Courtesy of Jens Rasmussen

By Jean Brannum | jbrannum@queensledger.com

Sixty-six-year-old Laura Hofmann is used to the industrial pollution many Greenpointers are familiar with, but nothing like this. She can draw pictures on her car with the dust that coats it. She struggled with esophagitis until taking preventative measures to keep herself from breathing in the dust. Her problems have since subsided, but the air quality has changed the way she interacts with her environment.

After wondering where the dust was coming from, she finally stumbled upon a cement plant a few blocks from her home: DKN Ready Mix, a neighbor to many Greenpointers since last fall.

“You can write your own name in the car windows,” Hofmann said referring to the dust that reportedly coats the cars.

The DKN Ready Mix plant moved to 270 Green St from Maspeth Ave and according to nearby residents, the company has not been a good neighbor. Residents have spoken out about the pollution, noise, and cracks in the buildings the plant has allegedly caused.

Jens Rasmussen, a longtime resident next to the plant, has spoken about the impact of DKN on his and his family’s ability to live in their apartment. His two-year-old son dealt with coughing and sneezing allegedly because of the plant.

Another resident, who did not want to give out their name but lives near the plant, said that the dust had caused puffy eyes and a burning sensation in their chest. They used to love being on her deck, but cannot enjoy it due to the dust and the noise.

North Brooklyn Neighbors, an environmental advocacy nonprofit has provided air quality monitors to several Greenpointers, including Rasmussen. The monitors measure for particulate matter under 2.5 micrometers in diameter. These particles are small enough to inhale. An acceptable air quality reading is an average of 35 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) over 24 hours, according to NYC Environment and Health. Air quality readings on Purple Air show the average 24-hour amount to be 45 µg/m3as of Aug 13. The one-week average is 60 µg/m3.

Rasmussen used to open his apartment windows frequently since one of his rooms do not have air conditioning. He stopped opening his windows due to the dust before installing a fan at the window.

The DKN Cement plant has caused noise levels in the area to increase past what is allowed according to residents. One resident said that the noise levels are high through the night.

“I do understand that since we have chosen to live in an industrial zone, we have to make peace with a certain amount of noise,” the resident said, “But DKN goes way above the regulation limits, both in terms of decibels and permitted hours.”

A video from Rasmussen showing a noise monitor app shows noise levels near the plant to be above 85 decibels on Jan 3 at 2 PM with a blaring buzzing sound in the background. Eighty-five decibels is equivalent to a lawnmower or a motorcycle.

Crack in Rasmussen’s building. Courtesy of Jens Rasmussen.

He also reports seeing DKN breaking up concrete by throwing large chunks onto the ground to load up pieces in trucks. He mentioned experiencing shaking that he felt was even more intense than the earthquake in April.  His landlord has already had to repair cracks allegedly caused by DKN.

While the lot that DKN is on is zoned for heavy industrial use, it is not for cement mixing. A Department of Buildings violation states that the lot is for the sale of used cars, metals, irons, and parts. The DOB fined DKN $620.

Probe by Elected Officials

Elected officials in the Greenpoint area eventually caught wind of what was happening and have written a letter to DKN owner Diane Macchio and Department of Environmental Conservation Regional Director Rodney Rivera requesting a meeting on the matter and an inspection from the DEC.

The meeting between the community, DKN, and elected officials was scheduled for Aug 14, but was canceled by DKN the day before, Rasmussen said. He received the news through email and was told that DKN hired a consultant to address the issue and needed more time.

Councilmember Lincoln Restler said he wants the DEC and the Department of Environmental Protection to hold DKN accountable for the damage it has allegedly caused to nearby residents.

“If they were to find another spot, I’d be a happy councilman,” Restler said.

The letter noted that Greenpoint has historically been an industrial zone, which has led to significant environmental issues such as the Meeker Avenue Plume.

Rasmussen said that while other cement plants exist near him, none have caused this much damage. At the very least, he wants DKN to comply with local laws that would make living near the plant easier.

DKN Ready Mix did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Editor’s Note: This article was updated Aug 14 at 2 pm with additional information. 

By Nicholas Gordon

Two Bridges Football Club team photo. Credit: Michael Mansfield

When the founders of New York’s Two Bridges Football Club first began organizing soccer games for local teenagers in October of 2020, they had one guiding principle in mind: open access for players from any socioeconomic background. Unlike most top tier soccer clubs in the U.S., Two Bridges would not cost anything to join. Players would be selected by the merit of their soccer playing ability and their commitment to hard work, ensuring opportunities for New York’s student-athletes from all demographics. 

In its first four years, Two Bridges has grown to include 80 players, ages 15-19 years old, from over 30 different countries. And with the club’s recent partnership with the Brooklyn Football Club—the local professional team which will launch its inaugural season in the USL Championship League in March of 2025—it’s clear that the founders’ vision is having a profound impact on the lives of the club’s players, the local communities, and U.S. soccer at large.

“The ‘no pay to play’ model gives equal opportunities to players from different backgrounds and contributes to raising the quality of American soccer,” said Michael Mansfield, the club’s co-founder and marketing strategist. “We would never have the chance to compete at the top level and fully develop American soccer talent with the pay to play model,” Mansfield said, estimating that most quality soccer clubs cost players between $4-9 thousand per year for membership. 

The idea for Two Bridges was sparked by co-founder Brian Kuritsky, a former club soccer teammate of Maximilian “Mack “Mansfield, son of Michael Mansfield, who suggested that with the combination of Mack’s European coaching style and Michael’s photographic stories of local teams, there was potential for a great soccer program. The Mansfields then collaborated with co-founder Arik Rosenstein, Head of Strategy, to form Two Bridges as a club dedicated to providing the under-resourced and historically marginalized youth of New York with a high-caliber soccer environment, rigorous academic preparation, and leadership development. 

Two Bridges father-son co-founders, Michael Mansfield (left) and Maximilian “Mack” Mansfield (center), with Stefan Mansfield (right), Mack’s brother and one of the team’s three coaches. Credit: Michael Mansfield

For star midfielder Thomas Silva, the decision to transfer from his high school team to Two Bridges has been a literal game-changer that has opened up a path to professional soccer.

“Playing with Two Bridges has been amazing,” Silva said. “I’ve learned a lot about new ways of playing soccer, trying different strategies, and getting to play a variety of positions. It feels like every country is represented on our team, with different religions, geography, and style of play.”

A first generation Brazilian-American born and raised in New York City, Silva was recently invited, along with four other players from Two Bridges, to play in the elite Tiro soccer tournament, where Silva was awarded player of the tournament.

“Two Bridges feels more like a family than anything, being with all of the players and getting the support from the coaches,” Silva said, noting his strong connection to Mack Mansfield. 

Two Bridges Co-founder Maximilain “Mack” Mansfield (left) with his players during a match. Credit: Michael Mansfield

As a former player for Cornell University, Columbia University, and Germany’s Under 19 Bundesliga team, Mack Mansfield was on route to a professional soccer career of his own before being sidelined by a groin injury. Rather than languish in discouragement at this painful setback, Mack took his abiding love for the game of soccer and his commitment to serving the community to form Two Bridges.

“Mack is a fantastic coach, mentor, and big brother figure for the boys,” said Frank Di Blasi, Two Bridges coaching manager and administrator, whose son Francesco Di Blasi has played as a defender for Two Bridges for the past three years and is now headed to Germany where he will train with various clubs in the country’s elite Under-19 soccer program that Mack played in.

“My son has improved immensely playing for Two Bridges,” Frank Di Blasi said. “It’s helped him emotionally and mentally too, and expanded his group of friends with different nationalities and religions.”

Through donor funding, Two Bridges has gained considerable resources, including increased access to spaces for training and means of academic support. Most recently, Two Bridges has partnered with Cornell Tech, which will provide tutors for the players.

With four intensive two-hour training sessions per week including individualized performance feedback from coaches, Two Bridges aims to accelerate their players’ development and maximize their potential, creating pathways to play college and professional soccer.

Each student-athlete in the club is also matched with a mentor who helps guide them through their teenage years and the college admissions process, and offers career counseling to help prepare them for workplace success. The club also provides its student-athletes with a prominent guest speaker series. 

The club’s name Two Bridges is derived from its humble pandemic-era origins, when the only unlocked park available to play soccer in free of charge was the Tanahey Playground, located in the heart of the Two Bridges neighborhood in lower Manhattan.

What started out as an idea for providing equal opportunity for New York’s young soccer players has blossomed into a community powerhouse of promise for talented young men willing to work hard as part of the Two Bridges team.

“Two Bridges is about using football to get leverage to other life opportunities,” Michael Mansfield said. “Our opportunities as a club are growing too and it keeps getting better.”

Two Bridges star midfielder Thomas Silva. Credit: Michael Mansfield

Musician Sonny Singh. Credit: Shruti Parekh

By Olivia Graffeo | olivia@queensledger.com

Pioneering his own unique blend of South Asian fusion, Brooklyn-based musician and activist Sonny Singh is continuing a decades-long mission of bringing people together. 

Singh was raised in Sikhism, a religion originating in the Punjab region of India that preaches meditation and equality of all people. Born of two Indian immigrants in North Carolina, Singh embraced his Sikh background as a way to cope with rising racial and ethnic tension in America. 

“When times were tough, I found myself gravitating towards some of the [Sikh] devotional songs I learned as a kid,” Singh said. 

Noting that the demographics of Charlotte in the 1980s was mostly white and Black people, Singh and his brother were the only children in their school who wore turbans. He described this as causing a deep feeling of isolation and otherness. 

“Kids on the playground would ask me, ‘are you white or black?’ and I wouldn’t know how to answer,” he said. 

Despite being part of a small minority in the American South, Singh found a way to feel he was a part of something. Exploring his heritage, and specifically the music of his ancestors, provided Singh an outlet to feel connection and peace within his community. Though there were not any gurdwaras (Sikh temples) in their area growing up, Singh was able to find meaning through playing music at small events, usually at community members’ houses. 

After making his career in music, which he calls becoming “a musician with a capital ‘M,’” Singh found success in trying out many different genres. Participating in bands that played mixes of ska, reggae, punk rock, and other fused genres, he has only recently returned to his roots in Sikh-inspired compositions. After the release of his first solo album, Chardi Kala, in 2022, Singh fully embraced the style of music that comforted him in childhood while putting his own flair in every song. 

Sonny Singh performing music from his debut solo album “Chardi Kala” 

Singh’s second solo album, Sage Warrior, will be released on September 6th. While his recent work harkens back to the religious music of Sikhism, which he calls “sacred poetry,” Singh is not simply performing renditions of the spiritual hymns of his faith. His music combines different genres, languages and instruments to reflect the unique identity Singh has formed over decades of playing music. 

While classical renditions of Sikh music usually contain the Punjabi language and instruments such as the harmonium and tabla (a type of South Asian drum), Singh expands on this. He can be heard singing in Punjabi, Spanish, English and Hindi; in addition, Singh’s skill as a trumpet player is utilized often, creating a distinctive new sound. While Singh notes that some more traditional Sikhs may disagree with his interpretation of their religion’s music and teachings, he is sure that his work is having positive effects for their community.

“It’s a constant evolution… I’m making music that makes sense to me and my own heart,” he said.

A facet of Singh’s work that is especially important to him is its foundation in social justice and activism. Since becoming involved in social causes as a teenager, Singh has continually worked to help others not only through his music, but through activism work as well. A major tenant of Sikhism is the notion that all people are equal: providing justice to everyone is paramount. 

“This sacred poetry of our tradition, there is so much wisdom in it that’s applicable today… Sikh wisdom has always inspired me, has inspired my activism,” he said.

Through music and activism, Singh notes he was able to avoid falling into “despair and assimilation,” and keep his culture alive. During his live concerts, he gives context and history to the audience, most of whom are not Sikh themselves. 

Singh describes his current musical journey as “Coming back to my past, coming back to ancestral wisdom.” 

Sonny Singh’s new album Sage Warrior can be pre-ordered before release on September 6th at https://sonnysingh.com/. 

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

by Alexander Bernhardt Bloom | alex@queensledger.com

All Day, Every Day, the thematic name ascribed to the open air art exhibition on view in Park Slope since June 1st, a part of the programming for the month put on by the organization Brooklyn Pride, invites interpretation on several levels.

Most literally, the title can be understood as a reference to the expo’s public nature. Its some one-hundred included works are presented on banners on display outdoors until the end of August on the exterior fences of the Washington and Old Stone House Park. They don’t come down with the waning daylight. Neither rain nor the extreme summer heat New Yorkers have become accustomed to will restrict passersby from surveying the banners as they do. The show is constant.

But a closer look at the artworks on display reveals a meaning for the show’s title, also the overall theme for Brooklyn Pride celebrations this month, more conceptual than practical.

The prompt for the artists whose works were selected from the curators open call – what does ‘pride’ mean to you? – returned a great variety of responses. 

Some lionize heroic or historically significant figures, others honor monuments in locales important for the community or particular moments in their collective story. There were portraits and self-portraits of couples and individuals and whole families, some captured in buoyant, esteemed poses, others in quiet moments of intimacy.

There were images of recognizable local venues with dazzling rainbows superimposed upon them. There were images of the future with hopeful distinctions to show their difference from the past or the now we live in.

All of these subjects were depicted on uniform vinyl canvases, square with white backgrounds, hung from simple plastic ties affixed directly to the park fence. 

Few perused them purposefully on a weekday afternoon last week, but they were nevertheless noticed, and colored the mood of the park, which on a hot day in late June, was teeming with children in various states of play. Just beyond the hanging artwork they dangled from swingsets; kids with super soakers chased one another and toddlers pursued floating bubbles with their handlers in tow. There was a certain harmony in catching them in the same view.

“These are really weird,” said one member of a group of passing high schoolers, too cool for the playground as they strutted down 3rd street and observed the canvases, “but they’re also beautiful.”

Part of the strength of an open air exhibit is that it is continually on view right in the middle of the goings-on of the streets and neighborhood around it, explains Emily Chiavelli, Program Director at Gowanus Arts and one of the organizers of the expo at Old Stone Park this summer.

The open access and busy location of this particular show gives it a special prominence, she said, and Chiavelli estimates tens of thousands of people will see it before the summer is out.

That means a lot to the artists whose works were selected from an open call for the exhibit, which was a great success last year and inspired Brooklyn Pride to collaborate with the arts organization for a second time. Their included pieces are up for sale through Gowanus Arts, and Chiavelli expects also that many receive direct inquiries through their social media accounts because of their exposure in the show.

More importantly, the exhibition amplifies voices that have so often gone underrepresented, and in a broader way, which, for Chiavelli, ties into the goals of Pride celebrations as a whole: “bringing attention to the experience of Queer people living in society.” 

It is the complexity of that experience that can come through in the gathering of artists’ work this way, she added: the joy and the sorrow and otherwise; the mundane parts of the lives of members of the LGBTQ+ community as well as their triumphs, or the trials they have been made to live through. 

This attention has been historically withheld, that part of our broader community left unseen or hidden away, and so an insistent call in this case is only called for – all day, every day.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom