I’m currently job hunting, and while writing resumes that no one will read is really exciting, I’ve decided to also take this (hopefully brief) time to do the things I wouldn’t normally have time to do if I had a job. I don’t have a particular agenda, just wherever the mood takes me. Perhaps you and I both will benefit from this. (Just don’t bet the house on it.)

So here’s my first quest, inspired by a conversation I had with my friend, Liz—learn about the Native American trails that once served as the major arteries through Brooklyn. (I knew Broadway had first existed this way, but didn’t know about any in Brooklyn.) I went to the Brooklyn Historical Society, where a helpful librarian located this map, “Indian Villages, Paths, Ponds and Places in Kings County,” published in 1946 by then-Brooklyn Borough Historian James A. Kelly.

Since this is the Brooklyn Heights Blog, I wanted to concentrate on this neighborhood; however, I couldn’t help but notice the label “Indian burial ground” next to the tepee located in Boerum Hill. It raised a few interesting questions in my mind:

• Does the tepee cover the exact place where the Indian burial ground exists? (If so, it is directly over Wyckoff Gardens.)

• Do all the tepees represent Indian burial grounds, or just the one that’s labeled? (This map has no key; the librarian thought all the tepees were also burial grounds. I, however, think they just represent the settlements.)

• If all the tepees are burial grounds, then that means there is one beneath my building in Brooklyn Heights. This would perhaps explain the plumbing issues.

Interesting to see some of the trails that exist today as major thoroughfares, like Fulton Street, Flatbush Avenue and part of Atlantic Avenue. I have yet to uncover any information on the Ihretonga, which is the tribe listed as living in Brooklyn Heights. I did, however, learn that the Werpos village of the Indian burial ground had a twin village located around today’s City Hall.

One other site I noticed was a park extending from Columbia Street to Smith Street, and from Atlantic Avenue to Kane Street (and labeled as “Sassians” on the map). I guessed it was park of today’s Van Voorhees park, and indeed nycgovparks.org has more information.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Since I’m Not Working: Native American Edition, where I travel one of the Native American trails, and also try and get answers to the above questions. And now I’m off to the 8-4 for the police blotter. See you there.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/72961

The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival returns for a week of “Brooklyn‐born, Brooklyn-based and Brooklyn-centric films,” with many screened at Brooklyn Heights Cinema and St Francis College’s Founder’s Hall. Highlights include Bodies in Irreversible Detriment, starring Breaking Bad‘s Mark Margolis, and New York Dolls’ David Johansen; Balance, starring Stephen Baldwin; and Spoke: A Short Film About NYC Bikes by BHB’s Heather Quinlan. There will also be midnight screenings at Brooklyn Heights Cinema of PAN, described as “a sexy take on Peter Pan,” and Lapsus, “a creepy psychological thriller set in a Brooklyn laundromat.”

Tickets and schedules are available here, and you can watch a trailer here. See you at the movies!

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/66994

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/66448

FOX 5 10:00 News spent time in the Heights last night interviewing BHB’s Heather Quinlan about her New York accent documentary, If These Knishes Could Talk. They also did a little man-on-the street action—see if you can spot the locals.

“Knishes” is also available on Amazon.com.

New York News

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/64567

Some faces, such as Ben Lee an NYC sanitation worker, may be familiar to fans of Quinlan’s last film If These Knishes Could Talk.

In SPOKE, Lee comments, “My dad escaped North Korea so he wouldn’t have to ride a bike to work. And here we are in the greatest city in the world, and people want to ride their bike to work. I don’t get it.”

So how are those bicyclists, motorists and pedestrians getting along lately?

“The streets are dominated by toxic-belching death machines in a Darwinian death race,” declares bicycle advocate Bill Weinberg.

Quinlan was granted an interview with Paul Steely White from Transportation Alternatives, but he then later refused to be interviewed. Requests to the DoT for an interview were not answered.

SPOKE – A Short Film About Bikes from Heather Quinlan on Vimeo.

About SPOKE

SPOKE is about NYC bikes – the good, the bad, and the needs improvement. Featuring interviews with reporters, city workers, sanitation workers, lawyers, and people who love bikes but not bike lanes, love bikes but not CitiBikes, people who want to scrap the whole thing altogether, and people who wouldn’t change a thing. Also featuring fast and furious footage shot on Google Glass. SPOKE is directed by Heather Quinlan, whose previous film, “If These Knishes Could Talk,” chronicled the history of the New York accent.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/62990

The juggernaut that is BHB contributor Heather Quinlan’s If These Knishes Could Talk gains more steam with coverage in the New York Times. Last year BHB and its readers along with the Brooklyn Heights Cinema gave audiences a sneak peek of an early version of the film as well as providing donations for its completion.

The doc, featuring the soon-to-be totally famous Ben Lee (aka Asian Guido), makes it’s official debut at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival this Thursday:

NYT: This is one of the inferences to be drawn from “If These Knishes Could Talk: The Story of the New York Accent,” a film in some sense betrayed by its title, because its purpose is to show how multifarious (and mutable) the New York accent actually is. A documentary by a native New Yorker named Heather Quinlan, the film, having its premiere at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival on Thursday, examines the way that different immigrant groups adapted to speaking in the city, and illuminates the distinctions that were the result. The Jewish accent (Woody Allen) is syntactically different from the Italian accent (“The Godfather”). And, in turn, both are different from the Irish accent, which Ms. Quinlan believes was best illustrated — in popular entertainment — in “All in the Family” (“goil,” for girl, “terlet” for toilet), and has largely vanished.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/58821

The second annual Art of Brooklyn Film Festival, August 4-12, will feature 45 premieres from all over the world, all with links to Brooklyn. It will launch on Saturday the 4th with a free screening of Steven Seagal’s 1991 cult classic “Out For Justice,” complete with a Seagal look-alike contest. Movies will be screened at St. Francis College Theater, 180 Remsen Street, in Brooklyn Heights, a stone’s throw from Borough Hall.

Joseph Shahadi, executive director of the festival, says that the festival’s goal is to include everyone, from Boerum Hill to Bergen Beach, Fort Greene to the Flatlands, in a major industry event: “For us, it’s only Brooklyn when you count all of it. This isn’t about hipster bashing, but now that the borough has become an international center for art and culture, excluding some people because they live in the ‘wrong’ neighborhood is unacceptable,” he says. “Everyone is invited to this party.”

Also among the selections are a Turkish film inspired by Brooklyn’s diversity, an Italian documentary about a Hasidic rapper and a Claymation short by a young animator born & raised in Australia’s Brooklyn, in New South Wales. Celebrity hosts will emcee the screenings, including documentary filmmaker Annette Danto and actor Eric Mabius of “Ugly Betty” and “Resident Evil.”

“I have always loved Brooklyn,” Mabius says. “It is one of the most creative and productive environments in the world. The whole idea of bringing new and classic Brooklyn together, nobody else is doing that.”

Heather Quinlan, whose “If These Knishes Could Talk” debuted at last year’s festival, will be one of many award-winning female documentary makers on a panel discussing their film work. Special events will also include talkback with filmmakers, after parties featuring Brooklyn bands, nightly discounts at area bars and restaurants and more.

See the full schedule here.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/44998