[UPDATE: We were sent a bottle of liquor (and nothing else) and promptly shared it, so therefore this is a sponsored post. Here's why we posted about stoop life and its relevance to Dumbo.]

Tonight is the annual Brooklyn Blogfest at The Brooklyn Lyceum in Park Slope. This year, Spike Lee will make an appearance to kick off the summer with the new, very limited edition of ABSOLUT Brooklyn. Spike Lee designed the bottle in a way that represented Brooklyn the best, a photo of his Brooklyn stoop with a Spike Lee enhanced cap on the logo of the bottle. The stoop step represents the place where Brooklynites meet, hang out, sell stuff, and sometimes drink, which is what unites the community. While stoop life defines Brooklyn, Dumbo doesn’t have any stoops. Its large former factories and warehouses, Belgian block streets, and views of the two bridges and Manhattan skyline define Dumbo’s old world feel (think Once Upon a Time in America). What unites this historic Dumbo is the creative community (artists of all types- painters, sculptors, and the digital type), the dynamic entrepreneurs who navigate their business worlds with will power and hard work, and the new residents. Dumbo’s online presence in social media, websites, and services is our version of the stoop life.

This is why we’ve partnered with groups in the digital world (offline) to help foster a community that supports area artists, entrepreneurs, and residents to sustain the creative community Dumbo is known for. DumboNYC co-sponsored the last Digital DUMBO, and raised nearly $1000 for the Brooklyn Community Foundation at the May 26 event. We felt that partnering with area non-profits that benefit the community goes along with the Dumbo stoop life.

Spike Lee sent us a bottle of ABSOLUT Brooklyn, and naturally thought to share it with the good folks at Carrot Creative and the New York Digital District (NYDD). On the bottle, there’s a quote from Lemon Andersen’s spoken word poem “Somewhere in the world Brooklyn in da house and you know we won’t stop spreading love cause that’s our way.” The NYDD in Dumbo shows the world how it’s done, and glad to see the Brooklyn community is supported by way of a $50,000 donation by ABSOLUT Vodka to the NYC Habitat for Humanity.

Cheers!

A few interesting events tonight and tomorrow as a few events, as part of the 2010 World Science Festival takes place at Galapagos Art Space.

The Search for Life in the Universe, is an event that goes into the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the universe. Scientists on the hunt for distant planets and extraterrestrial intelligence will take us on their expeditions into faraway galaxies and barely visible realms. They’re going to have a number of very accomplished participants, including Jill Cornell Tarter, who was portrayed by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact, and Sir Paul Nurse, a Nobel Laureate. Full details, including ticket info, can be found at: worldsciencefestival.com/the-search-for-life-in-the-universe.

The Search for Life in the Universe
Thursday, June 3, 2010, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Galapagos Art Space

The Science of Star Trek, taking place on Friday evening, will discuss whether the seemingly science fiction elements of the show – time travel, humanoid aliens – could actually become reality. The original Star Trek and its numerous successors were far ahead of their time, but just how far? Will science eventually catch up to this series’ nearly five-decade-old creations? Full details available at: worldsciencefestival.com/the-science-of-star-trek.

The Science of Star Trek
Friday, June 4, 2010, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Galapagos Art Space

New York City Time Lapse from Blueglaze LLC on Vimeo.

Tal Kagan of Brooklyn based Blueglaze created this time lapse photo video, which include shots of Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo areas. The video was created with approximately 10,000 photos. Watch it and will make you fall in love with NYC again.

Time Lapse Related video: {Video: Dumbo and NYC in Miniature}

At some point in 2009, the digital media agencies and tech companies of Dumbo realized that there are too many great products and services shifting the digital advertising and media industry concentrated in one area to ignore eachother. So in January 2009, an event, called Digital Dumbo was started to get the talent together to meet and discuss tech topics. I’ve met with several of these companies since then and chatted about projects and connected a few companies to do business together. (As a tech executive myself, I’ve hired a few of these businesses to help with some projects). Since then, a few of Dumbo’s digital community have formed a group to promote the businesses and announced Dumbo as home to New York’s Digital District (follow them on Twitter @nydd or nydd.us.) And now the Wall Street Journal featured Dumbo today announcing the area as the new Madison Avenue.

Ironic how traditional print media is elevating digital companies, but they’re also realizing that NYDD can’t be ignored. Yes, these guys are for real. The 10, 20, 30 person ‘digital shops’ are more nimble and can focus on their expertise (social media, web dev, communication, mobile/smartphone development, SEO, augmented reality, etc), rather than being a generalist. Mike Germano, president and co-founder of Carrot Creative, Michael Lebowitz, Big Spaceship‘s chief executive, and David Skokna, founder of Huge were quoted in the article. Matt Van Hoven of Agencyspy said it best- this “essentially means that everyone working at one of those places can now expect a call from some CMO somewhere. Well done, boys and girls.”

