Last month’s column, commemorating the 25th anniversary of one very bad day in September, was about sad fear. This month’s column, evoking lighter memories of little ghosts and goblins bouncing through the streets swinging bags full of candy, is all about fun fear. In honor of Halloween I decided to ask people if they love scary movies, and I was […]

In the half-century since the Vietnam War, the Weathermen have acquired the reputation as the violent and unhinged offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the tamer, collegiate anti-war organization that was founded in the early 1960s. Recently, while contemplating the upcoming 25th anniversary of 9/11, I got a sudden urge to watch the definitive documentary about the […]

This is New York City, but today nobody’s rushing. People are lollygagging down the streets while the 95-degree heat penetrates their bones. So it’s not too hard to get them to stop and talk to me about their relationships with their phones—the very phones that most of them are staring into before our conversations begin.   Christopher Loyd: I’m trying to […]

Stay in the neighborhood. Red Hook & Gowanus Subscribe to get news from the Star-Revue throughout the month. No spam · Unsubscribe anytime · Privacy policy People who know their history will tell you that April 20 is the birthday of a very bad man, who I will only describe as the Number One Nazi. But coincidentally, back in the […]

For this month I decided to pay a visit to Red Hook West and ask what improvements they wanted to see inside and outside their homes in 2026. Not many of my interviewees knew about PACT program, which is likely to convert their public housing complex into a weird hybrid Section 8 development partially run by private companies (see story […]

The day after the televised debate with New York City mayoral hopefuls Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo Curtis Sliwa, (this of course was before Mamdani’s victory), it seemed logical to ask people for their thoughts about the candidates. Strangely, it was like pulling teeth, getting people to talk about these guys. “This is a very contentious race and I don’t want […]

I’m standing on Columbia Street with my hundred-yard stare that overtakes me when I’m scanning the area for my first interviewee. A woman calls out to me – “Are you okay? You look like you might be lost.” I tell her I’m not lost, I’m a writer for the Red Hook Star Revue and I’m just looking for someone to […]

I walked all over Red Hook on a warm, windy day, and asked: What pisses you off? Amy Dench: Inequality. Anything from racial to economic inequality makes me angry. There’s so much downward pressure on people who don’t have as much as others. There’s a lot of discrimination (concerning) issues that really affect their lives on a day-to-day basis. And […]

Dave Lutz and Imre (pronounced Eem-reh) Kovacs are two old friends – senior citizen old – who run around Red Hook like a couple of teenagers. After more than a half century of New York City life, people get tired. Not Dave and Imre. Both of them have been advocates for community gardening in public and private spaces all over […]