Literary Brooklyn: The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life, by Evan Hughes. 337 pages. Henry Holt and Company, $17.00

A quiet escape from the raucous pounding of urban life. A trove of cheap rents and spacious dwellings. A flawed and unpredictable muse. An embattled ground where American life thrives and decays. A creative retreat for literary rebels of the day.

Brooklyn has assumed multiple identities in the minds of writers since it landed on the pages of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. But above all, writers say it was and still is, simply a good place to live and write.

In the last twenty years, Brooklyn has lured more and more writers across the bridge. In Literary Brooklyn: The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life, Evan Hughes explains how Brooklyn’s rise as a cultural hub has been long coming, and only in the last few decades has it attained the status of fashionable locale for aspiring and established writers.

Even as Brooklyn has cultivated its own distinct character, it is often juxtaposed with Manhattan as the quiet alternative, the blue-collar suburb, the bare-knuckle community.

Borough president Marty Markowitz likes to call it “New York’s Left Bank”.

Hughes chronicles this complex evolution that has molded Brooklyn into a haven for writers. The differences can be overstated, but ultimately spring from an incontrovertible truth that Brooklyn, as Hughes describes, is “more human in scale” and “slower to hunger for the new.” In a matter of words, it is more representative of the “American urban life.”

Hughes braids together strands of literary biography with American history, leading first with the personal stories of Brooklyn writers, and then weaving in the historical events and movements that continuously shape and re-shape neighborhoods: the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge and Robert Moses’ Brooklyn Queens Expressway, the Great Depression, the crack epidemic in the 80’s, and the early waves of Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants.

The book unfolds starting with the most famous Brooklyn bard, Walt Whitman, whose unconventional verse broke with the American literary tradition of the day. Raised in Brooklyn when it was still its own city, Whitman became the poet of the people through his all-encompassing voice.

Hughes calls Whitman “Brooklyn’s first literary hipster,” who captured the “democratic spirit” of America. For Hughes, Whitman is the precursor to Brooklyn’s “rebel” literary tradition born from the notion that writers who live in the borough, whether raised there or just temporary residents, are by nature outsiders, non-conformists, or drifters.

Henry Miller, whose “underdog status” Hughes says was intrinsically linked to his sense of self. Miller revolted against the literary norms of the day and embraced provocative subjects in a brazen style that prompted officials in the US to ban his books for decades. If there were a musical chorus to this book, it would go something like “Brooklyn writers go against the grain.” And in most cases, Hughes is right.

Hart Crane, who lived in Brooklyn Heights, pursued his “ecstatic goal” in his work at a time of profound cynicism in American poetry. Marianne Moore left Greenwich Village for the quiet of Fort Greene, where she continued to focus on aesthetics over the political debates that were wedging their way into literary circles. And three Jewish, Brooklyn-born writers, Daniel Fuchs, Bernard Malamud and Alfred Kazin, all experienced and wrote about what Hughes described as a “powerful combination of alienation and assimilation” from their struggles growing up in a poor, immigrant communities in Brooklyn.

There is no doubt that these writers, spread out across the borough, were uncompromising in their pursuit of their craft, but that isn’t necessarily a quality unique to Brooklyn. It is a pervasive quality of great writers and great thinkers.  And as Hughes acknowledges, a neighborhood, that offers affordable housing to people in a traditionally low paying profession, will inevitably attract a more robust creative community.

Brooklyn is always in a state of flux, and right now, gentrification lingers on the tip of every writer’s tongue. It is easy to lament the loss of mom-and-pops stores, the escalating rents, the chronic displacement of communities. Hughes’ strength is shedding light on the cyclical nature of these changes. He is a master at connecting the dots from Richard Wright to Paula Fox, and showing that this is neither the first nor the last time that the status of Brooklyn will rise and fall in the literary world.

(Photo Courtesy of Azi Paybarah)

Rayan Nahle leans on a wall outside a courtroom at the Traffic Violations Bureau at Atlantic Center Mall, waiting for her hearing. Unlike others in the room who were missing work altogether to settle their traffic or parking tickets, she was using her lunch break to settle hers.

