LIFE IS A PARADE
Also: climate tech startups, MTA projects, crime, food, coffee and more!
There is no dedicated news coverage of Sunset Park — but Sunset Park makes news. This FREE weekly(ish) digest curates all the headlines from all the sources that touch our neighborhood, which is one of the most vibrant in Brooklyn.
In this issue
Puerto Rican celebration returns this weekend
Why New York City is becoming a hub for climate tech startups
Hochul puts these MTA projects in peril with congestion pricing derailed
36 hours in Brooklyn
This coffee shop born in Sunset Park has big dreams
How to apply minimalism to more than just your wardrobe
Eco-friendly small-batch paint shop opens first East Coast showroom in Industry City
NYPD searching for man wanted for allegedly sexually abusing 9-year-old girl
Elderly man hit by moped; driver arrested
Puerto Rican celebration returns this weekend
By BROOKLYN REPORTER: Sunset Park will hold its eighth annual Puerto Rican Parade and Festival on June 9. Community group El Grito will host the celebration, which will include music, food, dancing, floats, vintage cars and Puerto Rican pride. The parade starts at 5 p.m. on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street. The festival will follow at 6:30 p.m. on Fifth Avenue and 44th Street and will be hosted by poet and musician Bonafide Rojas. This year’s theme is “Las Calles y Las Playas son del Pueblo,” which means, “The Streets and the Beaches are of the People.” ... READ MORE
Why New York City is becoming a hub for climate tech startups
By BBC: In its most basic form, entrepreneurial success can be a simple equation: the fortunate intersection of new ideas with the opportunities and resources to build them. However, for the business unicorns that launch and grow swiftly to a massive scale, a location in a city that matches entrepreneurs' ideas with innovative ways of accelerating business growth is essential. That’s according to Adam Cohen, chief technical officer and co-founder of NineDot Energy, a green tech company that went from a small team in 2018 to having raised hundreds of millions of dollars in direct investment by 2024. Cohen believes that this level of rapid scale was possible due to New York City's standing as a nexus of global venture capital investment, a thriving tech community, and America’s largest consumer base. … In Brooklyn, NYCEDC sees a wealth of opportunities to leverage the built environment in ways that push the city towards its clean energy goals. NYCEDC’s climate tech pilot program at the Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT) in the Sunset Park neighborhood is designed to support startups looking to pilot their products. The four-million-square-foot campus offers companies space to test and demonstrate their technologies in live environments before they pitch to investors or go to market. … READ MORE
Hochul puts these MTA projects in peril with congestion pricing derailed
By NY DAILY NEWS: Gov. Hochul placed the MTA’s congestion pricing program on indefinite hold Wednesday — a plan that could impact straphangers as it cuts off funding for several major transit projects. The congestion pricing plan has been expected to bring in roughly $1 billion a year in revenues, that the MTA would then borrow against to fund $15 billion in capital projects. While Hochul said she planned to find the money, there were no definitive plans as of Wednesday and it remained unclear where the cash would come from. … Hochul said that she remained committed to funding the Second Ave. subway as well as the Interborough Express light rail project between Queens and Brooklyn, which would touch Sunset Park. … READ MORE
36 hours in Brooklyn
By THE NEW YORK TIMES: Brooklyn first established itself as a summertime destination for weary city-dwellers over 150 years ago with beachside resorts and racetracks. These days the borough overflows with seasonal draws: block parties, street fairs, W.N.B.A. Liberty games, barbecues in the park and lazy afternoons on a stoop with beers and some tunes. Still locals gripe about the humidity, the bugs, the city odors, on top of the ongoing gentrification that has rendered entire neighborhoods unrecognizable — and unaffordable — to longtime residents. This itinerary skips the most touristy and overdeveloped areas, including Williamsburg and Dumbo, and requires no restaurant reservations or advance planning. Instead, you’ll find concerts in Prospect Park, a show-stopping exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and fantastic food far and wide, from tacos in Bushwick and dumplings in Sunset Park to nostalgic soft serves in southern Brooklyn. … READ MORE
Sunday
10 a.m. Taste the flavors of Sunset Park
Hop aboard the South Brooklyn ferry — the breeziest summer transit option — to Sunset Park, a multicultural neighborhood where the flavors change from block to block. Begin on Fourth Avenue at Yafa, a serene Yemeni cafe serving specialty drinks like a locally roasted, single-origin Yemeni pour-over coffee ($7). Then walk to La Flor de Izucar, a Mexican bakery and cafe on Fifth Avenue, for a fluffy vanilla concha ($1.50). Pause in the adjacent park, also named Sunset Park, to admire the sweeping views across Brooklyn, the lower Manhattan skyline, New Jersey and Staten Island. Then explore Brooklyn’s Chinatown, which spans Seventh and Eighth Avenues, ending at Kai Feng Fu Dumpling House, a no-frills, cash-only spot for sesame pancakes ($1.75) and pan-fried pork-and-chive dumplings doused with soy sauce, vinegar and chili oil ($2.50 for six).
