museum – brooklyn spaces

coney island museum

oriana on 10 May ’15

[I’m counting down to the release of the Brooklyn Spaces book by doing one mini-post per day, sharing teasers of some of the places you’ll find in it.]

neighborhood: coney island | space type: museum & performance venue | active since: 1985 | links: website, facebook, twitter

Dick Zigun, the unofficial Mayor of Coney Island since 1984, has built an incredible legacy of promotion and preservation for his beloved neighborhood. In addition to founding the annual Mermaid Parade in 1983—which has grown to be the largest art parade in the country, with close to 800k people attending in 2014—he cofounded the nonprofit multi-arts organization Coney Island USA, which is responsible for running a vast array of programming, including the Coney Island Museum, the Coney Island Circus Sideshow, Burlesque at the Beach and the School of Burlesque, the Coney Island Film Society, the annual Congress of Curious Peoples, the Coney Island Tattoo and Motorcycles Convention, the interactive Halloween play Creepshow at the Freakshow, and on and on.

pix by Remi Pann

Housed in the historic 1917 building that once held the first of Coney’s two Childs Restaurants, the museum is as historically rich and valuable as its home. Dick fought successfully for the building to receive National Landmark status in 2010, and the museum features a wonderful array of Coney history, including funhouse mirrors (great for selfies!), old bumper cars, and a scale model of the original 1903 Luna Park.

Want to learn more about the Coney Island Museum, and 49 other incredible Brooklyn Spaces? Buy the book!

waterfront museum

oriana on 7 May ’15

[I’m counting down to the release of the Brooklyn Spaces book by doing one mini-post per day, sharing teasers of some of the places you’ll find in it.]

neighborhood: coney island | space type: nonprofit museum | active since: 1985 | links: website, facebook, twitter

In 1985, David Sharps—a self-taught and then Paris-trained juggler and clown—bought the Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge No. 79 for $1. At the time, the 1914 cargo ship was sunk eight feet deep in the mudflats of Edgewater, NJ, and it took David two years to remove 300 tons of mud from the hull, restore the barge, and get her floating again.

pix by Alix Piorun

By the mid-1980s, the barge had become a floating nonprofit museum. In addition to displays about maritime history and the story of this ship in particular, the Waterfront Museum is filled with artifacts—signboards, tools, lanterns, fittings, barrels, foghorns, bells—the majority of which has been donated by fans and enthusiasts.

The museum, which has been docked in Red Hook since 1994, also acts as a floating classroom and cultural programming venue. In twenty years it has brought hundreds of thousands of people to the waterfront, from school groups to tourists, for everything from circuses to lectures to weddings. The Red Hook community board has pointed to the Waterfront Museum as possibly the single most significant factor in bringing people to the neighborhood for the first time.

Want to learn more about the Waterfront Museum, and 49 other incredible Brooklyn Spaces? Buy the book!

brooklyn historical society

oriana on 20 Jan ’14

space type: museum, nonprofit | neighborhood: brooklyn heights | active since: 1863 | links: website, facebook, twitter

The Brooklyn Historical Society is definitely a bit more conventional than the spaces I usually cover here. But this is a site about exploring everything our borough has to offer, and that doesn’t only mean watching aerialists in a Bushwick loft or riding flaming bicycles in a Bed-Stuy alleyway. And it should also go without saying that Brooklyn is absolutely steeped in history, and that the particular initiatives, accidents, and cultural tides of the past are in large part responsible for making the present what it is.

Othmer Library archives; all photos by Alix Piorun

BHS is a beautiful way to connect with all that. As Programs Associate Meredith Duncan told me, “Sharing the past is so important because it informs what’s happening in the present, and also what will happen to the future communities and culture of Brooklyn.”

Founded in 1863 as the Long Island Historical Society, BHS’s mission is to “make the vibrant history of Brooklyn tangible, relevant, and meaningful for today’s diverse communities, and for generations to come.” The gorgeous building, which turns 150 this year, is best known for its stunning two-floor research library. But after finishing a $5.5 million renovation, the space now features a lot more: four art galleries, an event space for public programming, a classroom for student workshops, and a gift shop filled with crafts from a wide variety of Brooklyn makers.

