News
Coney Island/ Brighton Beach/ Sheepshead Bay
Photo via Sheepshead Bites
If there’s a DIY project that can be capitalized upon, it’ll eventually show up in Brooklyn, especially if it feeds an expensive addiction for barely $3. The borough’s first roll-your-own cigarettes store opened last week, Sheepshead Bites reports. Like Build-A-Bear for carcinogens, customers stuff empty cigarette tubes with rolling tobacco using on-site machines. This new concept store (which we first talked about here) circumvents federal and local taxes, offering customers a miraculous $3.25 pack of cigarettes, all without visiting the dodgy cheap-cigarette bodegas or driving out to a reservation. But is it legal? 
Services
Coney Island/ Brighton Beach/ Sheepshead Bay
Workout without paying out. Photo via Flickr's arubow4
Joining premiums, monthly fees, equipment purchases, training sessions, class packages and website memberships can leave you chiseled, toned and broke as a joke. The average New Yorker spends $81 a month on personal care (namely fitness), but that doesn’t show the cost of the many New Yorkers who don’t devote any assets to fitness. Fortunately savvy Brokelynites know you don’t have to pay ANYTHING to get killer fitness results thanks to our beautiful borough before the weather turns too bad. I’m not a personal trainer or doctor, but I do love fitness and think spending a fortune on it is crazy. Join me as I take advantage of some of our borough’s most beautiful and well-appointed outdoor workout venues, won’t you?
contest
Coney Island/ Brighton Beach/ Sheepshead Bay
Let's take you out to the ball game
Look for ways to do good in Brooklyn and you’ll feel like you’re at Smorgasburg with five bucks in-hand: So much choice, such meager resources. But what if someone came to you and said “Here, take these food tickets, have a ball. And, oh yeah, you’ll also be helping out 35,000 needy Brooklyn folks”? That’s sort of what we’re offering here: Brokelyn’s teaming up with CAMBA, one of BK’s largest nonprofits, to give away two pairs of Cyclones fun packs (including tickets, a Cyclones cap, hot dog, chips and drink) for a CAMBA benefit/Brooklyn Cyclones game July 28. It’ll be a night to raise funds and awareness for CAMBA’s programs and services around Brooklyn —and this organization’s benevolent tentacles reach all over the place.
Outings
Coney Island/ Brighton Beach/ Sheepshead Bay
Not sure what the talent is, but there's a glass, so... Photo by Flickr's Elena Mattasoglio
Everyone has a talent, but if yours is professionally useless, dangerous or offensive, there’s a good chance it’s gone unrecognaized. It’s like, everyone has time for art openings and your roommate’s band, but when it comes to your knack for juggling torches, forget about it. Come July, that might very well change, and if your talent is cool enough, you could win cash! Who is this benefactor who wants to reward your circusy talents? It’s Thirsty Girl Productions, the host of this year’s 2nd Annual Coney Island Talent Show, which will take place on the Coney Island boardwalk July 30.
Outings
Coney Island/ Brighton Beach/ Sheepshead Bay
It's time to light the lights/soak up the AC
What is it about seeing a movie during the day that feels like you’re beating the rat race system with your hooky playing ways? It’s all the much better in the summer, when you wake up in a puddle of your own sweat, especially if you’re the family friendly type looking for cooling activities for your brood that don’t involve $1 tuna fish and wilted salad. If you’re game for getting up early to beat the heat, Sheepshead Bay’s Regal Cinemas has your hooky plans: a 9-week morning family friendly movie festival where all films are just $1. The full schedule below:
Outings
Coney Island/ Brighton Beach/ Sheepshead Bay
Your Brighton beach bike tour is waiting. Photo by Flickr user cfourcalvin.
Holy crap you guys: the rain is stopping and the sun is going to come out this weekend. We’re not in London anymore and since it’s going to be sunny and 78 degrees, we should all stretch our legs and get our adventure on with a wondrous bike ride. Better yet — one with a full day of activities that will only cost you $20? Come take a magical virtual bike tour with us, surprise your date and discover some Brooklyn awesomeness with the first installment of our self-guided Brokelyn Bike Tour series: ping pong, pirozhkis and beach sunsets edition.
News
Coney Island/ Brighton Beach/ Sheepshead Bay
2010 photo by Jackie Roman via Siren Fest
Hope you enjoyed Brooklyn’s biggest free music festival while it lasted: The Village Voice announced last night it killed the Coney Island Siren Festival in favor of a new one called 4 Knots at the South Street Seaport in hip, young downtown Manhattansburg. Siren was a summertime tradition (albeit a hot and sweaty one, like all good music fests) but perhaps its death is symbolically parallel to the overall mucusy sickness of Coney’s attempted rebirth. The two-stage fest over the decade featured Ted Leo, Built to Spill, Frightened Rabbits, TV on the Radio, M.I.A. and the New York Dolls among many others. Says the Voice: “Siren had a fantastic 10-year run, but the 4 Knots Festival will replace it on the Voice’s summer-show docket. Embrace change!” No lineup has been announced yet, so we’ll see.
News
Coney Island/ Brighton Beach/ Sheepshead Bay
Coney Island: soon home to 100,000 feet of flea? Photo via Amusing the Zillion.
We’re skeptical of this ambitious claim for a few reasons, but the Daily News is reports today about a group that plans to open what would be the city’s largest flea market in Coney Island soon for the 2011 season, with “over 100,000 square feet of shoppers delight.” Officials with the market/carnival — named BK Festival — wouldn’t respond to the newspapers questions, but the paper quoted several vendors who said they were considering moving to the Coney Island space once it opens. It’s not clear where they would set up (perhaps in that pictured big empty space?), and the teaser website Brownstoner found has been taken down already. So we’ll believe it when we see it. 100,000 square feet, btw, is the size of your average Walmart.
Outings
Coney Island/ Brighton Beach/ Sheepshead Bay
Gypsy camping on an abandoned airport: Scooby Doo plot or your weekend?
So Gypsy Fest was canceled, due to not having a “vending license” or some such legal whatever the organizers didn’t get. But if the fest piqued your interest, you get a consolation prize: free camping! Camping in Floyd Bennett Field is usually $30 a night, but, since organizers did pay for that permit, you can top the Frugal Traveler and sleep out under the stars for free. Just be prepared to share the space with a few dozen bummed festival-goers.
Outings
Coney Island/ Brighton Beach/ Sheepshead Bay
Returning performer The Kreptatka Bar Band. Photo by NightLife Baby
UPDATE 8:10 p.m.: Anna reports the organizers have CANCELED the festival due to “circumstances beyond our control.” We’ll post more information as it becomes available. -Ed.
Back before “Bohemian” was code-word for “hippie”, it was a misapplied code word for “gypsy.” This weekend’s Gypsy Tabor Festival, presented by Mehanata bar, celebrates the older meaning of the word, and with a nice beach-front breeze to boot. You can expect to find belly dancing, flute-making workshops, drum circles, movies and a ton of music, and you can expect to pay zero dollars for this free outdoor festival. And you just might see a certain Brokelynite fire dancer in action.
