Art for the Birds? Bird Town arrives on Myrtle this weekend!
Goers and Wong used recycled materials and experimental building techniques to create a micro-community of colorful and whimsical birdhouses for this project. Over the coming months, the birds themselves are part of the performance! Check out the artists' website, www.myrtleavenuebirdtown.com, as they document birds feeding, nesting, building, and caring for offspring in these spaces!
Celebrate the opening with us on Thursday, May 6th at Sans Souci Restaurant (330 Myrtle Avenue) from 6-8pm, with drink specials and good eats from their yummy Caribbean menu.
This installation is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC).
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people does not exist? Why in general is it that folks seem to think that Fort Greene ends at Myrtle Avenue?
I have invented Cross-over Day to aid the masses of folks who think Fort Greene ends at Myrtle Avenue. Many folks have never been north of Myrtle Avenue & have never visited FG projects, don't know anyone there nor care much about what goes on there. Fort Greene projects is home to 10,000 human beings and is one of the poorest ares of NYC--on a par with Haiti. With construction going on all around GreenHill many prefer to pretend that this area doesn't exists. We will meet at an agreed-on location and take a FREE guided tour thru Fort Green Projects. (The Fort Green House Tour folks charge $25. for their tour.) If you are interested in this tour you must make your interest known on these pages and I will follow the will of the people.
Thanks for posting your thoughts on our blog. Not only is the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership aware of the 10,000+ residents that live in public housing on Myrtle Avenue, but they are important constituents of ours and critical to the success of the retail corridor. To respond to your comments, at least in how they relate to the Partnership, I want to mention here a number of our programs that target residents of Ingersoll and Whitman, so you can hopefully help us spread the word.
Our organization works extremely closely with the tenant associations at Ingersoll, Whitman, and Farragut, and someone on our staff attends their TA meetings almost every month, while the President of the Ingersoll TA sits on our BID's board of directors.
This part Saturday, while all these other activities you mention were going on, there were also a large number of volunteers at Ingersoll expanding the community garden there that fronts Myrtle. That is a project that began last year and was spearheaded by the Partnership, with funds that we raised to provide Ingersoll residents with supplies and a gardening expert to help them create raised planting beds, to plant flowers and vegetables, and to beautify their grounds, an idea that came out of community design workshops we hosted for the residents a number of years ago. Due to the success of the first year of the project, we have been awarded a grant that will provide another 3 years of support to Ingersoll residents, while also allowing us to help residents at Whitman and Farragut to create their own community gardens.
The public sculpture program, of which Myrtle Avenue Bird Town is the second installation, started with the Tree Hugger Project, which was installed on both Ingersoll Grounds and NYC Parks property, in an effort to bring public art to all parts of the commercial corridor.
Our Young Entrepreneur Mentorship Program places 15 high school students from the public housing on Myrtle in paid, part-time summer jobs at small businesses on Myrtle Avenue, while providing a mentor in the way of the small business owner. This summer with be the 4th year of this program.
And finally, our Food Access Initiative has been working hard to improve the access to fresh produce on the western end of Myrtle, first by starting the Fort Greene CSA (www.fortgreenecsa.org) two years ago, with 50% of vegetable shares reserved for low-income members, by starting up a youth Farm Stand once a week on Thursdays at the Ingersoll Community Center (running this July until October), by starting up a course which will teach public housing residents to do cooking demonstrations for their neighbors, and advocating to bring back a major affordable supermarket to the area between Flatbush and Prince.
Any help you can provide to spread the word about these programs during your planned tour of the blocks north of Myrtle would be much appreciated.
Thanks again for your comments.