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Paint the town red: The singers in “Under the Streetlamp”
will serenade Brooklynites with doo-wop music, at
On Stage at Kingsborough on Nov. 9. Eric Morgensen
Full harmonic
Retro band will croon hits of the 1950s
By Ben Verde Oh, what a night!
The retro rock ’n’ roll group
Under the Streetlamp will bring
its throwback tunes and shiny suits to
Manhattan Beach next weekend for an
evening of doo-wop, soul, and golden
oldies. The brightly dressed four-piece,
performing at On Stage at Kingsborough
on Nov. 9, will perform a set jammed
with hits from the middle of the 20th
century, in hopes of taking audience
members back to the carefree days
of their youth, said one of the band’s
founding members.
“It’s an opportunity for the audience
to forget their troubles and remember
where they were when they first heard
it,” said Shonn Wiley.
The band’s four vocalists, including
Wiley and his bandmates Eric Gutman,
David Larsen, and Brandon Wardell,
say that they aim to please baby boomer
music lovers by focusing on chart toppers
from their youth, including Elvis, Beach
Boys, Tom Jones, the Beatles and Roy
Orbison. Fans of those artists have few
options in live entertainment, said Wiley.
“If you look at the modern
entertainment industry, they’re really
underserved,” said Wiley.
Each of the singers has appeared
in various musicals, both on and off
Broadway, but the first time their paths
crossed was in 2011, when they were each
cast in a Chicago production of “Jersey
Boys,” the musical dramatization of the
rise to fame of Frankie Valli and the
Four Seasons. The performers worked
together so well that they decided to
break off and form their own show. They
decided on throwback tunes because they
all shared the same nostalgia for the
music of their parents’ generation, said
Wiley – “That music was the soundtrack
to every car trip,” he said.
The band is named for the Brooklyn
phenomenon of 1950s doo-wop groups
harmonizing under streetlamps, but they
also draw on the music of later decades.
A different member takes the lead for
each song, playing to their strengths
for the corresponding genres. Larson,
a tenor, covers most of the rock songs,
while Wardell, who Wiley describes as
having “incredible range,” handles the
older crooner tunes.
Between the four leads, who are
backed up by a full band, the show covers
a wide range of popular music, pulling
from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, said Wiley.
“We have a pretty eclectic evening of
music planned,” he said.
Under the Streetlamp at On Stage at
Kingsborough 2001 Oriental Blvd. at
Oxford Street in Manhattan Beach, (718)
368–5596, www.onstageatkingsborough.
org. Nov. 9 at 8 pm. $34–$39.
Your entertainment
guide Page 37
Police Blotter ..........................8
Wellness .................................29
Letters ....................................34
HOW TO REACH US
COURIER L 2 IFE, NOV. 1-7, 2019
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Somebody lend them a hand!
Brooklyn’s more than century
old library system is
feeling its age, and the borough’s
beloved book lender is
struggling under the weight
of decades-old buildings that
require multimillion-dollar
renovations.
The city has committed
an unprecedented $278 million
in capital funding to prop
up Brooklyn Public Library
over the next 10 years, but the
book lender remains $247 million
shy of meeting its repairs
quota, and experts say only
the taxpayers can prevent
Brooklyn’s beloved libraries
from literally falling apart.
“We’re an old city, an aging
city, and the library is
no exception,” said Eli Dvorkin
of the Manhattan-based
economic policy think tank
Center for an Urban Future.
“No matter how you slice and
dice it, the city has to invest
more.”
The nation’s sixth-largest
book-lending system, Brooklyn
Public Library consists
of 59 branches with an average
age of more than 60 years
old. One of its most senior
branches, the Andrew Carnegie
built Pacifi c Branch in
Park Slope, debuted in 1904
and suffers from nearly $12
million in unfunded repairs,
including interior and exterior
renovations, along with
needed heating and electrical
upgrades.
Meanwhile, the Williamsburg
branch on Division Avenue
has a $14.7 million shortfall,
the Sheepshead Bay
branch needs $10.6 million
for drainage repairs, air conditioning
upgrades, and rent,
and the DeKalb branch on
Bushwick Avenue requires
$9.4 million for general repairs
inside and out.
Worst of all is the library’s
grand Central Branch in
Prospect Heights, which the
library lists as requiring
$63.5 million worth of “various
improvements.”
These unfunded repair
tabs are what remain after
considering the nearly $280
million in public funds the
city will provide the library
system between 2020 and
2029, most of which is being
allocated towards small, easily
managed projects, such as
fi xing roofs or air-conditioning,
and not overhauling decades
old structures, according
to a senior fi nance offi cial
with the organization.
“We have lots of piecemeal
projects,” said Karen Sheehan,
the library’s executive
vice president for fi nance and
administration. “We don’t
have a reserve of capital dollars
that are earmarked for
the major overhauls.”
And in lieu of another
$200–300 million taxpayerfunded
windfall, Brooklyn
Public Library has been
forced to explore alternative
strategies for generating revenue,
including some deals
that readers have found unsavory.
In 2014, the book lender sold
the historic Brooklyn Heights
branch at Cadman Plaza West
for $52 million to developer
Hudson Companies , which
The Brooklyn Public Library faces a whopping $247 million in unmet repairs.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
razed the building in 2017 and
is in the process of erecting a
38-story luxury condo tower,
which will feature a threestory
library branch at its
base come 2020.
The deal relieved the library
system of an ailing
branch and paved the way for
construction of a new one, but
local bookworms nonetheless
condemned the scheme
as a deal with the devil, and
accused library executives of
pandering to developers.
“The public’s interest has
not been the primary concern,”
Pearl Hochstadt, a
Brooklyn Heights resident
since 1953, said back in 2014.
“There’s been too much consideration
for real estate interests.”
Other partnerships have
been less controversial. The
library system partnered
with a nonprofi t affordable
housing developer, the Fifth
Avenue Committee, in 2016
to demolish the old Sunset
Park Library and redevelop
the site on Fourth Avenue to
feature a much larger branch,
along with 49 units of affordable
housing due in 2020.
“The old library was about
12,000 square feet and was one
of the busiest in our system,”
said David Woloch, executive
vice president for external
affairs at Brooklyn Public
Library. “It was essentially
bursting at the seams and
we’re going to get a library
that’s about 20,000 square
feet.”
The library is also taking
advantage of a 2011 settlement
with Exxonmobil over an oil
spill in Newtown Creek to replace
its Greenpoint branch,
and has worked out a deal
with Brooklyn Children’ Museum
to move their Bower
Street branch into the Crown
Heights cultural institution.
But for all of Brooklyn Public
Library’s wheeling and
dealing, the book lender remains
buried under the weight
of aging buildings that need
immediate repairs, according
to Woloch, who claims the city
must act if it wants to salvage
a library system that isn’t getting
any younger.
“Rather than doing the
work in drips and drabs and
fi xing an air conditioner and
a couple of years later a roof
there, the smart way to do
this work — it requires planning
and it requires more
funding — is to do as much
of the work holistically,” he
said. “The longer we go without
tackling those needs the
larger they get.”
OVERDUE
REPAIRS
Brooklyn Public Library struggling to
meet $247 million funding shortfall
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