The Brooklyn Ink

One Gowanus: Three Voices

Three Brooklyn residents weigh in on the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to place the Gowanus Canal on the Superfund site list.

Trim or Tattoo? A New Elvis Aesthetic in Williamsburg

By Joseph Alexiou

It is only in a neighborhood like Williamsburg, in a borough like Brooklyn, that a group of creative young folks can open an Elvis-themed hair salon-cum-tattoo parlor without raising many eyebrows.
Graceland is housed in a renovated former three-car garage at the corner of Lorimer and Withers streets. Embedded in the smooth cement floor [...]

Cash for Scraps in East NY

By Yepoka Yeebo and Matthew Huisman
Gershow Recycling has owned the scrap yard on Pitkin Avenue in East New York for the past 10 years with more than 200-300 customers a day. Senior Facility Manager Eric Kugler took us on a tour of the facility.

Beneath Atlantic Avenue

Brooklynite Bob Diamond, who discovered the world’s oldest subway tunnel in 1979, give a tour and tells the tale of his great discovery.

After the fire: the long farewell

Video by Nushin Rashidian and Story by Alyson Martin
On Friday evening, Miguel talked about strength.
How important it is for him to remain strong for his young son, Josias. How he needs to be strong for little Maria, still healing from head trauma after the fire that killed their mother, Miguel’s wife.
Yes, he must be strong, [...]

After the fire: Luisa’s funeral

Miguel Chan mourns at a funeral for his wife Luisa Chan, victim of the Bensonhurst fire that killed four others.

After the Fire: The Funeral

By Jeannette Neumann
Brooklyn’s Guatemalan community gathered on Friday in a Coney Island funeral home to remember the five people who died at the end of January in a blaze allegedly set by a man living in their building. The funeral had been postponed until the bodies were identified.

‘Til death do us part

By Althea A. Fung, Danielle Bengsch and K. S. Nikhil Kumar
Canarsie couple Elliot and Hunny Reiken have been married for 61 years. The couple met in the Catskill Mountains when Elliot and his twin brother Danny were performing at a hotel where Hunny and her twin sister Bunny were waitresses. The two couples married in [...]

WWE or Bust

Dreams of turning pro have brought wrestler Patrick Ellrich, aka “The Attraction, Hayden Young,” from Atlanta, Georgia to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Though he’ll attend a WWE tryout camp next week, Ellrich has bigger things on his mind.

Haitians in Brooklyn: A Month After

by K. S. Nikhil Kumar
Exactly a month after the earthquake struck Haiti, several Haitian Americans in New York City, mostly based in Brooklyn, came to seek solace at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Sunset Park. The service was presided over by Chief Bishop of the Brooklyn Diocese, Nicholas DiMarzio.
Equally significant was [...]