Although ticket fixing by New York police officers has not erupted on the news in a while, it is still not yet forgotten. “If I was in their shoes and somebody were to fix my ticket, I wouldn’t mind,” the Bay Ridge resident says. Smiling widely, she stands out in her bright yellow top, and jeans, since everyone else is dressed in dull colors. “You scratch my back, I scratch your back. I actually did know a cop but I gave my PBA card a little too late.”

When 11 police officers in the Bronx were charged in October this year with ticket fixing, many New Yorkers were outraged not only by the accusation of corruption, but also by the unfairness of a system in which the well connected – those with influence or with friends in the police department – could avoid having to come to traffic court to plead their cases, or for that matter, pay any fines at all. The arrests revealed a practice so endemic to city life that some 500 off-duty officers showed up to demonstrate their support outside the courthouse where the convicted were being charged. They chanted, “It happens all the time!” and carried banners that quoted Mayor Bloomberg: “It’s been going on since the days of the Egyptians.”

Those sentiments are echoed on a recent visit to traffic court, where most people, like Nahle, do not really seem to mind having to pay for their offenses. “I don’t mind,” said Richie Oballaes, who was ticketed for having tinted windows in his vehicle. “Everybody’s gotta do what they gotta do.”

The traffic court is filled with people, waiting in line to make their case to a judge. They stand with their backs resting on walls, or sit on the few benches waiting their turn to go inside the handful of courtrooms. Everyone looks grim.

Inside one of the courtrooms, a female police officer in a tight bun escorts a man in a black and grey hoodie and jeans to the judge. She reads details of the man’s offense and what she charged him for: pulling into the wrong lane.

“Raise your right hand, sir,” the judge says.

He raises his hand to take the oath.

“Do you have a witness?” the judge asks.

“No,” he replies.

The judge asks him to explain what had happened.

“I pulled into the wrong lane. I don’t deny that. But I didn’t want to get hit by the bus,” he says, in a pleading tone.

The judge asks him questions about what he could have done to avoid pulling into the wrong lane. He fails to convince her that he did not have other options. “You have two weeks to pay and 30 days to appeal my decision,” the judge says, finishing the hearing.

In another courtroom, a man in an olive jacket and pants has just finished his hearing and was lucky enough to have his offence dismissed. He reaches out to his escorting police officer to shake his hand. “Please don’t talk to the officer, please don’t shake hands with the officer!” the judge cried, startling the man.

The Ink asked around about ticket fixing and a few at the traffic court did not agree that it is practice that can be overlooked.

Unfair? “Absolutely” says Peter Leo, who left work early, to attend his hearing at the court. “The less power officers should have, the better. They shouldn’t have that ability,” he says. He was charged with $120 for using his cell phone while driving. Within a couple of minutes or so, he would be called inside one of the courtrooms.

Data analysis from the NYPD reveals that the city makes around $500 million annually on traffic and parking tickets. A breakdown in the NYPD’s motor vehicle accident report data for Brooklyn this year show that the most common traffic violations are failure to wear a safety belt, cell phone usage while driving, disobeying traffic signs, and being an uninsured driver. The NYPD Historical Crime Violation Report shows interesting trends: vehicle and traffic law offenses have increased from 3,717 offenses in 2000 to 5,542 offences in 2007. The number jumped to 8,228 offenses in 2008 but since then, the number has been steadily decreasing down to 5,824 offenses in 2010.

As the clock strikes 5 pm, the courthouse is now almost empty. Even if the handful of people who spoke to The Ink seemed to not mind ticket fixing in general, someone had scrawled a phrase that did not fit with those sentiments. The phrase is twice carved at the back of one of the wooden benches in the room and read “F*** POLICE.”

Yaritza. By Andy Vernon-Jones.

“I’d never considered that documenting a single neighborhood would make a compelling body of work, or would sustain my interest for multiple years. So falling in love with Red Hook and coming to feel at home there and photographing the place all sort of went together. I started carrying my camera when I decided I might be able to make some interesting photographs [in Red Hook]. It was never an arbitrary thing,” says Vernon-Jones.

Red Hook is a neighborhood of sharp contrasts: the stark division between the block of public housing in the  “front” and the low-slung homes along Van Brunt in the “back”; the piers jetting out towards the Statue of Liberty; the mix of homes and warehouses; and a generation of young people sprouting up on streets that still resemble a sea-faring past.

