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“Palpable Love:” Irish Folk Music Thrives at Ridgewood’s Dada

BQE Admin on March 4, 2026

Musicians flocked to Dada, an artist-owned spot in Ridgewood, on February 21. (Photos: Tashroom Ahsan)

An open session in Ridgewood encapsulates the diverse paths that draw New Yorkers to the Irish folk music community.

By Adeline Daab

RIDGEWOOD — “What percentage of Irish folk tunes do you think are in the key of D?”

The question circulated around the group of good-humored musicians gathered on Saturday, February 21, for an Irish folk music open session at Ridgewood’s Dada, an artist-owned music & art space, cocktail club, and espresso bar. Fiddlers, flautists, accordion/concertina players, and a lone guitarist chimed in as they prepared to harmonize in Irish tune. Answers to the question ranged from “75% if you combine D and D minor,” to a conspiracy theory that “100% of Irish tunes are in D but we just moved some to other keys.”

The session kicked off with “Shoemaker’s Fancy,” and danced through dozens of other sprightly and charmingly-named tunes including “Toss the Feathers,” “Humours of Glynn,” and “The Rambling Pitchfork.” The notes fluttered and frolicked in lively rhythm, moving me to tap my toes along with the musicians. These fast instrumental dance tunes are a subgenre of traditional Irish music sometimes called “geantraí,” which means “joy music” more or less. Mixed in with these were some American folk songs, including songs from shape note singing—a participatory singing tradition that originated in New England in the early 1800s and lives on in the American South. A few Irish songs also made an appearance. ‘Songs,’ feature words, while ‘tunes’ refer to instrumental melodies. “Mrs. Gilhooley’s Party,” one of the songs that brought humor to the session, wraps up each verse with “so he picked up the pipes and he started to play until some lads got fooling about, and they cut a big hole in the bag of his pipes and this is the tune that came out” followed by an impressive display of “lilting”—a practice of imitating the sounds of Irish music through nonsense syllables.

As ice melted in the players’ iced coffees and foam disappeared from their once-frothy pints, folk music fans and curious passersby alike stopped to steep in the melodies. They sat as mesmerized as I was, conversations never rising above soft chatter. But the two dozen onlookers present at the session’s peak witnessed a ritual clearly intended not for us, but for the players themselves. There was a palpable love for the music within the ensemble and for the activity of playing it in the company of others. Musicians sat in a tight-knit oval, facing each other. They jovially passed around the opportunity to lead a tune, and the less experienced of the bunch were kindly guided through tough phrases.

‘Songs’ feature words; ‘tunes’ don’t. (Photos: Tashroom Ahsan)

Each participant was drawn to this musical community for a different reason. For the solo guitarist of the group, that reason was a chance encounter between a tipsy girlfriend—formerly an Irish dancer—and a pub emanating Irish folk tunes. She popped in and had so much fun dancing along that she dragged her musically-savvy partner to another session where he was roped into playing the guitar. Another participant, a classically trained flautist and flute teacher turned Irish folk musician, was indoctrinated through the contra dance community. Contra dance is a type of folk dancing — “a mix between swing dancing and square dancing” — that has a lot of overlap with the Irish folk music community.

One of the hosts of the session, Myra Smith, played classical violin growing up and returned to the instrument in the COVID era. “I was drawn to the instrument that I had from my childhood as a tool for making music and for art, and I wanted some sort of way to develop a deeper relationship with the instrument,” Myra told me, “and that timed up nicely with a family trip that I went on to Ireland. That trip was a moment of remembering that traditional Irish music both exists and communities around it are still very active. I had an ‘aha’ moment of like, oh, this is the path I want to go down as I work on playing violin.”

That’s how Myra’s Irish folk music journey began, but the main thing that’s kept her in has been “forming friendships and relationships through making music with people.” She’s also developed a fondness for the melodies as she continually expands her repertoire. She calls herself a “collector of melodies.”

If you are interested in getting involved in the New York Irish folk music scene, Myra suggests you “go out and find places that have regular sessions. Talk to the musicians there and ask them about their recommendations.” There are a lot of great places to learn that are welcoming for people who are just beginning, and Myra hopes her sessions will always be an open place for these curious crowds. A great place to start would be her weekly Wednesday night sessions at The Swan in Bed-Stuy, 7PM!

Clowns Spoof Imperialism in East Williamsburg

BQE Admin on March 4, 2026

Ethan Lindhout, one half of the comedy duo “Ethan & Gigi.” Photos by Andrew Karpan.

An avante-garde show spoofing the Bush presidency makes a stop in East Williamsburg before it embarks on an international tour.

By Andrew Karpan

EAST WILLIAMSBURG — Before they take the revolution to Edinburgh Fringe, local clowns Ethan Lindhout and Gigi del Rosario have been testing it out in the back room of a warehouse in East Williamsburg.

