Sunday Afternoon in Williamsburg: Delorean at the Last 2010 Pool Party at East River State Park

We were tired after a little too much beach this morning and early afternoon, but naps - which we only learned to take after we hit 57 - are good, and we thought we'd stroll over to the last Pool Party of 2010 (itself barely rescued from cancellation) just to catch one band's set.

Luckily, we got there around 4 p.m. when Delorean was just coming on. They're really superb, even on a blisteringly hot day like today. As Pitchfork wrote in reviewing the band's new album Subiza, released in the spring:

Delorean helped define the bright, beachside vibe of last summer's indie landscape, but they also deserve to be placed in a broader context. On their new album, Subiza, the Spanish four-piece deploys the build-and-burst tempos of 90s house and techno music, and they do so explicitly, never shying away from arms-in-the-air piano bridges or incandescent raves.

This music is proudly informed by the resiliency and vigor of classic club music, and its title (named after the Basque town in which the album was recorded) recalls the famously nightclub-centric Ibiza and the Balearic dance music that originated there.

What surprised us today was how easy it was to get into East River State Park. We remember the old days of the McCarren Pool, when we sometimes couldn't get in (like to MGMT) or had to wait in line for half an hour or more. Even at the waterfront, there were some long lines along Kent Avenue last year.

But we actually got berated for not going in faster before the few people ahead of us. "Sir! You have no bag! Go right in!" the security guard snapped.

Just before Delorean - guitarist Guillermo Astrain, drummer Igor Escudeo, keyboardist Unai Lazcano, and bassist/vocalist Ekhi Lopetegi - came on, when there were DJs on stage, we stood in pretty much the middle of the midway before the stage and there was nobody within about thirty or forty feet around us.

And we had put on fresh deodorant after our post-beach shower. We swear!

Delorean was really killing it, but the mood - and maybe it's easy for us, two generations older than most of the audience to misread this - seemed weirdly subdued.

Maybe it was just so sultry that even the dancing and volleyball seemed desultory.

We still think that given how excellent the band was, there would have been more people there and more excitement and energy at the old McCarren Pool circa 2006 or 2007.

It probably got a lot more vibrant once we left for our old folks' early bird special.

Anyway, it looks like next year's Williamsburg Waterfront Pool Parties will be different.

The Open Space Alliance has been talking in the press about "more varied programming" (read: for non-hipsters).

Change is inevitable - hey, our mom entered a nursing home last night, which is freaking us out even though she's had Alzheimer's for many years - and anyone who's lived two weeks in Brooklyn knows nothing stays the same.

We're grateful we saw Delorean.

And we look forward to next year's Pool Parties, whatever they may be like.

Monday Morning in Williamsburg: Groundbreaking at the McCarren Pool

We've just walked back down Lorimer Street from this morning's groundbreaking ceremonies at the McCarren Pool.

Although there should be lots of mainstream media coverage, we need to type fast right now to keep our fingers from getting frostbite and we wanted to post a few pics.

The $50 million renovation is part of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC initiative.

By the way, no ground was literally broken today. It's all symbolic shoveling of dirt, so a couple of hundred people were watching a metaphor.

Mayor Bloomberg apparently confused the pool with a brand of children's stroller since he kept calling it "Maclaren Pool" for the first half of his speech.

Only in the middle of his prepared address did he notice the correct spelling in the text, apparently, and he said, "McCarren, McCarren," as a look of relief came to the face of Borough President Marty Markowitz.

Seriously, though, as an old-timer who can remember when there was water in the pool and lots of people splashing around and all that - the last Brooklyn groundbreaking ceremony we attended was 40 years ago when Mayor Lindsay inaugurated the construction of the Kings Plaza Shopping Center - we're thrilled to know that the hipster haven of recent years will be returned to the community for its original purpose - and then some.

Mayor Bloomberg invoked the spirit of the WPA and Mayor LaGuardia's remarks upon the opening of the pool during the Depression. Later, Marty Markowitz would pointedly refer to LaGuardia as "the second-best mayor the city's ever had, a nod to Bloomberg's calling him "the best borough president Brooklyn ever had," we guess.

There was a big crowd of people,

lots of media,

the tent from the indispensible Open Space Alliance giving out needed hot coffee,

and even a dog sitting next to us in the front row.

We think canines will not be allowed to go in the water, though Bloomberg and Markowtiz pledged to be the first ones in the pool in a couple of years.

Marty did speak about opening the pool for the now-legendary JellyNYC concerts, the L Magazine Summerscreen films, and other events, saying the pool drew "hipsters, indie bands, cool people... everything Mayor Bloomberg and I are not."

Marty also said that the reopened pool will undoubtedly feature the best people-watching in New York City. We guess that means he won't be wearing a bathing suit. Only kidding - we have loved Marty since our Brooklyn College student government days in 1970, and he did say that it was good that the community didn't just "dive into" the planning for the pool and then proceeded to spout some more terrible puns, ending with the observation that everything had gone "swimmingly."

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benape also spoke, saying the pool would provide exercise to kids and prevent diabetes. Sweet.

Also speaking were outgoing Councilmember David Yassky and Assemblymember Joe Lentol. Mayor Bloomberg came back to sum things up in his Spanish; his pronunciation is about at the level of ours after five years of classes at J.H.S. 285 and Midwood H.S.


Our friends here in the neighborhood actually never went to the pool in the 1960s and 1970s, instead coming to our backyard above-ground pool. But private swimmng pools in Brooklyn are rare; the only one we know in Williamsburg is on our block, which a neighbor got from a developer as compensation for allowing access to his backyard during the construction of the monstrous condo building next door. It's been mostly empty since it was finished, but we're certain that the new McCarren pool obviously will be filled with people on the first day.

When the mayor took questions, the woman in the red slacks said she lived just behind the pool on Bayard Street and complained about the noise. Mayor Bloomberg sent over an aide to get her name and no doubt solve the problem.

Other questions from the press dealt with the non-pool issues of the day, so we got to see what amounted to a regular mayoral press conference while we were freezing in the wintry winds. Below are Community Board 1 District Manager Gerry Esposito and other community bigwigs.

Former Community Board 1 Chair, 91-year-old Vincent Abate, who had the dream of reopening the McCarren Park Pool years and years ago, got the last word and the community's thanks.

The pool is scheduled to open in the summer of 2012.

Late Thursday Afternoon in Williamsburg: New York City Ballet performing Jerome Robbins' "NY Export: Opus Jazz" at the McCarren Park Pool

On a chilly, dark afternoon at the tail end of summer, we had the high honor and distinct privilege of returning to the now-shuttered McCarren Park Pool for one last dance as the New York City Ballet performed an adaptation of "NY Export: Opus Jazz" by the legendary choreographer Jerome Robbins.

Alerted this morning by an email from the wonderfully dedicated folks at the Open Space Alliance, we were excited to check out what's been done to the pool since it closed at the end of last summer's concert and film performances and to see it come alive one more time with music (recorded), dance, a little food and wine, and youthful energy.

About fifty or sixty of us, from hipsters to older people to a lot of parents with young kids bragging about their new adult teeth, sucking lollipops or eating PB&J sandwiches, sat in folding chairs in the area where bands performed during the seasons of the JellyNYC pool parties.

We watched the filming, for Channel 13's Great Performances/Dance in America series, of the classic Jerome Robbins work, "[s]et to a rousing jazz score, the movements blend ballet, jazz, and ballroom dancing with Latin, African and American rhythms, to create a style that is powerfully expressive, sexy and contemporary."

Directors Henry Joost and Jody Lee Lipes were filming the "ballet in sneakers," the first of Robbins' works to be adapted for the screen since West Side Story.

The Open Space Alliance email said that this summer workers had de-watered the pool's ancient pipes and did testing and other preliminary work in the pool. The next stages of construction will happen after officials evaluate bids and make deals with selected contractors. The email poetically called this afternoon "a fleeting chance for one last dance in the Pool as we know and love it."

The Lorimer Street gated-up entrance was opened slightly so that we could get in, and people could also come in through the back fence opening on Leonard Street across from the junior high.

We got there at 5 p.m. and sat with some others on the ledges at the west edge of the pool.

We were behind the camera operator and watched the technicians, directors, and other professionals prepare for the shoot.


This gent from the Parks Department seemed to supervising things on that end, discussing with someone the opened entrances to the pool.

Eventually we were told that there were three rows of white folding chairs for us inside the pool itself.

The audience, mostly unaccustomed to the sudden outbreak of autumn weather, were
either wearing jackets and at least one scarf or shorts and t-shirts. We watched some people hug their arms to their chests or stuff their hands in their pockets to ward off the chills.

After a preliminary run-through, the dancers removed their sweatshirts and jackets and went through several iterations of selections from the ballet, which had its premiere performance in Italy at the first Spoleto Festival in 1958 (thus its "NY Export" title).

The directors came out to talk with them between takes.

Writing in the Arts and Leisure section of the New York Times on October 29, 1961, John Martin called "NY Export, Opus Jazz" (sometimes it has a colon, sometimes a comma) "an exceptionally clever work, full of invention in the jazz idiom, theatrically effective, and as slick as a whistle."

But Martin, in what now seems a particularly fusty harrumph, said in the "ballet in sneakers" and similar works

Mr. Robbins has created an abstract classicism of the vulgar; he has removed his chararacters from all relation to realism and peopled his 'ballet' with an artificial stylization of what Mayor Wagner recently called 'juvenile punks'...

Sounds pretty good to us.

And while we remember as a 10yo going with our Grandpa Herb - he was then younger than we are now - into the voting booth at Mrs. Mogg's candy store on Church Avenue and East 43rd Street when he pulled the lever for the mayor in his bid for a third term a few weeks after that review was published,

we had no idea that Robert F. Wagner Jr. played such a critical role in the development of New York's punk culture.

And in the hands (and arms, bodies, legs, feet, etc.) of the young, playful and energetic New York City Ballet dancers, the "artificial stylization" of the "juvenile punks" looked mighty good as we watched the repeated, but not repetitious performances for the camera.

We're not sure what the white lines painted throughout the pool were for - probably the summer construction work.

We applauded softly at the end and probably would have clapped louder had we not been instructed not to. We look forward to seeing the full show on WNET/13. We also got to see some terrific, seemingly impromptu dance by the really talented performers.

Afterwards, at the Open Space Alliance booth so familiar to us from many great outdoor events in North Brooklyn, there were refreshments, including "wine for those eligible to drink wine," as one speaker put it.

We don't drink, and unlike the little girls and boys in front of us (one of whom had brought her own portable Tot-Spot seat),

we didn't have a sippy cup of apple juice handy.

So we just explored the weedy bare ruined choirs of the pool and remembered fondly the good times we had here in the past.

Even in its current moribund state, the McCarren Park Pool still has life breaking through.

Someday it will open again.

Many thanks to the Parks Department, the Open Space Alliance, the New York City Ballet, and Channel 13/WNET for letting us get this chance to see the beloved pool again. "NY Export: Opus Jazz" was a great way to enjoy the McCarren Park Pool on this blustery, otherwise grim afternoon.

Now if they could only get the B48 bus to come in less than 25 minutes.

UPDATE, March 24, 2010: Seeing the performance on TV tonight was a thrill.