TURKISH DELIGHT
New venue Sultan Room opens in Bushwick
Pretty in pink: Amanda Banks performed at the Sultan Room’s opening on June 22.
John Carlucci
The doggy days of summer
COURIER L 44 IFE, JUNE 28-JULY 4, 2019 24-7
The best reads
— handpicked by
some of the best
Bklyn bookstores
Word’s picks:
“Run River,” by Joan Didion
This novel is Joan Didion’s first,
marof
a dishy exposure of the bleak marriage
of two wealthy scions of
es.
he
ic
g
f
California land-owning families.
Falling somewhere between “The
Great Gatsby,” in its nostalgic
depiction of troubled, striving
privilege, and “The Grapes of
Wrath,” as a crucial entry in
the mythology of California.
As an almost 60-year-old
novel, alongside Didion’s better
known works like “Play
It As It Lays,” “Slouching
Towards Bethlehem,” and “The he Year Year of
of
Magical Thinking,” it can stand outside the shadow of the
author’s reputation as a truly gorgeous novel.
— Jeff Waxman, Word 126 Franklin St. at Milton Street in
Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096, www.wordbookstores.com .
Community Bookstore’s pick:
“The Organs of Sense,” by Adam
Ehrlich Sachs
A strange satire of historical
rical
ing
and
bt.
a
o-
,
fiction that is also a compelling
riff on the limits of science the dubious power of doubt.
Sachs spins his yarn around a
meeting between the philosopher
Leibniz and an unnamed,eccentric, and blind astronomer
who enlists his help in
making calculations of an
upcoming eclipse. What follows
is something like “The
Name Of The Rose” meets
“Waiting For Godot.” It is delightful.
ghtful
— Samuel Partal, Community Bookstore 43 Seventh Ave.
between Carroll Street and Garfield Place in Park Slope,
(718) 783–3075, www.commu nityb ookst ore.net .
Greenlight Bookstore’s pick:
“Travelers,” by Helon Habila
Set mostly in Germany, but
,but
the
el is
omon
also all around Europe, the
main character in this novel is
a Nigerian man who accompanies
his American wife on
an extended trip to Berlin for
her artist’s residency. While
le
there he loses traction and
d
drifts, meandering through
h
the book and crossing
paths with refugees across
all stages of migrant life.
This book is a quiet and
thoughtful meditation on
migration, refugees, identity,ty,
home, a lack of home, and what what it it means means to to be
be
from a place.
— Rebecca Fitting, Greenlight Bookstore 686 Fulton
St. between S. Elliott Place and S. Portland Avenue in Fort
Greene, (718) 246–0200, www.greenlightbookstore.com .
By Chandler Kidd It’s got Room to move!
A kitschy new event complex
inspired by a Midwestern supper
club’s idea of the Middle East
opened its three doors in Bushwick
this week. The Sultan Room, a twofloor
live music venue and dance
spot, opened on June 22, takeaway
spot Doner Kebab began serving
shwarma the next day; and sit-down
restaurant the Turk’s Inn planned to
open on June 27.
The owners of the three-part biz,
lifelong friends Varun Kataria and
Tyler Erickson, see the project as
giving new life to a beloved spot
from their youth in Wisconsin — the
Turk’s Inn supper club.
“When we heard that it closed
and the contents of Turk’s were being
auctioned off, we plotted a scheme to
give it a second life,” Erickson said.
The pair bought many brightly
colored artifacts from the supper club,
which originally opened in 1934, and
have decorated their new restaurant
in its over-the-top style.
But music venue the Sultan
Room, named after a lounge in the
Wisconsin club, has more of a ’70s
glam vibe, with black leather banquettes
and sunken gold dance floor
— along with a painting of an Arab
man leading a camel.
The Sultan Room is geared
towards music lovers of all stripes,
and attendees can expect a big tent of
musical genres, including alternative,
house, techno, rock, pop and more,
said Erickson.
“Certain venues in New York tend
to carve out a niche for themselves —
we are not sticking to that format,”
he said. “We want to be a tapestry
and include bits and pieces of things.
For example, we might have an R&B
night, but that doesn’t mean we are an
R&B club.”
The Sultan Room will focus on
local dee-jays, such as Naeem, to cultivate
a strong sense of community
for Brooklynites, said Kataria, while
adding a wide variety of live music
in hopes of becoming a neighborhood
favorite.
“The nightlife gives consistency
to the Sultan Room. The variability
and element of surprise comes from
the live music programming. We
want to keep people on their toes,”
Kataria said.
The complex features three
distinct spaces, each with its own
entrance. The first door brings visitors
to the Doner Kebab shop, the
middle door leads to the Turk’s Inn
restaurant, and the last door, which
is adorned with brass, leads to the
Sultan Room.
The Sultan Room 234 Starr St.
between Wyckoff and Irving avenues,
(718) 215–0025, www.thesultanroom.
com). $10–$15.
The Turk’s Inn (www.theturksinn.
com). Opening on June 27; Mon-Thu,
5:30–11:30 p.m.; Fri-Sat, 5:30 p.m.-
midnight; Sun 5:30–10 p.m.
The Doner Kebab (www.turksinnkebab.
com). Open Tue–Thu; noon–10
p.m. Sat-Sunday noon– 2 a.m.
By Bill Roundy
The weather is getting warm, and
Brooklynites have been dying
to go outside. So start
your weekend at everyone’s
favorite boneyard,
Green-Wood
Cemetery! Skip
the usual entrance
on Fifth Avenue in
favor of the back
door, at the Fort
Hamilton Gatehouse
(Fort Hamilton Parkway
at Micieli Place in Windsor
Terrace, www.green-wood.com),
where the Morbid Anatomy
Museum will throw its Summer
Garden Party starting at 7 p.m. on
Friday. Your $15 ticket will give you
a chance to grab a drink, listen to
music, and mingle with artists from
the Museum’s exhibit “Heaven,
Hell, and Purgatory: Visions of the
Afterlife in the Catholic Tradition,”
which closes on Sunday. If you
want to skip the party, you
can visit the Gatehouse
on Saturday or Sunday
from noon to 5 p.m.
and check out the
exhibit for free.
On Saturday,
get ready for an
outdoor concert
in Prospect Park!
The Bric Celebrate
Brooklyn! Festival is
bringing plenty of great artists
to the Prospect Park Bandshell
(enter at Ninth Street and Prospect
Park West in Park Slope, www.
bricartsmedia.org/cb), but we are
most excited for tonight’s guest:
rock goddess Liz Phair, who broke
through with “Exile in Guyville”
in 1993 and has been consistently
awesome ever since. The free concert
will start at 7 p.m. with sets
from opening acts Ted Leo and the
Monsters and Brooklyn pop-rocker
Caroline Rose.
And on Sunday, we are going
to spend the whole day in Carroll
Park (Court Street between Carroll
and President streets in Carroll
Gardens). From 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. we
will visit the good, good boys of the
Bark Avenue Adopt-a-thon (www.
badassbrooklynanimalrescue.com),
who will walk a red carpet and pose
in style. And if you already have
a canine companion, you can try
a class in dog-dancing, step into a
pooch photo booth, and send your
pup across an agility course. After
the adoption extravaganza, stick
around for this season’s final, free
production of “Romeo and Juliet”
from Smith Street Stage. The starcrossed
lovers will take the stage
inside Carroll Park at 7:30 p.m.
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