Thornton, left, and Chiavelli (Photo illustration by John Fasitta)
For Arts Gowanus, the show must go on
Despite 'devastating' flooding caused by last month's storm, the group's Open Studios is on for this weekend
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If you’re in Brooklyn the weekend of October 21 and 22, you owe it to yourself to check out Gowanus Open Studios. Organized by the non-profit Arts Gowanus, the weekend event will see nearly 500 artists posted up in nearly 100 studio and work spaces, cafes, bars and sandwich shops, converted warehouses and more, showing — and selling — their current work. It’s free, unless you decide to buy some art, and it’s a unique way to explore the Gowanus area, meet and support local artists and maybe brings something home for your walls.
Ahead of Open Studios, Johnny Thornton and Emily Chiavelli — the executive director and programs director of Arts Gowanus — join me on “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast.” This is actually Thornton’s second time as a guest on the podcast — I encourage you to listen to our episode from last April where we do a deep dive into the Arts Gowanus mission. This week, I invited duo on the podcast because last month, on September 29, the organization was dealt a devastating blow when the historic storms that blew through the borough completely swamped the entire neighborhood. More than 100 of the organization’s artist studios were flooded, thousands of works of art were lost forever and costly equipment was destroyed.
But Open Studios must go on. This year is a critical one for the group. Thornton and Chiavelli will discuss what was lost in the storms, how extensive the damage was and why the group decided to forge ahead so soon after the storm. We’ll talk about what visitors can expect this year, and we’ll discuss recent developments in neighborhood, like the restoration of the so-called “Batcave” and the ongoing redevelopment and $1.6 billion cleanup of the area, which lies on a Superfund site.
(Full disclosure: Brooklyn Magazine is a media sponsor of Gowanus Open Studios this year. No money is changing hands; all that means we’ll each provide a little exposure to our respective audiences, like this podcast today and you might see the Brooklyn Magazine logo on some of the Open Studios printed materials.)
The following is a transcript of our conversation, which airs as an episode of “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast,” edited for clarity. Listen in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.
The hub of Arts Gowanus is subterranean, almost, which makes it particularly vulnerable to flooding. Walk us through the extent of the damage.
Chiavelli: It was pretty devastating. Our studios at 540 President are below grade. There are about 70 studios down in the basement, so it sort of varied. Some artists were affected really badly and some were affected, although less badly. Some people had 14 inches of water in their studios and some had two inches of water in their studios. But also on some level, it doesn’t really matter because if you had stuff on the floor and it got wet, it’s ruined whether it was two inches of water or 14 inches of water. People lost a ton of supplies, paint and stretched canvases and all that stuff, but also completed artwork, which is really the most devastating part because they’re irreplaceable.
I would imagine stuff that they were planning to show at the Open Studios next week.
Chiavelli: Yeah, absolutely. We’ve been gathering information as people are still working on cleaning out and assessing the damage, and we’ve been gathering the sort of information about what people lost, and already we have over $100,000 in reported losses.
And just so listeners have a clear understanding, I’ve been to your space obviously several times. There’s sort of a warren of rooms and studios. Do they rent these studios from you? Are they given the space? What’s the relationship of the artist to the space to you?
Thornton: Arts Gowanus, we just have our headquarters at 540 President. We are not the landlords. We program the space. We provide some artists services. We try to keep all the artists happy. We make sure there’s sort of a community there, but they deal directly with the landlord and so we just have our headquarters there.
You’re a tenant alongside them.
Thornton: Correct.
So this damage, a $100,000-plus worth of damage, is significant. The city’s drainage system, as I understand it, can handle 1.75 inches of rainfall per hour. The storm dropped more than 2 inches per hour at its heaviest. What do we know about the water that entered your studios? Is this sewer overflow? This is not pure rainwater. Is this canal water? What do we know about this water?
Chiavelli: So as I understand it, it is at least partially combined, sewer overflow. Like in a lot of New York and Gowanus, the sewage system and the rainwater system are the same system. So when it overflows, everything comes back up which is pretty gross when you’re wading through it trying to save your stuff.
Was there an odor the day after? Not to be glib about it.
Thornton: I mean this is our second flood, so I feel it’s sort of a familiar Gowanus-y odor. I don’t know. We’ve been painting murals all summer by the canal, so it’s that Gowanus sort of —
Sulfury.