The four galleries cover a lot of different ground: currently on exhibit upstairs is “Documenting Sandy,” a collection of mostly cellphone pix from the harrowing superstorm and its aftermath; whereas the just-opened exhibit on the main level, “In Pursuit of Freedom,” is a public history project exploring the heroes of Brooklyn’s anti-slavery movement.

"Documenting Sandy" exhibit

The public programming offered at BHS is extremely diverse as well. Some of this year’s fascinating events include: Pat Kiernan in conversation with Gothamist publisher Jake Dobkin, an original musical by the Irondale Ensemble called Color Between the Lines, a lecture on the history of the Gowanus Canal by popular Brooklyn Brainery speaker Joseph Alexiou, a walking tour of the Wallabout Historic District, and the Brooklyn Zine Fest—just to name a few.

And then, of course, there’s the nationally recognized Othmer Library. Its various collections include municipal and administrative records from the villages that eventually became Brooklyn, personal and family papers dating back to the 1600s, genealogies, war histories, several thousand prints and drawings from the 17th century on, and more than 300 oral history narratives. There’s also a photography collection that starts in the 1870s, which includes amateur and professional photographs of buildings, people, and major cultural events, from the building of the Brooklyn Bridge to the 1977 Bushwick blackout. And there’s a large collection of cultural ephemera relating to Brooklyn icons, from the Wonderwheel to the Dodgers.

Othmer Library archives

There’s even a whole room dedicated to maps, as well as a person whose entire job is to catalogue and classify them. The amount of history contained in these maps alone is staggering; in addition to extensive street and lot maps, there are centuries-old Fire Department maps, municipal maps, sewage system maps, transit maps, and on and on. It’s exhilarating to look through them and feel the power of history’s force under your fingertips.

The majority of the collections are available for public use, although you need to make an appointment to view some of it. There are also various online-accessible catalogues—but don’t skip a visit to the marvelous building if you can help it.

"Landmarks of New York" exhibit

You should definitely visit to see for yourself the incredible resources available throughout BHS. In the meantime, sign up for the newsletter, where you’ll get to see Photo of the Week and a Map of the Month taken from the archives. BHS also publishes books, curriculum kits, and neighborhood guides, from Greenpoint to Bay Ridge, some with accompanying walking tours and podcasts.

BHS gift shop

According to Meredith, some of BHS’s future goals are “to encourage more interaction with the greater Brooklyn community, and to become a cultural hub, both for Brooklynites and for tourists.” In addition, they’re hoping increase educational initiatives; through donations and grants, schoolchildren can visit for free, so they’re working on expanding outreach to teachers who could take advantage. BHS also works with university professors to help them use original artifacts in their classes. And of course, BHS will continue to be a resource for anyone who, for any reason at all, wants to learn more about amazing Brooklyn.

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Like this? Read about more historic spaces: South Oxford Space, Brooklyn Lyceum, The Schoolhouse, Broken Angel

city reliquary

oriana on 31 Mar ’11

neighborhood: williamsburg | space type: micro-museum | active since: 2002 | links: website, facebook, twitter, tumblr

I’ve loved City Reliquary for years. It’s right on Metropolitan Ave., and I pass by it at least once a month, always delighted to find a new bizarre and beautiful display in the front window, whether it’s an array of Pez dispensers, ceramic unicorns, pizza magnets, or postcards from the Queens World’s Fair. In fact, City Reliquary started out around the corner from its current location as just a window, the street-facing window of founder Dave Herman’s apartment, which he filled with his own collection of Statue of Liberty figurines and other New York ephemera.

all photos in this post by Maximus Comissar

Now, like Proteus Gowanus, City Reliquary is a non-profit community-based micro-museum. The Reliquary is slightly broader in scope, with a permanent collection of NYC artifacts, including a selection of Subway tokens, a picture gallery of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the original 2nd Avenue Deli sign, among much, much more. Even the bathroom houses its own micro-micro-gallery of old-timey tincture and lotion bottles. Though the museum is certainly tiny, you’ll want to spend a while poring through the staggering amount of amazing stuff crammed into it. They also have terrific events and fundraisers, including the monthly THird THursday party, Show and Tell open mics, an annual block-long street party called Bicycle Fetish Day, and more.

