Monday Afternoon in Williamsburg: "The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza)" at the Leonard Library

On Mondays, between our early morning composition class at the fantastic Fordham University and our late afternoon Cold War literature class at the wonderful City College of New York, we get to come home for a few hours of lunch and work and, if we're lucky, a short nap and enough time to go to one of our favorite neighborhood places.

This afternoon we walked across Metropolitan Avenue to the Leonard branch library to return a copy of Invisible Man and pick up a copy of Waiting for Godot, which we'll be teaching later this week at the fabulous School of Visual Arts (yes, part-time college teachers sometimes borrow the much-read books on their syllabi).

We had the great fortune to be in the library just as a story time reading for young kids commenced. It started while we were in the middle of checkout and looked like a school class. When we realized the book the librarian was reading was Philomen Sturges' delightful retelling, The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza), we happily joined the audience.

The librarian read with great expression and showed the witty collage illustrations by Amy Walrod to the kids. Even better, one sitting "onstage" to her right held a big stuffed hen (actually, it might have been a rooster), and to her left sat two girls and boy with stuffed animals representing the Little Red Hen's friends who can't be bothered to help her make the pizza: the duck, the cat, and the dog.

There was a (low to the ground) table with three adults nearby, and we supposed they were teachers or parents, and another man with the class was also present.

We liked the audience participation part and the kids onstage playing their parts, saying "Not I," "Not I," "Not I" to the queries about helping to shop for mozzarella and pepperoni (this green-thumbed red hen grows her own basil in a pot on her apartment balcony) and helping to do the baking, etc.

As The New York Times Book Review noted:

Sturges likes to play with recurring jokes, so whenever the Red Hen realizes she is missing an ingredient, she cries out ''Cluck!'' There's also a running gag about pickled eggplant. As with Bugs Bunny and the Simpsons, this story is at work on more than one level: a grown-up will have just as much fun reading this book to a child as a child will have being read to. In the original, each time the Little Red Hen asked who would help, the animals replied, in turn, ''Not I.'' But this time, when the pizza was finally done, ''it was lovely, but it was not little.'' So the Little Red Hen calls out the window to see if anyone wants some.

Instantly, the story of the Little Red Hen has been transformed from a story about holding a grudge to a story about sharing, even if the cat does scrape most of the toppings off his piece. And here's the kicker: when the Little Red Hen asks, ''Who will help me do the dishes?'' Sturges writes: ''Now can you guess what the duck, the dog and the cat each said? They each said, 'I will.' 'I will.' 'I will.' ''And they do.

It's a great kid's book and it was a great reading. The kids who performed as the hen, duck, cat and dog took bows, and everyone applauded the reading and appreciated the use of extra virgin olive oil in the story.

On our way out, we caught an exhibit on the Leonard branch as the library that inspired young Betty Smith to be a writer back in the day when she was a little girl like these kids, living nearby.

There's that wonderful scene in the film version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when Peggy Ann Garner as Francie goes into the library and the librarian (Lillian Bronson), despite a stern demeanor, is helpful in suggesting books to the kind of girl systematically working her way through authors from A to Z. (It's very different in the novel, where the branch librarian is a monster who detests children.)

The Brooklyn Public Library was a really special place in our childhood, too. Our story, "Branch Libraries of Southeastern Brooklyn," was one of ten finalists for the 2005 Million Writers Award for best online fiction; one critic called it "a boy's love letter to the library." Like Betty Smith and us and the kids listening to the (updated) story of the Little Red Hen today, every child in the borough lives within half a mile of a neighborhood branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, something for which we're really, really grateful.

Sunday Afternoon in Ridgewood: 5 Dutch Days at the Vander Ende-Onderdonk House

It was a glorious afternoon, quite mild and finally sunny - a rare event in mid-November New York City. We took advantage of the clement weather to walk from Dumbo Books HQ in Williamsburg just over the border into the borough of Queens.

Our destination: the Vander Ende-Onderdonk House, the oldest Dutch Colonial stone house in New York City, on Flushing Avenue near Metropolitan Avenue. It's usually closed on Sundays but was open this afternoon for the annual 5 Dutch Days celebration by the Greater Ridgewood Historical Society, whose website explains the home's significance:

Peter Stuyvesant granted the land it sits on in the mid-seventeenth century, and by 1660, Hendrick Barents Smidt occupied a small house on the site. In 1709, Paulus Vander Ende of Flatbush purchased the farm and began construction of the current house. The building was a prominent marker in the 1769 settlement of the boundary dispute between Bushwick in Kings County and Newtown in Queens County.

