Local
In Conversation
Bucking Brooklyn’s Machine
LINCOLN RESTLER with Williams Cole
Lincoln Restler, a district leader in North Brooklyn, strikes one as a go-getting and earnest young man with an objective. I encountered him in person in July as he was going door to door on my block in Williamsburg asking people, “What issues are important to you?”
OCCUPY and 350.ORG—You Come Down Here and Embrace!
By Reverend BillyOccupy’s activist energy is a renewable resource.
REPORT CARD
The Dumbass Factor
By Liza Featherstone
This spring, a group of eighth graders exposed the leaders of a multinational corporation as a drove of braying dopes. It started, of course, on Facebook where the kids tweaked Pearson, a profitable testing company to whom New York State pays millions, by exposing one of its “reading comprehension” exercises as nonsense.
Court of No Return
By Eleanor J. BaderBy all accounts, Brooklyn’s Housing Court is the worst run, most overcrowded, and chaotic landlord-tenant court in the five boroughs, and horrendous conditions have prompted pro-tenant attorneys and community-based social justice organizations to mobilize to improve its functioning.
CITYNOTES: A Real Relic
By Theodore HammI just picked up a great “new” book about the old Brooklyn. And better yet, I found it in the lobby of my apartment building.
Summer Means Hibernation for Coney Island’s Polar Bears
By Lauren KeatingFor several years now, city planners and developers have been aiming to rebrand Coney Island as a year-round destination. But the diehards who belong to the Coney Island Polar Bear Club operate by a different calendar, taking a weekly Sunday swim from November to April every year.
