Park Slope Reader

Prospect Park

Dog Fight

By Filed Under: Community, Park Slope Life Tagged With: , ,

Advocating for a Dog Park in Prospect Park: The Start of a Journey 

Why doesn’t Prospect Park have an off-leash dog run? And how do we get one? Let’s find out. 

Though all the ways— both big and small— in which COVID changed the flow of life can hardly be quantified, one category with some concrete data revolves around pet adoptions. The Animal Care Centers of NYC shared that about 25 percent of people who had taken in dogs to foster at the start of the pandemic had adopted them permanently by June 2020. In May of 2021, a nationally representative poll of over 5,000 respondents by the ASPCA revealed that since the start of the pandemic, close to one in five households acquired a dog or cat. Based on the 2019 U.S Census, that would account for around 23 million households— with between 85-90 percent of those households reporting that they weren’t considering rehoming their pets. 

Another quantifiable change in lifestyle: as of November, only 28 percent of Manhattan office workers had returned to their desks. While we can’t predict how and when that number will change, there is an undeniableness in the ubiquitous embracement of more flexible hours and remote work. 

So what do these two things have in common? Well, with more dog owners and fewer in-office hours, it begs the question: Are there enough places where their pets are able to roam free? In some areas, yes. The Kensington Dog Run, which allows dogs to roam off-leash, opened in July 2020. The 7,000 square feet fenced-in space in the Parade Ground along Coney Island Avenue has separated areas for large and small dogs and canine-friendly turf. Though smaller in size, Jemmy’s Dog Run (currently undergoing renovations) in Madison Square Park, located near 5th Avenue and 24th street in Manhattan, is a year-round dog run with double-entry and exit gates, a ground of smooth pebbles, plenty of trees for shades, and lined with spigots to keep dogs hydrated. 

One park glaringly absent of this kind of area reserved for off-leash recreation is the hub of Prospect Park itself. And the question posed by the publisher of the PSR was: Why? The 586-acre park is surrounded by families with dogs. Yet the off-leash rules are surprisingly rigid. In the designated areas for dogs, dogs are only permitted to run free between 6am–9am, and then from 9pm–1am. Particularly in the winter, when daylight hours dwindle, the opportunity for people in the neighborhood to give their dogs off-leash exercise throughout the course of the day is a difficult task. Why exactly is this the case? Or perhaps, to jump ahead, a better question would be: How does a community— like other communities around NYC have done in the past— go about establishing a fair and proper dog park. 

That’s the mission we’ll be starting with this article series. Namely, the steps that have to be taken, the people and groups who are part of the process, the money involved, and the time scale for which a project like this needs to come to fruition. Talking to advocates and officials, digging into data, and examining past precedents along the way. 

As per the American Kennel Club, the initial stages involve creating a proposal that contains the goals, proposes location, funding, maintenance, and enforcement. According to The Bark, an award-winning publication that was started in 1997 after the two founders adopted a dog and discovered it was illegal for her to go unleashed at their local park, a task force is helpful in centralizing the process, while conducting open, public meetings.

Demonstrating need and support are vital as well. With valid statistics on dog owners, the community, and park-goers, a worded request, as well as a circulating petition, are strong documents that can be brought to the attention of local officials in a concise way, which could lead to the request for a hearing. Ultimately, patience seems to be a key component throughout. As anyone who has advocated and fought for something before knows, the combination of various opinions with the nuances of bureaucracies and the process of congealing support into a cohesive unit can feel time-consuming. It can feel frustrating.  Futile, even, at times. But something worth championing doesn’t always come easy. And hopefully the people and groups we talk with along the way will help in streamlining the major things that need to be done. 

“The new Kensington Dog Run is a testament to what our community can achieve when it comes together over a shared interest, like providing a space for our canine companions to enjoy,” Borough President (now mayor-elect) Eric Adams said in the press release when the dog run opened. He also added, “Amid an unimaginably difficult period for our city, it’s a small — but powerful — reminder that empowering communities at the grassroots level can deliver results.”

“The new Kensington Dog Run is a testament to what our community can achieve when it comes together over a shared interest, like providing a space for our canine companions to enjoy. I was so proud to work with my colleagues in government and the local community to help fund this project through the participatory budgeting process. Amid an unimaginably difficult period for our city, it’s a small — but powerful — reminder that empowering communities at the grassroots level can deliver results,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Stay tuned as we continue to dig down, and “bone” up on this topic. Hopefully in the end every dog will have its day. 

The Earth is Life, and the Land is our Home: Lenapehoking and its Original Inhabitants

By Filed Under: Feature, Outside Tagged With: ,

If you live in Brooklyn, there is a decent chance you have been to Prospect Park. It is a natural sanctuary of sweeping vales, luminous ponds, dense woodlands, and dedicated athletes. The urban park embraces socialization, from large family gatherings and cultural celebrations to sponsored festivals and outdoor concerts. It does not separate society by race or class, nor age, gender, or ethnicity.

The land, as it sits today, is accessible year-round and available for people of all demographics to use. The landscape provides a public space for quiet moments of solitude and self-reflection—while providing a refuge from the noise, hustle, grime, and smell of uncollected waste that permeate in the city. For me, the park was where I found comfort during the height of the novel coronavirus pandemic. With the widespread closures of most public spaces, and the condemnation of physical interaction and public gathering, my options for finding connections were limited. Connecting to “nature” was my safest option, even if that meant connecting to the highly stylized and well-manicured topography of Prospect Park. 

“We have a tendency to want to separate our home from inside and outside,” said Hadrien Coumans, after I explained my desire to find a connection to the natural world, rather than connection through physical or civic engagement. Coumans, an adopted member of the White Turkey-Fugate family, is the co-founder and co-director of the Manhattan-based cultural organization, the Lenape Center. “The reality is that we are completely inside of our home, even when we think we are outside of our home. The earth is life, and the land is our home.” Coumans paused for a few moments before adding: “This—the reality that you’re describing— is what the Lenape people have always been acutely aware of.” 

Historical tablets, erected monuments, triumphal arches, and public artworks are dispersed throughout Prospect Park’s 585-acre oasis, honoring the people and events that have shaped and cultivated the city and community. But the history of Prospect Park—as well as the history of New York City and largely, North America—is complex. For centuries, history has been negotiated, slanted, and erased. A subtle reminder of the area’s indigenous people recently became visible. A handmade Lenape-themed placard, acknowledging rightful land-ownership, is pasted to a bronze and granite marker, commemorating Battle Pass. 

Long before European colonization, revolutionary battles, and the reshaping of Prospect Park’s rugged topography, lived the Lenape, part of the Algonquin nation, and Lenapehoking, the land they occupied. The Lenape, also called Lenni-Lenape—translating to “Original People” and later renamed by European colonizers to Delaware— are a loosely organized band of Native Americans whose tribal roots have sunk deep into the landscape of today’s New York City for more than 10,000 years. The ancestral land of Lenapehoking spans from eastern Pennsylvania to a small part of western Connecticut, and from the Hudson Valley to northern Delaware. Manahatta island meaning “hilly island,” known today as Manhattan, is at the crux of Lenapehoking. Although the Lenape are remembered for being tenacious warriors, they are also regarded for being peacemakers, earning the title of “Grandfather” tribe.  

