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Jackson Schroeder

My Summer Run Through Park Slope

August 10, 2021 By Jackson Schroeder Filed Under: Journey to Health, Reader Wellness Tagged With: health, jackson schroeder, my summer run through park slope

Summer breathes new life into Park Slope, and the best way to see the neighborhood is on a late-morning run.

Photos by Blake Schenerlein

Last spring, when I started running, all I had was a pair of Nike Internationalists, the same shoes Anthony Michael Hall wore in 1985 when he played the part of Brian Johnson, better known as “The Brain,” in The Breakfast Club.

Simply put, I wasn’t accustomed to the sport. The idea of becoming a runner sounded like a dreadful way to spend my evenings after work and a stressful way to wake up in the morning. 

But when the pandemic hit, I, like so many other New Yorkers, experienced a staggering drop in my activity levels. I lost my daily commute to and from my office in Manhattan, traded going out for lunch and dinner for ordering in, and stopped walking over to my friends’ and family members’ apartments after work and on weekend afternoons. 

My days consisted of lifting my head off of my pillow and dragging my feet over to the kitchen table, where I’d sit and work for eight hours before moving to the couch to read or watch television until midnight hit. Rinse and repeat. 

After losing my mind for a month or two, I decided it was a good idea to lace up my thrift store Nikes and get some fresh air. Early on, I’d jog from my apartment on the corner of 5th Avenue and Warren Street to Grand Army Plaza, where, after staring at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch for a few minutes, I’d often decide to turn around and jog home. 

For the runners out there reading this and grimacing at the idea of running with heavy, unforgiving footwear, don’t worry. The Nikes didn’t last too long. My birthday was around the corner, which meant an early present from my girlfriend: a new pair of Brooks from Brooklyn Running Company. 

Before long, my two-mile jogs turned into four-to eight-mile runs. I began to trust my feet to navigate the cracks on the jagged Park Slope sidewalks and lifted up my head to see. On Saturdays throughout the summer, I’d take my long runs. 

I’d start outside my apartment and smell the potato pancakes and fresh pita bread being served for brunch at Miriam across the street. I’d look to my left and see the bartenders at Lizzy King’s Irish Pub setting up tables in the middle of a blocked-off section of 5th Avenue while the musician was tuning up his guitar to play. 

I’d turn right on 6th Avenue, where the towering brownstones would provide some shade until I hit Union Avenue, where I’d turn left. On Union, the smell of natural soaps, yeast, and essential oils would pour out of the Park Slope Food Coop and onto the sidewalk, where dozens of people were waiting in line to get in. 

Running up Union towards Prospect Park will remind you why the neighborhood is called Park Slope. The street, particularly on a hot New York day, is a deceivingly steep hill. But if your legs are able to muster it, the real treat, the farmers market, awaits at Prospect Park. 

Here is where I’d typically slow down to soak it in. I’d tune into the picking of the bluegrass band, often playing on the shaded hill that hugs the entrance to the exercise path. I’d smell the lavender and soap filling the warm summer air, and I’d fantasize about the frozen apple cider I’d get after my run. 

Crossing the Prospect Park bike path and entering the running lane is like merging onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. It operates with a sense of organized chaos, with walkers, joggers, runners, and sprinters of all ages subconsciously dodging each other while they move to the beat pulsing through their AirPods. 

On Saturdays, I’d do the full loop, which the Prospect Park Alliance tells me is 3.35 miles long. At the first bend, on the South Slope corner of the park, I’d see young children on the backs of horses that had been walked over from Prospect Park Stables, just a few hundred yards away. 

After the bend, I’d stop at the lake where parents teach their children how to fish while trying to avoid casting into a duck, swan, or goose. Around the loop, on the Prospect Lefferts Gardens side of the park, I’d turn my head left, peer through the trees and see the Concert Grove Pavilion, which served as the set to the famous dog wedding scene in “Broad City.” By turning my head to the right, I’d see generations of families grilling out and absorbing the sun. 

At the end of the loop, if I didn’t succumb to the temptation of buying a frozen apple cider, I’d exit the park and make my way down 7th Avenue, past Community Bookstore and over to Millenium Brooklyn High School on 4th Street, where I’d slow down my pace and jog to cool down on my way home. 

Summer breathes new life into the Park Slope, and running has helped me see the neighborhood in a way that I never had before. My favorite season is summer, and my favorite day is Saturday. There are only 12 Saturdays each summer, and in 2021 I’ll spend them running. 

Filed Under: Journey to Health, Reader Wellness Tagged With: health, jackson schroeder, my summer run through park slope

Meet Shahana Hanif, The Bangladeshi Muslim Woman Running To Represent District 39

May 22, 2021 By Jackson Schroeder Filed Under: Feature, Persisting in Park Slope Tagged With: jackson schroeder, politics, spring 2021

Shahana Hanif – Mailer Marketing Campaign 2021 for City Council

When she was 17 years old, Shahana Hanif received life-changing news. A doctor told her that the reason she was experiencing so much pain each day was that she had Lupus, a disease that causes the body’s immune system to attack its own tissues and organs.

