F.I.B's first "guest blogger" Brian Berger!

Found in Brooklyn? Definitely. In this apartment alone are two bookcases, two chairs (one brown leather, the other blue vinyl), a box of scratched up (alas) 1960s Ray Price lps, a single volume of collected Shakespeare & a superbly printed copy of R.H. Blyth's "Zen And Zen Classics Volume 5" (Hokuseido Press, Tokyo). Gone: a ridiculous orange lounge chair the cats finally tore up, a high-quality Olympus point & shoot camera sold on Ebay for $30 ten years later & a really nice dropleaf table I gave to friends on Powers Street in Williamsburg; since then, it's moved to Bushwick, Inwood & Las Cruces, New Mexico.Left on the streets, taken on film 1997-1999: hundreds of photos of South Brooklyn, Gowanus, Red Hook & so-called "Carroll Gardens" too. I used the last name myself a few times, although even then I wondered why I'd never seen it in the great works of South Brooklyn literature by Hubert Selby Jr., Gilbert Sorrentino or Emmett Grogan. These images seem very sad and lovely to me now, like my memory of the Spanish voices we always heard on Smith Street, the sight of mama dog & her three pups loping past the Jewish Press building on 3rd Avenue or sliding into the vinyl booths at Helen's Place on Court Street, excited for the sausage, escarole, garlic bread, linguini & clam sauce to come. They always had oldies, the Mets or the Knicks on the radio there & neither of the old-timers who ran the joint were named Helen.

Here is the detritus of Carroll Street, one winter morning between the Canal & Bond. As far as I know, Robert Doisneau never took pictures of Brooklyn--so who the fuck needs him?

Brian Berger is the co-editor, Brooklyn essayist & roving street photographer of the recently published anthology, New York Calling: From Blackout To Bloomberg .

He'll be discussing his work with co-editor, urbanist Marshall Berman, & crime writer, Tim "Brooklyn Noir" McLoughlin at Book Court this Thursday October 4th at 7 pm. Book Court is located at 163 Court Street.

For further information please see whowalkinbrooklyn.