This aesthetically pleasing yet ethically enraging photo was captured by BrooklynQ. Can you guess the underpass? It should be a difficult one, since every underpass beneath the B/Q train in our area looks the same way.
Archive for the 'Arts & Culture' Category
When most hear Brighton Beach, they think “Russians.” But the annual Brighton Jubilee, now in its 34th year, proves that the neighborhood is far more of an ethnic medley than many know.
I paid my first visit to the annual Brighton Jubilee yesterday, and was fired up to find a vibrant market fair as diverse as it was enormous. It wasn’t all kebabs and pirozhi, as I was expecting, but a five-block stretch of Latino, African, Caribbean, Arab and, yes, Russian immigrant vendors (not to mention old-school Brooklynites) selling some the strangest assortment of products I’ve ever seen at a street fair.
Used and new clothes, toys, gag items, jewelry, hand-made crafts, artwork, fur hats, sheets (!) – this wasn’t your usual “I ♥ [enter ethnicity]” fair, ringed with the ubiquitous Italian sausage-mobiles (though they made an appearance). It was far more complex, and vastly more intense – it was easily the most interesting neighborhood festival I’ve visited in Brooklyn.
And it was packed. Tens of thousands of people flooded Brighton Beach Avenue between Coney Island Avenue and Brighton 14th Street. In between picking through the odd assortment of goods, sun-drenched visitors watched performers brought in by Radio Pzitiv and Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz, played on inflatable rides or did a bit of Rock Band karaoke.
No word yet on how much money it raised for the event’s organizers, Brighton Neighborhood Association. The money goes to fund all the groups activities, including senior services, tenant services, social services, youth services and quality of life programs. We’ll let you know when we hear the final numbers.
Enjoy the photos of the fair, and if you have any to add just e-mail them to us at nberke [at] sheepsheadbites [dot] com.
Luke Stangarone cleaning the Feltman window // Source: Tricia Vita, AmuzingTheZillion.com
Sheepshead Bay resident Luke Stangarone is on a mission to uncover the history of a magnificently preserved stained glass window. He’s enlisted the help of Amusing the Zillion blogger Tricia Vita, who then turned to us. And since we’re pretty useless, we decided to turn to you…
So here’s the deal: Stangarone’s wife’s relatives were old-school Coney carnies, and they managed to rescue two stained glass windows from the tremendous Feltman’s complex before it was torn down. The windows sat in a muddy Park Slope basement for decades until Stangarone decided to clean them up, and is donating one to the Coney Island Museum. But the problem is, they’re not sure where in Feltman’s the windows come from, and it was quite an expansive complex:
Charles Feltman is famous as the inventor of the hot dog, but his entertainment complex on Surf Avenue was multi-faceted and covered a full city block. According to the Coney Island History Project, which has a 120-year-old chair from Feltman’s Maple Garden on display, the Feltman empire included nine restaurants, two bars, a ballroom, an outdoor movie theater, a hotel, a beer garden, a bathhouse, a pavilion, a Tyrolean village, a carousel, a roller coaster called the ZIZ and the maple garden! Since Feltman’s closed in 1954 and was demolished to make way for Astroland Park in 1962, you’d have be over 60 to remember going there.
Well, any of you history buffs, or old coots (or both), know where these lovely windows come from?
Oh, you’ve never heard of Dead Horse Bay? The old mill area, turned manufacturing zone (of fertilizer, created from dead animals), turned landfill, turned nature preserve – sits alongside Floyd Bennett Field by the entrance to Gerritsen Inlet. It’s rich with history, and perhaps richer with filth and pollution.
It’s the former that drew musician and photographer “chvad” to tour the area, but it’s the latter that most impressed him. He wrote, “This place and the surrounding areas don’t seem anything at all like Brooklyn. Not a lot of people and lot of vegetation. Also, an enormous amount of pollution on the shores. Some parts of the beach seemed to primarily be made of glass. If those aren’t reason enough to be careful, the beach also had it’s share of needles washed ashore.”
His slideshow, above, captures a lot of that grit and filth, yet in a hauntingly beautiful way. Check out his site to find more photos and learn about his music.
Ever seen Coney Island beach so empty in the summer? I haven’t. That’s why I’m glad reader Allan B. thought it was worth sharing the view from his quiet Saturday morning visit to the shore. The beach even looks clean. Imagine that…
By Andy Levin // Source: nytimes.com
I wish I was a more talented photographer. The hundreds of photographs I sort through each month – from readers, contributors, aspiring and established artists – well, it’s just a constant reminder of how much I stink at the craft. But thank goodness for one thing: I’ve got this wonderful site to tell other people about all the great people out there.
Reader Athena D. sent over a link to New York Times’ latest Lens post – a profile and collection of Andy Levin’s Coney Island photographs. Levin began exploring and shooting Coney Island in his 20s. But unlike countless others, he avoided the all-too-tempting landscape of the amusement district and opted for the unsung heroes of Coney Island – the families that visit it and make all else possible.
“I tried to stay away from the freak show thing,” Levin told the Times. “Not that I didn’t appreciate what was going on with it. It just wasn’t my intent. I wanted to convey the commonality of the family experience. That’s sort of how I grew up. I think I was naturally more responsive to those elements.”
Levin’s black-and-white photos take place primarily on the sandy shores, with kids and adults swept up in familial bliss (as opposed to the instant gratification of the carny-ville). The resulting sensation of these photos is more akin to what we might remember as residents of the area, spending a regular visit on our summer weekends – and not the touristy weirdness of a mid-trip lark to the People’s Playground.
See the New York Times slideshow of Ed Levin’s Coney Island photos.
Long-time Sheepshead Bay resident Natalya Serebrennikova created a profound and playful animated short, Cicada, now competing in a PBS 13 contest. The film tells the story of an immigrant girl’s last days in Ozerki, Russia, her transition to Brooklyn, and her first day of school. With a remarkable amount of detail and specificity, Serebrennikova recounts the tale with beautiful, childlike imagery supported by a smattering of text. And yes, the school depicted is right here in Sheepshead Bay.
Go watch the film and vote for it now. The contest ends this Wednesday, August 25, and if Cicada wins it will be broadcast on Channel 13 on Saturday night.
A c.1896 lantern slide, courtesy of Joseph Ditta. It's the earliest known photo of the plot.
There’s a certain lexical contortion that must be performed when writing a headline to celebrate the anniversary of a historic cemetery. I began the headline with “Happy Birthday,” then figured “happy” was not appropriate. So I went with “morbid.” But then “birthday” sounded way off, so I changed it to “deathday,” but nothing seemed right about that. So I went with “anniversary.”
Although language may bar my ability to create a proper phrase to capture the day, it doesn’t stop facts from being facts. Yesterday marked the 360th anniversary of the first recorded burial in the town of Gravesend – and possibly within the current confines of the Gravesend Cemetery, according to Gravesend historian Joseph Ditta.
(Read our August 2009 Q&A with Ditta about Gravesend’s history and preservation.)
The burial of the unnamed infant son of William Wilkins took place on August 18, 1650. This first interment occurred seven years after Gravesend was settled by former English subjects under Lady Deborah Moody on land granted to them by the Dutch governor of New Amsterdam. It took eight more years for the graveyard to take on more officious boundaries, when a resident offered 20 guilders – Dutch gold coins – to fence in the southwest corner of the village, which constituted the cemetery.
But if you go today, don’t expect to see the Wilkins baby’s tombstone. The earliest surviving stone marker is marked 1724, and the oldest legible stone dates to 1768. Still, that’s mighty old.
And speaking of going today, your opportunity is coming. Locals are lucky to have the knowledgeable (and eminently friendly) Joe Ditta presenting a pre-Halloween tour of the area on Sunday, October 24 at 11:00 a.m.
The tour will cover more than 250 years of the cemetery’s history, and is filled with all the intrigue reflective of the city’s twisted growth. Hear about murder-suicides, possible poisonings, and the warped burials of Coney Island sideshow freaks.
The tour is being given in conjunction with the Salt Marsh Alliance (based in Marine Park) and its resident History Club. (For information, see http://www.saltmarshalliance.org/ or call 718-421-2021.) Also, check out the Facebook fan page for Ditta’s book, Gravesend, Brooklyn, and the tour’s event invitation.
The original version of this article said the settlers were Quakers. This is incorrect. Lady Moody was an Anabaptist.
I know, I know – I did a postcard yesterday. They don’t really come in that often, but when they do I try to get them up right away before they disappear into Internet limbo.
No date is given on the card by the eBay seller. However, there is this entirely useless description that I find amusing: “We specialize in BETTER cards from all five boroughs of NYC consisting of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, The Bronx and those Long Island communities that constitute Queens County.” (emphasis added)
Yeah, screw Queens.
A similar angle of the beach is given in this 1903 photograph, which we first showed you in the article about Manhattan Beach’s history with fireworks (and is original from a Daily News profile). You can see just how nitty-gritty that purty building in the background of the postcard actually looked.
This photo, taken by an awesome emerging photographer named Bryan Geonzon (check out his Flickr photostream for some stylish shots), was taken somewhere in Sheepshead Bay. We’re not going to tell you where, or what, this is. Let’s see if our Sheepshead sleuths can figure it out.