“I barely knew what Lupus was,” said Hanif, a Muslim feminist and daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants running to represent Brooklyn’s 39th District in the New York City Council. 

“I had just started the 12th grade when I was diagnosed,” she added. “When I should’ve been thinking about colleges, prom or going abroad, which were the conversations my friends were having, I was needing to understand this degenerative, complicated medical issue that I had never heard about.”

Hanif felt alone. In storybooks, “there were not protagonists who looked like me,” Hanif said. At home and in her community, having a chronic illness was taboo and stigmatized. Despite being diagnosed with an incurable disease that, at a young age, occupied many of her thoughts and emotions, Hanif was pressured to keep her diagnosis, and all of the struggles that came with it, somewhat to herself. 

Now 30 years old, Hanif has spent the past 13 years in and out of intensive care units. She has gone through chemotherapy, had biopsies and has had both of her hips and her left shoulder replaced as a result of the complexities of the disease. 

At the beginning stages, Hanif remembers waiting for hours and hours, confused and in pain, in the waiting area of the emergency room at Coney Island Hospital. In ICUs, she was consistently left without access to adequate medication. 

“The limitations in care for young people and for immigrant communities was very evident,” said Hanif.

A couple of years later, while pursuing her undergraduate degree at Brooklyn College, Hanif remembers struggling to find housing that accommodated her inabilities. “I had not yet had my hips replaced, and I was suffering,” said Hanif. “I couldn’t walk.”

Soon after, Hanif had her application to Access-A-Ride, the NYC public transportation van service designed for those with certain disabilities and health conditions, rejected. 

“To get rejected was humiliating,” she said. “It is absurd to think that a service that should be available to people like me includes bureaucracy. I didn’t get to make the decision for myself, someone else did. This meant that I was spending hundreds of dollars on car services to get to and from doctors’ appointments. This was before Uber, Lyft and other rideshares.”

For over a decade, Hanif has felt the weight of living with Lupus. But as a Muslim woman with parents who immigrated from Southeastern Asia, she knows firsthand that structural inequities are not limited to those with illnesses or disabilities. 

“This disease pushed me into becoming a fighter,” said Hanif. “I learned to advocate for myself.” 

Throughout college and her professional career, Hanif has actively worked as an organizer in and around her home neighborhood of Kensington. Since May of 2018, Hanif has served as the director of organizing for current District 39 councilman Brad Lander, who is giving up his seat because he has reached his term limit. 

Hanif has focused a lot of her work on preserving and expanding public space for community events, advocating for immigrants and protecting those affected by domestic violence. She helped create the Avenue C Plaza, a public park in Kensington, a neighborhood long-known for its lack of public outdoor space. In April of 2019, Hanif was profiled in The New York Times after helping a Bangladeshi woman escape from an abusive forced marriage. 

If elected, Hanif would become the first Muslim and South Asian woman ever to serve in the New York City Council. She would also be the first woman ever elected to represent District 39, which covers Park Slope, Kensington, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and parts of Borough Park. 

As a city council member, Hanif’s number one priority would be improving education equity in the District. 

“I am a student of the district. I went to P.S. 230 in Kensington,” said Hanif. 

Hanif personally experienced the local public education system, which she said routinely fails many students and their families, particularly those who are immigrants or have disabilities. 

Specifically, Hanif would work to end admissions screening, a process heavily criticized for putting Black and brown students at a disadvantage. She would push for smaller class sizes, more guidance counselors and accessibility for students with disabilities. And she would work to create pipelines for Black and brown teachers. 

The second mission on Hanif’s agenda would be pushing for “free and accessible healthcare.” She would organize for universal healthcare and push to create a statewide single-payer healthcare system. She also claims that she would invest in translators and interpreters in the healthcare system to help immigrants, like her parents, understand what doctors and nurses are telling them. And she would recruit mental health counselors of color, with disabilities and from immigrant communities to work in public hospitals and community-based health clinics. 

As the daughter of a Bangladeshi restaurant owner, the third item on Hanif’s long list of priorities is to provide a path for small businesses to recover from the COVID pandemic. 

“So many stores on 5th Avenue and 7th Avenue are shuttered,” said Hanif. “The most impacted are women-and minority-owned businesses.” 

Specifically, Hanif wants to pass commercial rent cancellation, pass commercial rent control and permanently establish the Open Streets program, which provides restaurants and bars with more space to sit people and allows for more public art and performances. 

“I’m envisioning a new form of governance, one that isn’t alienating folks or making politics or government a separate entity,” said Hanif. “I’m just taking all of the work I’ve done, now with some bigger tools, to city hall. And the folks I’ve been working with are coming with me.”

LEARN MORE ABOUT SHANA FROM BK

Filed Under: Feature, Persisting in Park Slope Tagged With: jackson schroeder, politics, spring 2021

Miss American Pie: Park Slope’s Sweetest Treat

March 26, 2021 By Jackson Schroeder Filed Under: Eat Local Tagged With: Eat Local, miss american pie, spring 2021

On the north end of Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue sits Miss American Pie, a relaxed and inviting escape from the speed of the city. 

