"Toxi City" Exhibit at the Brooklyn Lyceum

There is a stunning photo exhibit called Toxi City at the Brooklyn Lyceum, catch it before it ends next week on November 8th. The photos are taken by Robin Michals and the New York Sate Department of Environmental Conservation’s Environmental Site Remediation list was the starting point to determine sites selected to photograph.It's all about invisible contamination and there are photographs from Coney Island, Gowanus, Bushwick, Williamsberg to Greenpoint.

From the artist's description:

The exhibition Toxi City: Brooklyn’s Brownfields explores the legacy of Brooklyn’s industrial past and the spectrum of pollution in which we live. The exhibition features 30 photographs of sites in Coney Island, DUMBO, East New York, East Williamsburg, Gowanus, Greenpoint, Red Hook, Sunset Park, and Williamsburg where historic uses have saturated the soils and groundwater with a lasting toxicity. As we careen towards the greater impacts of climate change, brownfields remind us of the damage we are willing to inflict on the environment for the benefits of industrialism.To select the sites to photograph for the exhibit, the New York Sate Department of Environmental Conservation’s Environmental Site Remediation list was the starting point to determine what qualifies as a brownfield or toxic site. In addition, old maps at the Brooklyn Historical Society were consulted.

The dichotomy of pristine and polluted is no longer a useful way of thinking. The alphabet soup of DNAPLs, NAPLs, BTEXs, PAHs, SVOCs, VOCs, TCE, PCE, and PCBs that have been left behind at these sites can never be entirely removed. Their dangers can only be better managed.

The exhibit will include photographs of sites in all phases of the clean-up process. Photographs of several completed remediation projects such as Pfizer and Lowe’s will be included as well as photographs of several sites undergoing remediation such as the Coney Island and Williamsburg Works manufactured gas plant sites.

In addition, the show will feature photographs of as-yet unremediated sites that once housed gas plants, electrical powerhouses, petroleum facilities and manufacturing operations or were tainted by landfill or dumping. Because Brooklyn is a dense, crowded, place, many of these sites are in use in some form today despite their toxicity.

This event is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC), as well as by grants from The City University of New York PSC-CUNY Research Award Program and from the Puffin Foundation.


Where: The Brooklyn Lyceum
227 4th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
PHONE: 718.857.4816

Click here for the Toxi City website.

Field Trip to Williamsburg

This week is F.I.B's summer vacation and while most people might go to Maine, I do not think I have been to Williamsburg for well over a year and decided to take a little fieldtrip there today. Upon exiting the G train at Metropolitan Avenue I was quickly made to feel like I was at home as the sister building to the "Open Your Eyes" building that I see from my house in South Brooklyn was the first thing I saw as I hit the street! Ironically F.I.B used to rent a space in this building on Keape Street about 5 years ago. It was owned by a company that made Murphy beds. Now it is vacant and window less and covered with grafitti. What's up with that?Then upon crossing under the BQE I saw this! Shout out to Miss Heather!Then I went to this park on Kent Avenue where the skyline was real but unreal.Cliche photo I know but I just couldn't help it!The view may be beautiful but if you want to picnic or sunbath you will be lulled by the sounds of cranes and earthmovers on one side. And this Toll Brothers monolith on the other side. Ewwwww. Can you imagine being one of the numbers living in there? This would fit in better in a business district of a city such as Phoenix or Miami but whatever it's here and they are not selling like hotcakes. Upon skeedaddling out of that park with the bad condo feng shui - where the water, the view and the people playing happy dominoes were the only pleasantries, as well as the sprinklers we ran through which were wasting water to keep the sod dayglow green, I happily came across a rare commidity and FIB's favorite. OPEN SKY! That place on the corner is the Rosenwach's Tank Group which has been making wooden water tanks for over a hundred years!

The day ended at the fab Rolewskie Jadlo restaurant on Nassau Avenue in Greenpoint (you can't miss it, it's got knights in armor outside) where the chef/owner used to work at Nobu and the seasonal blueberry perogies are out of this world and only $5.50!

F.I.B is going to bust out of Brooklyn and head to Long Island for a few days, see y'all on the flipside!

A Dying Art.

Another photo from my Greenpoint/Williamsburg collection.

Click here for some more.

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.

....Ronnie Spector at McCarren Park Pool....

McCarren Park pool floor.

Lots of new people have been dropping by FIB in the last couple days from all over the world due to getting picked as Blog of Note. It's wild to me as I am accustomed to just NYC readers in general. I'm getting lots of private emails on top of the comments from homesick Brooklynites who live all over the world. I even got an email from Jerry Lawson, the original singer from the Brooklyn do wop group The Persuasions! A weird factoid about the Persuasions is that Frank Zappa helped them get their first recording contract! Click here to read about Jerry's new project.

I want to urge everyone new here to check out my "blogarama", I'd say it's 95% NYC based and you will be entertained for hours!

I got to hear some NYC musical history yesterday over at McCarren Park Pool. Since there are many who don't know this who are reading today, McCarren Park pool is a huge public swimming pool in Greenpoint Brooklyn built during the WPA era of the 1930's that hasn't had water in it for years. The pool is drained and the audience hangs out "in the pool". It's been used as a concert venue for the past few years, the acts are up above on the "pool deck". Usually it is packed with hipsters who like to do things like play dodgeball and go on the slip and slide but as the hipsters don't really go to the "oldies" shows (they have no idea what they are missing!) yesterday was not that crowded (with "hipsters").

Ronnie Spector, former Ronette, a total Goddess and Phil Spector survivor played many of her early gigs in Brooklyn.
Check out my video of Ronnie singing "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" (written by Johnny Thunders of the NY Dolls) which she dedicated to Joey Ramone who produced the album "She Talks to Rainbows" that she performs this song on. How's THAT for NYC rock and roll history?! ANYWAY, lyrically speaking this is one of FIB's favorite songs ever so I was thrilled. (It's a really sad song but regular readers know FIB is a sappy sentimentalist!) Guitarist and legendary local producer, most notable for the Ramones, Daniel Rey, wasn't too shabby on guitar either, love that twang!

Remember to look at that blog list people!