(718) 260–2500 Brooklyn Paper’s essential guide to the Borough of Kings November 22–28, 2019
DINING
Life of pies
Now everyone can get a seat at the Table!
Beloved pizza joint Table 87 has more than
doubled the size of its original Atlantic Avenue
location. The mini-chain, which also has spots
in Gowanus and in Industry City, has taken over
the office space next door, giving it room for
another coal oven, 70 new seats, and a 23-tap
bar serving beer and wine.
The expansion was sorely needed, said the
pizzeria’s owner, because the space had become
intolerably busy, with customers facing waits
of up to 90 minutes for a pie.
“People would wait, but for me, it was nauseating
to make people wait that long,” said
Thomas Cucco, a Bay Ridge native who now
lives in Midwood.
With the new space and a new oven — which
is devoted to delivery orders — he said that the
wait for a pizza is never more than 30 minutes,
and the restaurant can accommodate a lot more
people at one time. Its original dining room could
only hold about 20 people, said Cucco — and
it filled up quick.
“We were known as a boutique place — if
you got a seat, you were lucky,” he said.
The new space can hold up to 90 people, and
the extra dining area can also be reserved for
special occasions and for kids’ birthday parties,
said Cucco, something that was difficult to accommodate
before.
The new bar, which serves mostly Brooklyn
made brews, caters to those looking to stop
in for a quick beer and a slice, noted Robert
Cucco, operations manager for the chain and
son of the founder.
Table 87, named for its location at 87 Atlantic
Avenue, opened in 2012, when that stretch
of the avenue was fairly desolate, noted Thomas
Cucco.
But the completion of Brooklyn Bridge Park,
just a few blocks away, led to an increase in foot
traffic, and with new residential buildings set
to open soon on the Park’s Pier Six and in several
other locations nearby, he expects business
to keep increasing.
“I love the expansion of the neighborhood,”
said the elder Cucco. “When we opened, I knew
that Brooklyn Bridge Park was coming, and when
the Park came, the people came.”
Visit the newly expanded Table 87 87 Atlantic
Ave. between Hicks and Henry streets in
Brooklyn Heights, (718) 797–9300, www.table87.
com. Open Sun–The, 11:30 am–10 pm; Fri–Sat,
11:30 am–11 pm. — Bill Roundy
BURLESQUE
By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
Call it a clip show!
A new play looks at the central role
of the barber shop in the life of black
men around the world. “Barber Shop Chronicles,”
a British production making its New
York premiere at the Brooklyn Academy
of Music on Dec. 3, tracks a day in the
life of six different barber shops, showcasing
their importance as a place of bonding
and socializing between men. The shops
are scattered across Africa and London,
but they all have a similar atmosphere —
one that should feel familiar even to an
American audience, said one of the show’s
producers.
“There’s a real sense of community onstage,”
said Kate McGrath. “Hopefully everyone
who comes along will recognize
themselves or their father, their brother,
or their cousin.”
To prepare for the show, Nigerian-born
playwright and poet Inua Ellams spent time
in barber shops across Africa, talking to
the staff and customers. He created a story
that takes place on a single day in 2012,
starting at a barbershop in Lagos, Nigeria,
and visiting similar haircut establishments
in the African cities of Johannesburg, Accra,
Kampala, and Harare, and finally ending
in a shop in London, England, at the
close of the day.
Ellams found that the shops were places
where men felt at home, and were able to
discuss their troubles without fear of judgment.
The barber shop, he discovered, was
a good place for men to get their heads
examined.
“There was a growing awareness of
male mental health and a lack of spaces
THEATER
for those conversations to take place,”
McGrath said.
At each shop, the 12 members of the allblack,
all-male cast play different roles,
but they all watch the same soccer game,
and they have similar conversations, taking
on sports, fatherhood, politics, identity,
and immigration — along with a few
music and dance numbers.
Audience members can also join the
community on the stage. The director and
cast members will hang out onstage before
each performance, greeting and interacting
with the the audience while a dee-jay
plays, and making them feel like part of
the family.
“They’ll be welcomed into a space that
feels very open and friendly,” McGrath
said. “It’s a really great night out.”
Fresh nuts!
The holiday classic has gone rouge!
A Bushwick burlesque company has bounced
into the holiday season early, opening its annual
titillating holiday extravaganza last weekend.
Company XIV’s eighth iteration of “Nutcracker
Rouge,” which will run through Jan. 26, features
a baroque array of often scantily-clad performers
enacting an adult-only version of the beloved
19th-century ballet about a girl, her toy nutcracker,
and an indulgent land of sweets. This
time around, the show’s creator has added a new
character: a magician called “Al Cadabra,” who
emcees the action in the role of Uncle Drosselmeyer
and adds an extra dose of pizzazz.
“It’s a new, very magical element in the show,”
said Austin McCormick. “There are illusions,
and close up magic.”