“This is real revolution through the power of theater,” says del Rosario at the start of “The Movement,” the latest show the pair have put together, which played to a crowdy of some twenty people at a three-night run inside Makers’ Space (“A Premier Artistic Hub for Multi-Hyphenates” reads a sign on the door.”) At one point, del Rosario baits the crowd by asking them: “Who here just wants to destroy some property?”

Dressed, and occasionally undressed, in mini-berets, the pair’s enthusiastic, post-Occupy, post-Brace Belden take on the political inanity of the Bush years was moving, funny and sometimes stirring. By the time it ended, a bearded, breakdancing, surprise-entry Osama Bin Laden was hobbling around with an air airplane-shaped balloon around his ankles before picking up a guitar and vigorously sing-rapping “Wake Me Up When September Ends,”  the coda to numerous homages to the 9/11 experienced through endless documentaries and vaguely lived-through as a longstanding dramatic shadow hanging over a generation of New Yorkers. He’s part of a quirked up cast of supporting characters, including Jason Driver, Kiki Milner, Bob Stachel and Siddharth Raj, as a collection of fellow-comrades, secret FBI agents and so on.

But at its emotional center are del Rosario and Lindhout, a pair who have been performing versions of this semi-improvised character work for a while as “Ethan & Gigi,” a comedy duo who have been moving through the city’s clown scene, from spots at Matthew Silver’s avant-clown variety show “The Idiot’s Hour” to regular spots in “Fool Around The Block,” a clown queer clown show run out of the backroom of various bars and coffeeshops in Bushwick. They are clowns who perform without the traditional makeup and, instead, outfit themselves like disgruntled dancers, with moves out of old “Spy vs. Spy” cartoons, dressed like disgruntled mimes, who snap loudly and bicker at each other, are hopelessly in love, if not with each other, than with themselves. 

The clowns performed a political satire called “The Movement.” Photos by Andrew Karpan.

“The Movement” is, perhaps, their masterpiece of immersive and occasionally interactive performance theater, a largely two-man show, centered somewhat on the interpretive 9/11 material, which the pair first performed at the SoHo Playhouse last year, and plan to bring to Edinburgh later this year. A pointedly slapdash – and throughout an extended retelling of Adam & Eve, occasionally nude – meditation on the impossibility of collective action, their energy as performers is infectiously earnest, pointing at everything and nothing with rollicking ease. On their merch table, they sell mugs that read, in lowercase font: “Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my revolution.”

“We are on the precipice of revolution,” del Rosario announces to occasion bursts of laughter.

It make sense, perhaps, that her targets are more theater kid than revolutionary: “Hamilton is pablum propaganda posing as the revolution with the power of theater, but really it’s just little breadcrumbs of the myth of representation while it also distracts us from the fact that America was built on the basis of genocide and slavery,” she says, about twenty minutes before leaning onto ‘Hamilton’-piano chords for an extended rap session about drone strikes. Later, they do a faithful version of “Bad Romance,” too, and with as much fervor and sincerity as any other off-off Broadway Moulin Rouge-style variety show getting by in the outskirts of Bushwick.

At its heart, “The Movement” is about the inescapability of 2000s Iraq war punk nostalgia, which was, in its own forceful, vaguely misremembered, Green Day lyrics way, a kind of political antecedent to indie sleaze. Even the revolutionary berets, an essential part of both del Rosario’s Lindhout’s costumes, feels reappropriated with a sincerity its forebears could never have imagined. They look like they belong in any decade but the present, which is what perhaps makes them belong so firmly in Brooklyn.

The Tao of Margaret Wise Brown

BQE Admin on March 4, 2026

Margaret Wise Brown grew up on Milton Street before moving to Long Island. Photo via the New Yorker.

Born in Greenpoint, the author of “Goodnight Moon” spent hundreds of hours interviewing children before publishing her global bestseller.

GEOFFREY COBB | gcobb91839@Aol.com

Author, “Greenpoint Brooklyn’s Forgotten Past

In terms of book sales, no Brooklyn-born author can compare to Margaret Wise Brown’s classic children’s book Goodnight Moon, which has sold an unbelievable 50 million copies worldwide. Almost fifty years after its 1947 publication, Brown’s beloved tale still sells some 800,000 copies annually and has been translated into at least 25 different world languages. The Library of Congress named it as one of its 88 “Books that Shaped America” for reflecting the nation’s unique literary heritage, yet, amazingly, the New York Public Library almost torpedoed this beloved children’s classic.

