Closing Bell: Brooklyn Flea + Urban Arts Festival
It’s been a busy week behind the scenes at The Flea, what with last night’s community meeting and all. The meeting was conceived as a listening session for neighborhood concerns but word leaked out and a number of supporters showed up and it ended up feeling more like a referendum on the market. For a…
It’s been a busy week behind the scenes at The Flea, what with last night’s community meeting and all. The meeting was conceived as a listening session for neighborhood concerns but word leaked out and a number of supporters showed up and it ended up feeling more like a referendum on the market. For a couple of longer reports, you can check out Racked, Gawker or Reclaimed Home. Senator Velmanette Montgomery, Councilmember James and Borough Prez Marty Markowitz by proxy all stepped up to the plate on behalf of the Flea; the suggestions ranged from the incremental and addressable to the not-so-reasonable and deal-breaking. There’s a big NY Times story about it slated for this weekend, so keep your eyes out. The two themes we (and others) kept coming back to were community-building and the importance of nurturing small businesses. Along those lines, we hope that everyone who comes out to the Flea this weekend will also make it over to nearby Myrtle Avenue between Emerson and Grand where the first day of the Brooklyn Urban Arts Market will take place; the four other days are August 10, August 24, September 7 and September 21. The open-air market will feature live music, visual art performances, food from Myrtle restaurants, and about 50 local, primarily home-based artisans, vendors, and entrepreneurs selling fashion, art, accessories and more. The event runs from 12 to 7. First timers attending the flea may want to check out the Flea Blog first and get these essentials under their belt: Flea hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday; it’s located at 176 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn. Closest trains are the C and G to Washington/Clinton. Or you can take any of the number of trains that go to Atlantic Station and make the 10-minute stroll up Lafayette Avenue from there.
Update: The New York Times article, by a reporter who took the time to sit down with us and was smart enough not to get himself kicked out of the community meeting, is here; a Daily News article by a “reporter” who was stuck chewing his cud outside the meeting is here. The most amazing part of the News article is the cherry-picked quote from Councilmember James that gives the impression that she’s against the market when she has championed it from the beginning. Some quality journalism.
Carleton- but the location is perfect. The flea isn’t trying to be the Javits east. It’s one day a week, not all year round. If the flea isn’t appropriate to a school yard, how can a track be? How can restaurants be? How can clothing stores be? Neighborhoods need things like this- not just to support businesses and artisans, but because it adds to the community feel. And most of the community seems to love having it.
“Racism is real but it has absolutely nothing to do with the real issue of location. ” is absolutely correct so why should church members make it so? The comment was offensive because it implies Jews have all the power and money in this country that they run everything. and its a comment that goes to the heart of the rationale for anti-semitism. I can vouch for the fact that we don’t. Oddly, Jewish access to banking is a direct result of manipulation by the church. In medieval times,Jews were forced to handle church money because there were laws that forbade the church to do certain things, like lend money and charge interest. (I may not have some of the details correct, but the history is true.)
If church members hadn’t mentioned synagogues or Jewish communities at all, most people wouldn’t be so up in arms and there could have been a real dialogue about the Flea and its impact on the community. But the church showed a very ugly side of itself and a very insular attitude toward the community. How could they expect any other sort of reaction than what they are getting now?
Carlton Banks said:
“Nobody cares about your parents and Brighton Beach.”
Sorry to bring up an example of my parents being victims of true racial hate and then not acting with racism when Russians came to Brighton Beach. Nothing angers people more than racism NOT happening.
Because the issue is simple and plain: Racism and self-hate. And not just racism and self-hate in the black community or the Jewish community or the Puerto Rican community or ANY community. It’s just simple chip-on-the-shoulder/envy/hate/racism.
“Regardless, that’s not the topic we’re discussing.”
Actually it 100% is and you’re ignoring this fact to focus on a tedious detail of the space supposedly being inappropriate for the flea and suggestions that place it well out of any meaningful difference.
Let’s for a second believe that what you are claiming is true. That the space used by Brooklyn Flea is inappropriate. Why then did the members of this “community” debate not bring these complaints straight to the organizers of Brooklyn Flea from the get go? This blog, their communication and their efforts to work with the community all speak towards them being open and amicable. Why then the political end runs and the creation of an air of animosity?
Also growing up in Brooklyn I have NEVER heard of any church, synagogue, mosque or ANYTHING complain that a local community event impeded on their ability to worship. If anything I’ve seen local “houses of worship” embrace these events because 1) they don’t happen as often as you claim and 2) they bring people physically near their “house of worship” and makes it a part of the community.
The reality is that if this event was organized by people the “community” saw as “their own” there would not be any issue about anything.
The reality is that if the event were smaller and less well attended you would use that as an excuse to push “them” out.
The reality is you just don’t want them there regardless and there is nothing they can do to appease this kind of passive-aggressive racism.
So where, Carlton, would you put a large Flea Market? Several critera have to be met.
First of all, if it is to be successful, it needs to be readily accessible by public transportation, especially the subway, and by foot.
It needs to be a large space with enforceable and secure boundaries, like a fence, walls, etc. A rain/shine market needs to be on a paved and drainable surface.