The Lenape’s origin story begins when a great tortoise, symbolic of the earth, rose from the water and became dry. A tree grew in the middle of the earth, and brought forth a man and later a woman. The phratry clans of the Lenape, which traced their descent through the female line, included three tribal divisions determined by language and location: Wolf (Munsee), Turtle (Unami), and Turkey (Unalachtigo). As a nomadic hunter-gather society, the ancestral Lenape heavily depended on the prosperity of the land. Every ten to twelve years, after depleting the geographical location of its natural resources, the entire village would migrate to a neighboring area of Lenapehoking. Thus, allowing the land to replenish itself for future generations. 

European explorers arrived in the 16th century, with Italian explorer, Giovanni da Verrazano, leading the sail into the New York Harbor. According to some historical records, the Lenape, at first, welcomed the European explorers. They shared the land and resources and soon embraced the act of trade. By the 17th century, European corporations, including the Dutch West India Company, had materialized on the wealth of Lenapehoking and exploited the indigenous peoples. They entered into deceptive land deals, and in 1626, the Lenape “sold” the island of Manahatta to the Dutch. The concept of land-ownership was foreign to the Lenape, who believed that the earth and all of its inhabitants could only belong to the Creator. This particular land transaction, enforced with a constructed barrier wall around “New Amsterdam,” marked the downfall of Lenape society and the beginning of the diaspora. Traditional life for the Lenape was interrupted by the loss of land and the expansion of trade, creating a dependence on over-hunting and leading to a scarcity of resources and cultural value. The colonizers, bringing with them an array of deadly diseases, treated the Lenape as if they were uncivilized and disposable. They devastated the Lenape’s cultural identity and ancestral grounds through cultural assimilation —including involuntary Christian indoctrination— warfare, genocide, illegal land trades, and forced migration. Some accounts suggest that by 1750, the Lenape lost an estimated 90% of its people. The remaining Lenape succumbed to displacement, traveling west to current-day Ohio, and north to today’s New York State and Canada. 

While the Lenape are credited with influencing the history and geography of present-day New York City and surrounding areas, an intentional banishing of their identity —perpetuated by centuries of cultural whitewashing, forced removal, and genocide—have conspired to erase public knowledge of the tribe and their long presence with the ancestral homeland. 

“The erasure has caused a void, particularly to public knowledge and the understanding of the Lenape people,” said Hadrien Coumans. “Until recently, there was no consciousness of recognition that was recognizable.” 

Over a decade ago, Coumans was standing with Joe Baker, member of the federally recognized tribe, Delaware Tribe of Indians, on the Upper East Side. As the two men gazed out onto their ancestral homeland, they experienced a collective and ominous feeling that the Lenape people were facing permanent erasure from public memory. Coumans and Baker pondered how they could preserve their cultural identity and homeland for future generations. 

“We wanted to create a center that would continue our presence and be a welcoming home for the diaspora,” said Coumans. “This experience led to an urgency to continue the Lenape culture and identity.” Consequently, in 2008, the Lenape Center was born. 

The mission of the Lenape Center is to continue the culture of the Lenape and Lenapehoking through the arts, humanities, and environmental conservancy. Bringing public awareness of the Lenape presence to mainstream culture enables descendants of the diaspora to fight back against centuries of exploitation, manipulation, and erasure. Their work includes planting indigenous corn in community gardens; convening with the Brooklyn Museum to create a permanent art installation; staging an opera on the Lenape perspective of the historically misrepresented purchase of Manahatta; consulting with the architects of Tammany Hall’s turtle shell dome— symbolic of the Lenape origin story and Chief Tamanend—and an “iconic anchor to Union Square”; and finally, the organization seeks to return the “presence of consciousness” to the homeland by establishing government-to-government relations, including access to New York City’s resources, and a Living Land Acknowledgement. The acknowledgment, usually in the form of a public statement or plaque, is a simple gesture of respectfully bringing awareness and true inclusion to the indigenous inhabitants that have been deprived of their ancestral homeland and territories. Many of these territories are now occupied by physical institutions, including venues, real estate developments, schools, conference centers, stadiums, and places of worship. A Living Land Acknowledgement also attempts to correct racism— including the indigenous caricature embedded in the New York City seal— and the practices that, for centuries, have contributed to the erasure of the native people’s history, culture, and identity. 

As of today, two commemorative memorials exist in New York City, acknowledging the legacy of the Lenape. Both of the memorials contain historical inaccuracies. In recent years, Columbia University dedicated a plaque to honor the Lenape people for occupying the territory of today’s Manhattan, before the colonization of the Americas. 

Present-day descendants of the Lenape are federally recognized as “Delaware” and include members of Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe of Indians, and Stockbridge-Munsee Community.  While some smaller bands of the Lenape descendants still live in the NYC and the Northeast, many of the Lenape/ Delaware live in one of the five sovereign nations with full federal recognition, including one nation in Wisconsin, two in Oklahoma, and two in Ontario, Canada. 

In March, when the pandemic hit New York City and much of the country, the Lenape Center decided to indefinitely cancel all public events. “This is a time to hibernate not a time to gather,” said Coumans. He noted that the Center’s virtual meetings and ongoing events, including the production of a documentary on indigenous corn, have been well received. 

I asked Coumans about the connection between environmentalism and the novel coronavirus pandemic. I wondered if he believed there was, if any, a silver lining to the disruption and widespread devastation that New York City has faced.  

“Well,” said Coumans, “the reality is that Lenapehoking or not, we cannot exist without trees or water or oxygen. These are the life-giving properties of the earth. We have to be respectful of nature to breathe fresh air.” He paused before adding: “I do hope the city continues to heal from the pandemic, and that we’ll all come away with a better knowledge of our environment.” 

We recommend that you educate yourself and if interested and able, get involved with the Lenape community. Their website explains more about the history and influence of the original “Brooklyn” people.

www.thelenapecenter.com

Editor’s note: In recent months, as nationwide protests against racial injustices and weaponized police violence have swept our country, we have seen a historic push to acknowledge the complexities of the past and to include the —often negotiated and intentionally erased—truths that affect our present. 

When I first became aware of the Lenape-themed placard atop the bronze and granite Battle Pass monument, I was immediately reminded of the brazen distortions, nods to conspiracies, arrogant lies sold as irrefutable truths, and chants of greatness, all touted by President Trump. But for one to see our country as great means that we have to side with the version of history written on the Battle Pass plaque, and not with the history of the Lenape-themed card. When we question the actions of the past, to better understand the truth, we are reminded that the definition of great is conditional and tethered to a reality that has been slanted. The pasted Lenape-themed placard juxtaposed the Battle Pass marker underscores the thickness of Brooklyn’s history while bringing into our collective consciousness the indigenous nations that New York City has long overlooked.

