WATERFRONT PROPERTY: Carolina Salguero and Peter Rothenberg of PortSide New York at the new “Pandemic
Pop-up Park” with the Mary A. Whalen in the background. Photo by Kevin Duggan
COURIER LIFE, JULY 31-AUGUST 6, 2020 15
Red Hook group opens ‘Pandemic
Pop-up Park’ at Atlantic Basin
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Let there be park!
A group of Red Hook dogooders
have transformed
four parking spaces at Pier
11 on the Atlantic Basin into
a small makeshift park. The
maritime advocacy group
PortSide New York debuted
the “Pandemic Pop-up Park”
on July 17 to give locals more
room to hang out and let their
kids play amid the COVID-19
outbreak, according to the
head organizer.
“People are coming outside
and just looking for space.
You see people lying down, sitting,
or picnicking on asphalt,
they’re perching on Jersey
Barriers,” said PortSide’s executive
director Carolina Salguero.
“We had all this extra
furniture and toys, so we put
it outside.”
The little oasis lies at the
wharf adjacent to the Depression
era oil tanker the Mary A.
Whalen, out of which Salguero
runs the organization advocating
for the city’s harbors.
The old vessel — berthed
near the city’s Red Hook ferry
stop — often hosted programming
aboard, but is currently
shut down to visitors due to the
pandemic.
Ahead of the park’s launch,
Salguero asked the operator
of the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal,
Ports America, to use
their four parking spaces for
the small space.
Open areas like the popup
park are especially needed
in Red Hook, where the Ball
Fields at Bay Street have been
closed to clean up historic lead
contamination, and around
the sprawling New York City
Housing Authority complexes,
where Superstorm Sandy repairs
forced city offi cials to
chop down trees and close
playgrounds.
Some of the waterfront
nabe’s businesses and residents
kicked in with goods and
donations, including nearby
Swedish furniture giant Ikea,
which donated umbrellas to
shade park goers, a Long Island
woman who sent frisbees,
and another charitable person
that gifted PortSide balls and
chalk for kids to play with.
They have set up picnic tables,
sprinklers, along with
ship artifacts against the backdrop
of a cool sea breeze and
views of the New York Harbor,
according to Salguero, who has
also spruced up the asphalt lot
with plants donated by a local
who moved out and had a rooftop
gardens’ worth of greenery
to give away.
The space hosted its fi rst
concerts during opening weekend,
starting with bluegrass
troupe Kings Country, which
will come back for an encore
this coming Sunday, July 22.
“In the way that people are
fi nding spaces and seeking out
spaces, musicians are fi nding
this,” Salguero said. “They
don’t have paid gigs or even
places to play because concert
halls and pubs are shut.”
Months before the pop-up
park opened, Salguero started
posting nightly livestreams on
Facebook of the port’s sunset
to give pent-up Brooklynites a
scenic view of the waterfront.
The waterway advocate,
who herself had a mild case of
the coronavirus in late March,
said that sharing the evening
ritual online has helped her
get through the global health
crisis.
“Being with other people
and trying to channel the greatness
of the skies, it was sustaining
for me too, it worked both
ways,” she said.
The park’s opening coincided
with the recently-debuted
weekend ferry service
from Red Hook to Governors
Island, and the space has become
a choice spot to hang out
while waiting for the waterborne
crossing Salguero said.
She hopes the park will also
attract more of the neighborhood’s
public housing residents
to the waterfront and the ferry,
which they can ride for free.
“We’re trying to get the
word out to the communities
that have not come to the waterfront,
especially NYCHA
developments,” she said.
The cruise terminal is
shuttered until mid-September,
she said, but she hopes the
area will continue to fl ourish
in the months ahead.
“It’s a space built with community
love, love that PortSide
has for the people and the
people have for each other,”
she said.
BY BEN VERDE
Fiddler on the move!
Park Slope musician Melody
Allegra Berger is offering
musical telegrams to coopedup
Brooklynites, giving locals
the perfect way to brighten the
days of the quarantined music
lovers in their lives.
“It’s a way to spread joy in
this crazy time that we’re in,”
said Berger, who cooked up the
idea for the service, dubbed
“Stoop Serenades,” after performing
in a surprise outdoor
concert for a mutual friend
over the weekend of July 18,
and seeing how live music
could bring people together
during a time of isolation.
“It was well-received, all
the neighbors came out and
listened,” said Berger, who has
toured nationally and abroad
over the past decade.
Melody Allegra Berger was
my singing telegram!
Posted by Arielle Chorney
on Friday, July 17, 2020
After creating a Facebook
page and posting a video of the
fi rst performance, Berger said
she’s already lined up a few
more gigs.
The award-winning fi ddler
credits the appeal of her musical
telegram service to its analog
quaintness, and to a city
hungry for live music after
the cancellation of permitted
events and concerts until further
notice.
“Everyone has been missing
hearing live music that’s
not on a screen right now,” said
Berger, who has been teaching
violin lessons over Zoom
throughout the pandemic. “It’s
so old-fashioned and quaint
that it’s so appealing when
you’ve been existing on a
screen for most of your days.”
While indoor music is
off the table, musicians like
Berger have slowly and discreetly
started to migrate outdoors,
where the chance of
contracting the coronavirus
is considered low and spectators
have more room to spread
out. In Prospect Park, out-ofwork
musicians have staged
daily gigs at the boathouse,
while Flatbush jazz cats have
turned the Victorian porches
of Ditmas Park into stages.
For Brooklynites deprived
of live music, these spontaneous
outdoor concerts are more
appreciated than ever.
“People just seem enthralled,”
Berger said. “Which
is kind of the point, to spread
the joy one stoop at a time.”
“Stoop serenades” can be
booked at melodyfi ddler@
gmail.com or on Facebook.
Making space
Slope fi ddler off ers musical telegrams
BROOKLYN
Stringing us along
BOW CRAZY: Melody Allegra Berger is offering intimate outdoor concerts.
Melody Allegra Berger
/gmail.com