Community Board One: The Nominations!

The Greenpoint Gazette's Juliet Linderman and I are the first ones to arrive at the Swinging Sixties Center for what promises to be another riveting evening of Community Board Oneness. We just picked up a box of one dozen cupcake rejects from the Brooklyn Kitchen, which is fast becoming the foodie epicenter of the Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Yesterday night, Linderman covered the Brooklyn Kitchen's third annual Cupcake Cook Off, which featured over fifty entries, 98 percent of them women. Brooklyn Kickball's "Hey" Kate Brown won the contest. Again. She's the Michael Phelps of cupcakes, minus the pot scandal. Linderman ate 7 cupcakes and then got sick for the rest of the evening. I had a Newtown Creek Alliance meeting at the Green Oaks Club to attend. There were no cupcakes at that meeting. There wasn't even a cookie.

Tonight is nominations for Community Board Chair, an event that happens maybe once every thirty years. Next month, District Manager Gerry Esposito will be bringing both white and black smoke while the board deliberates. Absent tonight are any of the candidates running for City Council in the 33rd District. They're all at a candidates forum for the Park Slope Civic Council. Damn you Ken Freeman and your innate sense of civic responsibility! You've deprived us of our monthly chance to flirt with Jo Anne and schmooze up the Kens! On another note, nice job to Jo Anne for her SNL Mother's Day appearance! What's Justin Timberlake like anyway? Press Row is sufficiently creeped out but also a little intrigued.



Simon, below right, hangs with the SNL crew.

Lots of St. Nicholas Neighborhood Preservation Corporation staffers and United Neighborhood Organization volunteers in the audience but no Michael Rochford, Executive Director of St. Nicks NPC. I propose that the Executive Director should be referred to as Mike Roch from now on. As in... "Mike Roch! Mike Roch! Has anybody seen Mike Roch?"

Inexplicably, Parks Department coordinator Stephanie Thayer showed up with her own documentary film crew. Apparently reality television has run out of ideas. Actually, it's a documentary about McCarren Park Pool and they've been following Stephanie around to show their audience what a typical day is like for the OSA Executive Director. Apparently that includes attending community board one meetings. Lucky us.

Stephanie Thayer is a finalst in The Bachelor: Parks and Recreation Edition

6:34 PM And we're live! Gerry Esposito rolls through attendance and Chairman Vinnie Abate mumbles through the agenda. Turnout is light and even The Chairman, right, seems a little bored. 19 members are present, but we have some stragglers. Liquor licenses are quickly approved and Abate hands the mike over to the Department of Housing and Preservation Development to talk about 640 Broadway. She passes the mike to Daniel Pearlstein from United Jewish Organizations to talk about the project. Esteban Duran asks about whether this is related to the Broadway Triangle Project. Pearlstein says it's an unrelated project. Esteban's not done. About a half dozen United Neighborhood Organization members clap in agreement. HPD says it falls just outside the triangle area and they are separate projects. Doesn't look like much of an issue, but the Broadway Triangle is Williamsburg's Gaza Strip so anything is possible.

6:51 PM: Incoming text message from Jeff Mann, publisher of the Greenpoint Gazette, who is not at tonight's community board meeting with his reporters: "I'm on a boat! I'm meeting Ed Skyler and Mike McMahon! I'm doing something to support the environment!"

6:57 PM: Gerry closes public session and runs the roll call again. Now there are 35 members. We've almost doubled in population! Vinnie recognizes Paul Pullo Jr. for his marriage and offers his best wishes. One board member proposes to kill off the July and August meetings, possibly because the Swinging Sixties room is 90 degrees in February. Motion carries. Wow, did they just kill the the summer meetings? They did? We're hitting the beach.

7:02 PM CB1 heartthrob Ward Dennis gives his presentation about Waterfronts and fills in for Evan Thies for the Environmental committee. Linderman sighs a little bit. So does the Courier's Greg Hanlon. Not sure which is tastier. These delicious cupcakes or Ward "Delicious" Dennis.

7:05 "Hello, everyone! There is a rumor of an economic downturn in the United States. However, looking at the number of licenses in this neighborhood, this cannot be true..."
CB1 mascot and Chair candidate Mieszko Kalita dives into a comprehensive report about all the restaurants looking for liquor licenses and other permits. Here's an excerpt from one:
"They have a steakhouse. They will smoke meat on premises..."
The Chairman tries to close debate but Mieszko won't let him.
"No no... no no no... we have many more." We go on for ten more minutes.

