Brooklyn

Historic New York Beer Tastings Set in NYC

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To celebrate its summer exhibition Beer Here: Brewing New York’s History, the New-York Historical Society will host a series of beer tastings that showcase the thriving brewing culture in New York City and State.

Beer Here will examine the social, economic, political, and technological history of the production and consumption of beer, ale, and porter in the city from the seventeenth century to the present day. The beer tasting program, run by Starr Restaurants catering group, will take place in the exhibition’s beer hall on most Saturday afternoons from May 26 through August 25, 2012.


The half-hour beer tastings, which will occur at 2 pm and 4 pm, will offer visitors the chance to hear directly from brewers and brewery founders about the history and process of making beer. In addition to tasting local artisanal creations, visitors also will experience first-hand the hops, whole leaf flowers and other ingredients used to make beer. Tickets for the tastings are $35 (Members $20) and may be purchased online. A six pack special discount (purchase by telephone or in person only) is offered to visitors who purchase tickets to six separate tastings for only $150 (Members $100). A complete tasting event schedule follows below.

In addition to the beer tastings, New-York Historical also will host Beer Appreciation Night on Tuesday, July 10 at 6:30 pm, featuring Beer Here curators Debra Schmidt Bach and Nina Nazionale- Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery- Steve Hindy, co-founder of Brooklyn Brewery- and Gabrielle Langholtz, editor of Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan. A special tasting of Brooklyn Brewery beers will follow the program. Combined tickets for the program and beer tasting are $49 (Members $37), and program-only tickets are $24 (Members $12).

Beer Tastings Schedule & Participating Breweries

The Matt Brewing Company
Saturday, May 26, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm, Saturday, August 4, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm

The Matt Brewing Company has prospered at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in Central New York for over a century. Under the leadership of the third and fourth generations of the Matt Family, the Brewery has earned the reputation as one of the most respected specialty brewers in the country and continues its family tradition with the celebrated Saranac family of beers. The tasting will feature Saranac White IPA, bursting with Citra hops, and the refreshing fruitiness of orange peel & coriander and the softening characters of wheat malt and oats, and other special selected beer.

Kelso Beer Co.
Saturday, June 2, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm

Kelso Beer Co. was founded by Kelly Taylor, also a brewmaster at Heartland Brewery, and wife, Sonya Giacobbe, in 2006 to create fresh, flavorful, low-alcohol session beer. The tasting will feature Saison, a Belgian style ale- Recessionator, a big bold doppleback- India Pale Ale, a punchy, bright and unique beer- and Pilsner, a classic European pils, with a floral nose, slightly sweet with a dry finish.

Keegan Ales
Saturday, June 9, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm, Saturday, August 18, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm

Keegan Ales was founded in early 2003 when Tommy Keegan learned about an empty building in Kingston that nobody would buy because there was a defunct brewery stuck in it! The Keegan Ales tasting will feature Mother’s Milk, a dark and creamy milk stout with hints of oatmeal, chocolate and milk- Hurricane Kitty, a coppery and heavily hopped India Pale Ale- and Barley Wine.

Bronx Brewery
Saturday, June 16, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm, Saturday, August 11, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm

Bronx Brewery is a craft brewer and distributor based in the South Bronx. It was launched in 2011 by a small team with two things in common: a maniacal focus on creating high-quality beer and a passion for the Bronx. Bronx Brewery will serve its Bronx Pale Ale, a deep amber, American-style pale ale. A second, yet-to-be released, spring beer may be available as well.

Harlem Brewery
Saturday, June 23, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm

The Harlem Brewing Company story starts about 86 years ago. Legend has it that during Prohibition a special beer was being made and this secret brew could be found in Speakeasies and after-hours spots all over Harlem. This tasting will feature Sugar Hill Golden Ale, a medium bodied golden ale known for its drinkability, with a subtle citrus accent and a finish of hops and malt flavor.

Blue Point Brewing Company
Saturday, June 30, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm

Blue Point Brewing Company is Long Island’s only microbrewery. It was founded in 1998 by two long-time friends, Mark Burford and Pete Cotter. The brewery’s unique direct-fire brew kettle imparts a lightly toasted, complex taste to produce a line of ultra-premium microbrews.

Captain Lawrence Brewing Company
Saturday, July 7, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm

Captain Lawrence Brewing Company was started by Scott Vacarro, an avid brewer from the young age of 17. The brewery opened in 2006, and is named after Captain Lawrence Drive, the street where Vacarro grew up. After much success, Vacarro recently expanded the brewery into a new location in Elmsford, NY with more brewing capacity and a large tasting room. The tasting will feature: Captain Kolisch, Liquid Gold, and Pale Ale.

