On occasion I have found myself apologizing for not having the Sushi. “Just checking it out” I stammer in a weirdly shrill voice. They smile politely. I avoid their eyes and imagine them crying themselves to sleep.

Are they Sushi evangelists by choice or worried for their jobs? The display overflows with colorful boxes of nigrizushi and California rolls, but it’s unclear whether this is the product of conscientious sushi making or a lack of interest. I search their faces for signs of hidden pain.

But who can read the sushi chefs with their cold steel knives? Perhaps I am patronizing them by casting them as victims in my own personal melodrama. In doing so am I not depriving them of their basic human dignity? I feel ashamed and grab a box of Cajun sushi.

The truth is I’m going a bit stir crazy. At first I thought I might be missing the city but as the days grow warmer I’ve realized it’s something else. I am missing the five-hour car journey from Brooklyn to Geneva. It’s as if Spring has awakened some dormant migratory instinct. I badly feel the itch to set off on a ramble.

Who’d have thought that five hours in the car could feel so necessary? In the years before we moved here permanently, The Journey was our escape from the 6:30 alarm, packing lunches and trips to the dry cleaner. Somehow, those long stretches on the highways with their billboards and mile markers gave us a sense of perspective we couldn’t find anywhere else. We dreamed and day-dreamed and talked and argued and laughed and sang along to the music that lives in the car.

First we headed up highway 80, through the Delaware Water Gap and into the Poconos. In the mountains the road carves through the water-bearing rock creating waterfalls or ice sculptures on either side, depending on the time of year. We hit Dickson City on the outskirts of Scranton by twilight.

O Scranton! Coal town, Steel town, Steam town, Lackawanna, Shelac-a-wanna. Do you wanna Dance? Home to museums of what you once were. O Scranton! It’s the sushi chefs all over again.

It was our custom to eat dinner at Perkins Restaurant in Dickson City. Perkins is the lesser of the many evils that are American family dining. It’s like Denny’s and Friendly’s but the food is marginally better, there’s slightly less cheese and the vegetables are less obviously microwaved from frozen. It is clean and the service is friendly. Less really is more.

I say “restaurant” but Perkins is desperate to be remembered as the bakery it was all those years ago in Minnesota before it became a chain. Every season is pie season at Perkins. Spring is strawberry, summer peach autumn, pumpkin and winter lemon meringue. The children’s placemats are decorated with the “bakery” buddies: Marty the Muffin, Patty the Pie, Kelly the Cookie, Bobby the Brownie and Jeff the Chef. I find them strangely reminiscent of gangster movies.

I imagine Marty the Muffin is the head of the family. Bobby the Brownie is the Marty’s captain and Patty the Pie is a hit man. Kelly the Cookie is Bobby’s wife and Jeff the Chef is the mob lawyer. When Bobby talks to the feds, Marty takes a contract out on him. Bobby and Kelly go into witness protection but Patty the Pie is headed to Scranton…

In seven years we’ve never ordered dessert, but the waitresses are determined for us to have the big half-sugar, half-chocolate chip mega cookies that come with the kid’s meals. The children are disinterested but still the staff flags us down in the parking lot with heart-breaking earnestness to give us the cookies we “forgot”. So we take them. Sometimes we toss them but more often my husband breaks down and eats them around the time we hit Vestal.

As night falls we continue up Route 380 toward Binghamton where we’ll pickup Route 17. It’s so much darker than the city and the sky so crowded with stars, it almost feels like another world. In some ways it is.

If Edward Hopper were alive today, I believe he would paint the Dunkin’ Donuts where couples absently stir their coffees while watching their ghostly reflections in the windows. Edward Hopper and I are watching from the parking lot.

We break off Route 17 at Owego, sneaking out the back way by the Open Door Mission bound for Route 96A and an even smaller road beyond. This is my favorite leg of our journey.

I watch for milestones and they come. First the lonely pink elephant, the focal point of the miniature golf course with pizza-restaurant-attached. There’s the bright yellow mailbox decorated with the silhouettes of a cat, dog, and a bird. Beneath them someone has stenciled the words “God Bless America”.

There’s the crudely rendered brush sign for Brush and Pallet Auto rising above the mishmash of cars. Like all used car lots, the PT Cruiser is parked in front.

Twenty-eight black bears stand guard in the yard of the chain saw sculptor and a little further on Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe has closed for the season and forever. Space is available.

Two turns, one stop sign, and one set of traffic lights later we reach the crest of the hill overlooking Seneca Lake. For a moment it’s like taking flight with all the hundreds of twinkling lights clustered down below then we plunge down to Montour Falls, Watkins Glenn and Route 14. Trucks must use brakes.

We pass the marsh, the tire store with its life-sized fiberglass sculptures of The Blues Brothers, Watkins Glenn State Park, and cruise into the quiet downtown. Quiet except for the Rooster Fish Brewery. Then we drive up a gentle hill, past a motel ministry to reach the lakeshore.

Route 14 is all farms, vineyards and wineries. We pass the yellow barn. The last 25 minutes is like a trip to the wine store: Glenora, Herman J. Weimer, Prejean, Red Tail, Anthony Road, Fox Run, Billsboro, White Springs then two left turns and home.

“What are you writing about?“ My husband asks.

“How much I miss the drive up here… and my worries about the sushi chefs.”

“Oh don’t worry about them. When I was there the other night they were selling it hand-over-fist”

Part of the Solution: The Park Slope Civic Council

June 27, 2012 By admin Filed Under: Community Spirit

I have always been what some people may call a “do-gooder,” a joiner, an organizer and a chronic volunteer. In fact, before opening Lion in the Sun 10 years ago, I worked in the non-profit world as a fundraiser/volunteer/organizer. I had already, at that point, lived in Park Slope for many years, and loved the historic and “connected” community nature of the neighborhood. It is why I chose to move here and why I decided to open my business here.

Once firmly rooted in my new position as a capitalist, I was looking for the right place to contribute to my community. Now connected as both a resident and business owner to the neighborhood I loved, the future of the community became more important than ever.

I came to the Park Slope Civic Council through my involvement with a small group of shop owners struggling to keep the Park Slope Chamber of Commerce alive. Ken Freeman, the President of the Civic Council at the time, out of concern for store closings in the neighborhood approached us to help develop a shop local campaign (some of you may remember the famous “yellow umbrellas campaign”) selflessly funded and supported by Civic Council to support local businesses.

I started attending meetings as a liaison from the “business community” because I felt we might be able to partner more of the business interests with events like the Halloween Parade and the House Tour. But I began to realize just how deep the roots of this organization really went. Perhaps more importantly, I quickly learned that their slogan, “Force of good in your neighborhood,” is really true. The Civic Council is an amazing group of people from diverse backgrounds and interests who, while they may not always agree, all share the same passion for this unique neighborhood we call home.

It seems everyone has heard of the Park Slope Civic Council, but I’m not sure a lot of people know what they really do? Most Slopers know about the neighborhood’s famous Halloween Parade, signature “No Flyer” signs, and the annual Park Slope House Tour, but I was astounded to learn of the many other facets of this vibrant organization. It reaches to levels of the community well beyond the bike lanes and the civic sweep clean up days. For instance, did you know that the Civic Council awards three scholarships to a college bound senior from each of the three secondary schools in the John Jay High School building to help buy books for their freshman year or that there is a committee that provides small grants each year to various community projects in need of funding? What I find most inspiring is that the Civic Council is an organization an individual can actually come to with a mission. For example, a few years back a few brave souls stood up to the changing development on Fourth Avenue, fearing its effects on the vibrant community that has lived in the area for generations, and with the Civic Council’s support and some planning, a new Civic Council Committee, Forth on Fourth Avenue, was born earlier this year after the highly successful 2010 public forum focusing on Fourth Avenue.