Eating Local: Prospect Park’s Smorgasburg Market

By Filed Under: Eat Local Tagged With: , ,

Another Summer in Foodie Paradise

There’s two kinds of foodies this day in age – the Instagrammer and the culinary enthusiast. However, both breeds commonly intersect, especially at New York City’s Smorgasburg, one of the biggest foodie festivals in the city. Park Slope is lucky enough to host one of its two weekly locations, and this summer has kicked off another round of good eats and photo-worthy treats. 

Smorgasburg started as a spinoff of Brooklyn Flea in 2011, a similar vendor market of niche artisanal finds and locally made crafts founded by entrepreneurs Eric Demby and Jonathan Butler. This food paradise is now the largest open-air food market in America and attracts 20-30,000 people to Brooklyn every weekend, with additional locations now in Downtown Los Angeles and Osaka, Japan. Hailed by The New York Times as “The Woodstock of Eating,” you’re guaranteed to find something offbeat and unique in the mass of 100+ vendors that roll through these spots regularly, many of which are local businesses – a way to sample through what you may end up visiting after hours. Treats from Ethiopian food and locally roasted coffee to short ribs and bone marrow are just a couple of the many items available, and some places booth on a regular basis too. If you’re too full to munch on that Dough donut today, there’s a good chance they’ll be around the following week serving up the same sweet calories.

As a somewhat newcomer to New York (I’m coming up on my first year anniversary this August), I wasn’t completely sure how crowded my first visit to Prospect Park’s Smorgasburg would be. Although I’d previously attended the Downtown LA market, I had no idea what to expect from one of the original locations. How many vendors would I see? Would it be packed despite an unusually chilly summer Sunday afternoon? 

Here’s the thing about food and New York though: You can’t get in the way of this essential “pairing.” Floods of people still flocked the booths with two hours left to spare in this seven-hour-long weekly affair, cold winds blowing through jean shorts and blouses on the brink of rain. A good 45 booths were still busy preparing foods like squid okonomiyaki and Indonesian coffee cocktails as people munched and Snapchatted and Instagrammed away, many of whom brought their pups along for the ride. An outdoor experience in New York is always a chance to bring a furry friend, essentially.

I decided to grab an entrée and a dessert – my poisons ended up being Mighty Quinn’s hearty and delightful short rib burger and Ube Kitchen’s vegan ube coconut custard flan. Both photogenic and delicious, I was easily stuffed within an hour.

Some things you may want to mentally prepare for upon visiting Smorgasburg are the lines. While you have a massive selection of foods to choose from, the saying is true: the longer the line is, the chance it’s much better too. At Smorgasburg, this is certainly the case. Come hungry but also ready to wait. Additionally, while many booths offer both cash and credit options, a good handful of vendors are still cash-only. While there are portable ATMs available, save yourself a few bucks worth of ATM fees and make sure it goes towards your treats instead! Lastly, these are not bodega takeaway prices. While many goods are served fast food style, you’ll still be paying close to the same amount you’d be spending at a restaurant with table service. The trade for this? Many foods are exclusively vendor/food trucks, so you won’t be able to find them anywhere else!

Happy munching, fellow foodie friends!

Our Friends, The Trees: How Trees Make Brooklyn Better

By Filed Under: The Natural Slope Tagged With: , , , , , ,

We take for granted the beauty of these verdant towers, how we come to expect their shade and fail to acknowledge their constant toil as the city’s respiring lungs and filtering kidneys.

The first time I climbed a tree, in the summer of 2008, I was working a seasonal job for the Parks Department. My job was to muscle logs and stacked branches into a chipper, but a fringe benefit was working with the climbers and pruners. These professional arborists spend their days up in Brooklyn’s urban tree canopy inspecting, pruning and sometimes removing trees. For a young guy whose interest in comic books and environmental science never really seemed to intersect, here I had found my real-life superheroes. For several weeks in the swampy heat of July I would finish my wood-chipping route at a feverish pace to ensure I could carve out time at the end of the day to meet up with a climber, throw a rope up over a high branch and use a technique called hip-thrusting to hump my way into the tree, exploring the otherworldly environment that exists within the sprawling space of a tree’s canopy and the views it affords to those who climb it.

 

London plane

Five years later I was back in a harness, standing on an upper limb of a London plane tree in the middle of Grand Army Plaza, holding a dead branch in one hand as I sawed it off with the other. Below me traffic was circumnavigating the plaza and above me squirrels were making similar circles around the tree in lusty chase of one another. I was taking a test to become the junior arborist for the Prospect Park Alliance. My new boss was right beside me, dangling comfortably in his harness. I’d passed, he said, in no rush to vacate our lofty perch with views straight down Flatbush Avenue. I realized, from the vantage point of the birds, what a large role trees play in our urban existence. How we take for granted the beauty of their verdant towers, how we come to expect their shade and fail to acknowledge their constant toil as the city’s respiring lungs and filtering kidneys.

By then I was hooked on trees, taking every opportunity to defend their place in our urban environment and teach people more about them. Here’s a fact: the London plane tree, unmistakable when it sloughs off its thin beige and green bark to reveal a slippery smooth new layer, is the most common street tree in the borough of Brooklyn. The ubiquity of this tree in the city is no accident. Street trees suffer from almost every arboreal insult possible, from drought and flood to storm damage, limited growing space and constant assault by speeding vehicles. Few trees are better at withstanding these stressors than the London plane. But they also indicate that the city has a long way to go in making our streets a more habitable environment. Where trees can’t grow neither can people or communities.

Looking up into a Red Oak 

The  Mighty Oak 

If street trees are a civil engineer’s answer to mitigating intense weather, then our large parks and urban forests are a naturalist’s haven for maintaining biological diversity and environmental resilience. To say nothing of the way that parks can act as a tincture to calm the soul. Starving artists, disciplined runners, stray cats, role-playing camp kids, dogs pulling their humans, Baby Bjorn-bound mothers, hyperactive chipmunks, stony-faced little-leaguers; Everyone sought respite from their frantic lives in Prospect Park. With all those people it is hard to imagine there is room for between thirty and forty thousand trees in the park. The woodlands represent the only native forest in Brooklyn.  Two hundred years ago, as Brooklyn’s population was booming its ancient woods had mostly disappeared to make room for farms. In fact, when the park was constructed in the middle of the 19th century it was on top of nearly treeless pastureland.  

 

Now the park’s woodlands are lush with trees, shrubs and wildlife. The keystone species in our neck of the woods is the oak tree. Oaks come in many sub-species, adapted to specific niches like the marsh-loving willow oak or the red oak which seeks out hilltops. In all cases the oak is the beginning of a biological chain that stretches from the fungus feeding at its roots to the plants that bask in its diffused sunlight all the way up the chain to the squirrel glutted on acorns or the Redtail hawk feasting on squirrel.

