Hey Neighbors -
Happy Saturday. What a week! From Halloween to Election Day - I’m still trying to catch my breath. Much to discuss.
I read the craziest thing this week that 44% Americans surveyed said “It’s harder to stay informed about your n’hood than another country.” (CIC)
Luckily, you have Ward 6!
Post#59: What I saw working my 4th election; our hometown semi-pro soccer team made the playoffs! Big game today in Red Hook; the house at the center of actor Chris Pine’s lawsuit sells for an eye-popping amount; a look inside a food stylist’s C Hill apartment; my conversation with the projectionist’s son who now helps run Cobble Hill Cinemas; the powerhouse PS29 PTA raises millions: how can we spread the wealth? If you love live music, you will love this BK festival; What are your neighbors reading? Mark Your Calendar! And yes, more on the BQE and BMT!
AND THAT’S A WRAP: A TUESDAY TO REMEMBER
Tuesday was my fourth election as a poll worker.
Me! AM Jo Anne Simon and staffer, Susannah Pasquantonio; best nails of the day; poll workers finishing late-night paperwork; my 4:45 AM commute and tired poll workers waiting to be excused
Random impressions/experiences from my day:
Why Cobble Hill’s Lisette Rioux, mother of two, is a poll worker: “I was born in Cuba. I wouldn’t be able to vote or have a say in what’s going on if I lived there. And while elections don’t always go the way I hope, at least I can’t complain that I didn’t have a voice.”
I saw a dad vote in the morning, then come back twice later in the day with each of his sons. I’ve never seen such a joyful smile as he watched cast his boys cast their ballots.
We have a new tradition where first-time voters get a rousing applause from the poll workers.
A voter told me someone in her apartment building went door to door, reminding neighbors that it was election day. It paid off: residents in her building were among the first and last to vote on Tuesday!
I met Chris Mathias, author of To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right, whose book, he says, will be out in paperback soon.
Even though the ballot proposals all passed, I’m still not convinced this is a good way to govern. I’m all for cutting red tape, but as I said last week, I’m concerned about the unintended consequences of circumventing local input. And as a poll worker, I witnessed first hand a ton of voters asking me if it was OK to skip the proposals because they didn’t understand them and for other reasons.
If you want to take a deeper dive, check out Community Board 6’s election data info. I didn’t write about it since compared to past elections like the last mayoral primary between Cuoma and Mamdani, this one had no surprises in NYC.
FROM THE ROCKAWAYS TO COBBLE HILL
Full disclosure: I was so excited to learn the theater planned to show the movie Boogie Nights that I wrote about it last week before I had the chance to talk to the owners. Between an out-of-town wedding, Halloween, and the election, I finally got a hold of Noah Elgart, who runs the theater along with his father and brother.
Spoiler: I forgot to ask about the ancient animated “welcome to the theater” film shown before every movie!
Tell me about the film series.
The idea started with another theater we own in Mamaroneck, which is more suburban and midweek business wasn’t great. We experimented with a film series where she showed older films and people loved it. We started to be build a fan base, community and a cinematic culture around the theater. This happened because we empowered one of our managers to curate the films.
We decided to start two film series in Cobble Hill, which began last month. Our manager Brandon curates one of them and the other is run by Dominick.
What have you shown so far?
We tapped into the French community and showed La Haine, a classic which is also our manager’s favorite. Apocalypse Now and Silence of the Lambs. There are more in the works.
How did you get into the movie business?
My dad started out as a projectionist and eventually took over the Surfside Theater in Rockaway Beach where we lived. I grew up in the projection room, hearing the film running and getting in the way of the people selling popcorn.
My dad ran Surside for 10 years. When the landlord raised the rent and my dad could no longer break even, he bought the Cobble Hill theater in 1981, which at the time had two apartments upstairs. The feeling in the neighborhood here was incredible. Not always safe, but always a neighborhood feel.
Today, my dad is the programmer, does our scheduling and books the films. I do operations and my brother does audio and video. Our other two siblings are not involved in the business.
Did you always want to be in the movie theater business?
No. After graduating from college, I had no plan. I went into sales and other jobs and I didn’t have my heart in it. It was all for financial gain and I eventually moved on. I came back to got back to the theater; I’ve spent my whole life here.
Where do you live?
I live in Cobble Hill with my wife and kids.
Note: edited for space.
GOAL!
Soccer fan or not, our hometown semi-pro team needs you today, Saturday (11/7), as they compete for the national championships. Come support the Red Hook Football Club in this playoff game on field #5 at 2:00 PM just east of IKEA. A great way to meet your neighbors and celebrate a team founded by a Brooklynite with players from around the globe. Oh, and incredible soccer!! Read more here and here about the team/founder.
