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Raise the Roof of the Town Hall with They Might Be Giants, Nada Surf & Charles Bissell of the Wrens!

Join us for the Raise the Roof Benefit Concert to help fund the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center. NAG and the People's Firehouse need to raise almost $2 million to make the former Engine 212 into a building that will be a new civic engine for the neighborhood by housing a variety of important community services and offer a new community performance venue/meeting space. Help us make the dream a reality and join us...

Wednesday October 28th at the Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 North 6th St, btween Wythe and Kent.
Doors at 8p, show at 9p
Buy tickets now: General Admission $25, VIP Tickets $75

They Might Be Giants
Charles Bissell of the Wrens
Nada Surf (acoustic)

These are local bands that rarely play in the neighborhood, so this is your chance to see them, while helping us kick off our fundraising campaign for the Town Hall.

Tickets are $25 general admission, and there are a limited number of $75 VIP tickets. The VIP tickets allow access to a special seating area and free wine and food from Red Tail Ridge Winery and The Garden.

More information about the show is on the Music Hall of Williamsburg's site.

You can buy tickets:
-Online via Ticketmaster
-At the Music Hall of Williamsburg (Sat 11a-6p) or Mercury Lounge (Mon-Sat 12-7p)
-At Teddy's (96 Berry Street @ North 8th Street)

The show will have special guests, games of skill, art happenings, and other exciting things--get your tickets now!

June 4: Brooklyn Day & Rent Party at Teddy's Bar & Grill

Thursday, June 4th, from 7pm on, celebrate Brooklyn Day at Teddy's (N8th & Berry Street), with a night of all Brooklyn music, hosted by D.J. "d", Borough President Marty Markowitz, and special guests, including legendary Brooklyn recording artist, "Set-It-Off" Strafe, spinning his own mixes, Councilman David Yassky and other borough celebs.

It is also Teddy's monthly Rent Party, where raffle sales benefit, 50 % to the winner, for their rent, and 50% to the Town Hall building around the corner. Raffle tickets sell for $2 each, or 3 for $5.00.

NAG Town Hall: Thu March 26th 7:00pm

It's time for YOU to get involved!

Join Long-Time & New Residents at a

NAG Town Hall Meeting

Thursday, March 26, 7:00pm

Stop Subway & Bus Cuts

Fight for New Parks

Save Our Affordable Housing

Make Streets Safer for Everyone

Keep Our Neighborhood Diverse

Location: Swinging Sixties Senior Center
211 Ainslie Street @ Manhattan Ave (Map)

Find out more about NAG's 2009 organizing agenda for
affordable housing, open space, better transportation
and preserving our unique community.

Questions?
Contact the NAG office at 718-384-2248 or info@nag-brooklyn.org

Join us February 3rd to build the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center

On Thanksgiving Day 1975, the City told the firefighters of Engine 212 in Williamsburg it was going to close because of the city's dire fiscal crisis. Within hours, a crowd of 300 local residents gathered in front of the firehouse to prevent the city from removing the equipment from the firehouse to close it down. People stayed there around the clock for the next 16 months until the City agreed to keep it open. The firehouse was ultimately closed in 2003, but NAG and the People's Firehouse have been awarded the building to develop it into a community center.

We need your help to raise the funds to renovate the building and make the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center a reality. When completed, the facilty will provide affordable office and meeting space for community organizations, create a street-level exhibition space for local cultural and arts organizations, and commemorate FDNY Company #212 and other local history.

Join us Tuesday February 3rd at 6pm to get started fundraising from the community on this project. We need to harness the full creativity and civic spirit of the neighborhood to make this a reality.
We will meet at Union Pool-- 484 Union Ave at Meeker Ave

Other Upcoming Events

Our Open Space working group is dedicated to fighting for more parks and access to the waterfront in Greenpoint and Williamsburg.
Join us February 9th at 7pm at Green Oaks Club, 179 Green Street between McGuinness and Manhattan in Greenpoint.

