By Caitlin Hawke

I love the Spring and Fall block association events to beautify our tree wells, even if I don't have mulch of a green thumb. Neighbor Mark Schneiderman and the Block Association ecology team are soil good at planning this event, they've got everything covered. All you, your kids and your favorite neighbor have to do is turnip! Saturday, April 20, 10:30 a.m. until it's all done. Meet in front of 878 West End Avenue and spade some time on a gift that will keep on giving. The event is open perennial neighbor. Shy because you are new to the block and don't know anyone? Be bulb and come solo! We'll get you connected quickly.

By Caitlin Hawke

You've been winnowing. You have piles. You are ready to sell, sell, sell. Now all you need to do is take that vendor space at this year's block party and pile it all into your radio flyer, and on May 18 wheel it on over to West 103rd Street to turn it into a pile of cash. Or split a space with your neighbor or daughter or grandson. It's the 'Great Redistribution of Matter' day in Bloomingdale, and it's coming quickly. So lock in your vendor space today by clicking on the image or button below to read all the how-tos.

Len Tredanari is no longer around to take a hose to the cars parked on W. 103rd on Yard Sale Saturday. So we still need volunteers to help in the Motor Pool as well as a host of other volunteer gigs. Speaking of Len, I dug out an old newsletter from September 2003 and excerpt of which is below. Len's bigger-than-life presence on W. 103rd is still warmly remembered by a lot of neighbors, and if you concentrate you can conjure the wafting aroma of his sausages and peppers, grilled to mouthwatering perfection and sold to benefit, you guessed it, your block association. 

Contact Bob at blockparty@w102-103blockassn.orgor call him at (212) 662-4046.

By Caitlin Hawke

In the last edition of the Block Association newsletter, May 18 was announced as the big day.  It's the annual Block Party, and the organizers need volunteers.  There are roles aplenty, and if you are someone who has enjoyed the feeling of community you get from this blog, I know you'll also enjoy leaning in. 

Bob Aaronson, a W. 103rd St. resident and a walking, breathing saint, has agreed again to coordinate the event. If you (or your teenage or adult kid or grandkid) can take on an organizational role or if you have only an hour to spare, please get in touch with Bob and let him know how you can help. Give us a little of your time, and together we'll make a beautiful block party!

Contact Bob at blockparty@w102-103blockassn.org or call him at (212) 662-4046.

So, without further ado: We. Need. You! From our latest newsletter, here's how to get involved. Our operators are standing by.

Rent a Space and Turn Clutter to Cash: Click here for an application and detailed information about how to get a vendor space.  Know someone who is eager to vend? Share this blog post! Help us get the word out. Post this on Nextdoor and other email lists you belong to. The more vendors, the better the ambiance and the more deals to be made!  Which leads us to another way you can help:

Mark Your Calendar for May 18. Come Out. And Shop 'til You Drop: come to the party and support our vendors. It's the great cosmic redistribution of stuff. And it all takes place along W. 103rd Street between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue, May 18, from 10 a.m to 4 p.m.

Advance Publicity: Basically, if  we don’t step up our efforts to publicize the event, we won’t get the vendor participation we need in order to make the day financially worthwhile. We need to start attracting vendors now. Then, just before the event, the focus shifts to attracting attendees.  The more people who come, the more the vendors sell, the happier they are, and the more likely they’ll be eager to come back next year. If you’re good with media, especially of the social variety, we need you.

Raffle Ticket Sales: The way to make money and to make for a happy winner is to start selling tickets weeks in advance of the event. That means we need to hit the streets on every evening and weekend when the forecast cooperates. If you can keep your eye on the weather, coordinate shifts, and entice people to sell, we need you.

Refreshments: To keep our visitors and vendors well fed, we always offer a variety of sweet and savory foods. If you’d be willing to coordinate this aspect of the event, we need you. Or donate food, offer to do a Costco run, make some sandwiches, bake some cookies. We need you.

Entertainment: The party is always more fun with live music. If you can lend a hand arranging performers, we need you. Or volunteer to perform!  We need you.

Activities for Kids: When kids are happy, parents are happy. We could use facepainters, magicians, jugglers, balloon artists, and/or storytellers. It's all part of the atmosphere. If you’re kid-friendly, we need you. 