HOUSE AT THE CENTER OF CHRIS PINE’S LAWSUIT IS SOLD
Remember a while back actor Chris Pine sued the co-founder of Eckstrom, a fancy Brooklyn real estate developer, after a rental deal for a Cobble Hill townhouse went south? I have no idea if the lawsuit was settled, but I do know the property just sold for an eye-popping $12.2 million–$2 million less than the asking price. Maybe Pine bought it, who knows? Friends have told me they’ve seen him around our corner of Brooklyn.
In 2024, Eckstrom purchased the 4-family building from the Troisi family for $4.7 million and turned it into a single-family, 5-floor house. The Troisi family bought the building in the 70s.
In other real estate news:
A peek inside a food stylist’s Cobble Hill apartment. “Our landlord had to interview us (her and her partner) separately to make sure we were the right type of people who were interested in art and history to look after an old apartment like this.”
Join us at bodycraft on Atlantic Avenue for accessible, invigorating classes and 1:1 private training that makes movement enjoyable and engaging. Movement will never feel like a chore again; you’ll look forward to it.
REMINDER: IF YOU LOVE LIVE MUSIC YOU WILL LOVE THIS FESTIVAL
Today (Saturday) and tomorrow, Brooklyn’s Folk Festival at St. Ann’s Church (157 Montague)! Great music, freedom to roam from stage to stage, dancing and singing- what’s not to love. See last week’s post for suggestions on who to check out. Buy tickets here and support Jalopy Theater and School of Music (315 Columbia St.)
I stopped by around 8:30 PM last night (Friday) with some friends. After doing some Googling about the lineup, which I recommend before you go, we knew we wanted to see the last two bands of the night, Mama’s Broke and The Deslondes. But made sure to arrive a little early to leave time to walk from stage to stage.
Dancing; Mama’s Broke; Lonnie Holley; attendees hanging out; The Deslondes of NOLA
We sampled some experimental folk by the acclaimed painter Lonnie Holley for a few songs (also one of the subjects of an incredible podcast “Unreformed: The Story of the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children” where I learned he was first discovered as an artist while working for tombstone business), and then walked upstairs to listen to a 11-year-old prodigy musician.
POWERHOUSE PS29 PTA RAISES $2M: HOW TO SPREAD THE WEALTH?
If you’ve been following Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones’ incredibly personal story about her family navigating NYC public schools and the aftermath of her New York Times cover story, this new Gothamist/WNYC article, “NYC’s school PTA fundraising gap is growing and mirrors broader racial disparities” from might interest you.
If you’ve lived in this part of Brooklyn for a while, you know Cobble Hill’s PS29 tops the fundraising list year after year. Reporter Joe Hong looks at the racial disparity between schools like PS29, which raised about $2 million, and schools that raise as little as $1000.
Hong is not blaming the PTAs like at PS29 or the parents, but instead looks at the impact and potential remedies because, as he points out, this money that pays for support staff, after-school programs, field trips, “...above and beyond any public resources actually do boost achievement in reading and math,” said Brittany Murray, an education professor at Davidson College who researches PTAs.
“The average white student in the 2024/'25 school year benefited from about $200, $250 in PTA fundraising. The average Black student benefited from just $50 in PTA money.”
“PS 29 in Cobble Hill raised about $2 million and had only six Black students. PS 399 in Flatbush and PS 43 in Mott Haven, predominantly Black and Latino schools, each raised under $1,000.”
More education news:
(City/State) “Enrollment in New York City public schools has taken a nosedive, dropping by nearly 22,000 students last year alone – in the steepest drop since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report released by city Comptroller Mark Levine, the Post reports.”
In 2024, two of my close Brooklyn neighbors/friends invited to the premiere of Left Behind, a documentary about a group of moms who started the city’s (and country’s) first public school for kids with dyslexia in the Bronx. Both of my friends spent years in the trenches navigating NYC schools for their own children with learning differences.
When Left Behind first came out, the moms featured in the documentary were planning to open a second school,, and today, they have three in a network called Literacy Academy Collective.
If you have some extra cash to spend and want to help celebrate, LAC is having their 5th anniversary party on Nov. 18th. For a small donation, you can rent the film here.
BQE MEET THE BMT
This past week, the city held community meetings on both of the proposed behemoth and controversial infrastructure projects, the BQE Triple Cantilever repairs and the Brooklyn Marine Terminal redevelopment “vision” that Mayor Mamdani inherited from former Mayor Eric Adams.
