We All Wanna Make It

At 145 Front Street in DUMBO shoppers enter a U-shaped corridor lined with vendors selling everything from cupcakes and clothing to jewelry and skincare products. The air inside is charged with a vibe that makes shopping and vending compulsive. Thrust within this multifaceted mix of competitive forces one may find a certain artist peacefully painting on an easel in his glass-fronted studio. Craig Anthony Miller aka “Cam” of reInspire Brooklyn is the self-proclaimed Switzerland in the world that is The Shops.

reInspire Brooklyn is part of the reTreat empire that includes reBar, reRun and reBoy. Cam’s line of apparel, jewelry and paintings awaken the heart through creations infused with his passion. The designs themselves are inspired by the stained glass found in churches like Antioch Baptist Church in Bed-Stuy and the work of collectives of graffiti artists like TATS Cru. Cam made his bones on the streets of Alphabet City. His first live paintings were done outside of Tomkins Square Park. A beauty salon in SOHO commissioned his first mural and today his public works are essential to the fabric of DUMBO. As acting art director for reBar and reRun, Cam himself plays an influential role in DUMBO’s vibrant art scene.

Evoked by this soft spoken man’s heart is Ganesh, Lord of Success and Remover of Obstacles. A central figuring throughout many of Cam’s creations, Ganesh symbolizes our wish to overcome. “We all want to be successful,” says Cam. It’s true. We all want to make it. Still, it’s Cam’s view that success needn’t come at the expense of others. “Life is so much easier when you love. It’s too much work to hate.” And this attitude explains how reInspire Brooklyn is the Switzerland of The Shops.

A Sign of No Business

One day, I was walking down Berry Street in Williamsburg when I noticed an elderly gentleman cautiously surveying card tables laid out with what appeared to be chess sets outside a small ramshackle garage. He was going about it very deliberately, though I sensed he was approachable. The pieces were large and blocky. Some were plain and others ornately carved, but what caught my eye was the unfinished piece he held gingerly in his hand. I made some comment about the pieces and he responded with a challenge.  Boasting that he could beat a Grand Master, he challenged me in a thick Greek accent to beat him at “his game.” I’d win $100 if he lost, but I wanted to know more about this game of his. 

And so, for well over an hour we sat together like friends from the Old Country. We reminisced about how Brooklyn was over thirty years ago when he emigrated here from Greece. How dangerous it was. How difficult it was to make a decent living and yet how one could more easily make enough to get by whatever you did anyway. Following his family’s story from Bulgaria to Turkey to Greece and finally to the United States, Christopher “Elis” Voulgarelis eventually opened up about his unique creations, his games.

Elis is a self-taught woodworker who made his first chess set when he was ten. He continued making them on the side while he ran a trucking operation and later as a cabbie. His primary tool is an X-Acto knife. He designed two original games: Give & Take and Escape. Give & Take is a simplified form of Turkish checkers as there so many different variations and it can take seventy-five moves before a game is called a draw. The story behind Escape is more interesting. It was created out of Elis’ frustration with the police when he was a cabbie. He believed they picked on him because of his heavy Greek accent. In Escape, there are only three pyramid shaped pieces. One represents the cabbie and the other two, the police. The cabbie’s objective is to lose the police to avoid paying a steep fine for some traffic infraction in five moves or less. At least, this is what motivates poor Elis when he’s playing!

Elis uses wood from discarded furniture to make his games and despite his experience as a cabbie, he’s a proud New Yorker. In fact, some of his pieces resemble the towers under construction at the new World Trade Center. While Elis never made it big with his games, he makes them for his own edification while “trying to make fun of the world.” As if to emphasize this, he quotes, “business with no sign is a sign of no business.” 

Greek Odyssey in Brooklyn

As I waited for my egg and cheese at the Greek diner by my home, I was pleasantly surprised to find a map of Greece on my place mat. I found the island of Chios far east of Athens in the North Aegean Sea where Anna’s parents are from. Anna Almiroudis is an experienced scientist with an education in biology and toxicology. She spent her summers in Chios as a child. Her grandparents were farmers and today her family still on the island continue to maintain their connection with the land. They grow herbal teas and belong to the growers association that cultivates mastic, a precious resin from an indigenous shrub that grows only on this island.

Anna started making skincare products for fun on the side when she worked for the NYC Department of Health. Soon this fun transformed into passion. Like the meaning of her company’s name, Anthesis, Anna began to bloom. Anna’s creations are handmade with botanical oils, floral waters like rose water and herbal extracts. Intending to create a line of organic skincare products that go beyond pleasing the senses, Anna eschews tap water, fragrances, dyes and other chemicals like parabens. The Anthesis approach to skincare is holistic; the creams and salts are meant to heal and rejuvenate.

While Anthesis is located at The Shops on Front Street in DUMBO, Anna’s heart is warmed by the Grecian sun. Her nostalgia for those summers on Chios naturally led her to choose golden tears of mastic as a key ingredient for Anthesis Organic Skincare products. Mastic from Chios, known since antiquity, has antimicrobial and healing properties that regenerate the skin. And so this Greek Odyssey stretches from the islands of the North Aegean Sea to Brooklyn in the Archipelago of New York.

The Spirit of Brooklyn

Last night, I invited my good friend Keith out to a talk on the subject of sacred books at the Rubin Museum. While I admittedly am very wary of social media platforms like Facebook, Keith's life practically floats on them. So, there we were waiting to hear about how centuries old religious texts were created and illuminated for the benefit of the masses discussing what medium I may use to produce something of value for the benefit of my online friends. Inevitably, Keith, who's company ITESA just launched the SocialGogo brand to educate ignoramuses like me about social media, brought up Facebook and I immediately went on the defense.

Still, I don't want to make my first authentic post about Facebook vs Twitter vs Google and all the rest. I'd rather write about why I want to blog in the first place. Without a reason, I’m just making more unnecessary noise in cyberspace. So, here’s why: I want to share my experiences with the people I meet on Made in Brooklyn Tours. These people inspire me and, more than that, they inspire my guests. No doubt, my guests go on to inspire their friends and family. It's a beautiful thing. These experiences give my life and hopefully the lives of others meaning. When I'm designing, leading, talking and, yes, even dreaming about my tours I'm very happy and, let’s face it, the world could be a bit happier.

When we take a coffee break on my tours, we meet people like Mike and Jim at the Brooklyn Roasting Company who are dedicated to making coffee green in every possible way. From the Fair Trade, Organic, Rainforest Alliance certified coffees and Loring Kestel 83% fuel efficient coffee roaster to its delivery by way of biodiesel powered vans and bicycles. When we visit an illustrator, we may meet Jane at Foxy & Winston who designs and creates her own line of stationery and textiles using screen printing and letterpress techniques on recycled or cotton paper with water based inks in her cozy little shop on Van Brunt Street. And when we visit a chocolatier, we may visit the brothers Mast who really do make their chocolate from beans to bar, some of it sailed – yes, sailed – directly from the Dominican Republic.

Making anything in Brooklyn is challenging. The tallest building in Brooklyn is a condo. The construction of new residential developments is relentless.  It’s surprising that any real estate is preserved for industry. And the regulations that manufacturers face here are onerous. Yet, if one gets to know Brooklyn as I have, one can find start-ups like the Red Hook Winery making significant investments for the production of wine right here in Brooklyn and others like Pastosa’s Ravioli that have persevered and even thrived for decades. I want to share about the people behind these companies because their story is about the spirit of Brooklyn.