WLIW21 Specials

Brooklyn Best
Brooklyn, New York, has been a mecca for immigrants, artists and entrepreneurs; an incubator for innovative ideas; and a nesting-ground for the rugged and the refined throughout its more than 350-year history. The very best of Brooklyn is brought to light in this “biography of a borough,” narrated by the people who live, work and play here.
TRANSCRIPT
♪♪
>> Welcome to Brooklyn.
>> I love Brooklyn because it's
home.
It's where I was born.
It's where I was raised.
I've pretty much never left.
>> Brooklyn in one word?
Nirvana.
>> It's a beautiful place, a
place of majesty, a place of
plenitude.
It's a place that you really,
really can't help but fall in
love with.
>> Funding for "Brooklyn Best"
has been provided by...
>> The most remarkable thing
about Brooklyn is the more it
changes, the more it changes.
Brooklynites have a sense of
positive uplift identity with
the borough.
They feel Brooklyn is
happening.
Brooklyn's on a map.
People want to come here.
People want to see it.
People want to talk about it,
and all this represents a
borough that exudes confidence
in its self-image.
♪♪
With so many people living
cheek to jowl, engagement is
inevitable.
When so many people come here,
everybody is new, and when
everybody is new, nobody is new.
>> I grew up in the Flatbush
area of Brooklyn.
I went to Midwood High School.
It was a predominantly Jewish
neighborhood.
I lived next to a Chinese
restaurant, and I went to school
with Jackie Robinson's niece.
And our school song was "There
is a School in Midwood; We Call
It 99."
What kind of song is that?
Oh, let me see if I can
remember.
♪ There is school in Midwood
♪ We call it 99
♪ It stands
for all that's helpful
and everything that's fine ♪
♪ Firm based
in rock foundation ♪
Yeah, because our playground
was cement.
♪ Its colors truly shine
♪ We'll honor thee
and love thee,
hooray for 99 ♪
I haven't thought about that
song in a hundred years.
>> Brooklyn was just a great
place to grow up to live and
raise a family.
My parents worked very, very
hard.
They came from Ireland and
landed here in 1948, 1949.
I remember many times putting
those Kellogg boxes in my shoes
because they had holes in the
shoes to get to and from school.
We were a poor family growing
up, but we managed to get a good
education going to some of the
local schools there, Lady of
Angels and others, and all of my
siblings went to Lady of Angels.
And then you had 40, 50 kids on
a block, and you had fun.
>> Brooklyn has a long and
storied history with many
inventive people, creative
people, corrupt people.
It's kind of a place that's
writ large.
>> I was lucky I grew up in
Brooklyn.
I counted it fortunate.
When you live in Brooklyn, you
are in another world.
New York was out there.
You can meet someone from
Brooklyn and haven't seen them
in 40 years, and the time is
gone, and immediately the
stories develop.
Brooklyn was in my fingernails.
♪♪
>> What it's meant to be a
Brooklynite has changed
constantly over the course of
this borough's history.
Before Europeans even arrived
here in the 1600s, this was the
home of Lenape tribes, who
hunted, fished, and lived here
seasonally for several thousand
years.
By the 1630s, we begin to see
our first land purchases by the
Dutch, who established small
towns here.
They brought with them a number
of Africans, some free, most
enslaved, who played an integral
part in the building of
Brooklyn.
Slavery was big business in part
because it was such an
agricultural center.
Slavery continued to be big
business up until the 19th
century.
In the 1830s, when the
neighborhood of Weeksville was
established, there was something
of a double standard in politics
in New York.
Any man who was white could
vote in New York state and not
have to own any property at all.
On the other hand, if you were
black, you had to own a minimum
of $250 worth of property, which
was a not insignificant sum at
the time.
This is one of the major
impetuses behind the founding of
Weeksville.
>> Weeksville was a historic
community started basically
around the mid-1830s.
It was named for James Weeks.
