usic At The Bridge, a new free summer music series being presented in the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park section of Brooklyn Bridge Park, continues to attract huge crowds.
For each consecutive Wednesday nights, starting at 6:30 p.m., a different Brooklyn music venue will curate a three-hour jewel of a program, taking direct aim at the musically adventurous. The program is a joint venture of Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
The premise behind the series is simple. Rather than program random acts to perform in the tent at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park’s Tobacco Warehouse, Music At The Bridge has invited five Brooklyn performance spaces — each with a limited seating capacity, but impeccable taste and a lot of heart and personality — to make the Tobacco Warehouse their home for the evening.
This historic structure was built in the 1870s as a tobacco customs inspection center. Now, the roofless rooms of the Tobacco Warehouse provide one of the most compelling public spaces overlooking the Brooklyn waterfront.
Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park and its immediate neighbor, a city park, constitute the first 12 acres of the larger Brooklyn Bridge Park, which will stretch 1.3 miles along the East River from Jay Street, north of the Manhattan Bridge past the Brooklyn Bridge to Atlantic Avenue. The Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation has begun construction on the larger park, and when completed, Brooklyn Bridge Park will feature 76 acres of lawns, recreation fields, water access, esplanades, and playgrounds.
On July 23, travel through time, courtesy of Red Hook’s Jalopy, from the early guitar blues and gospel-influenced sound of The Otis Brothers and the genre-busting ensemble Rob Reddy’s Tenfold to the country swing vaudeville of The Wiyos. The evening will be tied together with a nice bow by banjo-playing storyteller Al Duvall, our tour guide through the seedier side of Memory Lane.
ISSUE Project Room, located in Gowanus, presents a most adventurous program on July 30, featuring the Theremin Society (a society of theremin players, imagine!), John Zorn’s Cobra (one of the most important composers of the last fifty years presenting one of his best-known pieces), and Jonathan Kane’s February (dense guitar-driven minimalism with a big beat that sounds great).
The series closes on August 6 with Park Slope’s Union Hall — leading off with a taste of their Secret Science Club (scientific inquiry in cabaret form), followed by Headlights (the indie rock pride of Champaign, IL) and French Kicks (a sharp, hip mainstay of the NYC mod-pop scene). Comedian Dave Hill (MTV, Comedy Central, VH1) will stand up between the acts.
All concerts are free, but capacity is limited. The Tobacco Warehouse gates open at 6 p.m. and concerts begin at 6:30 p.m. See www.brooklynbridgepark.org for more information.