A perfectly shaped Linden Tree providing shade

American Linden

The balancing act for urban forestry is to harness the vast positive effects of nature’s most beneficial flora while limiting the negative factors a tree can produce. Since every tree has a different profile of benefits it takes a lot of consideration to get it right. A red maple can soak up plenty of water in flood prone areas but its roots can be invasive to nearby homes. The horse chestnut is one of the most efficient carbon dioxide absorbers but its weak wood can peel apart in heavy storms.

A few months back I had to stage a defense for an American linden tree. The Linden is a great shade tree as well as a reliable flower feast for native bees. This one was decades old and its roots were lifting the sidewalk around it. The construction crew wanted to remove it. The homeowners nearby also didn’t like the pollen which littered their stoop every year. I argued to keep it. It was healthy, it was mature enough to finally be making a net contribution to its environment. We ended up saving the tree and putting a ramped sidewalk over the roots. Days later I walked up to the site, sweating under the hot afternoon sun, watching the posse of homeowners and construction workers chatting. I was making a beeline for relief to the same area they were all standing in, under the shade of that very linden tree.

In the canopy of a sugar maple

Sugar Maple

Arboriculture, the cultivation and management of trees, is ever evolving. Climate change plays its part. Many people know that the state tree of New York is the sugar maple. Not only because I guzzle maple syrup do I love this majestic tree with eye-popping fall foliage and mature bark that evokes the wise and grizzled visage of Dumbledore’s beard. The sugar maple is a foundational part of Northeastern American culture. Literally, sugar maple timber provides much of the framework and flooring for some of the oldest structures in this part of the country. In recent years local sugar maples have been in decline. Its natural defenses consist of growing in places where the winter is cold enough to kill off most of its pests without harming the cold-hardy tree. Brooklyn used to fall more reliably into that temperate zone, but now climate change is shifting the territory of New York’s state tree outside of New York City. 

As we introduce new non-native trees to our city blocks like the Korean mountain ash or the Siberian elm we are also in the process of losing many of our critical native species. American Elms once lined neighborhood blocks, providing shade with sprawling behemoth branches. Then Dutch elm disease decimated the population. The American chestnut used to hold a more important place in our forests than the oak until the chestnut blight changed that. Now invasive pests and fungi are posing serious threats to our maples, oaks and pines. In a world of unfettered global trade our new normal for ecology is ceaseless change.

For now, Prospect Park still feels like home in my native, ever-changing Brooklyn. Its trees make up an indelible part of my story. Prospect Park just celebrated its 150th anniversary this past fall. Does that make it old by public park standards or young in comparison to the life of an oak tree? Lately, I make it out into the Park less often, mostly losing myself in its interior, finding locations I’ve known and yet still never really discovered. 

 

The Reader Interview: Activating a Democratic Space

By Filed Under: The Reader Interview Tagged With: , ,

The Reader Interview with Jack Walsh of the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival

Whether you’re enjoying the afro-blues sound of Amadou & Mariam, waxing nostalgic with Talib Kweli, or taking in a film with live scores performed by the Brooklyn Interdenominational Choir, the Wordless Music Orchestra, or Brooklyn United Marching Band, you’re sure to make some new meaningful memories, big and small, at the Festival this summer.

On a rainy afternoon in late-May, the people who make the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival possible continued their preparations for the Festival’s 39th season. Jack Walsh, who is Vice President of Performing Arts at BRIC and the Executive Producer of Celebrate Brooklyn!, welcomed me to the Prospect Park Bandshell as the staff closed out for the day. Walsh has been with the Festival for 35 of its 39 years. We sat down at Dizzy’s Diner to discuss a changing Brooklyn, the Festival as a platform for artists’ voices and activism, and Walsh’s favorite BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival memory.

 

 

Can you walk us through the process of selecting the lineup for the summer? How is this summer different from other years?

Sure. We have a programming team. I serve as the Executive Producer and oversee the whole festival, but I really work in partnership with Rachel Chanoff, the Artistic Director. Under her there are one or two programmers. We feed all the ideas in through Rachel, and she leads the programming team that’s doing the booking and reaching out to agents. Because of Rachel and our partnership over many years, we hope the Festival has an artistic, or programmatic, voice. Even if people can’t quite put their fingers on it, they understand that the selection process is very thoughtful and intentional. That’s broadly how it works.

This year is different in that, while we’re not wearing our activism on our sleeves, a good many of us are pretty active, and upset about what’s happening in the country and the world. There is a bit of intentional social justice activism in the lineup. That’s a little different this year, and as we move into next year for our 40th anniversary season, we’ll see a bit more of that intentionality through some commissioned projects. Every year we do a post-season assessment and talk about what worked, what didn’t and why, looking at data, but it really boils down to artistic choices.

Brooklyn as a borough is becoming more gentrified, the city has some of the most segregated schools in the country, and the country is divided politically. What can the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival teach us about bringing people of different backgrounds and ideologies together?

That goes to the heart of the Festival and its origins. We don’t put it out there as front and center as we used to, but there is a mission statement for the Festival, and part of it is to bring people together in a safe, harmonious setting to experience each other’s cultures. Brooklyn is still one of the most diverse places in the United States, but, as you say, it’s getting more and more gentrified. While we have recognized that—we live here and see the changes—we have made a more concerted effort to not just program a Festival where you see diversity on stage, but to program the Festival so you see diversity in the audience. That’s really important. So we put more of an effort on marketing and outreach to communities of color, and think about how it is we can make sure all feel invited and welcome. That’s something we’re very deliberate about, and we’re more or less successful. We’re trying all kinds of things to make sure that happens.

Part of BRIC’s mission is to incubate and present new work by artists. Do you also think of the Festival as a way to incubate new work?

It is. Because of the scale, it’s different. At BRIC, we have a fantastic, smaller-scale program called BRIClab. We give artists workspace for over two weeks to develop projects and present them in workshops. That’s a way in which a lot of work is developed. Because of the scale of the Festival, the way we can incubate work is different.

Here’s one example from this summer’s lineup, which addresses the activism piece and also how we work with artists to help them with what it is they want to work on, or give them an opportunity to do something different. The film Selma, which has been out for over two years, is an incredible, well-done story. The music was composed by Jason Moran, a New Yorker and jazz composer, who’s now the Kennedy Center Artistic Director for Jazz. He’s an incredibly accomplished jazz musician whom we’ve worked with and presented before. This year we approached him and said we’d like to show Selma and have you perform the score live. He was intrigued by that, but then let us know it included a 35-piece orchestra. He doesn’t get to do that often, so we said “why not?” and put a lot of resources into it. It’ll be the only time that score will be performed live with Jason Moran’s trio and a full symphony orchestra. That’s a way in which you can say we incubate work, or at least give artists an opportunity to do something different. There are other examples, but that one really stands out for this summer.