Vernon-Jones snapped hundreds of pictures of the neighborhood, and at a reception on November 17 hosted by Lucky Gallery, he celebrated the release of 64 of them in his self-published book of photography, Here in Red Hook.

“It was a working title for the body of work for a while. I wanted something to connote a little bit of intimacy. Because what I love about Red Hook is the enclosure and the fact that it is closed off by the BQE and has this feeling like the outback of Brooklyn,” says Vernon-Jones. “Just the feeling that it [photography] was coming from here and not ‘I went to Red Hook to take these pictures.’”

And his photographs do indeed convey a side of Red Hook that outsiders don’t know.

“I think that people see Red Hook as a bad area. The photographs put the neighborhood in a different light and show that it is changing for the better,” says Jacob Dixon who has lived in Red Hook for the last 13 years.

Vernon-Jones has existed on both side of the lens. His job as an advocate counselor at the high school made him part of the community, while his time roaming the neighborhood with his camera in hand put him in the position of an onlooker observing the people and landscape of Red Hook.

A few of his students made it onto the pages of the book. One of his subjects, Malcom, whom he photographed at a bus stop happened to walk into Vernon-Jones’ office at school a year or two later. Malcom has since graduated from South Brooklyn Community High School, but he did return to DJ at the book release party.

Other young people living in Red Hook play a prominent role throughout the book.

“I think that there are not a lot of nuanced representations of black and Puerto Rican young people, and I believe in the possibility of showing a little bit of what I got to learn about the complexity, goodness, and integrity of young people in this neighborhood in my job and in my photographs,” says Vernon-Jones.

For the book cover, Vernon-Jones chose a photograph of two teenagers in over-sized jackets staring directly at the camera. 

“I see these guys as almost gatekeepers standing guard but in a very welcoming way,” says Vernon-Jones.

In a neighborhood where the history is palpable, and in many ways, still untouched, many outsiders become enamored with the panoramic views of the water, the cobble stone streets, and the 19^th century grain warehouses, and fail to see the people who inhabit this space.

The young people, in many ways, represent the present-day Red Hook. Brian Zimbler, a friend and former colleague of Vernon-Jones, touches upon this idea in the very beginning of the introduction when he writes, “the young people in these images seem to get it intuitively.”

They have grown up in the neighborhood and know the sound of the foghorn and the familiar faces waiting for the B61 bus to arrive. They have experienced both the rapid change and the inertia.

Vernon-Jones opted to use a medium format camera instead of a digital SLR. And he says that shooting with an old fashioned camera slowed down the process and allowed him to converse more with his subjects.

“It was a very different experience from a digital SLR where you put a lens in somebody’s face if you’re trying to photograph a person. Instead, you’re focusing down here and talking to the person,” says Vernon-Jones.

“Andy has the special gift of being receptive and present,” adds Zimbler.

Much of what Vernon-Jones was compelled to shoot was inspired by the beauty of a moment in time unfolding in front of him whether it was weeds springing up through cracks of concrete or a blue balloon caught on a metal fence in the snow. His eye hones in on the brilliance of the ordinary object or the every day scene.

“The light in Red Hook because it is surrounded by the water is really unique. Sometimes it can just be the early morning light hitting a person,” says Vernon-Jones.

On the street, the photos resonate with people in the neighborhood.

“It shows a lot of character and that people love the community,” says Dixon.

Change comes at a snail’s pace to Red Hook. Its geographic location and shortage of transportation make it feel more like a remote village than a neighborhood in Brooklyn. But, some see these photographs as a fleeting reality.

“It almost seems like it is a documentary of what the neighborhood will be like before it is really gentrified,” says Anthony Cioe.

But, Vernon-Jones recalls a discussion he had with Zimbler about the introduction, and they both decided that “this isn’t just a document of contemporary Red Hook, but asking what is the deeper meaning and how can we be affected emotionally by what we see in these pictures.”

You may also be interested in reading a story about Dumbo’s theater scene or a controversial art exhibit at Brooklyn Museum.

Kenyan long-distant runner Geoffrey Mutai set a new course record at the New York City Marathon yesterday, taking only 2 hours, 5 minutes, 6 seconds to complete the 26.2-mile run that coursed through NYC’s five boroughs. Xin Hui Lim joined in the fun and followed the iconic marathon’s Brooklyn leg from Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and Atlantic Avenue to present you with these photos of the persevering (and entertaining) runners, the enthusiastic spectators, and more.