Motor Pool: Making sure that  the owners of the cars parked on W. 103rd St. know that they need to move elsewhere in advance of the event is a job in itself. It requires repeatedly putting flyers under windshield wipers the entire week before the event, especially catching drivers during the alternate-side parking shifts. If you’re around during the day, we need you. 

Flyer Distributors: the best way to make sure potential vendors know about the event and shoppers know to attend is to hang flyers in building lobbies. We provide the paper, you provide the legwork. We need you.

Crew: We need folks to set up and break down. It’s always busy first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon.

​We. Need. You.

Again, our operators are standing by. Contact Bob at blockparty@w102-103blockassn.org or call him at (212) 662-4046.

By Caitlin Hawke

First sure sign of spring: it's time for the annual meeting! Come hear what your Block Association has been up to and help recognize folks who call our neighborhood their workplace.  There will be reporting on the budget and the annual induction into the neighborhood hall of fame.

It all happens in the Marseilles community room (230 W. 103rd Street) at 7 p.m. on Monday, March 18, 2019

By Caitlin Hawke

Well, neighbors, we’re coming quickly to the end of 2018. And I don’t know about you, but it sure flew by for me. I remember last year’s polar vortex like it was yesterday. 

Taking stock, I can measure the year in the number of blog posts I've gotten up, despite that I have such a backlog of potential posts. It puts me in a perpetual state of disappointment that I don’t have more time. Still, I looked at the log and see a grand total of 85 posts in 2018. That’s the most in one year since I started maintaining the site in April 2014. But the guilt persists, and I will try to roll out some of the treasures sitting in my desktop folder ominously marked "Blog To Do."

As I often write, our neighborhood is a very inspiring muse. Like Bob L. or John K. and so many others of you who love to “noodle” in different neighborhoods, I always enjoy a good city walk — looking for a bit of old New York. Or at least authentic New York. It’s getting harder to find, but it’s there in pockets. And those walks, no matter where, always remind me how much I love my home turf: bookended by two great parks, sleepier than the now mall-like UWS, relatively low-lying in terms of the architecture, and so luminous. Bloomingdale has it all.

Add to that the great history, and that’s what makes it so satisfying to chronicle.

Bloomingdale also has a tradition of community -- from the "Old Community" supplanted by Park West Village whose spirit truly lives on (and gave rise to the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group), to the community fostered by this Block Association with half a dozen events and four newsletters each year, to the communities that our neighboring block association and the one Bloomingdale Aging in Place has built over the last 10 years. That's just four quick examples, and there are many micro-communities in between, too.

When I reflect on what at times seems to be the electronic and political dystopia taking hold, I have to say all this community-building that has come naturally in Bloomingdale gives me quite a bit of hope going forward -- especially if new neighbors will join in, roll up sleeves and take up the tradition.

As part of my ongoing love letter to our piece of the Manhattan pie, I wanted to offer back up some of the slices from the year gone by — posts that have received great traffic from readers together with the ones I most enjoyed writing. It's far from an exhaustive list of the 2018 posts. But it's perhaps the cream.

Have a look at the links below and then perhaps you’ll write with your favorites to blog@w102-103blockassn.org or in the comments section of this post.

In any case, I appreciate that you read along throughout the year, and I send best wishes for an excellent 2019.  If you know nearby neighbors who would enjoy the blog, send them this link where they can subscribe.

And now to the Year in Blog Favorites....


​
To read each post, click on the corresponding image at left or the hyperlinked text. If you are reading this post in an email subscription, it may be easier to view directly on the website.

​• Bob on Broadway: Dylan's Powerful Residency at the Beacon
Then if you want, gild the lily with a post to honor his 77th birthday here.
Yes, a bit of a stretch for the Bloomingdale catchment, but I'm counting on you to humor me. It took all I had to refrain from writing about The Public's Girl from the North Country and its superb cast including the luscious drummer in red, the boxer, and Mare Winningham -- three actors who stole the show. Look for Girl on Broadway soon.

​• Beautiful Block of Riverside Drive: Seven Beauties in Our Midst
Author Dan Wakin digs into the history of 330-337 Riverside Drive.
Pictured at left: Bennie the Bum with the sawed-off leg, not pictured!

​• Women's Suffrage & Bloomingdaler Harriot Stanton Blatch
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's remarkable daughter Harriot (a babe in arms at left) lived right here. Read more about the fight in NYC to get women the vote, including the effort to get Columbia's men to the polls.

​• Nightmare on 102nd Street
Always a blog favorite, the annual Block Association Halloween Party "Ghouls' Gallery", replete with a visitation from King George the Wee. The party is just one offering of the Block Association; for other B.A. event coverage in 2018, see this link.

​• Estelle Parsons: Triple Threat of a Neighbor
What do I love about Miss Parsons? Everything!
Her intensity and her energy are her superpowers that allow her to thieve every scene she's in. Catch her in this Bloomingdale walkabout. Probably the year's most-viewed blog post!  The lady has a legion of fans.

​​• Manfred Kirchheimer's Time Encapsulated
​What do I love about filmmaker Manny Kirchheimer? Also everything!
​A Bloomingdaler for five and a half decades, he's chronicled the city in his contemplative documentaries along with the odd fiction such as the film "Short Circuit" at left, shot entirely in our neighborhood.

​​• Throwback Thursday Spotlights 1920 Victrola Store
​Throwback Thursday: Bloomingdale Edition is the section of the blog where I feature historical pictures and tidbits. A trove of these await publication, time permitting in 2019. Emanuel Blout's Victrola store, circa 1920, was my favorite this year. Have a TBT favorite? Let me know in the comments.
You can view all TBT: BE posts here.

​​• Throwback Thursday: The Divine Tight Line & Philippe Petit
​This TBT: BE post comes in a close second place.
​Discover the neighborhood feat of the great tightrope walker Petit, high on Amsterdam Avenue. And divine as ever.

​
​​• JFK Impersonator Vaughn Meader on the UWS
​JFK would have turned 101 in 2018 and in his honor this post unearths the wonderful two albums that comedian Vaughn Meader turned out before the stars fell down and the curtain closed on Camelot.

​​​• Catching Up with Hedy Campbell
​Four years and 330 posts ago, Hedy asked me to write for the blog. The idea was to pick up where the creators had left off and fill in the gaps between quarterly Block Association newsletter issues. Without breaking a sweat, Hedy has turned out the publication since 1987 -- a massive feat if ever there was one. The blog is child's play by comparison. I end the highlights of 2018 with Hedy because she is a neighborhood jewel whose efforts have helped build and sustain a community feeling now for over 30 years. It's a team effort to be sure, so this hat tip goes to all folks who value this organization.

And now is your chance to help sustain it!
​
Join us by becoming a member here.


Catch you in 2019 for more Throwbacks,
more Hyper Local Eats, more Bloomingdale,
and, yes, probably more Bob Dylan.
​Thanks for reading.

By Caitlin Hawke

Neighbors, sing the shortday blues adieu. It's the ancient tradition of marking the Winter solstice, and we're doing it with song.

Songsheets are downloadable here.

By Caitlin Hawke

Kids weren't the only tribe out in force on Wednesday evening in Bloomingdale. Photogs Ozzie Alfonso, Celia Knight (at right in candy corn scarf, I swear!), Maria Vitagliano and David Ochoa were lying in wait to capture the wee sugar-fueled neighbors.

While one or two King Georges were spotted, there were no Hillary Rodham Clintons in the ratpack, but someone needs to say "It takes a village"!  'Cause it does.

Just look at that table of goodies below. Yowza.

This was of course thanks to your Block Association vols who made it all come true.

Hat tip to child-at-heart and toothfairy accomplice Jane Hopkins (depicted above in the boa and orange witch hat), who has been the field marshal for nigh on forever -- all right, not quite that long, but you get the picture. To her team of big kids who dole out the dough. To the good folks at St. Luke's who always pitch in. To the donors who made contributions of candy, time, and dollars. And to the families who came, saw and conquered the treats and the streets.

If you are sitting on the sidelines, thankful that we have a community-building association in our midst, consider pitching in and helping the Block Association. We're looking for why-oh-ewe!  To volunteer, email us at info@w102-103blockassn.org. To become a member, click here.

