CHRISTMAS CAPER
DA investigating market at Bklyn Museum after vendor fi led complaint
FANTASY
REALITY
Photo by Colin Mixson
INSIDE
Honky-tonk holidays
Sweetback Sisters celebrate 10th sing-along spectacular
By Kevin Duggan Call it the Jingle Bell House.
The Sweetback Sisters will
bring the gift of honky-tonk yuletide
tunes back to the Bell House on
Dec. 19, while celebrating the band’s
10th Annual Country Christmas Singalong
Spectacular. At the show, the
seven-piece will play holiday favorites
arranged for public participation and
performed in country, Americana, and
swing styles, in a red-and-green extravaganza
that has been growing for the
past decade, according to one of the two
titular singers.
“Our motto is that nothing is too much
trouble for Christmas, so we are definitely
pulling out everything we have,”
said Emily Miller, who forms the vocal
center of the band along with her friend
(and not relation) Zara Bode.
The Christmas spectacular started
with a modest show at Red Hook’s Jalopy
Theatre in 2009, but now includes several
stockings stuffed with songs to get
people in the holiday spirit, including
“Sleigh Ride,” “The Christmas Song,”
and the old-timey classic “Christmas
Island,” made famous by the Andrews
Sisters and Bing Crosby.
When the band formed around the two
singers in 2006, they drew inspiration
from the distinctive sound of early 20th
century family acts, like the Andrews
Sisters, the Louvin Brothers, and the
Carter Family, according to Miller.
“There were a lot of brother and sister
duets in country music, so we wanted to
do the same thing with our vocal harmonies,”
she said.
The band grew to include guitar, bass,
drums, and a fiddle, and this year will
Yule love it: Ex-Brooklynites Emily Miller and Zara Bode
will return to the borough for the “10th Annual Sweetback
Sisters Country Christmas Sing-Along Spectacular,” which
will fill the Bell House with honky-tonk arrangements of
holiday favorites on Dec. 19. Anja Shutz
debut as a seven-piece, introducing an
organ and a saxophone for the first time,
Miller said.
The band’s annual Christmas tour
is its most popular show, and each year
draws more people, said Miller. The holiday
spectacular moved to the Bell House
in 2015, where the crowds immediately
made use of the larger digs, Miller said.
“The first year at the Bell House we
had a spontaneous conga line during the
encore,” she said.
The show attracts new Christmas fans
each year, along with long-time carolers
who have made a tradition of attending
the show, Miller said.
“It’s a broad range of people coming,
everyone from people in their 20s, who
might’ve just moved to New York and
are enjoying their own new holiday traditions,
to older families,” she said.
Miller and Bode have each moved
out of Kings County, going from Carroll
Gardens to West Virginia and from
Downtown to Vermont, respectively, but
the borough remains the band’s spiritual
home.
“We still consider Brooklyn a home of
the band, because it started there,” Miller
said, and Bell House crowds consistently
give them a warm welcome.
“The crowd is equally a part of making
the show — the Brooklyn show
especially — and I always look forward
to singing really loudly with people in
Brooklyn,” she said.
“The Sweetback Sisters Country
Christmas Sing-along Spectacular” at
the Bell House 149 Seventh St., between
Second and Third avenues in Gowanus,
www.thebellhouseny.com. Dec. 19 at 7:30
pm. $20 ($15 in advance).
Your entertainment
guide Page 41
Police Blotter ..........................8
Brownstoner Corner .......... 24
Letters .................................... 32
Standing O ............................49
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BY COLIN MIXSON
Prosecutors are investigating
the organizers of a muchhyped
holiday market at the
Brooklyn Museum, after a
vendor who signed up to hawk
her wares there claimed the
Christmas-themed bazaar was
a Yuletide scam that ended up
costing her big time.
“We’re reviewing the complaint,”
said Oren Yaniv, a
spokesman for District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez.
Canvas-bag maker Pamela
Barsky paid more than $6,000
for the privilege to sell her
totes from one of Winterfest’s
stalls fashioned after quaint
log cabins, which she claimed
constantly leaked and lost
electricity, deterring would-be
customers from dropping any
dough — a shortfall the market’s
bigwigs blamed on its
sellers, according to Barsky,
who accused the organizers of
brazen deception.
“This wasn’t just disorganized,
I think they had every
intention of scamming everyone,”
said the vendor, who
sells her bags at similar bazaars
across the city. “It was
like kindergartners trying to
setup a show.”
And sellers weren’t the
only ones who blasted Winterfest
for over-promising and
under-delivering on holiday
cheer — Brooklyn Museum
brass demanded the market’s
attractions be offered free of
charge just one day after its
Nov. 23 opening, claiming organizers
failed to abide by the
agreement that entitled them
to set up shop in the museum’s
parking lot, a spokeswoman
for the institution said.
“We are extremely disappointed
that the organizers
failed to live up to their promises
and we have conveyed our
concerns to them,” said Anna
Cieslik, speaking on behalf of
museum staff. “We have demanded
that they make immediate
changes to the overall
look and feel of the event, and
we have demanded that they
stop selling tickets and make
all attractions free of charge.”
Earlier this year, Winterfest
organizers promised
locals it would boast such
whimsical attractions as a
Christmas tree maze and a
“Snowzilla” slide in announcing
the market.
But customers who purchased
tickets to the bazaar before
museum staff demanded
it be free to enter said organizers
never bothered to install
the slide, and that the socalled
maze was merely just
a bunch of trees haphazardly
placed on the pavement.
“For $18 you too can walk
among a street of trees!” Downtowner
Michael Trillsteen told
this newspaper when it paid a
visit to Winterfest on Nov. 30.
“I’m just a tad disappointed.”
Renderings of the market
distributed before it opened
showed its grounds bustling
with happy shoppers — but
the promised winter wonderland
actually looked more like
a ghost town, according to another
disappointed patron.
“It looks like it’s halfclosed,”
said David Rose, who
also stopped by on Nov. 30
while in town from faraway
California.
A Winterfest spokeswoman
admitted organizers
received “a few complaints,”
but claimed that some gripes
came from seedy patrons
who only wanted to get the
free wine and hot chocolate
included with the price of a
ticket.
“What we found is that a
small number of visitors use
the attraction to get free wine
and free hot chocolate, then
they write to us asking for refunds,”
said Jennifer Crosby.
“We are addressing refunds
on a case-by-case basis.”
Crosby also insisted organizers
made the market and
its attractions free to provide
vendors with ample foot traffi
c — not in response to complaints,
or pressure from the
Brooklyn Museum — and said
the new no-cost admission policy
will make the experience
more magical than ever until
it closes on Dec. 31.
“We look forward to continuing
the event for the enjoyment
of all,” she said.
Should the district attorney
pursue charges such as a
potential larceny indictment
against Winterfest bigwigs,
the burden of proof would be
high, and require that prosecutors
provide evidence
showing organizers knowingly
made false promises to
vendors, according to a lawenforcement
source, who said
defense lawyers could more
easily argue that mitigating
circumstances, including
late deliveries and even negligence,
were the cause of any
shortfalls.
BLUNDER LAND: The district attorney’s offi ce is reviewing complaints
that vaunted holiday market Winterfest (above) ripped off vendors after
promising them the ability to hawk their wares in a festively festooned
bazaar (top) swarming with activity.
link
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/www.thebellhouseny.com
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