Let’s all save the trees from choking. via the Treedom Project

We’ve previously covered the irritation of seeing abandoned, rusting bikes clogging up a sidewalk. It’s one thing if they’re just taking up bike parking, but did you know that if they’re attached to trees, they’re also doing environmental damage? Now, one Brooklyn resident has started the Treedom Project, and is sticking up for the trees by clipping the locks that people so thoughtlessly leave on them to rust. (more…)

This building is adorable, and you would love to write here. (Via Indiegogo)

Sure, New York’s filled with writers and wannabe writers, but with all the noise, nightlife and other distractions (not to mention, that pesky rent thing) aren’t exactly conducive to penning the next Tender Is The Night. That’s one of the reasons why writers’ retreats like Bread Loaf in Vermont and Mesa Refuge in California are so popular: they give budding Virginia Woolfs and Truman Capotes the chance to isolate themselves from the rest of the world and work on their Great American Novels with other writers around to inspire them and egg them on. With that in mind, Cobble Hill bookstore mecca BookCourt‘s trying to get their own writers’ lair in the Catskills off the ground, and they’ve launched an Indiegogo campaign to help drum up the funds for it. (more…)

Don’t let this not happen!

Brooklyn’s been doing a hell of job coming back from Sandy, what with the grocery store re-openings and neighborhood restorations, but that doesn’t mean everything just magically goes back to the way it was. The Mermaid Parade, for instance, was already struggling before Sandy tried to drown Coney Island, and that just made things worse. There’s even a chance the parade doesn’t happen this year, but Coney Island USA is trying to cover costs with a last ditch Kickstarter. So let’s save the Mermaid Parade! (more…)

Steve Bonano

Last time we were publicizing a blood drive, it was in relation to the attacks in Boston, but you’ve got a chance to do some good in your own backyard now. 9/11 first responder, Navy vet, 30-year NYPD officer and head of Barclays Center security Steve Bonano is battling blood cancer, possibly related to his work at Ground Zero, and needs a bone marrow transfusion. So today and tomorrow, you can sign up to be a bone marrow donor at 345 Jay Street, right outside the Jay-Street MetroTech subway stop. (more…)

Will this be on the test?

If you’re a PTA member trying to raise money for your child’s school, we suppose you can go the normal route and have a bake sale. But that takes a lot of baking, and who has time for that? And anyway, you’re in Brooklyn, land of everyone wanting to be neighborly, so why not get say, a local restaurant to offer a coupon, like PS 705 parents got Chavela’s to? Yep, you can grab a coupon that gets you $40 worth of food for $30, and a bunch of the money will go towards a neighborhood school. Win/win! (more…)

Not appearing in landfills anymore

Unless you’re like Penn and Teller and want to live in some libertarian netherworld where recycling is one of the great evils of the modern age, people are fans of recycling. Especially for things made out of plastic, since plastic is useful but awful since it never dies, just melts and gives off toxic fumes. Well, it did that or sit in landfills, but no more! The city has expanded its recycling program to include more rigid plastics, which means you can replace your literal tree hugging with a some metaphorical tree hugging. (more…)

The secret to her happiness? Full of vim and vigor from fundraising for the library. Photo by Dimitry Gudkov

Staying on the bike beat for a second, let’s talk about something that’s less contentious than not hitting people with cars or whether bike share stations are imperialistic. The Brooklyn Public Library is of course never on the firmest ground funding-wise. Despite the fact that libraries are a great resource that can potentially benefit everyone, the city council and mayor would rather spend money on drones that shoot 17 oz. sodas out of your hand and taz breaks for luxury condo builders. So that leaves it up to us to fund the damn things, despite the fact that we can’t levy taxes. We can however, raise money by riding bikes from branch to branch, thanks to the library’s Bike the Branches event next month. (more…)

Traifik d’Info is one of the films set to screen this year.

Carribeing, Flatbush’s annual film festival celebrating Caribbean cinema and culture, needs some help getting off the ground this year. So, like any good artistic endeavor, they’ve turned to crowdfunding — though, their campaign’s a little more, uh, technical than some of the other ones we’ve seen. (more…)

Carlos Arredondo: first responder, hero, knows CPR

It’d been a nice twelve year break, but Monday was a reminder that the world we live in is one in which some sociopath with a Twitter account can decide to leave a bomb next to you. Short of boxing ourselves into some creepy, Minority Report-esque world where psychics predict crimes, there isn’t much you can do to be truly prepared for all hell breaking loose around you. But you can do something: take a CPR class so that you can provide immediate assistance to people in the wake of a crisis. And lucky for you, the Red Cross offers exactly that. (more…)

Bauman, in the center, before the bombing. Via GoFundMe

Ugh, this week. We’re at the point where we would literally believe any piece of stupid bullshit happening out there in the world, because we’re in a rolling cycle of disaster. Our existential angst is nothing compared to the actual, terrible injuries suffered by Boston marathon bombing survivors, who were maimed just because they decided to watch a marathon. One of them, Jeff Bauman, lost his legs in the blast and is facing a life with prosthetic legs. Yet despite being in a haze of painkillers when he first got to the hospital, Bauman was able to identify one of the bombers when he woke up in the hospital. Now, you can at least help him deal with what will no doubt end up being enormous medical bills. (more…)