And now to our gallery: "Nightmare on 102nd Street!"  If you know someone in these pictures, send them this link and tell them to subscribe to the blog: https://www.w102-103blockassn.org/blog/nightmare-on-102nd-street.

By Caitlin Hawke

October 31 -- this Wednesday -- is fast approaching. If you are not planning on coming out after sundown to lurk with the best of us on W. 102nd Street and West End Avenue, you are gonna be missing the best night of the year in Boo-mingdale.

Details in the poster below.

Here's a shoutout to the Schuyler sisters who, via their dad, have a special connection to our neighborhood and make for a spooky jack-o-lantern. (Hat tip to young Honora Overby who posted her creation on Twitter).  Good enough to send squash sculptor Saxton Freymann out of his gourd with pride.

Stay tuned to this channel for the post-parade photo gallery like this one from a past year. If you plan to have your camera that night, send your best pix to blog@w102-103blockassn.org. I'll post shots of costumed munchins big and small.

By Caitlin Hawke

Thanks go to Celia Knight who sent the photo below of two hearty neighbors on a rainy Saturday. They  joined the Block Association team headed by Mark Schneiderman, head of the ecology committee, to weed, clean, plant bulbs and generally beautify our tree wells.

They came. They saw. They mulched. And our trees are all the better for it.

If you are interested in the state of city trees, on October 24, at 6:30 p.m., Parks & Rec is holding a street tree workshop. You'll find the flyer below.  I wanted to add a lagniappe from SNL this week, a rap ode to trees. But it truly wasn't ready for prime time. Best line: "You can agree that more trees isn't a bad thing, right though?"

#Truth

By Caitlin Hawke

The Block Association walks the talk when it comes to covering the catchment. First in the Spring, you can beautify the tree wells with annuals and get a good workout in your knees, quads and back. Then come May, you can enjoy W. 103rd Street at the ever wonderful street fair, yard sale, bazaar, fest -- or what ever you wish to call it.

As Fall rolls in, the BA goes back to the planting of bulbs and neatening of tree wells, followed in quick succession by the Halloween Parade and Solstice Caroling.

All year long on second Tuesdays at 8 p.m. you have the chance to come to the monthly board meetings which are held at 306 W. 102nd Street. You can bring your questions or just come to see how things are done and offer your help.

This weekend is your chance to give a little sugar to our trees. And I don't know about you, but after the last few weeks, I am ready to think and act locally.

The BA is calling all new neighbors, kids, green-thumbed or not. The tidying and planting will run from 10 a.m. til it's done around noon. All the info you need is below and if you still have questions, email: trees@w102-103blockassn.org.

Then hold onto your hats because 0ctober 31 is blowing in quickly. That's the day we give sugar to our kids, big and small.  My observation is that the adults lean in almost as much as the young'uns. If you want to lend a hand, email Jane at halloween@w102-103blockassn.org.

Check out the galleries from past years like Ghoul's Gold here and Goblin It Up here. If that doesn't sell you on turning out at 6 p.m. on W. 102nd and West End, maybe the home-baked goodies or cider will.  I am resurrecting the Great Pumpkin Interview with Saxton Freymann here -- a blog favorite.

For more information, you can read the most recent edition of the BA newsletter here.

See you on the streets of the catchment!  Lagniappe from erstwhile Bloomingdaler Nina Simone below.  If you are reading this in an email subscription, you'll have to click on the blog post title to view the video.

 

Live in the neighborhood and enjoy these occasional blog posts? Spread the word by telling a friend or neighbor to subscribe. There's a lot more in store!

By Caitlin Hawke

Perhaps you are planning to be a vendor at this Saturday's Block Party? Good for you: you've tidied your cabinets and winnowed your closets of old items that you are now giving a chance at another good home. But a few toxins remain to be dealt with.

Or if you've been lazily watching everyone ferry their stuff to the Block Party to sell it off and you're feeling guilty that your clutter is amassing, here's an event for you.

On Sunday, you can get rid of all that hard-to-toss stuff at a SAFE Disposal Event put on by NYC's Department of Sanitation. SAFE Disposal is specifically for items that fall into the categories of Solvents, Automotive, Flammable and Electronics.

SAFE Disposal takes place on Sunday, May 20, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., on W. 120th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.

