|
Culture Of Brooklyn
Brooklyn has played a major role in various aspects of American culture including literature, cinema and theater as well as being home to the Brooklyn Academy of Music and to the second largest public art collection in the United States which is housed in the Brooklyn Museum. Literature Walt Whitman wrote of the Brooklyn waterfront in his classic poem ''Crossing Brooklyn Ferry''. Harlem Renaissance playwright Eulalie Spence taught at Eastern District High School in Brooklyn from 1927 to 1938, a time during which she wrote her critically acclaimed plays ''Fool's Errand'', and ''Her''. In 1930, poet Hart Crane published the epic poem '' The Bridge'', using the Brooklyn Bridge as central symbol and poetic starting point. The novels of Henry Miller include reflections on several of the ethnic German and Jewish neighborhoods of Brooklyn during the 1890s and early 20th century; his novels ''Tropic of Capricorn'' and ''The Rosy Crucifixion'' include long tracts describing his ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1945 Film)
''A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'' is a 1945 American drama film that marked the debut of Elia Kazan as a dramatic film director. Adapted by Tess Slesinger and Frank Davis from the 1943 novel by Betty Smith, the film focuses on an impoverished but aspirational, second-generation Irish-American family living in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, in the early 20th century. Peggy Ann Garner received the Academy Juvenile Award for her performance as Francie Nolan, the adolescent girl at the center of the coming-of-age story. Other stars are Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, Lloyd Nolan, Ted Donaldson, and James Dunn, who received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Francie's father. The screenplay was adapted for radio in 1949, for a musical play in 1951, and for a television film in 1974. In 2010, ''A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "cul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Fortress Of Solitude (novel)
''The Fortress of Solitude'' is a 2003 semi-autobiographical novel by Jonathan Lethem set in Brooklyn and spanning the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. It follows two teenage friends, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude, one white and one black, who discover a magic ring. The novel explores the issues of race and culture, gentrification, self-discovery, and music. The novel's title is a reference to the Fortress of Solitude, a fortress constructed for Superman. Characters Dylan Ebdus – the son of Rachel and Abraham, an artist father and a Brooklyn native mother. He has a hard time adjusting to the neighborhood until he meets Mingus Rude. As time passes on, they grow apart. Dylan goes to Camden College in Vermont, while Mingus goes to prison in Brooklyn. Dylan attempts to find and rescue his friend and restore their relationship. Abraham Ebdus – Dylan's father, an avant-garde artist. After Rachel abandons the family, he becomes more introverted, shutting himself in the attic to paint cels of hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motherless Brooklyn (novel)
''Motherless Brooklyn'' is a novel by Jonathan Lethem that was first published in 1999. Told in first person, the story follows Lionel Essrog, a private investigator who has Tourette's, a disorder marked by involuntary tics. Essrog works for Frank Minna, a small-time owner of a "seedy and makeshift" detective agency disguised as a transportation company. Together, Essrog and three other characters who are all orphans from Brooklyn—Tony, Danny, and Gilbert—call themselves "the Minna Men". Critical reception The novel won the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and the 2000 Gold Dagger award for crime fiction. Albert Mobilio of ''The New York Times'' wrote: Under the guise of a detective novel, Lethem has written a more piercing tale of investigation, one revealing how the mind drives on its own "wheels within wheels." Unlike the stock detective novel it shadows, the thriller in which clarity emerges on the final page, ''Motherless Brooklyn'' immerses us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, ''Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. In 1999, Lethem published '' Motherless Brooklyn'', a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published '' The Fortress of Solitude'', which became a ''New York Times'' Best Seller. In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. Since 2011, he has taught creative writing at Pomona College. Early life Lethem was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Judith Frank Lethem, a political activist, and Richard Brown Lethem, an avant-garde painter. He was the eldest of three children. His father was Protestant (with Scottish and English ancestry) and his mother was Jewish, from a family with roots in Germany, Poland, and Russia. His brother Blake became an artist involved in the early New Yo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paule Marshall
Paule Marshall (April 9, 1929 – August 12, 2019) was an American writer, best known for her 1959 debut novel '' Brown Girl, Brownstones''. In 1992, at the age of 63, Marshall was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship grant. Life and career Marshall was born Valenza Pauline Burke in Brooklyn, New York, to Adriana Viola Clement Burke and Sam Burke on April 9, 1929. Marshall's father had migrated from the Caribbean island of Barbados to New York in 1919 and, during her childhood, deserted the family to join a quasi-religious cult, leaving his wife to raise their children by herself. Marshall wrote about how her career was inspired by observing her mother's relationship to language: "It served as therapy, the cheapest kind available to my mother and her friends. It restored them to a sense of themselves and reaffirmed their self-worth. Through language they were able to overcome the humiliations of the work day. Confronted by a world they could not encompass, they took refuge in language." ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A View From The Bridge
''A View from the Bridge'' is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was first staged on September 29, 1955, as a one-act verse drama with ''A Memory of Two Mondays'' at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The run was unsuccessful, and Miller subsequently revised and extended the play to contain two acts; this version is the one with which audiences are most familiar. The two-act version premiered in the New Watergate theatre club in London's West End under the direction of Peter Brook on October 11, 1956. The play is set in 1950s America, in an Italian-American neighborhood near the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. It employs a chorus and narrator in the character of Alfieri. Eddie, the tragic protagonist, has an improper love of, and almost obsession with Catherine, his wife Beatrice's orphaned niece, so he does not approve of her courtship of Beatrice's cousin Rodolpho. Miller's interest in writing about the world of the New York docks originated with an unproduced s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are '' All My Sons'' (1947), ''Death of a Salesman'' (1949), ''The Crucible'' (1953), and '' A View from the Bridge'' (1955). He wrote several screenplays and was most noted for his work on '' The Misfits'' (1961). The drama ''Death of a Salesman'' is considered one of the best American plays of the 20th century. Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, '50s and early '60s. During this time, he received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and married Marilyn Monroe. In 1980, he received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. He received the Praemium Imperiale prize in 2001, the Prince of Asturias Award in 2002, and the Jerusalem Prize in 2003, and the Dorothy and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prospect Park (Brooklyn)
Prospect Park is an urban park in Brooklyn, New York City. The park is situated between the neighborhoods of Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Flatbush, and Windsor Terrace, and is adjacent to the Brooklyn Museum, Grand Army Plaza, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. With an area of , Prospect Park is the second largest public park in Brooklyn, behind Marine Park. First proposed in legislation passed in 1859, Prospect Park was laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who also helped design Manhattan's Central Park, following various changes to its design. Prospect Park opened in 1867, though it was not substantially complete until 1873. The park subsequently underwent numerous modifications and expansions to its facilities. Several additions to the park were completed in the 1890s, in the City Beautiful architectural movement. In the early 20th century, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) commissioner Robert Moses start ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flatbush, Brooklyn
Flatbush is a neighborhood in the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood consists of several subsections in central Brooklyn and is generally bounded by Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Prospect Park to the north, East Flatbush, Brooklyn, East Flatbush to the east, Midwood, Brooklyn, Midwood to the south, and Kensington, Brooklyn, Kensington and Parkville (which were characterized throughout much of the 20th century as subsections of Flatbush) to the west. The neighborhood had a population of 105,804 as of the 2010 United States Census. The modern neighborhood includes or borders several institutions of note, including Brooklyn College. Flatbush was originally chartered as the Dutch Nieuw Nederland colony town of Midwout (or Midwoud or Medwoud). The town's former border runs through what is now Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Before it was incorporated into the Brooklyn#History, City of Brooklyn in 1894, ''Flatbush'' described both the Political subdivisio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sophie's Choice (novel)
''Sophie's Choice'' is a 1979 novel by American author William Styron. The author's last novel, it concerns the relationships among three people sharing a boarding house in Brooklyn: Stingo, a young aspiring writer from the South, Jewish scientist Nathan Landau, and his lover Sophie, a Polish-Catholic survivor of the German Nazi concentration camps, whom Stingo befriends. ''Sophie's Choice'' won the US National Book Award for Fiction in 1980. The novel was the basis of a 1982 film of the same name. It was controversial for the way in which it framed Styron's personal views regarding the Holocaust. Plot summary Stingo, a novelist who is recalling the summer when he began his first novel, has been fired from his low-level reader's job at the publisher McGraw-Hill and has moved into a cheap boarding house in Brooklyn, where he hopes to devote some months to his writing. While he is working on his novel, he is drawn into the lives of the lovers Nathan Landau and Sophie Zawistowska, f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Chosen (Potok Novel)
''The Chosen'' is a novel written by Chaim Potok. It was first published in 1967. It follows the narrator, Reuven Malter, and his friend Daniel Saunders, as they grow up in the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1940s. A sequel featuring Reuven's young adult years, '' The Promise'', was published in 1969. Plot In 1944 Brooklyn, fifteen-year-old Reuven Malter prepares to play a baseball game: his own Modern Orthodox school against a team from an ultra-orthodox Hasidic yeshiva. It becomes apparent that the only good player on the opposing team is Danny Saunders, the son of nearby Hasidic Rabbi Isaac Saunders. The game becomes something of a war between the two teams, seemingly symbolic of their differing ideologies. In the last inning, with Reuven's team in the lead, Reuven is put in as pitcher. When Danny gets up to the plate, he hits a line drive straight at Reuven's head, which breaks his glasses and drives a small piece of glass into his eye. Reuven's te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