Hopefully that performance will be a way we can get people to wake up and think about what’s happening with voting rights in this country.

Is there anything you want the audience to be especially awake to?

We’re here in Brooklyn. It’s different here than it is elsewhere. We want to be a platform so that musicians and artists can speak their voice. Many times, they’re the best activists. Beyond that, as citizens, we can all be thinking about voting rights, even though the restrictive voting rights measures taking place in other parts of the country aren’t necessarily happening here in New York. But voting rights have been challenged on the federal level, which allows different states to do less to protect those rights, or to be more restrictive in states like North Carolina, which are now actively trying to make it harder to vote, in ways they couldn’t until recently. Here in Brooklyn we can make a difference. We can try to get these rights reinstated on a federal level. It affects the entire country. Showing a film like Selma and celebrating its message is something we can do as a Festival.

We focus on performance, and the experience of performance. A lot of organizations would love to be at the Festival to solicit, fundraise, or get signatures. We don’t do a lot of that, but we’ve consistently allowed voting rights organizations, like HeadCount. We feel voting is a baseline thing in a participatory democracy. Anything we can do to move the dial is a good use of our platform. We’ve embraced that for many years. This year, we’re trying to lean into it more.

People in the neighborhood have a very personal connection to Prospect Park. What role has the park played in the 39 years of BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival’s history, as a setting or even as a character?

I’ve never thought of it as a character. I was born and raised in Park Slope, and literally spent my life in Prospect Park. People use the Park in ways that are very personal to them, and it certainly is a setting for many stories and memories. That’s something everyone can relate to. The Park has been designed to be and has always been a very democratic space. To activate it the way we do with music, dance, and film is an incredibly special way to use the Park. Most parks are designed to have a place for gathering and music. For me, having worked on the Festival for decades, Prospect Park is most especially a setting for music. But it is a setting for other things, like picnics and gatherings with family and friends, important moments big and small.

What was the most memorable concert in your time with BRIC’s Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival?

I’ve been working on the Festival since 1982, every summer. I’ve worked on every single show, except for four. That’s over a thousand performances. With that as the background, I have to say David Byrne in 2010 was one of the best shows we’ve ever done. For me personally, it was absolutely thrilling. He was on a tour where he was doing a lot of old Talking Heads music. That one is very much at the top of the list.

In terms of others that rise to being super memorable…it gets harder after that. David Byrne is at the top for me, and after that, there are so many other great ones, and it’s hard to choose. Norah Jones was fantastic, in the pouring rain, and St. Vincent, and Sylvan Esso, who’s coming back this summer. Going way back to my first year, 1982, when I was very young, Betty Carter left quite an impression on me. She was a jazz singer who lived here in Fort Greene. Her performance is up there on the “unforgettable” list, partly because it was my first year working the Festival. But she was also a legendary and influential performer with an impactful career. In the early years of the Festival, we presented a lot of jazz singers from Fort Greene, like Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, and others, and I was there for that. Those are some of the more recent and earlier shows that are especially memorable.

In addition to the screening of Selma, what are you most looking forward to this summer?

The closing night show with Youssou N’Dour from Senegal will be extraordinary. Youssou is a global ambassador of culture. His music at its core crosses boundaries and borders. This show is emblematic of what we try to do at the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, to bring people together “under the big tent,” if you will. He comes to New York every year or so, but this will be one of his first free shows in New York. We intentionally programmed it to close the season. We’ve been trying to get him forever and finally got him.

Is there anything you’d add for our readers?

You enter the park at 9th Street and Prospect Park West, so in many ways it’s Park Slope’s Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival. It is for the whole borough, but there is a real special connection to this neighborhood. Many people here support the Festival and become members. Our Friends of Celebrate Brooklyn! program has a thousand people in it who all support the Festival, and many of them live in Park Slope. It’s gratifying to see that because it means we’re really connecting with people. They feel that connection and want to repay the favor by supporting the Festival. There are a lot of people who come again and again, which is really special.

I’d say to everyone reading the Park Slope Reader, the Festival is there for you, come out, take advantage of it, make it your own, support it if you can. Otherwise, come and bring your friends, and spread the word.

Do you have any advice for artists who want to engage with those issues of displacement and gentrification?

Artists have voice, and a platform. What they choose to speak about is their choice. But I think that artists can move the needle on issues in ways that other people can’t. If that’s at the core of your artistic practice: good for you, keep it up, get stronger, do it louder. If it’s not in your practice, and you’re concerned about issues that affect your neighborhood or society, I would say, sharpen your pencil, get a bit of a tough skin, and start to put yourself out there more. Because, again, artists can say it in ways that can encapsulate the message for other people, and that has a unique multiplying effect. I just encourage it. If you’re already doing it, do it bigger, better, louder.

It’s interesting. We’ve talked about gentrification. The Festival was founded at a time when Brooklyn and Park Slope weren’t such fine places to be. It was meant to bring people together to celebrate Brooklyn, and it was part of an effort to “revitalize” Brooklyn. “Revitalization” was a popular word then. Now, the tipping point has come and gone. Gentrification has almost come and gone. Now it’s more like displacement. That’s happened in Park Slope. This place we’re sitting in has been here for a long time, but it wasn’t always Dizzy’s. I struggle with that; being born and raised here, I’ve seen waves of change.

Really, change is inevitable. Change is good. But being an active participant in the change is key.

A First Timer’s Guide To Birdwatching

By Filed Under: Local Ecology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Browsing different alternatives online, I was looking for a new Brooklyn experience. I wanted to do an activity involving fresh air and the peace and quiet of nature, as much as allowed by living in the largest city in the U.S.

Luckily Prospect Park, Brooklyn’s giant 585-acre lung, offers plenty of fun from horseback riding to nature walks throughout the fall.

I opted for Brooklyn Bird Club’s (BBC) birdwatching tours. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning, a knowledgable guide will lead you through the best birdwatching spots in the park, starting from various entrances. The walks run throughout September, which is migration season, and will be replaced from October and onwards by monthly Sunday walks. Weekly beginner walks continues Saturdays at noon.

Tour leader Tom Stephenson helped identify the different species with a nifty 3D App.
Tour leader Tom Stephenson helped identify the different species with a nifty 3D App.

I have very little previous experience of birdwatching. In fact, my whole experience consists of one single birdwatching excursion during my childhood in Sweden. Because the days are so long during summer, we had to get up at 3am to catch the sunrise, which is when the birds are the most active. I remember the excitement of being up that early, and allowed out in the middle of the night. I also remember the deafening cacophony of what must have been thousands of birds singing their tunes in the magic hour of dawn. I absorbed this new, secret world of sounds in awe, feeling like I’ve entered some kind of a parallel universe.