Wise, who was born at number 118 Milton Street, is often referred to as the “laureate of the nursery,” and the “queen” of children’s literature, who transformed the picture book into a modern art form. A literary genius with an insight into how toddlers perceive the world and used language, Brown revolutionized children’s books by focusing on the “here and now” of daily life, rather than fantasy.  The author of a slew of other successful children’s books, Life Magazine hailed her in 1946 as the “World’s Most Prolific Picture-Book Writer,” yet powerful adults almost kept her books from the hands of children.

Before discussing Brown’s fight with censorship, let’s get some background on her Greenpoint roots.  She was born and lived the first seven years of her life in a landmark house on Milton Street. Her father, who was an executive with the American Hemp Rope Manufacturing Company on West Street, often fought with Margaret’s mother, creating an unhappy family home. The sensitive, highly perceptive Margaret, sensing from an early age the unhappiness in her parents’ marriage, retreated into language, composing.  even as a young girl, her own songs, rhymes and poems. The family moved to Long Island, but when Margaret graduated from high school, her father refused to pay for her college education, which sparked many heated arguments between Margaret’s parents. Thankfully, her mother prevailed and in 1935 Brown enrolled in Bank Street Teacher’s College children’s writing workshop under the direction of Lucy Sprague Mitchell, an educator interested in the new field of literature for very young children.  Brown spent hundreds of hours interviewing young children, swapping stories with them and learning what they wanted to hear. She developed an uncanny sense of how children communicate and she echoed children’s language in her own works.  Her books were unique and a complete departure from traditional children’s books.

In 1947, Brown conceived and wrote her classic, Goodnight Moon, all in one morning. Her book soon reached the desk of Anne Carroll Moore, the stuffy and conservative, but highly influential head of the New York Public Library’s children’s department. Moore, who also disliked other classics, including Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, read it with disdain and dismissed the book as “unbearably sentimental” and a “bowl full of mush.”  She objected to the absence of a moral in the work and refused to add it to the shelves of the NYPL, which led other libraries around the country to reject the book as well. In large part because of Moore’s rejection, Goodnight Moon wasn’t an immediate commercial success; by 1951 sales had dropped low enough that the publisher considered taking it out of print.

The book, though, was saved by the word of mouth of parents, who were amazed by their children’s positive reaction to it. In March 1953, the book featured in Child Behavior, a nationally syndicated parental advice column. “It captures the two-year-old so completely,” the authors wrote, “that it seems almost unlawful that you can hypnotize a child off to sleep as easily as you can by reading this small classic.”

The book’s popularity continued to grow throughout the 50s and 60s as bookstores stocked it. By 1972, the book’s 25th anniversary, Goodnight Moon was selling almost 100,000 copies sold a year. That same year, the New York Public Library finally added it to its shelves.

Brown was a charming total eccentric. She would use entire royalty checks to buy an entire flower stand. She was part of a group that could proclaim any day of the year Christmas.  Although wealthy, she chose to vacation in a house in Maine without running water or electricity.  Her romances were volatile: she was engaged to two men but never married, and she had a decade-long affair with a woman. At the age of forty-two, she died suddenly, in the South of France, after a clot cut off the blood supply to her brain.

Brown’s sudden, untimely death shocked the world of children’s books. Her output during her brief career was prodigious, writing more than a hundred children’s books, many of which are still in print six decades after her death. No author before or since Brown has managed to write books that reflect a natural impulse to amuse, delight and comfort small children.  Thank goodness a stodgy librarian wasn’t able to censor her.

Navy Yard Launches “Opportunity Shop”

BQE Admin on March 4, 2026

Monshe, a keto-friendly dessert business founded by Melissa Groneveldt, will be the Yard Opportunity Shop’s first occupant. Photos by Jack Delaney.

By JACK DELANEY

jdelaney@queensledger.com 

Melissa Groneveldt stood behind a gleaming counter stacked with cookies, as the room filled with gentle chatter.

Outside, it was a grey day: on Flushing Ave, commuters waited for the B69 bus under a dreary sky. But here in the Yard Opportunity Shop (YOS), the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s newest retail space, the vibes were immaculate.

The YOS, which launched on Thursday, February 26, is an incubator program that will provide a rotating cast of local minority- and women-owned businesses with a pop-up location to sell their products without needing to commit to an expensive lease.

Brooklyn royalty attended the ribbon cutting, including Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who said the $300,000 his office earmarked for the initiative was a “small token” of what he’d like to give, and the Navy Yard’s top brass — Lindsay Greene, who leads its economic development corporation, and Board Chair Hank Gutman.

Yet the guest of honor was Groneveldt, founder of the wellness-driven bakery Monshe, who is kicking off a three-month residency at the YOS.

“It means everything to me,” said Groneveldt, a four-time author, certified nutrition coach, and entrepreneur who lives in the Bronx. “This journey has been a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of crying, a lot of second guessing. What pushed me forward was my daughter — wanting to create a legacy for her, something she can look back on and say how proud of me she is.”