Thornton: Yeah, it didn’t smell like overly sewage or anything. I just feel it was a wet smell. I don’t know. It’s gross no matter what.
Chiavelli: I hate that this is a comparison that I am able to make, but when we flooded two years ago during Ida, I do feel that was a worse smell, so I don’t know if that means anything.
Well, that’s good.
Thornton: Yeah, the silver lining.
It’s all dried out, it’s all cleaned up now. There’s no sort of lingering odor, I’m guessing. Are you painting? We don’t have to get into the nitty-gritty of rebuilding, but you’re going to be good to go for the 21st, 22nd?
Thornton: The building management did a great job of really alerting everyone, making sure they were on the ground as fast as they possibly could, pumping out the water, cleaning, drying everything. And we’ve been sort of on the ground trying to assist artists with drying out their work, but right now I think our focus is fundraising so we can support the artists who lost all of these things.
You’ve got a GoFundMe going. I think the last I checked it was up to $15,000. You have a target of 25,000?
Thornton: I think we’re going to up that target. We’re going to try to use Open Studios as a fundraiser. We’re going to have a few fundraising things happening at Gowanus Open Studios. It’s just devastating when people lose artwork. There’s so many just little stories of artists who had been working on series and working on stuff to exhibit, people who have upcoming shows that lost a ton of work and equipment. It’s just devastating.
So our role as trying to support the creative community is how do we cut out all the bullshit and just give money directly to them as fast as we can possibly do it? I want to up it to 50. I want to make the artists who lost so much as whole as they possibly can, and I’ll mention that our fundraiser isn’t just for the 540 artists. It’s really artists throughout the neighborhood who can claim, “Hey, I lost this much.” We’re not going to look at receipts like, “What did you lose?” And we’re obviously never going to be able to make people whole, but we want to make them as whole as we can.
Some of the work that was lost, you can’t put a monetary value on it. I think you were telling me, we spoke last week or so, didn’t someone have their entire life packed up in boxes sitting on the floor? What are some of the stories that individual artists are enduring?
Chiavelli: That was really one of the most devastating ones for me. There were a lot of devastating stories, but there was one guy a couple doors down from our office who was supposed to actually move out the day the flood happened. So everything from his studio was in cardboard boxes on his floor. He lost almost everything, years of work. He said he had old notebooks from undergrad, just tons and tons of stuff. I know there was another artist who had an upcoming solo show, and she lost, I think, it was 34 or 35 pieces that were meant to go on that show.
After the storm, our dear leader, Eric Adams, said, “If you didn’t know the storm was coming, you must be living under a rock.” How did that land with you guys?
Thornton: I feel we’re often living under rocks. We’re all projects all the time, but I had no idea, and I feel a lot of the artists had no idea. We knew it was going to rain, but we definitely didn’t know. I don’t know. Emily, did you know? We haven’t talked about this.
Chiavelli: No. Actually, weirdly, we were going to a meeting the night before about combined sewer overflow in Gowanus and we walked there from Johnny’s gallery actually, and we got soaked, we got drenched, and even then it didn’t occur to me that this could be another flooding situation at the studio. It’s just not something you think about, and I think there’s been long enough since the last one that everyone was super careful for a year and then got lax again.
To your point, you’ve mentioned it’s twice, it’s the second time the studios have flooded in the last three years. Hurricane Ida was in 2021. To your point, the vigilance had tapered off. Is there any talk of relocating, or do you just pay closer attention to The Weather Channel now?
Thornton: I mean I think we’re definitely going to have to pay closer attention. The studios that we’re in, I think artist affordability — which I think I talked a lot about on the last podcast — is a huge priority of ours. But our building is one of the most affordable buildings in Gowanus. It’s very hard to find affordable artist workspaces. A lot of artists don’t have the choice to relocate somewhere, and we certainly don’t. We’re a small, scrappy nonprofit with a shoestring budget. As Emily said, our vigilance for the first year after the flood, it was like nothing on the floor, and we had everything. But then as projects go and as we are such a busy nonprofit, stuff just gets put on the floor. “Oh, we’ll put that up later.” And that was our critical mistake that I don’t think will be happening again.
And you guys are forging ahead the 21st, 22nd. There was no call to push it back a little bit or delay? You’re sticking to your guns.
