EVEN TODAY, BROOKLYN HEIGHTS is still a magnet for hardworking immigrants looking for a new life in America. Take SERGEY and ROBERT ISAKOV — for these brothers, born in Uzbekistan, cutting hair is a family tradition they have carried to the Heights. In their youth, both Sergey and Robert learned the trade from their grandfather…
TODAY AND TOMORROW, REV. ROGER McPHAIL, founder and senior pastor of Bay Ridge’s Gateway City Church, with his wife Teresa, will play host to the local arm of a global phenomenon: the mega-church annual leadership seminar originating at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill. McPhail’s church, now 18 years old, will be one..
WHEN LEIGH-TAYLOR SMITH competes in the 2009 Miss America pageant as Miss New York, she will own a debt of gratitude to Kimberly Thomas. With all the recent publicity surrounding the Miss Brooklyn contest, which Smith won before going on to become Miss New York, it is interesting to note that until this February, there..
SOME GREAT IDEAS COME TO Brooklyn via the Second City (that’s Chicago, for the uninitiated). Columbia Street/Red Hook entrepreneur artists LYNETTE and GEOFF WILEY were living in Chicago when something hit them: all their artist friends were practicing in single rented studios — a solitary creative existence. Thus they came up with the idea called..
FOR LESLIE LEWIS, the phrase “pro bono publico” (“for the public good”) runs as the undertone of his current life. “I feel like the king of pro bono,” says Lewis, the volunteer criminal justice liaison for Borough Prez. Marty Markowitz, and perennial president of the 84th Precinct Community Council. “But not because I’m a saint…
CREATING JIN JIN WAS A LABOR of love and self-discovery for Brooklyn Heights resident GRACE CHANG. In Jin Jin the Dragon, Chang’s first children’s book, the young golden dragon seeks to answer the question, ‘What am I?’ Toward the end of the writing process, Chang realized she had once tried to answer that very question…
MICHAEL WEISS IS A MAN who loves to talk about the history of retail in Downtown Brooklyn. In its heyday, Fulton Street was the fourth largest retail center in the United States, boasting such huge department stores as Abraham & Straus, Martin’s and Mays. Clerks wore white gloves at Martin’s and customers were given fancy..
GRAVELLY VOICED DON YULE always wanted to sing, but didn’t think it was an option for his professional future. Instead, he decided to major in mechanical engineering. Thank goodness, for the sake of New York’s opera scene, that he soon decided to toss practicality aside and finish his undergrad years with a major in music…
WHEN PEOPLE SEE THE NAME JACQUES JONES, they might be confused for two reasons: first, Jacque is actually a female name pronounced “Jackie”; second, when her name appears in the context of her work, they might assume she has died with past generations. Why? Because she writes hymns, an art that people associate with previous..
WHEN LOCAL ARTIST DANIEL MICHALIK was asked to create furniture from alternative materials for his graduate thesis, he started experimenting, looking for something new, in large-enough dimensions for a chair. He struck proverbial gold with cork, an unconventional material that he — like most people — knew almost nothing about. “I researched everything about it,”..