"Lourds Lane" by Janine Rizak

It’s Saturday night, which means most bars are packed. But when you have diehard fans of the band LOURDS cramming a tiny Brooklyn bar for a homecoming show, you pray the walls don’t buckle from the added numbers.

LOURDS, fronted by female songstress Lourds Lane, have been working hard scene at gaining a reputation in the indie music scene through high-energy shows and their fresh sound, due in part to Lane’s instrument of choice, the electric violin. Her name alone makes her sound like a superhero and the silver “S” dangling from the black chocker around her neck and her ability to gain new fans with a single song is a sure sign there’s something extraordinary about Lane.

The Trash Bar, located on Grand Street between Driggs and Roebling, would be impossible to find if it wasn’t written in tall white letters on its black awning that juts out from the entrance out to the curb. Something so small in Williamsburg can be easily lost. But the neighborhood is empty save for a group people huddled in the cold outside of The Trash Bar finishing their cigarettes. Entering the bar is like eating hot soup on a winter day. The already well-heated establishment is even hotter with the extra body heat of a crowd, and the warm greeting smile of Lane behind her band’s merchandise table just left of the entrance makes you feel that much more welcome.

Lane is the cool rock chick – the girl who looks like the scene because she is the scene. The black eye shadow that suddenly turns to gold just below her eyebrows makes it hard to notice her eyes are dark brown. Her dyed red hair is up in pigtails and they fade to pink at the tips. A variety of studded and spiked bracelets covers both arms and stop mid-forearm. Her image now makes the fact that she started out on classical music that much harder to digest.

“I grew up on classical music and my classical teachers didn’t really inspire the craziness that I was about,” Lane said. “So I slowly but surely moved into rock ‘n’ roll.”

While Lane doesn’t like to reveal her age, it’s safe to assume she’s in her early 30’s at most. She’s happy reminiscing about her musically enriched childhood, which starts at 3 years old when she first started playing the violin. She performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City when she was 6. But her first memory of being in a band was when she was 13, singing and playing keyboards with her close friends.

“It was really quite funny,” Lane said with a grin. “All my best friends were playing instruments that they didn’t know how to play. But there was a lot of heart in it because it was our band.”

The “our” in “our band” now stands for Lane, guitarist Gene Blank, drummer Sarah Vasil and bassist Joey Sagarese. LOURDS was originally a solo project for Lane when she was as young as 14, but she eventually found her completion in three other people.

“For the first time it’s like a real family,” Lane said.

And the family that plays together stays together. A big attraction for fans is the live experience, and even if it’s in a small space like The Trash Bar, LOURDS will move you to your very core. The bar is dirty and packed with sweaty people. It reeks of stale beer and the floors are spotted with puddles from spilt drinks, but no one cares because they’re having too much fun.

Watching Lane sing is like watching an eruption; you can almost see the words boiling inside her. Blank and Sagarese never keep still, moving as much as possible on the tiny stage, while Vasil pounds the drums like it’s her worst enemy. This is a band that loves their work.

“I love the challenge of playing with musicians that challenge me as a musician,” Blanks said while looking at Lane.

“I like the fact that I’m onstage with my family doing music,” Lane said. “And I like how the audience gets into it and puts their hands in the air.”

Lane is referring to their first single, Astropop, from their self-titled album. The song, she explains, is about the freedom of being a child, represented by licking the red, white and blue ice-pops until your tongue and teeth turn blue. As soon as Lane plays the familiar intro to the song on her mandolin, the crowd screams and cheers. During the chorus, Lane sings “Throw your hands on up and cherish all the freedom I ignore / Throw your hands on up and celebrate this life that keeps me poor.” The crowd obeys and wherever the band plays, a sea of hands are in the air on command.

Astropop is now played on radio stations across the country, and the album that spawned it – which sold over 20,000 copies so far – got a glowing review in Billboard Magazine. Billboard Underground called the band “incomparable,” and called their self-titled album “an emphatic companion to the red-hot vim that lead singer Lourds pitches and provokes.”

If things weren’t looking good enough, Lane wrote a song called “Victory” that many are calling the next “We Will Rock You.” The song was played during the St. Louis parade for the World Series.

“It was a total fluke of a thing,” Lane admits. “And I had this funny little lethal laugh inside of me, the fact that I’m playing electric violin and these sports jocks are going to be thinking it’s a guitar! And in the middle of it I’m waling on the violin and they’re going to be like ‘dude, yeah!’ That’s the beauty.”

Lane gets more animated the more she talks. When she talks about rock ‘n’ roll, her hands contort into the devil horns. When she feels she has something poignant to say, she’ll grab your shoulder or your face for emphasis. She’s outgoing and ballsy, and she knows that’s how women have to be to get where they want to be.

The Medusa Festival, an edgier rock-infused version of the Lilith Fair, was the brainchild of Lane and was started in 2003. It gives female fronted bands or all-girl bands the chance to show they can play just as hard as the men.

“I wanted to get snakes coming out of people’s heads’ like Medusa,” Lane said. I’m proud to have created something that… people seem to remember every Medusa show and people walk away feeling like we saw a little New York secret. We saw something that’s really special, something that’s really vibrating the underground.”

The festival was always held at CBGB, but with the legendary venue having finally shut its doors, Medusa will have to find a new home, and the whole band is mourning the loss.

“At the end of Medusa Festival, we were sitting at the edge of the stage, all of our bands, and we were just soaking it in,” Lane said. “Just like ‘oh my God this is our last time here at CBGB’. That’s really intense. I played there when I was 14 years old!”

“It was an honor to be playing there within the last 30 days of its operation and to be a part of it… but it was bitter in the same sense that it was really the last chance we’d ever have to play there,” Sagarese said. “And to absorb the room and the energy and to know that we’ll never do it ever again in that place was the most bitter end.”

“It was short of tears, really,” Blank said.

After LOURDS finish their set they’re back at the front of the bar behind their merchandise table. Vasil has a split lip from accidentally whacking herself with a drumstick, and Blank and Sagarese are soaking wet with sweat and smelling inhuman. Lane looks as if she’s absorbed it all and stares in admiration at her band; her family. They all hug and scream over the Led Zeppelin song playing on jukebox to each other.

As fans leave they stop to say goodbye to Lane who hugs each and every one of them, often pouting and looking deeply upset that her fans are leaving. She kisses them on the cheek softly and says, “You rock.”

"Living Under a Bushwick Slumlord" by Janine Rizak

Heaps of black garbage bags are in the corner of Dana Zakharov’s Bushwick apartment for a good reason. This way the bedbugs won’t get into her clothes again. But she still has to frequently change the bags, just in case some do manage to sneak in and lay eggs. They’re not just in her clothes; they find their way on top of her computer and on her walls, and she even finds them in her notebooks.

Zakharov has lived in her rent-stabilized apartment since 2000. She explains that things have never been easy living there, but she got used to it and realized it’s best to simply not ask her landlord for anything. Over the summer she started to find itchy, red marks on her body and assumed they were from mosquitoes. When her roommate started to get the same marks and suggested it was bedbugs, she was right.

This is usually the type of thing your landlord would take care of with an effortless call to the exterminator. Zakharov knew she had certain rights after her roommate told her to read “Warrant of Habitability” from a booklet put out by the Attorney General’s office called the “Tenant’s Rights Guide.” The first line reads “Tenants are entitled to a livable, safe and sanitary apartment.”

Zakharov realized after reading it that her landlord, Aziz Ackmese had certain obligations, and therefore decided it was her right to live without bugs. Instead, Ackmese has replied to her crying by threatening to kick her out and even telling her to “Watch that big stupid mouth.”

“I live very much like early 1930's immigrants,” Zakharov said, living in an apartment that is “vermin ridden” and “freezing,” where she is “spoken to poorly and disrespectfully.”

The advice Ackmese kept giving Zakharov was to “squish them.” An exterminator was never provided, and when Zakharov kept asking for results, Ackmese eventually said he would take care of the problem himself in a “natural way,” as he called it, which meant incasing Zakharov’s apartment in plastic and throwing out most of her furniture.

“As far as I remember, there was never an exterminator coming in, or a yearly obligatory inspection done in the past six years.” Zakharov said.

Since she threw her mattress out, Zakharov was told her only other option was the couch, which Ackmese covered in a yellow, plastic tape. Zakharov noticed that immediately after the couch was covered with the tape, bugs started coming out through gaps. When she pointed it out to Ackmese, he simply added another piece of tape.

