Jul 2nd, 2009 by Kenny Wisdom
SUSPECTS IN BONFIRE MURDER
Two Poles Arrested by the Greenpoint Avenue Police
Patrolmen Mattes and Biredy of the Greenpoint Avenue station, Willismsburg, arrested two Poles last night as suspicious characters in connection with the murder of the woman whose body was found in the bonfire in Williamsburg on Thursday. The men described themselves as Julian Kusinski and Valenty Borkowsky, farmhands, each twenty-two years old. Borkowsky had in his possession $8 and two women’s handkerchiefs and a small gold pin, such as a woman uses to pin the back of her shirtwaist. The other man had $2 in his pockets. They were caught, after a chase, in a saloon a Norman Avenue and Newel Street.
— New York Daily Tribune, 8 August 1908
No. 2 in a series
Posted in Crime, Greenpoint, Transportation, Uncategorized, Williamsburg | No Comments »
Jun 30th, 2009 by Kenny Wisdom
McNALLY CASE AT STANDSTILL
Police Admit They Have Run Down Every Clue Without
Reaching a Solution of the Mysterious Brooklyn Murder
The mystery surrounding the murder of saloonkeeper Frank McNally of No. 104 Park Avenue, Brooklyn is as far from solution as ever. Today Capt. Toole of the Flushing Avenue station authorised this statement:
“We nave worked every clue in our possession its end and have discovered nothing We have no information which warrants us making an arrest.”
It developed today that less than a week before the murder McNally’s apartment over his saloon was robbed. Toma Hanlon, the actress, to whom he was engaged, said that she went to see McNally about two weeks ago, and that she found the door of his rooms open. She summoned McNally from the saloon below. He, after making a search, announced that a roll of bills amounting to $57 had been taken from the pocket of a pair of trousers.
“About the story told by two boys that I had a key to Frank’s apartment, I want to say that either the boys are either vicious liars or they are simply fools, who are repeating something they have heard somewhere. I never in my life had a key to the flat and never even had the use of Frank’s own key. He wore it on a ring attached to his trousers by a chain and never took it from the ring.”
An expert was employed to open the safe in the saloon today and McNally’s brother, Owen J. McNally, Capt. Toole and half a dozen detectives were present to investigate the contents in the hope of discovering some thread to have a clue on. They found a piece of gaspipe, a lamp shade and slate containing the names of customers who had sought credit in the saloon, a few old bankbooks, and a fire insurance policy. There were no letters or memoranda of any kind.
— The Evening World, 26 September 1904
See also: “35 Cooper Square” at Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York and (the respectfully retitled) Klube’s: A Starter Kit! at Lost City New York. —Kenny Wisdom
Posted in Clinton Hill, Crime, Fort Greene, Irish, Manhattan, Navy Yard, Vinegar Hill, labor | No Comments »
Jun 28th, 2009 by Caz Dolowicz
(Or, The Education, & Dinner, of Caz Dolowicz)
Street Dude: What you doing on our turf, punk?
Caz Dolowicz: I got a rainbow for Smokey.
Dude: Give it to me.
Caz: You Smokey, man?
Dude: Gimme it!
Caz: If you ain’t Smokey, it’s not your motherfucking rainbow.
Dude: Motherfucker I said gimme the rainbow.
Caz: It’s from Willis Still Sunsweet, in Dallas (ll).
Dude: Blogga, you been busted?
Caz: Yeah, the man got me.
Dude: Well, I ain’t got no time to fucking play with you. Now give me the rainbow.
Caz: Willis is at Magic David on Fort Hamilton getting meatball heroes, he told me to tell you motherfuckers to keep it cool. He’ll be out one way or another, quick.
Dude: Damn!
Born on Sands Street, Caz Dolowicz has been putting it where the sun don’t shine since 1923.
