Celebrating Community
By Lorraine Duffy Merkl “A cocktail of excess” is the lyrical way Mandy Stadtmiller describes her train wreck existence in the new memoir, Unwifeable (Simon & Schuster.) The prosaic term is: a compound of explosives. The comedian and journalist, whose writing has appeared most famously in the New York Post, New York Magazine and xojane, is currently (and ironically) a […]
Even if you have zero interest in writing, you’ve probably seen a cab-yellow newsstand of catalogs for Gotham Writers Workshop, or the lime green advertisements for Sackett Street Writers Workshop. Since 2002, Sackett Street has worked with over 3,500 writers, and Gotham Writers (founded in 1993) currently averages 2,800 New Yorkers a year with their in-person classes. But trumping […]
Spring at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden An essay by Ramaa Reddy Raghavan It is Spring, but where is the sun? As I write this piece in mid-April, the temperature outside is a frigid 47 degrees and everyone around me is fed-up with this downright, depressing weather. After the long winter, filled with nor’easters, rain and snow, I find that I am ready for a change. So, with a spring […]
The queen of literary memoir releases an exquisite collection of poems on May 8. Best known for the memoirs “Lit” and “The Liars Club,” Karr displays her formal mastery and heartfelt innovations in this collection that looks at the commingling of ribald humanity and the potentialities of God. The first half collects poems on Karr’s usual themes—Texas memories, comic carnage, […]
The long windows pull you in from far away to the petite space about the size of a food cart. Red Hook’s only bookstore is small but mighty; with impeccable curation worthy of its name, it’s the sort of place where smart books can easily find you. It’s also a space where you’ll frequently find people mingling with authors of […]
A version of this story first appeared in the Star-Revue’s August 2017 print edition. A burnt out bulb. A busted car. A broken knee. Future biographers might note a theme laced through Vander Carter’s culinary career: things keep breaking. But Carter — a Carroll Gardens entrepreneur behind the food startup JestGreen — only sees crisis as a chance for growth. […]
This obituary was originally published in the July 2017 print edition. After almost a century of living in Red Hook, Rose Valenti (née Yodice) passed away on June 5, 2017 at the age of 98. Rose was born on February 1, 1919 at 343 Van Brunt St. Rose was one of seven children with three sisters (Millie, Anne, and Fannie) […]
Buffalo, New York and New York City (specifically 31st Street between 7th and 8th Avenue) are separated by more than 350 miles. Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets, is about ten miles from 31st Street between 7th and 8th Avenue, and Buffalo is still over 350 miles away. Let’s take a quiz: if a sports team […]
Brooklyn Cruise Terminal – July 5, 2017 1,000 free fan zone passes for the Formula E electric motor race this month will be distributed to Red Hook residents, Formula E and NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) representatives announced today. The Allianz eVillage fan zone will allow fans to have a close-up view of the course and of the cars that […]
On June 1, aboard the NYC Ferry’s early-morning maiden voyage on the South Brooklyn route, Jim Tampakis felt inspired. “Look at the water,” he instructed a friend. “No traffic. There’s no boat traffic at all.” It being 7 a.m. rush hour, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway was likely bumper-to-bumper. The subway a series of overstuffed cars upset by delays. But here on […]