The rainbow as seen from Manhattan and Greenpoint Avenues on Sunday night.
This year’s Pride March and in-person celebrations may have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the culmination of Pride weekend was marked by a magnificent rainbow over Brooklyn on Sunday night.
Earlier in the day, the Queer Liberation March from Lower Manhattan to the Stonewall Inn ended with a rally at Washington Square Park and evoked some of the memories of the Stonewall Riots, when police began arresting demonstrators.
Shortly after, an intense storm complete with thunder and lightening soaked the streets of New York City at around 7 p.m. on Sunday before the clouds cleared and a rainbow (from some vantage points a double rainbow) graced the skies. Check out some photos of the rainbow as seen from Greenpoint: Continue reading →
Phase 2 started on Monday with outdoor dining at restaurants. (Photo via Lobster Joint)
Happy weekend Greenpointers!
A special Pride weekend edition of the McCarren Park gatherings will go down with a socially distant dance party hosted by Black Lives Matter Friday at 7 p.m., one month after the nightly gatherings started. A drag queen-led bike ride ahead of the dance party will begin at Maria Hernandez Park at 5:30 p.m. arriving in Greenpoint around 7 p.m..
There’s also public health stats to celebrate today. NY reported the U.S.’s lowest coronavirus infection rate on Friday, following five days of NYC’s Phase 2 reopening. The city achieves Phase 3 status on July 6th when restaurants can return to indoor dining at up to 50% capacity. NYC Parks will also see the return of nets for the reopening of basketball, tennis and handball courts. Masks or face coverings and social distancing are still required to keep transmission of the virus low.
A number of community-led volunteer garbage cleanups will take place this weekend including a Transmitter Park cleanup Saturday at 10 a.m. and a McCarren Park cleanup Sunday at 12 p.m. All volunteers are welcome in helping out and are encouraged to wear face coverings and to bring a garbage bag and gloves (a volunteer cleanup ending at Greenpoint Landing collected 40 bags last weekend).
The kiddos will also have their time in the park this weekend. A Kid’s Peace Movement march is planned with a kickoff rally in McCarren Park Saturday at 11 a.m. Later on Saturday, the 7 p.m. gathering will honor recent graduates complete with “Pomp and Circumstance.”
Have a happy and safe Pride weekend and in the meantime catch up on this week’s headlines from around the neighborhood: Continue reading →
Riley Goodside near McCarren Park (Image via Ben Weiss)
Riley Goodside, 33, woke up early on the brisk morning of March 15th and was “disgusted.”
Just four days earlier, the World Health Organization had formally declared COVID-19 a pandemic, but many people in New York City were milling about maskless in the streets, seemingly unaware that 329 people had tested positive for the coronavirus in the city alone.
“I saw this perfect storm brewing,” he said in an interview with Greenpointers.
While his fiancée was still sleeping, he slinked out of bed and donned his elastomeric respirator, slipped on black nitrile gloves and strapped on clear, indirect-vent goggles. He then trudged over to the northern entrance of McCarren Park, where a number of Sunday brunch-goers were enjoying what would be their last mimosas out for months.
That photo inaugurated Goodside’s rise as the pandemic poster child of the city. His signature getup—part theater, part protection—has graced social media and accompanied articles published across the country, from Miami to Alaska. Goodside’s image traveled internationally, too, appearing in publications based in El Salvador and Tajikistan.
Before his post-apocalyptic garb earned him international recognition, Goodside, a programmer who specializes in machine learning, explained that his accumulation of a wardrobe of personal protective equipment (PPE) began as an experiment. Continue reading →
The adults have gathered every night for nearly a month in McCarren Park calling for police reforms in response to the killing of George Floyd, and now it’s the kids’ turn.
Kid’s Peace Movement will hold a gathering in McCarren Park on Saturday at 11 a.m. “to speak against injustice and racism” before marching from Greenpoint to Williamsburg, according to organizers:
As adults, we fight so many battles, we sometimes forget that kids have battles too. The Kid’s Peace Movement is here to acknowledge children’s need to understand, be heard & recognized as we fight for justice & equality in support of the black community. Highlighting black excellence and the remarkable contributions of our brothers and sisters of color. Through the process of instilling social responsibility and igniting young activism, the youth has an opportunity to amplify their voices by expressing their thoughts & sharing their hearts amidst a revolutionary time.
The gathering, organized by mothers Kristina Cubero and Rachel Vargas, provides an opportunity for kids to “understand, be heard and recognized,” during the global Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice, QNS.com reports. Cubero and Vargas held the first Kid’s Peace Movement march in Ridgewood earlier this month.
Royal Hawaiian Shave Ice is shaving up 14 flavors of sweetness outside of Lobster Joint
Royal Hawaiian Shave Ice is offering a colorful cool-down treat in Greenpoint this summer. Operating out of a window at Lobster Joint (1073 Manhattan Ave.), the Hawaiian shave ice company serves dozens of flavors and specialty creations of the tropical treat.
A project by Lobster Joint founder and local entrepreneur (he also owns Comic Book Station) Tommy Chabrowski, Royal Hawaiian Shave Ice opened last summer at Jacob Riis Park, and became a highly sought after spot. “The response was phenomenal,” Chabrowski said.
Without the option to set up at Riis yet this summer, Chabrowski decided to open the shave ice station inside Lobster Joint as both businesses reopened for phase 2. Ideally, he’ll bring the shave ice back to the beach this summer, and also open at The Rockaways, where Lobster Joint had a stand at the 92nd Street beach. Continue reading →
“Under the K Bridge Park” is scheduled to open in early July. (Photo via Assemblyman Joe Lentol’s office)
The new park underneath the Kosciusko Bridge will be ready in July, Assembly Member Joe Lentol announced on Monday.
Under the K Bridge Park will open in an area of the city known for a major lack of green space and around the same time that New York City is poised enter Phase 3 in the reopening process following last winter’s cornonavirus shutdown.
The nearly seven-acres of space is under the management of North Brooklyn Parks Alliance and is intended to bring public arts programming and recreation along the shore of Newtown Creek, which is a Superfund site with a long history of industrial pollution. Continue reading →
The entrance to Pueblo Querido’s new coffee shop in Williamsburg
Christian Guzman Herrera has built a “Little Colombia” just off the East River in Williamsburg. An offshoot of his four-year-old Pueblo Querido coffee shop and roastery at 195 Greenpoint Ave., Herrera’s second store at 34 North 6th St. has transformed an old daycare center into a full-service Colombian cafe.
The cafe, which opened mid-May, had been leasing the space for nearly a year before the doors opened, but, as they often do in New York, renovations took much longer than expected, and a surprise pandemic didn’t help with importing the espresso equipment he needed from Italy, which had closed by the time he was ready to purchase the tools.
PQ Coffee owner Christian Guzman Herrera prepares his newest coffee shop in Williamsburg.
“I didn’t want to disappoint anyone,” Herrera says of his hesitancy to open the second Pueblo Querido amidst COVID-19 chaos. But the stream of eager customers trickling in and out of the colorful cafe on a weekday morning do not seem disappointed. In fact, many of them are neighborhood regulars.
Pueblo Querido’s new location is covered up to the ceiling in Colombian culture. Industrial ceiling equipment is artfully covered in canvas coffee bean sacks.
A pole which Herrera thought was inconveniently placed the middle of the shop is adorned with colorful textiles, the patterns of which he explains are woven from the artisan’s dreams.
St. Cecilia’s Church (84 Herbert St.) in Greenpoint on Tuesday during the elections.
We’re halfway through this week, which also happens to be an election week with the 2020 New York Democratic primaries.
Tuesday was the official day for in-person voting, and early voting was open through last Sunday thanks to recent election law reforms. Nearly 80,000 absentee ballots were mailed to NYC voters, which have yet to be tallied. Absentee votes will be counted over the course of the next few weeks, but preliminary vote counts show that Assemblyman Joe Lentol leads Emily Gallagher 57% to 42%, while Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney leads second time challenger Suraj Patel by a a thin margin of less than 700 votes.
New York City’s eight public beaches will be open for swimming beginning July 1st, Mayor de Blasio announced on Tuesday. Parks ambassadors will be on hand at city beaches to promote social distancing while distributing masks.
The city’s Open Streets initiative introduced another round of 23 miles of streets to be added to the vehicle-free list including Driggs Avenue from Monitor Street to Meeker Avenue. This brings the current citywide total to 67 miles of open streets, a goal to reach 100 miles was announced in April.
Campaign posters spotted in Greenpoint this week. (Photo via Ben Weiss)
North Brooklyners braved a still-simmering pandemic and the hot humidity on Tuesday to cast their votes in New York’s 2020 democratic primary elections.
While the primary is the appetizer before the entrée of the general election, most of the winners in New York City are effectively guaranteed office as the city’s population overwhelmingly skews Democrat.
Key races remain very much up in the air, such as NY-12’s heated contest between Suraj Patel and the incumbent Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who led her challenger by less than 700 votes as of Wednesday afternoon.
Update #NYPrimary maps for #NY09 & #NY12 below. An astute map reader @NLVWarren noted that some EDs likely had small turnout. The maps below show @BOENYC pollsite results updated as of this morning, & EDs w/fewer than 5 total votes are omitted. Some patterns changed a bit. pic.twitter.com/HQhhMw3kPF
Blue Hill’s produce box is full of seasonal bounty grown in the Hudson Valley
There’s no need to leave the city, or even the neighborhood, to pick up Blue Hill Farm’s sought-after food boxes. To offset potential food waste during the pandemic, the Tarrytown-based farm, agricultural center, and in normal times, highly acclaimed Stone Barns restaurant has been vending farm boxes for pre-order and pickup at its Westchester campus and Manhattan restaurant since the early days of the pandemic.
Now, Blue Hill is expanding its pickup area to include Greenpoint, Carroll Gardens and The Hamptons, as part of its ongoing resourcED food box program.
Greenpoint customers can pay a $10 delivery fee to pre-book a time slot on Sundays via Tock, when the ordered items will be available for pickup at 132 Franklin Street (the former location of a laundromat).
Blue Hill’s Greenpoint menu includes packages of farm-fresh Hudson Valley produce, organic eggs, a salad kit, chicken and turmeric broth, whole wheat bread, dairy products and beverages like wine, cocktails and Blue Hill’s kombucha. Continue reading →
