Brooklyn Arts Exchange is having an interesting sounding forum on Sunday, January 21st. Sounds like a timely community event given recent rifts in our community:

I AM PARK SLOPE

Will diversity be part of our future?

January 21, 2007 6pm

admission: $5.00 suggested donation

— The BAX Platform is a hybrid conversation series combining the best of your front stoop and kitchen table with the unique perspective of the newsmakers - making sure all things are considered.

Featured Panelists: Chris Owens - Founder and Chairman of the Paul Robeson Independent Democrats (PRIDE), and an ardent advocate against the Atlantic Yards development; CB6 Chair Craig Hammerman; Brooklyn Pride's Doreen De Jesus; longtime Park Slope residents, mother and son Marianna Gaston & Javier Gaston Greenberg (Marianna helped found Brooklyn New School); Pauline Toole & Gene Russianoff - Park Slope Parents and (Gene) staff attorney for New York Public Interest Research Group; Dr. Susan Fox of Park Slope Parents; Emily Millay Haddad (recently featured in a New York Times story on Park Slope); and Nancy McDermott, a founding member of NY Salon in conversation with BAX Executive Director Marya Warshaw

Amid a "fast-changing, perpetually gentrifying (NY Times)" neighborhood, what Park Slope lacks is a conversation between the people who dug their heels in decades ago and its more recent settlers. In the 70s, it was "hippie slope." Then in the late 70s and early 80s it became known as "dyke slope." By the 80s, Wall Street companies were giving prospective employees bus tours of the neighborhood. Who's here now and what values do we/can we/should we hold as neighbors? Join us to explore and discuss this hot-button topic.

Brooklyn Arts Exchange is located at 421 Fifth Avenue, (near the corner of 8th St.) in Park Slope, Brooklyn. We are easily accessible via the F train to Fourth Avenue or the R train to 9th Street. The B75, B77, and B63 buses stop at the corner of 9th Street and Fifth Avenue.