Packed with the sweet, nostalgic smell of fresh-baked goods, the 50s-themed bakery fosters a sense of small-town community on one of the neighborhood’s most bustling blocks.

Wednesday through Sunday of each week, owner and head baker Lindsey Hill dishes up classic desserts reminiscent of what would be served at a Fourth of July picnic or after Sunday supper. Since she opened Miss American Pie in August of 2019, Hill’s homestyle baking has turned Miss American Pie into a destination spot for local sweet-tooths. However, like many of the neighborhood’s businesses, Miss American Pie’s future is uncertain amid the COVID-19 pandemic. With high rent and limited business, staying open is a daily struggle. 

Hill, who grew up about 90 miles away from Chicago, discovered her love for baking as a teenager. In her early years, most of Hill’s customers were her friends from the small private high school she attended in Northern Illinois. 

“I was the homemaker,” said Hill. “I would invite people over for dinner parties when I was in high school. I started baking then, using my mom’s Betty Crocker cookbook. I made a lot of strawberry cheesecakes and stuff like that.” 

In college, Hill’s love for baking grew even more. She would stay up all night and escape the world by studying cookbooks and pouring her heart into her craft.

“It became like therapy for me,” said Hill. “In the morning, I would be so excited with all of my creations. My husband, who was then my boyfriend, would come out and say, ‘Oh my gosh. Have you been up all night?’ And I’d be like, ‘Yeah, but look at this!’”

After graduating from college, Hill moved to New York to pursue a career in fashion design. Still, she didn’t give up her love for baking. While working in the fashion industry, She would often bring baked goods in for her colleagues, who, between bites, would ask her why she wasn’t selling the stuff.

“During that time is when I started developing my own recipes,” Hill said. “Baking is more of a science than an art. So, once I understood the science behind it, I began developing my own recipes.” 

Eventually, Hill took her coworkers’ advice and started selling whole pies online. She rented a kitchen and was working as a part-time baker and a part-time fashion designer. Hill kept this up for a couple of years before the time came when she had to make a decision. 

So Hill took a chance. Instead of keeping her high-paying job in the fashion industry, she opted to pursue something she’d loved since she was young. She opened her bakery, Miss American Pie. 

“I felt a divine calling to do this,” said Hill. “I felt like God was telling me, ‘This is where you’re supposed to be. This is where love can spread through you the most to other people.’ So, that’s what I decided to do.”

Hill spent the next year figuring out the logistics behind how she could open her bakery. When looking for locations, Hill printed out a map of Brooklyn, her home for more than 15 years, and narrowed down a few potential neighborhoods. 

“Park Slope wasn’t my first choice,” said Hill. “But, when I started walking around the neighborhood, I really felt a sense of diversity that I didn’t feel in other neighborhoods. I feel like the Barclay’s Center and Atlantic Terminal is this meeting point of a few different neighborhoods, demographics, and walks of life. I thought that it was the perfect place for Miss American Pie because the goal really was to spread love through pie and to be a place where people build authentic relationships around food.”

Named after the Don McLean song, the interior of Miss American Pie looks like a cross between a 50s diner and a grandma’s kitchen. The floors are painted with black and white checkers, and the walls, one of which is exposed brick, are spotted with patriotic flags, family pictures, baking utensils, and old-timey signs that list the day’s menu. 

“When I was growing up, and even back in the 50s and 60s, the idea of eating a meal with your family was ingrained into American society, and I don’t see that anymore,” said Hill. “Relationships are a valuable thing that we are losing. 

Every morning, Hill bakes nine “everyday pies,” including fresh apple pie, cherry crumb pie, and coconut cream pie, just to name a few. Also on the everyday menu is Hills’ Signature Pie, which is made with apples, peaches, and blueberries, sprinkled with oat crumbs, and covered with a lattice top. 

“It meets everyone’s cravings,” said Hill. “If you like the oat crumb top, it has that. If you like pastry crust, it has that too. It outsells every other pie by 50 percent.”

Hill also makes more than a dozen seasonal pies. A few tasty options on the Spring menu are a strawberry rhubarb pie, key lime pie, and french silk pie, which is a flaky butter crust filled with a fluffy dark chocolate mousse and topped with sweet whipped cream. 

“I think ‘classic’ is a keyword when you think about the majority of our pies,” said Hill. “They are like my children. I have a different favorite every day.” 

Despite Hill’s talents and her bakery’s growing support, keeping the business afloat has never been easy. Immediately after making it past the year one growing pains that most businesses go through, Miss American Pie was hit with a global pandemic. 

In March, the bakery was forced to close regular service. They were only open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for pre-orders. Hill soon lost the ability to support her staff, so her husband quit his job to help out at the bakery unpaid. 

“The neighborhood was so supportive during that time,” said Hill. “People were coming in. Some families were ordering a whole pie every week or buying gift cards if they didn’t need any pie or were on a diet.”

But months later, the financial problems are still overwhelming. Like many of Park Slope’s business owners, Hill is taking things day-by-day. 

“I would like to say we will be around, but I have no idea,” said Hill. 

Filed Under: Eat Local Tagged With: Eat Local, miss american pie, spring 2021

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