The Belfast-NY Digital Project - Brownstones and blogging

Sharon Otterman (@sharonNYT), writing in the New York Times here, talks blogging and brownstones. Brownstones being a Brooklyn monument and icon. Otterman profiles the brownstone blogger, Suzanne Spellen a lay historian who writes daily on Brownstoner (@BrownStoner) about brownstones under the name @MontroseMorris (a well known 19th-century Brooklyn architect). Spellen is a lady who once lived between brown walls but was priced out of the borough.

The Belfast-NY digital project

It all began here via Maria Popova (@brainpicker) (editor of Brain Pickings): 

Our current definition of success needs serious retuning http://t.co/0oZNcFk8ec
— Maria Popova (@brainpicker) October 30, 2013

That tweet brought Tejas Yadav (@ytejas) and I in contact. One a student and photographer living in New York. Another a writer and artist living in Belfast, Northern Ireland. And now Tejas has sent me a selection of photos which you can see above and below. Now that he's played his hand with his tool of choice, the ball is in my court. It now falls on me to respond with some art. A bit of verbal creativity. Keep an eye out.

Jim Fitzpatrick (@jimfitzbiz) - Time for Zero Tolerance

Jim Fitzpatrick (@jimfitzbiz) wrote a piece on Slugger O'Toole, 'After Haass: Risk of growing local disputes into toxic regional problems.' To explain his point, Jim wrote about his time in New York. He said:

"When I first visited New York as a student in 1990, it was a dangerous place. 2,245 of its citizens were murdered that year... New York today is a different place. Last year the number murdered was a record low of just 333 – that’s an 85% reduction in the rate. So what happened?" 

He explained the lesson he learnt from his time in and understanding of New York

"In the mid 1990s a Mayor called Rudy Giuliani and a Police Commissioner called Bill Bratton put in place a new policy on crime called “Zero Tolerance”. Basically, they stopped letting things go. No matter how difficult for their officers or apparently minor the offence, they tackled the crime. They locked criminals up and they put more cops on the streets. 

Maud Newton reviews Molly Crabapple

Read Maud Newton's review of Molly with excerpt here:

"Yet Crabapple’s work and story is not just about infusing politics into visual art; she represents an alternative to the mechanism through which many young artists today find success. Crabapple grew up thinking of art not as “something where you had to get an MFA from Yale then schmooze people in New York,” but as a trade that paid the bills. Her mother—a single mom—illustrated toy packaging for products like Cabbage Patch Kids and Holly Hobby. “Being an artist was how my mom fed me. … It was an almost working-class way to make a living."

Also watch and read the interview with Molly Crabapple on Stated Magazine here.