4
BROOKLYN WEEKLY, MAY 24, 2020
Irina Ginzburg (Upa Inspace) performs at last year’s Coney Island Comedy Festival. Irina Ginzburg
This newspaper is not responsible for typographical errors in ads beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2020 by Brooklyn Courier
Life LLC. The content of this newspaper is protected by Federal copyright law. This newspaper, its advertisements, articles, and photographs may not be reproduced, either in
whole or part, without permission in writing from the publisher except brief portions for purposes of review or commentary consistent with the law. Postmaster, send address
changes to Courier Life, One MetroTech Center North, Third Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
BY ROSE ADAMS
Cooped-up comics will
fi nally have some reprieve
from the grim days of quarantine
when the Coney Island
Comedy Festival hosts
the fi rst ever “One Liner”
Competition on June 1 —
when they’ll solicit the funniest
zingers from Brooklyn
and beyond to lighten the
city’s tense mood, said the
festival’s founder.
“We want to keep the
laughter going, we want to
get everyone involved, and
we want people to think
about something else,” said
Irina Ginzburg, a stand up
comedian who goes by Upa
Inspace. “I think laughter is
just good for everybody.”
Participants can submit
a joke under 30 words to the
competition’s website anytime
between June 1 and
Sept. 1, and a panel of judges
— including stand up comedian
Leighann Lord, David
Letterman, comedian Eddie
Brill, and Miss Coney Island
2020 Laura Lee Anderson
— will vote for the winner,
which be announced on
Sept. 12, Ginzburg said.
Prizes include tickets to
stand-up comedy shows, music
from a Brooklyn record
company, and the festival’s
merchandise — including
cups and a poster — among
other goodies, Ginzburg
said.
Ginzburg decided to host
the competition not because
of her love for one-liners, but
rather because she hates
them and hopes the contest
will teach her to love short
jokes.
“I really don’t like oneliners,”
she said. “I’m a
comedian myself, so I’m
hoping I’ll fi nd one in this
competition.”
The competition comes
one year after Ginzburg
founded the annual Coney
Island Comedy Festival —
a two-day stand-up comedy
festival at Ruby’s Bar and
Grill. Ginzburg said she began
the festival after realizing
how few stand-up opportunities
there were in
southern Brooklyn.
“We started the festival
because there’s no comedy
in south Brooklyn, there’s
no stand-up comedy,” said
Ginzburg, a refugee from
the former Soviet Union who
grew up in Coney Island and
Bensonhurst. “But historically,
there is a lot of comedy
there, so we wanted to bring
it back.”
Ginzburg thought that
Manhattan’s increasingly
corporate atmosphere
meant that the underground
stand-up needed a new home
— and that southern Brooklyn’s
no-frills attitude made
it the perfect place for young,
up-and-coming funnymen.
“I feel someone has to
be really strong when they
perform in south Brooklyn
— they’re rough,” she said.
“They don’t laugh when it’s
not funny.”
Ginzburg had planned
for the Coney Island Comedy
Festival to run for four days
this year. But when the coronavirus
outbreak preemptively
cancelled those plans,
Ginzburg decided to replace
the stand-up show with an
online one-liner competition
and turn many of the
festival’s would-be performers
into judges.
Participants, Ginzburg
clarifi ed, can submit any
type of short joke they want
to the contest, as long as they
follow one rule.
“It’s just got to be funny,”
she said.
Submit your one-liner to
the Coney Island Comedy
Festival online at coneyislandcomedyfestival.
nyc/oneliner
submission anytime before
Sept. 1. Free.
Knock knock
Coney Island comedy festival
debuts one-liner joke competition
BY JESSICA PARKS
Southern Brooklyn will
see four new COVID-19 testing
sites in the coming
weeks, Mayor Bill de Blasio
announced.
“Lack of widespread testing
was our Achilles heel
from day one, but we’re rewriting
that story every day,”
the mayor said during his
daily coronavirus briefi ng.
“Our effort to test and trace
every New Yorker in need
of a test is coming together
at lightning speed, giving us
the tools we need to defeat
the virus once and for all.”
The borough’s eight active
testing sites will be
joined by four new ones by
May 25, with the fi rst one
slated to open in Midwood on
March 18 alongside another
new site in Manhattan. The
other three locations — in
Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and
Canarsie — will open the
following week along with
seven others across the city.
“Again, this is going to
keep growing,” said de Blasio.
“The more capacity we
have, the more labs we bring
into the game, the more we’ll
keep building this program
out.”
The free testing will be
available to anyone with
symptoms of coronavirus —
regardless of age — as well as
anyone who may have come
in contact with a confi rmed
COVID-19 patient or who
works in a residential home
like a shelter or senior care
facility.
The 12 additional
sites, along with the existing
28 testing locations, will
bring the city’s testing capacity
up to 10,700 tests per day
— more than halfway to the
mayor’s goal of 20,000 tests
per day by May 25.
“We are now confi dent
in that goal. In fact, we want
to beat that goal,” de Blasio
said Thursday. “We believe
that more and more testing
capacity can be put into play
quickly, and that’s going to
allow us to then test people,
do the follow-up tracing, contact
tracing, and for those
who need to be in a hotel,
make that hotel available to
them.”
Four new testing sites for south BK
The four new southern Brooklyn
sites will be located at:
• 1223 Coney Island Ave., between Avenue H and
Avenue I, in Midwood
• Brooklyn Army Terminal at 80 58th St., at the intersection
Third Avenue, in Sunset Park
• 8511 5th Ave., between 85th and 86th streets, in
Bay Ridge
• 6565 Flatlands Ave., at the intersection of Ralph
Avenue, in Canarsie
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson