Photo by Cody Swanson
As music sales continue to slide, there’s at least one bit of bright news: vinyl sales continue to climb. And that’s thanks to Brooklyn, right? Where we love old things, and beautiful things, and new things that look like old beautiful things? But also because our borough has perhaps the highest concentration of pressing plants on the East Coast, from EKS in East New York to Brooklynphono in Sunset Park. We’re not just the ones buying it; we’re making it, too. And at Brooklynphono, they do that by recycling old records—shredding them and reforming them into new albums. “It’s like being a short-order cook,” the plant’s owner recently told the Times. “The music is only as good as the ingredients you get.”
2. CLINTON HILL’S TIME LORD: DAVID SOKOSH
Photo by Joe Hume
Sokosh sells and repairs antique clocks in his Clinton Hill shop; he also creates battery-less wristwatches with pocket-watch parts produced in Switzerland in the 1970s. Watch sales have dragged since cell phones became ubiquitous, but a niche market for luxury watches has emerged, sort of like the resurgence in vinyl LP sales. “A mechanical watch needs to be wound every day. It needs the person wearing it in order to run,” Sokosh told us. “The person wearing the watch needs it to know what time it is. You need the watch and the watch needs you. It is a much warmer relationship than interacting with a cell phone.”
3. SUSTAINABLE FABRICS FROM YOU & I
Photo by Joe Hume
You & I makes yarn and fabrics that reflect the community and integrate aspects of its disparate cultures. They’re also environmentally, as well as socially, conscious. “Our products are made in Brooklyn with local and recycled materials,” Monica Hofstadter told us. “We collaborate with our clients as much as possible in the design process, so that we can produce exactly what they need.” By doing so, You & I hopes it can affect the field at large. “It’s an important time to assess the effects of the global textile industry on the planet and our societies,” Hofstadter added, “and we see opportunities to create positive change.”
4. THE BUTCHER OF PARK SLOPE: FLEISHER’S
Photo by Jennifer May
This Kingston-based butcher shop, already popular among New York’s meat-eating sustainability crowd, opens a Brooklyn outpost in September; with a commitment to selling the meat only of organically raised animals, it ought to fit right in on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. Plus, it has local cred: Joshua Applestone, a one-time vegan who runs the place with his wife Jessica, got the shop’s name from his grandfather, who opened a butcher shop called Fleisher’s in Windsor Terrace in 1901. “Brooklyn was a natural choice,” Joshua told us. “We felt that Park Slope was a perfect fit for us—a family who is concerned about what we feed ourselves and our children.” Just another Brooklyn-to-Hudson Valley-and-back-again story…
5. WHO SLIDES IN AFTER WEINER PULLS OUT?
After an obscure, underreported scandal thrust Congressman Anthony Weiner from office, a special election scheduled for September has pitted Democratic Assemblyman David Weprin against Bob Turner, the conservative Republican who lost against Weiner last year with just 39 percent of the vote. If those both seem like small names (who and who?) for the district that has given us not only Weiner but also Chuck Schumer, it could be because the seat might soon cease to exist. Though gerrymandering is unpredictable, “it seems fairly likely that Weiner’s seat will be one of the two seats chopped up in redistricting,” Colin Campbell, who runs the Brooklyn Politics blog, told us. “The lack of recorded population growth in Queens and Nassau means it’s likely one of the losing districts will come from that area of the world”—the 9th District includes southeast Brooklyn and a large chunk of Queens—“and Weprin was probably selected partially because he agreed to go quietly.” If Turner wins, though? “It could shuffle things up substantially!”
6. A NEW KIND OF URBAN MALL
Photo by Cody Swanson
There’s this park along our jogging route with the sliced-off end of a shipping container situated like a tiny stage. We were all like, oh, what a cool social application of industrio-commercial furniture. And then some folks went and opened the Dekalb Market, a retail outpost in Downtown Brooklyn where artists, artisans, farmers and chefs hock their products and push a philosophy of quality, community and sustainability. But perhaps its neatest feature is that it’s “housed in a collection of salvaged shipping containers,” per its website, turning these emblems of commerce into actual commercial hubs—and making that local park of ours look like just some local park where the city junked a rusting hunk of steel. “It’s not a market like the [Brooklyn] Flea,” cupcake-maker and Market vendor Allison Robicelli explained to us, “but more like a mall re-imagined for an urban space.” (That’s a pun—Urban Space is the group that created and runs the market.) And it’s poised to grow. “More container stores will be added in installments. A demo kitchen is being added for kids, and we’ve received an education grant that will provide programs for local schools,” Robicelli added. “There will be concerts, kids-festivals… pretty much it’s our vision for a town square.”
