Roof Top Garden...

Ingenious!

Les Ballet Des Failes...

Wednesday night was the second night of the Faile nights at the New York Ballet.

Just like the last time, there was lots of amazing new pieces of work on show - some big mosaic-type pieces made up lots of blocks and smaller canvases...

 As well as these pieces, there were some amazing carved wooden totems too...

There were about 20 of them in all, each with hand carved and painted designs wrapping round and on the top... they were so detailed and brilliantly coloured...

 They were amazing!

They didn't fill the room in the same way as the Tower last time, but they were so impressive in a completely different way... perhaps the most impressive part was the Lionel Richie carving!

Also like last time, everyone with a ticket got a wooden block that was part of a larger piece of art. This time I was able to get one of the Faile duo to sign my block...

I'm not really sure if I prefered the big tower at the first Faile Ballet event, or these totems... they were both great. I wonder which artist the NYC Ballet will team up with next?

La Maison Du Tastiness...

The other day, Abi and I took a lunchtime walk and found ourselves in France!

We found a lovely little place called La Maison Du Croque Monsieur...

You can guess what they serve.

They had all sorts of types, pulled pork, sausage and bacon, cheese and pickle... all sorts. We both had a 'Rupert' which had bacon, sausage, egg and cheese...

They were delicious and what was really lovely was being able to sit up stairs in the very french feeling  cafe, seeing the sun shining on trees outside the windows... it felt like we were on holiday!

I think we might have found ourselves a new little lunch spot.

Myrtle Village Green...

There are a few empty lots along Myrtle Avenue, I walk passed a couple on the way to the launderette - most of them have a notice on the fences saying that the empty spaces should be turned into community spaces or gardens - but a lot of them just stay vacant.

There's one particular space on Myrtle Avenue though that has been transformed into community garden - it's now the Myrtle Avenue Village Green..

 We've seen the space slowly come together with a few beds and planter bags and stuff, but today it was looking very impressive, with loads of raised beds filling the entire lot.

It's great that the space is being used for something, and by the looks of things they're still looking for volunteers to go and help out at the weekends. It sounds like they have BBQs and film screenings in the evenings there. It's a really lovely way to use the space, which was otherwise just a dumping ground.

It'll be nice to see the garden grow more over the next few months.

Memorial Day BBQ...

We had our first BBQ of the summer up on the roof today...

 I'd quite happily spend most weekends sitting up there having a BBQ looking out at that view. Hopefully there'll be plenty more BBQs to come this year.

Bicycle Fetish Day...

When I was mooching about this afternoon, I came across a bit of a gathering down a side street in Brooklyn which turned out to be 'The City Reliquary Bicycle Fetish Day'...

It was a gathering of weird and wonderful bikes...

 

 

As well as all the home-made contraptions there were also loads of beautiful old, very well polished vintage Schwinn bikes on show too...

 It reminded me of seeing all those old Schwinn bikes when I first arrived in New York.

Out & About...

Domino Sugar Factory...

The Domino Sugar Factory is a bit of a landmark along the river. The big chimney, the graffitied walls, the old smashed windows and the fantastic old yellow lettering hanging up on the side... I love it.

It's a bit of a ghostly building, I'm not really sure how long it's been empty, but I think it must be a pretty long time judging by the state of the place.

When I first moved out here there were things on the internet saying that the whole building was going to be turned into luxury apartments, they were planning on cleaning the whole thing up and keeping the old signage on the walls... but then that all went quiet.

I also heard a rumour that there are gigantic rats inside the old factory that have been living off all the old sugar and have grown to be the size of dogs... but I don't think that's true somehow.

Anyway, I'd been wanting to get a good view of the front of the factory for ages - you get to see it from the J train as it goes over the Manhattan Bridge, but the only way to really get an proper look at the whole building and the brilliant signage is from the river. Luckily the East River Ferry goes right by it...

 It doesn't really look like much, but I really love it.

It's fascinating to think of what Brooklyn must have been like when all these factories were in operation, they used to make Gretch Guitars in Williamsburg - now that building is fancy flats. There's a huge industrial launderette called Cascade at the end of our road with a fantastic chimney... I think that building would make some brilliant shops and apartments.

It's funny, Brooklyn's gone from having all these huge industrial sized factories, to now having lots of small little industries, like brine companies, or micro breweries and distilleries or chocolate makers. It's a really industrious place still, just on a much smaller but perhaps more exciting scale.