Search Results for: Orrie King

Friends, Brooklynites, Lend Me Your Books: Mellow Pages’ new book empire

December 8, 2013 By Jon Reiss Leave a Comment

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There’s something about Mellow Pages that’s just a little hard to wrap around your head. On its face, it’s a pretty simple endeavor: two guys took a studio space in Bushwick and put a few books up on the wall. Before they knew it, more and more books were added based on a “ten book loan” membership model. For the price of that loan, members are welcome to use the space to sit quietly and read or work. Add a few reading events, and writing workshops at night, and you’ve got Mellow Pages: a free-of-cost reading room/creative space in Bushwick. The thing of it is, places like Mellow Pages usually just don’t exist in New York City, in a place where people pay and pay for the privilege of being near culture, culture that rarely comes completely devoid of a price. You can look as hard as you want for the hidden price of entry to Mellow Pages, but you won’t find it.

“We like to promote non capitalistically the stuff we enjoy.”

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NY Image Salon’s Tonia Bashan—Colors & Styles Redux

April 20, 2013 By Francesca Moisin Leave a Comment

Tonia Bashan styling a woman’s long locks at New York Image Salon on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint. / Photos by Ben Rosenzweig

By Francesca Moisin

Two friends grew up on the outskirts of L.A. in the late 1980s. One was a hairdresser. The other, inspired by her pro pal, aspired to be the same. But life is full of unexpected twists. “I moved to Queens in 1991 and began working at Giorgio’s salon,” says Tonia Bashan. “While my more experienced friend ended up changing career course entirely.”

“Machine Man” Manufacturing Superhero in Greenpoint

April 10, 2013 By Marianne Shaneen Leave a Comment

Eric Mingrino, inventor/ manufacturer, in his Greenpoint workshop. Photo by Allen Ying

As a kid, Eric Mingrino fantasized about being an inventor, and when his father was alive, they dreamed of someday opening a company together to develop inventions.

Mingrino remembers his first “Eureka” moment as a ten-year-old boy watching his mother making pancakes in their Greenpoint kitchen. As she struggled to balance a spoon underneath the pan to tilt it while cooking, so that the grease would drain off to the side, he told her that one day he was going to invent a pan tilted on an angle with a little hole in it to drain the grease, and he went and drew the plans for it. “And years later, who came up with it? George Foreman. Same exact thing I drew when I was ten. He sold millions of these things! Every time I see that I say, oh man.”

my experience of letting the public look through my phone.

January 3, 2013 By WG News + Arts Leave a Comment

Nick Hugh Schmidt

When first proposing the idea of having my phone on display, I felt a sense of excitement. I thought about others looking through my phone and wondering if they would have a sense of voyeurism. For me, to have complete strangers looking through my phone, and reading my everyday life, gave me a thrill. That was not the only thrill that I would feel while doing this project.

When I first left my phone in the gallery for viewers to look at, I was not worried. I believed that the people coming to the gallery were respectable, and they believed in the art that I was doing. I trusted the gallery director would keep it safe, and I was on my way. But, not long away from the gallery, I realized that I rely on my phone more than I could imagine. I walked to the L stop and proceeded to get on the train to Manhattan. But before I knew what was going on, I was going deeper into the depths of Brooklyn. I had gotten on the wrong train. Second nature kicked in and I reached for my phone to orient myself and see where I was. My phone wasn’t there of course. I realized in that moment that I rely on my phone to do the simple tasks of reading and understanding basic directions. That’s when my self-imposed circumstance became apparent and the reality hit me.

Breathing New Life into Vintage at Brooklyn Reclamation

December 12, 2012 By Jason McGahan Leave a Comment

Photos by Eddy Vallante

All you need to know about the newest vintage furniture store in Williamsburg can be told in one unusual table. It is a small kitchen table whose top is stripped from the lane of a 1920s-era bowling alley in Elm Grove, West Virginia. The iron base on which the top is balanced used to be a stanchion pole in the Wheeling Tunnel. “We cleaned out Elm Grove Lanes,” acknowledged David Sofsky, a member of the Sofsky family that owns Brooklyn Reclamation. “Two full-length trailers filled with bowling alley paraphernalia. Forty lanes of it. It’s enough wood to make end tables, bar tops, and stools for the next 10 years.”

The price tag for the table is $1,400—owing to the fact that the wood is nearly a century old and the table was customized with re-purposed material. “The most expensive stuff is the oldest stuff, and the stuff that’s customized,” David said. “I do think, for those items, we’re on the reasonable side, price-wise.” “We try to keep prices affordable for the average customer. We get some customers coming in with big bucks. We also get young people just moving into the area.”