Thornton: We had a lot of conversations with artists around this. This is one of I think there’s 98 locations now as part of Gowanus Open Studios and a lot of them weren’t affected, so we had some really good conversations with artists and everyone’s attitude was great. Like, “No, let’s forge ahead. Let’s do this.” It’s already started. We can rally and come up with something cool. It won’t be exactly what we wanted, but we’re going to really just get it together and just start rocking and rolling and present the best thing we can.
Chiavelli: I think, for a lot of artists, it is a financial tent pole event for them every year. So even just in terms of making up some of those losses with the work they have left, this event is really important for them. So that’s another reason we just want to stick with it.
Can you give us a preview? You’ve got 98 locations. People show up, they’re given a little map at various locations along the way, and you can plan your own day or two days. It is impossible to see everything in one day. You walk around Gowanus. It’s, on a fair weather day, an amazing experience. So you take in little mini-galleries, studios and you meet the artists. You buy stuff if you want. Give us a preview. What are some of the highlights? Is there a theme? There was a theme last year. Talk us through.
Chiavelli: Well, I’ll actually first make one clarification: The 98 locations aren’t even individual studios. Those are building addresses in Gowanus. So we actually have over 500 artists participating this year because there are certain hubs, like I said, 540 President all 70 studios, there are these big hubs and then also a ton of smaller buildings.
So there’s 98 stops with 500 artists.
Chiavelli: Yeah. It’s definitely overwhelming which is part of why we have a directory online where artists can upload a little bit about themselves and images of their work. So you can look through that and see who you’re drawn to and make your own little schedule ahead of time and maybe make some stops on the way. This year for the first time, on Saturday we’re going to have a free shuttle looping a lot of the neighborhood. It’ll have five stops. So it’s doable. You just have to really hone in on what kind of art you’re trying to see.
You’re posting handy little curated guides that community members, artists are cherrypicking their favorites, right?
Thornton: As next week approaches, you’ll see one of those coming about once a day. We have self-led walking tours that are kind of curated by artists, public figures, things like that. But you can really choose your own adventure with Open Studios. You go on the directory, we’ll have map pickup locations. You can grab a map and just wander around or you can have a more targeted experience if you want and do a lot of research before you go. But no matter what, you’re going to see some amazing work and meet some amazing artists. This is a rare opportunity, I think, for people to really talk to the artists where they create the art, which I think is such a cool experience. It’s so different than viewing art in any other context.
The serendipity of it is cool too. You can plan a route, but you’re always going to find something you didn’t expect. I love going into the different studios because every artist has a different approach. Some of them are like, “Hey, let me show you. Welcome. Let me show you what I got.” And other artists don’t talk at all and you have to walk up and say, “Well, are you the artist? Can you tell me about this?”
Chiavelli: I think it’s really cool even just to see inside some of these buildings that are super cool, old industrial buildings that have been converted to studios. It’s kind of what I pictured being an artist in New York was before I moved to New York and then I found Gowanus.
I know it’s kind of asking who your favorite child is, but are you allowed to shout out individual artists that you think are going to particularly kill it or are doing great work right now?
Thornton: OK. So one thing we’re so excited for, we’ve been working with Exploring the Arts, and we’ve been working with this curatorial assistant high school student, Joshua Goodrich, and he’s got a really amazing eye for art and we’ve been kind of talking him through different curatorial visions or whatever, and he really wanted to curate his first show. We’ve been working with Josh for a year now. This will be the second year we’ll be working with him. He’s a senior in high school and he’s curating a small show at 540 which we’re so excited for. There’s a ton of stuff to see. We have the seven murals that we did all summer.
Weren’t they damaged? I think I recall hearing something about mural damage or vandalism, or did I make that up? Was that a while ago?
Thornton: We have a photo mural of all of the artists in Gowanus, well, not all of them, but about 130 of them that’s on Union and Nevins. We had put it up this summer, and we literally put it up and we were just about to take our victory lap, drive around in a car, film it, and somebody came and ripped it all down. It was pretty awful. But the silver lining in that, and I think we learned this with the flooding, we learn this time and time again, the community really loves the arts in Gowanus. And within 10 minutes we had a team of people out there, the people from across the street, a business owner who runs a hydroponic place around brought a bunch of equipment and it was up within an hour again. I mean it looks ripped and a little bit worn, but that makes it cooler in my book. I smile every time I walk by that part of the mural. It’s right on Union Street across from 543 Union, which is one of the stops at Open Studios. But I smile every time because it was just like within an hour it was back up. People were just … It went from heartbreaking to one of the most positive experiences ever.
