On Thursday May 8th I attended two events which I thoroughly enjoyed, the 1st was an ACORN event at the UFT headquarters (52 Broadway)...the enthusiasm level was high with many high schools students in attendance. I went with my friend Sam and met up with some others friends I know from CPAC, Michelle, the inimitable Ms Green and William McDonald (present Chair of CPAC). It was a well attended event and many local NYC politicians were there, I got a chance to listen to speeches by the likes of Speaker of the NY Assembly Sheldon Silver, the NY Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith and many other less well known pols.
Afterward, I walked over to the R train at Church Street and Rector for a quick ride to Union Street where I was looking forward to attending the 3rd Annual Brooklyn Blogfest.
I had read about the previous two blogfests online and had made up my mind that I wasn't going to miss this years. I wanted to see what it was all about firsthand this year.
The Blogfest was held at The Brooklyn Lyceum 227 Fourth Avenue at President Street, right across the street from the subway station. It's a beautiful old bathhouse from a bygone era of NYC's history renovated into a club. It was hosted by Louise Crawford of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn
I got to see and hear the people behind a few of my favorite blogs: Miss Heather from New York Shitty, Bob Guskind from Curbed and The Gowanus Lounge and Xris the Flatbush Gardener...There were over 150 bloggers there, I was one of the few out-of-towners (being from Queens) who attended.
There was an excellent video shown by The Brooklyn Optimist (a.k.a. Morgan Pehme) and Merlion Entertainment which presented the World Premiere of a Tribute to some of Brooklyn's best photobloggers at the 2008 Brooklyn Blogfest. Featured (video below), among others, are photographers Adrian Kinloch (Brit in Brooklyn), Hugh Crawford (No Words Pix from Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn), Kevin Walsh (Forgotten-NY) and Heather Letzkus (New York Shitty).
Angela Freeburg from wnbc-tv blog was conducting interviews with various attendees...
I got to speak to Lara Wechsler, a lovely young street photographer about the NYC public school system while smoking a few cigarettes outside...
The team from Brooklyn Community Access-Tv was on hand to show a short video segment on the work they are doing to highlight Brooklyn blogs...
Another interesting person I met was Gersh Kuntzman the Editor of The Brooklyn Paper of the old media...he gave a compelling presentation contrasting old media vs new media, I wish it could've lasted longer...
I learned some new things, heard from a diverse groups of bloggers and had a fun time, even though I don't drink. There was an ample amount of beer provided by outside.in and beautiful looking vegan cupcakes from Red Mango Bakery.
Brian Lehrer had a rep there to talk to people and present a short video on his behalf. I often watch Brian on Wednesday nights on wnyc-tv after watching one of my nightly regulars, Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez...
I got a chance to speak with Max Sklar of Sticky Map... Stickymap is an interactive map that allows users to annotate map content on web sites and blogs...He was trying to encourage the bloggers to share their neighborhoods on a universal map...
For a list of other participants click here...
One of the few other out-of-towners (Non-Brooklynites) I was please to meet was Cathryn (Manhattan) from the Washington Square Park blog and her partner Mitchell. She & I have been emailing each other recently about our problems with the Parks Dept at Washington Square Park and the Ridgewood Reservoir.
Photos courtesy of The Flatbush Gardener flickr set..
