sustainableflatbush.org

photo by Cycleiciousness

photo by Feuillu

For those of us who conduct many of our activities (shopping, errands, visiting friends, etc.) by bicycle, sharing the road safely with motor vehicles is a daily concern. Thanks to Bed Stuy Blog for putting this neighborhood interest topic on the radar:

Cycling is great for your health (or, it is when you’re not mowed down by an SUV or when someone takes the time to look before opening their car door) and it’s good for the environment, so why aren’t Brooklyn neighborhoods (beyond Williamsburg) more bicycle friendly? I’ve come close to getting hit so many times in Bed-Stuy, simply because drivers are not paying attention to driving or they just don’t expect someone to be actually using the bike lane. Sometimes it can be very frustrating.

Willoughby Ave Bike Lane sign (photo by BedStuyBlog)

Like she said…

The comments following this post turned into an exchange of ideas on how to improve the situation and a proposal for a neighborhood bike ride. It’s a local blogger’s dream to see this kind of response turn into positive action. Go Bed Stuy Blog, and I’ll see you on that ride in ‘08!

Are you expecting a new iPod or DVD player or computer from Santa? Don’t throw the old one in the garbage — save it for Sustainable Flatbush’s Post-Holiday E-Waste Recycling event! If the stars align correctly, we will make some local pickups with a cargo bike!

Sustainable Flatbush Cortelyou Road E-Waste Recycling Event, Summer 2007

WHEN:
Saturday January 5th and Sunday January 6th, from 1 until 5pm

WHY:
Discarded computers and electronics are toxic hazardous waste! Keep your unwanted electronics out of the landfill by bringing them to this neighborhood e-waste recycling event.

WHERE:
462 Marlborough Road, Flatbush, Brooklyn (map here)

WHAT:
We will accept working and non-working:
• Computers (laptop & desktop) and Monitors
• Servers, mainframes
• Printers, scanners, fax-machines, copiers
• Network devices (routers, hubs, modems, etc.)
• Peripherals (keyboards, mice, cables, etc.)
• Components (hard drives, CD Roms, circuit boards, power supplies, etc,)
• TVs,VCR & DVD Players
• Audio visual devices
• Radios/Stereos
• Cell Phones, pagers
• PDAs,Telecommunication (phones, answering machines, etc.)
• Media (floppies, cd’s, zips, VHS tapes)**

• please note: we cannot accept small household appliances
such as microwaves and toasters
**Gets sent to www.greendisk.com - if you have a lot of media please go to the website, pay a small fee, download an address label and send it directly to them.

All materials collected will be recycled via Lower East Side Ecology Center’s partnership with BuildItGreen. Additional information about e-waste recycling is available here.

This event is co-sponsored by Lower East Side Ecology Center and Flatbush Development Corporation.

Marlborough and Newkirk, artist’s storefront

Okay, you know you’re a Bad Blogger when other blogs write about your projects before YOU do. A few weeks ago I set up an online group called Flatbush Arts, and promptly notified a few local blogs. Brooklyn Junction jumped on this piece of local news and posted about it the next day (he’s a Good Blogger!); I, on the other hand, am finally doing so now.

Initially I was unsure of whether this blog was an appropriate place for me to promote a completely separate endeavor; however, I am now over this. After all, life without art is arguably not sustainable, or perhaps not worth sustaining! It is also clear to anyone who lives or spends time in Flatbush that there are MANY creative people here with no place to meet and work together in the neighborhood; in this respect the goals of Flatbush Arts are very similar to those of Sustainable Flatbush: doing good stuff right here where we live.

So, though this is old news by blogging standards, I am writing to let you know about the Flatbush Arts online community. The purpose is to create a place to develop and nurture an ongoing locally-based arts scene. As for what is meant by local, since the boundaries of Flatbush seem to be a difficult thing to pinpoint these days (as recently discussed here and here and here and here and here), let’s just say we’re talking about south of Prospect Park, and see how that goes! When this community of artists is so large that we feel the need to splinter off into Flatbush - East Flatbush - Junction - Midwood - Kensington - Prospect Lefferts Gardens… well, then we will have succeeded, right?

And as for what is meant by Arts, we are talking about:

music… dance… painting… sculpture… poetry… film.. theater… design… multimedia… graphics… photography… crafts… fashion… video… literature… (if I’ve missed anything let me know!)

Anyone with a Google ID is welcome to join in the discussion. Let’s see what we can get going.

Tonight is the second of four community visioning meetings for Imagine Flatbush 2030, to be held at Brooklyn College’s new Conference Center. Everyone is invited.

Local blog Brooklyn Junction provides the perfect summary of why this process is so important:

Come out to the meeting tonight and I think you’ll see why I, and a whole bunch of other people, are so enamored by this: Diverse members of the Flatbush community organizing together to plan for the neighborhood’s future–both to protect the things we celebrate, and to call attention to that which can be improved–before forces outside our control shape the future of the neighborhood for us.

