Dredging the Past and Present of the Gowanus Canal | Episode 31

Posted on

PAST PROGRAM | Virtual Programs

Best known today for its pollution and gentrification, the Gowanus Canal is an historic waterway that has seen war, industry, innovation, and reinvention play out along its banks. We will speak with poet, preservationist, and paddler Brad Vogel, captain of the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club and executive director of the New York Preservation Archive, about the history of the Gowanus Canal over the past 300 years, as well as initiatives today to help the Gowanus small business community weather the current crisis.

>> Continue reading

Virtual Visit to the Church Murals of Artist Maxo Vanka in Millvale, PA | Episode 28

Posted on

PAST PROGRAM | Virtual Programs

St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, PA, just outside Pittsburgh, is home to one of the most remarkable works of church art in America, a series of 25 murals painted by celebrated Croatian painter Maxo Vanka. Painted in 1937 and 1941, the murals depict stories of immigration, war, labor, and injustice in vivid, expressive scenes unlike any others in a church. We will be joined by Anna Doering, managing director of the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka, a non-profit which works to conserve, protect, and interpret these incredible artworks and offers guided tours and educational programs.

>> Continue reading

Virtual Visit to BioBAT Art Space: Where Art and Science Intersect | Virtual Program

Posted on

PAST PROGRAM | Virtual Programs

See innovative works of art inspired by science and learn about the intersections between art and science as part of this interactive online conversation with the founders of BioBAT Art Space, a gallery based at BioBAT, a nonprofit incubator for biotech labs, located in the historic Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park. An excellent program for all ages, including parents and teachers with children at home!

>> Continue reading

Two Scenes of Brooklyn: 19th Century Life on the Waterfront | Episode 16

Posted on

PAST PROGRAM | Virtual Programs

Inside the Brooklyn Historical Society’s DUMBO exhibition space are two iconic images of the borough: Francis Guy’s 1820 painting of the small hamlet, and Currier & Ives’ 1879 lithograph of the City of Brooklyn. Led by two of our expert guides, Andrew Gustafson and Stefan Dreisbach-Williams, they will unpack the history of the people and places in these dense images and what they tell us about Brooklyn’s waterfront communities in the nineteenth century.

>> Continue reading

Exploring the Naval Cemetery Landscape | Episode 6

Posted on
landscape with wood board and grass

PAST PROGRAM | Virtual Programs

Join us for a conversation with the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, which has transformed a 1.7-acre former Naval Cemetery into a public green space and an oasis for plants, animals, and humans alike on the eastern edge of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We will discuss the history of this burial ground, the innovative design of the landscaping, and BGI’s programming and efforts to complete a continuous 26-mile bicycle and pedestrian pathway along Brooklyn’s waterfront.

>> Continue reading

Brooklyn Navy Yard Fall Photo Contest

Posted on

For our penultimate Brooklyn Navy Yard Seasonal Photography Tour of 2017, we asked another Yard-based artist to make selections for the year-end finalists. Nick Golebiewski is a visual artist who makes large-scale gouache paintings – a type of opaque watercolor – of New York cityscapes. His “Nick’s Lunchbox Service” is daily drawing series in which he draws the landscape in front on him, and is definitely worth checking out on his Instagram feed. The series is in its fourth year and has been featured as a Twitter Moment, in collaborations online with the Jewish Museum, the Museum at Eldridge Street, and Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, and through the “Walk & Draw” tours he’s led with the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.>> Continue reading

Brooklyn Navy Yard Summer Photography Contest Judge: Painter Jeff Britton

Posted on

On our Brooklyn Navy Yard Photography Tours, we’re always encouraging people to look for the unexpected. Even on streets we’ve walked down a thousand times, there may be something new, or something very old you never noticed before.

Walking down the halls of the enormous Building 3, constructed in 1917 and one of the Yard’s largest buildings, I recently found something very unexpected. I walked into Triple J Bedding, a distributor of linens to hotels and hospitals across the country; stacks of sheets, blankets, and towels were stacked floor to ceiling with just narrow passages between them. After wending my way through this cavern, I found a little oasis at the back – the studio of artist Jeff Britton.>> Continue reading

Fall 2016: Brooklyn Navy Yard Photo Contest

Posted on

Last week we held our final Brooklyn Navy Yard Seasonal Photography Tour of 2016 (don’t worry if you missed it – our next one will be on January 22). Stay tuned because after we receive the last three finalist photos from this round, we’ll be unveiling the online voting for the year-end People’s Choice Award, and these finalists will be put on display in the Brooklyn Navy Yard Center at BLDG 92.

On this Election Day, our photography judge gets to make a much more pleasant and interesting selection than most of us casting our ballots at polling places. This season’s judge is Thyra Heder, an artist, author, illustrator, and woman of many talents who has called the Yard home for many years. If you’re a fan of children’s books, you may have seen her wonderful debut Fraidyzoo (on sale in the BLDG 92 gift shop), which she followed up with The Bear Report.>> Continue reading

Isabelle Garbani’s “Post-War Blues” Brightens Brooklyn Army Terminal

Posted on

If you walk the length of the atrium of the Brooklyn Army Terminal’s Building B during this weekend’s Open House New York, you will encounter a remarkable piece of art – Isabelle Garbani’s “Post-War Blues.”

Made up of more than 5,000 hand-crocheted and knitted flowers, the installation cascades from the train car parked on the atrium’s tracks, which once carried freight trains filled with war materiel into the Terminal’s warehouses and onto waiting ships along the Brooklyn waterfront.>> Continue reading