PlanetEye

In May 2001, Red Hook's only supermarket closed its doors, leaving a vacuum in the community and a serious need for fresh produce.  The Red Hook Farmers Market was quickly established.  Within two weeks the market served approximately 200 weekly customers.   Open all summer until the Saturday before Thanksgiving, The Red Hook Farmers Market now features a full selection of fruits and vegetables from upstate and Long Island orchards, farms and dairies along with pasture raised poultry and lamb, locally caught fish, and baked goods.  Beyond the typical fresh produce, much of it here is local to an extreme. More than three dozen different crops are grown annually by neighborhood youth at the Red Hook Community Farm. Once a 2.75-acre patch of abandoned asphalt surrounded by a 25-foot tall chain-link fence, this year-round farm now utilizes vermicomposting and and other urban gardening techniques. Kids earn money while getting hands-on experience learning about sustainable food-growing practices, with a tangible end result...fresh diverse produce for you!

Market Locations and Hours: 

Thursdays
6 Wolcott (Intersection of Wolcott and Dwight)
Hours: 11am - 3pm
Take the B61 to Wolcott and walk two blocks up Wolcott or B77 to Dwight and Wolcott.

Saturdays
The Red Hook Farm, 590 Columbia at the Intersection of Beard
Hours: 9am - 3pm
Take the F/G Train to Smith and 9th Street stop or the B77 to Van Dyke and Dwight., Walk up 9th street to Court,  or one block up Van Dyke to the Farm.

First off, this place is not a museum of small objects or a collection of galleries filled with old PCs.  A storefront community arts center amid a dense array of boutique shopping on Smith Street, the Micro Museum® has been renting out rehearsal space and booking an ever-changing roster of local installations and performance art since 1986. The museum also has an impressive archive of microfilm and video art and an eclectic collection of rare symphonic recordings on 78 rpm donated from the Met that can be spun on request.  The gallery/museum is basically one long room full of quirky art installations.  Exhibits have run the gamut from two telephones on opposite arms of a couch. Upon taking a phone off the hook, the other begins ringing and only stops when both are hung up or off the hook.  There's also a knowledge chair, just press buttons on the side of the chair and it reads idioms to you.  This living art center yearly hosts over 600 artistic residents ranging from award winning actors, dancers, musicians, clowns, belly dancers, and media artists.  From now until September 20 on Saturdays between 12-7 pm, stop by and check out RAGING AGAINST THE...an exhibition of select artists expressing a wide range of emotion, some interpreted clearly while others are abstract or conceptual.  The overall effect reflects the edginess pervading the hot political climate this summer.  From Manhattan, take the F & G Trains to Bergen Street (between Dean and Pacific Streets)  Admission $2

If you have ever ventured north of historic Battery Park on the esplanade, a wide pedestrian concourse interconnecting a series of small parks overlooking the Hudson River in lower Manhattan, I bet that you found it hard to stop walking.  Once a 92-acre landfill that covered decaying piers well into the 1980s, residential and commercial development along with public art installations sprouted up quickly setting the foundation for Battery Park City. If sweeping Statue of Liberty views, the curiously ever rising Jersey City skyline, along with intriguing South Cove, the Irish Hunger Memorial, and Teardrop Park weren't enough, you should know that this area is also loaded with free outdoor summer activities.  On Sat, Aug 16, from 6:30-8pm in Esplanade Plaza, a
West African Family Dance led by The Kotchegna Dance Company will perform traditional Ivory Coast dance routines and then teach the audience some basic moves.  No partners or dancing expertise needed! Just listen to the drumbeat, move your body, and connect with your inner rhythm. Soon you'll realize how West African dance and music bridges the gap between exercise and dance. An accompanying ensemble draws from such exotic instruments as the xylophone-like balafon, a harp-like kora, as well as djembe and doun doun drums.

