This Saturday at 9pm, celebrate BAM Cinematek's 10th Anniversary and kick off the Afro Punk Festival with a free film at Fort Greene Park! The film, "What's on your plate?", is a thought-provoking and entertaining documentary about kids, food and politics. Bring a blanket and claim your spot on the grass early!

Here's the synopsis:
Safiyah and Sadie are two 11-year old African-American girls growing up in New York City. Over the course of a year filmaker Catherine Gund follows them as they start to ask - and answer - questions about the food on their plate. Where does it come from? What's in it? Why is it so hard to get healthy meals into schools and what will happen if we don't?

Photo credit: www.bam.org www.bam.org

Walk around Fort Greene Park, a greensward that owes its existence in large part to Walt Whitman's editorials written for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and learn about this poet's intimate connection with Brooklyn's first official park. The afternoon includes Whitman-inspired song by the American Opera Projects, readings of Whitman's prose and poetry and discussions about the park, the Wallabout Martyrs and the monument dedicated to their memory, and Brooklyn Hospital. This event will conclude with a walk up Myrtle Avenue to 99 Ryerson Street, the last existing building in Brooklyn that was a residence of Walt Whitman. Several Myrtle Avenue merchants have lunch discounts exclusively for tour participants.

Your guide is Greg Trupiano, Artistic Director of The Walt Whitman Project and AOP Artistic Partner for Outreach/Education. April 26, 2009, Sunday at 2:00 p.m.

• Meet at the Visitors Center, Top of the Hill, Fort Greene Park • Enter at Myrtle Avenue, Washington Park, or DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn • FREE event / rain or shine • Information & Reservations (limited to 25 people): 718-391-8824

Poets at the Top of the Hill (Fort Greene Park at the Richard Wright bench [southwest of the Wallabout Martyrs Monument])

Saturdays: April 11th, 18th and 25th 12noon to 1pm

Read - Recite - Create

Read the poetry and prose of writers known and unknown; recite your own words; create new works and share them with the audience.

"Poets at the Top of the Hill" is an informal, hour-long gathering of people who love writing and people who love hearing writers speak.

Open to all, each day will feature one or two special guests. Speak loudly, these events are unamplified!

Hosted by Greg Trupiano, Artistic Director of The Walt Whitman Project.

• Meet at the Richard Wright bench, Top of the Hill, Fort Greene Park • Enter at Myrtle Avenue, Washington Park, or DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn • FREE event / rain or shine • Information: 718-391-8824 • No reservations needed

MulchFest 2009 is taking place on Saturday and Sunday, January 10th and 11th, from 10am to 2pm. Chip in! Mulch your tree! Help NYC grow.

MulchFest provides New Yorkers an opportunity to bring their Christmas trees to designated sites where they are ground into wood chips. The chips can then be placed in tree pits and gardens. Parks & Recreation encourages New Yorkers to help the environment and their community by participating in this event. MulchFest takes place on January 10th & 11th, 2008 from 10:00am to 2:00pm. Participants are encouraged to bring bags to take advantage of the free mulch provided.

All lights, ornaments and stands must be taken off. Mulch will not be available at sites marked as "Drop-off Only".

The restoration of the Fort Greene Park entrance plaza at Myrtle & Washington Park that we took on this past month is complete. The Belgian Blocks are as level as they'll ever be, the tree pits are larger, and there's space for future plantings along the stone wall. So be sure to stop by this entrance to see the small but significant change. We hope to bring some activity to this plaza in the future, possibly as soon as next month with holiday lights and Christmas Tree sales. Stay tuned!

But the bigger news is that the restoration of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument is also complete, and the festivities to celebrate its centennial take place this weekend.

The majestic, Stanford White-designed Prison Ship Martyrs Monument which stands in the heart of the Park is one of the most important and sacred memorials in our country. The monument honors over 11,500 Prisoners of War who perished for the cause of freedom aboard British prison ships during the American Revolutionary War of Independence. Remains of the Prison Ship Martyrs are interred in a crypt beneath the Monument. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1908 dedication of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument a grand Centennial Celebration will take place this weekend in Fort Greene Park.

