"Who Walk in Brooklyn" writes to Luc Sante (and he answers!)

A fan of Luc Sante? Like old postcards? Then you will *DIG* the interview done by frequent F.I.B photo contributer, Brian Berger.

And GET this! The interview was actually done via post written by HAND on old postcards. Brian not only talks old postcards with Mr. Sante but asks him compelling questions such as, "Who would you rather have seen lecture, Emma Goldman or Carry Nation? Neither mourned the assassination of President William McKinley, shot by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6, 1901."

You can see Lucs' answer below, but better yet go read it at Who Walk in Brooklyn!
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P.S- Berger is on a roll, he interviewed Jonathan Lethem the week before, check it here!

Greenpointers. Read All About It!

Do you think these guys are hipsters or just fireman wannabes?

I think neither! A couple months ago I came across a huge cache of photographs from the Greenpoint area of Brooklyn. I sold most of them off but kept some for myself. This is one of them. Probrably taken in the mid to late 80's in Polish Greenpoint. Where are they now? Note the cultural crossing, the white rocker/stoner boy look with the hiphop wide lace adidas! Also now that I am analyzing it, the guy on the left is wearing an open leather vest with a flannel over, interesting look.

Anylyzing it much furthur I realize the guy on the left kind of looks like Ricky Kasso. Yes, I've read Say You Love Satan, hasn't everybody?

My reason for showing off these Polish-American stoner dudes is that my pal to the north, Justine Carroll of Greenpointers fame has made "blogger of the month" over at Brian Berger's Who Walk in Brooklyn. If you have never read Greenpointers, you should. Justine is a rarity amongst bloggers as she is local but doesn't have a chip on her shoulder about it. As she lives in a neighborhood that is changing she enjoys the best of both worlds, the old and the new and doesn't sound off on all of it but when she DOES go off, it is usually hilarious. The interview touches on everything from catholicism, street life, hanging out with her grandfather in the token booth to her stint on Staten Island and so much more. Read the whole thing for yourself here!

Ooooh, who will be Brian's next "Blogger of the Month"?! He IS picky and DOES like the underdog so stay tuned...he does great interviews, recently he reran an interview with Donald O'Finn, manager of Freddy's Bar and Backroom. I would like to remind people to go to Freddy's, you will miss it when it's gone, the bulldozers are surrounding it as we speak. Read the interview here.

"EMINENT DOMAIN:The American Dream on Sale" Wednesday night at N.Y.P.L.

My pal Brian Berger from over at Who Walk in Brooklyn is on a panel discussing "Eminent Domain Abuse" tomorrow night at the New York Public Library. Check out the related photography exhibit while you are there, details at the bottom.

Brian has also recently reported about that little known Brooklyn neighborhood near the Jackie Robinson Expressway called "Highland Park" over at Kevin Walsh's awesome Forgotten New York site!

Here are some details on what you can expect....

What is the American Dream? Does it mean having a “better life” by creating a home and a community, living together for generations, building and tending relationships to one another and to a place? Or do we create a "better life" by moving up, moving out, removing the old, replacing with the new?

Between 1949 and 1973 urban renewal, a program of the U.S. government, bulldozed 2,500 neighborhoods in 993 American cities and dispossessed one million people. Roots got cut, neighbors and families became separated, languages and cultures were destroyed, and social bonds were broken.

The current exhibition at The New York Public Library,Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City through August 29, features the work of five contemporary New York–based photographers—Thomas Holton, Bettina Johae, Reiner Leist, Zoe Leonard, and Ethan Levitas—whose works intersect and resonate with current concerns about the reorganization of urban space, and its public use, in New York City. Artist Glenn Ligon offers the literal narrative of his own housing in the city. In addition to proposed regulations that threaten First Amendment rights to photograph in public places thus becoming a form of privatization of public space, questions also arise with the current private/public arrangements that characterize much of modern urban development, particularly the legal power of eminent domain, or the taking of private property for public use.

Marshall Berman, Professor of Political Science, City College and the Graduate Center; Mindy Fullilove, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Public Health at Columbia University; Tom Angotti, Professor of Urban Affairs & Planning at Hunter College; and Brian Berger, photographer/blogger, will discuss the use of eminent domain and how urban renewal is changing the cityscape of New York City. Filmmaker Michael Galinsky will moderate.

The Atlantic Yards, a hotly contested developer driven project in Brooklyn, will serve as a focus through which the evening will begin. A short trailer from the film Battle of Brooklyn, directed by Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley, will portray the arguments of some of the main players in this current eminent domain debate.

After a summary of how the use of eminent domain is shaping our City, an open discussion with the audience will address what all of this means for the future of NYC.

Starts at 7pm at the main branch on 5th Avenue, Manhattan.

Clilck here for details about the talk.
Click here about the photography exhibit.

Brian Berger

Jesus is Lord (East New York)

Next up in the Found in Brooklyn Group Art Show hit parade is some photography from Mr. Brian Berger. Brian is a maniac documentary style street photographer. He is obsessed with capturing our disappearing by the second street culture by image and also in words. He is fascinated with people with interesting stories to tell. Stories that predate our current fascination with real estate, demolition and construction. Unfortunately these days this is what is in our faces and can't be ignored. (sigh.) It often boggles the mind that NYC once had a booming creative underground. These are Brian's issues. In addition to being a fab photographer, he gives a great interview.

Check out his blog Who Walk in Brooklyn for today’s interview with Luc Sante!

He also recently interviewed another art show participant, video artiste Donald O'Finn.