During the 1820's, Adrian Onderdonk erected a small frame addition to the stone house immediately above the remnants of the foundation of the 1660 building. Its architectural features are typical of Dutch buildings in this period: a gambrel roof, Dutch doors, central hallway and double hung windows with shutters.

The Greater Ridgewood Historical Society was established in 1975 by a group of local residents to prevent the demolition of the Vander Ende Onderdonk House. From 1975 until 1981, the GRHS raised funds to reconstruct the house which had been seriously damaged by fire, and in 1976, published a history of the greater Ridgewood area, entitled Our Community, Its History and People.

In 1977, the House and property were listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1978, granted the same status on the New York State Register. The House was given New York City landmark status in June of 1996. With the help of Federal, State and local funds, the Onderdonk House was opened to the public in 1982.

The House serves as a museum for a permanent exhibit on the archaeology of the Onderdonk site, as well as changing exhibits relating to history, the arts and culture. The Society also maintains a history and genealogical research library, and offers many cultural events annually, including: guided house tours, history lectures and programs, genealogy workshops, craft classes and special events, such as St. Nicholas Day and other Dutch celebrations. The history and location of the house provide a rich educational and cultural experience for visitors.

A man wearing a Dutch colonial hat in front of the house turned out to be Arthur Kirmss, an artist and musician who serves as historic interpreter and curator of exhibits. Since we were the first person to arrive, he and his wife Evelyn gave us what amounted to a private tour of the house, or at least the parts that are open to the public.

Some of it, like the downstairs, are closed off right now. We heard a lot of fascinating details about the house and the area from colonial times through the 19th century. Arthur's knowledge about the architecture and crafts of the house, and about the families who lived there, is encyclopedic. Later on, a few more people came to see the house, and he turned us over to Evelyn, who explained how they got involved in Greater Ridgewood Historical Society and its work in restoring the Vander Ende-Onderdonk House.

We looked at the 5 Dutch Days exhibit they curated: a salute to the Dutch royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau (pronounced Nass-OW), from its founding by William the Silent, who revolted against Spanish rule of the Netherlands, to his down-to-earth 20th and 21st-century descendants, like the three most recent monarchs: Queen Wilhemina, who reigned from 1898 (her mother was regent for the prior decade) to 1948; Queen Juliana, who reigned from 1948 to 1980,

and currently reigning Queen Beatrix.

We were really impressed by the care with which the rooms and structure of the Vander Ende-Onderdonk house has been restored. Frankly, we'd only heard of it a few years ago, but it's well worth a visit, even a long walk from Williamsburg.

But as it was gettng dark when we left, we got the Q54 bus by the mammoth Western Beef supermarket and were home in no time. We're grateful to the Greater Ridgewood Historical Society for their terrific work.

Sunday Morning in Crown Heights: Free Admission for Early Birds at the Brooklyn Children's Museum

This morning, after doing our power yoga and chores, we got on the B43 bus at Graham and Metropolitan and took it down to the new Brooklyn Children's Museum at Brooklyn Children's Museum on Brooklyn Avenue and St. Marks Place in Crown Heights.

It's the same location it was when it was built as the world's first children's museum. We can vividly recall being taken to the old 19th century buildings as a child in the 1950s by our parents and on at least one school trip in second grade at P.S. 203.

There's one specific memory from the long-torn down Victorian mansion that day: We were sitting with the class in a room at heavy (but low to the ground) wooden tables, waiting for a lecturer or workshop leader. Although we can't remember what our activity was, we remember our thoughts as we waited silently and looked around at our classmates - Linda Konner, Lindy Krulewitz, Billy Sherman, Steve Kahn, Clifford Schwartz and the rest - and at the dark paneling of the room and at the trees and grass outside from the windows. And we had the weird notion that time would pass and one day we would be grown up and so would all the other kids and that things might change in a way that seemed scary but kind of interesting.

At the newly renovated, Rafael Viñoly-designed Brooklyn Children's Museum, admission is free - our cheapskate's preferred price - if you come before 11 a.m. on the second weekend of the month. The bus got us to wonderful Brower Park just before the museum opened at 10 a.m.

The fall colors at the park looked nice. It seems a long time since we were last here, for a hip-hop concert in August.

We followed in a large Muslim family and were told, yes, we didn't have to pay anything. Since we were unaccompanied by a child, we had to go to the security desk while the guard checked our Arizona driver's license and wrote down the information.