As he makes the egg cream, a tyke decked out in a black and white striped jumper brings a silver ice cream dish up to her mouth and slurps the melted remains.  It’s early evening, and business is slow.  Saxophone music plays in the background, almost drowning out the whirring sounds of the soda machine.

“Who’s playing?” asks a waitress, who sports a white cap with red trim that’s reminiscent of the ones nurses used to wear.

“Wynton Marsalis,” says the red-headed waiter.

“It’s beautiful,” she says. “Isn’t it beautiful?” She turns to another colleague who is sitting at the counter.  He has black curly hair, a handlebar mustache and thick glasses.

“I mean, it’s a cheesy instrument,” he replies in a deadpan voice.

The servers keep gabbing, and the conversation turns a little nutty.

“Almonds are a privileged food,” the waitress states.

“I thought almonds were less in fat and high in protein,” says the red-headed waiter.

“That’s just almond industry propaganda,” the mustached man sighs.

Two beaming folks walk in—one sporting a leather jacket and the other sporting a mohawk.  They walk around as if they are at a museum, picking up the local goods on sale and admiring the old prescription bottles on display in the back of the Farmacy.

“Can we sit anywhere?” one of them asks the red-headed waiter.

“I mean, anywhere within reason,” the waiter chuckles.

“Ugh, I mean what IS reason?” the man exclaimed. “Reason is SO subjective.”

They plop down at a table next to a row of filing drawers that are chock full of over-the-counter medicines, jars of chocolate sauce, and maraschino cherries.

The waitress hands them menus and says, “One time I said sit anywhere, and the guy was like, okay, well, I’m going to walk across the street and have a sandwich.”

Everyone laughs.  On a brisk fall evening, patrons at the Farmacy get a dose of something sweet and a dose of attitude.

A couple busily snap photographs of the ocean view as seen from the boardwalk at Coney Island. He wears a white jacket and she a black one, jeans and sunglasses.

“We should go down there,” she tells him, pointing towards the beach.

The sunrays hit brilliantly on the boardwalk on this cold, windy November day. The amusement park and “Scream Zone” are closed at this hour in the afternoon and only a scattering parents with children are about. A few of the restaurants are open, catering to scarce customers. Edward Maya’s, “If This is My Life,” blasts from a stereo from one of the restaurants.

Click. Click.

A couple with their three young children snaps pictures of the boardwalk’s panorama.

“Honey, I want a picture by myself over there,” the mother, wearing a black bubble jacket, jeans, sunglasses, and boots tells the father. Her blond hair flows in the wind. Two of her children are in a double stroller, a girl with her blond hair and a boy with his father’s dark hair. His wife nags him again to take her photo and he snaps. “Alright, alright, I’m taking the picture.” He takes the photograph, calms down and smiles at her. She returns his smile and laughs with their children.

The screeching of seagulls cease every now and then. A man with a naked torso sits outside one of the restaurants, enjoying the sunshine. Several joggers run by. They wear some bright colors like green and blue as opposed to the dull shades worn by the visitors or people who are sitting on the benches. The silhouette of a Muslim family of four plasters the sand, a few feet away from the brilliant blue of the ocean. They all wear black, with the oldest member in a long black abaya and her head covered in a hijab. The three women are holding hands as they walk. The man in the family walks on ahead.

Click.

Clad in olive pants and an olive jacket, a young man looks at the ocean from the railings of the boardwalk. He tries to take several pictures of himself using his iPhone. He takes a look at it on his phone, hesitates, and then poses for himself again.

Outside one of Brooklyn's video rental stores/ Photo by Fatima Muneer

Netflix, the online movie rental site, has lost 800,000 subscribers in its most recent quarter. Customers were angered by the company’s new policy, which forces them to have two separate accounts: one for streaming movies online and the other for getting them via mail. Furthermore, the former $9.99 package for having both methods of accessing movies in one account changed to $7.99 for each separate account.

Since people will now presumably be looking for other venues to get their movies, does this mean that there will be a comeback for Brooklyn’s dying industry of video rental stores? The Ink asked some of Brooklyn’s movie vendors if they have noticed hitherto Netflix’s loss is their gain.

