Art/Music Party At The Alice Austen House

I received this letter from the Executive Director of the Alice Austen House Museum. This sounds like a fun party. I have to be elsewhere otherwise I would have attended. I listened to Dead Rabbit on MySpace and they sound cool. Click the headline to get to their site. Honestly, you don't need an excuse to go to Alice's Clear Comfort. It is a dreamy house right on the water. - CvB

"Dear Friends:

On Saturday, July 28, at 7 PM local quartet Murray will join indie rock band Dead Rabbit for a live performance at the Austen House.

But that is not all.

Joining them is painter Dan Pokorny, sculptor Arthur Vallario, and filmmaker Geoffrey Celis for what promises to be an exciting, anything can and will happen, evening at Clear Comfort titled "Voyage of the Valkyrie." What would Alice have said, you wonder? Well, we who know her know that there was nothing she liked better than to throw wild parties at her House.

This event, for good reasons, is according to the editors at AWE the Number One thing to do on SI this weekend. Don't you want to find out why?

G. Carl Rutberg
Executive Director"

The Alice Austen House Museum
2 Hylan Blvd.
SI NY 10305
718 816 4506
Click HERE for the www.AliceAusten.org website.

"Snobbery Parts Fools From Money" from The New York Sun

Same price.
Do you want this?


Or this?


A New York Sun writer and long-time Staten Island booster explores why people are willing to pay such high prices for living spaces in Manhattan. You can read the full article by clicking on the headline above. I have provided the floorplans above. They are not from the Sun article. Here are a few highlights from the article:

"There's a point where a shorter commute to work just isn't worth the high cost of living in the city. Manhattan has become a nice place to visit, but I'm glad I don't live there anymore."

"I can't understand these purchases. When I think of all my sleepless nights due to parties in the upstairs apartment, the piano in the next apartment placed right next to my bedroom wall, the garbage truck pickups at 3 a.m., and patrons noisily exiting their favorite bar at closing time, I can only imagine how bad it is now that smokers are forced to spend much more time chatting outside."

"If I were a Wall Streeter, I could walk to the free ferry for a lovely ride, wave to the Statue of Liberty, then walk to a home where I could actually own and keep a car (condo owners have their own parking spaces). If I had millions to spend, I could buy a mansion on Staten Island instead of a measly two-bedroom in TriBeCa."

"The average rental rate for a studio in Manhattan is now $2,000 a month, and it's probably a good barometer of the great economy we're in that so many can afford such ridiculous prices. I was born in the borough, but by the time I left I had sworn never to live in an apartment in Manhattan again — and it wasn't because of the high rents."

"There has always been snobbery from Manhattanites about the "bridge and tunnel crowd" — those living in the other boroughs. As a young, single woman, I was living in a project, but at least it was in Manhattan, so I risked less disdain from the preppy crowd as long as I described it as living on the Upper East Side. What a sap I was, buying into that shallowness!"

Quotes "Snobbery Parts Fools From Money" by Alicia Colon, New York Sun writer

Old-Skool On Staten Island

Call me old-skool but I prefer roller skates to roller blades. I even own my own skates. It looks like this place has both types of skates available. My friend Ann-Marie sent me this picture. Roller Jam USA is opening on Staten Island. Cool! We'll have to plan a Prodigal party there. Click the title to go to their site.

Taco Season in the Prodigal Borough

Although I'm not fully done digesting last night's three tacos al pastor from El Mirador, my appetite was again whetted keen by an article I came across on Writing With my Mouth Full. The writer has undertaken a quest for the perfect taco in all of NYC. Not only am I immensely pleased that Staten Island was given appropriate consideration in the search, but I'm also thrilled that I now have an illustrated list of local tacos to choose from. As CvB will tell you, I'm a very adventurous eater. But I'm not even sure whether I could knowingly eat earlobe tacos.

Oscar Nominated Staten Island Short Film "Ferry Tales" Premiers on Television This Week

The Reel New York Film Festival kicks off the summer with 29 independent films and videos by New Yorkers about New York. The eight-week festival airs on Thursdays at 10 p.m. from July 5, 2007 through August 20, 2007.

Channel Thirteen has chosen Ferry Tales, to open its TV-based ,Film Festival: Reel NY. Many Staten Islanders have never seen this film about women who put on their make-up on the Staten Island Ferry - now it will premier on television. The film was directed by Katja Esson and co-stars Valerie Campbell and Kamillah Hanks.


For more information on viewing the film go HERE. For more information on the television program go HERE.