Urban Boarding Schools Offer Twist on the Elite

Local

Think boarding school and your thoughts will likely take you to a country setting where large trees, manicured grounds, and ivy-covered buildings greet a largely upper-crust student body. Since the first private boarding schools were established in the U.S. in the 1700s, this reality has prevailed.

Thoughts on Atlantic Yards

Local

Just over three years ago, developer Bruce Ratner announced plans to build a basketball arena and skyscrapers in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, a block and a half from where I lived at the time. I wrote about the proposal in these pages, highlighting its effects on the local community and the public relations tactics used to sell it to the people of New York.

An Endless Cycle

Local

On a sunny day, eerily warm for its season—the kind that makes people mutter, “global warming”—cyclists are out in full force. It’s a steep uphill slog on the bike path ascending the Williamsburg Bridge from Brooklyn, which some climb with apparent ease, while others surrender and walk their bikes up the slope.

The Ghost Bike Project

Local

They seem to appear out of nowhere. As you turn a corner, or step aside to avoid a stranger, or coast your bike to a pause in order to time the next stoplight, there in your peripheral vision you catch a glimpse. The sight stalls you in mid-step, mid-thought, mid-pedal-stroke: the striking image of a bicycle painted glaring white, adorned by plastic flowers, accompanied by a plaque and a chain that is more gestural than preventive. A Ghost Bike.

Playing Bingo in Purgatory

Local

Janice, 47, waits on a red bench—body bundled under a camel-hair coat, green purse clutched in her lap. Her eyes are glassy, but expectant, as if she’s ready for someone to arrive any minute and carry her out of the stuffy, windowless auditorium. From the look of her neatly pinned headscarf, one would never guess she has been waiting here, at the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House women’s shelter, for almost three years.

Sleep With Your Mouth Closed

Local

One victim blames a sleepless night in a hostel in L.A. But whether on the guests from Vermont or the used mattress picked up off the curb in Long Island City, bed bugs have arrived in Brooklyn—and bed bugs suck.

Bloodlust at Red Bull: The Revenger’s Tragedy

Local

For director Jesse Berger, four hundred years go by awfully quickly. Berger sees the turn of the century bringing troubled times: a corrupt government that purports to be infallible; rulers who surround themselves with sycophantic yes-men; high level positions filled according to loyalty and personal favors, while the populace resign themselves to cynicism in the face of an increasingly violent world. For an artist whose latest project is a play published in 1607, Berger spends a lot of time musing on contemporary headlines.

Poems by Elena Alexander

Local

The Elect

You can’t hear me
whimper over thumps
on your Bible—the whumpety-
whumps of a flat losing
air—quickly, quickly, we’re going away
where rubber meets sum down the road: fur;
flesh. Blaring
lights light dead eyes. Mouse.
Turtle-deer. Some body’s home-
made child
stitched up,
to look almost real.

LOCAL STOP
Brooklyn in the Fringe

Local

How diverse is our borough? Here’s a sampling of the 30+ Brooklyn—based companies participating in this year’s festivalities.

For performance times and venues, check out: www.fringenyc.org