Planting Trees on Atlantic Ave

The Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association and the Teen Tree Corps of Project ReGeneration teamed up in a beautification project of two blocks on Atlantic Avenue: one block between Bond and Hoyt streets, and another between Court and Clinton streets. This photo shows Teddy Francis, program director of Project ReGeneration, with Curtis Cruz and Trish Holt.

Photo courtesy of Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association

Back to homepage

DUMBO Photo Exhibit Grapples With How to Portray Climate Change

The term “climate change” is used often these days, in conjunction with “global warming” and “extreme weather.” Sure, we know that the earth is hotter today than it has been in the past four hundred years, the polar ice caps are melting and sea levels are rising. But what does it all actually look like? Most of us don’t have the means or ability to see the effects of climate change, we usually just hear about it.

The current photography exhibition at the Henry Gregg Gallery in DUMBO, entitled “Visualizing Climate Change,” brings powerful images from around the world to Brooklyn. Work of photographers Gary Braasch, Ashley Cooper, Benjamin Drummond, Peter Essick, Steve Kazlowski and Joshua Wolfe is on display, with subjects ranging from polar bears, to glaciers, to forest fires.

Brooklyn-based photographer Wolfe explained that, as members of GHG (which stands for greenhouse gas) Photos, these photographers deal with the basic question of: “How do you portray something that’s happening as gradually as climate change?”

“For me, a lot of it is trying to explain through images not just that climate change is all extreme weather all the time and a polar bear,” Wolfe explained. “There’s more depth to it, the issue is more complex, there are a lot of factors going into it.

“Any of us working individually can’t create such a complete or such a nuanced picture of climate change,” he continued. “Our goal is to present people with what’s going on, to give a more complete picture.”

On one wall of the gallery is a photo by Wolfe of an oil pump in the foreground and a group of wind turbines in the background (above). Another by Kazlowski — whom Wolfe calls “the best polar bear photographer in the world” — is a member of the threatened species swimming in the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean. Yet another by Cooper shows a man knee deep in water in his South Yorkshire kitchen, searching for food after floods in the summer of 2007.

Hanging on another wall of the gallery is a series of before and after photos of glaciers, taken by Wolfe and Braasch, portraying the stark decrease in glacier size over the years.

Using photography as the medium to portray climate change was challenging, says Wolfe. “If you look at photojournalism, we really thrive on an event. We thrive on a conflict. We know how to do wars, we know how to do protests, to a lesser extent, we know how to do celebrities,” he said. “Gradual, decade-long, century-long, year long changes aren’t things that photojournalism is necessarily comfortable with.”

Adding to the difficulty, Wolfe says, is that in some cases it’s hard to tell if something like extreme weather is climate change or not. “With hurricanes or forest fires or droughts, is this just noise in the system or is this definitively climate change?” he asked, which is the reason for pairing before and after photos of glaciers, or juxtaposing a picture of a forest fire in Greece with a satellite image of more fires ravaging the country.

Collaboration with Henry Gregg Gallery director André Martinez-Reed gives the show a different perspective: “He’s relating to the images in a different way than I do,” Wolfe said. “André mixed them up to make a layered and more nuanced story.”

“Each individual show has its own spirit, its own energy,” said Martinez-Reed. “With Visualizing Climate Change, it gives people a chance to experience something that’s going on in the world that probably they wouldn’t normally have an opportunity to experience.”

“We have this unique experience to view a lot of the things going on with climate change that the average person can’t see,” Wolfe said. “We’re changing the way people look at things around them.”

Visualizing Climate Change will be on view at the Henry Gregg Gallery at 111 Front St., Suite 226, in DUMBO through June 21. The exhibit is also on view at the Port Authority building at the corner of 42nd St and 8th Ave in Manhattan. Wolfe will be speaking at this Thursday’s Nerd Nite at Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO about climate change.

Photo above by Joshua Wolfe, courtesy of GHG Photos

Back to homepage

Rethinking Urban Space: Mini-Golf in a Vacant Lot

Vacant lots are a common sight in this city, so common that many don't give them a second thought. But this summer one previously empty and trash-filled space will be transformed into a 9-hole miniature golf course. And it's opening on Saturday.

Dubbed the Putting Lot, it's in Bushwick at 12 Wyckoff Avenue. Each hole was designed by a different group of artists or architects, chosen by an open call for submissions conducted in April. With a budget of $500, the teams got to work on creations with the theme of "urban sustainability."

The materials are reclaimed and repurposed, just like the lot, and are used in non-conventional ways.

Sustainability was the main focus and drive for the project. According to the Putting Lot's web site: "We think vacant spaces can be used in ways to help build neighborhood sustainability, as much as they can diminish it. We believe neighborhood sustainability is one of the most important aspects of urban sustainability."

Starting this Saturday, June 6, the Putting Lot will be open Wednesday through Friday from 12 - 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. - 8 p.m. It's super affordable at $5 for adults and $3 for children 12 and under.

For more information, visit www.theputtinglot.org.

Back to homepage

Congresswoman Clarke Urges New Yorkers to Take Action

Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, along with Greenpeace NYC field organizer Eva Erbskorn, submitted an editorial to the Eagle about the current climate crisis.

Given that hurricane season is upon us, we may soon be confronted with intense storms caused in part by global warming. "Unless we take action immediately," Congresswoman Clarke writes, "that means more flooding of basements, more disease, and more drinking water shortages (and worse)."

She urges New Yorkers to take action: "We can start by investing in efficiency and clean energy sources like solar and wind power, as well as in smart transportation, like more subways and buses."

For Congresswoman Clarke's full editorial, Greener Economy Essential in Face of Rising Waters, click here.