The Brooklyn Children's Museum is a great treat for any child. It's a lot nicer than the kind of well-meaning but dour exhibits we saw back in the Eisenhower administration. It's designed for kids.

Here's a professional review from the New York Times critic Edward Rothstein. We just wandered around and looked at stuff and watched the kids loving it. We took a lot of pics but tried to be careful not to take photos where any kids would be recognizable - for reasons of privacy and safety.

The bus stop and bus say "World Brooklyn," and inside the "bus" kids can play and watch a video about the different world cultures that live in the borough.

.



Nearby were stores representing a Chinese bookstore, a Mexican bakery, an African crafts store, a Latin American travel agency, an Italian pizzeria, etc.



There was a video of the Lions Dance in Sunset Park for Chinese New Year and a real-life "lion" nearby.




Outside "Spumoni's Pizzeria" was an Italian motorbike.


There was nature around: trees, for example.


In search of the Asian longhorned beetle...

For budding Nabokovs, butterflies.

Sand dunes are represented, and there's a sandbox too, along with a sea turtle board game and the kinds of ducks you'll find at the Gerritsen Creek salt marsh.



What kid doesn't love a platypus?

There were videos of an environmental education program involving marine life from Plumb Beach.


We went upstairs, which was pretty empty except for us earlybirds.

There's an outside area with bleachers.


There's a big display of TV show lunchboxes, maybe 15 or 20, including Roy Rogers. We remember waking up early in our East Flatbush apartment on Saturday mornings and we watched Roy and Dale, Trigger and their kids - along with Hopalong Cassidy and "Andy's Gang."

We wrote about Julia, starring Diahann Carroll, in our story "Seven Sitcoms."

And there's Brooklyn-based Welcome Back, Kotter with the Sweathogs in this peachy-keen lunchbox.



Kids hung up some drawings on a bulletin board.

An office to play in, just like grownups do.

Kids' books and magazines by a couch.

There were no kids up there when we were there, not till just before we left, but lots of fun stuff.

And the current exhibit, a toy workshop with a spy theme.

And trilingual signage.

Figure out what these signs say once you crack the secret code.

Dolls from different countries on display.

The whole Brooklyn Children's Museum seemed like a kid's playhouse to us.

We wish it had been more like this half a century ago.

Saturday Afternoon in East Williamsburg: H1N1 Vaccination Clinic at P.S. 196

This afternoon we went over to P.S. 196 on Bushwick Avenue to get our H1N1 vaccination.

After last week's low turnout, the city schools' weekend swine flu shot clinics were opened not just to pregnant women, kids and young adults up to age 24.

Those of us ages 25 through 64 who have underlying health problems — such as diabetes, asthma or chronic heart and lung conditions — and caretakers of infants less than 6 months old are now eligible for the free vaccinations.

We haven't had an asthma attack in a (real) long time, but the one year in recent years when we couldn't get a seasonal flu shot — 2004, when there was a vaccine shortage in Florida and nationwide — we got the flu, then pneumonia, coming as close to dying as we'd like to be in a while.

The numerous people involved in the P.S. 196 vaccination clinic impressed us with their efficiency, dedication, helpfulness, and friendliness.

It was literally a painless experience, and it didn't take long. Lots of nice folks were involved, and the whole operation was being pulled off with military precision.
When we walked in the lobby, someone immediately talked to us and gave us forms to fill out, explaining just what needed to be done.

We were given a number (266) and sent to another big room - a gym? - to fill out the forms, which asked the questions you'd expect. A worker at the door gave us pens when we came in and took them when we left.

When finished with the forms, we walked across the hall to give our forms to the medical evaluation unit, who checked out our checks on the little boxes. They found we checked one form by mistake; no, we were actually were not pregnant.

They didn't ask us for proof of asthma - it actually seemed that there were very few people there trying to get the shots - and we were immediately sent over to the dispensing room, down steps past signs saying "Watch the steps" (they were definitely needed).

People held up green circular signs to indicate that we should come there.

We sort of had two tables of three vaccine-givers really interested in us. A people-pleaser, it took us a while to pick.

One of the vaccinators, some of whom were wearing plastic demi-gowns, helped us with our forms and we took thess pic of the tables in front of and behind us as she prepared our shot.



We took off our sweater, rolled up the sleeve of our Borough of Manhattan College T-shirt (we'd taught "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin and "The Things They Carried" by our 1977 Bread Loaf manuscript reader Tim O'Brien at a 9-to-noon BMCC class on the Brooklyn College campus this morning), and felt nothing as we got the shot.

After the band-aid was put on, we felt a little soreness at the injection site as we always do - we got our seasonal flu shot at the Walgreens on First Avenue in Stuyvesant Town in late September - but it soon passed and we felt ready to go.

But they always want us, and everyone else, to hang out for 15 minutes in case of some weird reaction, which we've never seen anyone get. To us, people afraid of the H1N1 vaccination are morons.

But we and our fellow over-24 post-vaccination waiters are glad there are so many stupid people in New York that we were able to get our vaccines for free.

This sign, which said the shots were limited to young people, presumably had been displayed last week but we found it discarded in a corner.

We think we may have had the H1N1 flu in late April, on the weekend the whole city was panicking about it. Feeling terrible on Friday, we thought it was tree-blooming-time allergies and taught our night BMCC class on the BC campus, then came back for two classes on Saturday. As we went for lunch at Luigi's pizzeria on Hillel Place, we realized we were really, really sick and kept our afternoon class only 40 minutes.

When we got home, we had 101.5° fever, and we usually run very low temperatures. It was some kind of flu and we felt awful that day and the next and then Sunday night our fever broke, we felt okay on Monday and even taught our Professional Writing for Design Students class that night at the fabulous Fashion Institute of Technology.

Anyway, we now had the above proof that we were vaccinated against H1N1 and we can't spread it to our students at four colleges, many of whom are of the at-age risk in their teens. If we did have the swine flu in April, it was probably mild because we got H1N1 in 1957 ("Asian flu") when we were six and H1N1 again on New Year's Eve 1968/1969 ("Hong Kong flu") when we were seventeen.

Our pediatrician from when we were born till when he retired when we turned eighteen was Dr. Jacob L. Stein, who lived near us, on Ryder Street in Marine Park, but whose office was at Turner Towers at 135 Eastern Parkway across from the Brooklyn Museum. He gave us all our shots, including the polio shot when it came out, and many boosters.

When we were 16 and hypochondriacal, we got a shot on Saturday morning and soon after our arm hurt a lot and we felt it swelling up. By that afternoon, it was really bad and since our family wasn't home, we took the B41 bus up Flatbush Avenue to see Dr. Stein, telling him it was an emergency.

He took our temperature, which was normal, and couldn't find anything odd about our arm. We insisted it was all swollen and even hard, and showed him the spot. He stared at us, frowning. "You're just flexing your triceps muscle," he said drily. We hadn't known we'd had one.

We hung around our allotted fifteen minutes. A nice guard said nobody was watching the clocks, but people seemed to take the waiting time seriously.

As we exited at Scholes Street into the rain and headed for the Montrose Street stop of the L train for our three-stop ride back to Lorimer Street, we felt we had just had the privilege of seeing the best of New York City and New Yorkers, coming together in a friendly and extremely efficient manner in a time of crisis. Actually, the city seems to be doing okay with swine flu so far, but the great weekend vaccination clinics are a big, big help.

The P.S. 196 clinic will also be open tomorrow, Sunday, November 15, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and you can find out how to get an H1N1 shot here. Next weekend the Brooklyn weekend clinic will be around the corner from our 1960s orthodontist at Cunningham Junior High on East 17th Street between Avenue S and Avenue T. We're grateful to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for making these free clinics available.

Dumbo Books Foundation/Betty Smith Award for Brooklyn Writers Winner for 2009 Announced

The Dumbo Books Foundation is pleased to announce the winner of the first annual Dumbo Books Foundation/Betty Smith Award for Brooklyn Writers.

The award will be given annually to a distinguished writer, residing in Brooklyn, who exemplifies the tradition and excellence of Betty Smith in her classic novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

The award, given in an amount corresponding to the writer’s ZIP code, ranges from $112.01 for residents of downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO to $112.39 for residents of Starrett City.

Candidates for the Dumbo Books Foundation/Betty Smith Award for Brooklyn Writers are proposed by nominators from across the borough whose experience and vocations bring them in contact with individuals of extraordinary talent.

Winners are chosen by a selection committee, a small group of recognized writers, literary scholars, and editors, appointed annually by the Foundation.

Both nominators and selectors serve anonymously. The Dumbo Books Foundation does not accept applications or nominations for the award.

The 2009 winner is Tao Lin of Williamsburg, who will receive an award in the amount of $112.11.