Both photographs by Willis Still Sunsweet, 27 June 2009
Posted in All-City, Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Crown Heights, Flicks, Prospect Heights, Queens, Sunset Park, The Food Writer, Transportation, Wild Kingdom, politics | No Comments »
Jun 24th, 2009 by Caz Dolowicz
Writing about photography has never been easy, a fact attested to by the dread most of us feel when we encounter so-called photography critics. There have been some exceptions: Beaumont Newhall and John Szarkowski are rightly lauded, Jonathan Williams was among our most sly essayists in addition to his other talents (poet, publisher and photographer) and Luc Sante is a viable Virgil to the less fashionable aspects of the silver-gelatin world still. As for the cliche-shuffling banality which passes for most art writing, let’s just say we try to not to read it anymore and neither should ya’ll. Even the unavoidable can be eluded, if you’re wily enough.
Long-time Williamsburg resident Tanyth Berkeley is that wily. And though Tanyth has been often lauded by the Serious Art World I’m most suspicious of, you would never guess her stature from conversation— she displays none of affectations of Significance that bedevil not just professional artists but their funhouse mirror hellspawn, the haughty internet photoblogger. (I don’t believe in obscenity per se but there are some things that shouldn’t be said in public, “great composition!” of photographs which reveal no such thing among them.) An extensive selection of Tanyth’s portraiture can be seen at Bellwether Gallery and most recently, she brought “Grace” to Danziger Projects. This is all well and fantastic, as was Tanyth’s part in MOMA’s New Photography 2007 show, but as Anaxagoras suggested, appearances are a glimpse of unseen. Over batidos (morir soñando, mamey and granadillo) across a borrowed dominoes table somewhere in South Williamsburg, our reporter sat down with Tanyth to see what was else was there. —Thirsty Zapto
Brian Berger: [Fumbles with tape recorder as granadillo drips down his chin] Whoa, now that’s what I call batidos! Some people think you’re from California but it’s a lot more complicated than that, isn’t it?
Tanyth Berkeley: I was born in Hollywood but have no real connection to the West Coast; my family is on the East Coast. Before my mom and I settled in New York City though, I lived on a goat farm in Colorado and in Providence, where my mom was going to the Rhode Island School of Design.
Brian: Interesting—I’m doing an interview soon with a New York architect who went to RISD, Joshua Pulver. Have you gone back to Providence at all as an adult?
Tanyth: I did and everything looked so small! Continue Reading »
Posted in Africa Talks, All-City, Coffee, Flicks, Latino, Literature, Manhattan, Music, Poetry, Southern Thing, Transportation, Williamsburg, graffiti, hip-hop, labor | 1 Comment »
Jun 23rd, 2009 by Caz Dolowicz
Caz Dolowicz notes: The following post originally ran on June 21, 2007 but since there’s some noise about the 20th Anniversary of Do The Right Thing coming up— including a Long Island University panel appearance by our man Dallas Penn (see below for details)—I figured this is a good time to bring that beat back. Ideally I should it have done it a couple days ago but my ideals are in the shop in Flatbush. Personally I think Spike is very hit or miss and ooof, are his misses fucking lousy but DTRT is still a scorcher. Oddly, I don’t think She’s Gotta Have It, which I liked a lot at the time, holds up well— great to see black folks on-screen but funny Spike was also kind of callow— while He Got Game and Bamboozled are better than I thought. Jungle Fever sucks, Crooklyn would be much more better without the jive-ass Top 40 soundtrack and Clockers is especially divisive. Dallas regards it highly, former City Sun arts editor Armond White does not. Personally, I found Harvey Keitel’s overacting un-fucking-bearable and cracked my ass off when Brian Berger mocked it in the photo captions to New York Calling, although the film did have other merits, sort of like Fort Apache: The Bronx. There, the Bronx rules, Paul Newman is aiiight and Rachel Ticotin hot as hell but Danny Aiello was so goddamn awful… Sal’s Pizzeria deserved to be torched! Two slices.
Most folks here at WWIB have a lot to say about this epochal slice of LI to BK history but for now let it be known that I, Berenice (The Abbott)/BZA also has more than a little empathy for Brother Spike— not her favorite director but terrific here— shooting a summer video in… winter (or is it early spring?) light. But as the words above the Puerto Rican flag (at 1:19 to go) say: do or die. Curious how few people will mention this to ya’ll today, you say what is this?!
Spike Lee Screening Room
Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University
DeKalb Avenue @ Flatbush Ave Extension
Thursday, June 25, 2009, 7PM, with featured panelists…
Nelson George
Michaela angela Davis
Kevin Powell
Roger Guenveur Smith
Danny Simmons
Dallas Penn (hells chea!)
Moikgantsi Kgama
Berenice (The Abbott)/BZA was WWIB’s photo editor 2007 through early 2009; currently picking her feet in Poughkeepsie, she can’t say why.
Caz Dolowicz was born on Sands Street in 1923 and still owns at least half a dozen records that Spike’s dad, bassist Bill Lee, plays on.
Posted in Africa Talks, All-City, Bed-Stuy, Bronx, Brownsville, Crime, Downtown, East New York, Flatbush, Flicks, Fort Greene, Latino, Sex, Southern Thing, West Indian, graffiti, hip-hop, politics | No Comments »
Jun 20th, 2009 by Caz Dolowicz
People ask Caz, you old, what’s really Brooklyn? Usually I tell ‘em to get out of my grill and see for themselves. Brooklyn is not like most people say. So-called “Cobble Hill” and Canarsie? The twain rarely meet, people, not really. Happily, I’ve gotten around some since I popped out Ma Dolowicz’s Sands Street boarding house chocha back in 1923 and I’ve seen a lot things in BK I couldn’t have elsewhere. Taken together, they might have weight. Or it might just mean my second wife was from Trinidad. Ya’ll tell me. The blog party is just getting started: you make the sweat rice, I’ll get the Ting.
• you eat fries often with a FORK, ketchup and mustard.
• On at least one occasion you have been told that you have a cold in some part of your anatomy other than your head or chest, had a flu virus named after something popular with the times. i.e. The Gowanus Flu.
• despite lack of interest, someone has tried to convince you of the benefits of taking a purge, or becoming “saved” by some religion.
• no matter how old you are, you call your parents mummy and daddy.
• you sometimes call fries, chips.
• you love salt prunes and “chinee mango.”
• you know the meaning of “dahl”, “channa”, “anchar”, “kurma” and “buss-up-shot”.
• you’ve called someone (or been called) chunkalunks, thick ting, “family” (even if she’s not remotely related to you!), doo doo, breds, horse, partner.
• you know what a maxi-taxi is.
• you know a “lime” is not always referring to fruit.
• you’ve eaten wild meat at some time: ‘guana, lappe, ‘gouti, tattoo, matte, deer etc.
• you call a friend’s mother “auntie” and their father “uncle” even though they are not related to you.
• you love soca.
• you know entire parang songs in perfect Spanish, word for word every Christmas, but cannot speak a word of conversational Spanish to save your life.
• you know how to RAMAJAY and DINGOLAY.
• you can call your fellow Brooklynite by an ethnic name fondly and it would be okay, i.e.: darkie, reds, dougs, chinee-man, creole, red-man, white-boy.
• you know how to “dig a horrors.”
• you know how to “fix yuh mix.”
• you doh like “chain-up talk,” “ole talk” or “mamaguy.”
• you know how to be a “falcon” and “maco.”
•.you know of at least one person who gets up at 4 am to listen to cricket on the radio in Australia, India or wherever.
• you feel cold when it’s 25 degrees celsius.
To be continued…
The Autobiography of Brooklyn-native Combat Jack also continues:
Never imagined I would have to be responsible for so many people living under one roof. Life was so much simpler then. When I was running dolo. For self. Like, I could leave my home on Monday morning and not have to come back until a week later. And my home was fresh too. One bedroom apartment on 7th between Lincoln and Berkeley in Park Slope. When rents in New York were cheaper, and neighborhoods like that had more color. New York was banging too. The club scene was crazy, and I loved the many flavors of women the city had to offer. I finally started making some decent money and the city was my playground. Kniccas was feeling so good we even named our crew the Mack Pack. Sounds corney now, but believe me how we lived up to the name. One of our boys owned a ginormous brownstone in Prospect Heights. It was massive.
ONWARD COMBAT JACK’S DAILY MATHEMATICS!