7. A BEAUTIFUL SKATEBOARD MAGAZINE: 43
Photo by Allen Ying
We’re pretty obviously biased here, but we salivate at the prospect of elegantly conceived, beautifully photographed print magazines… So it is with great interest and no small amount of optimism that we introduce you to Allen Ying, a skater/designer living in Williamsburg who’s decided to launch an absolutely stunning magazine devoted to skate photography, using vegetable-based inks on 100 percent post-consumer waste paper. In a genre that too often relies on dudebro sports photography cliches, Ying’s record sleeve-sized 43 Magazine is a gorgeously put-together publication (well, it’s still just a prototype) that deserves an audience as outsized as its format. As of this writing, Ying was nearing a Kickstarter goal that would allow him to print an initial 8,000 copies of 43 Mag and distribute it to skate shops across America. Says Ying of why he started the project: “There’s a huge void for something different, and it’s really about time someone did something about it, especially in the US where skateboarding has grown and changed so much. Skateboarding deserves better, and 43 aims to inspire some changes.” Oh, and the name? A “43” is a frontside no-comply. Which is a skateboarding trick.
8. BOOKS FOR KIDS, WRITTEN BY KIDS
Photo by Civan Ozkanoglu
Bed-Stuy resident Ephraim Benton and his seven-year-old daughter Amber started a publishing company this spring. Daddy Daughter Publishing releases children’s books written by Amber and polished up by her pop—in the future, they hope, they will also nurture other young talents—and sells them in local bookstores and barber shops. “Daddy Daughter Publishing’s mission is to reinforce positive images of fathers from urban communities who support their children’s dreams,” Ephraim told us. “Our company can be a prime example for fathers [who want] to build bonds with their children.”
9. SEAFOOD ON THE GOWANUS COAST
Photo by Joe Hume
Inspired by beach- and roadside seafood shacks in New England and beyond—like Bigelow’s in Rockville Center—Andy Curtin and Aaron Lefkove opened Littleneck near the banks of the Gowanus, where they serve coastal favorites like lobster rolls alongside mainland mainstays like burgers and beer. All of which, the website boasts, are locally sourced. (“Scout’s honor,” the website adds, “we promise not to get any of it out of the nearby Gowanus Canal.”) “We had always tried to duplicate the same type of foods ourselves at backyard BBQs,” Lefkove told us. “And one day we were standing over a grill and really started talking about it seriously… until it got to a point where it stopped being like ‘we should do this’ and started to be like ‘Ok, so it looks like we actually are doing this.’”
10. B.I.Y. (BREW IT YOURSELF)
Photo by Cody Swanson
A defining ethos of the new Brooklyn is do-it-yourself: why buy a jar of pickles when you can grow your own cucumbers, brine your own water, and then pickle them yourself? Same goes for beer—brew-it-yourself is the new “support your local craft brewery.” Brick-and-mortar outposts like Bitter and Esters, which opened soft in July on the Prospect Heights-Crown Heights border, teach the classes and sell the supplies that will enable you to cook up your own Lavatory Lager. Aside from its winemaking class, what sets B&E apart from competitors—like Brooklyn Homebrew in Gowanus—is that they allow customers to brew batches in the store, for those of us with apartments too cramped to run a small fermentation operation (or with roommates who might purloin a parlor-brewed pilsner, like the squirrels that nab our garden tomatoes). “More and more people want to take ownership for their food and drink,” B&E’s Douglas Amport told us. “Making and sharing your home-brewed beer gives you a sense of pride. It gives people the opportunity to share with their friends and say, ‘I made that.’”