Q&A with Bill, City Reliquary’s president

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about some of the exhibits you’ve had.
Bill: We just took down one that was all photographs of streetlights. It was one guy’s personal collection, and he told the histories of each one, when they disappeared, stuff like that. We found him through a guy named Kevin Walsh who runs a great website called Forgotten New York.

brooklyn spaces: What’s the current exhibit about?
Bill: It’s a guy who’s eating a slice of pizza from every pizzeria in Manhattan, and he takes a picture of every slice and the restaurant where he got it.

brooklyn spaces: How often does the exhibit change?
Bill: It depends how long it takes us to get the next one together. We tried to do a new every month, but it was just too much.

brooklyn spaces: And are they always New York–centric?
Bill: Yes. The only thing that isn’t New York–centric is the window up front, Community Collections. That showcases collections by different New Yorkers.

brooklyn spaces: Why Brooklyn? Why Williamsburg?
Bill: Just circumstance. We didn’t pick the neighborhood; Dave lived here, this space opened up, we moved in.

brooklyn spaces: What’s the relationship with the community?
Bill: Everyone’s been really great. Saltie and Roebling Tea Room have donated food for benefits, Momofuku donates cookies, sometimes we hold events at the Knitting Factory.

brooklyn spaces: Anything else you want to tell the world about the museum?
Bill: Our hours are noon to six, Thursday through Sunday. Come to the events, they’re great fun. We always have Brooklyn beer at them.

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Like this? Read about more micro-museums: Proteus Gowanus, Micro Museum

micro museum

oriana on 6 Feb ’11

neighborhood: downtown brooklyn | space type: art & events | active since: 1986 | links: website, blog, twitter

I found out about the Micro Museum by accident—I was checking the directions to go somewhere else in the neighborhood, and Micro Museum showed up on the Google Map. What lovely serendipity! The tiny exhibition space on busy Smith Street is intimate and aesthetically innovative, and I spent a while examining and experiencing the art and interactive installations.

Micro Museum, founded by Kathleen and William Laziza, has been around for twenty-five years. This “living arts center” is, according to their website, “dedicated to interactive, media, visual, and performing arts.” It’s a 501(c)3 nonprofit, a Registered Trademark, a Registered Charity for the State of New York, and a founding member of the Brooklyn Cultural Circuit. It’s open every Saturday from 12–7 and only costs $2. I highly recommend stopping by.

Q&A with Kathleen Laziza, Micro Museum’s founder

brooklyn spaces: Tell me a little bit about the museum.
Kathleen: This is our twenty-fifth year on Smith Street, which is pretty fantastic. We do curated programming, classes, media art, performance art, visual art, live events, all kinds of fun things. Our current program is called “Above & Beyond,” and it features exclusively the work of myself and my husband—we’re the founders of the museum. It’s the first time we’ve ever had fully our own exhibit, and it’s been a wonderful mix of extremely fun and extremely scary. The exhibit runs until December 2013, and every few months we’ll add another installation or series of paintings or assemblages or video tapes or whatever. And we invite everyone to come, because it really is for kids of all ages, it has interactive art and things that you can manipulate and manage and experience, and it’s also got visual art and media art, too.

brooklyn spaces: How do you select the art you’re going to exhibit?
Kathleen: We usually have themes, and sometimes we work with guest curators. In 2006 I did a very famous show with Juliette Pelletier from Reflect Arts, called “Circus Surreal.” We did a whole year of curating for it and we ended up selecting forty works, and we had all kinds of live events and media. It was fabulous. In 2007 we chose “Spectrum” as our theme, so all of the shows were focused on a color. We did a program called “Big Ideas”—which was pretty esoteric, I have to admit, looking back. Once we pick a theme, we do national calls for art, but we’re really very community-minded. We often show the same artists again and again, because a lot of what Micro Museum does is create an environment where an artist can grow. There’s a long arc to the development of an artist, and you don’t make a masterpiece every single time, so you need to be in a world that gives you a chance. Was every piece that we’ve ever selected the most amazing, incredible, brilliant work ever? No. But they were often great stepping stones for the industry at large, and some of our artists went on to get accolades and do fabulous shows all over the place. We try to be as inclusive as possible, but we do have an edge to what we show. It would be rare that we’d do a watercolor show; it would be like a watercolor show on acid, you know? There would be some kind of a twist.