Genesee Brewing Company
Saturday, July 14, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm

Genesee Brewing Company, based in Rochester, New York, is one of the largest and oldest continually operating breweries in the United States. The Brewery makes the Genesee line of beers, including the original Genesee Cream Ale, Dundee Pilsner, the award winning Dundee Pale Bock, Dundee Stout, and Dundee India Pale Ale.

Heartland Brewery
Saturday, July 21, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm

Heartland Brewery opened as New York’s first American style brewpub on Union Square in 1995 and has been igniting New Yorkers’ passion for craft beers ever since. Heartland has consistently brewed New York’s freshest craft beers, including Heartland’s classic six as well as a wide range of unique seasonal brews.

Ithaca Beer Company
Saturday, July 28, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm

In December 1998, Dan Mitchell, founder of Ithaca Beer Company, created the first local brewery in Ithaca that exemplifies “The Spirit of the Finger Lakes.” Ithaca Beer Company was recently awarded two medals at the Great American Beer Festival in Colorado in 2008. The tasting will feature Nut Brown, with subtle hints of both chocolate and coffee- CascaZilla, a red ale- and Apricot Wheat Ale, an easy-drinking wheat beer.

Greenport Harbor Brewing Company
Saturday, August 25, 2012: 2 pm & 4 pm

Founders John Liegy and Rich Vandenburgh met in college and dreamed of opening a microbrewery. That dream became a reality when in in July of 2009, the Greenport Harbor Brewing Company was founded. Today, Greenport’s beer is served in over 200 places on Long Island and NYC.

Brooklyn Museum Plans New Museum Gift Shop

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A completely new, significantly larger Brooklyn Museum Gift Shop, designed by the architectural firm Visbeen Associates, is opening Wednesday April 4, 2012 in space previously devoted to temporary exhibitions. At 4,150 square feet, the new shop is 1,600 square feet larger than the shop it replaces. The store is part of a multiphase transformation of much of the Museum’s first floor designed by Ennead Architects that has already resulted in an extensive renovation of the Museum’s historic Great Hall and the creation of a major new exhibition space.

&#8220The major goals of the new design for the first floor of the Museum have been to create a more coherent visitor experience, larger footprints for the Museum’s shop, restaurant, and exhibition galleries, and space to create a remarkable installation of major works from the Museum’s permanent collections,&#8221 comments Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman.

&#8220The design for the new Museum Shop has created a significantly enhanced shopping environment for our visitors along with an exciting new approach to merchandising. The shop will offer a fresh selection of unique items related to the world cultures represented in the Museum’s rich permanent collection. An important feature will be products from both established as well as emerging Brooklyn designers and artisans,&#8221 states Vice Director of Merchandising Sallie Stutz.

The newly created store will be organized around an arc shape that will be reflected in a curved jewelry counter in the center that forms the focal point of the space and will be echoed in a coffered ceiling containing recessed lighting. Two light fixtures, created by Brooklyn artist David Weeks, will be focal points of the design. The shop will feature 225 linear feet of lightly stained oak casework with metal fittings, with additional free standing fixtures in which merchandise will be displayed.

The new space, along the east side of the front facade of the building, was originally built in 1904 and is one of the oldest sections in the nearly 600,000-square-foot landmark building designed by McKim, Mead, & White. A wider entrance to the shop from the Lobby will provide greater visual access to the Great Hall, assisting circulation, and a rear entrance will connect it to planned temporary exhibition galleries.

One of the first in a museum in the United States, the Brooklyn Museum Shop began in 1935 as a sales desk offering publications, postcards, and photographs of objects in the Museum’s collections. In 1954 it evolved into a Gallery Shop that specialized in toys and original folk art and crafts from around the world, as well as objects related to special exhibitions. In 1963-64, the Museum Shop produced the first shopping bag created by a museum, featuring a four-color graphic.

Following the April opening of the Museum Shop, the next phase of the first-floor transformation, scheduled for completion in late summer of 2012, will include a new Museum restaurant and cafe, a bar, and an outdoor dining terrace, all planned to be opened for lunch and dinner. The dining room will also accommodate special functions. Casual dining areas will overlook the Steinberg Family Sculpture Garden. There will be direct access to the various dining areas and bar from the Museum’s 350-car parking lot.

The final phase of the first-floor renovation will transform space that has been occupied by the current Museum Cafe into special exhibition galleries that will add 50 percent more floor space to the previous temporary exhibition gallery, the Robert E. Blum Gallery.

The first-floor renovation continues a major redesign of the Museum’s ground level that began in 2004 with the opening of the Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion, the Ennead-designed and critically acclaimed front entrance, as well as the renovated lobby, newly created front plaza and South Entrance, and expanded parking facilities.

Major support for the Museum’s extensive first floor renovation project has been provided by the City of New York through the Department of Cultural Affairs and the City Council.

Support has also been provided by Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin, Arline and Norman M. Feinberg, and Lisa and Dick Cashin.

Illustration: Brooklyn Museum Retail Shop Sketch by Visbeen Associates.

NYC Historic Districts Council Names Six to Celebrate

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The Historic Districts Council, New York’s city-wide advocate for historic buildings and neighborhoods, has announced the 2012 Six to Celebrate, an annual listing of historic New York City neighborhoods that merit preservation attention. This is New York’s only citywide list of preservation priorities.

The six neighborhoods were chosen from applications submitted by neighborhood groups around the city on the basis of the architectural and historic merit of the area, the level of threat to the neighborhood, strength and willingness of the local advocates, and where HDC’s citywide preservation perspective and assistance could be the most meaningful. Throughout 2012, HDC will work with these neighborhood partners to set and reach preservation goals through strategic planning, advocacy, outreach, programs and publicity.

“Neighborhoods throughout New York are fighting an unseen struggle to determine their own futures. By bringing these locally-driven neighborhood preservation efforts into the spotlight, HDC hopes to focus New Yorker’s attention on the very real threats that historic communities throughout the city are facing from indiscriminate and inappropriate development.” said Simeon Bankoff, HDC’s Executive Director. “As the only list of its kind in New York City, the Six to Celebrate will help raise awareness of local efforts to save neighborhoods on a citywide level.”

Founded in 1971 as a coalition of community groups from New York City’s designated historic districts, the Historic Districts Council has grown to become one of the foremost citywide voices for historic preservation. Serving a network of over 500 neighborhood-based community groups in all five boroughs, HDC strives to protect, preserve and enhance New York City’s historic buildings and neighborhoods through ongoing programs of advocacy, community development and education.

The Six to Celebrate will be formally introduced at the Six to Celebrate Launch Party on Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 5:30-7:30pm at the Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery at East First Street). For more information or tickets, visit www.hdc.org.

The 2012 Six to Celebrate (in alphabetical order):

Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

Elegant rowhouses, Victorian-era mansions and pre-war apartment buildings combine with parks, vibrant commercial streets and impressive institutional buildings to make Bay Ridge a quintessential New York City neighborhood. For more than 30 years, the Bay Ridge Conservancy has been working to preserve and enhance the built environment of this architecturally and ethnically diverse area.

Far Rockaway Beachside Bungalows, Queens

Once upon a summertime, Far Rockaway was the vacation spot for working-class New Yorkers. Although recent decades have erased much of this history, just off the Boardwalk on Beach 24th, 25th, and 26th Streets rows of beach bungalows built between 1918 and 1921 still stand. The Beachside Bungalow Preservation Association is seeking to preserve and revitalize this unique collection of approximately 100 buildings.

Morningside Heights, Manhattan

Situated between Riverside Park and Morningside Park, two scenic landmarks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, and developed mainly between 1900 and 1915, Morningside Heights is characterized by architecturally-unified apartment buildings and row houses juxtaposed with major institutional groupings. The Morningside Heights Historic District Committee is working towards city designation of this elegant neighborhood.

Port Morris Gantries, The Bronx

In the South Bronx neighborhood of Port Morris, a pair of ferry gantries deteriorating in an empty lot may seem an eyesore to some, but the Friends of Brook Park sees them as the centerpiece to an engaging public space. Taking inspiration from other New York City waterside parks, this new park will combine recreation, education, and preservation of New York’s history for residents and visitors alike.

Van Cortlandt Village, The Bronx

Once the site of Revolutionary War-era Fort Independence, Van Cortlandt Village developed into a residential enclave in the 20th century. Built on a winding street plan designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, responding to the hills and views of the area, the neighborhood consists of small Neo-Colonial and Tudor revival homes and apartment buildings, including the Shalom Alecheim Houses, an early cooperative housing project. The Fort Independence Park Neighborhood Association is seeking to bring awareness to the neighborhood’s historic and architectural value as well as nominate it to the National Register of Historic Places.