Posted in Bed-Stuy, Canarsie, Clinton Hill, Cobble Hill, New Lots, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Sex, The Food Writer, hip-hop, labor | 1 Comment »
Jun 18th, 2009 by Caz Dolowicz
Keynote address by Caz Dolowicz
You lack the minerals & vitamins, irons & the niacin
Fuck who that I offend— bloggers sit back, I’m about to begin
About foul talk you squawk, never even walked the walk
More or less destined to get tested, never been arrested
My posting will manifest many things that I saw, did or heard about
Or told first hand, never word of mouth
What’s in the future for the fusion in the changer?
Bloggers are in danger, who will use wits to be a remainder?
When the missile is aimed to blow you out of the frame
Some will keep their limbs and some will be maimed
The same suckers with the gab about killer instincts
But turned bitch and knowing damn well they lack
In this division the connoisseur, crackin’ your head with a 4 by 4
Realize sucka, I be the comin’ like Noah
Always sendin’ you down, perpetratin’ facadin’ what you consider
An image, to me this is just a scrimmage
I feel I’m stone, not cause I bop or wear my cap cocked
The more emotion I put into it, the harder I blog
Those who pose lyrical but really ain’t true I feel
Their time’s limited, hard rocks too—
Caz Dolowicz was born on Sands Street in 1923. Innumerable doctors, three ex-wives and the MTA said his time’s up was years ago. Guess who’s back?
Posted in Bushwick, Crime, Flicks, Fort Greene, Literature, Queens, Southern Thing, Transportation, Vinegar Hill, hip-hop, labor, politics | No Comments »
Speaking of Red Hook Raiders*, there was some unusual activity in the neighborhood of Pioneer Park this Friday Night, which isn’t to say 
unique just… unusual. With the exception of our respected colleague and recent interviewee Lost City Brooks, WWIB has had just about zero use for any of the Red Hook or related blogs that have existed to date. The reasons and manifold and if ya’ll know one that’s been worth more than dogshit to the potential entirety of Red Hook’s history (not just white people with money and a few leftover Italians) please comment and I’ll happily amend this assertion. (See “What Color Is Your Red Hook?” for former WWIB food writer Angry M.F. Fisher’s stab at the issue of Red Hook and environmental racism; Angry is currently in the Peace Corps in Togo of all places; that’s “Para” in Spanish!) Meantime, reader Lorraine Otsego sent us an interesting photo with a brief note reading as follows:
“Friday night, Red Hook Houses: I got here late but the 7-6 was, Hostage Negotiation truck, Emergency Service which you can see and the air bag too. An officer was also leaning out one of the windows above and to the right with what the kids I was talking to said was a camera— they knew! I won’t speculate as to the rest of it but it was a suprisingly quiet scene and everybody I talked to was cool. Didn’t notice any press there so we’ll see what happens: prolly nuttin’ is my guess.”
* Also Engine 202, Ladder 101 of the FDNY.
What does it mean to Superfund Gowanus? Found In Brooklyn is on the frontline of recent efforts to have the toxic Gowanus Canal named a Federal Superfund site and to that end, she has been doggedly exposing the lies and propoganda being spread by a fatuous national real estate developer and a local undertaker well known for nurturing delusions of grandeur at any price; in this case, well… Let FIB tell it:
Superfund Gowanus Airs Tuesday
As The Gowanus Turns
Many props to all those throughout South Brooklyn and else for exposing the fraud that is Toll Brothers, Buddy Scotto and all related or complicit parties, including numerous local politicians who will pretend anything but the truth. — Hahira Barney Lakeland
Queens Crap For Pope! We don’t even know if they’re Catholic or interested in the job but you’ve heard it everywhere: Impeach Bloomberg, Fuck Bloomberg, Bloomberg is Corrupt & Corrupting, ad nauseum. Praying hasn’t done shit but since reform politics might, I’m delighted to report Queens Crap has endorsed Tony Avella for Mayor, a fact which I happily explained to the young lady trying to make a buck “campaigning” for Man Who Would Be King outside the Brooklyn Public Library last week. I felt badly that this otherwise nice person’s fortune— or lack thereof— was such she had to stand there handing out lies, lies and more lies… IN FRONT OF A LIBRARY FACING SEVERE BUDGET CUTS?! What the fuck? She had no answer, and of course there is none except the venality of power. Attention Nazli Parvizi! I may be old but I can still share the anger. —Caz Dolowicz
Caz Dolowicz was born on Sands Street in 1923; later, he was the first atheist Polish Catholic to run the projector at a Knights of Caz Dolowicz stag party. Lili St. Cyr steal my heart— still!
Posted in All-City, Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Boerum Hill, Bronx, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Coffee, Crime, Downtown, Gowanus, Industrial, Manhattan, Navy Yard, Queens, Red Hook, Religion, Sex, South Brooklyn, Staten Island, labor, politics | 1 Comment »
With a headline nod to Jesus Colon, the pioneering Puerto Rican journalist (check out A Puerto Rican In New York if not familar with his work), and hearty mondongo thanks to reader Glenmore Snediker for the photos (”taken somewhere in East New York,” he says), WWIB rouses itself this morning with strong coffee and the raising of at least five Puerto Rican flags— sometimes mistaken for Cuban but ya’ll know better. —Hahira Barney Lakeland
The indefatigible Norman Oder, although sometimes taken for granted as much South Brooklyn’s extensive Puerto Rican (and Cuban, and even Spanish-from-Spain) history, is still here, dissecting the corruption, lies and hypocrisy of the so-called Atlantic Yards boondoogle and its attendant non-reporting. Why is Norman’s persistence so necessary? While there was a time not so far off when the South Brooklyn community newspapers were— if hardly bastions of multi-ethnic awareness (future students of Spanish Smith Stree
t, which it plainly yet proudly was, will look elsewhere for its eulogy) or political courage— at least half a decent read within the bounds they set for themselves. Alas, those days seem as far off as Latin Jazz nights at the Grid but, thankfully, Norm isn’t taking “nobody cares” for an answer and here breaks down the defense of the Brooklyn Paper’s bought-and-paid for petit editorialist a hell of a lot better than any fucking Nets point guard ever will. Norman Oder: swishing and dishing! — Caz Dolowicz
Caz Dolowicz was born on Sands Street in 1923; a retired Transit Authority tower operator, he 1) Loves Walt Frazier like the son he never had and 2) will soon re-read Daniel Fuchs’ 1937 novel Low Company to recall a Brooklyn before the Borscht Belt reject schtick stuck.
Posted in Brighton Beach, Brownsville, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Crime, East New York, Latino, Literature, Prospect Heights, Sports, politics | No Comments »
One of my favorite jazz books is Sidney Bechet’s Treat It Gentle (1960). For those of ya’ll who don’t know, clarinetist and soprano sax player Bechet is one 
of the towering individualists of the first half of 20th century American music— check out his recordings with Louis Armstrong of Corona via Chicago and New Orleans for jaw-dropping starters. Bechet took a similar route north and, although he never lived in New York for long, in 1918 he was looking mighty sharp by the sea: “So to fill in time I went and played with Tim Bryen on Coney Island. We all wore very fancy uniforms and the pay was good.” (Treat it Gentle, page 149.)
Tim who? Readers of John Strausbaugh’s excellent cultural history Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture (2006) want to know, as do many other bold face names (such as Brownsville hero Ralph Bakshi of Coonskin genius) space does not permit me to mention. Alas, research suggests that Tim Bryen did not exist; whether he’s an error of transcription, editing, typesetting, nobody can say. J. Tim Brymn on the other hand
— now there was a man! Noble Sissle, with whom Bechet first recorded in 1933 for Brunswick, likewise pissed standing up and whenever I play “Pops” Bechet With Noble Sissle’s Swingsters (as the label credit has it) 1938 Decca recording of “Viper Mad,” the whole room goes apeshit. Toot toot! Swagger jacking a nickname from Louis “Pops” Armstrong was no timid move either, as Dallas Penn, a Corona native, can attest. — Willis Still Sunsweet
Posted in All-City, Brighton Beach, Brownsville, Coney Island, Flicks, Jazz, Latino, Literature, Manhattan, Queens, South Brooklyn, Southern Thing, Subways, politics | No Comments »
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