Groneveldt first conceived of Monshe in 2020. She was going to the gym four to five times per week, but found that the processed desserts available at her supermarket were nullifying the benefits of exercise. After workshopping recipes for a year, she launched a store on Etsy in 2021 and has now sold over 70,000 of her sugar-free and keto-friendly cookies.

“Here, you’ve achieved the impossible,” said Gutman, thanking Groneveldt shortly before the ribbon was cut. Then he flashed a grin: “You have satisfied my incurable yearning for a good cookie — and you’ve done it in a way that will keep me from getting in trouble with my wife.”

Serwaa and Kenneth Darpoh of Socie-Tea 7. Photos by Jack Delaney.

Monshe owes its name to Groneveldt’s mother, Monshelia, who worked for the city for more than 40 years. “She always told me that whatever you do, own your own,” said Groneveldt. “I took her advice.”

For the grand opening, Groneveldt also invited fellow small business owners who share her mission: Madeleine Defonce of MD Wellness Dynamics, which contributed mushroom-infused lattes, and Serwaa and Kenneth Darpoh, the Bed Stuy-based duo behind Socie-Tea 7.

The Darpohs offered attendees a taste of three subtle but compelling herbal teas. They come from disparate professional backgrounds — real estate for Serwaa, and music and television production for Kenneth — but when he gave her a $500 cast-iron teapot as a birthday gift early into their relationship, having only intended to spend $100, it blossomed into a shared passion.

Also present was Courtney Washington Joiles, an award-winning fashion designer who manufactures his clothes in the Navy Yard and sells them out of a pop-up in Bed-Stuy, off Tompkins Place. His stall showed off his most recent women’s line, which features airy “pucker” fabric tailored for an “elegant resort look.”

Joiles started his imprint, eponymously titled Courtney Washington, in 1998. Back then, it was headquartered on Fulton Street in Fort Greene. When the economy crashed in 2009, he was forced to shutter, but the Jamaican-born designer has revived his operations over the past two years.

“Most of our clients travel, and it travels amazingly. There’s never a need to iron,” said Joiles, holding up a salmon-textured top. “And these items are completely washable.”

Several days before the opening, Groneveldt — who gave birth only eight months ago — received a text from her eldest daughter saying everything she’d been hoping for. Now, buoyed by the support of her family and her mother’s legacy, YOS’s first resident entrepreneur is hoping to give back.

“This is not the only thing I want to do with this space,” said Groneveldt, as she surveyed the L-shaped room. “Maybe a pitch competition — something to show entrepreneurs that as long as you persevere, anything’s within reach.”

Zuby Ejiofor Elevates Red Storm Over Nova in Bounce-back Win

BQE Admin on March 3, 2026

St. John’s captain records first ever triple-double to blow out the visiting Wildcats

Zuby Ejiofor recorded his first ever competitive triple-double, becoming the fourth known member of St. John’s to do so. He follows Kadary Richmond’s 2025 performance, Ron Artest’s in 1999, and David Cain’s in the 1993 NCAA Tournament. (Photos by Noah Zimmerman)

By Noah Zimmerman

noah@queensledger.com

It was wire to wire dominance for the UConn Huskies in Hartford, Connecticut last Wednesday night. After falling at Madison Square Garden a few weeks ago, the #6 team in the nation blew out the #15 ranked St. John’s Red Storm, 72-40.

For the visiting Johnnies it was by far their worst shooting performance of the season. Their 40 points were the lowest scored by either team in a Red Storm game this year. It also marked the least points ever scored by a Rick Pitino-coached team.

Joson Sanon was the only Johnnie in double figures, scoring 10 points on 3/10 shooting. The Red Storm hit just 25% of their perimeter shots and 20% of their field goal attempts. 

In the second half they only converted two field goal attempts, missing their last 24 and only scoring 14 total points. The missed-FG streak is the longest in Division 1 and the worst stretch for any nationally ranked or BIG EAST team in eight years.

“All I know is we didn’t play good offense,” said Pitino after the game. “We did things that we’ve never done. And again, that’s something I got to question about myself, and I will question it because the team did not do the things we’ve done in the last 13 games. Give [UConn] credit. We’ll move on.”

“I’ve never been through that experience,” said Zuby Ejiofor when asked to describe what happened on Wednesday night. “This loss is one that you really want to forget and move on to the next opponent because Villanova is a great team as well. Championship-level teams respond in a positive way, and my job is to make sure that we are a lot more prepared for the next opponent than we were tonight.”

St. John’s were more than prepared as they opened an early 11-2 lead against the Wildcats on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. The lead ballooned as large as 30 points in the first half, punctuated by a series of invigorating dunks.

Ian Jackson had five steals against Nova, setting a career high. He took one all the way to the bucket with an emphatic windmill jam.

All over the ball on the defensive end was Ian Jackson, who amassed an impressive three first half steals en route to a career-best five. His transition dunk was the cherry on top; an emphatic windmill slam that brought the raucous MSG crowd to their feet. Jackson scored 19, one of his best nights as a Johnnie.

Things didn’t get much easier for Villanova in the second half. Freshman forward Matt Hodge went down with an injury later confirmed to be a season-ending ACL tear, and despite his teammates coming to life and briefly cutting the deficit to 20 points, the Red Storm maintained a comfortable advantage.

In the waning moments of the matchup, Zuby Ejiofor put the finishing touches on a dominant night. With just over three minutes to go he found Joson Sanon for a midrange jumper, tallying his 10th assist.

Zuby knocks down a deep jumper against Villanova. He was firing on all cylinders, dominating on offense and defense.

The MSG crowd roared once more as Ejiofor celebrated his first ever competitive triple-double. The Red Storm captain scored 16 points with 12 rebounds to go with his career-high in assists, also picking up three blocks and a steal on the defensive end.

Zuby’s triple-double marks just the fourth in St. John’s history. He followed Kadary Richmond’s 2025 performance, Ron Artest’s in 1999, and David Cain’s in the 1993 NCAA Tournament.

On the same day as Zuby’s, Richmond picked up his first professional triple-double with the Capital City Go-Go in the NBA G League. Another senior from last year’s Red Storm squad, Deivon Smith, recorded his own the following day for the G League’s Santa Cruz Warriors.

Rick Pitino brought out the white suit for Saturday night’s contest. It delighted the sold-out MSG crowd, who gave him a standing ovation.

The Red Storm out-assisted Villanova 26-11 and out-rebounded them 40-26. It was complete dominance and a much-needed bounce back win as St. John’s heads into their season finale this Friday night in New Jersey.

Following an emotional senior night on Tuesday against Georgetown, all that’s left to decide the BIG EAST regular season championship is the Red Storm’s contest against the Seton Hall Pirates and UConn’s matchup with last place Marquette.

If UConn and St. John’s finish tied, the Red Storm will likely claim the top seed for the BIG EAST Tournament due to their sweep against Creighton. The tournament runs from March 11 to the 14 at Madison Square Garden.

On Mondayís AP College Basketball Rankings the Red Storm slid to #18, with UConn back up to #4. Villanova is also receiving votes and should appear in the NCAA Tournament later this month.

The Greatest Show on Earth

BQE Admin on February 27, 2026

The show’s three ringmasters, DJ Lucky; Cam, played by unicyclist Wesley Williams; and Aria, played by singer and performer Lauren Irving.

At Barclays, a modernized Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus includes a 36ft-tall unicycle, a viral TikTok soundtrack, and a “human rocket.” 

By COLE SINANIAN  | cole@queensledger.com

DOWNTOWN — Twenty-one elephants and 17 camels marched across the Brooklyn Bridge on the morning of May 17, 1884, in what was both a stress test for the newly completed bridge and an advertisement for legendary showman Phineas Taylor Barnum’s “Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Circus,” also known as “The Greatest Show on Earth.”

The stunt was a success; the animals made it safely across the bridge and the public was smitten, solidifying Barnum’s status among the most popular entertainers of his era. When he opened his circus in Brooklyn in April 1871, its cast included elephants, rhinoceros, gnus, horned horses, lions and Asiatic yaks, as well as human performers like acrobats, bareback riders, and the so-called “French Giant,” “Bearded Child,” and the “California Dwarf.”

More than a century and a half later, “The Greatest Show on Earth” is back in Brooklyn, albeit sans the animals and bearded children. A revived Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus opened at Barclays center last weekend, the show’s latest edition which began touring again in 2023 after a five-year hiatus, this time adapted to 21st century tastes. In a wild, at times disorienting juxtaposition of tradition and contemporary pop culture, a cast of acrobats, dancers and contortionists from 17 different countries, a human cannonball, a pair of circus clowns and a robot dog are led through the roughly 120-minute show by a trio of tech-savvy ringmasters to a soundtrack of viral TikTok songs.

The third ringmaster is Cam, played by Wesley Williams, who also once held the world-record for tallest rideable unicycle. Photo by Cole Sinanian

According to performer Lauren Irving, who plays Aria, one of the show’s ringmasters, the circus’ latest iteration aims to follow in its historic predecessor’s footsteps by showcasing human ability in a family-friendly setting.

“In the past, there was a showcase of what humans and animals could do together,” said Irving in an interview with the Brooklyn Star. “There were also different acts that would happen at the time, with what was the norm then. Now, the focus is on that human ability.”

“The Greatest Show on Earth” stopped at Barclays from February 19 to February 22. The show comes to Elmont, Long Island in March, with shows scheduled at the UBS Arena from March 6 to March 8.