Preserving the neighborhood’s character and diversity while all of Brooklyn is changing so rapidly will be a huge challenge for Flatbush. How can we work for some of the amenities we are lacking — more public green spaces and a community center with activities for all ages were mentioned at the first meeting — without promoting gentrification that would force many longtime and lower-income residents out? How can the inevitable (and, from a sustainability viewpoint, desirable) development of denser housing near transit (and the affordable units it should be required to provide) be combined with zoning that preserves the 100+-year-old Victorian homes that make our neighborhood unique (even for those of us who don’t own one)?

While these questions do not present any simple answers, getting community stakeholders involved in the process is a crucial step. It is no understatement to say that the ongoing Atlantic Yards fiasco has struck fear into all of Brooklyn (and beyond): no one wants to see a big developer given free rein to bring a massive project into their neighborhood with no public involvement, gravely flawed government oversight, and flagrant abuse of eminent domain that takes longtime resident’s homes and small businesses from them. Imagine Flatbush 2030 is an opportunity for the community to create our own vision of the future and begin discussing how to implement it, before (as Brooklyn Junction says) someone else beats us to it. Be there if you can!

Imagine Flatbush 2030 Meeting:
Who: The Flatbush Community
When: Tonight, December 12th, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: At The Brooklyn College Student Center, located on Campus Road between East 27th Street and Amersfort Place, 6th floor (map it).
RSVP: To Sideya Sherman, at the MAS Planning Center, 212-935-3960 or ssherman [at] mas [dot] org.

Back in May I wrote my first post about the unsustainability of bottled water, and it has been gratifying to see the growing attention being focused on this issue over the last few months. Today the Bottled Water Story continues, with this very informative article from Earth Policy about efforts around the world to move citizens and city governments away from bottled water and back to the tap. Recommended reading! Here’s a taste:

Tap water promotional campaigns would have seemed quaint a few decades ago, when water in bottles was a rarity. Now such endeavors are needed to counteract the pervasive marketing that has caused consumers to lose faith in the faucet. In fact, more than a quarter of bottled water is just processed tap water, including top-selling Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani.

Issues at stake here range from the huge trash problem created by plastic water bottles (recycling rates tend to be very low, especially in states — including NY — where there is no bottle deposit on non-carbonated beverages), to the amount of petroleum used in the creation of those bottles and transporting them around the globe, to the threat to funding of municipal water systems — which in some cases has resulted in their privatization.

I would venture to say that there is also a social justice issue involved when the public has been led to believe that a product will be healthier for themselves and their families at such an astronomical cost difference compared to an equal or better product they can already access for free. Here in NYC we are blessed with excellent tap water, and even using a filter system only adds a few dollars a year to the cost. It has been a great step to see bottled water promoted in schools instead of sodas, but an even better step would be for every child to have their own reusable water bottle. Sounds crazy? To see how one NYC teacher (and parent) did it, check out Brooklyn’s own Urban Botany blog. Who says one person can’t make a difference?

The time has come to take back the tap. As individuals and as a society, we can find better uses for the many dollars we would save by doing so:

With more than 1 billion people around the globe still lacking access to a safe and reliable source of water, the $100 billion the world spends on bottled water every year could certainly be put to better use creating and maintaining safe public water infrastructure everywhere.

So… maybe an excellent holiday gift would be a reusable water bottle, eh?

In case the print is too small to read, I’ll repeat it here:

Come and participate in a special dialogue about the future of Flatbush. The Flatbush Development Corporation (FDC) and the Municipal Art Society (MAS) are inviting you to take part in Imagine Flatbush 2030 — a community visioning and dialogue process — designed to get you together with other Flatbush community members to collectively create a more sustainable neighborhood. If you care about the environment, community health, protecting diversity, ensuring affordable housing and a whole host of other community issues, this is the meeting for you!

For more information and to RSVP, please contact Sideya Sherman, at the MAS Planning Center, at 212/935-3960 or via email at ssherman[at]mas.org.

Please be advised that there will be a supervised homework room provided for school aged children. If you need to bring a child, please contact us in advance.

Refreshments will be served.

Next Sustainable Flatbush monthly meeting:
Monday December 3rd, 7pm
462 Marlborough Road (between Ditmas and Dorchester)

Committees will report on their activities and plans, including:

R3 Committee
Post-Holiday Electronics Recycling Event
January 5 and 6, 2008

Livable Streets Committee
Central Brooklyn Transportation Conference
to be held at Brooklyn College, early February 2008

Gardening Committee
Neighborhood Gardening Event
in collaboration with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
location TBA, late February 2008

First snow of the season here in Brooklyn.

photo by Keka