Victorian Flatbush, Brooklyn

Located in the heart of Brooklyn, Victorian Flatbush is known for being the largest concentration of Victorian wood-frame homes in the country. The area presently has five New York City Historic Districts, but the blocks in between them remain undesignated and unprotected despite architecture of the same vintage and style. Six local groups representing Beverly Square East, Beverly Square West, Caton Park, Ditmas Park West, South Midwood and West Midwood have joined together with the Flatbush Development Corporation to “complete the quilt” of city designation of their neighborhoods.

New Civil War Novel Features 14th New York

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In time for the sesquicentennial of the Civil War Jack McGuire offers Joining Up (Self-Published, 2011), a new historical novel memorializing Brooklyn’s famous red-legged devils of the Fourteenth Regiment through fiction. The book offers readers insight into the abolitionist regiment that became a favorite of Abraham Lincoln.

McGuire evokes the powerful words of William Burleigh- “The gallant Fourteenth forget them not: our gallant boys who, for the nation’s life, stood amid the battle grime and noise and were baptized in its flames and blood,” setting the tone for the novel, which depicts the gallantry, bravery, and commitment to justice of the Fourteenth.

Joining Up chronicles the tale of two young boys, Will and Bobby, who run away from Saint John’s home in Brooklyn, inspired by the image of Will’s brother, Andrew, in uniform. The boys are inspired by the dauntless spirit of the Fourteenth, driven by the desire to become a part of their noble cause. McGuire addresses the mystique of their “red legs” as Will recounts a story that he had been told to his friend, Bobby- “The way I heard the story is they fought one battle in Union blue and got whipped good. They been wearing red ever since.”

The two teenage boys, backs still raw from a whipping, make their escape from the Brooklyn Orphanage to the Red Legged Devils of the Fourteenth Regiment.. En-route to the Civil War battlefields Bobby and Will become mule train drivers with a scalawag muleskinner who runs supply wagons for a Massachusetts Regiment. The search for the Fourteenth New York leads the runaways to the farmlands of Pennsylvania where Robert E Lee is about to launch his armies of Northern Virginia against George Meade’s Union Army of the Potomac. It’s the eve of the biggest battle of the Civil War when the runaways finally don Union Blue.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

Brooklyn Museum Receives National Honor

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The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has selected the Brooklyn Museum as one of only ten libraries and museums to receive the 2011 National Medal for Museum and Library Service.

The Brooklyn Museum was founded in 1823 as an apprentices’ library and is now one of the largest art museums in the United States, with comprehensive collections that span millennia and encompass almost every culture, enhanced by a distinguished record of exhibitions, scholarship, and service to the public.

From its beginnings the Brooklyn Museum was envisioned as an institution designed to educate the people both of Brooklyn and the world&#8211as a &#8220museum of everything for everyone.&#8221 Today it continues to serve as a vital educational and community resource through programs including its nationally renowned Target First Saturdays program and comprehensive on-site educational activities. The Museum’s exhibitions and arts education programs are specifically designed to develop and extend the cultural and art historical themes of its comprehensive collection.

&#8220We are extremely proud to be recognized by IMLS with its National Medal,&#8221 commented Arnold L. Lehman, Director of the Brooklyn Museum. &#8220To be acknowledged by IMLS from among the many thousands of institutions in the United States is an exceptional tribute to the Museum Trustees, staff, volunteers, and supporters. We are grateful to IMLS for this extraordinary honor.&#8221

The National Medal is the nation’s highest honor for museums and libraries for extraordinary civic, educational, economic, environmental, and social contributions. Recipients must demonstrate innovative approaches to public service and community outreach.

&#8220Congratulations to the Brooklyn Museum on receiving the National Medal for Museum and Library Service. The work you have done is an inspiration to libraries and museums throughout the nation,&#8221 said Susan Hildreth, IMLS Director. &#8220With innovation, creativity, and a great deal of heart you have achieved an outstanding level of public service.&#8221

The other institutions that will receive the IMLS medal this year are:

Weippe Public Library & Discovery Center, Weippe, ID
San Jose Public Library, San Jose, CA
Alachua County Library District, Gainesville, FL
Columbus Metropolitan Library, Columbus, OH

EdVenture Children’s Museum, Columbia, SC
Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Richmond, VA
Madison Children’s Museum, Madison, WI
Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, Collegeville, MN

IMLS is the primary source of federal funding for museums and libraries. The National Medal for Museum and Library Service was created to highlight the vital role these institutions play in American society. Recipients are selected by the director of IMLS following an open nomination process and based on the recommendations of the National Museum and Library Services Board.

Power in a Union: The Story of American Labor

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There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America by Philip Dray is an epic, character-driven narrative that moves between picket lines, union halls, jails, assembly lines, corporate boardrooms, the courts, the halls of Congress, and the White House.

Dray (NPR Interview) presents an urgency of the fight for fairness and economic democracy for working people — a struggle that remains especially urgent today, when ordinary Americans are so beset by economic troubles.

From the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, the first real factories in America, to the triumph of unions in the twentieth century and their waning influence today, the con­test between labor and capital for their share of American bounty has shaped our national experience. Dray’s ambition is to show us the vital accomplishments of organized labor in that time and illuminate its central role in our social, political, economic, and cultural evolution.

Philip Dray is the author of At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America, which won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and made him a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and Stealing God’s Thunder: Benjamin Franklin’s Lightning Rod and the Invention of America, and the coauthor of the New York Times Notable Book We Are Not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney, and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi. He lives in Brooklyn.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

Brooklyn Museum Planning Keith Haring Exhibit

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Keith Haring: 1978-1982, the first large-scale exhibition to explore the early career of one of the best-known of American twentieth-century artists, will be presented at the Brooklyn Museum from April 13 through August 5, 2012. Tracing the development of the artist’s extraordinary visual vocabulary, the exhibition includes 155 works on paper, numerous experimental videos, and over 150 archival objects, including rarely seen sketchbooks, journals, exhibition flyers, posters, subway drawings, and documentary photographs.

&#8220We are delighted to have this exceptional opportunity to present this groundbreaking exhibition of these dynamic works created by one of the most iconic and innovative artists of the late twentieth century as his formidable talents emerged,&#8221 comments Brooklyn Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman. &#8220The works of art and the accompanying documentary material place in new perspective the development of this unique talent.&#8221

Organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, by Raphaela Platow, Director and Chief Curator, and the Kunsthalle Wien, Austria, the Brooklyn presentation will be coordinated by Associate Curator of Photography Patrick Amsellem.

The exhibition chronicles the period in Keith Haring’s career from the time he left his home in Pennsylvania and his arrival in New York City to attend the School of Visual Arts, through the years when he started his studio practice and began making public and political art on the city streets. Immersing himself in New York’s downtown culture, he quickly became a fixture on the artistic scene, befriending other artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf, as well as many of the most innovative musicians, poets, performance artists, and writers of the period. Also explored in the exhibition is how these relationships played a critical role in Haring’s development as a facilitator of group exhibitions and performances and, as a creator of strategies for positioning his work directly in the public eye.

Included in Keith Haring: 1978-1982 are a number of very early works that had previously never before been seen in public, twenty-five red gouache works on paper of geometric forms assembled in various combinations to create patterns- seven video pieces, including his very first, Haring Paints Himself into a Corner, in which he paints to the music of the band Devo, and Tribute to Gloria Vanderbilt- and collages created from cut-up fragments of his own writing, history textbooks, and newspapers that closely relate to collage flyers he created with a Xerox machine.

In 1978, when he enrolled in the School of Visual Arts, Keith Haring began to develop a personal visual aesthetic inspired by New York City architecture, pre-Columbian and African design, dance music, and the works of artists as diverse as Alechinsky, Dubuffet, Picasso, Willem deKooning, and Jackson Pollock. Much influenced by the gestural brushwork and symbolic forms of the abstract expressionists, his earliest work investigated patterns made of geometric forms, which evolved as he made new discoveries through experimentation with shape and line as well as the media. He meticulously documented his aesthetic discoveries in his journals through precise notes and illustrations. In 1980 he introduced the figurative drawings that included much of the iconography he was to use for the rest of his life, such as the standing figure, crawling baby, pyramid, dog, flying saucer, radio, nuclear reactor, bird, and dolphin, enhanced with radiating lines suggestive of movement or flows of energy.

The exhibition also explores Haring’s role as a curator in facilitating performances and exhibitions of work by other artists pursuing unconventional locations for shows that often lasted only one night. The flyers he created to advertise these events remain as documentation of his curatorial practice. Also examined is Haring’s activity in public spaces, including the anonymous works that first drew him to the attention of the public, figures drawn in chalk on pieces of black paper used to cover old advertisements on the walls of New York City subway stations.