At the evening show on February 20th Barclays was about 50% full, mostly of giddy children, many of whom wore orange dragon hats and struggled to sit still as the show’s DJ, Lucky, jumped from Sir Mix-a-lot to Ariana Grande to U2. Irving, a classically trained vocalist originally from Atlanta, Georgia, plays one of the ringmasters, a character named Aria, who acts as a sort of guide from scene to scene. Catch her flexing her incredible vocal range during her performance of No Doubt’s classic “Just a Girl” during contortionist Jordan McKnight’s grimace-inducing set.

The other ringmaster, Cam, is played by Wesley Williams, and acts as the show’s “content creator.”  At various points throughout the show, Williams pulls out his phone to record the acrobats in front of him, which is livestreamed to the jumbotron screen above the stage. Though at times gimmicky, Williams’ livestreaming adds dimension to the spectacle, providing multiple POVs to the acrobats’ performance.

But perhaps most importantly, Williams held the world record for the world’s tallest rideable unicycle until 2024. He showcases this unique ability midway through the show, when he rides a 36ft-tall unicycle of 25 wheels stacked atop one another in a circle around the Barclays Center floor. He is clearly secured by a harness, although the audience can still be heard collectively gasping during his 30-second or so lap.

The show’s most jaw-dropping moment, however, comes with the flying trapeze, just after intermission. Here, a half-dozen acrobats soar over a stress-inducingly thin net, swinging effortlessly between their perches high above the Barclay Center floor. The catchers are strong, and manage to secure their leaping partners by the arms with nearly 100% success. When one of the acrobats loses her grip, a collective gasp rings out. Undeterred, she climbs the ladder back up to her perch to try again, and several shouts of “you got this!” can be heard from the audience. As Irving explained, this particular trapeze configuration is advanced and highly risky.

“Instead of it just going front to back, we have it going front to back and side to side in a crisscross formation,” Irving said. “It’s just incredible to see, because you could literally have a mid-air collision if they’re not in the right time.”

During a bizarre interlude, a BMX unicyclist named Mimo Seedler hops along a tightrope to the music of Maddox Batson, a 16-year-old country singer and social media star, in what’s apparently the result of a paid collaboration. The adults in the audience seem a bit confused, but judging by the reactions of the hundreds of children in the Barclays stands, this is a well-known cultural figure to members of a certain generation.

DJ Lucky leads a troupe of dancers. Photo by Cole Sinanian.

For the finale, performers wheel out an enormous, neon-lit cannon as a troupe of drummers beats a hypnotic pulse. The cannon’s ammunition? Skyler Miser, also known as “Rocket Girl.” Perhaps America’s only second-generation working human rocket, Miser’s parents, Brian and Tina, made history in the 2000s as the world’s only double human cannonball couple at the time, touring with a previous edition of the circus, according to the Ringling website. Continuing her family’s legacy, Miser’s portion of the show is short but spectacular— after a countdown, she flies some 110 feet out the cannon’s barrel at 65mph with the grace of an Olympic high-diver, landing in a heap as the dancers and acrobats swarm the stage.

“The soul of what that is, is entertainment for children and all ages,” Irving said. “And that means truly, adults and children come and are inspired and are wowed. That’s the reaction that we strive to give each and every show, these people from all over the world coming together on one stage, in one place, to showcase human ability.”

“Embrace the New”: Home Aides Speak Out At First NYC Hearing

BQE Admin on February 27, 2026

Home care workers gathered at a meeting room near City Hall on Wednesday, February 18, to support a bill that would place restrictions on 24-hour shifts. (Photo: NYC City Council)

By Jack Delaney | jdelaney@queensledger.com

CITYWIDE — For over a decade, home care workers in New York City have protested in the streets to ban the grueling practice of 24-hour shifts. But it wasn’t until last week — after countless rallies, a hunger strike, and the support of a lawmaker whose own mother worked in the industry — that they were finally able to make their case to the City Council.

On Wednesday, February 18, dozens of home care workers filed into a meeting room near City Hall for a hearing on the “No More 24” bill, which was introduced by Council Member Chris Marte in 2022 but was sidelined under former Speaker Adrienne Adams.

Now, with a new speaker, the push has gained traction. Yet unlike the original bill, the latest iteration wouldn’t ban 24-hour shifts outright. Instead, agencies and insurance companies would be required to secure consent from workers, subject to review by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP).

“Our goal is simple: To ensure that individuals who require assistance can receive crucial care without interruption,” said Council Member Shirely Aldebol, the bill’s co-sponsor, “and that the workers who are dedicated to their clients can be compensated, safe, and respected.”