And of course he is editor of the fine tome, New York Calling: from Blackout to Bloomberg.

The FIB art show is up for another month!
Do stop by Freddy's and take a gander.

The "Found in Brooklyn Group Art Show" viewing hours are from 11am to 4am, 7 days a week.
Click here for links to see the websites of all the participating artists.

Freddy's Bar & Backroom
located at:
485 Dean Street Brooklyn, NY 11215
phone: 718.622.7035
That's the corner of Dean Street and 6th Avenue in Brooklyn.

Check WWIB Out.

F.I.B would like to direct you over to Who Walk in Brooklyn so you can read Brian Berger's interview with Jim Knipfel from the inside of the luxurious Shore Hotel out at Coney. They talk about more than just Knipfel's new book Noogie’s Time To Shine , they also riff on Brooklyn (of course), crime blotters, the band Killdozer, film noir, the internet, other writers and so much more. It's an interview that is more like friends hanging out talking about things like The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. (One of F.I.B's favorites too!) so it's a fun read.

And while your'e over at WWIB , puh-lease click on the photos that are waaaaaaaaaay too small on his blog (so you can actually SEE them!) as Brian is an excellent documentary style photographer.

"New York Calling" Reading at L.E.S Tenement Museum on Wednesday!

F.I.B continues her Kafkaesque job search and allows Brian Berger co-editor of "New York Calling:From Blackout to Bloomberg" to guest blog again.
Found In Brooklyn? I’ll eat to that! Let’s start at 3rd Avenue & 9th St, where the lunch special has gone up to $4.50 & rather than replacing an otherwise good sign, somebody broke out the Krylon. What do ya’ll get for that extra 55 cents? It’s tough to say since, like most other things Spanish, Sonia’s Restaurant has been consistently ignored by the chroniclers of Gowanus & South Brooklyn. Perhaps if they hired an autentico publicist, they’d get more attention? Privately, WWIB food writer Zyczymy Smacznego tells me the “rostissieri” (as its charmingly misspelled on their awning) chicken is unmissable.Also unmissable, or so you’d think: New Bopper’s Luncheonette in Gravesend. Jazz diner? Warriors tribute? Reached for comment in hell, retired sewer worker & noted Brooklyn bowling enthusiast, Ed Norton said, “How the fuck should I know?!” While near by the ever-popular Culver Line, the internet again tells us nothing more.

Brian Berger, Marshall Berman, Philip Dray, Leonard Levitt & Robert Sietsema, all of New York Calling, will discuss New Bopper’s Luncheonette & other urban mysteries at The Lower East Side Tenement Museum
108 Orchard Street this Wednesday at 6:30 pm.
Admission is FREE!

Check the Who Walk in Brooklyn blog for more information.

If you want to know who "The Boppers" are click on this!

Photographs taken by Mr. Berger.

Go to Bluestockings Books * Friday 7pm.

This week I did NOT allow Brian Berger to guest blog but I DID allow him to guest photag!

Photos taken winter of 1997 around the Gowanus.

9th Street Nude.

This weeks stop on the "New York Calling" book reading tour is at Bluestockings Bookstore on the Lower East Side. If you've never been there, it's a bookstore specializing in underground and left leaning literature, as well as independent zines and whatnot. I keep pimping this book "New York Calling" because not only does editor Brian Berger live in the neighborhood and have his own iconic blog, Walks In Brooklyn but because the book is a must read. The book contains true stories about life in our fair city from every borough and subjects range from general life in NYC to gentrification to drugs to music and more from the 1960's to the Atlantic Yards. Checkitout! even Norman Oder liked it!.

French Blue Union

Friday nights representatives from the book are Margaret Morton, photographer who documents the homeless. Tom Robbins and Robert Sietsema from the Village Voice. Bian Berger will aslso be in attendance.

Bluestockings, 172 Allen St between Stanton & Rivington, Isle of Manhattan.
Starts at 7pm.

Brian Berger Allowed to "Guest Blog" Again!

Found in Brooklyn? From sea to wine dark sea, whether it's Colonial Road or Cypress Hills, Avenue C or Canarsie. Here it's a little more common, starting at the Union St drawbridge over the Gowanus Canal, in the years before propagandists & fools began making claims its ecology can't come close to supporting. Still, there was sand on these shores, with the mighty Crusader Candle around the corner on Nevins, where High John the Conqueror & many other guardians of Gowanus remain.From South Brooklyn to southern Brooklyn, Coney Island Creek, where everybody's heard about the bird. (Bird bird bird, the bird is the word.) This isn't my favorite spot for BK crustaceans-- Rencher's Crab Inn on Flatbush near Avenue O is-- but for a romantic waterfront dining experience, it's the best in the borough.Heading west across the burning sands lovers say goodbye Bensonhurst, farewell Fort Hamilton, adios Bay Ridge; wuzzup... Seagate! How we got in & how we got out isn't something to talk about now but soon after jumping the fence back onto the shores of Coney Island proper... Shy, he thought she'd never ask: bivalve curious??

At 7 pm this Saturday at Vox Pop, Brian Berger of whowalkinbrooklyn will appear with Marshall Berman, the great Tom Robbins and moderator Neil DeMause to discuss the recently published book: New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg.

B.Y.O.A: Bring your own aphrodisiacs?

Vox Pop is located at 1022 Cortelyou Road at Coney Island Avenue, Flatbush! (Ditmas Park) (Kensington)

*All photographs taken by Mr. Berger.

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.