Real Journalism written by people
The seventh annual Barnacle Parade took over the streets of Red Hook on the evening of October 29. This year, the homemade neighborhood extravaganza took on the theme “Hook-Lantis, ”reimagining Red Hook as a fully underwater city, where public submarines–with humans and sea creatures alike as co-passengers–stand in for MTA buses. As usual, the event drew a wide range of […]
On October 5th, Prospect Heights resident Jabari Brisport launched a campaign for State Senate in District 25, which stretches from Bedford-Stuyvesant to Sunset Park and includes Red Hook. A math teacher at Medgar Evers College Preparatory School, Brisport ran for City Council on the Green Party line in 2017, earning 29 percent of the vote, but will now vie for the Democratic Party’s nomination. Brisport’s anticapitalist platform advocates […]
Summit Academy founder Natasha Campbell is frustrated by low community turnout at the many local events that are intended to be a service to the neighborhood. She invited Red Hook residents to the school meeting to talk about working together. “When you have a million people working on the same project for different organizations, there is little collaboration and what […]
A controversial plan to revise the admissions formula at neighborhood public schools may take longer than expected. Over the last six months, District 15 community members’ representatives from the Department of Education and the Department of Planning have been discussing a potential rezoning for the seven local elementary schools: PS 15, PS 29, PS 32, PS 38, PS 58, PS […]
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 […]
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 […]
Red Hook now has a whale-themed mural at the intersection of Nelson and Columbia streets. The mural is aimed at improving the intersection while further boosting the awareness of local students about their community. The artist who created mural was Annabelle Popa. She has painted several murals around the city and outside of the city. A ribbon-cutting was held by […]
Inspired by the Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, students around the world left school on September 20 to protest for dramatic political action to address the climate crisis – including elementary school kids from all the Red Hook schools and the Brooklyn New School. The PS 676 fourth and fifth grades attended a local rally at Coffey Park, and there […]
Community Board 6’s transportation and public safety committee agreed, on September 19, to table a proposal that involves constructing an additional entrance at the R train’s Union Street stop – that is, until more information regarding the potential Gowanus rezoning is released. Real estate development firm Avery Hall is in the process of buying the Speedway gas station at 4th […]
Summit Academy got good news from the New York State Board of Regents in May. Earlier in the spring, the future of Red Hook’s Summit Academy Charter School (grades six through 12) was unknown, but a new partnership with the Center for Education Innovation (CEI), a self-described “non-profit education organization and recognized leader in advancing meaningful reforms in public education,” […]
The Parks Department came to Red Hook in August for a community update regarding the long-closed Red Hook ballfields. Brooklyn Parks Commissioner Marty Maher led the sparsely attended proceedings, held at the Rec Center on Bay Street. “The good news is that none of the time frames are affected,” Maher said. “We started construction; the completion times are the same. […]
In June, the Gowanus Landmarking Coalition, an advocacy group for historic preservation, earned a significant victory – albeit an incomplete one – when the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) agreed to calendar five buildings in Gowanus. This decision increased the likelihood that, in the form of longstanding anchors like the American Can Factory and the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Powerhouse, some of […]