And he bought property from an
African-American man, who bought
property from the Lefferts,
a large, established white
family here in Brooklyn.
And partly the reason for buying
that property was to establish a
community to get people to
purchase real estate because in
order to vote, you had to own
property.
So one of the things that made
Weeksville a very unique
community was that it had a
large population of property
owners.
>> By the 1850s, there were
about 500 people that were
living in this area.
So it was a pretty sizable
neighborhood.
The original boundaries for
Weeksville were Fulton Street to
the north, East New York Avenue
to the south, Troy Avenue and
Ralph Avenue.
>> It tells a story that
most people have not heard about
people of African descent here
in New York or even in America.
>> Today Weeksville is a
thriving cultural center and
historical site in the
neighborhood of Crown Heights,
Brooklyn.
♪♪
>> By the time we get to the
19th century, we start to see
the population of Brooklyn being
transformed by the first major
wave of immigration in American
history.
And by the turn of the 19th
century, Brooklyn is half
foreign-born.
Its population continues to
follow waves, patterns of
immigration and migration into
the 20th century.
[ Drum playing ]
>> In Carroll Gardens at one
time, there were many different
street feasts, festivals.
One that still continues till
this day is the the feast
procession of our Lady of
Sorrows, or
Maria Santissima Addolorata.
And our Lady of Sorrows is the
patroness of Mola di Bari,
little town in the Puglia
region.
In 1948 enough of the Italian
immigrants from this town had
settled in this area of
Carroll Gardens in south
Brooklyn and had an image
commissioned in the town of
Mola di Bari, which was a
replica of the statue of their
patron saint.
That statue made everyone feel
safe because they could look at
it, and not only did they see a
statue of the Virgin Mary, but
they saw the generations and the
family that they left behind.
They saw their mother.
They saw their father.
They saw the piazza in the
town.
>> The story of Brooklyn is one
of change and engagement.
We have 71 square miles, but in
no way, shape, or form are the
people in the areas living as
though they were alone on an
island.
You have different ethnic
groups mixing.
>> I love Brooklyn because it's
so colorful, and you have all
these cultures mixed together.
And I think that's really neat
that you can be somewhere and
see, like, Hasidic Jews and
Puerto Ricans and Mexicans and
Polish people, and they're
all working together.
>> I'm Neal Shapiro.
Here's my connection to
Brooklyn.
My mother was born there and
grew up on Millford Street.
She loved Coney Island and
Ebbets Field.
She ran her student paper at
Thomas Jefferson High School and
was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate
from Brooklyn College.
She raised her family and built
a career in Albany.
But no matter what she did or
where she went, she would say,
"You can take the girl out of
Brooklyn, but you can never take
Brooklyn out of the girl."
>> Memory is the most important
thing that keeps a community
alive and vibrant.
And as long as the Dodgers live
in the memory of the people who
lived through that era, it will
forever be a part of Brooklyn
culture.
But, you see, people need heroes
to worship that are
contemporary.
They need heroes to worship
that mean something to them.
And the only way in which that
can be done is if you have real,
live baseball players.
So enter the Cyclones of
Coney Island.
>> Can I have your attention,
please?
Now pitching for the
Brooklyn Cyclones, number 23,
Hamilton Bennett!
>> I came from a small town
called Tega Cay, South Carolina.
I was playing summer ball, and I
was actually pitching in a game,
and after the game I looked at
my phone and had a bunch of text
messages from my college
buddies.
Checked voicemail and sure
enough a scout called me and
said, "Hey, the Mets selected
you in the 29th round."
Never been to New York in my
life.
The only thing I know from
New York is movies.
It's absolutely beautiful.
I wouldn't change one thing.
>> I was born and raised in
the Lower East Side.
It was kind of rough, you know.
We learned to deal with that.
And, you know, I did that until
I got old enough to decide that
I wanted to leave, and then
Brooklyn became my second home.
