Report from the field

I'm in New York for a couple of weeks visiting my daughter. I came a little earlier than the rest of the family so I could get in some sketching on my own and also meet up with the NYC urban sketchers. So last Saturday, they all came to my daughter's neighborhood, Red Hook to sketch.

Here are a couple from my day with the group. 

Red Hook "Yacht Club"

Somewhat refurbished streetcar sitting on the waterfront

Food trucks at the Red Hook Ball fields - these guys have famously delicious pupusas.
I also had mariachi music to accompany my sketching efforts. 

Willowtown, Brooklyn Heights, New York

A few years back while visiting New York we stayed in a brownstone on the corner of Jaralemon and Willow It's in a little pocket of a neighborhood called Willowtown, between Cobble Hill and Brooklyn Heights. Nestled in America's first suburb, Brooklyn Heights, Willowtown has it's own identity. It also has a number of distinctive buildings all very old and packed wall-to-wall up and down the street. This group of houses painted in spring-like pastels always catches my eye. So awhen I was there in June I perched myself of the steps of the River Deli to see what I could record.

Just a bit further south on the Valentino Pier in Red Hook, I found some people watching the sun set behind the Statue of Liberty.

 

Big Apple Barbecue Block Party

It's been a busy time these past couple of weeks - lots of sketching and not much time to post anywhere except instagram. I got to work at the 13th Annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, an annual fundraiser for the Madison Square Park Conservancy.  Since my son-in-law was an official pit master and my daughter, his events coordination manager, I was fully immersed in smoke and ribs.

Starting on Friday night with the "Brisket Sessions" a panel discussion by six pit masters representing some of the best BBQ joints in the country and continuing (non-stop for the pit crew) through Sunday afternoon. Here's a few highlight sketches.

Signs for the Skylight Inn owned by Sam Jones of Ayden North Carolina.
"Where I come from BBQ is the great equalizer between the class divide."

Hometown Barbeque tents beneath Madison Avenue arches.

That guy in the green shirt on the left is the legendary Mike Mills of 17th Street BBQ - Murphysboro, Illinois

The rest of the story can be found on my blog.

Subway Sketching

Since our daughter moved to Brooklyn a few years ago I've had way more opportunities to ride subways. Sometimes it's the only place to sit still for a while, especially when you're with non-sketchers. Here's a few from our last trip.

 

 And here's me with my sketching face on, bracing myself around the turns. 

Red Hook

Red Hook, the south Brooklyn neighborhood stretching below Atlantic Avenue to the Hudson River, is a place of contrasts. Sleek minimalist condos sit inside 19th century red-brick warehouses. The smell of salt water is halted by sewage reeking from pipes un-repaired since Hurricane Sandy. Construction cranes hum alongside dilapidated buildings. Wildly reviewed restaurants buzz just a few paces from the local bodega. 

One of the neighborhood's distinguishing characteristics is the open sky. The buildings are short compared to the city, especially across the river in Manhattan. The proximity to the water gives Red Hook the feel of a beach town, but definitely not a resort. It's just the kind of place artists and young urban famlies crave--cheap rent (until a couple of years ago), parks, plenty of real estate to renovate.

Red Hook Impressions

We visited Red Hook this year to celebrate the one year anniversary of Hometown BBQ. I wrote about their opening in a post last year. This year I had some time to explore and do some sketching in the neighborhood. I stood on the streets and did my thing. Here's a map of the neighborhood (I took small license to use this even though it's a sketch from a map):

Van Brunt is the main street running from Atlantic, a main thoroughfare in Brooklyn, to the water. I started with the Ice House and its neighbor, Bait and Tackle, the local watering holes and the places to find people who know Red Hook.

The first two buildings on the right -- The Ice House and Brooklyn Bait and Tackle, Van Brunt Street, Red Hook

Further down the street you pass chic urban shops, vacant lots, galleries, rusted trucks, and a custom-made bicycle shop among the array of businesses. Kentler International Drawing Space attracts my attention every time I visit, but I haven't managed to make it in to see what it's all about. Hers's a few street images:

Kentlery International Drawing Space - Red Hook pedestrian - sign for local bagel shop

Dry Dock Wine and Spirits - Van Brunt and Van Dyke

Hometown BBQ sits at the base of Van Brunt on Reed, just across the street from Fairway market, a massive grocery store selling everything from quarters of beef to Brooklyn Kombucha. Around the corner from Hometown on Conover is the legendary Sunny's Bar, owned by the Balzano family since 1890 and currently run by Sunny Balzano, "The Grandfather of Red Hook." You can read about Hometown and Sunnys in my posts from last year.

A new addition to the neighborhood is the Hometown Shack--where they smoke all the meat on wood-fired smokers. Two shipping containers handle a couple of smokers and a couple more sit outside next to the gravel yard. In the summer you can get your ribs and sit at the umbrella tables taking in the smoke flavored salty air.

Hometown Shack, Red Hook near Valentino Pier

A few paces from the Shack Louis Valentino, Jr Park and Pier locals can fish while enjoying possibly the best land view of the Statue of Liberty in New York. The park and pier are named after a firefighter and parks lifeguard Louis J Valentino who lost his life while searching for wounded fellow firefighters.

The lower Manhattan skyline stretches along the water, dominated by the new World Trade Center. I happened to be there on September 11. 

World Trade Center from Valentino Pier, Red Hook

  

We visited the Red Hook Initiative, a local non-profit that serves the neighborhood by providing job training and many other services. That's a story in itself. This quote by it's founder Jill Eisenhart, describes Red Hook aptly: 

"If you ask an outsider what makes Red Hook special, they'll talk about the parks and open spaces, the waterfront views, the cobblestone streets, the great businesses, churches and agencies that creat the fabri of the community. If you ask someone from Red Hook, they'll tell you the secret: It's the people who live here." 

From Images of Red Hook, by Thomas Rupolo

Hometown Barbque, Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY

In July our family went to Brooklyn with the intention of celebrating our daughter and son-in-law's new barbecue restaurant in Red Hook, a section of Brooklyn that was 6 ft under water when Sandy hit last October. I've postponed posting this sketch until opening day; and it's finally here! 

Hometown Bar-b-que, at the corner of Van Brunt and Reed just across from Fairway Market. 

Although it wasn't open to the public yet, they hosted a private party for my birthday: brisket, Caribbean jerk chicken, mac n' cheese, collards with pork and sangria. It makes my mouth water just remembering. 

Here's to Billy and LIanna and their new endeavor!

Sunnys Bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn

Sunny's is a legendary bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn, but according to the the New York Times, "To merely call Sunny’s a bar is to shortchange it. The place feels like a delicious secret, with its century’s worth of knickknacks, joyous multigenerational bluegrass jamborees and unassuming intimacy." In short, it's legendary. 

When Hurricane Sandy hit last November, Red Hook took a huge hit, and Sunny's sits on the downhill side, just a block from the East River. It's basement has a dirt floor. 

Thousands have rallied to raise funds to reopen Sunnys. At the same time, the owner, Sunny Balzano, has been living with cancer for the past 12 years. Still the patrons are loyal and I've heard the place hosts "speakeasy" bluegrass show occasionally. The green truck is a constant, by the way. 

America's first suburb - Brooklyn Heights

We stayed in Brooklyn Heights, Willowtown specifically, a sweet apartment in a lovely neighborhood with a canopy of trees lending shade to the 90 degree/90% humidity. It was the first suburb in America where Manhattan residents escaped the intensity of the city in the early 1800s. Hopefully our current American suburbs will grow to be as charming. This one also had charming cafes,  mid-block churches and even a fire station amidst the brownstones. Found it on Airbnb.