Hey Neighbors!
Happy Saturday and happy Spring Break. If you are someplace cool or on a staycation, enjoy!
It’s hard to believe I started Ward 6 more than six months ago. Thank you, readers. Launching a hyperlocal community newsletter is the last thing I could have imagined after my career at 60 Minutes. But I love it and hope you do, too.
I’m sure you have opinions, though. So please, please email me ([email protected]) with story ideas or feedback. And remember, if you can afford $6 a month. or you want to sponsor a post or two, email me.
A lot of my work covering local meetings happens after 6:00 PM. For a lot of people I know, they’d rather do anything else than go to one of these meeting. For some reason, though, I find them fascinating. Also bewildering, infuriating (the lack of communication about the Court St. redesign), and a lot of the time, refreshing.
Take, for example, something I heard at one of these after hour meeting soon after an elementary school girl was hit by a car on Columbia and President St. A handful of people, both young and old, immediately began to strategize a way to get the Department of Transportation to implement safety measures along that stretch of Columbia St., which has more residents than ever and a dangerous amount of traffic.
Columbia St. Waterfront resident Robbie Block said something that resonated with me, especially today with the world as it is.
“Winning a crosswalk or a stop sign may not seem like a big deal at first, but it can help people realize things can be different, and that change is possible. Small wins can inspire people to pursue more and bigger change, and can help fundamentally change your idea of what is possible to get done when you dig in and get involved.”
Post #28: Local victories, nosey neighbor solves a mystery, chocolate lovers rejoice, the congressional race is on, meet Cobble Hill’s oyster sommelier, BMT public comment period extended, Hunger Games’ director sells his brownstown, romance book meet-up and mark your calendar
LOCAL VICTORY ON CONGRESS ST.
Thank you Robbie Block for a perfect segue to the new stop sign on Hicks and Congress St., which miraculously was installed in less than a month after resident Michael Verrilli lobbied the Department of Transportation for a safer intersection. Well done!
NOSEY NEIGHBOR
I always wondered about this Degraw St. building. Then last night, a random (as if random exists anymore) post appeared on @war6_brooklyn from a local architect, Elizabeth Roberts, who Dezeen just featured an article of her work for Arts and Sciences. So what is Arts & Sciences? A production company with a beautiful new office space in Cobble Hill.
Elizabeth Roberts Architecture is also behind the enormous house on Degraw and Clinton St.
Sponsored post from BK company, Five Acre Farms
CHOCOLATE LOVERS REJOICE!
I’m a huge chocolate fan (see below for my chocolate artwork), so naturally I’m thrilled to hear that Li-Lac Chocolates now has a store inside Sahadi’s on Atlantic Ave. Thank you @atlanticavebk for the heads-up.
Pandemic project
THE RACE IS ON: BRAD LANDER v. DAN GOLDMAN
The race between our former council person, Brad Lander, the City’s former Comptroller, and our Congressional representative, Dan Goldman, is in full swing.
As seen in another shiny (expensive?) mailer that arrived this week, Goldman is positioning himself as the candidate to take on ICE. “Congressman Dan Goldman has won the release of 27 immigrants illegally detained by ICE: Until ICE is abolished, the work will not stop.”
No fancy mailers yet from the Lander camp.
However, earlier this week Lander submitted his public comments on the controversial BMT development plan and took a much different position than Goldman. Lander questioned whether the Brooklyn Marine Terminal site is the best place to prioritize housing over a modern port.
Is this good governance or a political move to secure South BK voters opposed to the BMT plan? Remember, Goldman was chair of the BMT task force that after many attempts to pass the City’s “vision plan,” finally succeeded.
I’ll never forget when Goldman stood in front of a crowd at a Cobble Hill Association and said a “yes” vote would prove Democrats could get big projects done. It felt more like a campaign speech than a person who understood the concerns of his constituents sitting in front of him.
Even though Lander posted on X last year that the City should not rush to develop the 122 acres of waterfront property, I didn’t expect Lander’s position on the BMT. After all, Lander spearheaded the Gowanus rezoning, which added more than 100 buildings to the former industrial area. He referenced this is his public comments, “I am strongly inclined to support new development, in my own neighborhood and around the city, in order to address our urgent housing crisis.
“But that does not mean, of course, that every site is appropriate for housing. We also need the infrastructure… In particular, waterfront infrastructure for moving goods across our increasingly interdependent economy, at a time when it is critical to reduce congestion and move fewer goods by truck, should not be converted lightly. New York City owes its economic strength, growth, and diversity to its role as a port city, and we should imagine ways to creatively preserve the value of our ports.”
DEADLINE TO SUBMIT PUBLIC COMMENTS EXTENDED
On Tuesday, almost at the last hour, the deadline to submit comments about possible impacts of the BMT was extended until May 8th. Impacts such as transportation, traffic, infrastructure, density, etc, which should be studied before the BMT proposed plan moves forward.
Check out the The Col. St. Waterfront Association or The Cobble Hill Association. As our Assemly Member Jo Anne Simone reminded us: your public comments DO NOT hate to be formal. The people overseeing this proposed developement DO NOT live in our communities and have no idea about which corner, for example, are congested and dangerous, or how schools are overcrowded and on and on.
PS - Rep. Goldman never mentions the BMT in his weekly newsletter. The Gowanus clean-up, yes, but not the BMT.
MEET COBBLE HILL’S OYSTER SOMMELIER
With outdoor dining upon us and a delicious cocktail with a dozen oysters on my mind, it seems like a perfect time to introduce you to Cobble Hill’s Julie Qui, AKA the oyster goddess/oyster nerd. We met briefly last year and I’ve been waiting to interview her ever since.
Qui co-founded the Oyster Master Guild, which instills an appreciation for oysters and offers classes at various levels, including certification that Qui compares to a wine sommelier.
A day after we spoke, I got a brief scare from Sean, a loyal Ward 6 reader from VA, who sent me a New York Post about the impact of this winter’s deep freeze on our local oyster industry.
While it could mean a huge loss for oyster farms, it’s still unclear how it will trickle down to oyster lovers. An oyster buyer for a handful of NYC’s restaurants told me he’s seen a “slight uptick in pricing but nothing major yet,” and in an email from Henry Public, where I often eat oysters, “our cost for oysters has not drastically changed yet; if it does we will have to adjust, but so far so good.”
OK, crisis adverted.
I briefly met Qui last year after I spontaneously signed up for a surprisingly inexpensive oyster tasting that Carroll Gardens’ Andrew Strong of The Strong Buzz newsletter organized. No longer working at 60 Minutes and consumed by my stories, I started saying yes to events I would otherwise not have time for.
Julie Qui and Lars Viola, director of oysters at Crew, the hospitality group that owns The Yacht Club restaurant (and just bought Montero’s on Atlantic Ave), were our hosts for the night on the stunning rooftop. So stunning that the tasting was interrupted by this magnificent sunset, which everyone rushed to photograph before the radiant colors disappeared.
L: Julie and Lars teaching; again enjoying the sunset at The Yacht Club, the tasting group taking a brief break
We learned about different species and flavors, how to eat them (slowly and with the brine), and how the taste varies by region, among many other fascinating details. (This interview was slightly edited)
A: You started your career in advertising, at one time working with the car company Jaguar. When did oysters enter your life?
Q: My family is originally from Shanghai, where the cuisine centers around seafood. I remember visiting an uncle in San Diego who was treating my family to lunch, so I ordered raw oysters, and it stuck with me that some tasted different from others.
Q: At what point did you start thinking about making a career out of your love of oysters?
A: My boyfriend, now husband, and I moved to New York City, and I started blogging about food. I joined an oyster meet-up, where we would go to oyster bars around the city. I kept asking a lot of questions, and then I went to my first oyster farm in Martha’s Vineyard, where I had my lightbulb moment while seeing how oysters grow to market size.