11. FALL FOLIAGE, RIGHT HERE AT HOME
Photo by Cody Swanson
A few years ago, we took a walk in Prospect Park on the very day that the leaves had changed color and fallen off the trees. Strolling through the Midwood, we were up to our shins in brilliantly yellow leaves the color of a French’s mustard bottle, which also dangled from the branches overhead. We went back the next day with our friends, excited to share perhaps the most beautiful sight we’d ever beheld, but by then the leaves littering the forest floor had dried to brown. The moral is that you should walk through Prospect Park at least once a day, especially in autumn; nearly every foot of paved road has a corresponding secret, sylvan trail running alongside it, and ‘tis the season when they’re their prettiest. Also check out McGolrick Park in Greenpoint, whose big old trees make it a lovely, leafy oasis. And visit the north edge of Bay Ridge’s Owl’s Head Park, right behind the half-pipes, where you’ll find a wooded trail atop a steep hill where at least a few homeless folks are likely to be camped out.
12. THE LAST DAYS OF SUMMER AT THE BROOKLYN BOATEL
Photo by Sam Polcer
Our Sam Polcer was lucky enough to get a spot at Brooklyn’s only floating hotel, and sent us the following dispatch: “Press is coming,” posted a friend involved with Constance Hockaday’s now-legendary Boggsville Boatel and Boat-In Theater project on her Facebook wall. “Book now.” Two weeks later, on the hottest day of the year, my girlfriend and I came to a bay in the Far Rockaways prepared with candles, whiskey and sausages for a night aboard a once-discarded boat moored at the end of a fishing- and pleasure-boat marina. Darkness fell, and the lights of JFK twinkled in the distance beyond a wrecked, rusted tugboat; housing projects loomed near the water’s edge. Before long, a dozen or so guests gathered on a floating platform to watch a movie, after which we talked, grilled, drank and retreated to our “rooms” and let the water rock us to sleep. The next morning, roused by sunlight and heat, we jumped in the water.
2011 may go down as the summer that Brooklynites discovered the Rockaways en masse, the scent of fish tacos and salty air leading bike brigades in search of beach-town bungalow rentals and surf lessons. The new frontier presented exciting opportunities, some more imaginative—and successful—than others. Hockaday’s improbable vision exceeded expectations, both hers (thanks in part to a New York Times article, after which, sure enough, the Boatel was fully booked for the season) and mine. I hear she’s planning on doing it again next summer. Book now.
13. STEPHANIE SIMEK’S HUMAN-HAIR JEWELRY!?
Photo by Joe Hume
Simek, whose jewelry is carried by local boutiques like Catbird, often uses natural materials in her designs: sugar crystals and pussy willows in her earrings, honey combs and sea shells in her necklaces, sand dollars in her pins, and—human hair?! Arranged to look like eyelashes?! On a sterling silver chain?! “Natural materials are so beautiful and interesting on their own,” she told us. “Then I come along and just try to find ways to emphasize those inherently amazing qualities.” Of course, the use of human hair has a long tradition in fine jewelry-making, but Simek has most certainly made it new.
14. MIKE LUCENA DOES IT ALL AT FLYRITE TATTOO
If you live in Williamsburg south of Metropolitan Avenue, you’d probably recognize tattoo artist extraordinaire Mike Lucena: you know, the big guy with long black hair, black shades, a big beard and an even bigger pit bull? (Hi, Harley!) It can be a struggle (read: impossible) in Brooklyn to come up with an original tattoo, so it’s always a good idea to consider the more traditional approach to tattoo art, so at the very least those Modest Mouse lyrics will look cool. And this is what Lucena and the crew at Flyrite do best, embracing classic elements of the craft, from Japanese-style inking to vintage Americana. But, Lucena told us, “We can do it all. It’s good to work in a variety of styles.”
Check out Brooklyn Mag Editor-in-Chief, Jonny Diamond getting a tattoo from Mike, above.
15. BUY A WHISTLE, SAVE A LIFE
Photo by Abby Ross
In the Congo, boys as young as eight have routinely been used as soldiers by Laurent Nkuda’s rebel army in its brutal war of resources with the Congolese government: those not big enough to hold a weapon are given whistles and pushed to the front to “scare” the enemy and draw fire. Those who try to flee are shot at from behind. Feigning death is the only way to survive. So, what does this awful exploitation of children in the Congo have to do with Brooklyn? Moved to action by what he saw when traveling through the area in 2007, Sean Carrasso decided to do something about it. And so the Falling Whistles campaign began, a fund- and awareness-raising initiative that seeks to bring an end to the use of child soldiers in equatorial Africa, selling wearable silver whistles, the funds from which go directly to groups in the Congo trying to better the situation. When we asked Ouigi Theodore, owner of the wandering fashion block party that is BKCircus, why he thought it was important to carry the whistles, he summed it up pretty well: “People everywhere should be concerned about people anywhere suffering.” (Whistles also available at ID Brooklyn. Visit FallingWhistles.com for more info.)