Our Transportation working group is starting a road safety campaign for bikers and drivers and fighting the proposed cuts in local subway and bus services.
Join us February 12th at 7pm at the NAG Office, 101 Kent Avenue at North 8th Street across from the State Park.

More blogging about the town hall

Joe Jackson has a write up of the town hall with a short video that gives you the flavor of the event.

More Town Hall Coverage

The Greenpoint Gazette gives us a view of the recent NAG Town Hall meeting.

Irene Palmese, a longtime resident of Williamsburg who has lived in the neighborhood for over 40 years, agreed.

"I realize that there are major changes going on in the neighborhood, and so we too must make some changes," Palmese said. "New and old residents, we all have common problems and concerns. There has got to be multi-generational involvement in the easing some of the pressure. I just don't want to lose our sense of community altogether. I don't want this neighborhood to become overly commercialized. I don't want to live in a Times Square environment."

On the other end of the spectrum, new resident Blair Blanchard, who has lived in Greenpoint for less than one year, also showed up to the meeting, ready to get involved and try to ease some of the tension between old and new residents that often comes with the territory of any rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.

"I have lots of questions about the neighborhood and I'd like to be a part of the answer," Blanchard explained. "There is a lot of tension in this area. For example, I never go into Polish businesses, and I'm sure they view me a certain way too. But I like that it's diverse here, and I want to make sure that I'm part of this dialogue too."

The Greenpoint/Williamsburg Courier talked to a couple of our organizers:

Allison Davis, who learned about NAG while she was volunteering during a voter registration drive at McCarren Pool, was interested in NAG's work on a variety of community issues.

"I like how they combine open spaces with transportation issues, tenant advocacy, and quality-of-life issues," Davis said. "It's really nice to be able to address everything in one place."

Alison Levy, an art curator, was similarly interested in community development and wanted to work with NAG before she is priced out of Williamsburg.

"All these different communities, old and new, have a lot of work to do to respect each other and I want to be a part of that," Levy said.

Thank You

Thanks to the 100+ people who came to the town hall meeting Thursday! The event was made into a small miracle of civic dialogue because there was so much listening and patience--which is a rare thing these days.

We heard from Executive Director Peter Gillespie about the history of NAG and then testimony from several people about problems they have been experiencing with bike safety, with construction and quality-of-life, with transportation, and with affordable housing. Then we broke into small groups tasked with answering the question: "What three issues do you want to work with NAG on over the next year?" Then the groups reported back, and we finished with enough time to make it home or to a bar to watch the VP debate.

Here's what a couple people said to me after the meeting:

"It was pretty great listening to all of the residents in our group talk about their concerns for the neighborhood. In fact, it was empowering."

"I haven't seen a meeting get that range of age groups in a room since a Make the Road New York meeting."

Next steps
We hope to report back with an organizing agenda based on the dialogue shortly after the November election. We will follow up with a working meeting to get this initiative going.

Also if you have any photos, send them our way--our email is in the sidebar.

Coverage in the blogs
Williamsburg is Dead
Brooklyn 11211
Under the BQE


A special thanks to:

• Our new organizers--Allison, Alison, Wilneida, Gregor, Alexandra, and Emily--who got everyone to the event who got everyone to the event by tirelessly promoting it.
  
• Holy Ghost Ukranian Church for hosting the meeting and Ed Bartosiewicz who arranged for the space.
• Teddy's Bar & Grill for donating the sound system and Union Beer Distributors for printing the banner gratis.
  
• Our partners in the affordable housing collaborative who participated in the meeting-- David Pagan from Los Sures, Del and Doug Teague from the People's Firehouse.
• Our friends Dewey Thompson and Trina McKeever from GWAPP and Mike Hoffman from Newtown Barge Park Pals.
• The Greenline, the Greenpoint Reformed Church and all our blogger pals for helping to promote the event.
• And of course, our great board and hard-working staff (Peter, Michelle, and Ryan) who made sure the event ran smoothly.
  

Photos by Alexandra Sweet