It’s a testament to your resiliency. So the hydroponic guy, was one of the pieces of equipment he brought medicinal cannabis to help you through it?
Thornton: He brought an air compressor and a nail gun or a compressed staple gun, and we were using just the standard staple gun and it made it so much easier. So shout out to that dude.
Johnny, you were on the podcast in April of 2022. A lot has happened in the past year, especially in that neighborhood. One of the big headlines is that the “Batcave” got a big makeover, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company’s hulking Central Power Station, which had been sitting there unused, squatters had been in there, secret raves. It’s been turned into the headquarters for the Powerhouse Arts to the tune of $180 million dollars. What’s your take on that? Do you feel threatened? Do you have a relationship with them?
Thornton: How dare they come to our neighborhood! No, Powerhouse, we’ve been kind of talking to them for years and now that they’ve moved in, they’ve been really trying to get the lay of the land, trying to be good neighbors and trying to ingratiate their selves to the community. And I think they have so far. I don’t know if I should talk about it, but we’ve been in talks of doing the first ever Gowanus Art Fair next year.
Oh, cool. Well, if you say it out loud, then you have to do it.
Thornton: Exactly. I’m going to keep talking about it. If you build it, they will come. Our vision, and I think they share this vision, is how do we make an art fair that is accessible to not just visitors but to artists. A big part of our mission is working with artists who are at the beginning stage of their career. We work with all levels of the career, but I think art fairs have barriers for some artists. Essentially, we want to have a very cheap way for an artist to take part in an art fair and have some subsidized free booths for people, kind of a mini Open Studios all in one central location.
I do think co-producing a yearly event that highlights the artists in the community, it would be super cool but also just cement what’s already happening in Gowanus. Even though we have all of these new buildings and we’re getting rezoned, we’re maintaining our creative footprint and we’re growing it. And I think we are the arts capital of Brooklyn. Some people may disagree, but with Powerhouse Arts, with the addition of 30,000-square-feet of affordable studio spaces coming online, Arts Gowanus will have a community center right across the canal from Powerhouse that’s opening up in a few years. That building just got demolished. What’s happening in Gowanus, the rezoning is contentious in a lot of ways with a lot of people, but the creative community has been really cemented. We’re staying, we’re here and it’s going to continue to be an arts neighborhood no matter what.
We talked about that last podcast. You guys have a community benefits agreement. It’s in writing. You’re locked in, you’re not going anywhere.
Thornton: Nope. We’re here to stay. I think it’s the most affordable studio space in all five boroughs. I haven’t done all of the research, but in terms of the comps that we’ve seen, it’s highly, highly affordable, $1.66 a square foot, that’s ’90s prices.
And then also earlier this year it came to light that state environmental officials waited nearly two years to alert the public that toxic fumes over 20 times the amount considered safe from polluted soil and the canal could be detected in some local businesses. Were you guys contacted by the state at all about fumes and potential toxicity of the environment? Do you have any concerns about the safety of the air quality where you guys are?
Thornton: No. We specifically as an arts organization weren’t contacted, but I have a ton of artists, friends in the neighborhood and people who were contacted. And it is super concerning, and I’m not super knowledgeable about all this stuff, but I did actually go to the Department of Environmental Conservation public update and information session. I’ve also heard through the grapevine kind of the same information, but I know they’ve been doing sampling in the neighborhood a lot. They’ve been reaching out to property owners to go in and check for air quality levels. I know there’s been mitigation things put in there, and I think they’ve contacted a bunch of people, but what I heard was only about half have responded to that. So they’ve also put sidewalk sampling and I think they’re doing groundwater sampling.
But as far as you guys are concerned, they’re not going into your studios on [President] or wherever and going down checking the air quality in the rooms.
Thornton: To my knowledge, they haven’t been to 540 President Street, but I do know around the corner in the Union/Nevins area, they’ve definitely checked out a lot of those places because I know people who live in those buildings and some people have had sampling tests done. So on the sidewalks on Union Street and Nevin Street, you’ll definitely see some sampling stuff that they’re doing.
