Kylie Jane Wakefield

No Bills Presents Voices and Stories of North Brooklyn

There is no question that North Brooklyn has a fascinating history and some of the most interesting characters in all of New York City. Jerry “Tombstones” Ragusa sells both grave monuments and bread in his shop on Graham Avenue. Fred Deluca, who never took any lessons, but sang in doo-wop groups on street corners. And of course, the community has its own royalty including neighborhood activist Leonora Russo, anointed the “Queen of Williamsburg.”

These voices could all be heard emerging from construction sites around the neighborhood as part of No Bills, a project 11 months in the making, that opened last Sunday, July 24th. Presented by the North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition (nbART), the sound installation by artist Nick Yulman is in three locations that are currently undergoing renovation: McCarren Park Pool (Lorimer Street between Driggs and Bayard), Ventana244/Art Space (244 North 6th Street between Roebling and Havemeyer), and Triangle Court (Borinquen Place and Keap Street).

On the day of the opening, nbART Executive Director Katie Denny drove visitors to the three sites, where stories could be heard at the push of a button, or, in the case of Ventana244, after sitting on the outside bench. Yulman said, “We’re very pleased with the turnout. There have been a lot of logistical things to work out and to have all of these stories playing out on the street is very exciting.”

Each of the locations contains about five related stories on the history of the community. The interviews at Ventana244 deal with the People’s Firehouse/Engine 212 and the 16-month sit in that occurred back in the 1970’s. At Triangle Court, two young adults discuss growing up amongst “druggies and crackheads” in South Williamsburg and how they played on the street to have fun and feel their own kind of high. The interviewees at McCarren Park Pool, where construction is expected to be completed next spring, talk about its closing in 1984 and the crime and racial tensions that surrounded it.

In total, Yulman collected 30 interviews. According to Denny, nbART hopes to receive $2,000 in funding from their Kickstarter campaign and expand the project to American Playground in Greenpoint and to Bushwick Inlet Park. The group was able to collect their plethora of sound bites through outreach with Community Board 1, Open Space Alliance, the use of listservs, and by walking around at summer outdoor events.

There was a prominent theme in many of the interviews: North Brooklyn has changed, and mostly for the better. However, in some ways, the neighborhood residents have had to pay the price, whether it’s been a trade off between gentrification and crime, or the proliferation of new faces, which has broken up the tight bond the community once shared. Last March, Yulman told the Greenpoint Gazette that the construction sites represent the ever-changing neighborhood and that they are “temporarily blank, suspended between past and future.”

Despite the changes, it’s clear that North Brooklyn remains a strong community that holds up even in the face of change. Councilmember Steve Levin, who has been serving the Greenpoint / Williamsburg neighborhoods for over five years, congratulated the group for its effort to reveal the most intriguing stories surrounding this theme. “[No Bills] is a great public art project that literally gives voice to the people, past and present, who have helped make North Brooklyn the remarkable place that it is today. These recollections, including the sagas detailing the heroic efforts of the community to fight the closing of Engine 212 in the 1970’s and the many layered history of the soon to be reopened McCarren Pool, along with other personal stories, testify to the strength and character of this community.”

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