Keith Haring died in 1990 from AIDS-related complications. His goal of creating art for everyone has inspired the contemporary practice of street art and his influence may be seen in the work of such artists as Banksy, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, and SWOON, as well as in fashion, product design, and in the numerous remaining public murals that he created around the world.

Photo: Keith Haring, Untitled, 1978. Courtesy Keith Haring Foundation.

New Website Features Big Maps

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There is a new New York City addition to the Big Map Blog, a bird’s-eye view of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1885 made by noted print makers Currier & Ives. The image is freely downloadable by anyone at its highest resolution [8,999px ? 6,293px].

The Big Map Blog was begun in March and already has a considerable number of large, unusual maps. &#8220I came across many of the maps you’ll see on the Big Map Blog while doing research for a film I’m working on,&#8221 The Big Map Blog’s curator, who calls himself 59 King, reports. &#8220While searching, I found thousands of old, beautiful maps that are sadly being kept from the public that deserves them — sometimes by clumsy or unwieldy government ftp sites, and other times by archives with steep fees for research, and steeper fees for reproduction. I felt strongly that something should be done about this.&#8221

The site adds new maps five days a week. There are also several other NYC maps on the Big Map Blog, which can be found using the New York City tag.

Young Al Capone: Scarface in New York

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Many people are familiar with the story of Al Capone, the &#8220untouchable&#8221 Chicago gangster best known for orchestrating the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. But few are aware that Capone’s remarkable story began in the Navy Yard section of Brooklyn. Tutored by the likes of infamous mobsters Johnny Torrio and Frankie Yale, young Capone’s disquieting demeanor, combined with the &#8220technical advice&#8221 he learned from these insidious pedagogues, contributed to the molding of a brutal criminal whose pseudonym, &#8220Scarface,&#8221 evoked fascination throughout the world.

Despite the best efforts of previous biographers lacking true insider access, details about Capone’s early years have generally remained shrouded in mystery. Now through family connections the authors of Young Al Capone: The Untold Story of Scarface in New York, 1899-1925, William and John Balsamo, were able to access Capone’s known living associates. Collecting information through these interviews and rare documents, the life of young Al Capone in New York comes into greater focus.

Among the revelations in Young Al Capone are new details about the brutal Halloween Night murder of rival gangster &#8220Wild Bill&#8221 Lovett, grisly details on how Capone and his Black Hand crew cleverly planned the shootout and barbaric hatchet slaying of White Hand boss, Richard &#8220Peg Leg&#8221 Lonergan, insight into the dramatic incident that forced Capone to leave New York, and more.

Bill Balsamo, considered by some to be one of the premier Capone historians, has invested more than twenty-five years in researching and writing this book. He is the author of Crime, Inc. (now in its fifth printing). John Balsamo worked on the Brooklyn waterfront for more than thirty years while compiling extensive material regarding the life of young Capone.

Note: Books noticed on this site have been provided by the publishers. Purchases made through this Amazon link help support this site.

Brooklyn Museum Announces New Trustees

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Associate Professor of Law at New York Law School Tamara C. Belinfanti, Forest City Ratner Companies Executive Vice President and General Counsel David L. Berliner, and Brooklyn-based artist Fred Tomaselli were elected to the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Museum at the June Board meeting. The election of Tomaselli marks the first time in recent years an artist has served on the Museum Board.

&#8220We are delighted to welcome these three new Members. They bring a breadth of experience, interest, and expertise that will further enhance and strengthen our Board, working together with Museum Director Arnold L. Lehman and the Staff,&#8221 states newly elected Board Chair John S. Tamagni.

Tamara C. Belinfanti is an Associate Professor of Law at New York Law School and lives in Brooklyn. Previously, she was a Corporate Associate with the international law firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she was a Clinical Intern to Professor Alan M. Dershowitz.

Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Forest City Ratner Companies, a Brooklyn-based real estate developer and property owner, David Berliner is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Madison Square Park Conservancy and a founding member of their Curatorial Committee, an advisory group that sources and evaluates proposals to commission work of contemporary artists to be shown in Madison Square Park.

A native of California, Fred Tomaselli emerged from the California art scene, creating installation and performance art in the early 1980s. In 1985 he moved to New York, where he was one of the pioneering artists of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His work has been shown worldwide in both galleries and museums and is represented in public and private collections. In the fall of 2010, the Brooklyn Museum presented a critically acclaimed mid-career survey of his work.