Recently, a fellow Trustee of mine, David Alquist, eloquently outlined some Civic Council highlights from over the last decade or so in a letter to prospective members, some of which follow:

Park Slope Armory: the Civic Council was engaged with the Armory redevelopment from the beginning and helped guide it to a successful outcome for the community.
Grand Army Plaza Coalition: we worked closely with GAPco to improve the pedestrian experience at Grand Army Plaza. GAPco grew out of a Civic Council public forum on traffic and transportation issues.
Historic District Extensions: the Civic Council leads the ongoing efforts to expand the Park Slope Historic District. The first extension in nearly 40 years has just been designated with more on the way.
The 9th Street Subway entrance on the east side of 4th Avenue reopened in 2012, after being closed for 40 years, due to Civic Council efforts, thus saving Park Slopers from having to cross busy 4th Avenue in order to access the subway.
The 3rd Street park entrance was permanently pedestrianized due to Civic Council efforts.
One-Way, No Way: the Civic Council successfully thwarted a misguided DOT effort to convert 7th & 6th Avenues to one-way traffic.
The Civic Council engages with the Brooklyn Speaks coalition of neighborhood groups to monitor the Atlantic Yards development.
The Civic Council will engage with the DOT to help locate new bike-share stations throughout the neighborhood for the upcoming bike-share launch this summer.

In addition to special initiatives like those outlined above, the Civic Council’s ongoing activities include:

Running the annual Halloween Parade, House Tour, bi-annual Clean Sweep events, holiday Toys for Tots toy drive, co-sponsoring the Mulchfest and electronic waste recycling events, administering a Neighborhood Grants program that returns the House Tour receipts back into the community, and the scholarship awards mentioned above. They also keep an ongoing engagement with Community Board 6, elected officials, merchant groups, and other neighborhood groups and maintain representatives on the Community Committees of the 78th Police Precinct and the Prospect Park Alliance.

What’s in it for me? As a resident and a business owner, I am already deeply invested in the Park Slope community and truly proud of what I think of as an island amongst the sometimes faceless New York City existence. I love the sense of support, stewardship, and growth that the Civic Council willingly offers as part of its mission. And on a practical level, what is good for the neighborhood is good for my business, my employees, and my clients. If we support our local businesses and they thrive, my business thrives too. If we preserve the historic nature of the neighborhood, which makes it a beautiful place and brings new residents and visitors, my business benefits. If the streets are a little cleaner and the traffic is a little safer for pedestrians, all the businesses and residents benefit. More importantly, I think we all benefit from being part of the solution. But beyond all of that, I found a deeper, more meaningful connection to my home and to my neighbors and my community through the Park Slope Civic Council.

I have always believed in the importance of being involved and being part of the change you want to see. The Civic Council is a thoughtful and effective force for making that change and for preserving and, perhaps more importantly, improving the community we all love so much. As David also points out in his letter, and I would like to as well, “these types of changes did not occur by themselves. They occurred because of the efforts of the Park Slope Civic Council and its dynamic and engaged membership.”

Blooming & Booming

June 27, 2012 By admin Filed Under: New Wave

Although Park Slope is hardly want for new and niche coffee shops, bars, and bistros— the past year has brought extensive development and growth to local small businesses. Do you know what this means? It means that despite the turmoil the economy has faced in recent years, Park Slope is still blooming and booming. Congratulations, y’all! We’ve effectively proved that spending our hard earned ducats in Park Slope has boosted our local economy.

And what better way is there to pat myself on the back for contributing to the “shop local” movement that Slopers have valiantly upheld then to buy myself a latte? As I traipse down 7th Avenue with a “liten” (small) soy latte from Konditori in my hand, I clock the handful of new eateries and small shops that have recently rooted themselves in our neck of the borough. Along 7th and 5th Avenues, it appears as if these fairly new businesses are reappropriating Americana fare and repackaging it with a taste customized to Park Slope— think: high-end hamburgers, downing a beer at a bar that boasts a manicurist on staff, and a classic cup of joe roasted Swedish-style. 2012 has ushered in a new wave of Mom and Pop, and its garnering significant praise from us all.

As such, I’ve decided to outline some of the neighborhood’s new(ish) restaurants, cafes, and other shops worth note in the off chance that you haven’t checked them out yet. And really, you should make it a point to visit as many of the new Park Slope eateries and boutiques as you can to continue to support our local economy.

