Caribbean Beat — March/April 2019 (#156)

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Garden, a collection of plants inspired by Shakespeare’s plays
and poems, and an esplanade of cherry trees that turns into a
rioting froth of pink blossoms in the spring. When it’s cold, the
tropical greenhouse — with cocoa and coffee trees, heliconias,
and even a mango tree — remind Ryce-Paul of home. “Then
there is the racoon tree, where we have, over many years, seen
new little families emerge from a hole in the trunk.”
Culture-hopping
The Brooklyn Academy of Music (or BAM) in Fort Greene — a
short journey north from Prospect Heights by subway or even
on foot — is one of NYC’s most innovative performing arts
venues, with a year-round programme including theatre, opera,
and film. “A prominent start to the summer is Dance Africa,”
says Ryce-Paul, “which is as much a community celebration as
a presentation of the dance arts of the African diaspora. In the
autumn, there is the Next Wave Festival” — twelve weeks of
groundbreaking performances — “and the BAM Rose Cinema
screens new and emerging films.”
Prospect Heights is also home to two small but beloved
independent bookshops — “thriving despite the relentless
charge from characterless retail that sells everything and
leaves you empty.” Café con Libros [on Prospect Place] is
a feminist community bookstore, “really just an extension
of home, when you invite friends over. Warm, intellectually
stimulating, human.” Three blocks over, Unnameable Books
[Vanderbilt Avenue] “passes under the radar until you know it
and it knows you — then there is no reason to buy a book from
Amazon, ever again.” One friend who visits Brooklyn annually
is notorious for leaving Unnameable with a stack of at least a
dozen books, every time.
Caribbean Airlines operates several flights daily to
New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport
from Trinidad, Guyana, and Jamaica, with connections to
other Caribbean destinations
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
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