The Centennial Celebration begins Friday November 14th with a kick-off reception at MoCADA at 5:30 PM featuring an exhibit of prize-winning art works created by neighborhood high school students who were inspired by the experiences of the British Prison Ship Martyrs. MoCADA, (The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts) is located at 80 Hanson Place in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

On Saturday, November 15th, a full day of free family events begins in Fort Greene Park. Highlights include: the official return of the bronze eagles, Revolutionary War Re-enactors, a parade of flags, entertainment, genealogy workshops, and a 21-gun salute - leading up to the official re-lighting of the urn at the top of the monument - which has been dark for over 70 years.


FULL CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Friday, Nov. 14, 2008 - 5:30 Free Kick-Off Reception at MoCADA, 80 Hanson Place

Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008 - Full Day of Free Spectacular Activities in Fort Greene Park

10:00 AM - Sign up sheets will be made available for advance reservations for the limited space events. Location: the Visitor's Center.

11:00 AM - NYC Department of Parks and Recreation unveiling of the Monument eagles and Ribbon Cutting.

NOON to 3:45 PM - Family Activities. Visitor's Center: Family Roots Project: free genealogical workshops conducted by the African Atlantic Genealogical Society; Entertainment stage: Jeff Newell's New Trad and Wade Barnes' Brooklyn Four plus One, Brooklyn High School of the Arts band, performers from Irondale Theater; * Guided bus tours of the Brooklyn Navy Yard; Revolutionary War re-enactors; meet Mr. Walt Whitman; Ranger-led tours of the park; * a horse and buggy will provide rides and transport for people in need of help to reach the Monument Plaza. * = These limited space events must be reserved in advance at the Visitor's Center.

3:15 PM - Fife and drum led procession and parade of flags from South Oxford Park to Fort Greene Park's Monument Plaza for the beginning of the formal tribute.

3:30 to 3:45 PM - Flag-posting ceremony on Monument stairs.

4:15 PM - Formal commemoration: National Anthem sung by Tony Award winner Cady Huffman; keynote address by Dr. Edwin G. Burrows, the 1999 Pulitzer Prize winner and author of "Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War;" 21- gun salute; wreath-laying; color guards; solemn military pageantry and much more!

5:00 PM - Re-lighting of the Eternal Flame of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument.

5:30 to 7:30 PM - Reception and Benefit for the Fort Greene Park Conservancy at Brooklyn Technical High School, 29 South Elliott Place. Food by Akhtar Nawab, chef & owner of Eletteria, entertainment by cabaret singer, Victoria England. Note: there is a required $25 donation per person for this event, paid in advance. For online donation reservations, click here to go to PayPal site or call Ruth Goldstein at 718-596-0899.

7:30 PM - Free Concert at Brooklyn Technical High School Auditorium. The world premiere of "Brooklyn Bones: Requiem for the Prison Ship Martyrs" by composer Alvin Singleton, with text by Patricia Hampl. Commissioned by the Fort Greene Park Conservancy to commemorate the Centennial, "Brooklyn Bones" is a work for chorus, orchestra and solo tenor. Enter Brooklyn Tech at the main entrance at 29 South Elliott Place. Seating begins at 7:15 PM.

Sponsored by the Fort Greene Park Conservancy, the Fort Greene Park Halloween Festival will take place on Sunday, October 26th, from noon to 3:30pm. The Festival features a plethora of activities for children and their parents including hayrides, face-painting, inter-active children's music and dance, games and prizes plus live entertainment, culminating in a children's costume parade. The Children's Costume Parade and Contest will be held at 3:30 pm. A free pumpkin will be available for each and every child, and they get to decorate it too (while supplies last).

Also on Sunday in the Park, 12noon to 1pm, the Great PUPkin, Halloween Dog Costume Contest”. The annual contest is sponsored by the Fort Greene Park Users and Pets Society (PUPS). Registration begins at 11:30am, contest held at top of hill, near the monument. $5 contest entrance fee.

Please check out the Fort Greene Park Conservancy or PUPS websites for further details.

(pic from the Fort Greene Park Conservancy website)

Sunday, October 26th is “It’s My Park Day” at Fort Greene Park!

Volunteer coordinator, Carol Anastasio is looking for a few good volunteers to help with various basic beautification projects from 9:30am - 12 noon, including the planting of thousands of daffodil bulbs at the northeast entrance at Myrtle and Washington Park. MARP secured these bulbs through New Yorkers For Parks’ Daffodil Project, and offered them to Fort Greene Park as a complement to our Belgian block restoration at this entrance that is currently underway.

