Promoting sustainable living in our Brooklyn neighborhood and beyond.
Last night I attended a lecture at the Museum of Natural History by 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Green Belt Movement, Wangari Maathai. What an inspiration! For those not familiar with her organization, The Green Belt Movement provides income and sustenance […]
Park(ing) Day 2007 in New York was a big success, with more than 20 temporary park installations throughout the city! Streetfilms has a great piece that shows most of the locations; if I hadn’t been hanging out in the grass at Cortelyou Rd. Park my […]
Yesterday was Park(ing) Day, and Sustainable Flatbush celebrated by creating Cortelyou Road Park!
This neighborhood is full of greenery — majestic old-growth trees and beautiful landscaping — but it’s all private property. We are seriously lacking in community gardens, all-age recreational facilities, and public parks closer than the Parade Ground and Prospect Park (more than a mile away for many of us). The Tot Lot on Argyle Road is popular with kids and parents (as one parent mentioned to me yesterday, it’s so full that “the kids are on top of each other”), but there are very few options for older kids or unaccompanied grown-ups. So Park(ing) Day — an international event, co-sponsored in NYC by Transportation Alternatives, The Open Planning Project, and the Trust for Public Land — seemed the perfect opportunity to create a public park for everyone.
We built it, and they came: a public space with real grass, trees, art supplies, games, wi-fi, and live music!
photos by Keka
More photos (and video) to come!
THis FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 21st is PARK(ing) DAY! Sustainable Flatbush is bringing Park(ing) Day to Cortelyou Road, between Argyle and Rugby (that’s Brooklyn, baby)! Our park will have grass, plants, seating, and games! Hours will be approximately 10am – 6pm. =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ “PARK(ing) Day is a one-day, […]
We interrupt the “What-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation” essay to give a brief report on this week’s activities back in Brooklyn… The 30th Annual Flatbush Frolic street fair took place last Sunday on Cortelyou Road. Sustainable Flatbush was out promoting recycling and biking, and I acquired my new favorite […]
More photos from Portland here:
• Views from bridges and mountains
• Bicycle-loving graffiti and architecture
• Stormwater management strategies
• Gorgeous produce at the Farmers’ Market
• Did I mention the bikes?
Next up, a report and photos from the Sustainable Energy in Motion Bike Tour…
While in Portland, I was eager to check out some of the projects spearheaded by a local organization called City Repair (“an organized group action that educates and inspires communities and individuals to creatively transform the places where they live”). One of their traffic calming […]
Having heard (and seen) amazing things about the city of Portland (OR)’s alternative transportation infrastructure from Clarence Eckerson of Streetfilms, I planned my itinerary to spend a little time there prior to the bicycle trip. Portland’s reputation is well-deserved: light rail and buses both allow […]
For those who haven’t guessed (or, perhaps, even thought about it), I was out of town for most of August on a series of adventures. Not the least of these involved getting to work on the day I left, which happened to begin with Brooklyn’s first tornado of record (see Brooklyn Eagle article here).
Being awakened by thunder and rain several hours earlier did not prepare me for the chaos created by this storm. I had heard that the morning commute might be difficult, but upon arriving at the Newkirk Plaza subway station I learned that there was no service whatsoever on the B or Q lines, and many others in Brooklyn as well.
photo by Flatbush Gardener
The reason in our case was fallen trees on the tracks, a problem that would not be solved any time soon. After discussing options with my fellow thwarted travelers — should we take the bus to a different subway line? (No guarantees it’s working either.) A car service to Manhattan? (None available.) Skip work and go out for breakfast instead? Followed by the beach? (Not an option for me, though well-utilized by others!) — I determined that the only truly reliable method of getting to lower Manhattan would be by bicycle. Given the weather (already hot and humid at 10am) and the need to lug a significant amount of equipment to my meeting, this was not appealing and I dragged my feet for some time before succumbing to logic. In the end my travel time was less than an hour (I am NOT a fast rider) and provided an opportunity to survey the damage to my neighborhood along the way. This turned out to be quite shocking: along my route alone there were at least a dozen trees down, several cars destroyed, and streets blocked with debris (Flatbush Gardener has more photos and analysis of the damage). But bicycle turned out to be by far the best mode of travel that day, and even gave me a small workout in preparation for one portion of my upcoming travels: a sustainability-themed bike ride/camping trip in Oregon…
(to be continued!)
