More Red Hook

Chorus of Red Hook Rara, by the 5th Graders of PS 27:

This is where we rep!
This is where we rep!
This, this, this, this is where we rep
Violence, happiness, bullets in the air!
Yeah, we care!
Yeah, we can see it real clear...

I've posted the rest of my pictures from Red Hook. This one is of some of the kids in the 5th grade class at PS 27 performing the "Red Hook Rara". This was pretty neat - the whole free dance performance was sponsored by Dancing in the Streets, a nonprofit organization that (among other things) is helping to "develop arts and cultural programming in the community" (in quotes 'cause that's straight off the Red Hook Initiative). For this particular performance, members of the Ase Dance Theatre Collective (some of whom you see here in the background singing along) worked with the 5th graders at PS 26 to write their own rara.

I'll post the words of their song here tonight - I just wanted to post the link to the pictures, and couldn't resist at least a quick explanation of what's going on in this picture. These kids rocked.

Oh, and what's going on in yesterday's picture - that's a crane from Weeks Marine that's been brought in to continue work on Pier 64. Our northside launching restrictions continue, and at this point all the boats that had been on the north side (the Frying Pan, the schooner Anne, and the Laissez Faire) have all been moved to the south side to give Weeks space to work. First they'll pull out all the old pilings, then they'll start building a shiny new park pier, with grass and trees and benches where you can sit and watch the water go by. The outrigger canoe dock also moved - you now can't get to them by land - the rowboats are New York Outrigger's solution to that little access glitch!