What I don’t remember, however, is seeing any birds. Perhaps a guided tour under Tom Stephenson’s competent leadership would ensure a visual birdwatching experience this time? At 7:15am on Thursday, August 25, we met at the Grand Plaza entrance of Prospect Park, along with a group of about 12 enthusiastic birdwatchers. Tom kindly lent me a pair of binoculars, and having been briefed about my lack of experience, offered some insights to what we were about to experience.

Apparently, Prospect Park, despite being crammed in between urban concrete, is a birdwatching heaven. Home to over 200 species, an impressive 40-100 species can be spotted in one single walk, although you’re more likely to hit the higher numbers in the spring. One reason for the abundance of birdlife, is that the general westerly component of winds in the U.S. tend to push migrating birds towards the east coast. Since they will resist flying over water, their flight path is often concentrated along the eastern shoreline.

Urban areas without parks offer no place to rest and recharge, which the birds are dependent on, to survive their long journeys. They need the right kinds of shelter and feeding environments, where they can stay for several days to gain enough body fat to continue or recover from their long journey. Sadly, urban areas by the sea without parks become death traps for migrating birds, especially if there are many feral cats.

Prospect Park is one of New York’s 130 Important Bird Areas (IBA) critical for bird conservation, and harbors some species unusual enough to create headlines (in birdwatching circles). Three years ago, the first Brooklyn-nesting Ruby-throated Hummingbird was documented by BBC, although the birds you are likely to spot most frequently are American Robins, European Starlings, Northern Cardinals and House Sparrows. But with Tom being not only an avid birdwatcher, but also the distinguished author of The Warbler Guide, which won the 2014 National Outdoor Book Award in Nature Guidebooks, we set out to find the Warblers.

We walked at a slow pace, and I had the chance to chat a bit with my fellow birdwatchers, who turned out to be a very friendly and welcoming bunch. Many were regulars, and most of them locals, but some were tourists just briefly visiting. Rachel Ramaker, a Dutch girl living in England, had brought her binoculars for the opportunity to birdwatch. In fact, since a set of binoculars is all you need, birdwatching is a great hobby to bring along when traveling. It’s easy to join local networks for a chance to spot new species, although Rachel turned out to be a frequent visitor, as well informed as the locals. Charmed by Park Slope, she said she kept meticulous track of local happenings through the Park Slope Reader.

mail-attachment-4
Black and White Warbler

mail-attachment
Eastern Wood-Pewee

blwwar
Prothonotary Warbler

mail-attachment-2
Chestnut-sided Warbler

 

 

It didn’t take long before we spotted our first birds. Well, to be accurate, it didn’t take long before the group started to see Starlings, Robins, and Cardinals. I couldn’t see anything but blurry leaves, and was surprised to learn that using binoculars requires a bit of a technique. You have to look at one spot, and bring the binoculars up while still looking, Tom instructed, rather than trying to find the spot by circling around with the binoculars.

To me, Tom gave the impression of a bird whisperer. He whistled, they answered, and we watched. He could hear if it was young birds, not yet able to sing as well as their parents, and explained that baby birds deprived of hearing their parents sing will never be able to learn it well later. Some species will even loose the ability completely and sing songs that would be unrecognizable by their own species, making it unlikely for them to ever be able to breed. It’s mainly the male birds who sing in Prospect Park, I learnt, as opposed to the birds in tropical forests, where both males and females sing. This is because tropical birds don’t migrate, so both males and females have to help out defending their territory.

When we got to the lake, Wood Ducks were peacefully gliding by. I learnt that they are the only duck with claws, which they use to climb up high trees, to nest in holes, like owls. The trees help them avoid predators, and at least two pairs of Wood Ducks have successfully raised their young in Prospect Park this season. The list of spotted birds kept growing, and would eventually come to include Double-crested Cormorant, Canada Goose, Mute Swan, Wood Duck, Mallard, Northern Shoveler, Spotted Sandpiper, Rock Dove, Mourning Dove, Chimney Swift, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Eastern Kingbird, Warbling Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Blue Jay, Barn Swallow, Tufted Titmouse, Red-breasted Nuthatch, White-breasted Nuthatch, Veery, American Robin, Gray Catbird, European Starling, Cedar Waxwing, Blue-winged Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, American Redstart, Northern Waterthrush, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Cardinal, Common Grackle, Baltimore Oriole, House Finch, American Goldfinch and House Sparrow.

An impressive 42 birds were spotted while I practiced maneuvering my binoculars. But it wasn’t in vain. Eventually, I managed to focus on a movement in the leaves, and soon a… wait, could it be… yes, a Blue-Winged Warbler emerged and strutted about in the sun for quite some time, as if to reward me for my struggles, before disappearing back into the leaves. I was surprised at the thrill I felt of getting so close visually to the delicate Warbler.

Will I do it again? Probably! Birdwatching is a great recreational outdoor activity, and the slow pace makes it suitable for all fitness levels. Even I, with a broken ankle in a boot, had no trouble keeping up. My advice to the first timer would be to start with the Saturday beginner walks in the winter, when there are no leaves in the way. Also, this is not the right target group for cute cat stories. Cats are the number one bird killer. Don’t mention your cat!

——

To do: www.prospectpark.org/visit-the-park/things-to-do
Birdwatching: www.prospectpark.org/visit-the-park/things-to-do/birdwatching
Tom’s book on Warblers: press.princeton.edu/titles/9968.html
Goats: www.prospectpark.org/news-events/news/return-goats
BBC: www.brooklynbirdclub.org
Schedule: www.brooklynbirdclub.org/trips.htm

 

All bird images courtesy of Tom Stephenson
Featured image and image of Tom Stephenson courtesy of Annika Andersson

A Musical Trip Around the World

By Filed Under: Music Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The summer concert season in New York City is phenomenal. Every year I wait with baited breath for BRIC arts and SummerStage lineups to be announced. And I’m always blown away. The sheer diversity is amazing, so hats off to the people who organize and schedule these events because it can’t be an easy task. 

Now, we all know about some of the larger acts, but my favorites are the lesser known international acts that come to swelter in our summer heat. It’s a musical voyage around the world, with all points on the globe represented – even Iceland (though sadly, not this year). Here are some of my favorite upcoming events. They are all FREE, and (for the most part) in Brooklyn. If you want to dance, dance; if you prefer to just sit back and take in nature, go for it! Embrace a new language, or just chill out. It’s all here, right at your doorstep. 

Bargemusic 

Saturdays through Labor Day, 4pm 

Fulton Ferry Landing near the Brooklyn Bridge

2 Old Fulton St, Brooklyn Waterfront

Bargemusic moored at Fulton Ferry Landing
Bargemusic moored at Fulton Ferry Landing

Brooklyn truly offers everything, and in this case, it presents chamber music on board a renovated coffee barge alongside the Brooklyn waterfront. Bargemusic provides the rare opportunity to witness virtuoso talent in an intimate setting – a wood-paneled room with a view of the Manhattan skyline. The ensemble performs various dates year-round, but through a partnership with Brooklyn Bridge Park, Saturday afternoons are offered gratis to the public. Advance tickets are not available for these free events and doors open 15 minutes prior to show time. To learn more about the Saturday afternoon engagements, visit www.brooklynbridgepark.org/events/bargemusic. Bargemusic is a non-profit organization with a unique history, which is detailed on their website, www.bargemusic.org.