The problem has been festering for years. At protests in Downtown Brooklyn last fall and this winter, home care workers — overwhelmingly immigrant women of color — described a laundry list of chronic health conditions, ranging from insomnia to tachycardia, that they attribute to their sleepless shifts.

Many, like Dellanira Soto, had worked in these conditions for more than 10 years and had been forced to travel back to their home countries to seek affordable treatment.

“My mom worked 24-hour shifts. When she left for work, it would be days before I saw her again. She would come back exhausted, only able to spend a few hours at home before she had to leave again,” said Marte at Wednesday’s hearing. “The toll these shifts take on workers meets the United Nations definition of torture. They are human rights violations.”

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Representatives for DCWP testified that their office received approximately 1,500 complaints from home care workers last year, with the majority being employees of large agencies who had been prevented from taking paid sick leave. Several “workforce-wide investigations” are currently ongoing, they noted.

For his part, Council Member Frank Morano centered consumers — long-term care in NYC can be prohibitely expensive, with some live-in aides costing upwards of $13,000 per month. Morano suggested that the bill could disrupt care if additional funds were not secured, and that some patients might prefer a single aide over several rotating providers.

But as New York’s home care industry stares down the barrel of a severe labor shortage, with an estimated need for 1 million more workers statewide by 2030, other speakers argued that improving conditions was a prerequisite to covering gaps in care.

“The use of 24-hour shifts has led countless home attendants to leave the job. It is a job-retention issue, as well as a deterrent to bringing on more workers, said Victoria Fariello, a district leader in Manhattan. “No one wins when our home attendants are overworked, exhausted, and abused.”

Yet the dominant theme of the hearing was not rescuing a powerless population, but fanning the flames of their growing movement. “The workers in this room with us today are just a fraction of the thousands of home care workers who have been organizing to end the 24-hour workday for almost a decade,” said Marte. “Four years ago I stood with them when we first introduced this bill. But politics and special interests blocked the legislation from coming to a vote.”

The home care workers themselves were confident that this time would be different. “With the new year, we discard the old and embrace the new,” said Lingfang Zhang, through a translator. “We thank the new Speaker Menin for allowing us to testify, and we call on all city council members to support us immigrant workers.”

Bushwick CB Chair Pushes Back on Lower Cyclist Penalties

BQE Admin on February 26, 2026

Long-time CB4 chairperson Robert Camacho (center right) sent a letter to the borough president’s office in protest after fellow board members proposed lessening penalties for cyclists.

By Jacqueline Cardenas | news@queensledger.com

BUSHWICK — As neighbors settled into tables draped in red plastic tablecloths at the Hope Garden Senior Center for Brooklyn Community Board 4’s monthly meeting, Chairperson Robert Camacho read aloud a letter he received from the Brooklyn Borough President’s office.

Camacho said the letter was sent in response to his concern that the Environmental Protections/Transportation/Sanitation + Parks and Recreation Committee had “overstepped” its authority by proposing, without community input, a resolution to decriminalize cyclists who run traffic lights.

The resolution would allow cyclists to pay off traffic summonses instead of going to court, similar to car drivers.

According to the letter read Wednesday evening, the borough president’s office said the matter did not warrant investigation because it involved internal board procedures and showed no violation of the City Charter.

The resolution later sparked debate over how community input should be gathered to ensure a range of concerns are heard before decisions are made.

Some community members suggested door-knocking or leafleting could be a way to collect input, though Anne Guiney, Economic Development + Housing and Land Use Committee Chairperson, maintained that the board cannot be “naive about how hard and how important community engagement is.”

“We have to be so clear eyed about this, about individual capacity, group capacity, board capacity, the Board Office is understaffed right now, and we’ll probably be understaffed for a minute,” Guiney said during the public comment period.

She also questioned what the parameters of door-knocking would be.

Anne Guiney suggested that requiring extensive door-knocking for ever proposal was unrealistic, giving the volunteer board’s capacity.

“If we are relying on the board staff again, like, do you do a block? Do you do 20 blocks? Do you do 80 blocks? Like, Bushwick is big,” Guiney said.

District Manager Celestina León said she encourages people who want to knock on doors to do so but she can also send mail to everyone’s home on specific blocks.

“I’m happy to see if the board has the budget to do that, and I think that that’ll eliminate that issue,” León said. “It’s always been an option. It’s just never been one that the board has recommended for anything because we haven’t had particularly contentious hearings.”

“We all know that community outreach can be an imperfect process,” León added. “The only way that we can improve is by having just very clear standards and expectations for how the board wants to act and how they would like for the district office to support that.”

But not everyone agreed with Camacho’s belief that the committee had overstepped the community board’s authority in the first place.

“There are quite a few New York City community boards that pass resolutions that advise and ask the city for resources or for certain policy changes, and that’s what this recommendation was,” said community member Jason Gertz. “I don’t believe that there’s anything in the charter or in our bylaws that contra-indicates that.”