It needs to be available and affordable for Jon and Eric. If they rent from someone who gets sometimey on dates, or demands a huge rent, they won’t be able to sustain it, and vendors won’t make a commitment to sell there. Furthermore, if they are forced to raise booth fees significantly, many vendors will not be able to be there, or will have to raise their prices to cover the overhead.
Lastly, there is something to be said for a bit of ambiance, and proximity to other places/events/businesses. BLHS has all of that, which draws people to the area, who leave and can go to a nearby restaurant, store, walk around, whatever. There is a flea market in the Lowe’s parking lot under the F train. They may have the best bargains on earth, but no one knows about it, and it looks like a post apocalytic market from Mad Max. Location is king.
We didn’t promote the event on the blog because it was supposed to be a listening session for us to hear complaints. Clearly the readership of Brownstoner is tilted in favor of the market, so mentioning it here would have only increased the numbers of pro-Flea attendees. If you attend the church or live in the immediate area, you would have had to be living under a rock not to know about the meeting. We wanted to keep this from blowing up into a media event, not fan the flames.
What really shocks me is the selfishness and lack of imagination on the part of All Saints, which ostensibly should be supporting the good of the community as a whole. First, if they had any sense, they’d take advantage of this enormous opportunity to grow their congregation with signs out front inviting people to worship with them. Second, they should recognize that this is a hugely valuable amenity and source of jobs for locals. In just a couple of months, the Flea has done a helluva lot more to provide work for Brooklynites than the fading, increasingly irrelevant Catholic church.
I think G-Man’s original point is being largely overlooked by this discussion. Brownstoner runs two blogs neither of which actually covered this meeting in advance of it occurring. They most certainly knew of the 2nd neighborhood meeting (which they were not invited to) because I emailed them about it. While my email was at the last minute, I was really surprised by the ‘we don’t cover event listings anymore’ rationale Mr. B gave me for not providing readers w/notification of a neighborhood meeting that was 100% relevant to the blog.
As a neighborhood resident and regular reader of this blog, I think stoner has sold his readership – many of them community members – short by failing to present any information in advance of a meeting. By withholding information they made it impossible for readers to decide for ourselves whether we’re interested in attending or knowing more. If this is how he and folks from the flea have handled the complaints from the church, I am not at all surprised that things have become so heated. While I understand an inclination not to want to escalate a potentially charged issue, I feel that the head in the sand approach has, not surprisingly, failed. In the process, I think Mr. Butler and the rest of the flea folks have squandered valuable support since I don’t trust their coverage or presentation of these issues any longer.
People using the church’s bathroom? are you kidding? put up a notice on the blog that this is not acceptable behavior. Who does that? I have lived in this city my whole life and never wandered into a church randomly on a Sunday when I was dressed for a flea market and needed to pee.
The IS44 fleamarket (in manhattan right near the natural history museum) has run for years, they have always (as far as I can remember) had someone inside to ensure bathrooms are available for the use of attendees and that the schools in the building don’t end up w/random people wandering around. It isn’t rocket science to figure out that people schlepping from other neighborhoods are going to look for a place to use the bathroom…
Either or both blogs should be covering this issue and definitely should be posting some sort of behavior policy if, as it turns out, attendees are prone to totally inappropriate behavior.
Why does everything have to devolve into a discussion of race? Racism is real but it has absolutely nothing to do with the real issue of location. Nobody cares about your parents and Brighton Beach. It’s not relevant or meaningful for this discussion. The Whitestone Brooklyn comment is obviously out of line and moves the debate in the wrong direction. The comment saying the flea market put the neighborhood on the map tells me you haven’t been here very long or you are not aware of the history of the area.
Regardless, that’s not the topic we’re discussing. Is the current location ideal for this type of venture given the area’s zoning and immediate proximity to residences and churches? I think not. There are probably better locations.
Can commenters stay on topic without delving into their own personal history or racial commentary?
The flea market is a great addition to the neighborhood. I live right down the street from it and it’s nice to see a friendly vibe in the air. The shops and restaurants really benefit from it. The church members have shown their ignorance and intolerance in their words at the meeting. Hypocrites!
I agree with everything that “Jack” said in his post, remember you can’t buy if no one is selling.
And to The What: Your “Apocalypse Now” reference,
Don’t forget that in the alternate ending Capt. Willard does call in the airstrike and kill all the natives.
Your war is at an end….
In the nytimes.com article, the following is posted:
“Another woman decried the ‘hordes of people’ who descend on her neighborhood every week, and said, ‘It doesn’t feel like home anymore.'”
It’s been so many decades since many of the outer borough neighborhoods have gone into sharp decline that many of their long-time residents don’t acknowledge that their piece of paradise is built upon the remnants of a once-glorious past. Now that the outer boroughs are becoming resettled, long-time residents are in a state of shock that this stage of the life cycle of the city has arrived.
As resettlement continues to move from the city’s “center” to its periphery, the cycles of gentrification are going to continue over the next 75 years. Eventually, New York City is going to resemble Tokyo, which has dozens of vibrant, highly populated residential districts located well outside the city’s center.