Volunteers should meet at the Visitors Center at the top of the hill in the middle of the park. To sign up or for further information contact: Carol Anastasio (718) 722-3218 or carol.anastasio@parks.nyc.gov

As part of the Partnership’s effort to improve or create new public spaces for community programming and for the neighborhood to enjoy, we’ve taken on the restoration of the Belgian Block plaza at the northeast entrance to Fort Greene Park at Myrtle Avenue and Washington Park. This underutilized entrance to the park has long been a treacherous path with uneven Belgian blocks sticking up out of the ground this way and that. We approached the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation a number of months ago to see if we could take on a basic and affordable renovation of the plaza using funds we had raised for streetscape improvements on Myrtle Avenue. The Parks Department and the Fort Greene Park Conservancy liked the idea, we put the project out to bid, the permit came through on Tuesday, and work has already begun.

If you walk by the site, you will notice that a group of diligent workers have been removing the Belgian blocks at the entrance, creating organized piles of blocks in the central oval. The scope of work for this project includes removing and resetting the Belgian blocks (by hand – no machines for this delicate job) using the existing pattern, and creating larger pits around the trees in the central oval to give adequate space to the tree roots. The blocks will be removed completely in the area immediately adjacent to the park’s stone wall, and that area will be mulched and eventually planted. Neither the hex pavers nor the granite stairs into the Park will be touched at this point given our limited budget. Of the $30,000 total project budget, $25,000 is being paid for via MARP’s New York Main Street Program, which is funded by New York State’s Division of Housing & Community Renewal, with the Myrtle Avenue BID contributing the $5,000 remaining balance. Work should be completed in three weeks.

The driving force for this project really came from community members who attended our community planning workshops in 2007, facilitated by Project for Public Spaces and co-sponsored with the Ingersoll and Whitman Tenant Associations. These workshops were organized to get local input on improving public spaces on Myrtle, with one workshop in particular focused on the Ashland Place to Carlton Avenue area. Participants felt strongly about improving this entrance, and saw potential in the possibility for a vibrant public space. We started small by using the plaza this year as the distribution site for the Fort Greene CSA every Wednesday afternoon and evening. We hope be leveling the Belgian Blocks, there will now be opportunities for more and diverse programming and activities. If you have ideas that would help us to activate this newly renovated public space, drop us a line!

Make tonight a hugely patriotic night. Film at 8:00pm; Opera before the screening at 7:30pm; Just in time to make it home to catch a little more Convention coverage at 10:00pm.

Wednesday, August 27th 7:30pm Rain date: Thursday, August 28th 7:30pm

The popular film musical 1776 and live music performed before the screening will be held at Fort Greene Park's beautiful Myrtle Meadow (near the Visitor's center at the top of the park). Enter the park at DeKalb and Washington Park or N. or S. Portland Avenues. American Opera Projects resident soprano Caroline Worra (also NYCO, Glimmerglass companies) will perform a program of all-new songs based on the writing of the great American poet Walt Whitman starting at 7:30pm, before the screening of 1776.

1776, starring among others, Howard Da Silva, John Cullum and Blythe Danner, is a wonderful preamble to the November 2008 Prison Ship Martyrs Monument Centennial Celebration. The film and live music honor Revolutionary War heroes and the creation of the Declaration of Independence-a document which had countless ups and downs before it was finalized and signed. The Stanford White-designed Prison Ship Martyrs Monument was the first memorial to prisoners of war in the country and was constructed over the remains of over 11,000 patriots who died in the fight for freedom in Brooklyn and New York cities, 1776-1783.

Whitman, a Brooklyn resident, was instrumental in raising awareness of the need for a monument to honor the thousands of POWs of the American Revolution that died in British prison ships harbored in the East River. The Walt Whitman Project's participation gives an insight into Whitman's Brooklyn life.

Picnicking is encouraged. The Bakery, Zagat-rated confectionary located 154 Vanderbilt Avenue, will have pastries and refreshments for sale. Bring your own blankets and lawn chairs if desired.

(pic from Parks website: http://www.nycgovparks.org)

The 4th annual Afro-Punk Festival kicks off at BAM on Friday, July 4th with films, a skate park setup in the parking lot next door, a concert in Fort Greene Park on July 12th, and the 2nd annual Block Party on Sunday the 13th from 12 to 8 pm on Clinton Avenue between Myrtle & Willoughby. Be sure the check out the entire schedule of events and more on the Afro-Punk community.