“Certainly a bad press surrounding Netflix has helped the business,” says Joseph Martin, owner of Reel Life South, a neighborhood movie rental store in Park Slope. He looks relaxed in his jeans, t-shirt and glasses that frame a round face. He hesitates to estimate how much it has helped, but nonetheless assures me that there has indeed been a boost.

“Brooklyn’s Best Video Store,” reads the subhead under the Reel Life South’s sign outside. Thousands of movie DVDs catering to all genres and ages are neatly stacked in the many shelves crammed inside the tiny store space.

But others in the borough’s movie rental business have not enjoyed Martin’s improved fortunes. Jay Green, Manager of Photoplay Video and DVD, has been operating in Greenpoint for eight years. He says that business has not shifted up or down since Netflix began to make losses.

“All of our customers use both Netflix and this store,” Green says. His view is echoed by Cisco Jenkins, who works at Royal Video on Flatbush Avenue. “Business has remained the same pretty much,” he says. “Although a few have said that they’ve come here because of Netflix.”

At Get Reel Video in Park Slope, Manager Sarah Silver says that Netflix’s woes have not translated into new customers. In fact, she says for sometime now, Netflix has been eating into her business. “It was pretty lively about three years ago but then more and more people found out about Netflix.” Silver adds that most of her customers are older. “For them, Netflix seems strange,” she says.

But Silver has benefited from Netflix’s loss. “To be honest, I’ve heard a few people say, “I’ve quit Netflix,” she says. Not only do older customers frequent her store, but also some younger customers who like the idea of renting from a local shop. “Lots of hipsters and students who have moved here to come to school find it cool that there’s still an old video rental store,” she says.

Meanwhile at Reel South Life, Martin is enjoying his new business. “I don’t think it’s anything coincidental that a lot of our old customers have returned,” he says. Like other movie rental stores, he says he has lost customers in the past due to technological innovations like Netflix.

Most of his customers are long-time Park Slope residents and he still believes that his old customers are what sustain the store. “People move to this neighborhood constantly, not just from America itself but also from other parts of the world,” he says. “But the base of this store is a lot of loyal customers who have supported us for a long time.”

Martin has owned Reel Life South for over ten years and has run two other movie rental stores in Williamsburg before. He closed them, he says, because the rents were too high. The Park Slope branch fortunately saw a different fate. “I would say that most customers are between the ages of 25 and 40. I think that’s the generation that recognizes the importance of local commerce,” he says.

Besides, he adds with a smile, Park Slope has an audience of film buffs. “People here are quite film savvy,” he says.

This attack culminates with a long, floating pass into the penalty box. It’s hoofed away into the stratosphere by the New York defense. At Woodwork, the tension eases a bit. A nervous murmur spreads around the room.

“Yes,” the bearded man says softly, at the floor.

Then Woodwork sees just where that clearance is going to land. In haste to find a late equalizer, Dallas has thrown all their players forward, leaving a lone defender behind. But that defender seems to have forgotten that New York striker Thierry Henry, one of the finest goal scorers of his generation, is lurking just behind him. The ball floats over the halfway line, and Henry turns to run on to it.

“Yes…,” the bearded man says, louder this time. The bar patrons push their bar stools back, rising to their feet. Doing this provides no noticeable improvement in viewing angle.

The first touch. It’s one of soccer’s simplest skills – where you put the ball when it comes to you – and also one of the most important. In a developing league like Major League Soccer, a good first touch can separate a great player from a good one.

Henry is a great player. With the defender in hot pursuit, Henry allows the ball to bounce once before gracefully nudging it forward with his head, on the run. The velocity and placement is such that the defender becomes a non-factor, and the goalkeeper is stuck in no-man’s land. Woodwork realizes this, and volume rises. Nobody sits. The faint murmur that greeted the defensive clearance has developed into a frenzied cacophony of imploring cries. In the middle of it, the bearded man sets his beer on the table, and yells loud enough to be heard over the crowd.

“YES!!!”

The goal that would clinch a place in the MLS playoffs’ second round is at Henry’s feet. With signature nonchalance, he attempts to thread the needle between the goalkeeper’s arm and torso on as he slides to the ground to block the shot. The goalkeeper’s left hand flails outward, slapping the ball off its path.

