Celebrating Community
It’s not the sexiest subject, but Red Hook’s ongoing reinvention as an e-commerce shipping hub has for me piqued an interest in logistics. For all their expected negative environmental externalities, the forthcoming last-mile distribution centers on Columbia Street, along with the planned UPS complex near Valentino Pier, at least offer a measure of historical continuity in a neighborhood that once […]
You’ve probably watched the annual spectacle on the local TV new stations or maybe have even participated in it yourself, dressing up in costume and walking the mile-long route in Lower Manhattan. New York City’s Village Halloween Parade is just one of those city-specific events that you can only experience here, much like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or the […]
When Hurricane Irene made landfall in New York in 2011, Red Hook experienced storm surge flooding that made residents think about hurricane preparedness more seriously. But Superstorm Sandy forever changed the neighborhood a year later with unparalleled flooding and 12-foot-high storm surges that left locals to literally pick up the pieces and rebuild from scratch. Neighbors relied on one another […]
Imagine, if you can, an episode of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse directed by John Waters. The manic energy of the gray-suited man-child’s retro-kitsch house-slash-living-toybox would still rule – talking furniture and beehived visitors feel very on-brand for the Pope of Trash – but it would arrive with a more lacerating, NSFW edge. Miss Yvone might be closer to Waters Dreamlander Divine than heteronormative […]