brooklyn spaces: I’d like to talk about your relationship with the community, and with Brooklyn in general.
Kathleen: We’ve been here twenty-five years, so we were here before anything. We were here when it was actually dangerous, when there were arsons and murders and mayhem, so we feel very integral to the development of Smith Street. Micro Museum was trendy, because art in general is always trendy, and we were a classic case of going to the edge of where we could afford to be, and the artists came to us. Then eventually the big national chains started to move in, and it really changed the character of the block. Which didn’t really mean a lot to us in the sense that we would have to re-identify, it just meant that we were in a different kind of situation. In the late nineties I went to Columbia University’s Arts Leadership Institute to find out how art works in a commercial environment, and they basically predicted what would happen, although of course I didn’t believe them. They said that Micro Museum would have to work against erasure at a certain point, because everyone around us would become very successful and would forget why they had customers in the first place, why people were showing up from all over the globe. But we’ve always been kind to artists looking for a friendly environment where they could create and be comfortable creating.

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Like this? Read about more art galleries: Concrete Utopia, Wondering Around Wandering, Invisible Dog, 950 Hart, Ugly Art Room, Central Booking

proteus gowanus

oriana on 22 Jan ’11

neighborhood: gowanus | space type: museum & events | active since: summer 2005 | links: website, facebook

The first time I went to Proteus Gowanus, I couldn’t find it. I walked around and around the block, checking and re-checking the address, and getting more and more confused. Finally I peered down a dubious-looking alley just around the corner from where it should have been, and sure enough, there was light spilling from a doorway halfway down. So, word to the wise: Proteus Gowanus is a little bit hidden, but it’s there.

Housed in a box-making factory from the 1900s, Proteus Gowanus is a multipurpose art space with a lot going on. It includes an art gallery with rotating and permanent exhibits, a micro-museum, a library, a reading and study room, an event space, and a collaborative nonprofit boutique of unique publications and “protean objects.” Proteus Gowanus has a broad scope, but all of its disparate parts come together to make a varied, fascinating whole.

Among their exhibits and projects:

The Observatory Room, an interdisciplinary event space that hosts discussions, film screenings, and lectures on a wide range of topics, from Parisian brothels to Italian medical museums to Haitian voodoo to American cartoons. (I’ve been to three Observatory events, and they’ve all been amazing.)
Morbid Anatomy, an outgrowth of the blog by the same name, featuring a collection of books, photographs, ephemera, and artifacts relating to anatomical art, cabinets of curiosity, the history of medicine, death and mortality, memorial practice, arcane media, and other topics.
Hall of the Gowanus, a micro-museum of local curiosities, including old Gowanus maps, pressed flowers from the region, a Gowanus historical timeline, and much more.

Hall of the Gowanus

The Fixers Collective, an idea that grew out of an exhibit in the gallery, which encourages people to bring in something broken, which the collective members make a collaborative effort to restore, mend, repurpose, or enhance.
The Reanimation Library, an almost whimsical permanent collection of outdated, worn, or discarded books.

Reanimation Library

Proteotypes, which extends some of Proteus Gowanus’s shows and exhibitions into the field of printed matter.
dedicated to assembling apparently incongruous ideas or forms to construct surprising yet meaningful compounds and dialogues.
The Writhing Society, a weekly class/salon dedicated to constrained writing.
A study hall and writers space in all galleries and reading rooms. (Membership only $50/mo!)

(photos from the Proteus Gowanus Facebook page)

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Like this? Read about other micro-museums: City Reliquary, Micro Museum