I currently train two world
champions, two sisters, Cindy
and Amanda Serrano.
>> Both of us were born in
Carolina, Puerto Rico.
>> We were raised in
Bushwick, Brooklyn, which is
supposed to be known as a tough
neighborhood.
Just knowing that we come from
Bushwick, we probably in the
ring, we act a little more
tough, like, "Yeah, we from
Bushwick in Brooklyn.
Yeah, you deal with that."
♪♪
>> Brooklyn has among the
largest concentration of urban
community gardens.
These community gardens provide
work, hope, and inspiration to
the residents.
>> My name's Olufemi Sonubi.
I'm a resident of east New York
and an avid composter.
I have a lot of friends that
work out a lot, and we have
protein drinks after our
workout.
I noticed we were collecting a
lot of protein powder
containers.
I drilled some holes in the top
of one and created a compost bin
for my home.
Then I came up with the idea to
pass them out here at east
New York farmers' market just so
I can get the community into
composting a lot more.
I collected coffee grounds
every day from, like, a coffee
kiosk in my school.
And on Saturdays I would bring
it to the community gardens.
It's really important because
those coffee grounds would've
just been thrown in the garbage,
and why, when we grow fruit
here?
And the community eats off of
this food.
So, you know, it's pretty cool.
I think so.
>> My name is Grace Henry.
We're on the 300 block between
Clarendon and Avenue D on
East 25th Street --
Flatbush neighborhood.
We just won the Greenest Block
in Brooklyn competition for
2016.
>> That's my favorite of all --
crepe myrtle.
>> Oh, it's a crepe myrtle.
In the island it's called a
June Rose.
>> The Greenest Block in
Brooklyn competition is a
friendly block-by-block greening
competition, and it's part of
the community horticulture
program of Brooklyn Botanic
Garden.
>> Absolutely friendly.
It's one of those competitions
that just brings joy and eye
candy.
>> Brooklyn Botanic Garden is
looking for green -- plants,
flowers, excellent horticulture.
The biggest component that I
think is very special about this
contest is we're looking for
community participation.
We're looking for blocks that
are greening together.
>> When you work together,
you can accomplish anything.
If my neighbors go away, they
don't have to worry if their
garden is gonna suffer 'cause
each neighbor looks out for each
other.
It's green. It's lush.
It's vibrant. It's bodacious.
It's excited.
It's colorful.
And that's our neighborhood.
>> My dad decided he wanted to
keep a store in Bensonhurst on
24th Avenue and 86th street.
It was just a grocery store, an
Italian grocery store.
They had all the Italian food.
And we actually were all
brought up into that store.
We all kind of worked there.
I've been working since I'm
eight years old.
Don't tell anybody.
It was more of a family
environment.
It wasn't work.
It was being there with my dad
and my uncle and my cousins and
my siblings, as well.
It was that home away from
home.
>> This is opening up the gates
of heaven.
♪♪
>> My name is George Esposito.
I'm third generation of famous
Esposito's pork store in
Carroll Gardens, which used to
be Red Hook, which is now
Carroll Gardens.
The salted ones are over there.
My grandfather came from Italy,
Naples in 1922.
And he opened up the store on
Columbia Street, which is a few
blocks away from here.
This is Grandpa Esposito.
My grandfather started it, and
then my dad took it over.
Actually, my dad used to have
workers pick me up from school,
and I used to be playing fist
ball and stoop ball and stuff
after school, and I didn't want
to go to the store.
I wanted to stay and play.
But, you know, these guys that
pick me up, they brought me to
the store, and I started helping
with the littlest things, like
selling garlic.
You know, whatever little things
that I could have done is
what I did.
♪♪
>> One of the great things
about living in a place like
Brooklyn is people talk about
living in the neighborhood as
though it were on my block.
It's not their block.
They don't own the block.
But they feel they own the
block.
And so when you talk really
about Brooklyn culture, the
difference between living in a
community in Nebraska is that
you can't go 10 blocks and be in
another community.
