Best of Brooklyn: Restoration Rocks 2011

This past weekend marked the beginning of the seventh annual Bed-Stuy Alive here in my hood. Bed Stuy Alive! is a week of activities (October 8 - October 15) that celebrates the community’s many treasures, from its history, commerce and culture. This year’s theme is Live Healthy, Live Well, Live Green.

A major highlight of the week is probably the best free concert series to come to Bed-Stuy, Restoration Rocks! This year's line up was spectacular, Pharoahe Monch , Idle Warship (Supergroup featuring Talib Kweli, and Res), Mos Def with the Brooklyn Philharmonic (DOPE!!!) and a lot more local artists showcasing their talents. While I was super excited to see all the act, I must admit, Chris and I left the house super late, so I only had the opportunity to see Mos Def perform.

I don't have to tell you he killed it, right?!?! LOL

After enjoying Mos (It's going to take some use to calling him Yassin Bey next year!), Chris and I walked around the festival, checking out the various vendors, seeing our options for lunch (the variety of food was bananas!!! Soo many choices!), and people watching...

I met Veronica at the food court area, enjoying some delicious smelling yummies. We talked food, blogs and she hipped me to some great vendors at the event.

I also ran into my friend (and Badass Blogger), Michelle.. whom I literally had not seen since grade school! LOL

She was even kind enough to snap a picture of Chris and I!!!

I had such an amazing time, but I knew I had some henna-ing to get started, so we called it a day and headed back to the casa, and managed to snap a few more pics in the process.

(Finally! An outfit post! LOL) What I'm Rockin':

Tuxedo Jacket: Torrid
Tunic: Lane Bryant
Jeggings: Old Navy
Boots: Torrid
Scarf & Bracelet: Street Vendors in BK
Earrings: Butterfly Earrings from Bella Duafe
Nails : Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicures in Gray by Gray

A Little [MOS DEF] for a Saturday Night

If you haven't noticed, I love Brooklyn and I admittedly get very, very braggadocious about my 'hood. Bed-Stuy is far from perfect, but there is so much beauty on these streets, what's not to love?

So this Saturday Night, I present two of Brooklyn's finest, Mos Def (Bed-Stuy!) with Talib Kweli (Park Slope!) and "History". Enjoy!!!

Music Therapy with Miss Moon

Happy Monday, Everybody!!! It's a new week, ripe with opportunities to make sure the next seven days are beautiful! And what's more, it's Valentine's Day!!! Hooray!! This week's Music Therapy with Miss Moon choice is a very very special Valentine.

Have I mentioned my love of the borough I reside in? No? Yes? Well, let me say that I love Brooklyn!!! I cannot imagine living anywhere else but here. One day I am going to own a big, beautiful brownstone here in Bed-Stuy and come summer, you will find me on the stoop, chilling and blasting this song by Little Jackie.. "The Stoop". Enjoy!!



This stoop is my throne
This hood is my home
And the sky’s always blue by the brownstones
We in Brooklyn, it ain’t no Beverly Hills
Basically we pay bills, then chill
It’s like east coast bliss, its like west coast diss
We do it like this and you seal it with a kiss
And a pound, that’s just how it go down
It’s the protocol, do you feel me all?

Saturday afternoon we talk about the night before
And tonight we’re gonna do it some more
Sunday morning hear the bands in the church play
All day long, every block there’s a new song

Sitting on the stoop in Bed Stuy
Always sayin hi when the brothas walk by
Just proper etiquette
Sitting on the top step
With a bag of chips, sit back, relax, enjoy the trip
We got a neighborly philosophy
I don’t mess with you, you don’t mess with me
It is what it is, it ain’t all hard up in the hood
Sittin on my front stoop and its all good

Boys in wife beaters and corn rows
Wear their pants down low so their briefs can show
Girls be always dressed up
Giving their best stuff
Workin that hairdo
Boys are gonna bless you
Always some commotion at the corner store
That the corner cops chose to ignore
Everybody ride tune to a different song
When they pass by I bob my head along