If these two proposed projects manage to move forward, they are scheduled to happen simutaneously, which we all know is impossible. The Mayor has a lot to navigate here, but perhaps prioritizing is the best way forward.
Since NYC has no choice but to repair (or as some are proposing: tear it down) the BQE or risk a collapse, Mamdani should start here. At the same time, he should also prioritize modernizing the Red Hook port at the southern end of the BMT, which is also critical NYC infrastructure in need of extensive repairs.
You’ve probably heard the term “Blue Highway” here and elsewhere. I love the idea of our waterfront as one of the city’s hubs for moving fruits and vegetable and other essential items along the East and Hudson Rivers instead of relying on pollution-spewing trucks.
Did you know a certain percentage of freight that arrives in Brooklyn by container ships travels by barge to NJ’s port, only to get sorted and put on trucks back to Brookyn and other boroughs?!
Amazon addicts and online shoppers should all get behind the Blue Highway idea!
There are so many potential green economy opportunities for our waterfront. I’m inspired by what South BK (Sunset Park) has fought for in their community: NYC’s first cooperatively owned, community-led solar park and a staging and assembly site for Empire Wind 1 turbine components.
More resources:
BK Eagle: BQE Bypass Plan Draws Brooklyn Backlash
I have not seen this documentary, but it’s been making the rounds now that the mayor has announced his BQE proposal. Watch here.
You can also watch this recording from the Department of Transportation's public meeting last week.
Come meet your neighbors, tomorrow, Sunday and get involved in a new grassroots campaign to re-envision the Brooklyn waterfront (see Mark your calendar)!
And if you really want to take a infrastructure deep-dive, join hundreds of New Yorkers in a Robert Moses “Power Broker” marathon reading!
WHAT ARE YOUR NEIGHBORS READING?
Liz’s Book Bar, Smith St.
IN OTHER BROOKLYN NEWS
“How two designers created an “it” bad and their label, SC103 (NYT).” SC103 was located in the Red Hook warehouse that was destroyed last year by a massive fire.
Concerned about the character of our neighborhoods slowly disappearing? Read this fascinating article about how algorithms are used to create culturally generic shopping streets.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR!
Today until Jan. 3rd: Check out Red Hook artist Bettina Magi’s extraordinary paintings at Sunny’s Bar. Beer, banjos and Bettina!
Sunday, Nov. 8th, 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm The Banjo Toss in collaboration with the Gowanus Dredgers! “...an irreverent nod to the tradition of incorporating competitions into folk festivals.” Instead of a fiddling competition, try chucking a banjo across the Gowanus Canal!
“The special banjo attached to a rope is tossed into the canal, a federally designated Super Fund site. The marked rope pays out, showing how far the banjo traveled. We then haul it back in for the next throw.”
Sunday, Nov. 8th (Tues/Sat-14th) | Reuse: The Big Pumpkin Smash! Compost your pumpkin. Various locations.
Sunday, Nov. 8th 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM | Join me and Carroll Garden’s resident Sam Cullman for a fun and informative community meeting about re-envisioning the Brooklyn Marine Terminal.
Building off the hard work of community groups in Red Hook and the Columbia Street Waterfront, we are organizing residents and businesses to pressure the Mamdani administration to reset and pivot from this deeply flawed plan that he inherited from former Mayor Eric Adams. Join your neighbors to get updates and learn about ways you can take action during this critical next phase.
Can't attend? Join the mailing list and receive updates for upcoming calls to action. Carroll Gardens Association, 201 Columbia Street. Click here to RSVP.
Sunday, Nov. 8th 2:00 PM | “Buried History: a cemetery scavenger hunt for the morbid curious and the off beat obsessed.” Straight from Reddit so I can’t vouch for it! Sorry. It just sounded so cool. Green-Wood Cemetery main gates, 500 25th St, Brooklyn |$25 launch price (covers printing and the cost of running tours at Green-Wood) RSVP: https://partiful.com/e/op1Sgqve8sIQDAJRsdjB?c=PUd_kNx5
Monday, Nov. 9th, 12:00 PM (lunch fun!): BMT Advisory Task Force meeting #9: Blue Highways and Workforce discussion. Members of the public may observe the meeting using this link. The meeting presentation is here.
“At the last several meetings, ATF members have made repeated requests to the EDC and its consultants for changes in engagement format and progress on open questions and important but under-developed parts of the project. So far, EDC has not addressed these requests (Columbia St. Waterfront Association).”
Ongoing through mid-November: “New this fall, enjoy free volleyball clinics, presented in partnership with Big City Volleyball. Youth clinics, for ages 12-16, are offered on Wednesday & Thursday afternoons, and Saturday mornings through late November. Learn more!
