Flickinger Glassworks Newsletter
Our brief monthly newsletter about Red Hook, Brooklyn...
and other people, places & things we think you should know about.

Welcome to the July edition.

This month we highlight the extracurricular activities of a Flickinger Glassworks employee and a NYC waterways advocate who resides on an oil tanker docked in Red Hook. We also accord an enthusiastic nod to a NC law firm that’s taken its social justice work on the road and to a documentary that we think is well worth watching.
She's Got a Creative Eye and Muscles
Flickinger Glassworks is run by a talented group of folks. This includes glass technician Esther Reilly. When Esther’s not hoisting and polishing 25-pound slabs of glass, she’s scavenging interesting glass shards left behind after glass bending operations that she turns into striking jewelry pieces. She describes taking her job at Glassworks:

"When I realized I needed a major change in my life and craved working with my hands, I found the perfect place for me. My position as cold shop technician at Flickinger Glassworks enables me to utilize everything I'm good at. As shown in the video below, perfecting glass bowl edges, flat-wheeling, and polishing surfaces are just a few of my favorite daily tasks. I work in a great environment, am surrounded by knowledgeable people, and constantly learn more about the trade.
 
Another way I use my hands is by making jewelry made from discarded objects. I find great joy in marrying trash and humans' ancient penchant for decorating their bodies." —Esther
Videos: Esther shows her stuff.
She's Got Salt Water in Her Veins
Carolina Salguero doesn’t just love NYC’s waterways, she lives in the NYC harbor — in a big, red, 1938 oil tanker named the Mary Whalen, docked in Atlantic Basin in Red Hook.

As founder and executive director of the advocacy organization, PortSide , Salguero operates the Mary Whalen as a multi-service maritime center and a living lab for better urban waterways. Some of its education projects includes the African American Maritime Heritage program and Red Hook WaterStories. “We’re especially thrilled to have inspired Red Hook’s PS 676 to become Brooklyn’s first maritime themed elementary school,” says Salguero.

Normally people get to hop onboard. But with coronavirus restrictions, PortSide has resorted to a Pandemic PopUp Park alongside the ship which allows people to socially distance while hanging out by the water.

If you’d like to check out the ship’s view from the safety of your home, they live stream the sunsets on Facebook , Twitter , and YouTube .

There are many ways you can support PortSide:
Video: Carolina talks about the Mary Whalen.
Lawyers with a Social Conscience
"As some of you know, I take a special interest in social justice. So I was thrilled when my niece’s husband announced that he was buying a 33 foot RV and turning it into the first mobile legal clinic for disenfranchised people in his home state of North Carolina. In other words, he and his lawyer colleagues drive into underserved communities, pull up and start dispensing free legal advice. One of the many legal dilemmas their clients face is having to pay a hefty legal fee to get a criminal charge — for which they’ve been found not guilty — expunged from their record. So thank you to Justin Osborn and his partners at Osborn Gambale Beckley & Budd in Raleigh, NC for providing equal access to legal rights.” —Charles Flickinger
Video: Justin Osborn talks about his firm's mobile law initiative.
PS. "As long as we ’ re talking about the important stuff, Bregtje Van der Haak, a dear friend and brilliant journalist based in Holland, recently released this documentary featuring a potent interview with the artist/activist Al Weiwei on the role of Chinese citizen journalists. It is shocking to see video footage of Chinese activists being taken away on the premise of having coronavirus. Some of them haven ’ t been heard from since." —CF