Back to homepage

New Views Greenway Party on June 18

My friends over at the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative (BGI) sent me the following press release about their upcoming Greenway benefit:

BGI will hold New Views 2009, its fourth annual benefit for the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, on Thursday, June 18, from 6-9 p.m., at IKEA Brooklyn’s Erie Basin Park (above). Join BGI’s Board, Host Committee and Greenway supporters for a Swedish smorgasbord, drinks and music along the first privately funded and maintained section of the planned 14-mile Greenway.

IKEA Brooklyn store manager Mike Baker will be honored as BGI’s Corporate Partner of the Year and Christopher O. Ward, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, will be honored as BGI’s Government Partner of the Year. Biking advocacy group Transportation Alternatives will receive BGI’s Community Partner of the Year award.

BGI, along with its partners and supporters, have had a great deal to celebrate this year, most importantly the commitment by the New York City Department of Transportation to develop a master plan for the full 14-mile Greenway route, which will then qualify it as a city capital project. Both the Erie Basin Park segment and the Columbia Street segments of the Greenway opened within the past year, and in April of this year, BGI announced an additional $2.5 million in federal funding secured for capital construction.

Tickets start at $60 and are available at www.brooklyngreenway.org. For questions, contact Brian McCormick at bmccormick@brooklyngreenway.org or (718) 522-0193.

Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative

Back to homepage

Be an ‘Urban Explorer’ At Tour de Brooklyn

This Sunday approximately 2,000 bicyclists will participate in a one-of-a-kind ride through Green-Wood Cemetery — which doesn’t normally allow bikes — during the fifth annual Tour de Brooklyn, held by biking advocacy group Transportation Alternatives (TA).

“It’s probably the highlight of the tour,” said TA spokesperson Wiley Norvell. “It’s definitely a real treat.”

The ride will begin at KeySpan park in Coney Island at 9 a.m., traveling through such South Brooklyn neighborhoods as Gravesend, Kensington, Windsor Terrace and Victorian Flatbush. In addition to Green-Wood, the tour will ride through Prospect Park, where there will be a rest stop. The 23-mile tour will conclude at about 1 p.m. back in Coney Island.

Norvell says the ride follows a different route every year. Since many riders have seen neighborhoods like Park Slope and Williamsburg by bike, the south Brooklyn loop this year is “a great stretch of Brooklyn that a lot of our riders probably aren’t familiar with,” he noted.

And after the ride ends, “everyone can stay and spend the day on Coney Island at the beach.”

The important part about the Tour de Brooklyn is that it’s not a race, said Norvell. “It’s a leisurely day biking around Brooklyn,” he said. The pace is family-friendly, with “a gentle incline up and a gentle incline down.”

All 2,000 participants ride in one big group, stopping at points to let the riders in the back catch up. Cars are cleared from the streets with a “rolling closure,” during which police escorts will drive in the front and the back of the group, closing streets as the ride goes on. It’s about five minutes from the front of the group to the back, Norvell said.

Bicyclists from all over — Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Virginia, even California — registered for the free event. In other years, online registration has sold out before the ride, but this year it sold out within 24 hours. “It’s the hottest ticket in town,” Norvell said, laughing. There will be a limited number spots for same-day registration before the tour starts, he added.

You won’t see many serious cyclists during the ride. “We tend not to get the spandex set,” Norvell said. Instead, he called the riders “urban explorers.”

“We want this to be accessible,” he continued. “What we want to inculcate is slow, civic riding. We want people to really enjoy the city around them.”

And they do. Molly Sullivan rode in her first tour in 2007 and loved it so much she volunteered for TA and is now the organization’s events coordinator.

“I had such a positive experience,” Sullivan said, describing it as a safe, family-friendly, calm ride. “It opened up bicycling in Brooklyn for me.”

She was amazed by the number of people and families that gathered for the ride. “It was a wonderful sight to see,” she said.

“The feeling I came away from the tour with was: I have to do this every day, I have to become a bike commuter,” Sullivan said. “I’ll never forget it.”

Visit www.tourdebrooklyn.org for additional information about the tour, including what to bring.

Back to homepage

Chamber Recognizes Green Buildings

The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and its Real Estate and Development (RED) Committee announced the winners of Building Brooklyn Awards for this year. Of the 12 recipients, two are green buildings: Galapagos Art Space and the Perry Building at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Carl Hum, Chamber president and CEO, said that past winners have been environmentally friendly, but this year was the first year a specific award was given to a green building. This would be the National Grid Award for Energy Conservation, which the Perry Building received.

Opened in early April, the Perry Building (above) is the nation’s first multi-story green industrial facility. It is on track to receive LEED gold certification and features the first permanent building-mounted wind turbines to be operating anywhere in New York City.

The turbines, combined with rooftop solar panels, will provide electricity for the building’s lobby and other common areas, which will amount to about 10 percent of the overall energy. Other green features of the Perry Building are reflective roofing and pavement to reduce surface temperatures, the use of recycled rain water in toilets, recycled building materials, high-efficiency lighting fixtures, natural ventilation systems and special accommodation for bicyclists and low-emission vehicles.

Awarded in the Arts and Culture category, Galapagos Art Space (above) has shown a commitment to the environment from the get-go. A LEED-silver certified building, all of the steel is 80 percent recycled, the concrete is 30 percent recycled, the toilets are low flush and the sinks have low water flow. The 1600 square foot lake inside the venue is filled by a well, so as not to waste city drinking water.

Galapagos director Robert Elmes has said, “if the arts can’t show leadership, who can? ... We have a responsibility to lead with social issues.”

The ceremony and cocktail reception for the awards will be held on July 15 at Stage 6 at Steiner Studios in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a green building in the yard that will apply for LEED Silver certification, in part for the adaptive reuse of a 150,000 square-foot WWII era building.

For more information and the full list of recipients, see the story here.

Photos courtesy of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

Back to homepage