BTW, join us for next week’s Digital Dumbo. We’re sponsoring the event with The JAR Group and starting a donation program as a way to give back to local non-profits. Info and RSVP here.

(Image courtesy of Colin Murphy. Thanks Colin!)

{Mad Men, Meet the Dumbo Crew, 20May2010, WSJ}
{Dear Advertising, We’re Moving This B*tch to Brooklyn, Love Digital, 28Jan2010, Agencyspy}
{Dumbo Deserves Google Fiber, 07Apr2010, DumboNYC}
{DigitalDumbo: Work Hard. Play Hard. Repeat. Win., 26Feb2010, DumboNYC}

Filming today between 3am – 9pm in Dumbo on Adams Street between John and Plymouth Street for a Ford commercial, called “Prove it”.

Tickets for the Night Market in Dumbo last week sold out and attracted over 2,000 people to the outdoor food festival in The Archway in Dumbo, hosted by David Chang of Momofuku Restaurant. Dumbo based Kitano Pictures, a video production company was there on our behalf to cover the event. Check out the video to get a sense of how the event went:

Interviewees in order of appearance:
Barry Dobesh of Zengo
Ben Schneider of The Good Fork
Annabelle Phojanakong of Umi Nom and Kuma Inn
An Nguyen of Bep
Jonathan Wright of The Setai Hotel, South Beach Miami
Jina Kim of MyBrooklynKitchen.com
Jean Jo of the Korean Cultural Service NY
Chris Rendell of Double Crown
Ricardo Moncada of Halcyon
Danielle Chang, Founder of LuckyRice
David Chang of Momofuku and event host
Yang of Sentosa / Nyonya

Great work Danielle Chang and the LuckyRice team for making it happen in Dumbo. And a special thank you to Kitano Pictures for the video production! For more about Kitano Pictures, go to facebook.com/KitanoPictures.

Other sites that covered LuckyRice:
Metromix NY
New York Street Food
Always Hungry
Appetite for Good
DumboNYC Flickr Photo set

There will be a commercial filming on Friday, May 7, 2010 between 6am – 11pm by ‘Tempesta’ on Washington Street between Prospect and York Streets in Dumbo Brooklyn.

Filming dates: May 3-5, 2010 6am-12am

Water Street between Gold and Jay Streets
Front Street between Bridge and Hudson Ave

Anyone know what this filming of “Durago 95″ is? Or is it a misspelling of Durango 95?

[UPDATE: Other signs say "Durango 95". Also, thanks to Mediagoon, it's a commercial: "durago 45 looks like a commercial to me...on the permit the C before the number means commercial. TV is tv, MV music vid. FF-film"]

Law and Order Criminal Intent is filming on Cadman Plaza W today.

In the April 19, 2010 NY Magazine issue that listed the most ‘livable neighborhoods’, Dumbo is #19 on the list, as we posted last week. There is also an article about an unbranded neighborhood south of Herald Square, north of Flatiron, and east of Chelsea some are calling NoMad (article title Soho. Nolita. Dumbo. NoMad?). In it describes that while NoMad was a name in search of a neighborhood, but Dumbo was ‘created from scratch’, and David Walentas is the “benevolent dictator with a vision for the whole neighborhood.” Below, an exerpt of how Dumbo, as we know it today, was created.

It’s not impossible, of course, to create a neighborhood from scratch. David Walentas famously did it in Dumbo. “But Dumbo was unique,” he says, “totally different from other neighborhoods that have gone through transformation and gentrification in the last 30 years.”

Walentas, who is 71, started Two Trees Development in 1968. He bought buildings in Soho in the early seventies and Noho shortly after. Then Walentas asked his staff, “Soho, Noho, what’s next?” Someone told him “Dumbo.” Walentas said, “Where the fuck is Dumbo?” He decided to pay it a visit.

What he found was a largely vacant district of warehouses and factories on the Brooklyn waterfront, zoned for industrial use. He bought eight buildings, 2 million square feet, for $12 million, in 1981. “I got lucky. No one else wanted it. I bought the whole neighborhood.” It took seventeen years for him to persuade the city to rezone the area. After that, he assumed the role of “benevolent dictator,” as he says, “with a vision for the whole neighborhood.” He lured stores like Jacques Torres Chocolate and West Elm by offering them a few years’ worth of free rent. “That way, we created the neighborhood. We could give space away because we had so much, it didn’t matter. And it made my other properties more valuable. If you only owned one building, you would never do that. If you own one building, you take care of one building.”

It was a rare experiment in SimCity-style neighborhood building, but it worked, right down to the goofy name. Most people assume Walentas invented the acronym Dumbo (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass), but it predates him. “I loved it, but my lawyers and consultants said, ‘What are you, crazy? No one will ever want to go there.’ So they came up with ‘Fulton Landing.’ I said, ‘Fulton Landing? That sounds like it’s on the Ohio River. That could be fucking anywhere.’?”

Also, read how Dumbo got its name, in our 2007 story.