16. BKLYN, CURATED
Photo by Joe Hume
Brooklyn is as lousy with bloggers and content producers as it is with novelists and picklers. So how can the busy urbanite be expected to navigate it all? Enter Join Bklyn, which, per its website, curates and distributes great content streaming in and out of the borough. “Brooklyn cultivates culture and brings creative people from around the world together,” co-founder Hannah Kreiswirth (above, with co-founder Amber Lee) told us. “We’re here to reflect, support, and showcase that.”
17. THE PRETTIEST CHAIR IN BROOKLYN
Photo by Matthew Septimus
It may just be the most beautiful chair we’ve ever seen (take that, Eero Saarinen). After working as a chef for over 25 years (instructing at no less a spot than the French Culinary Institute), Robert Shapiro finally decided to make the dramatic career switch into that cushiest of occupations, high-end furniture builder. Wait, what? Seriously. Long a woodworking hobbyist, Shapiro founded Balsera Woodworks in Red Hook in 2005, and the world is a better place for it. Shapiro’s designs are rough and elegant, never boring, without being gimmicky. Take the aforementioned chair (about which we are perhaps just a little too excited), a marvelously simple design object that still has a personality, as if a medieval Norwegian church mated with a Samurai battlefield stool. And yes, you can quote us on that.
18. RESURRECTING MONTE
Photo by Cody Swanson
Monte’s Venetian Room, once a favorite hangout of Sammy Davis, Jr. and other Rats, shuttered in 2008 after more than a century in business. The Carroll Street eatery, near the Gowanus Canal—early visitors arrived by boat!—was a Brooklyn icon, and so a couple of local restaurateurs decided to bring it back to life. Married couple Tina Esposito and Dominick Castelvetre secured the old cheesecake recipe, but made some changes to reflect the new Brooklyn, like a beer garden and a brick oven for baking gourmet pizzas. “We want to bring back the atmosphere of the old Monte’s,” Castelvetre told the Post, “and make this the ‘go-to’ place again in Brooklyn.”
19. A LITTLE GREEN FOUNTAIN, A LITTLE GREEN FAIRY
Photo by Joe Hume
We’ve been drinking absinthe for a while now (hello, homemade green fairy of Rubulad!), so though we were happy about the appearance of Maison Premiere on Bedford Avenue—and its hedonistic one-two absinthe/oyster punch—we didn’t freak out quite as much as some of our foodie friends… Until we saw the ONLY ABSINTHE FOUNTAIN IN NEW YORK CITY. This elegant pale-jade thing of beauty is a proximate replica of the one found at classic New Orleans bar the Old Absinthe House, including a small statuette of Napoleon that the owners found online, by the same sculptor whose work appeared on the original. But that was the least of their troubles: apparently it took nearly four months to custom-install extra-long brass taps and run the complex feed that would yield just the right amount of cold water to create that legendarily cloudy-green absinthe perfection. Sure, Maison Premiere has been bringing in the serious crowds of late (even at 5:30 p.m. on a Wednesday) but with the best absinthe stock in the country—and an adorably accoutered, attractive bar staff—it’s still worth squeezing into a spot at the bar.
20. LIVING CHECKBOOK-FREE IN BROOKLYN
Photo by Dan Raynolds
RentShare is a Brooklyn start-up that allows renters to pay their rent and share expenses with roommates online. CEO Ian Halpern founded RentShare in his Clinton Hill apartment as a “social payment platform” designed for the uniquely interdependent and transitory nature of rental real estate in the city. It eliminates, says Halpern, the need for young people to use their checkbooks, already a dying commodity, and allows them to tailor, track, and keep a record of shared expenses and rent for multiple, changing roommates. So if you’re still looking for your checkbook or waiting for that 36 dollars your roommate never paid you for ConEd, get onto RentShare while it’s still free!
