Yesterday’s Newkirk Avenue Block Party was a great success. More photos and story coming up… but I just couldn’t wait to post this one!

Flier design by Keka

Here’s the concept:

Block Party NYC is a new program by the New York City Streets Renaissance which is helping neighborhoods around NYC come together and enjoy their street for a day, free from the usual hazards and distractions of automobiles. This summer alone, we’re providing mini-grants to over 30 block parties throughout the 5 boroughs. Each of these parties also gets the services of a professional urban planner for a day, who will help find community solutions to community problems like traffic, speeding, and noise and air pollution. They will also talk to residents about what they like and dislike about their street, what they want to preserve, and what needs to change.

Yes, we will discuss all of these serious issues with our neighbors, but we will also hang out and have a great time! Here are all the details:

Newkirk Avenue Block Party, a Livable Streets celebration co-sponsored by Flatbush Development Corporation, New York City Streets Renaissance, and Make Music New York, with participation of Solar One, Brooklyn Compost Project, Council on the Environment of NYC, Transportation Alternatives, Alive Structures, Midwood Martial Arts, and Newkirk Area merchants. Join us for:

Live Music and DJ’s all day!
Traditional NYC Street Games:
Handball, Skully, Hopscotch, Double Dutch, Jacks, and more!
Food Vendors!
Environmental Info and Activities:
Solar Power, Composting, Green Roof/Garden Design, Cell Phone Recycling, etc.,
plus Recycling Games and Art Projects just for kids!

WHEN: Saturday, June 21st, 11am – 6pm, Rain or Shine!
WHERE: Newkirk Avenue between East 16th and East 17th Streets

See you there!

My own relative lack of output here should not be taken as an indication that nothing is going on in the Sustainable Flatbush world, in fact quite the contrary. We’ve got a number of projects brewing behind the scenes, and some right out in public. On Sunday we had our Street-Tree Walking Tour, preceded by a morning of tree planting with the Ditmas Park West Neighborhood Association (photos coming up!). Planning continues for the Newkirk Avenue Block Party, produced in association with Flatbush Development Corporation and NYC Streets Renaissance, which will take place on June 21st. (By happy coincidence, this is the same day as Make Music New York, a citywide festival of live music performances, and it looks like we’ll have a few on Newkirk!) Our monthly meetings happen every second Monday of the month. The next one is May 12th, so if you live in the neighborhood (or not) and would like to get involved, please stop by!

P1010102, originally uploaded by Sustainable Flatbush.

Cargo bikes are very big here, carrying everything from huge bottles of water to sounds for the party!

Needless to say it’s crazy here (in a good way), but I have a few photos to post that are relevant to the sustainability discusssion… here they come!

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.

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 first choice would have been to spend the day at 1st St. B.C. (Before Cars) with the Lower East Side Girls’ Club, sipping on one of their bicycle blender smoothies!

Streetsblog‘s recap has a nice mention of our spot:

Seeing pre-schoolers participating in an outdoor music class — in a parking space — on Brooklyn’s busy Cortelyou Rd., you definitely get the feeling that Park(ing) Day has, in just a few short years, transformed from a quirky art activist event into the beginnings of a broad-based grassroots movement with meaningful social and political implications. On Friday, Park(ing) events were set up in about 150 spots across 42 U.S. cities along with events in five or six other countries, according to the Trust for Public Land.

In PlaNYC 2030, the Bloomberg Administration said that it wants to build a park within 10 minutes walking distance of every neighborhood in the city. On Friday, a bunch of New Yorkers went out and began implementing that plan, simply by turning on-street parking spaces into pocket parks and public plazas.

Many Park(ing) Day visitors mentioned to me how much we need more open space and greenery that everyone in the neighborhood can enjoy; hopefully having Cortelyou Rd. Park for one day has inspired people to imagine ways of making that happen.

Cleaning up (photo by Keka)

More photos at our Flickr album here.

Thanks to everyone who visited the park!

Special thanks to: Keka (Co-Instigator); Kathy and Suzana (Setup); Jody (Music); Natalia, Thiago and Garry (Cleanup)

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!

DJ Drummerman (Jeff Duneman) and I helped out on percussion too.

photos by Chris Kreussling aka Flatbush Gardener

Vocalist/dancer/songwriter/percussionist

*** Ileana Santamaria ***

will treat us to some of her favorite classic Brazilian tunes!!

“Cuban-born Ileana Santamaria grew up in a musical household with a
dream to carry on the legacy of her father, Cuban percussionist and
Latin Jazz pioneer Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria.”
(http://www.myspace.com/ileanasantamaria)

Don’t miss it!