7:17 Teresa Toro announces that after snubbing her last transportation comittee meeting, the DOT will come to the next committee meeting on May 27, and unveil their Kent Avenue bicycle lane plan. I'm writing a column about this later this week, so look for that link on Thursday.

7:21 Chris Olechowski, another likely candidate for CB1 Chair, gives a presentation about the Pulaski Bridge widening. Any major plans for reconstruction are 5 to 10 years away. More on Chris later. In the meantime, we're going to have a beard off. Vote for which community board one regular, Kevin Vincent, Mike Hofmann, or Simon Weiser, has the best beard.

Kevin Vincent (Left), Mike Hofmann (Center), and Simon Weiser (Right)

7:32 PM Okay we're into Public Comments! Thayer makes an announcement about It's My Park Day, happening this Saturday, May 16, and says that the Parks Department will break ground on Bushwick Inlet in the coming days, and announces two more events this weekend at Manhattan Avenue and Third Ear Training 1.0 at Franklin and Commercial Street.

NAG Co-Chair Michael Freedman Schnapp talks about Williamsburg Walks with the publisher of L magazine. The Chairman doesn't care if he's the publisher of a toilet paper roll and shouts him down. Only Mike gets to address the board. This year, there is more programming and the Greenpoint Y, Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, the Williamsburg CSA, and others are sponsoring. The Walks will take place on Bedford Avenue from noon to susnet. Mike is excited about Williamsburg Walks coming back. Really excited. Easy MFS.

Yassky staffer Rami "Heavy" Metal notes a press conference David Yassky is leading Thursday at City Hall at 1:30 PM about the MTA bus lot at 65 Commercial Street.

7:42 PM: And we've ended early! Sort of. Nominations were scheduled for 8 PM and it's 7:42. Gerry decides to redo his report for no apparent reason. He's talking about people stuffing envelopes with things that aren't letters or checks and he's very upset about it. No, wait, Gerry got uninvited from a mayoral event because he protested 15% cuts to the community board. The mayor's goons literally escorted him out of the meeting. I have to follow up on this, but Press Row is getting hungry. Time for cupcakes.

7:48 PM The Chairman: Anyone else want to kill some time?

8:00 PM And we're LIVE again! The Chairman opens up nominations for Chair. Chris Olechowski is named. So is Mieszko Kalita. Mieszko gives a 50 second acceptance speech. For the nomination. He hasn't even won yet. One member nominates The Chairman for the chairmanship.

"I can barely make it through tonight," he said.

We go through the other nominations for the executive committee. No real surprises. Rabbi David Niederman and Jaye Fox were nominated for Attendance Committee. Both of them were absent.

In addition to nominations, I would like to formally announce the first annual North Brooklyn Male Reporters Beauty Pageant 2009. Our contestants are Ben Muessig, Jeff Mann, Greg Hanlon, and me, Aaron Short. The vote concludes at the next community board meeting. G'night everybody!

Pigs In Space: End of the Universe

Well the swine flu is dissipating. Maybe. We should just put them all in that space capsule heading to fix the hubble telescope, but no one listens to me.

The big local story making the rounds this weekend is that Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez may have pressured outgoing MTA Chair Elliot Sander to give his son-in-law a promotion. According to the Daily News' Pete Donohue, the MTA official, Keith Summa, who happens to be married to one of Lopez's daughters, is doing just fine on his own. No elected official has come out publicly criticizing Lopez and criticism of the electeds and the media is picking up in some blogs. That and the BushwickBK post about vandalism on Melrose Street, and this adds up to not a great weekend for "Sweetums".


Of course, the big developing story that will be gaining steam this summer is the widening effect of the State Comptroller pension scandal. I think it needs a catchy title. PensionGate isn't going to work because it's too general, and really, there are too many political scandals with the "gate" suffix to warrant the public's attention, so we need something really juicy here. I'm open to suggestions.

Also, don't forget the midnight filing deadline for raising money for the current fundraising period for city council races. Whoever donates the most money gets to party with these guys (below).

The Short List: Statue of Liberty Edition

Fun Fact: Interior Secretary Salazar also called the game winning Fiesta Bowl play

So I've been writing a week-long feature on the fight to open the Statue of Liberty crown and stairway. I turned in the story late Wednesday night. Friday at 7 AM, Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar visited the Statue with the hosts of The Today Show to officially announce that the crown would be reopening on July 4th. Afterwards, Congressman Anthony Weiner and Senator Chuck Schumer held a hastily arranged presser at 11 AM. You know what this means? Rewrite.

...but onto the Short List! The Campaign for Community Board One Chair is heating up, as some observers believe there could be some behind-the-scenes political intrigue to sway the race, but I think it's unlikely. Elected officials are very distracted with a heavy legislative agenda in Albany and their own citywide races. This race will be under the radar. Tune in next week for another critically proclaimed CB1 running diary.

Be sure to read Juliet Linderman's intriguing profile of neighborhood feminist leader Jan Peterson. She's really a post-feminist, and you know that label doesn't even really apply. Juliet has a small crush on her. What's the female version of a bromance?

Also, check out Sarah Portlock's cover feature! in New York Press about Korean grocery stores, bodegas, and gentrification in Williamsburg, asking the questions we all have about them but never bothered to ask.

Touring Newtown Creek is all the rage apparently. Nothing like a romantic walk along New York City's most polluted waterway. On April 23, WNYC took tour of the Newtown Creek Nature Walk with artist/ designer George Trakas. Last Friday, DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis, Assemblyman Vito Lopez, Senator Martin Dilan, and a couple of members of NCMC, Newtown Creek Alliance, and Riverkeeper. They actually took a van and not a romantic cruise down the creek. I wonder what a romantic cruise with Assemblyman Lopez, Senator Dilan and Commissioner Grannis would actually look like...


Erin Durkin from the Daily News reports on a 40-foot hole on Franklin and Flushing Avenue in Williamsburg, her paper's old news garage is about to become a climbing gym (according to Tom Tracy at the Courier), nice tag by the Paper's Mike McLaughlin on relocating the Macy's Fireworks from Williamsburg to... gasp... New Jersey!, New York Shitty takes a closer look at some odd graffiti in Greenpoint, Liz Benjamin says that Local 32BJ is supporting Steve Levin and Maritza Davila, and The Courier's watsu-specialist Greg Hanlon hops aboard the L line with L-line General Manager Greg Lombardi. The L line has its own general manager? Really? Is it like running the Orioles?

And finally, mazel tov to Louise Crawford of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn for putting together the first annual Brooklyn BlogFest. I tried to keep a low profile at this. That didn't happen. Ran into Morgan Pehme, Evan Burr, Norman Oder, Jo Anne Simon, and apparently missed New York Shitty hobnobbing throughout the evening. Bumping into Councilman David Yassky, who was eating a slice of cake outside Galapagos, was a nice surprise. Learning that he did not go to high school with Matthew Broderick despite looking an awful lot like him was not. I know, I know. These are the kinds of things I should have looked up before making wagers. I'm a terrible gambler.

"How to!... apply for a job/ How to... advance from City Council!"

Car... Debate On!

"It was number 2, no, maybe number 5, wait, can you have them all turn to their right?"

New Kings Democrats, the scrappy do-it-yourself insurgent North Brooklyn-based political club, has announced that, yes there is a 33rd District City Council DEBATE in Williamsburg this month and it will at Harry Van Arsdale School Auditorium (257 North 6th Street) on Tuesday, May 19 at 7 PM. It is happening almost one year after the club was officially initiatied. NKD Founder Matt Cowherd, right, and the gang, have been furiously contacting candidates to confirm their participation in the debate this week and have secured nearly all, if not all, of the candidates. (Full Disclosure: I am assisting with the moderation of this debate but I am not a member of this club.)

Several of the candidates have been holding fundraisers, meeting with political clubs to sollicit their endorsements, hiring staff (Evan Thies recently added a campaign manager, Kevin Lawler, who last worked on Scott Murphy's nail-bitingly close congressional campaign), and canvassing throughout Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, and itty bits of Park Slope that have been sliced into the district. It looks like El Puente and Neighbors Allied for Good Growth will be helping in some capacity with the debate as well as the Williamsburg Charter School, which could bring a nice cross-section of North Siders and South Siders in the audience, beyond the neighborhood political geeks. This will not be a snoozer. I promise.


"New Kings... New Kings... New Kings..." It's all anyone's talking about!

New Column!