Materials accepted include common household products such as auto fluids, batteries, electronics, strong cleaners, medications, paint and more.

See this link for further details.

By Caitlin Hawke

Live in the neighborhood and enjoy these occasional blog posts? Spread the word by telling a friend or neighbor to subscribe. There's a lot more in store!

By Caitlin Hawke

Have you secured your vendor's table at our May 19 Block Party yet? All the information you need is right here. If you are a resident of the Block Association's catchment, it's just $50 for a spot from which you can turn your no-longer-needed possessions into rent money or a couple of dinners on the town.

If you are like me, you love the haggle. You love the circle-game of old things finding new life in the twinkle of a stranger's eye. You love the cash. You love the feeling of community. And you love the idea of winnowing your cupboards and drawers.

If you don't want to vend, hawk or huckster, why not just tell all your friends with overbrimming closets that this is an occasion to be seized!  For folks outside the catchment, the fee is $70.

Click on the Block Party tab on our website for an FAQ and all the deets.

And don't forget to save the date and come noodle down the street. There's deals to be had and treasures to be unearthed.

It's my favorite Block Party tradition.

(Click here to see the lagniappe video below if you are reading this via email subscription).

By Caitlin Hawke

Blow a kiss. Take a bow!

I am looking at you Mark Schneiderman (coordinator), Michael Stearns, St. Luke's, Tina, all you neighbors who lugged, mulched, dug, tidied, planted, watered, crouched, knelt, and helpfully applauded from the sidelines.  

All hail the Block Association's eco committee and your beautiful results.

Our tree wells, as shot by Celia Knight below, are ready for the throngs to come pouring through for our Block Party on May 19. (Did you reserve your table yet, vendors?).

At far bottom is a Merman lagniappe from 1961 with cameos by Lenny Bernstein and Old Blue eyes. (Remember to click on the blog title or here if you are receiving this directly in your email box.)

By Caitlin Hawke

Saturday, April 21 is the Block Association's annual day to come out and plant your heart out. You'll find the details in the poster below. As I've said before: you'll be a good kind of tired when it's all said and done.

Kids, bring your folks.  And folks, bring your kids. It's all in the neighborhood, and it's good (so-so) clean fun as you'll see in the past galleries here and here.

If you need additional information, email trees@w102-103blockassn.org.

By Caitlin Hawke

On Thursday, March 22 at 7 p.m. at the Master (310 Riverside Drive at West 103rd Street), you are invited to the Block Association's Annual Meeting.  The focus -- the Crisis in Commercial Real Estate -- is a topic readers will recognize from the blog a mini-series entitled Empty Storefronts and the Changing Streetscape.  For further reading, see the following:

• Interview with Judith Norell, proprietor of Silver Moon Bakery
• In Joon, Our Fall: The last day at Joon Fish Market
• and my favorite: Stowin' Away the Time & Peelin' Back the Years on the decline of the Korean deli

I think it's going to be a great discussion. Hope to see you there!

Remember: December is "Spread the Blove" month.  If you enjoy these blog posts, won't you share this with a nearby friend, family member or neighbor? It's a great way to stay in touch between newsletters of the W. 102nd & 103rd Streets Block Association. So tip off a neighbor who can then receive posts directly to his or her email by just filling in an email address at the bottom of each post.

By Caitlin Hawke

Enjoy the nine hours, fifteen minutes and eighteen seconds of daylight on Thursday.  For you lightlovers, it's all downhill from here!  By the 31st you get three more minutes of daylight, and so it goes. 

Solstice 2017. 

How will you tip your hat to the dark today?  Now that you can take a break from flipping latkes, spinning dreidels and running around on the season's forced spending spree, why not come out and sing at the Block Association event.

And now I leave you with images seen in the neighborhood during our pre-winter lead in to the solstice.  We've already been dusted three or four times with a suspicious white powder.  Audrey got hers (below) and the skies have been hoarier than usual. Thanks to neighbors Bob Donohue and David Ochoa for these shots.  I need to go waterproof my old boots but in the meantime say to old man Winter: Bring. It. On!

After all, it's the only route to the vernal equinox.  And I am all about that.

Remember: December is "Spread the Blove" month.  If you enjoy these blog posts, won't you share this with a nearby friend, family member or neighbor? It's a great way to stay in touch between newsletters of the W. 102nd & 103rd Streets Block Association. So tip off a neighbor who can then receive local news directly to his or her email by just filling in an email address at the bottom of each post.

Love the Blog?  Spread the Blove!

By Caitlin Hawke

I blogged this earlier in December but here's your reminder that Thursday is Solstice Caroling Night with Your Block Association!  On December 21st at 7 p.m., come meet up at 865 West End Avenue (on the west side of WEA at W. 102nd Street).  You can download a songsheet right here.

Details in the flyer below and an outro of lagniappes for those readers who like youtube videos.  Make sure to click on the title of this post to view it online or the videos will not load for email subscribers!

And to paraphrase Tiny Tim, see you waiting for the sunlight, loving the moonlight, having a wonderful time!

Email subscribers: remember to view the lagniappes below, you'll need to click on the blog title or go here.

Tiny Tim's Livin' in the Sunlight, a Maurice Chevalier cover

"Your Night with My Day" -- James Taylor's little-known ditty from his first album on Apple Records, the Beatles label, circa 1968

From the famous Nashville sessions, Bobby D. and Johnny Cash sing "You Are My Sunshine." If you think Bob Dylan can't sing, think again! Happy Solstice, Bloomingdalers.

By Caitlin Hawke

Remember: December is "Spread the Blove" month.  If you enjoy these blog posts, won't you share this with a nearby friend, family member or neighbor? It's a great way to stay in touch between newsletters of the W. 102nd & 103rd Streets Block Association. So tip off a neighbor who can then receive local news directly to his or her email by just filling in an email address at the bottom of each post.

Love the Blog?  Spread the Blove!

I should explain that I gave up holiday decorations long ago after being traumatized by my first NYC roommate. I rented a room from a woman who couldn't let go of the trimmings well into March.  It freaked me out a little.  But then I moved and was liberated by the thought that I could take the holidays on my own terms.  I know some folks feel quite strongly about these year-end festivities.  So forgive me for saying that my ideal is to revamp everything and celebrate them like the quadrennial summer and winter Olympics: Thanksgiving once every four years, and your choice of December holiday once every four years. With two years off in between for reflection and absence aplenty to make the heart grow fonder.

But one event I refuse to leave unobserved is the winter solstice.  I'll even celebrate a solstice twice a year.  Unapologetically. (Some people in my family celebrate them four times a year, but that's another story.)

The solstices are the most enduring and common observances in the whole wide family of Homo sapiens sapiens.

In stark contrast to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade which has devolved into an unwatchable infomercial saturated with product placement, the actual solstice remains untainted by consumerism.  That, in my book, is something to sing about!

So this December 21st, on the heels of that traffic-stopping eclipse which reminded us of our puny place on the third rock from the sun, come into the streets and sing.  Come mittened. Come gloved. Come sing with your neighbors, known and unknown.  Sing on your streets!  Sing under windows and on stoops. Stand in the doorways and block up the halls. Sing out loud. Sing out strong. Sing off-key. Sing joyous or blue. Sing 2017 out.

And sing back all the light we cannot see.

Save the date and see you out there!
Thursday, December 21st at 7pm at 865 West End Avenue (W. 102nd Street).

To download a songsheet, click here.

A little prologue before I get to the post today because Thanksgiving is an obvious time to take stock and to enjoy pumpkin -- which I hope you all will.  I am very thankful to live in Bloomingdale and be part of a wonderful community that continually surprises me.  And I am particularly thankful to have a perch from which to celebrate that neighborhood, my muse for purposes of the Block Association blog, where the opinions expressed are my own.

I am also very thankful for this Block Association and to its board and volunteers for doing what they do.  You only had to be in the street on October 31st to appreciate how much joy can come from a volunteer initiative.  If you weren't, you'll get another chance with Solstice Caroling coming right up on December 21st.

To continue to knit the community and share news with neighbors, here on the Block Association blog December will be "Spread the Blove" month.  If you've been enjoying these occasional posts, won't you share this with a nearby friend, family member or neighbor? The blog is a great way to stay in touch all year long with the W. 102nd & 103rd Streets Block Association. So tip off someone nearby. Send them the blog's address or point them to a favorite post. To receive news as it goes online directly to your email, just fill in the "Subscribe" box below. You'll receive a request to verify your subscription.  And voilà!  Just sit back and the next post will arrive to your inbox.

Love the Blog?  Spread the Blove.   Thanks for reading!  And Happy Thanksgiving    ~ Caitlin

By Caitlin Hawke

Most kids around here already know Saxton Freymann's work. For the past many years, Sax has donated a gourdgeous sculpted pumpkin to the Halloween festivities put on by the Block Association each October 31st.  While compiling photos from this year's parade, I kept wondering who this pumpking was.  And then Jane Hopkins -- who does such a wonderful job producing the event -- clued me in.

I decided to ask Sax a few questions and hope you'll enjoy this interview with a talented, generous neighbor. He's also provided some shots of past sculptures.  And for you poodle lovers, my lagniappe is Sax's Broccoli dog.  He's good and good for you.

Enjoy!

Caitlin: You carve a mean pumpkin.  What's the secret? Are eyes the window to a pumpkin's soul?
Sax: When I started doing books based on transforming fruits and vegetables, of course I had to include pumpkins.  My approach is to use the natural form and do as little as possible to nudge it towards something it already resembles.  This of course means that the stem is a nose…with some of my favorites I did not add eyes at all -- they are already implied in the wrinkles of the surface.

Caitlin: I understand you are fairly agnostic when it comes to vegetable carving, you'll carve anything! How did you get into food carving? 
Sax: Many years ago my wife met a book designer and packager named Joost Elffers who wanted to do a book showing interesting things that could be done with food. He had already done a book in Europe along these lines and was looking to develop something more in sync with an American market.  I got some produce, made a variety of things and sent him a bunch of pictures.  That led to Play With Your Food, and the success of that book led to a series of children’s books with Arthur Levine at Scholastic.  

Caitlin: Are you a vegetarian?
Sax: I am omnivorous.
 
Caitlin: So you eat the seeds!
Sax: I try to eat as much of the “waste" from my edible work as I can. When I was doing all the books my family would eat a lot of the day’s work.  When I work with pumpkins, I often do not even cut through to the interior… so they last a bit longer.

Caitlin: How long do they last?
Sax: They generally do not last long, although I remember one that lasted for months! Most of what I do is about the final photographs.

Caitlin: How long does your traditional pumpkin take to carve?
Sax: It varies. I probably spend an hour or so on a pumpkin.  

Caitlin: Jack O' Lantern or Pumpkin?
Sax: Pumpkin!

Caitlin: OK, but do you ever light your pumpkins from inside or is it all about the face?
Sax: My pumpkins are not lanterns. They are much more about the surface and the organic form.

Caitlin:  Is there such a thing as carve-offs in the pumpkin sculpting world?
Sax: I have seen all sorts of competitive pumpkin carving over the years, featuring work with much more patience than I have. I am a very uncompetitive person, so that’s not for me.

Caitlin: Do you have any pumpkin trivia you'd like to share?
Sax: I don’t know if it still exists, but years ago there was an annual race on Glimmerglass Lake in Cooperstown, New York, in which competitors hollowed out and rowed enormous pumpkins.  It was a remarkable and hilarious spectacle.  

Many thanks to Sax for his indulgence here and for the many years of pumpkins at our tables.  Readers curious to see more of Sax's work will also find his books How Are You Peeling? and Food Play in print.  Also, scroll down for a short video with Sax. (If you are reading this post in your inbox, you need to go to the following link to see the video: www.w102-103blockassn.org/blog.

 By Caitlin Hawke

The Winter newsletter will soon be out and you can read the full recap of the hallowed eve of All Saints Day, vintage 2017.  But while we're all waiting for the print version, here's a little gallery of what went down when the ghouls came out.  I missed a lot of the munchin' munchkins, but you'll see in the empty platters and pans in the gallery that feast they did!  A big thank you to the Block Association volunteers who worked on the Jane Gang this year, and to St. Luke's Addiction Institute's staff and residents who baked up a storm and helped pull it all together.  This is a Jane Hopkins joint (red hat below).  But she would be embarrassed not to share the spotlight with her fête accomplices -- some pictured, some not.