This coffee shop born in Sunset Park has big dreams
By EATER: Much has changed since Hakim Sulaimani opened Yafa Cafe in Sunset Park in 2019. Eater wrote at the time, that he, with help from his cousin, Ali Suliman, was “a quiet force in Yemeni representation in New York City.” Now, a couple of years in, Sulaimani is on track to open two more outposts of Yafa Cafe this summer, in downtown Brooklyn and Midtown. The first cafe will run inside the People’s Forum, an organization at 320 W. 37th Street, near Eighth Avenue, that describes itself as “a movement incubator for working class and marginalized communities to build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad.” … At the original Yafa Cafe, they’ve become known for dishes like hawaij-marinated fried chicken sandwiches in equal measure as the coffee, once the subject of a New York Times review. … READ MORE
How to apply minimalism to more than just your wardrobe
By ESSENCE: After years of sharing space with a roommate in a one-and-a-half bedroom on the Upper East Side, creative entrepreneur Nana Agyemang was more than ready to find a space of her own. The goal was simple—a modern and neutral space that could be the ideal backdrop for Agyemang’s other career as a fashion content creator. “I was tired of paying booking fees for studio rentals in New York City. Sometimes I spent $1000 a week—most times a rental would be $100 an hour, and I’d be there for 4-5 hours at a time,” she says. The answer was a two-bedroom condo in a new building near Brooklyn’s Sunset Park. … READ MORE
Eco-friendly small-batch paint shop opens first East Coast showroom in Industry City
By BROOKLYN PAPER: Environmentally friendly small-batch paint and plaster company Color Atelier has entered the Brooklyn scene, opening its first East Coast showroom in Sunset Park’s Industry City where customers can peruse the brand’s range and see its mineral-based products on large surfaces. Launched five years ago by paint chemist and designer husband and wife duo Burcu and Olivier Garnier, Color Atelier offers mineral-based products with none of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) common in the majority of paint products, making them healthier and more environmentally friendly, Burcu Garnier told Brownstoner. The couple formulates and produces the paints and plaster products in California, and sells online across the country. … READ MORE
NYPD searching for man wanted for allegedly sexually abusing 9-year-old girl
By ABC7: The search is on for a man wanted for allegedly sexually abusing a child. … Police say he inappropriately touched a 9-year-old girl in Brooklyn. The incident happened in the Sunset Park section along 59th Street around 7:45 on Thursday morning. … WATCH VIDEO
Elderly man hit by moped; driver arrested
By BROOKLYN REPORTER: An 82-year-old man was in critical condition after being hit by a moped on Fifth Avenue and 60th Street in Sunset Park. Cops said the moped was traveling north at 4:50 p.m. when it hit the man as he crossed the street. … READ MORE
CALENDAR
Sunday, June 9: Puerto Rican Parade & Festival
Begins Tuesday, June 11: Bar Convent Brooklyn 2024
Tuesday, June 18: Free bilingual Shakespeare performance in Sunset Park
Thursday, July 11: Rooftop Films Summer Series presents “Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted”
Until Aug. 23: Rooftop Films Summer Series full schedule
Thursday, Oct. 17-20: Food Network’s NYC Wine & Food Festival
Ongoing at Green-Wood Cemetery