The back-and-forth at CB4 mirrors similar debates at community boards throughout the borough — including a discussion at CB6 over a proposed “Low-Traffic Neighborhood” in Gowanus late last year.

Gertz said he didn’t believe it was “fair” for Camacho to say there was “insufficient community input.”

“It’s not just six people on a committee that voted on this resolution,” Gertz said. “It was the entire board that voted on this resolution, and there were members of the public who spoke on this matter, and quite a few members of the board that spoke on this matter.”

Ben Tocker, Chairperson of the Environmental Protections/Transportation/Sanitation + Parks and Recreation Committee, said many residents are unaware of committee-level actions until they reach the full board and suggested that contentious resolutions should be presented at the full board or at both levels.

Tucker suggested this because he said he believes community members “would be [more] inclined to come here at the full board level and not necessarily the committee level, to share their feedback.”

The office of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso did not respond to the Brooklyn Star’s request for comment regarding the decision not to probe into CB4’s internal board procedures.

Streak Hits 13 as Red Storm Take Over BIG EAST Lead

BQE Admin on February 24, 2026

Regular Season nears finale as Johnnies beat Marquette and Creighton, rise to #15

It was a Red Storm rampage from start to finish on Saturday afternoon. Their win over Creighton was the largest in BIG EAST play at Madison Square Garden since 1992! (Photos by Noah Zimmerman)

By Noah Zimmerman

noah@queensledger.com

The Red Storm surged into first place outright in the BIG EAST last week following a win on the road against the Marquette Golden Eagles and a UConn loss to Creighton. St. John’s would go on to thank Creighton with a blowout win over the weekend, downing the Bluejays 81 to 52.

It wasn’t pretty but the Red Storm did enough to dispatch the bottom-dwelling Golden Eagles. Despite blowing a sizable lead around halftime, St. John’s were able to lock in late to claim a 76-70 win.

Bryce Hopkins led St. John’s scorers with 23 points, also pulling down ten boards for a double-double. He didn’t get much help as only Oziyah Sellers and Zuby Ejiofor scored in double figures. Dillon Mitchell and Dylan Darling were both held scoreless, though they led the team in assists with four and five, respectively.

On Saturday afternoon, the Red Storm looked for a much more decisive result. They opened play against Creighton with an 8-0 run, holding a ten-point advantage for most of the opening frame.

It was Johnnies Day at the Garden, and fans were in high spirits with their red shirts and signs. The Red Storm fans were invigorated by a Darling steal and Ejiofor dunk, re-establishing a double-digit lead after a pair of Fedor Zugic threes cut the lead to six.

Zuby Ejiofor has been remarkable all season as he chases a BIG EAST Player of the Year award. He hopes to follow last year’s teammate RJ Luis Jr. in winning the award.

By the end of the first half, St. John’s were firmly in control, 42-27. In the second frame, the Red Storm began to really pull away.

It didn’t take long until the lead was up to 30 points, growing as large as 33 in the final minutes of action. There was no path back into the game for the Bluejays as St. John’s finished off their biggest conference win at MSG since 1992, when they took down the #6 UConn Huskies.

A pair of 15-point performances by Zuby Ejiofor and Bryce Hopkins led the way for St. John’s starters but it was another stellar game from Dylan Darling to lead the way for the Red Storm. Darling scored 17 points on 5/7 shooting, also picking up a game-high three steals.

Bryce Hopkins has turned his season around, especially in the last few games since a heated exchange in Providence.

For Creighton, no Bluejay scored more than Zugic’s 9 (3/5 from three). They were handily out-assisted and out-rebounded by St. John’s and matched their season worst with 18 turnovers.

With the win, St. John’s improved to 15-1 in the BIG EAST and 22-5 overall. On Monday they continued to ascend the AP College Basketball rankings, moving to #15. It’s their highest mark since they were ranked #14 in November.

Dylan Darling has been spectacular during the Red Storm winning streak. He filled the bucket off the bench against the Bluejays.

Wednesday night’s battle in Connecticut could prove to be a decisive one with just three games remaining in regular season play. The Red Storm have all but clinched a top seed and bye for the start of the BIG EAST tournament, but there’s still work to be done to see out a phenomenal finish to the season.

On Saturday night the Red Storm will take on Villanova at Madison Square Garden, their final big matchup of the season. The Wildcats have been on the cusp of the Top-25 for a good portion of the season, also playing the Johnnies well despite an 86-79 loss in Pennsylvania earlier this year.

The final home game of the regular season is next Tuesday, March 3. St. John’s and the Georgetown Hoyas will start at 7pm. The season finale will tip-off across the Hudson River when the Red Storm visit the Seton Hall Pirates on Friday, March 6.

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