TARO’S ORIGAMI STUDIO

Origami is an art form that Taro Yaguchi, owner of Taro’s Origami Studio on 7th Avenue says, “requires no cutting or messy pasting. However, it challenges you to have a steady mind and focus.” This is awesome news for me, because finger painting and collaging are oodles of fun, but I’m getting sick of cleaning up after myself post art project. The newly opened Taro’s Origami Studio will teach you how to make nifty origami animals like bears, fish, and rabbits in their “Drop in & Try out Corner”, where a touch screen menu on a PC tablet instructs new origami artists how to fold their materials correctly in order to make tiny paper creatures. The “Drop in & Try out” experience ($10) takes about 30 minutes, and you can decorate your creation with stickers, stamps, and markers upon completion! Taro’s Origami Studio also offers 45 minute classes for children and hour long sessions for adults Tuesday through Friday—which I am obviously signing up for in order to create my own origami zoo.

KONDITORI

“Konditori”, the name of the new coffee shop on 7th Avenue is actually the Swedish word for “Coffee Shop”—genius, right? Of course there are nearly a thousand cafes in the area, but Konditori is special in that all they really want is to combine the “hominess of Swedish Coffee Culture with the edginess of Brooklyn,” They brew their coffees, a proprietary ground blend of three different central American beans, every hour on the hour to extend the pleasurable and hearty aromatics their coffee releases. I am prone to pair a “liten” (small) Swedish roast coffee ($2), fresh from Konditori’s French Press, with one of their specialty “Coco Balls” (and at $2.75 these hand rolled chocolate, coffee, oat, sugar, and coconut delicacy is worth going back for seconds), but I am eager to try their hot cranberry cider ($4) with one of their authentic Swedish pastries—the cardamom bread ($2.75). They’re also stocked with soy milk and vegan cookies, and run a sibling Park Slope location on 5th Avenue. Tusen tack (a thousand thanks), Konditori!

BAREBURGER

I’ll spare you the “Wild Boar, and Elk, and Ostrich burgers… oh my!” pun that came to mind as I perused Bareburger’s menu, but really, wild boar, elk, and ostrich are just three of the types of meats you can choose to stuff a brioche or tapioca rice bun with at 7th Avenue’s fairly new burger joint. Bareburger places importance on local and sustainable farming practices, as is made apparent with their use of organic, all natural, grass-fed and free-range meats. Patrons may choose from an intriguing selection of 6oz. meat patties which includes, but is not limited to: organic bison, lamb, free-range Cajun chicken, veggie (dairy and nut free), and organic turkey, to implement in one of Bareburger’s burger concoctions. For example, “The Roadhouse” burger’s toppings include all-natural pepper jack cheese, hass avocado slices, blackened maple bacon, roasted red peppers, apple-smoked onions and a drizzling of tomatillo sauce; as noted on the menu, Bareburger suggests that you order this burger with bison meat, but you can just as well order “The Roadhouse” with free-range chicken. Who doesn’t love options? Classic salads, like the Cranberry Blue Salad (baby spinach, cranberries, Danish blue cheese, almonds, and an apple cider vinaigrette) can also be topped with any of the previously mentioned burger meats, so all of you carb-concerned folks can breathe easy. Bareburger also makes scrumptious milkshakes and is stocked with a healthy array of craft beers (my advice to the carbohydrate weary: at least treat yourself to a beer)! I’ll admit that I haven’t been too adventurous in terms of my food intake at Bareburger, but I have to wonder how well an ostrich burger would pair with an organic peanut butter chocolate shake.

BEAUTY BAR

Consider yourselves lucky, Park Slope, because you’d never guess that the newly opened Beauty Bar on 5th avenue is owned by the same person as its seedy Bushwick predecessor. Beauty Bar Brooklyn 2.0 affords patrons the luxury of swilling highbrow cocktails while having their nails done in a kitschy glitter-ball of a space! And during happy hour (4p.m.-8p.m.) a manicure and a drink selection from Shane Tison’s (of the Randolph at Broome Street) specialty cocktail menu will run you a reasonable $10. A happy hour indeed—I’m stoked that I can get my nails done somewhere in the Slope after hours and have drink while someone nips at my cuticles, too! Alas, those who keep their nails au naturale can prop themselves up at the massive, double-sided, bar, and order a moderately priced craft beer ($5-$7) or one of Tison’s previously mentioned intriguing cocktails ($10, or $8 during happy hour). Say hello to the Elizabeth Taylor photograph for me on your way in!