All right, but you’re not worried as far as, “Come on out, breathe the air, you’ll be fine.”
Thornton: Yes, of course. Yes, please come. Breathe the air. I think it was only the indoor stuff that people were kind of worried about as far as I know. But yes, it’s totally safe. Come walk around Gowanus and at least all the places that I know that there’s artists in that are in this area have been sampled and are good. So it’s totally safe to walk around.
It’s awkward, but I guess it’s life in the city. You measure your risks and you make your decisions accordingly and go see some art.
Thornton: For sure. I mean who thought that having art studios in a whole neighborhood on top of toxic land —
A Superfund site.
Thornton: Yeah, but we did it anyway and we’re persevering and we’re rocking and rolling on that land. So whatever happens, I want as many safety measures as you can and that’s why I go to these type of meetings to be like, “Are things being done? Is this safe?” So just as a concerned person in the neighborhood, it seems like the people who I’ve talked to were totally good in their sampling affected areas. So that’s about all I know about that.
All right. Fair enough. Johnny, you’ve had some personal news since we last spoke. You actually moved upstate although you’re still rooted here. I hope I’m not blowing up your spot. You were also in an awful scooter accident. How are you doing? Last time we talked about a kidney illness and how recovering from that has given you a new lease on life and now this happened. What’s your health status these days?
Thornton: Well, I didn’t move upstate. Me and my wife bought a place. I’m still firmly based in Brooklyn. This is where my art studio will be. So when I can take any time off, I can actually be an artist again. We bought a tiny little house upstate, so that’s actually where I am now. It’s fantastic. It’s nice to get out of Brooklyn every once in a while.
But the scooter accident really was a terrible experience. I have this little standing scooter that makes Brooklyn so convenient, but I hit this bump in the road and I ate it. Broke three bones in my arm, a rib, fractured my back. That, with the flooding, has been awful, but I’m slowly recovering, doing the physical therapy. Off of painkillers for the first time for the past couple of days. So that’s been nice. I don’t feel like life is a dream. And just to really bring it to Emily, I think Emily was working remotely in California and when she heard about my accident … We’re a team of three, me, Emily and Pam Wong … and Emily jumped on a plane and has been taking the lead on Open Studios which has been kind of awesome. I wouldn’t have been able to do this at all.
We got your full backstory last time. Emily, what’s your story? You’re from California originally? How does one land in Gowanus?
Chiavelli: I’m actually from Boston originally.
Oh, my condolences.
Chiavelli: I came to New York for grad school and then I finished my MFA in May of 2020, which is the worst time in history to finish your MFA. And I had just moved to Gowanus totally randomly. I just found a cool apartment in Gowanus and, after a month of being unemployed, I was going crazy and I literally just googled “art organizations near me” and Art Gowanus was one block from my apartment. So I just cold emailed Johnny, “Is there anything I can do?” Johnny, right? It was very soon after you had taken over the organization?
Thornton: I think that it happened in February of that year, so it was very fresh.
Chiavelli: So it was clearly very in flux and I didn’t really know what it was going to be or how involved I was going to be. I obviously started off kind of slow. I think the Art Walk in 2020 was the first thing I helped out with.
Along Atlantic?
Chiavelli: Yeah, exactly. And then, I just hung around long enough to weasel my way into a real job.
So you’re the program director obviously and play a big role in Open Studios. What are some of the programming or new programming or just general programming that you’re excited about in the area?
Chiavelli: We’ve done a lot of vinyl banner shows. We’ve done a couple at Washington Park, in Park Slope, Park Slope-Gowanus border, sort of. We did it in Coffey Park in Red Hook. We did it on Atlantic Ave. We’ve done a bunch of these things, and it’s really cool because it’s very highly visible. Anyone walking by sees it. They’re like weatherproof, whatever, they’ll be up for a couple of months and we’re able to include a lot of artists. Usually it’s 100 to 200 artists that are able to participate, and the reception is always just incredible. It’s so nice to hear community members just say, “This is amazing. I didn’t even know this was here,” blah, blah, blah. So those are always great. That’s something we do relatively frequently. Coming up, I’m really excited about the prospect of an art fair. So I’m really hoping that works out.
And I guess if you do your job well, the goal is to not have people say, “I had no idea this was here.”
