The woman behind one of Brooklyn’s hottest new speed dating events isn’t looking for love. “I don’t date. I hate dating,” Loretta Gendville told me over a glass of wine just before a speed dating night at her Smith Street coffeeshop, Planted Community Cafe. “I’m just not good at it. I get nervous. I don’t like small talk.” Plus, Loretta […]

The bathroom at Louis Valentino, Jr. Park and Pier is unexpected, standing at the edge of the small park across from Hoek’s Pizza. The metal facility is about 12 feet long, with an overhang and a water bottle refill fountain on the side. A somewhat elaborate light system indicates whether the toilet is occupied, vacant, out of order, or cleaning. […]

For many years, the Star-Revue has included cartoons in our pages. This past year, we increased the comix by an order of magnitude. Each issue contains two full pages of comix, one curated by England’s Marc Jackson, the other by Brooklyn’s own Dean Haspiel. Each page includes at least six different pro artists. In addition, we are very proud to […]

The longer this paper hangs around, the older this publisher gets. This aging is interesting as it lets me see changes in society firsthand (normally you read about these things in history books). For the past 15 years I have been telling anyone listening my belief that a newspaper you could pick up was an important part of having a […]

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 […]

December 19 was a special day at the Harbor Middle School/PS 676. A holiday hallway was set up leading to the auditorium, with performances followed by fun in the cafeteria. The program was titled Nutcracker 2.0: A Harbor Holiday Experience. The student council president and eighth grade advocate welcomed everyone and introduced each of the three acts of the showcase. […]

Fourth-generation Red Hook resident, Judith Dailey recently had to go to rehab after a problem with her leg. Unfortunately, it was not a good experience for her and she called us to complain about neglect, inadequate meals, and rude treatment from staff members. Dailey has been a prominent member of the Red Hook community her entire life, spending time on […]

Gowanus is a neighborhood in formation, and this is part one in a continuing series that will try and introduce some of the newcomers to our readers. “I’m not originally from New York City, but I lived in Manhattan on the Upper West Side, and then moved here about six months ago,” said Nick, a recent move-in at 335 Bond […]

It was late afternoon on New Year’s Eve and flurries were blowing in from Erie Basin, sweeping through the Food Bazaar parking lot and up Conover Street, pushing me into Sunny’s. Izzy poured me a generous Dewar’s and I hunkered down in the booth by the door to peck out my annual retrospective. Oh what a wretched year. Pancreatic cancer […]

Happy New Year and welcome to 2026 my lovelies. What year 2025 was and I was so grateful to share my musings and adventures with you. The year ended with a fantastic month of music here in Brooklyn, from swing to power pop and everything in between. But like Janus, I look both to how the year ended and with […]

In the front yard of a house on Clinton Street on the Gowanus side of Carroll Gardens is a modest pond with enormous koi—each one easily more than two feet long. A mesh cover protects them, allowing the fish to grow long and fat, free from the prying talons of would-be feasters. The fish—white and orange and so unexpectedly thriving […]

In 2017, three Swedish transplants living in New York started BonBon—a company that imports Swedish candies. The brand became popular fast, thanks to their fun branding (light pink packaging with “BonBon” in blue cursive), a wide selection of craveable candies (Swedish candy typically uses higher-quality ingredients than those found in their American counterparts, often with fewer dyes and artificial flavors), […]

Braving a rainy and cold lower Manhattan, 40-or-so people, primarily members of the maritime industry, gathered on Nov. 19 in a conference hall in the back offices of Manhattan’s Staten Island Ferry Terminal. The occasion: the Blue Highways Freight Ferry Field Day, organized by the NYC Department of Transportation. The reason I was there was that the Brooklyn Marine Terminal […]