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E-Waste Not, E-Want Not: Recycle Electronics on October 25th

10/19/2014

Good news for your inner-do-gooder. Here's a great chance to clear out space AND recycle. It's yours for the taking on October 25th.

If you are like me, you eye those piles of batteries at the bottom of your glass and plastic recycling bin, fretting about how to quit them. Then you open a drawer that has become a sort of e-gadget graveyard: dead iPods, cellphones, dare I mention cassette recorders? Then onto the big stuff: VCR? Betamax?! Tube tellies. Your beloved 8-track tape player? Ok, so that's a collectors' item. But still. We're drowning in this culture of techno-replacement. And we all need a good way to get rid of it and to maintain a clear conscience.

So here's your hyper-local chance! The W. 102nd & 103rd Streets Block Association will recycle your e-waste on Saturday, October 25. Please drop off unwanted electronics at 250 W. 103rd Street anytime between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. The Block Association's volunteers will deliver the e-waste to an authorized recycler. A snap!

Just let us know what you’re bringing so we are certain to have adequate room to transport the recyclables. You may email us at: [email protected].

The following items are accepted: computers, monitors, printers, scanners, fax machines, copiers, routers, modems, keyboards, mice, cables, components, TVs, VCRs, DVD players, cell phones, pagers, PDAs, phones, answering machines, and batteries of any kind.

Just one thing: no air conditioners or kitchen appliances, please. And try selling that 8-track on Craigslist. You'll get a pretty penny, I promise.

By Caitlin Hawke

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LW3

10/8/2014

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Loudon Wainwright III, Poet Laureate of Bloomingdale

Loudon Wainwright III is on tour and will be playing at Pace on October 11th. That got me to thinking about local treasures. And surely he is one albeit a treasure of Westchester origin.

Some days it can seem like when it Wainwrights it pours. I mean how many singing-songwriting Wainwrights are there? I'm going with five (LW3, sister Sloan, and children Rufus, Martha and Lucy), but someone could easily be missing from that count.

It is a family where DNA codes for musicality, edge and self-reflection. I have to say I am fond of them all for different reasons. Indeed, very fond. But in the end, I am a one man gal, and LW3 is that guy.

Since he's written so many delicious slice-of-life songs, I've singled out several at the end of this post, both from LW3 solo and from a couple of members of the Wainwright clan.

Sitting pretty on a mountain of impressively high-quality output, Wainwright is now into his fifth decade of expressing himself through his brand of stripped-down and personalized folk. He is raw. He is tender. He is poetic, lyrical and smart. He's a terrific wordsmith. And he is funny. Compared favorably to the greatest, LW3 was heralded as the next Bob Dylan in the early days of his career. (I won't go on about Dylan as I cannot yet connect him to our neighborhood, but when I do, the ink will flow). Made back in the good days of the 1970s, suffice it to say, the comparison was meant to be a favorable one. However it may have done LW3 more disservice than good. It shadowed him enough for him to turn and tackle it in a song. So as Bob Dylan did for Woody Guthrie in a "talking blues" style shoutout, Loudon did for Bob in his song "Talking New Bob Dylan":

"Yeah, times were a changin', you brought it all home
'Blonde On Blonde', 'Like A Rolling Stone'
The real world is crazy, you were deranged
And when you went electric, Bob, everything changed
....
Yeah, today is your birthday, have a great one, Bob
Bein' the new you is one hell of a job
My kid cranked up her boom box to almost groan
When I heard you screamin' from her room
"Everybody must get stoned"
Thanks a lot, Bob"

from Talking New Bob Dylan by Loudon Wainwright III

Depending on my mood, I can go to the familial dark places with him in songs like "White Winos," and "A Father and a Son" where he deals with loving yet deeply painful truths about his parents and his relationship with them and with his children. These songs often spill over into reflection on his own parental shortcomings, his regrets and ultimately his love -- all done in the way he seems most comfortable expressing it, whittled down to essences in a moment-suspended-in-time song.

When offering these mea culpas, he manages to have an unapologetically heart-melting way: "Another Song in C" and "When You Leave," (both below) have delicate, poignant observations laid utterly bare. He has a song about slapping his out-of-control-in-the backseat daughter that sears the already indelible family moment onto his listener. When he wants to, he delivers his truths like x-rays deliver theirs.

It's easy to get heavy with Loudon Wainwright. But he knows how to keep things featherweight, too. The life-affirming, banjo-propelled "Swimming Song" -- a frolic that is the yin to Kate McGarrigle's wistful "Saratoga Summer Song" yang -- is one such bonhomous bonbon, just when you thought brooding was his business. Kate, like Loudon, knew how to tread the edge between light and dark. Kate, with her sister Anna, made "Swimming Song" entirely hers, pulling it northward and soaking it in Acadian sound. I've included both versions below, because after all, you have no Rufus and you have no Martha Wainwright without the majestic Kate.

Here's a quintessential sample lyric from Loudon that brings a smile to my lips everytime I hear the repetition of the syllable "form":

This summer I swam in a public place
And a reservoir, to boot,
At the latter I was informal,
At the former I wore my suit, I wore my swimming suit.

from Swimming Song by Loudon Wainwright III

If he were a filmmaker, I'd compare him to the wonderful Ross McElwee in terms of how he conveys his material. Deeply personal and reflective, terribly wry, fairly self-loathing, and utterly naked, he is who he is.

And so, citizens of Bloomingdale, for your consideration, my nominee for Poet Laureate: LW3.

By Caitlin Hawke

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History, Herstory, Ourstory

10/1/2014

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The Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group: A Local Gem

I've written about this before but still delight each time I have the thought that our neighborhood has its very own history group. The Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group (BNHG), which began as the Park West Neighborhood History Group, has as its mission to promote and conduct research on the history of our neighborhood. Knowing Win Armstrong, one of its prime motors, I should not be surprised that a substantial archive documenting our community and its change over time now lives at the Bloomingdale Branch of the New York Public Library.

I have heard Win reminisce about the rich, diverse, integrated neighborhood that was erased -- above ground, at least -- to make way for the construction of Park West Village in the 1950s. Here's some more detail from a 2011 New York Times piece that covered one of the reunions that residents of the neighborhood still have; the fact that they are compelled to get together and proclaim they endure as a community despite that their brownstones have long since been torn asunder sends a shiver down my spine. It is a profound statement about the power of memory:

"From about 1905 until the 1950s, West 98th and 99th Streets constituted a vibrant, predominantly African-American community that was something of a miniature Harlem, with its own Renaissance. Philip A. Payton Jr., a real estate entrepreneur who wanted to end housing segregation, owned or managed most of the buildings on those blocks. The singer Billie Holiday lived there for a time, as did Arthur A. Schomburg, the historian and writer whose collection of art, manuscripts and photographs became the foundation for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Other residents included the author Rosa Guy and the actor Robert Earl Jones, the father of James Earl Jones. The actress Butterfly McQueen...."

Many will recall that this area was part of the Robert Moses-ifcation of New York. In his elegant timeline of our parts, BNHG member Gil Tauber points to the demolition of 14 blocks which made way for the Frederick Douglass Houses and Park West Village as the begining of Robert Moses's decline.

The BNHG delivers a new lecture series each season and how they sustain the level of quality that they do is a testament to the commitment of BNHG's board: Win Armstrong, Peter Arndsten, Marjorie Cohen, Cynthia Doty, Hedda Fields, Alice Hudson, Ginger Lief, Paul Lindberg, Jim Mackin, Batya Miller, Gil Tauber, Pam Tice and Vita Wallace. Among other things, on their site is Gil's elegant history of the nomenclature of Bloomingdale. A must read for anyone who still thinks of the department store when our area's name comes up!

Mark your calendars, because the good stuff is coming up quickly! Here's an overview of the group's offerings this fall.

By Caitlin Hawke

Collage courtesy of the BNHG (Pam Tice, artist)
UPDATE: Nice piece here by the Columbia Spectator on October 9th covers the BNHG.

These free lectures presented by the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group
Please consult the group's website below for exact location information and other details.

Tuesday, October 7, 6:30 pm
Goddard Riverside in its Second Century: A Work in Progress. Stephan Russo, Executive Director in conversation with Ethan Sribnick, Urban Historian.
Bernie Wohl Auditorium, 647 Columbus Avenue (W. 91st Street). Please note that there is a life but the auditoium is not wheelchair accessible.

Monday, October 27, 6:30 pm
Celebrate The IRT's 110th Birthday* with John Tauranac, Urban History and Mapmaker, in
discussion of its impact on the development of our neighborhood.
Hostelling International, 891 Amsterdam Avenue (W. 103rd Street)

Wednesday, November 19, 6:30 pm
Jim Mackin will present the first In a series of the histories of the
remarkable medical institutions that started in the Bloomingdale
neighborhood. Hostelling International, 891 Amsterdam Ave (W. 103rd Street)

December - Date TBA
Think Straus Park (W. 106th Street & Broadway) is just a name? Learn the back
story from local historian Batya Miller.

And don't forget the monthly neighborhood walks led by Jim Mackin.
For more info and to sign up, contact the Columbus-Amsterdam BID office at 212-666-9774. The next one is Sunday, October 5th at 1 pm and meets at Straus Park, 106th Street & Broadway.

Website: http://upperwestsidehistory.weebly.com/
Blog: bloomingdalehistory.com

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E-Waste Not, E-Want Not: Recycle Electronics on October 25th

LW3

Loudon Wainwright III, Poet Laureate of Bloomingdale

History, Herstory, Ourstory

The Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group: A Local Gem

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