Chiavelli: I guess that’s true.
Thornton: Me and my wife run a tiny little gallery, and one of the people who live in the apartment building next door walked by last week like, “I had no idea this is here. Did you just move in?” I was like, “We’ve been here for two years, dude.” There’s no cure for that.
And then what’s the plan, Johnny? Are you looking to phase out, move on? Do you have a horizon? You were talking last time we spoke about how much of a grind this gig is and you want to get back to art. What’s the plan?
Thornton: I don’t have an exact plan, but Emily can definitely attest to this because I think Emily works as many hours as I do: This is an all-the-time job. Being as scrappy and small of a nonprofit that we are, we love taking on projects. We do art fairs, we do all sorts of cool stuff. And the advocacy part of it, I mean it’s just a never ending avalanche of work and sometimes it doesn’t feel like work, but then you realize, “Oh shit, I haven’t done my own artwork in years.”
My goal is to see the CBA spaces online. I want to see all of those spaces. I want to be at Art Gowanus while those are all being distributed. We need to make sure we do it in an ethical manner. We’re still sort of figuring out what’s the best way to distribute these because I feel, once we open up, whether we do a lottery or whatever, it’s just going to be an avalanche of artists being like, “How do I get one of these spaces?” I want the community center to open. That I’m really excited for. We have a nice gallery space that we’ll be able to offer programming forever, in perpetuity, which is awesome.
This might be a little in the weeds, but I’m wondering, since you’re talking about physical spaces and physical spaces going to artists, the state legislature let a tax incentive program expire which could have effectively killed thousands of housing units. There was some provision that the governor passed in order to get around that, but is this a concern of yours that like, “Oh, is there something deep in the legalese that might be a loophole to prevent spaces from being allocated?”
Thornton: I’m always worried. I never believe anything. I won’t believe 100 percent in these art studios until I see a key and I open a door. I’ve done site visits. I’ve looked at plans. Everyone seems to be continuing with the plan. I think when 421-a expired —
That’s the incentive program I was talking about, yeah.
Thornton: We were really freaked out and then the governor had this big press conference in Gowanus, at Powerhouse Arts actually, that we are invited to say this is going to be OK. We’re going to create some sort of alternative that I’ve been too busy with injuries and Open Studios and programming to really dive into. But it seems the rezoning is going forward and the developments of all of these properties is going forward.
Which was the concern, yeah. Cool. Anything else you want our listeners to know in advance? We covered a lot of ground. We skimmed like a rock skipping across the canal. Is there anything you want to leave our listeners with?
Chiavelli: I guess we can shout out the night before Open Studios. We’ve teamed up with one of our locations, Gemini and Scorpio Loft, that is hosting a bunch of displaced artists for us during Open Studios. It’s also their one-year anniversary party, and they’re working with the honk festival, Honk NYC. It’s like a brass band festival every October.
They’re so cool.
Chiavelli: Yeah, so there’s going to be a really cool Friday night. I think it starts at 7:00. The brass band is going to do a walking tour of a bunch of the murals that we put up this summer and wind up at that party. And then Sunday night there’s a closing party right after DOS ends at 6:00, 6:30; the party will probably start [at] 6:30 at the Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse on Second Street.
Thornton: And then I’ll say, to people who are coming to Open Studios, I think that supporting the creative community and buying work directly from artists is really important. So if you have that extra spot in your house that you’ve been wanting to find an artwork for, please come. Buy directly from the artist. That’s such a positive experience for everyone because you get to chat with the artist, you get to take a piece of work home and it brings you kind of closer to the artwork. You’re going to love it forever. So buy work.
Buy work. Wear comfortable shoes too. Are you keeping an eye on the weather?
Thornton: I haven’t looked yet. I’m not letting myself look until next Tuesday. Next Tuesday, I’ll start freaking out. But I will say we’ve had three good years in a row, and so I’ve told everyone, my team at least, plan for at least a day of rain. Hopefully, it just drizzles, but we’re due for it. So if we don’t get it this year, we’ll get it next year. I feel like we’ve been tempting fate for years, but we’ve had some beautiful days the last few years, so hopefully that happens. But if it is raining, still come. I promise it’s worth it, and it’s such a wonderful time. Enjoy it.
Check out this episode of “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast” for more. Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts.