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| 826NYC's Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store |
Where do you start with somewhere as unique as New York?
As I sit writing this, the Big Apple’s skyline is fading into the distance as
my Megabus speeds South-Westerly through New Jersey toward Baltimore and DC. It
has been a whirlwind week in a city that never sleeps and whilst this is my
second visit to NYC, it is still somewhere I leave wanting to return and to not
take 11 years to come back again.
Where we stay was excellent, just a short walk from the
Atlantic Avenue subway, which became our arterial route in-and-out of the city.
Brooklyn was everything I expected it to be – bold, brassy and wildly
cosmopolitan, with us eating Caribbean-Creole, Columbian, American BBQ and
diner food (plus the amazing smelling food van at the end of our road) just a
stone’s throw from our little apartment, which we’d rented from the brilliant
Tina and Rob. The Park Slope neighbourhood just down from where we stayed was
exceptionally cool with different restaurants, bars, shops and quirky
non-profits all jostling for space – our closest equivalent being the bottom
end of Radford Road, but this still doesn’t really come close.
New York is a goldmine for tourists and I did have to
indulge quite a bit this week, with the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island,
Central Park, the amazing views of the skyline and bridges, the Met Museum and
various Flaneur-like wanders through the different areas, districts and
historic neighbourhoods. I also, this week, had a little companion as my
girlfriend Cáit had come too and there were things that we wanted to see and do
together (despite me having my head in work for a good 90% of the time). We
went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on Monday, having spent Sunday
watching the Forest Derby game with the NYC NFFC Supporters Club and their
organiser, Karl. It was great, on my first day, to meet people from Eastwood,
Kimberley and Bingham! I also met Michelle, a middle-school principal from Long
Island in a dinner after the game – entirely by chance, who put me onto some
really cool projects and people. We spent the rest of the day wandering
Manhattan and having coffee in Central Park – because, why wouldn’t you!? As a
side note, we’ve had unbelievably good weather for this time of year! The
Statue of Liberty was a humbling reminder of America’s diaspora nation origins,
with even the native people of this country having walked over the then frozen Bering
Strait many thousands of years ago. The Emma Lazarus poem The New Colossus
rings true still today for many Americans. Ellis Island too was another
powerful place and whilst I didn’t manage to trace my ancestor Thomas King
through it arrivals system, Cáit found her relative Patrick Hogan. The museum here
has some great exhibits, including the history of migration to America, why
free movement is important and the clear parallels that have happened before
and are happening again when toxic nationalism manifests in foreign and immigration
policy. We also visited the reflection pools which are now where the towers of
the World Trade Centre once stood to pay our respects to those who lost their
lives in the terrible attacks 16 years ago.
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| Me and the First Lady of the World, Eleanor Roosevelt. |
Tuesday was the day I went up to Hyde Park and to the FDR
Library, Museum and National Historical site. I wrote a blog about this earlier
in the week, which I may revisit as it felt a bit rushed, so if you want to
read about this day and my FDR pilgrimage, click here!
On Wednesday we walked through Brooklyn to their stunning
Art Deco public library, and I whiled away an hour talking to their children’s
librarians about the cool programmes they ran for pre-school age children and
up. They have an awesome sounding STEM program called Learning Lab, which
seemed to be a bit like Fun Palaces and the work done by the brilliant Ignite!
Futures but more imbedded regularly in libraries. We then walked down into Park
Slope to see the 826 NYC storefront – The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Store.
These 826 storefronts have been one of the things that have excited me the most
about the trip and many of the collected supporters of what could come next
from it have seen an 826-like model as one that may work for Nottingham. Here
we were given a behind the scenes look at the store and the programs they
provide by volunteer Tatiana who gave me the very good advice to sell things
that glow in the dark – these are often their best sellers. Tati was a great
source of good advice about the running of the storefront, how they run their
book-binding program to self-publish the children’s work and showed us some of
her comic book art work. I got to try a cape on in the fan-powered capery and
got my superhero mask/goggles and an awesome new tote bag.
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| Sun sets behind the Empire State Building and One World Trade Centre. |
On Thursday, Cáit and I headed to Central Park again and
The Met to get our art gallery on – although I was slightly disappointed that
there was none of the gallery’s Pre-Raphaelite collection (I’m always a sucker
for a Rossetti) on display, even when the gift shop had two whole racks of
William Morris print accessories. I did however see Jackson Pollock, Georgia O’Keefe,
Alice Neel, John Singer Sargent, Rembrandt, Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today Mural and Cáit fell
in love with some Pissarro’s. We then walked over the West side and the Eleanor
Roosevelt Memorial by the Hudson before getting the best Chinese dumplings at
Vanessa’s and then heading to the Rockefeller Centre for sunset on Top of the
Rock!
On Friday, we caught the Roosevelt Tramway cable car to
Roosevelt Island – a former prison and infectious disease hospital island in
the middle of the river between Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan which has now
been redeveloped and name in FDR’s honour. At the tip is Four Freedoms Park
with the city’s memorial to a President who was truly one of their own. From
here we headed to the New York Public Library where I met with Louise, their
children’s librarian, to talk about the programs they run at the central branch
(weekends mostly with some holiday sessions) and out in neighbourhood branches
(more homework help sessions and hangouts) – they have an upcoming scavenger
hunt in the central library which sounds awesome, especially in such an amazing
building. From here I met with Jason, who Michelle had put me onto, from Story
Pirates – a literacy non-profit based in a theatre bookstore. They encourage
children to write stories for them which will become comic sketch-style short
plays and I got to see some rehearsals going on in their black-box theatre underneath
the store. I really liked Story Pirates’ style and the energy in what they were
doing. There was just time for a quick drink and some BBQ food and my final
full day in NYC was over before my bus to DC on Saturday morning.
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| FDR Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island, NYC. |
We also, as anyone who know us will not be surprised to
hear, visited a fair few bookshops including The Strand Bookstore and Housing
Works Bookstore on Manhattan, and Unnameable Books in Brooklyn. Housing Works
was my undoubted favourite – whilst Unnameable had the hip, Francophile stuff I
often read stocked, it felt a bit aloof whereas Strand, whilst huge, felt a bit
faceless – a book-mart rather than an engaging space. Housing Works had a
spiral-staircase, a coffee shop and a very dear friend, Bianca, working there
(so I may be biased) and it operates as a non-profit to support deprived
communities in NYC, including the bold target of making NYC AIDS free by 2020.
I was very pleased to buy a vintage copy of three Ionesco plays to add to my
burgeoning collection and Patrick DeWitt’s The Sisters Brothers, a
recommendation from B.
So far, so amazing – what a great first week of my
Nottingham Roosevelt Scholarship!