Rachid Taha / Krar Collective 

July 15, 6:30 gates open/ 7:30 show

Prospect Park Bandshell

9th St & Prospect Park West, Park Slope

The songs and albums Rachid Taha creates are perhaps the perfect embodiment of “World Music.” The Algerian-born performer embraces every influence from rock to gypsy to flamenco to RaЇ, Algeria’s indigenous pop music. His vocals, sung in Arabic, English, and French, are intense and emotive; his expressions transcend words. A solo artist since 1989, he has performed around with world with acts such as Dengue Fever, Fela Kuti, and Brian Eno. His passionate and sometimes political approach has led him to be compared to the late Clash front-man, Joe Strummer. The London-based Ethopian band Krar open the evening with their hypnotic grooves. More information about these performers can be found at www.rachidtahaofficial.com and www.krarcollective.com.

SummerStage Kids: Sonia De Los Santos 

July 27, 10:30 – 11:30am 

Sunset Park

41st St, between 5th Ave 7Th Ave, Sunset Park

Sonia De Los Santos Band 1 (credit Quetzal Photography) copy
Sonia De Los Santos Band, Credit: Quetzal Photography

Sonia De Los Santos plays a variety of Mexican music for kids that can best be described as delightful. One of Dane Zanes’ Friends, she recently released her debut solo album, Mi Viaje: De Neuvo Léon to the New York Island, in which she shares the experiences of growing up in Mexico and moving to New York City. Her songs are in the of the regional son jarocho style, drawing on Spanish and African sounds. In her performances, as she plays her jarana (a small guitar that looks like a ukulele), she encourages children to dance, and sing in Spanish. To learn more about Sonia, visit www.soniadelossantos.com.

The Hubble Cantata / Tigue

August 6, 6:30 gates open / 7:30 show

Prospect Park Bandshell

9th St & Prospect Park West, Park Slope

hubble 7
Hubble Space Telescope

Perhaps the most intriguing show this summer, and the one that’s hardest to wrap my head around is The Hubble Cantata’s performance. Composer Paola Prestini collaborates with multi-media artists to create a soundscape and full sensory experience – a portion of the performance is to be viewed via Virtual Reality headsets – sharing footage from the Hubble telescope and taking the audience through the universe. I’m prepared to be awestruck. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of information about this show available online, and perhaps it’s best to go and enjoy without preconceptions. Art trio Tigue open with their minimalist, ambient contemporary chamber music.

Labyrinth / Donny McCaslin Group

August 10, 7:30pm

Prospect Park Bandshell

9th St & Prospect Park West, Park Slope

Donny-July-2012-2-Mirroring-Fixed_0
Donny McCaslin. Credit: courtesy of artist

I say with complete lack of irony that Jim Henson’s 1986 masterpiece Labyrinth is one of my all-time favorite movies. It has everything: muppets, music, and David Bowie sporting one of the most amazing costumes to come out of the eighties (and that’s saying a lot). I was fifteen years old when this movie hit the theaters and thereafter wanted to be Jennifer Connelly. I can’t wait to watch it once again with a group of eager movie-goers. Opening act, The Donny McCaslin Group, backed Bowie on his final release, Black Star; so the evening comes full circle. With David Bowie’s passing this year, it seems a perfect tribute.

Jazzmobile

August 16, 7pm

Harborview Lawn

334 Furman St, Brooklyn Waterfront

Founded in 1964, Jazzmobile was the first not-for-profit arts and cultural organization created for jazz. The group’s goal is outreach – to bring jazz, “America’s Classical Music,” to the community. At the heart of this award-winning ensemble is acclaimed Vibraphonist, Jay Hoggard. During this evening, their compositions create the soundtrack to the waters of New York Harbor and the Brooklyn and Manhattan skylines. What a beautiful, relaxing way to take in the mid-summer’s eve. Learn more about Jazzmobile’s mission and musicians by visiting www.jazzmobile.org.

Inukasuit / Rite of Summer Festival

August 27, 1 & 3pm (rain date August 28)

Governors Island at Nolan Park

Technically this event is not in Brooklyn. But a visit to Governors Island, the gem in the middle of New York Harbor, is mandatory during the summer. With everything happening during the short season, it’s sometimes easy to forget to plan a visit; so here’s the perfect reason to do so. “Inuksuit” refers to a grouping of large man-made markers used by Inuit and North American indigenous people, and is the composition created by John Luther Adams who finds inspiration for his music from nature. Hailed by the New York Times as “the ultimate environmental piece,” it is performed by more than 60 percussionists led by percussionist/Music Director, Amy Garapic. Amazing, right? Directions to and around Governors Island can be found at www.govisland.com.

IMG_1831 2
Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards, playing at the Brooklyn Americana Music Festival, 23-24 September

To Get A Dog Or Not To Get A Dog

By Filed Under: Sally Kohn Tagged With: , , ,

One thing leads to another

Building a more perfect Park Slope!

I’ve written my first two columns for the Park Slope Reader about whether to get a family dog and, if so, what dog to get.  Suffice it to say that we don’t have a dog yet, but I believe it may happen any day now.  Which led me to start thinking about things like dog beds and dog walkers and the general dog infrastructure of Park Slope.

And then I realized what’s missing—Why aren’t there any dog runs besides Prospect Park?  Am I missing something?  Is this just one of those things you don’t notice until you have a dog, sort of like how I didn’t notice kid’s menus until I had a kid?  Or are there unofficial, underground dog runs about which only the chosen few in the neighborhood know?

I’m not saying dog runs are great things—I remember when I lived in Manhattan thinking they were dusty, smelly wastes of otherwise-nice park land.  But I suspect if/when I have a dog, on those days when I just don’t feel like slogging up to the park or can’t get there in time for off leash hour, it would be nice to have a place to let the dog run a little closer to home.

And this, in turn, led me to thinking about other things our neighborhood lacks.  Let me be clear, I love Park Slope.  If I were the tattoo-getting type, I’d have 11217 written somewhere on my left bicep below “Sarah Forever” and above a portrait of Cher.  So I think Park Slope is damn near perfect.  But what might make it even more perfect, beyond the obvious things like more affordable housing stock and racial and economic integration in public schools and social spaces?  Here is a rough list of ideas:

• A co-working space.  Or maybe a co-working café, where you could buy a day pass and nab a desk and not feel guilty because you’ve only drank one cappuccino.  There are so many transient hipster creatives working “at home” crammed into the current stock of Park Slope coffee shops, I can’t believe someone hasn’t created this.