Bennette Baumer of the Metropolitan Council on Housing, a city-wide tenants’ rights organization, said that it is definitely Ackmese’s responsibility to take care of Zakharov’s bedbugs.

“Under the building maintenance code a landlord is obligated to cure any infestation of bedbugs or other vermin,” Baumer said.

Zakharov placed a 311 complaint and started getting sudden visits from Ackmese. He came to her apartment repeatedly to offer her roommate the lease to their apartment. During these sudden visits, Ackmese would talk behind Zakharov’s back while she was in the bathroom or out of hearing range.

“He has degraded my character to her, saying I had an ‘argumentative and aggressive nature’ and that nobody liked me, and that I complained too much.”

Many landlords balk or ignore the bedbug problem because of the extermination costs involved,” Baumer said. “Bedbugs are difficult to get rid of.”

Baumer suggests that Zakharov should take Ackmese to court where the judge can force Ackmese to “fix the problem.” She did take him to court but he never showed up, instead making a sudden trip to Turkey.

“The court issued a ‘notice of violation’ and now, at the end of 30 day grace period, he will accrue a fine if he does not fix the violations,” Zakharov said.

Recently, Ackmese went into Zakharov’s apartment during her absence and left a termination notice. The termination notice included a number of almost comical claims, one in particular which accuses Zakharov of “regularly pacing back and forth through public halls and stairs with heavy footstep on the bare-wood floors, banging the front entrance door.” If Zakharov wasn’t a petite young woman of under 120 pounds, it would be more believable.

The termination notice also accuses Zakharov of letting her “pets” roam the apartment and soil the floors and creating a “health hazard.” She doesn’t own any pets.

When Ackmese left the termination notice on the outside of Zakharov’s apartment door, he tore off posters and flyers that were important causes to her, including breast cancer awareness and feminist flyers.

Ackmese couldn’t be reached for a comment on the case.

Until justice can be found, Zakharov continues to live in unfair, horrid conditions. Bugs are falling out of crevices in the walls and ceiling, which look like they’re about to collapse.

“We still live on bags, with bugs,” Zakharov said.

"Danny Love Underdogs" by Mushtaq Choudhury

Hoop dreams are common on the playgrounds of Brooklyn. While New York is rich with well established high school basketball programs, the number of young basketball players looking for teams to play far exceeds them.

Daniel Jacob, 23-year-old coach of the Danny Love Underdogs and member of the Amateur Athletic Union, was well aware of these issues while growing up in the streets of Bedstuy Brooklyn. Jacob endured a tough childhood often finding himself dodging the pitfalls of poverty and utilized basketball as escapism to the harsh reality.

"I remember being the underdog. Not having enough money for AAU or other summer programs some of my friends were going to, and even high school ball being ruff. I felt left with no options but still I had to fight," says Jacob.

Since that feeling of hopelessness he decided to start his own AAU program with reduced enrollment fees funded by Jacobs' earnings from his part-time job at Sports Authority and neighbor hood fundraising. Basketball was more than just a game to Jacob as he felt it could teach life lessons, build determination and character, and keep the body and mind clean.

Jacob fell in love with the game of basketball and started taking it seriously as he enrolled himself when he was at New Utrecht High School. He remembers the excessive competition during try-outs and thought there was a slim chance of making the team with his undersized weight, nevertheless Jacob made the team.

"I remember beating guys in practice, playing hard on all my drills, but still not getting a response by my coach. My minutes suffered and I was ineffective. My coach had senior players that were guaranteed playing time which left me with no stage,” said Jacob.

Jacob, dissatisfied at his progress at New Utrecht, quit during the middle of his junior year and decided to commit himself to Danny Love Underdogs. He wanted to coach the game of basketball correctly and at the same time provide an outlet for athletes to continue basketball on a collegiate level.

Jacob wanted to build a program that didn’t recruit big names but just talent. He wanted to build a solid team of 15 boys who thrived for a chance to play, without rejecting players because of their size or skill level. He wanted eager players thirsty for a shot.

The Underdogs started their first year in the 14-16 year-old age group. Jacob started with the younger group to refreshing his coaching skills. His only coaching experience came when he was the assistant coach at St. Mary's summer church league of 1998. Nevertheless Jacob successfully finished the year 16-1, only losing in the semi-finals to the defending champions Long Island AAU champions, New York Red Dragons

"Playing for Danny that year helped me prepare for myself for my high school team. I learned how to play with a team, play defense as a unit, and learn the essence of team unity. My coach was impressed at John Adams the next year,” said Eric Lopez.

"Danny has a positive soul and wants to provide the younger crowd with appropriate coaching. He is like a mentor to these kids and they enjoy every moment," said Winston Elmer head operator of Beacon 132 in Brooklyn. "I never seen any one coach a group of kids so effectively and still manages to have such a relationship with each player, it's a good thing to see for basketball.

Brian Sutton, a coach for Richmond Hill High School in Queens learned that three of his players joined the Underdogs during the summer and returned in-shape and more knowledgeable about the game.

"I noticed harder cuts on angles, a better understanding of ball movement, physical fitness, but what stood out the most is that my players were thrilled to play defense,” said Sutton.

The Underdogs went into the following year with a buzz. With the success of the younger group, Jacob felt he could succeed at the next age group 16-18 and prepare his players for the college level. He began to recruit at malls, high school halls, and even the street basketball parks in Queens and Brooklyn.

Jacob started the next year badly, learning that the older age group brought ego conflicts, and even some fights for spots during try-outs. The Underdogs actually started the 2003 season short handed only playing with 10 players for the first 2 games. Jacob had low tolerance for bad attitude and felt he had to lay down the law to teach the game correctly.

In 2003 The Underdogs had their best year. The team played at Island Garden Annual AAU tournament going undefeated through the qualifying rounds but lost in the finals to Long Island Lighting. Their best wins came when the team beat Juice All-Stars, an AAU team that bred NBA superstar, Stephon Marbury, and his cousin Sebastian Telfair, in the Brooklyn summer regional AAU tournament.

"The Underdogs fit their name perfectly because I didn't expect them to put up the fight especially by looking at the roster on paper, but he had those kids on energy. They were focused,” said Gilbert Washingto, an assistant coach for Juice All-Stars.

The Underdogs are entering their 6^th year; the program helped athletes send tapes to Division 1 colleges, and worked on giving their players a chance to leave the program to only succeed elsewhere. William Goty a 6'9 power forward was picked up by Coastal Carolina as a red shirt, and two guards, Luis Rodriguez and Damon Derell played at Division 2 Sullivan County College in Jamestown, NY.

"The Underdogs are the diamonds in the ruff. I want to let the world know the money shouldn't run this sport, neither should pure talent. It's the fight as a team and determination individually to succeed in this game and also carry these tendencies by associating it with their lives," said Jacob.

"Class Size Issue Still Generating Heat" by Odelia Britton

Even as they proclaim victory on their website, the executive director of Class Size Matters, an advocacy and research organization fighting to reduce class size in New York City public schools, showed no signs of satisfaction. With an obvious lack of excitement in her voice, Leonie Haimson said, “Our goals will not be met in New York anytime soon.”

That statement comes after the decision that the city must use part of the additional state education aid to reduce class size in all grades. Calling it “a partial victory,” Haimson finds the newest developments are vague and far from the concrete objectives that she, along with other advocacy groups, parents and community school boards, have been fervently propelling for years.

About ten years ago, these groups had filed the Campaign for Fiscal Equity Lawsuit (CFE) against New York State accusing the state of unconstitutionally under-funding the city’s public schools. In 2003, the Court of Appeals, in a major victory for the plaintiffs, held that the city must reform their funding system to improve the city’s level of education. This built upon a previous decision that children must be provided with the opportunity for a “sound basic education.”

The Court of Appeals in 2003 had found “a meaningful correlation between the large classes in City schools and the outputs…of poor academic achievement and high dropout rates.”

Meanwhile CFE expert education panels proposed figures of maximum number of students that should be in a class: 14 for kindergarden through fifth grade, 22 for middle school, and 18 for high school. Right now, middle school classes are averaging 28 or more, and high school at over 30.

It seems unlikely those CFE terms will be met soon. The city’s plan would allocate only 10 percent of the $5 billion in extra spending from the settlement of the suit, a small total of $177 million to pay for smaller classes. The head of the teacher’s union, Randi Weingarten doesn’t think that is enough to do the job. She has been urging lawmakers to set aside $1 billion to fund the reduction of class size.

As it stands, the legal language is not as precise as Weingarten’s. Those who will receive the funds must agree to a “Contract for Excellence” which requires them to show how they’re using the money, insuring it will go toward, among several other provisions, improving quality of teachers and principals and reducing class sizes.

Over the next five years, New York City schools will be specifying to the state commissioner the progress in class size reduction. Haimson’s website professes: “We will all have to watch them like hawks.”

Not everybody is willing to concede to the significance of this issue. Raymond Domanico, a senior education advisor to the Industrial Areas Foundation, argues that cutting class size would ultimately hurt the poor. Domanico, who has acknowledged that he is of the few who oppose these reforms, says they would lead to teacher shortage and also to the recruitment of underqualified teachers. In a system that already employs 80,000 teachers, Domanico doesn’t believe they would have luck in finding more. He argues that a one-size-fits-all policy on class size reduction would fuel these negative side effects, and instead supports the allocation of more resources to low-performing schools who would individually decide how to use the money.

Haimson, however, finds no other issue as imperative as class size reduction. According to Haimson and its many other proponents, it is one of the few tangible ways to improve student achievement, cut down on teacher attrition, reduce disciplinary problems and increase parent involvement. They also say that overcrowded high school classrooms are a strong factor in dropout rates.

Indeed at a dropout summit at the beginning of this year, where such education leaders as City Council Education Commission Chairperson Robert Jackson and UFT head Randi Weingarten were present, the issue most emphasized in battling increasing student dropout rates was class size.

Additionally, supporters of this reform say that it would narrow the achievement gap between ethnic and racial groups. Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton, found that this was true especially for the early grades.

It’s proven strategy, they all say.

But another uncommon dissenter, Michael Rubell, executive director of the Campaign for Educational Equity at the Teachers College of Columbia University, refutes the issue’s absolute central importance. Although, like Haimson, he thinks New Yorkers should have a stake in how the money will be spend, he argues that, in light of the Court of Appeals decision, “funding follows need,” thus funds should be concentrated on lower-performing schools. And although Rubell is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the CFE lawsuit, he finds that critics are missing the number one reform priority: Improving the quality of principals and teachers. A quick move to lower class size would only garner underqualifed educators. Citing the California initiative several years back, that along with schools in several other states reduced class size, Rubell quotes U.S. News and World Report, in which the reform led to the hiring of “Nordstrom clerks, a former clown and several chiropractors.”

Haimson says that’s hogwash, and that Rebell knows that class size is the most compelling issue because he’s said so in public forums.

Research on the California initiative shows just the opposite, says Haimson. Teachers hired there were no less effective, and the achievement rates actually went up. She cites an April 2006 study, the Hamilton Project, which concluded about the reforms: “the Los Angeles Unified School District needed to triple its hiring of elementary teachers following the state’s class-size reduction initiative in 1997, the district was able to do so without experiencing a reduction in mean teacher effectiveness, even though a disproportionate share of the new recruits were not certified.”

Haimson in no way foresees a teacher shortage, because, she says, “there are 10 qualified applicants for each position.” And what about the problem in retaining teachers? That, she says, is due, once again, to class size and discipline issues.

“Reducing class size will improve the quality of teaching. A teacher no matter how skilled will not reach all her students,” said Haimson.

Pedro Noguera, a professor in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University and the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education concedes that there are obstacles. “The critics are right,” he writes via email. “Lowering class size will force NY City to hire more teachers (of which there is already a limited supply of qualified teachers) and build more schools and classrooms.”

But every overhaul comes with obstacles, and Noguera, an urban sociologist, is not fazed. He still believes the city should get on with the plan.

For Haimson, the plan goes back some time. It was roughly ten years ago when her daughter was in the first grade. Her teachers confided in Haimson about her class of 29 kids—that she would hope every day that a couple of kids would be absent so that she can accomplish more. That was the defining moment that impelled Haimson to plunge into the facts and numbers, meanwhile buying a ticket to ride this political rollercoaster.

She straddles both worlds of motherhood and politics, two that often merge into one. Although the hardworking Haimson doesn’t seem ready to drop the mike very soon, perhaps when her third grade son’s class of 28 will shrink to 18, she can take it easy.

"Can’t Get the Word Out: 50 Years of Trouble for Brooklyn Publications" by Alex Grunde

The 1950’s were not a good decade for Brooklyn. The introduction of the interstate highway system destroyed many of the borough’s harbors, for centuries the center of commerce in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Dodgers made a cross-country migration to Los Angeles, leaving Brooklyn without a professional sports team. And on March 17, 1955, Brooklyn lost its daily newspaper, The Brooklyn Eagle, silencing what had been a vocal supporter and citywide voice of the borough for 141 years.

Since then, nothing has filled the void The Eagle left. Other Brooklyn-based magazines have come along, such as Brooklyn Bridge, BKYLN, and The Brooklynite, but have faired badly as well. Those magazines went under as well. For some reason, Brooklyn-oriented publications, starting at the downfall of the 19th-century Eagle, have had trouble staying afloat.

The Eagle was established in 1841 by Isaac Van Anden, who was just 23-years-old at the time. While it was originally intended to last only for the length of the upcoming election, Anden bought the magazine from Henry C. Murphy, who funded the paper as a Democratic propaganda paper, after the elections. When it went out of business, its publisher at the time, Frank Schroth, said, “So the Pulitzer Prize-winning paper of Whitman, Van Anden and McKelway has been silken forever, and Brooklyn, the largest community in America without a voice, will indeed be doomed to be cast in Manhattan’s shadow.”

Ironically, it was an editorial decision by one of Schroth’s predecessors, Cleveland Rogers, that helped Brooklyn “to be cast in Manhattan’s shadow.” Rogers, who served as The Eagle’s editor in the 1930’s, was closely connected to New York Park Commissioner Robert Moses. Together, they made a vocal, public push to win support for the highway expansion in Brooklyn, an event that many point to as a major cause for the economic and cultural decay of Brooklyn in the latter half of the 20th century.

Then in 1937, the writing staff of the Eagle was unionized by the Newspaper Guild and conflict built between the writers and management. The writers demanded more pay, especially in the light of the Eagle’s purchase of the Brooklyn Times-Union, while management accused the writers of being communists. Both sides were convinced that they were representing the best interests of the borough of Brooklyn. The anger came to a head on September 13, 1937, when the writers went on strike. “This was the beginning of an Eagle wound that would never heal,” said Eagle historian Raymond Schroth, in his book The Eagle and Brooklyn.

The strike ended three months later, settled by a state labor negotiator, but it would not be the end of the fight between the writers and management. Almost 20 years later in 1955, the writers went on strike again, this time demanding as much pay as the Manhattan dailies. This time, however, the owners simply declared that they would shut down the newspaper. The writers assumed it was a bluff, but the owners were dead serious, and the paper closed down on March 17, 1955.

While The Eagle’s demise was publicly attributed to a labor strike by writers wanting as much pay as the Manhattan papers, Paul Moses, professor of journalism at Brooklyn College and co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize, thinks the owners had economics on their minds. He believes that they saw the general economic direction Brooklyn was going, and decided to take advantage of the strike to “cut their losses.”

As far as the impact of the Eagle’s closing, there’s “still a gap from the closing of that paper,” says Moses. “It deprived Brooklyn of an advocate,” he laments.

Forty-five years, another Brooklyn publication went out of business. First published in September of 1995, the Brooklyn Bridge magazine lasted five years. Despite winning the City & Regional Magazine Association gold medal for general excellence in 2000, the magazine closed in September of 2005.

It was not for lack of content or readership that hurt the Bridge. According to former Bridge owner and current civil rights and liberties activist Melissa Ennen, “Brooklyn Bridge had a diverse readership, both racially and economically.” Unlike most city magazines, the Bridge was not aimed at suburban readers, instead embracing Brooklynites of all types.

According to Ennen, it was lack of advertising dollars that did the Bridge in. “For the quality of magazine I wanted to make, Brooklyn advertisers could not sustain it,” said Ennen. That, combined with competing salaries from Manhattan and the hiring frenzy of internet start-ups, led to an overworked staff. “We broke even while killing ourselves,” said Ennen.

With a lack of Brooklyn publications, don’t look to citywide papers for comprehensive coverage of Brooklyn. “They [Manhattan-based newspapers] never did an adequate job of covering a county of 2 million,” said Moses.

For someone wanting to start a Brooklyn publication, there is advice. “A city-wide paper focused outside of Manhattan would be possible,” said Moses. Ennen’s advice for anyone starting a Brooklyn publication is “Don’t sacrifice quality, but keep your expenses low.”

"Cricket Returns Home" by Marcus Bethel

What’s the most American of sports? Baseball? Basketball? Perhaps the honor, in fact, has to go to cricket, which was first played in what is now New York City in the 1780’s. And it continued to be played in New York City for two thirds of the time since then.

“The history of American cricket extends far back into the colonial era … but the sports modern phase began with the New York’s St. George Cricket Club in 1839,” write historian George B. Kirsch.

The first cricket clubs were established in what is now the United States 50 years before that, shortly after the game appeared in England, and the first international game developed through a rivalry between the U.S. and Canada in the 1840’s.

When the first annual cricket game between Canada and the United States was played at Bloomingdale Park in New York, attended by some 10,000 spectators, it was the oldest international sporting event in the modern world – established 50 years before the Olympic Games were born.

Cricket was brought over to the British Colonies, including the United States, as a gentleman’s sport mainly played by officers of the British Army. The growing interest in the sport gave rise to the formation of a U.S. team which toured abroad, resulting in teams from the West Indies, Australia and England touring the U.S. and Canada as late as the 1920’s.

The popularity of the sport declined in the U.S. when Americans sought a shorter alternative to the game. Cricket facilities were converted to accommodate golf and tennis. Baseball, a game that many cricket players believe is derived from cricket, grew up and replaced cricket.

It wasn’t until after World War II, when immigrants from former British colonies started coming to the United States that the game was revitalized. Working men from the Caribbean, Pakistan and India began playing the sport in their communities, challenging each other as the rivalry was reestablished.

“Cricket is the only thing that unifies us in the Caribbean and without the caliber of players we won’t have this legacy,” said Cameron Cuffy, an ex-West Indian professional cricketer who currently plays with the Cavaliers Cricket Club in the Brooklyn League. If anyone questions this statement, all they have to do is take a ride out to Marine Park, Sea View, or the Floyd Bennet Field during the summer when cricket is being played. You are sure to meet someone you haven’t seen in years, or a few world class players, who come to Brooklyn to play a few games with the local cricket clubs.

Played in the warm summer months on flat open pitches, cricket is the main pastime of many West Indians and East Indian immigrants. Cricket is played between two teams of 11 each, with two umpires or referees making sure the game is played according to the rules, in the best spirit of the sport. There are similarities to baseball. A bowler or pitcher throws and ball at the batsman, who tries to hit it with a flat bat to score.

Though the game was originally played in the 18^th century by newly minted Americans and European immigrants, it is now mainly played by West Indians, Pakistanis and Indians, the real diehards of the sports. As of June 2006, the United States Cricket Association had reported a total of 35 cricket leagues within its eight divisions or Regions, with the New York Region proudly boasting the greatest participation, having eight leagues.

With the first junior cricket league in the U.S. opened in Brooklyn in 2004, and twice as many leagues and associations today as there were in 1990, it is clear that cricket is back home to stay. With this steady growth and the continued effort of the United States Cricket Association to promote the game, we can anticipate much more in the future for the second most popular sport in the world.

The USACA is not alone in its promotion of the game in New York. The West Indies Cricket Board pledged its support for the New York Region, and with the West Indies Team’s participation in two one-day games against a US team last summer at the Floyd Bennet field, New York can claim its stake once again.

Both games were won by the West Indies team, but not without the US team showing some resistance to Brian Lara, the best cricket triple record holder, and his boys. For Roy Sweeney, president of the Cricket Promoters Association, who has been called “the greatest cricket commissioner in Brooklyn” it was a success. Sweeney has been instrumental in promoting cricket around the New York region, having brought in major West Indian teams, hosting major games in Mt. Vernon and Randall’s Island in the 1980’s. He has also pledged his support, assisting in the development of cricket facilities here in Brooklyn. Presently, parts of Carnasie Park used to play cricket are being refurbished.

With the 2006 cricket already past, provisions has been set in place for bigger things for the Brooklyn Cricket League, an establishment that has been around since 1936.

“I was astonished to see on a letter head that this league has been around such a long time and is still in this condition,” said Leroy Peters, president of the league. Peters has been playing in the Brooklyn League since 1997, with the Grenada United Cricket team. Having been elected to the post in February of 2005, he has been able to lift the standard of the game from the low it reported in the three preceding years.

Hopefully, with a good response from the Caribbean and other interested business in the New York area, the league will be able to mobilize some sponsors, so greater strides could be made.

With ESPN-Star signing a $1.1 billion, eight-year deal with the ICC, cricket’s world-governing body, for the television rights from 2007 to 2015 to bring cricket into homes all over the world, the business owners can see this as an opportunity and thus pledge their support for this great sport here in Brooklyn. This move could very well be a signal of greater things for cricket everywhere including metropolitan Brooklyn, right here in New York.

"Brooklyn at the Heart of Hip-Hop Culture" by Tiffani Cage

The year was 1996. Shawn Carter (better known throughout Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects as his alias Jay-Z) released his first album entitled Reasonable Doubt. The third track on the album was dedicated to his hometown and featured another Brooklyn artist named Notorious B.I.G. “Brooklyn’s Finest” was one of the most played hip-hop songs on New York radio stations. The hook was easily memorized by listeners; “(Where you from?) Brooklyn, goin out for all/ Marcy - that's right - you don't stop/ Bed-Stuy.. you won't stop!”

Two years prior to the buzz of this new rapper, was the coming-up of The Notorious B.I.G. and his debut album, Ready to Die; showing off his Brooklyn pride in the No. 1 song off that album, “Juicy”, he said, “And I'm far from cheap, I smoke skunk with my peeps all day/ Spread love, it's the Brooklyn way.”

In the hip-hop industry, it is expected for a rapper to state the pride that he or she possesses; the pride can be towards how many businesses they hold, how much money they have, or the crew and entourage they hang out with. The one thing that any rapper can be most proud is the city and state in which he or she was born and raised. In the lyrics of Brooklyn-bred rappers (i.e. Jay-Z, Notorious B.I.G., Lil’ Kim, Talib Kweli, Mos Def and others) are words that show the love and passion they have for their borough.

Although Hip-Hop music was born in the Bronx, it traveled to the east coast, west coast, down south, Midwest and eventually around the world. The majority of rappers who have emerged from music to business have bellowed out their city in their lyrics, but what makes Brooklyn so central in this business? Why is it the most recognized? Lil’ Kim would say, it’s because Brooklyn is where “the weak fold and crumble/ It’s the land of trouble, Brooklyn, home of the greatest rappers/ BIG comes first then the queen comes after.” (“Lighters Up” off of The Naked Truth, 2005)

“The best rappers come out of Brooklyn,” said hip-hop producer and Queens resident), Tanisha Kettle. “Biggie, Foxy Brown, and Jay-Z are amongst the greats in hip-hop history. It seems like Brooklyn artists sell more albums than artists from other parts of the country. And Biggie is one of the best rappers of all time right next to Tupac (originally from Harlem, but grew up in Los Angeles).”

“Brooklyn artists are caught out there in the hype of other coasts,” said Idell Anthony, a loyal fan of NY-based radio station Hot 97. “Everyone now is really into the southern music, with the snapping and walking it out dances, but New York is where it started, and we have the essence of it.”

Throughout its history, rappers from the west coast have talked about how “gangsta” it is to live there. Gangs, such as the Bloods and Crips, fight for territory and respect. Jay-Z’s partner in crime, Memphis Bleek (who’s also from Marcy Projects), said that it’s not about that on the east coast. It’s all about staying alive by hustling and trying not to make any enemies on the way. “I believe that east coast rappers, especially in Brooklyn have more depth in their lyrics,” said Stephan Fraser, who moved from Brooklyn to Hollywood, Fla. “Comparing the music that I grew up listening to, down south music isn’t as real.”

As heard in rap lyrics, Brooklyn is a hard place to live, yet it has the appeal of a comfort zone. Jay-Z has made that clear in “Where I’m From” (In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, 1997) and “Hollywood” (Kingdom Come, 2006).

“Cough up a lung, where I’m from, Marcy son/ ain’t nothin’ nice.”

“Born in Brooklyn got a place in Manhattan, going back to Brooklyn to escape the madness.”

Though other places are talked about in raps, like “Georgia” by Ludacris, “Welcome to Atlanta” by Jermaine Dupri, and “To Live and Die in L.A.” by 2Pac no place but Brooklyn has more songs which describe it.

“And I'm far from cheap, I smoke skunk with my peeps all day. Spread love, it's the Brooklyn way.” (from “Juicy” by Notorious B.I.G., 1994)