Short Takes - The Foodie Pulse Beats in Brooklyn May 07, 2009 by Aaron Short

On a beautiful Spring Saturday in Brooklyn, one had the choice of walking under elegant pink rows of cherry blossoms in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, fishing through vintage vendors at Artists and Fleas’ outdoor market, and dancing among artwork at the Brooklyn Museum’s Target First Saturdays.
Instead, hundreds of Brooklyn residents flocked to John Jay High School for the Brooklyn Food Conference, an all-day event held indoors, with workshops ranging from the dangers of food transnationals to how to grow your own victory garden.
The conference, sponsored by the Park Slope Food Co-op, has come at a seminal moment in the history of the sustainable food movement. Organic has given way to local, as an increasing number of Brooklyn residents are educating themselves about where their food comes from and the consequences of the choices they make regarding what they buy.
Inside, participants buzzed from class to class with a festive and energetic mood, despite the anxiety many residents feel from a recession that has little signs of ebbing and a rapidly rising unemployment rate. What struck me was not just the breadth of workshop topics but also the diversity in age, ethnicity, and people’s neighborhoods present at the festival. I saw environmental activists, theater directors, legal rights advocates, and city council candidates in the audience, along with farmers working in the South Bronx, immigrants living in Flatbush, and cooks from scores of restaurants throughout the city.
Localism, with its farmers markets, community supported agriculture, food co-ops, and do-it-yourself food products has moved well into the mainstream in Brooklyn to the point where the Pathmarks and Associateds of the neighborhood begin to look like an odd outlier, or at least severely misplaced.
A public that is becoming increasingly more educated about the food distribution process will make choices that have significant effects on the local economy. This has some local grocery owners and specialty food shops worried. In Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Manhattan, Nassau, and Metropolitan Avenues have dozens of stores that have been butchering meats, making bread, and grinding coffee for decades, not to mention the independently owned grocery stores that have been operating for generations. In order to survive, small, independently owned grocery stores must think more carefully about where they get their produce to serve a public that is starting to question where food comes from.
For Brooklyn Food Conference founder and general coordinator Nancy Romer, a Brooklyn College professor and a longtime community organizer, this is a positive development. She believes the increased interest in sustainable food coupled with the recession could drive traffic towards local specialty stores and ethnic grocery shops as people search for authenticity and tradition.
“I think there has been a real influx of new food and an appreciation of old food,” said Romer. “It’s like Michael Pollan says, ‘Eat like your grandparents and you’ll be in much better shape.’ Just don’t consume the quantity of meat and dairy and eat at McDonalds every day.”
John Tapper, owner of Greenpoint’s beloved grocery store, The Garden, is more skeptical. He has been providing organic and local produce for several years, and said that there has been no drop in the number of customers shopping at his store nor have they been spending less money when they shop there. Yet he sees many people carrying Trader Joes and Whole Foods bags in Greenpoint too.
“For any store like our store, you depend on distributors,” said Tapper. “We try to deal with distributors who deal with New York State farmers. Those who have always bought in Costco and BJs will always shop there. Those who like a little better quality will shop from day to day.”
In some ways, the conference has made evident what thousands of people throughout Brooklyn have already been doing, and that is making the conscious choice to buy local ingredients and cook at home. Searching for fresh ingredients takes time, visiting a greenmarket, The Garden, or stopping by Italian butcher shops and Polish bakeries before preparing a meal. Armed with the knowledge they accumulate at places like the Brooklyn Food Conference, Brooklynites are more and more willing to take the time to shop locally and pepper food suppliers about where their food comes from. In Brooklyn, food is sustaining, educational, and entertaining… until the next meal.

Gerry Esposito Video

Do you believe in magic?

Brooklyn Community Board One District Manager and local good guy Gerry Esposito Jr. (as in, "Gerry? Good guy. Good guy.") has a brand new campaign video for his city council candidacy in the 34th District. Incumbent Councilwoman Diana Reyna and Democratic District Leader Maritza Davila are the other declared candidates.

Gerry has enlisted the help of Morgan Pehme, local filmmaker and blogger who was last working for a candidate for Queens Borough President to challenge Helen Marshall, before the candidate lost interest in the race and dropped out. Now Morgan is working to get Gerry elected to City Council. Privately, local electeds are grumbling about Gerry's candidacy and urging him to drop out. So far, it doesn't look like he's going to listen. Also, he has raised $80,000 and has spent barely anything. Did we mention that thirty years ago he looked like Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider?


"Man, everybody got chicken, that's what happened. Hey, we can't even get into like, a second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel, you dig? They think we're gonna cut their throat or somethin'. They're scared, man."

Greenpoint Gazette staffers are loving this video today. Our three favorite moments: 1. The fact that it looks like Gerry has been superimposed into every scene. 2. Guido spouting at the end. 3. "Last year I voted for President Obama to change the nation, this year I'm voting for Gerry Esposito to change City Hall."

Man About Town

I felt a little creepy taking this photo, but not as creepy as the row of middle aged guys watching the Cherry Blossom performance in front of me.