• A coffee shop with a kid play and programming space.  There are things like this in Manhattan, where moms and dads can grab a drink and a snack while the kids take in a puppet show or something.  Again, there are so many parents with young kids crammed along side the hipsters trying to get their work done, I don’t know why this doesn’t exist either.

• More mimes.  Silent but entertaining.

• More places with prepared foods.  There’s the BKLYN Larder, which I love, and at the other end of the slope, Gather, which is also great.  But what about when I’m feeling really lazy and only want to walk one or two blocks to get a dinner somebody else pseudo-home cooked?

• A place that opens early for brunch.  I love you, Dizzy’s and Cousin John’s, but I mean a more fancy brunch establishment that caters to the fact that my child us awake and hungry at 8:00 a.m.

• Participatory budgeting where community residents get to prioritize how city money is spent.  Oh wait, we already have that in Park Slope!  Thank you, City Councilman Brad Lander!

• All the chains to go away.  You can get your books for the same price at the Community Bookstore instead of Barnes & Noble.  You can get your coffee at Grumpy or Gorilla for less than Starbucks.  Local businesses are what make a community unique.  Plus when we spend money in local Park Slope-owned businesses, that money stays in and strengthens Park Slope.

• Bike racks on residential blocks.  I would love to park my bike on the street but my neighbors aren’t so keen on the aesthetics of my bike locked to our front gate.  Want to encourage more biking?  Put up more bike racks, everywhere.  And some Citibike stations would be awesome, too.

That’s just a quick list.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Except about mimes.  Please don’t send or post your thoughts about mimes.  They’re very divisive, I’ve learned.

A Profile In A Musical Kaleidoscope: Dawn Landes

By Filed Under: Friends & Neighbors Tagged With: , , , ,

Landes2OL

When the stars align, it can seem downright magical. Celebrate Brooklyn offers a unique opportunity for the musicians and audience to bond in a way that is only possible during the easy, breezy nights of summer. And Dawn Landes is the perfect performer for this type of introduction.

On a July evening, Park Slope resident Dawn Landes took the stage at the Prospect Park bandshell. She was the opening act for Jason Isbell, as part of the Celebrate Brooklyn! concert series. “Her band was tight, like they have played together for a long time,” an audience member described. Dawn’s voice and musicianship were beautiful. If you haven’t already experienced it, Prospect Park is the perfect place setting for a performance–moonlight bouncing off the grass and the trees, and the skyline of Park Slope’s beautiful architecture in the distance. By Florence Wang

If you weren’t in attendance that night, or are not familiar with Dawn Landes, she has been a busy bee buzzing around Brooklyn since alighting here eight years ago, releasing five albums and three EPs as a solo artist. Her most recent solo album, Bluebird, with songs are windows to quiet, thoughtful moments, received a nomination for “Folk Album of the Year” by MRG from its 14th Annual Independent Music Awards. Her spirited 2010 release, Sweetheart Rodeo, extends an invitation for hand-clapping and a foot-stomping. There’s something that feels very participatory in her music; and that must be due to her collaborative nature. In addition to her solo albums, she has taken the stage with an array of musicians, including Will Oldham, Sufjan Stevens, and Justin Townes Earl. These alliances have led to her expanding into new areas such as an album devoted to the French song style Ye-Ye (a pop of the 1906s), and an interactive graphic novel. She also performs as Dawn Split, one third of the all-girl pop trio, The Bandana Splits, who are incredibly reminiscent of the Andrews Sisters, and are oodles of fun.

Her love of music started at a young age. “I started making up songs before I could play any instruments. Somewhere there’s a cassette tape of a four-year-old me cooing rhymes into my dad’s recorder.” Growing up, Dawn was drawn to Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, and Lucinda Williams, who she aptly refers to as “the truth tellers.” These influences shaped her style, which could easily be described as a perfect marriage of these sounds: Ronstadt’s gorgeous soprano, Raitt’s wit, and Williams’ whimsy. An accomplished multi-instrumentalist, her exploration with sound also began at home. “We had a piano that kept changing colors. My mom kept painting it. I guess I’m drawn to acoustic instruments,” she muses. “I love the sound of the banjo and a good honky-tonk piano.”

Moving to New York City from her native Kentucky, Dawn cut her teeth working at various recording studios around the city while attending NYU. She learned the ropes of production and engineering, and met other like-minded musicians. “I’m often drawn to the people first and the music second,” she says. During this time worked with the Brooklyn-based, Americana musical group Hem, playing glockenspiel. “I met Hem in the studio early on when I was assisting at Stratosphere Sound. I love collaborating, it’s like the periodic table…you take a bunch of elements and throw them together and they create a whole new thing.”

Perhaps her biggest undertaking is writing the music and lyrics for the upcoming musical, Row, commissioned by Joe’s Pub/The Public Theater. Row recounts the true story of Tori Murden, a fellow Kentuckian, who in 1998 left her job and endeavored to become the first woman to row across the Atlantic Ocean. Dawn followed Tori’s progress as it appeared in the news, and the story stayed with her. “I was really inspired by Tori’s memoir, A Pearl in the Storm, but it wasn’t until I met with (writer/director) Daniel Goldstein that I ever considered turning it into a musical.” Goldstein, a fellow Park Slope resident, is writing the book and she has greatly loved this process. You can find Dawn’s TED talk about Tori’s story online. Her recounting of the voyage is riveting and the song she performs is a gorgeous reflection of her thoughts and feelings. A work in progress, she debuted some of the songs in a performance at Joe’s Pub over the summer, “It’s still in development with the Public Theater and I’m very excited to share it with the world when it’s ready.” Given her previous albums, it makes perfect sense for Dawn to sing about Tori—she is a woman of strength, it must be the Kentucky spirit shining through.

Dawn is currently on tour as part of Sufjan Stephens’ quartet that The Huffington Post described as “stellar;” further writing that Dawn is a, “charming singer-songwriter whose quiet elegance added even more charm to his already class act.” When touring is complete, Park Slope is where she hangs her hat. “I moved to Brooklyn about eight years ago. As a native Kentuckian, the tree-lined streets in Carroll Gardens and Park Slope really made me feel at home. I grew up near Cherokee Park in Louisville…which is also an Olmstead park, so Prospect Park somehow feels familiar. There’s a great community of musicians and songwriters in Brooklyn.”

2016 looks to be another busy year for Dawn—in January, look out for her EP of duets on Sixth Degree Records, titled Desert Songs. As you’re thinking about gifts this season, The Bandana Splits have a holiday album coming out—the perfect soundtrack to any party. You will find it in her online store, which is stocked with fun, rodeo-themed merchandise, as well as her music on both CD and vinyl. It has been a busy year for Dawn, and I for one am looking forward to her return to Brooklyn and Joe’s Pub, and a chance to hear her live.

You can learn more about her, listen to music, and find her performance dates on her website, dawnlandes.com.