I don't smoke spliffs but don’t mind the aroma
If the deli out of stella then I settle for corona
And I claim my spot for the evening
Let the part begin, we gonna do it again

Sitting on the stoop in Bed Stuy
Always sayin hi when the brothas walk by
Just proper etiquette
Sitting on the top step
With a bag of chips, sit back, relax, enjoy the trip
We got a neighborly philosophy
I don’t mess with you, you don’t mess with me
It is what it is, it ain’t all hard up in the hood
Sittin on my front stoop and its all good

Its all good
Its all good
Cause I l-l-l-l-love my hood
L-l-l-l-love my hood
Its all good
Its all good
Cause I l-l-l-l-love my hood
L-l-l-l-love my hood

Sitting on the stoop in Bed Stuy
Always sayin hi when the brothas walk by
Just proper etiquette
Sitting on the top step
With a bag of chips, sit back, relax, enjoy the trip
We got a neighborly philosophy
I don’t mess with you, you don’t mess with me
It is what it is, it ain’t all hard up in the hood
Sittin on my front stoop and its all good




Little Jackie - The Stoop (Official Music Video)
Uploaded by EMI_Music. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

DOPE: "My Everything" Liza Garza

I love living in Bed-Stuy, I am a PROUD Brooklyn Geechee. I love my neighborhood the way one loves members of their family: You may not the like the things that they do, but the love is unmistakable.

With love, I share this heart-breaking poem by Liza Garza to the fellas walking the streets (my streets and the streets all over the world), with a gentle urging to remember the women you leave behind. Peace from Brooklyn!





My Everything

they said we'd become victim to the streets
as if the concrete could creep up and catch us
in the midst of walking lift up and grab us
cock back and blast us
backhanded slap us
and we believed em
did everything to create some sort of distance
in between em
the souls of our sneaks and the hot pavement beneath
anything just to bring us a lil closer to heaven
as if 18 inches was the next best thing to ascension
in a life full of question
with answers camouflaged in every look of lust
never knowing who to really trust
so we stay strapped and we stay trapped
cycles full of sin
they trying to sift out our backs
or compromise our integrity
and in every choice there awaits a greater casualty
black Jesus pieces and pinkie rings
over sized white tees
and r.i.p.'s
the streets is calling me
or they might as well be
I'm a single mother raising two sons
who could potentially be toting two guns
in less then five years from where i stand today
and in less then four years my delivery would change in pace
cause I'm trying to catch up with 3 years fast forward in time
when in just two they height will match mine
zoom in focus to my life right now
smack dead in the face to what i write right now
if i could only make the streets seem less sweet
if i could only place a tear at their feet for every victim at least id have the hopes to sway them
with currents that run deep enough
sweep them with stories of misplaced trust
waves of lost love
and seasons that my body wont forget
how every year in late September, October the breeze can blow and
i forced to remember when
i loved him
and i lost him
all i got to give is the sweat off my brow
is the tears when they fall
all i got to give
is my everything, knowing i still could lose my everything.



To check out more from Liza Garza, visit her MySpace page at: http://www.myspace.com/lizagarza/blog

DO SOMETHING: Help Print 'Eating Healthy in Bed-Stuy'

I received an email today from Bed Stuy Farm Share that I felt compelled to share -



Bed-Stuy Farm Share and Hattie Carthan Community Garden have worked long and hard to produce "Eating Healthy in Bed-Stuy," a comprehensive community healthy guide that addresses the specific health epidemics in the community (diabetes and heart disease) and provides health tips and a directory of community groups working to provide access to fresh produce. We won an award for a pro-bono design work and the Art Director of Esquire Magazine is doing layout for the booklet. Once printed, the guide will be made available at our neighborhood health clinics, hospitals and schools. It'll be great; we just have to get money together for printing now.

Please make a donation at IOBY.org today to help us print this guide and get it in the hands of parents before the school year is over!

Thank you!