“NO!!!!,” the bearded man yells.

There is frustration in his voice, but a smile on his face. After all, time is almost up. New York is probably going to win anyways. But, man, a second goal would have been nice.

Just then, Henry races in from off screen. The goalkeeper had saved his initial shot, but the ball still trickles towards the goalmouth. The Dallas defender and goalkeeper lay out on the ground, spectators. Henry sprints past them, tapping the ball over the goal line. In celebration, he holds a finger to his lips, shushing the Dallas fans.

Woodwork, just seconds ago hanging on Henry’s every movement, ignores this command.

I’m wondering what I’ve stumbled upon on this Saturday night. Even in Brooklyn, where there is a niche for everything – in fact, the shop sits next to a pressed sandwich place and down the street from a craft beer seller – I find it hard to imagine the survival of an old-fashioned hat shop.

How many fedoras do Brooklynites need?

And why are so many people here buying them?

Gloria Dawson / Brooklyn Ink

Because by eight o’clock the shop on 5th Avenue is jammed with people of all ages. In the store’s back corner, a woman tries on a bowler hat for her husband and teenage son.

“You look old,” says the son, deadpan.

I hear a middle-aged woman say to her companion, “I’m gonna get two. I never find hats that look good on me.” A tall, well-built man stares at his reflection. He has tried on what the shop calls a “Gatsby hat,” and he smiles as he says to his mirror image, “may I have some porridge?” Near the front door, a boy no more than four feet tall replaces his flat-brimmed Florida Marlins baseball cap with a fedora that’s a few sizes too large.

I can’t help myself; all I want to do is try on hats, but I can’t seem to find one that looks good on me. Once the shopkeeper helps a tall, young woman to find the right size of a hat that makes her look like a 1920’s flapper, he introduces himself to me as Alex Mroz.

He puts on a top hat and hands me a Gatsby hat with a plaid print, size small. I look at myself in the mirror, laugh at my reflection, and take the hat off. I feel like I’m playing dress up. When I pause before trying on a new hat, Mroz scolds me. “I don’t see you trying on enough hats,” he says with a smile.

So I try on more hats. I wander around the store, stopping every few feet to try on a new one. The fedora is too big and covers my eyes. The bowler floats on top of my head like a balloon. The ear-flaps of the fur-lined hat hang down to my shoulders. I fear I’m not a hat person.

Mroz insists that anyone can wear a hat, and the right one will give you confidence.

“There’s a certain kind of magic that happens here,” he tells me. “There’s something about a hat that arms someone with courage.”

She took a seat in the second to last row. Her face showed no emotion. Her eyes never strayed from the judge as she patiently sat through one trial, waiting for her son to appear.

Finally, at 11:30 a.m. the judge called for Alcindor. The police brought him into the courtroom with his hands cuffed behind his back. This was the first time his mother moved — her shoulders tensed and she squeezed her hand.

The judge looked over Alcindor’s case file, and read off a list of crimes including burglary and abuse. Alcindor’s mom’s eyes turned red. The judge asked Alcindor if he had anything to say. He declined. With nothing more to say the judge sentenced him to four years in prison for attempted burglary in the first degree.

“Excuse me, your honor,” Alcindor’s attorney interrupted. “Can he have a moment to say a few words to his mother?”

“Just a moment,” the judge replied. Alcindor turned, showing his face for the first time. He was wearing a jean jacket similar to his mother’s and looked as though he knew that this moment was coming. His mom stood up from her seat, walked over to her son, and sat on the bench in front of him.

“There can be no physical contact,” the security guard said. Alcindor’s mother asked him what he was going to do and began to cry. He took one look into his mother’s eyes as she began to speak again, this time lecturing him. Alcindor’s head dropped. He tried to lift it up again to show his mother that he was listening but was unable to look her in the eye again. Her head shook as tears ran down her face.

Meanwhile, the judge carried on a conversation with his clerk, the security guards spoke about what they’d had for dinner, the stenographer moisturized her hands, and Alcindor’s lawyer sat impatiently.

“That’s it,” the judge said after a few moments, and a guard escorted Alcindor away. ”See you later,” he said to his mom. ”I love you baby,” she shouted back.

“I love you more,” Alcindor whispered as he walked through the exit of the courtroom, leaving his crying mother behind him.