THE PAINTED POT

At The Painted Pot on 7th Avenue, you and your mini-Matisse can select any number of pre-made pottery objects to hand-paint and take home! In March, The Painted Pot opened their third location in Park Slope and since become a favorite creative hub for neighborhood kids. You can walk in and choose items like a menorah, a mug, a piece of cake, or a jewelry dish to paint; or mosaic a picture frame to put a picture of your cat in! What’s special about The Painted Pot is that kids (ages 8-12 on Mondays and Thursdays, ages 5-8 on Wednesdays) can take clay handbuilding classes to learn how to make functional items like mugs, bowls, and wind chimes ($136 for four sessions). The next time I’m feeling crafty, I’m heading over to The Painted Pot to hand-paint one of the kitschy little gnome-guys I’ve seen grinning in the window!

BICYCLE HABITAT

Last spring, Park Slope was graced with the opening of a bicycle repair, service, and retail store, Bicycle Habitat. Frames and wheels flood the space as Trek, Specialized and other classic bike brands are displayed next to Brompton and the other “boutique” brands for sale at the store. Meanwhile, on-site specialists provide patrons with repair services that include basic flat tire fixing and bike tuneups, and they are also staffed with high-performance cycle experts to help you choose customized furnishings like aero bar installations and tubeless tires. I don’t know what tubeless tires are, but I want them. Come to think of it, I’m sure the bike-babes at Bicycle Habitat can tell me what they are. They will work with any road, sport, or mountain bike, and provide customers with free estimates regarding the repairs they feel should be made to your bike. Needless to say, the folks at Bicycle Habitat are dedicated to fostering a bicycle-culture in the Park Slope community, and with summer on its way, what better time to fix up your old bike, or purchase a new one, and go for a ride in Prospect Park!

RIVET

If you spend five minutes on 7th Avenue looking at what kind of pants the people who pass you by are wearing, you will quickly realize that jeans are the staple of every Park Sloper’s wardrobe. As such, Rivet, a men and women’s clothing boutique, opened for business on 7th Avenue last summer, and has since paraded an expansive inventory of specialty denim jeans. Normally I’d roll my eyes at the thought of having to shop for a new pair of jeans because, well, finding a pair of perfectly tailored jeans is always a stress-inducing quest, but the staff at Rivet aims to ameliorate any denim related anxiety with their knowledge of which brands, fabrics, and cuts, of their jeans are best suited for their individual customers’ bodies. They carry high-end designer favorites like Joe’s, Mavi, Paige, and Hudson, in multiple dyes, rises, and leg openings, so there’s bound to be at least one pair that makes your tush look tighter. And although Rivet prides themselves on their collection of trendy jeans, they also sell basic men’s and women’s t-shirts and darling little dresses.

BLACK HORSE PUB

Even on a sleepy Sunday night, a decent crowd filled Black Horse Pub on 5th Avenue. Although this self-described “friendly neighborhood pub” has been open for the past two years, the introduction of the NFL Sunday Ticket and World Cup soccer viewings, catapulted this Park Slope spot into Sports Bar Heaven. Inside the unassuming, classic sandstone and deep wood decorated space, I chatted up the Pub’s charismatic bartender, who attempted to give me the “real Black Horse Pub experience” (or as close to real as he could muster on a Sunday night). He started by serving me a carefully poured Boddingtons, an English beer and favorite of the Pub’s Brit owner, followed by a shot of Jameson. A man seated next to me watched the Rangers game while devouring pub fare—”Meat On a Roll” ($6): a potato roll, creamery butter, and irish banger or bacon; and a cozy looking couple were seated at a table behind me, perusing Black Horse’s healthy selection of craft beers from the chalkboard menu. Suffice to say, Black Horse Pub is a jack of all sports bar trades—I was told there is dancing and a DJ on Friday nights.

CULTURE

Last summer, Park Slope was treated with a rather alternative sweet-treat; a yogurt shop. Culture on 5th Avenue doles out dollops of fresh yogurt, made in-house, paired with in-season fruit toppings and baked good crumbles. The yogurt, which is crafted with skim, reduced fat, or organic whole milk and then strained with the shop’s own probiotic cultures, is served at either room temperature or as a frozen yogurt dessert. A medium cup of true fro-yo swimming in fresh mango for only $4.75? and the strains used to create the yogurt can boost my immune system? Culture is certainly the sweetest and healthiest treat Park Slope has been given in a while.