Q: What about oysters did you find fascinating?
A: The lifecycle and learning about all of the energy and labor that goes into producing oysters. I also had the experience of visiting restaurants on a trip to the West Coast that farmed oysters. It’s what the oyster experience should be like - it’s like flying in first class for the first time. I thought, why can’t we have this in NYC? So I started creating my own oyster experiences, like tasting pop-ups.
Q: At the Yacht Club event where I met you, we got to try an oyster from “the wild,” which is not what we eat in restaurants. Is this similar to farm-raised fish?
A: Not really. Oysters filter the same plankton and water as the farm-raised. They might have differences in shape and meat condition, but that’s it.
Q: What determines the taste of an oyster?
A: Different oyster species, for one. Oysters express the environment they come from, including which microalgae and phytoplankton are present. This determines factors such as the amounts of protein and carbohydrates in an oyster.
Q: I was surprised to learn that oysters have their own type of hibernation when the water temperature drops.
A: They have dormancy periods when it doesn’t make sense for the oysters to expend energy eating. In some parts of Canada, oysters are dormant for half the year.
Q: You eventually quit your job and went all-in on creating a business around oysters. What happened?
A: I met Patrick McMurray at the World Oyster Shucking Championship in Galway, Ireland (I’ve put this on my to-do list), who had owned some oyster bars in Canada and was a competitive shucker. Much like chocolate and coffee, we both agreed the oyster industry needed something between oyster farmers and oyster eaters to elevate the oyster experience.
Together, we developed the idea of starting a certification program, the Oyster Master Guild, to educate both oyster consumers and people in the business. When we first opened enrollment, we wanted 30 people, and we got over 100.
Instagram: @inahalfshellist Website: In a Half Shell
And look for Qui’s first book in the near future, an illustrated guidebook on why oysters taste the way they do.
She also recommends: The Geography of Oysters, by Rowan Jacobsen.
WHO KNEW HUNGER GAMES’ DIRECTOR LIVED IN COBBLE HILL
Well, not for long, according to the Robb Report, which the Court St. Journal posted about this week. For $10.6 million, you can own Gary Ross’ Clinton St. brownstone right off Atlantic Ave., which he bought five years ago for half the price.
NEW ROMANCE BOOK MEET-UP
Nashville-to-Brooklyn transplant Erika Nesto announced a new romance book meet-up called Gilded Rose in Carroll Gardens, following the success of similar groups she started back home. Given book-ban efforts throughout the country, Nesto said she thinks of book groups as mini-protests and as a way to share and listen to opinions that might differ from your own. She also wants to meet new people who share her love for books. Some of her choices: The Royal Game, The Awakening, Giovanni’s Room, and A Month in the Country. Email: [email protected] (location: most likely Liz’s Bar and Books)
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Sat, Apr 4 at 6: pm | Bringing The Shãm (شام) to BAM - Syrian-American rapper Omar Offendum (Littel Syria) returns to BAM showcasing SWANA artists. Listen on Spotify and buy your ticket ASAP!
Today! Brooklyn Museum First Saturdays: Freedom is an Everyday Struggle. Free
Tuesday, April 7, 7:00 PM: Local author and Books are Magic owner, Emma Straub, reads from her new book, American Fantasy, with Lin-Manuel Miranda. Get Tickets | Watch Live
Saturday, April 11, compost available at Red HOok Farm from 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Saturday, April 11, Red Hook FC's first home game at the Red Hook ball fields, 4:00 PM
April 15 Tax Day AND Bar Ferdinando’s opens!
April 17th - 19th Brooklyn Yarm Crawl, visit all five shops and win prizes! Brooklynyarncrawl.com or @brooklynyarncrawl for more information.
Canoe Camp for adults on the Gowanus Canal! Sign up now for two weekends this summer: May 30-31 and June 6th and 7th from 10 AM to 2:00 PM. $$
Thank you for reading! More next week - JLH