BKLYN Community Audio

Welcome to the self-guided audio tour of BPL's Central Library. This section of the tour includes the area outside Central Library, from the flagpole on Eastern Parkway to the Plaza and the front steps. Feel free to walk around as you listen.

For a transcript of this tour and related pictures, visit: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/central-tour/plaza

Hear Me Out was an audio storytelling workshop series at BPL, co-produced by Virginia Marshall, UnionDocs, and lead instructor Stephanie Foo.

Jasmyne Roberts's grandmother came to Brooklyn from Vietnam in 1979, with her husband and nine children. In order to keep her sons out of gang activity in Borough Park, she opened a restaurant and solicited the help of her children, keeping them out of trouble and supporting her family at the same time.

Hear Me Out was an audio storytelling workshop series at BPL, co-produced by Virginia Marshall, UnionDocs, and lead instructor Stephanie Foo.

What is shelter when it's no longer temporary? Omar Etman tells the stories of people who spent years in New York City homeless shelters that were designed for temporary occupancy.

Hear Me Out was an audio storytelling workshop series at BPL, co-produced by Virginia Marshall, UnionDocs, and lead instructor Stephanie Foo.

There's more to Brooklyn than hipsters, craft beers and fixie bikes. Honeychild Coleman spoke with a few Brooklyn residents about why they love Kings County and life here During COVID-19.

Kentucky native Honeychild Coleman is a composer/musician, activist, and resident DJ in New York City at Artists & Fleas and The Beauty Bar, and has lived in Brooklyn for over 25 years. Coleman's political punk band is The 1865.

Hear Me Out was an audio storytelling workshop series at BPL, co-produced by Virginia Marshall, UnionDocs, and lead instructor Stephanie Foo.

William 'Billy' Braithwaite was well known in Guyana and the diaspora for his work in the airline industry. When he migrated with his family to the USA in 1981 Mr. Braithwaite became a businessman and was reveled for his philanthropy and community involvement. This is not a story about his life, but the consequences of his death. His namesake, Billie Braithwaite Jones, lost her father recently to COVID-19. Unlike others who accept the death of their loved ones as a tragic effect of the pandemic, Billie believes her father was murdered by the US government.

Hear Me Out was an audio storytelling workshop series at BPL, co-produced by Virginia Marshall, UnionDocs, and lead instructor Stephanie Foo.

During her anxiety-ridden pandemic pregnancy and birth, Elisabeth Donnelly, journalist and writer, made a radio piece about her pregnancy.

Hear Me Out was an audio storytelling workshop series at BPL, co-produced by Virginia Marshall, UnionDocs, and lead instructor Stephanie Foo.

Ginger's Bar in Brooklyn is one of only fifteen lesbian bars left in the United States. After it closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor Cook, CUNY graduate student in critical disability studies, talked to the owner of Ginger's Bar, Sheila Frayne.

Hear Me Out was an audio storytelling workshop series at BPL, co-produced by Virginia Marshall, UnionDocs, and lead instructor Stephanie Foo.

Yejin is an equity-informed career & leadership coach, and a racial justice consultant. For her story, she interviewed Frances, a Black Puerto-Rican farmworker in Brooklyn who began her life thinking she'd become a music journalist, but then had a winding journey that led her to land work.

Hear Me Out was an audio storytelling workshop series at BPL, co-produced by Virginia Marshall, UnionDocs, and lead instructor Stephanie Foo.

Mingy Dworcan is a Chassidic Jew living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. She grew up in South Africa where she developed a love and appreciation of all ranges of people and cultures. "Universal Love: How a Rebbe in Brooklyn Influenced a Chassid in Africa" is a small peak into a world she is passionate about: navigating Chassidic life in a modern society.

Hear Me Out was an audio storytelling workshop series at BPL, co-produced by Virginia Marshall, UnionDocs, and lead instructor Stephanie Foo.

Glynn Pogue is a writer and educator from Bed Stuy, Brooklyn. BedStuyBrat was her AOL Instant Messenger name back in the T-Mobile Sidekick days, and the moniker still applies, as much of Glynn's works centers around her community of brown people and brownstones. "Bed Stuy Kids" introduces listeners to her community while meditating on class, belonging and authenticity.