Starting in 1982 as a small event with concerts and cultural events in Manhattan's Washington Heights, The Dominican Day Parade has grown into a nationally televised 2-mile long celebration with spectators numbering in the tens of thousands lining Sixth Avenue. Held this year on August 10th, 11 a.m. between 36th Street and 56th Streets, this parade commemorates the Dominican Republic's War of Independence from Spain in 1863, and also celebrates music, a big part of Dominican culture. The second largest yet fastest growing Hispanic group in New York City, half of the country's Dominican population, more than 500,000 residents, lives here.  Singers and dancers ranging from traditional groups to pop stars perform in brightly colored costumes called ‘lechones' with bells, feathers, sequins, and elaborate masks. Traditionally representing monsters that appeared before Lent, these diablos cojuelo, or lame devils, in their sharp-featured masks and colorful ruffle-sleeved costumes, popular for over a century in the Caribbean's Carnival celebration, wield thick bullwhips woven from ropes. These spirits of mischief stir the crowds flanking the parade route. The masses in attendance waving Dominican flags create a sea of red, white, and blue as the procession of floats cruise up 6th Ave..  Come see for yourself!

If you plan to be in town in town on Sat. Aug. 23, 1-5 p.m., do yourself a favor and buy a $25 ticket now to the Highbrow BBQ Cookoff.  Treat yourself to a BBQ feast fired up by Chris "CJ" Jacobson from season 3 of the Bravo Channel's hit "Top Chef".  Jacobson's background also includes working as a private chef for columnist Arianna Huffington and the Marciano Family of the Guess Corporation.  Now he's busy opening his own restaurant in Chicago called Town and Country.  If you're up for the challenge, bring your best BBQ dish and have it critiqued by celebrity judges and win $1000 if you're deemed worthy.  Oh yeah, and there's free beer all day!  For music, look out for a full-set performance by Islands, Montreal's indie rock sensation whose style transcends "the formulaic pop genre with layers of instrumental solos that teeter on discordant drama and uncontained feverish mirth...full of frolicking jovial pop ditties."  How's that for partying at a price well below many rock concerts this year?

Carnivores and vegetarians welcome at this all ages event.

Solar One Green Energy, Arts & Education Center
East River waterfront at 23rd Street
Raindate Aug. 24

Getting sick of hearing about yet another bland pseudo-pop release from Hanna Montana or Britney Spears?  On Sunday, August 3 from 2-9, head over to the African Guitar Festival in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.  As a part of the Celebrate Brooklyn festivities, this gathering showcases food, crafts, and of course music from all across Africa.  Artists featured include Oliver Mtukudzi, Habib Koite, and Extra Golden.

A recording dynamo, Oliver Mtukudzi, stagename "Tuku", has released 40 original albums within the last 20 years.  Born in Harare, his style is infused with Zimbabwe's and more recently, South Africa's live music scene.  A formidable lead singer, he speaks both Shona and Ndebele, yet often writing songs in English.  Tuku's innovation has created a genre all its own called Tuku Music.

Habib Koite comes from a noble line of Khassonké griots, traditional Zimbabwean troubadors who provide wit, wisdom and musical entertainment at social gatherings and special events.  Adopting his unique guitar style from his griot mother, he also inherited a passion for music from his paternal grandfather who played the kamele n'goni, a traditional four-stringed instrument used by hunters from the Wassolou region of Mali.

A relative newcomer, the band Extra Golden casually formed in 2004 when Ian Eagleson, Alex Minoff and Otieno Jagwasi began jamming with each other's compositions in an apartment in the Buru Buru neighborhood of Nairobi.  Rhythmically inspired, by Onyango Wuod Omari, their sound is a unique mix of boogie rock and benga, an upbeat style of guitar dance music, similar to rumba, that has been popular in Kenya since the 1960s.

There are those summer days when it's 85 degrees at 7 a.m. and the humidity makes it feel like you're breathing through a sponge.  Not exactly a day for hitting midtown's concrete canyons.  Do as the locals do, and head out to NYC's most easily accessible ocean side retreat.  We're not talking imported sand tucked into bays and inlets on New York Harbor either.  New Jersey's Sandy Hook, a 7 mile long sandy barrier peninsula, reaches out into the clean blue Atlantic surf.  Hop on the SeaStreak Ferry from 34th Street or Wall Street, and watch Manhattan's skyscrapers recede on the horizon. Forty-five minutes later, hop on the free five-minute shuttle to the beach. In most places, about 800 feet of sand separates the boardwalk from the surf giving you plenty of breathing room. Sandy Hook's water quality is excellent because it's in a National Park facing the Atlantic Ocean and separated by a peninsula from New York and the rest of New Jersey. 

Lifeguards are on duty at five Sandy Hook beaches from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. On weekends, be sure to arrive before 10 a.m. because after that the crowds are impossible.