I'm still a bit bleary eyed from an 8-hour Tribeca marathon on Sunday. Not sure which was more annoying: trying to watch a subtitled movie behind a 5-inch afro or listening to the cinephiles next to me talking about paying their way through Sundance... as an audience member, not a filmmaker. Botero (that one's for Miguel only).

The Cherry Blossom festival was wonderful. Thank you Kate Blumm at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens for the media tour. It's Botanic not Botanical. Blumm, as in, rhymes with Plum not Plume. I think. It's too perfect otherwise.

Greenpointers, you are woefully underrepresented in the Greenest Block of Brooklyn competition the BBG is hosting soon, so start sprucing up your block. On my block in Bushwick, I've already pushed all the dead pigeons that have run over by a sanitation truck into a nearby sewage drain. What are you going to do?

Last night, I went to a DL21C Monday Night Candidates Forum Smackdown. I will have more on the snoozer that is the citywide Comptroller race with a new edition of Where in the World is Councilman David Yassky, right, tomorrow. The photo is from the last time any one has seen David in the district. When the Hell was this?

Finally, in an earlier post, I did not provide any context to a bizarre photo of my former colleague getting himself a man-massage in a pool somewhere in Italian Williamsburg. Apparently, the story is that Greg went on assignment to try out a watsu water massage somewhere on the corner of Ainslie and Union. It was definitely not a mikvah. Or men's synchronized swimming. Thank you Newscorp for having the balls to print those photos. Let's run another one.

No you're not angry at him. You're just pointing at him. Hey you, I know you, I know you.

The Short List (Swine Flu update!)

So you say there's another flu outbreak in the neighborhood? I'm on my way!

Time for The Short List, a look at the week that was and what lies ahead, sponsored by SPAM, Berkshire Pork, the Department of Environmental Conservation, and the emergency rooms of Woodhull and Wyckoff Hospitals.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his May Day! budget sounding slightly more nasally than usual. May Day is right. We're done for. Sales tax going up 9% and a plastic bag user fee are the big highlights. While the green buildings program the Mayor and Speaker Christine Quinn unveiled last week will help save energy in the long term, it appears city residents will have to tighten our belts yet again. Perhaps there was some way of harnessing the energy of the sun...

Mayor Bloomberg unveils his Green Building plan to a gaping crowd.

Back in the neighborhood, there was the Department of Transportation's announcement and then non-announcement about the Kent Avenue bike lanes. Fortunately Greenpoint Gazette's Juliet Linderman and Brooklyn Paper's Ben Muessig have got it covered and 11211 has a little history. Good luck at the Pittsburgh Marathon this weekend Ben! I'm predicting a 3:20:16. Whatever that means. At least Oliver Perez, right, is taking an interest in the issue. We spotted him at a Transportation/ Waterfronts meeting on Thursday. 9.31 ERA? Nice.

We don't really know why the Williamsburg Courier's Greg Hanlon is getting a topless massage from a middle aged guy in a pool. The corresponding story isn't online yet, but we have a photo, We think it's part of the latest Jamie Foxx video. Or maybe he's working on a Cutting Crew remix. Anyone care to speculate?

Breaking News: City Council Candidate Steve Levin still does not have swine flu! We repeat, Steve Levin does NOT have swine flu!

Busy weekend in the hood. BushwickBK's Anna D'Agrosa has the weekend's picks in Bushwick (gallery openings at Factory Fresh, Pocket Utopia, and Cake with Chez Bushwick and Norte Maar), there's Artists and Fleas' first outdoor flea market on Saturday in McCarren Park, the Brooklyn Food Conference in Park Slope all day Saturday, Sakura Matsuri at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens all weekend long, the 5 borough bike tour rolls through Williamsburg and Greenpoint late morning Sunday, 3rd Ward and Moviehouse's Green Bikes Birthday Block Party rain or shine from 2 to 8 PM Sunday, and finally the Brooklyn Kickball League's racous Opening Day celebration at McCarre Park, from 5 PM to 10 PM Sunday.

Back to the swine flu pandemic for a moment. I am not liking this story at all. A Catholic school down the street from me closed yesterday because a child developed symptoms and later that evening the L train shut down briefly because a rider became ill. This place is infested with pigs. I thought every one of my contracts has a standard no pigs clause. This is basically going to end with Press Row gathering all the light ammunition we can carry and heading down to Teddy's to fend off a maurading band of Swine Flu zombies. Hey Press Row, who's with me? Anyone? Hello?... great.