Bed Stuy Farm Share
Your Local Community Supported Agriculture Project

Website: www.bedstuyfarmshare.org
Twitter: www.twitter.com/bedstuycsa
Listserv: http://groups.google.com/group/bedstuycsa

DOPE: "The Murals of Bed-Stuy" Slide Show

The first mural shown is one that is very close to my heart. It's around the corner from me and it's one that I've loved for many many years. I actually was given an opportunity to speak once with the artist, Floyd Sapp as he was restoring it almost a decade ago.

When I returned to Bed-Stuy from Corning, I was HEARTBROKEN to discover that the mural has been tagged and destroyed. On top of that, the bodega that owns the building replaced their awning with obstructs the what's left of the Cosmic Mother's face.

I am just so happy that this slide show is available online, so that you guys can see what I've always seen and loved. This is the side of Bed-Stuy you are not going to find in the newspapers or the evening news. Enjoy!

DO SOMETHING: Save the Bed-Stuy Farm

I am a huge supporter of activism, at a community level and on a global scale, so I've decided to include causes that I support regularly on this blog in a new blog posting called "Do Something".

This first cause is one very close to my heart because I happen to live in Bedford Stuyvesant. From Franklin to Kingston Avenues along Fulton Street there are DOZENS of fast food restaurants, including two MacDonald's, two Golden Krusts, two Crown Fried Chickens, two Popeye's and countless Chinese and Pizza restaurants. There are only two health food stores and four fruit markets along that same stretch.

That may seem like a lot, but consider this: a dozen strawberries are $4. So is a two piece chicken wings with fries and a soda. This is what makes the Bed-Stuy Farm so valuable & so very worth preserving!



From Elizabeth Lazarowitz, NY Daily News:

Brooklyn Rescue Mission could lose half of it's Bed-Stuy Farm property to developmment plans
BY ELIZABETH LAZAROWITZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, July 29th 2009, 4:00 AM

They turned a vacant lot into an edible Eden that provides freshly grown food to thousands of needy Brooklynites.

But the Brooklyn Rescue Mission, an emergency food pantry in Bedford-Stuyvesant, could lose half of Bed-Stuy Farm - its 5,000-square-foot facility on a long-neglected lot - if plans go through to build on it.

"We have this really thriving, amazing farm that's feeding people," said the Rev. DeVanie Jackson, who runs the mission with her husband, the Rev. Robert Jackson. "They're trying to get us to move it, but the other places they wanted to move it to, it wasn't the same."

The Jacksons began farming around the mission on Bainbridge St. in 2004, after seeing that much of the emergency food doled out to poor families was filling, but not healthy - canned and packed with sugar and salt.

Two years later, the couple adopted the lot on Decatur St., which had become a weed-clogged garbage dump and neighborhood eyesore. They turned it into a garden that produces 7,000 pounds of food a year, including zucchini, collard greens, tomatoes and broccoli.

A nonprofit housing developer, Neighborhood Partnership HDFC, had earlier bought the land from the city to renovate an old house into affordable units, but structural problems forced the developer to raze the building. The lot sat empty until the Jacksons started the farm.

Neighborhood Partnership now wants to sell the land, city officials said.
"The intent was always to do affordable housing on this site," said Housing Preservation and Development Department official Margaret Sheffer. "The garden had essentially come in as a squatter."

HPD has been working to broker a deal for the mission to buy the property, she said, but the Jacksons said they can't afford to purchase it.

Alternative sites offered by the city have either been too small or too shady, they said.

HPD spokeswoman Catie Marshall said Neighborhood Partnership needs to recoup around $275,000 in costs.

"Ideally, we would like the see the Brooklyn Rescue Mission garden remain," she said, adding that HPD was unable to find donors to buy the property for the mission, but is still trying to find a way to transfer the land to them. (elazarowitz@nydailynews.com)


For more information on the Brooklyn Rescue Mission, please visit their website at www.brooklynrescuemission.org . And you can sign the petition to show your support of their good works and The Bed-Stuy Farm by clicking here. Do Something!