DIZZY’S ON 5TH

The Slope’s favorite “finer diner”, Dizzy’s, recently expanded to the corners of 5th Avenue and President Street! The signature tomato red awning of Dizzy’s on 5th boasts the words “Cool Comfort” as their tagline, and that is just what hungry visitors will experience. Similar to the original, Dizzy’s on 5th offers an expansive menu of clean and classic dishes; the breakfast bill of fare is served until 4p.m. and includes an array of breakfast sandwiches that feature eggs or sausage as their star ingredient ($3.25-$5.50), homemade granola ($6), and pistachio crusted banana stuffed french toast ($10). Meanwhile, Dizzy’s lunch menu is full of diner favorites like the Tuna Mac Daddy ($11), Dad’s Favorite Meatloaf ($15.50), The Hot Howie Reuben ($11) and a Salmon Burger ($12). Also, don’t miss their daily dinner specials, a different “American Classic” every night for only $12. I’ll be at Dizzy’s on 5th next Saturday night ordering a Shepherd’s Pot Pie, and devouring it in their al-fresco seating section (a prime spot to people watch).

HUNGRY GHOST

Atypical to the rest of Park Slope, coffee shops on Flatbush between 5th and 7th Avenues are few and far between… but now, Hungry Ghost, a new coffee bar and cafe, has opened on 6th Avenue! Sandwiched between two train stations (the 2 & 3 trains at Bergen Street and the B & Q trains at 7 Av), Hungry Ghost has become a local meeting spot on the border of Park Slope and Prospect Heights. However, I celebrate the new coffee spot for reasons other than its geographic desirability: they boastfully roast Stumptown beans and serve it as their house-brand, and their coffee menu features all the cafe classics like Vanilla Lattes, Red Eyes, and Machiatos ($2-$4.25). Meanwhile, Hungry Ghost’s food menu transcends the trite pastry offerings of neighboring cafes; they serve cold sandwiches like Curried Chicken Salad with grapes, cashews, and shredded carrot on multigrain ($6.50), or hot paninis comprised of bacon, smoked gouda, roasted tomatoes and garlic mayo ($8.25)—and all of their meat ingredients hail from Paisano’s! The owner of Hungry Ghost clearly places importance on selling artisanal, quality goods to his customers; this is made apparent by the vast array of baked goods on display inside the cafe. Molasses spice with crystallized ginger cookies? Vegan carrot zucchini with walnut and currant bars? Hungry Ghost is seriously a dream situation for both Park Slope and Prospect Heights cafe dwellers.

TALDE

Earlier this year, 7th Avenue was gifted with a “casual” yet “elevated” Asian-American restaurant, Talde, which is named after the eponymous chef and owner, Dave Talde. That’s right, Park Slope has a hot new date-spot! Chef Talde (of Buddakan and “Top Chef” fame), and his partners David Massoni and John Bush (of Thistle Hill Tavern), have curated an impeccable menu that draws from Mr. Talde’s Filipino heritage. The restaurant’s cuisine incorporates local Brooklyn ingredients in unexpected ways; Talde’s Pretzel Pork & Chive Dumplings with spicy mustard ($8) is both savory and zesty, the Crispy Oyster and Bacon Pad Thai ($16) is an appetizing marriage of Eastern and Western components, and the Korean Fried Chicken ($23) transcends street-cart status with spicy kimchee yogurt, grapes, and mint. For dessert, guests are encouraged to try the Shaved Ice Sundae with Cap’n Crunch and Coconut, a play on Chef Talde’s favorite Filipino treat, halo-halo. If you’re into sugary Saturday morning cereal for dessert, this one’s for you. As for me? I achingly await my return to Talde for their Golden Beet and Silken Tofu Salad ($10) and their special side dish, #369 ($7), which is comprised of market vegetables and green sambal, a chili based Southeast Asian condiment.

If you have a new business opening in Park Slope, South Slope or Prospect Heights, let us know! office@psreader.com