Digital Brooklyn exhibits you can view from home
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
You can see ’em at the online
museum!
All of Brooklyn’s museums
have shut their doors to avoid
the novel coronavirus, but you
can check out many of their exhibitions
for free online. Here
are three of the best digital
showcases that you can cruise
through.
Subway stories
The New York Transit Museum
offers a digitized photo
exhibit of those emergencies
in “Bringing Back the City.”
The online exhibition showcases
dramatic photos of collapsed
subway stops near the
former Twin Towers, commuters
walking on an elevated
track during the 2003 blackout,
and workers clearing feet
of snow off the Coney Island
tracks after the Christmas Blizzard
of 2010.
New York Transit Museum
at www.nytransitmuseum.org.
A shore thing
Take a deep dive into the
history of Brooklyn’s coastline,
with an online exhibit hosted by
the Brooklyn Historical Society
and Brooklyn Bridge Park.
The Brooklyn Waterfront
History site explores how a
steam-powered ferry by inventor
Robert Fulton starting in
1814 provided an early form of
mass transit between what is
now Dumbo and Manhattan,
which took Brooklyn from a
sleepy waterfront village into a
bustling industrial city.
Check out Brooklyn Waterfront
History at www.bkwaterfronthistory.
COURIER LIFE,34 MARCH 27-APRIL 2, 2020
org.
Indoor disco
The Brooklyn Museum’s
recently-launched exhibit on
the iconic 1970s disco club Studio
54 was shuttered before any
member of the public could step
past its velvet rope. The organization’s
curators do not plan to
put the exhibit online, according
to a spokeswoman, but they
have posted some resources for
those who want to turn their
apartments into a dance fl oor.
The museum’s Youtube
channel offers a lesson on how
to get your groove on with a
Disco Break, featuring professional
dancers Belinda Adam
and Alexandra Wood. And the
exhibit has a Spotify page, featuring
a playlist of 40 hot, hustlin’
disco tunes.
Hustle to www.brooklynmuseum.
org, www.youtube.
com/user/BrooklynMuseum, or
www.instagram.com/brooklynmuseum.
BY JESSICA PARKS
He’s a man of many arts!
A Windsor Terrace polymath
will launch a jazz album,
a crime novel, and an indie fi lm
over the course of the next few
months. Up fi rst for JC Hopkins
will be an album recorded with
his Biggish Band. Hopkins said
that some of the tunes on “New
York Moment,” set to be released
on April 5, have wound
up being unintentionally appropriate
for the current topsyturvy
moment in the city.
“This album is almost inadvertently
topical in a way,” he
said. “It sings of trying to make
sense of a world.”
Hopkins described the lyrics
on his new release as part of
a conversation, which he paired
with melodies that he hopes
will resonate with listeners.
“Attached to that melody
line is a lyric that is of a personal
nature, in the sense that
is mostly one person talking to
another person,” he said.
Several of those songs make
up the soundtrack of the upcoming
movie “Poets are the
Destroyers,” for which Hopkins
also wrote the screenplay.
The artist’s upcoming crime
novel, “The Perfect Fourth,”
also features a main character
that’s a Brooklyn pianist, although
this one has a two broken
hands, a dead ex-wife, and
a shady girlfriend who might be
a killer.
“New York Moment” will be
available on all major streaming
platforms on April 5.
“The Perfect Fourth” will be
available on noirnation.com in
late April.
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Call it stairwellness!
Brooklynites who have
self-quarantined to stop the
spread of the novel coronavirus
can still get fi t by imitating
Borough President
Eric Adams, who took to
social media Sunday night
to show off some of his own
workout routines in the spacious
foyer of Borough Hall.
The beep posted a pair
of videos on Twitter demonstrating
his fi tness routine,
which included doing pullups
while hanging from
stairs and jumping jacks on
the landing, all while blasting
rapper Jay Z’s song “As
One” through the governmental
building and ersatz
exercise emporium.
“I can’t get to the gym because
of coronavirus; all of
our gyms are closed,” Adams
said in the video, which
he posted just after 11 pm.
“You can still exercise right
in your own home, and this
is what I do while I’m in Borough
Hall.”
The Beep wrote: “Brooklyn!
We GOT this. During
this time it is MORE IMPORTANT
THAN EVER to
take care of our bodies and
our minds. I asked you to
telemeditate with me. Now
I’m asking you to telexercise
with me.”
The late-night broadcasts
came days after Adams
hosted a guided meditation
session with guru
Jon Aaron on his YouTube
channel, saying that Kings
Countians could all use the
peace of mind that comes
from checking in with their
spiritual selves.
“I’ve said it many times
and I will say it now: meditation
can help combat this,”
said Adams. “While we may
be feeling isolated socially
by our physical separation,
we can still come together
spiritually through meditation
and unity.”
Adams has frequently
professed the benefi ts of
keeping fi t, eating a vegan
diet, and remaining fl exible,
but despite his recent guides
on how to get swole and stay
calm while home, the 2021
mayoral contender has been
slow to let his staff work remotely
during the pandemic
outbreak.
He reportedly forced
nearly his entire 65-member
staff to commute to Borough
Hall until March 20, when
he said that he would follow
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s directive
to allow employees
to telecommute.
A spokesman confi rmed
that Adams is now letting
his staff work remotely.
“In response the Governor’s
order on Friday for
100 percent of the workforce
to remain at home, we instituted
an offi ce-wide telecommuting
policy effective
today,” Jonah Allon said on
March 22.
A heavily damaged bus sits near Ground Zero on September 11.
Courtesy of the New York Transit Museum Collection
Borough President Eric Adams broadcast a workout session from Borough
Hall on March 22. Photo via Twitter
JC Hopkins is releasing an album on
April 5, a book next month and a screenplay
this summer.
Photo courtesy of JC Hopkins
Working in
ONLINE VIEW
Jazz artist creates music, movies, and a murder mystery
Beep shares workout videos
from Borough Hall steps
Man of many talents
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/www.bkwater-fronthistory.COURIER
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/www.brooklyn-museum.org
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/www.nytransitmuseum.org
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/www.nytransitmuseum.org
/www.youtube
/noirnation.com