Here you can.
>> The building that I grew up
in, my mom and dad and myself
lived on one floor.
My grandfather and grandmother
lived next door on the top
floor.
My uncle and his children lived
on the first floor.
My great aunt lived on the
first floor of the one next door
with my grandparents, and my
cousin lived next door to that.
So, it was definitely a family
neighborhood, and that was not
just true of my family but of
all the families.
So, when I went to school, not
only was I in class with
Joe Russo, but I was in class
with his cousin Lou Vadissio and
his cousin Margie.
As children you don't
understand what that all means
and how unique it is in a big
city like New York.
But today I definitely look
back on it with great fondness
and longing, as well, to be
honest.
>> Brooklyn remains authentic
enough with the brownstone
neighborhoods of Cobble Hill, of
Boerum Hill, of Carroll Gardens.
>> Hello. How are you?
I came here purely by accident.
I was looking to buy a house,
and I had described to a broker
exactly what I wanted, and he
said to me, "I have the house
for you.
It's in Bedford-Stuyvesant."
So, that is how I wound up in
Bed-Stuy, and it has been just a
great community of friends and
family.
And I'll see you tomorrow.
>> Okay, great.
>> I am one of the founders
of the Bedford-Stuyvesant
Society for Historic
Preservation.
This movement is more about, it
is a combination of saving the
historic character of the
neighborhood but also saving the
sense of place of the
neighborhood.
Maintaining these buildings for
future generations is important
so they understand history, they
understand how communities
develop in New York City.
If you erase all of these
buildings, you do not see how
this community developed.
♪♪
>> Brooklyn Navy Yard is
symbolic of Brooklyn today.
It's a phoenix.
It has had a renaissance.
The navy yard was founded in
1801.
And after World War II, it sort
of went into retirement.
And it's a vast campus with all
these buildings and old navy
hospital.
Picturesque enough to be a
stage set, but abandoned.
So, maybe 10 or 15 years ago,
plans began to be formulated to
transform the Brooklyn Navy
Yard.
And it's really, really
interesting.
And there's cultural life there
and views of Manhattan you can't
get anywhere else.
>> One of the remarkable things
about Brooklyn is that it's
constantly evolving.
You go to a place, and then it's
no longer there, only to be
replaced by something more
interesting.
You go to a neighborhood that
didn't have a single kayak in
Greenpoint, and then, three
weeks later, there are people
kayaking there.
Now let's also consider that
the Gowanus Canal, which runs
along the eastern part of
Carroll Gardens, is undergoing
very, very rapid change.
♪♪
>> New Yorkers are so
disconnected to their shoreline.
You ask many people in Brooklyn
if they live on an island.
Most will say no.
Most people in this neighborhood
don't think they live in a
waterfront community.
That's changing because people
come down to the shoreline now,
you know, to relax after a hard
day's work or even to hang out
with a bunch of friends.
♪♪
>> One mural is not going to
change Brownsville.
It's the impulse behind
wanting to use creativity to
positively affect the community
that will change Brownsville.
♪♪
>> At the beginning, we really
wanted to understand what we
were dealing with and the way we
wanted to approach it.
But we're collaborating with
Brownsville's community center.
I can honestly see the social
change that's really going on.
>> I have to say it's better
now then when I grew up because
it is more family-oriented.
So I did more with my son as a
child than my mom did with me in
Brooklyn because the parks are
cleaner, the neighborhoods are
safer, the trains are better.
>> People used to live in this
neighborhood to be close to the
city.
Now people live in the
East Village to be close to this
neighborhood.
>> Having lived here, I wouldn't
want to live in Manhattan.
I like coming across the
bridge.
There's more space.
There's more air.
And I prefer hanging out here.
>> New York has 55 million
tourists who come to see it.
And increasingly these tourists
are venturing beyond Manhattan,
and when they venture beyond
Manhattan, the next place they
go to is Brooklyn.
>> The festival really started
because we have a phenomenal
collection of flowering Japanese
cherry trees.
We have 220 trees here at the
garden, and it's been a way for
people that don't have access to
travel to Japan to really just
get a very beautiful, peaceful
moment, and it's this really
unifying moment that for me is
really, really special.
>> There are so many things that
people come to Brooklyn for.
And one of them is of course
Brooklyn's Prospect Park.
>> Prospect Park on Sundays is
the best time to come.
Prospect Park, they have
drummers, they have dancers and
come down on Sunday afternoon.
You could just have fun all
night long.
♪♪
>> I'm Dave Herman, founder of
the City Reliquary Museum, which
was founded in 2002.
It originally began as a small
window display as a way to sort
of prompt interaction among the
people of the neighborhood, some
of which were newcomers or new
arrivals, and some of which had
been around for their whole
lifetimes.
We have all kinds of things,
from Statue of Liberty figurines
to seltzer bottles and exhibits
from the World's Fairs.
A lot of the things are what
some people may see as
commonplace, but it has a way to
tell a much deeper story.
All of these sort of tell a
lot about the local history and
the different population that
lived in the neighborhood and
how they change from generation
to generation.
>> As cities grow, so, too, do
the number of people who die
there.
And Green-Wood Cemetery,
established in 1838, represents
that.
>> There's nothing like
Green-Wood Cemetery that's been
established anywhere in the
country.
It is actually unique,
fascinating, and endlessly
educational.
>> Green-Wood Cemetery is in the
heart of urban Brooklyn --
478 acres of rolling hills in
Sunset Park.
The cemetery in its earliest
years really was an open house.
And so the cemetery really
became a great tourist
attraction, one of the greatest
tourist attractions in America.
We have people who wrote from
Europe and said, "Someday I'd
like to visit America and see
Niagara Falls and see Green-Wood
Cemetery."
There are people who, "Ooh,
a cemetery?"
And then they'll come in here on
a tour and say, "Wow, this was
great.
Who knew?"
♪♪
>> Coney Island -- the world's
greatest fun frolic, with its
beach miles long, all peppered
with people, the place where
merriment is king.
Coney Island's greatest eating
invention is the frankfurter.
Zowie!
It's Coney Island caviar!
♪♪
>> Everybody comes to
Coney Island to have a good
time.
They come to the Cyclone.
They want to be whipped around.
We're going to give it to them.
I've never been on this ride in
my life.
I never rode it.
I climb it.
I used to climb it.
I don't do that no more, but I
covered every inch of this ride.
Never took a ride.
I just don't like drops.
[ All screaming ]
♪♪
>> I think the dynamic of
Brooklyn will always be there.
And there's just something
different in the water that
makes you very proud to be from
there.
It's got its own brand, you
know?
>> Brooklyn today is as global
a brand as Paris, as London.
What's really, really most
fascinating about Brooklyn is
that a place that once started
out as a separate city has again
become a separate city but in
the most positive and unique
brand.
>> I just love being a part of
that.
I love to see the city on fire.
But most of all the way
Brooklyn...
Brooklyn is on fire.
>> I am so glad that Brooklyn
is revitalized now.
People can't get into Brooklyn.
Brooklyn is in.
Brooklyn is hip.
Brooklyn has got a basketball
team.
You never forget Brooklyn.
>> Funding for "Brooklyn Best"
was provided by...
>> ♪ And everything looks
so much better than it does
in the real world, baby ♪
>> ♪ Coney Island mojo
>> ♪ I conjure up the spirits
of dreamland ♪
>> ♪ Ooh-ooh-ooh
>> ♪ Steeplechase
and Luna Park ♪
♪ They'll carry us away
from this day-to-day madness
when they come out after dark ♪
♪ I've been working
on my Coney Island mojo ♪
♪ You just got to believe
that it's true ♪
♪ Coney Island mojo