Brokelyn

This pool is on sale for $19.99, regularly $34!

Nuts be to the hyper retail world, they who force Santas in our faces long before the first pumpkin even shows up, and they who so callously abandon this young summer in favor of advertising the dreaded fall season (the words are too depressing to say, but rhymes with “hack to drool”). Their loss is your gain: even though pencils and notebooks are making their way to the front of the store, there’s plenty of time left for fun under the sun. We went digging in Target Atlantic Center today and found clearance sales of 50 percent off or more on fun harbingers from slip-n-slides, to dragon pools to water guns and bubble machines! It’s not even mid-July yet: plenty of time to make your own rooftop waterpark party. A sampling: Read the rest of this entry »

Now THAT looks refreshing. And legal too! via Flickr's Anthony Catalano.

On days like today, with a heat advisory in effect, and humidity to make you want to kill a gallon of Louie G.’s, a fire hydrant looks mighty tempting. It’s just sitting there, minding its own business, but when open provides a two-foot wide water slide park. I wondered, how do I get one of these ding-dang things open, without getting in serious trouble? I walked my-disgustingly-hot self down to the local firehouse at Monroe Street and Nostrand Avenue in Bed-Stuy, and chatted up an honest-to-goodness, full-time fireman, who tells us yes, you can get a hydrant opened, if you ask nicely! Read the rest of this entry »

We are SO there this summer! Photo courtesy of Trust for Governor's Island.

It served as an army base for 200 years following the Revolutionary War — now the only battles are over picnic tables. Over the past few summers, Governors Island has gone from an unused historical curiosity to a reinvented summer day-trip destination with a full calendar of artsy fare, concerts and other frolicsome events, most of them free. That makes it pretty much the best thing to happen to summer around here since the Brooklyn Bridge Park got a spiffy makeover. Read the rest of this entry »

The most impressive example of “upcycling” we’ve seen yet: a bunch of arty types have turned a handful of construction Dumpsters into three swimming pools somewhere in Brooklyn, where they host Friday pool parties.

The photos turned up this week in on the blog of crafty DIY bible ReadyMade magazine, which says pools are the brainchild of Macro/Sea, a murky group of art-world scamps that includes skater/author Jocko Weyland. Their mission is “to do projects we find interesting” including making as-yet-unseen new uses of abandoned strip malls. Dumpsters too, have been neglected amid the downturn, and these have been painted, sealed with 6 ml. lining, given a sand base, and then again sealed with a tarp, so they’re “not dangerous at all,” writes ReadyMade’s Andrew Wagner. The builders have also surrounded them with spiffy Trex-like decking.

So where are they? ReadyMade will say only that they’re “in Brooklyn.” Apparently Weyland doesn’t want to say for fear of attracting crowds, but the industrial surroundings suggest Williamsburg, Greenpoint or Bushwick… or Red Hook? Any guesses? Read the full story here.