The three-act, sensual spectacle will also feature
a brand new trapeze artist, along with returning
audience favorites, such as a spinning
Cyr wheel acrobat, an opera singer who performs
while suspended upside-down from the
ceiling, and a drag performer playing the largeskirted
Mother Ginger character in the Land of
Sweets. It all adds up to a extravagant spectacle
that is more than a simple strip-tease.
“Burlesque is an element of what we do, but
it’s not a traditional show, it’s a fusion of ballet,
opera, and an over-the-top design,” McCormick
said. “It’s a mashup of a lot of elements.”
While the audience feasts its eyes on the dazzling
display, they can indulge their palate with
a menu of holiday cocktails, including a peppermint
twist cognac, hot apple cider spiked
with absinthe, and champagne with brandy and
a bourbon-soaked cherry.
The show loosely follows the famous Russian
ballet’s structure and features music from
its traditional score by Tchaikovsky, but with
jazzy and contemporary remixes, according to
McCormick.
The dance aficionado said that he returns
to the piece every year to help fulfill a childhood
dream.
“Every dancer grows up doing the Nutcracker,
it always sparked my interest and I always wanted
to make my own version,” he said.
“Nutcracker Rouge” at Théâtre XIV 383
Troutman St. between Irving and Wyckoff avenues
in Bushwick, (866) 811–4111, www.companyxiv.
com. Running through Jan. 26 at various
times. $50–$195. — Kevin Duggan
By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
History has never been so
trashy!
A new book dives into the
Brooklyn’s filthy past, unearthing the
story of those who handled — and lived
among — New York City’s garbage.
The author of “Brooklyn’s Barren Island:
A Forgotten History,” said that
the immigrant and African-American
workers who lived on the trashfilled
island in the late 19th and early
20th centuries were overlooked even
while thousands of them toiled in service
to the city.
“People kind of ignored them —
they were seen as part of the garbage,”
said Miriam Sicherman, who will read
from her book at a Williamsburg bookstore
on Nov. 24.
The historian and elementary school
teacher first learned about Barren Island
from a book about garbage disposal,
and dug through old newspaper articles,
Courtesy of Miriam Sicherman
city records, and oral histories to
bring the island’s history to life.
Barren Island once floated off of
Marine Park, in the area still known
today as Dead Horse Bay. Black workers
began traveling to the island in the
1850s to process trash, and soon, their
families moved with them. Irish, German,
and Eastern European sanitation
Photo by Marc Brenner, BAM
workers followed, and by 1910, about
18,000 residents lived across the locale,
census data reports.
Life in Barren Island was not easy
— most of the inhabitants worked in
garbage and fishing factories, where
they processed dead horses, household
trash, and fish products. Government
agencies turned up their noses at the inhabitants,
and with no running water or
city fire department, blazes would frequently
devastate the community.
There were some upsides to living
off the grid, noted Sicherman. Locals
took advantage of the lack of government
oversight to sell booze without
regard for liquor laws, and they owned
semi-feral hogs decades after the city
had banned the animals, which served
both garbage-disposals and a source of
bacon. And the island immigrants had
more space than those crowded into tenements
in the Lower East Side.
“On the bright side, they had a lot of
freedom,” Sicherman argued.
That freedom lasted until the 1930s,
when the water around the island was
filled in, connecting the area to the
mainland and creating Floyd Bennet
Field. In 1936, city planner Robert Moses
kicked out the last remaining residents
to build the Marine Parkway
Bridge, and Barren Island was soon
forgotten.
“Brooklyn’s Barren Island” launch
party at Spoonbill and Sugartown
218 Bedford Ave. between N. Fourth
and N. Fifth streets in Williamsburg,
(718) 387-7322, www.spoonbillbooks.
com. Nov. 24 at 5 pm. Free.
A cut above ‘Barber Shop Chronicles’ looks at common threads
Dirty words
New book uncovers Brooklyn’s
infamous garbage-fi lled island
Photo by
The hair apparent: “Barber Shop Chronicles,” a play with songs and dances about male social spaces across the world, will make its New York premiere on Dec. 3 at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music.
“Barber Shop Chronicles” at BAM
Harvey Theater 651 Fulton St. between
Rockland and Ashland Places in Fort
Greene, (718) 636–4100, www.bam.org.
Dec. 3–6 at 7:30 pm. Dec. 7 at 2 pm and
7:30 pm. Dec. 8 at 3 pm. $35–$95.
Down and dirty: A new book examines the history of a garbagefilled
island that once housed a vibrant community.
Photo by Miriam Sicherman
Lost history: The book tells
long forgotten stories from the
island, which housed 18,000
people at its peak.
/www.spoonbillbooks
/www.compa-nyxiv.com
/www.compa-nyxiv.com
/www.compa-nyxiv.com
/www.table87
/www.bam.org
/www.table87
/www.spoonbillbooks
/www.bam.org