Saturday Morning in Downtown Brooklyn: The Atlantic Terminal LIRR Entrance Is Uncovered

We were on our way to teach at Brooklyn College this morning, walking from the G train station at Fulton and Lafayette to the Atlantic Terminal at 7:30 a.m. when we saw them finally taking down the wooden barriers behind which the new Long Island Rail Road terminal entrance construction has been going on for over three years.

On Hanson Place some workers were using a blowtorch (we don't know our tools, really) to do other stuff, but they were definitely tearing down the barriers so passersby could see the work.

And we arrived at an opportune time, because construction workers had just opened, for the first time in years, the pathway from the current entrance (by the Starbucks) that goes around the new curved terminal entrance when they closed the sidewalk near Flatbush Avenue.

There was still fencing between us and the terminal and most of the windows had the blinds drawn but we, along with another oldtimer and a young couple were apparently the first ones to get to peek inside.

"It looks like a museum," said the older guy on our left as we looked in. "It's beautiful. Maybe they overdid it, but it's about time it's done."


After our class and some conferences and lunch at the Junction, we were back around 1 p.m. and all the boards had been taken down and we got a good view from Ashland Place, across from the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building or whatever it's called now.

The workers were still doing stuff, and foot and street traffic was slow and diverted, but it looks like the LIRR entrance should be open to the public soon and it looks as if it will be beautiful.

Here's an artist's rendering of the almost-completed Atlantic Terminal LIRR entrance:

Anyway, as we made our way to Lafayette Avenue past BAM back to the G train to Williamsburg, everything seemed normal, with the usual aquatic creatures hanging around the street.

Sunday Afternoon in Greenpoint: Greenpoint Oktoberfest at WNYC Transmitter Park

On a bright blue late October afternoon, we strolled over to the nascent WNYC Transmitter Park at the end of Greenpoint Avenue past West Street by the waterfront for the celebration of Greenpoint Oktoberfest.

Real work on the park won't start until next spring with a completion date of 2011. Meanwhile, the ground is mostly dirt, and the entrance was a little muddy from yesterday's big rains.

Greenpoint Oktoberfest drew big crowds and Transmitter Park fit them in quite comfortably.

Lots of people lined up for food and drink.

The weather was great and everyone seemed in a cheerful mood.

Sunday's our only day off this semester so we were grateful for the event.

There were a number of friendly vendors selling delicious stuff.

These spreads were particularly scrumptious on bread.


There were a lot of kids there, and this root beer garden was for them.

What would a root beer garden be without pumpkins?

It was a clear day and pleasant to sit out and eat and drink and look towards Manhattan.

Here's the park sign, which contains numerous typos.

We can only imagine how nice it will be in about 18 months when it will be a real park.

A soccer game was in progress at the north end of the park by the water.

The art installation by Greenpoint's own Weston Woolley was thought-provoking as well as decorative.

It's called "Billboards."


And it's eco-friendly.

According to Wikitravel,

The first Oktoberfest took place on the 12 October 1810, to celebrate the marriage of Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Sachsen-Hildburghausen. All citizens of Munich were invited to a meadow (Wies'n) situated in front of the city tower, subsequently renamed the Theresienwiese in honor of the bride.

In the early years of the fair, horse races were held, then as the event grew, included agricultural conventions, which still take place every third year. In 1896, businessmen working with the breweries in Munich built the first giant beer tents at Oktoberfest, and drinking has been the primary focus since.

There was drinking at this non-Munich Oktoberfest, too.

The skyline looks great from the park, but that's basically true of the entire Williamsburg and Greenpoint waterfront.

Methods NYC had a nice selection of tees.

This is from the official press release for the event:

In the tradition of taking what you love and transforming it into something new and special, MeanRed, FreeNYC and the L Magazine get together to bring you an Oktoberfest celebration Greenpoint this afternoon.

The day is littered with music, food, crafts, spectacle and, of course, beer, on the Brooklyn waterfront. Featuring music by Michna, Cowboy Mark and DJ Synapse... food from Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream, Hallo Berlin and Robicelli's Cupcakes... and even root "bier" floats, pumpkin decorating and face painting for the kiddies.

On the brew front (to get to the important things), there will be seasonal and Oktoberfest offerings from Long Island's Blue Point Brewery, Brooklyn's Sixpoint and Brooklyn Breweries, and upstate's Ithica Beer Company. It's rain or shine and free entry all day. All Ages!

We had a great time, along with many others, at Greenpoint Oktoberfest. We'll leave you with Stan Chow's original design for the poster, which had last Sunday's date and not a little kid in sight.