La Joie de Vivre in Brooklyn
By Mary Frost
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BOERUM HILL — The biggest Bastille Day celebration in the U.S. takes place on Smith Street this Sunday from noon to 10 p.m.
French food, drinks and music — and a mock guillotine — will transform Smith Street into a bit of Marseilles. The street will be covered in 10 yards of sand donated by the Quadrozzi concrete company for the annual petanque tournament. The game is similar to bocce but played with metal balls, usually while sipping a glass of pastis.
“Eighty teams are competing this year,” said Didier Chapoter, manager of Bar Tabac, one of the restaurants sponsoring the event along with Robin des Bois and Ricard. “It’s very exciting — everything sold out in one day.” The tournament is organized by Bernard Decanali who grew up in Marseilles, where, he told the Eagle last year, “Everybody plays petanque.”
Entertainment will be provided by the popular Baby Blue Orchids, a prewar-style swing band that plays music with a Paris flavor; and the François Wiss Quartet.
Another feature of Smith Street’s Bastille Day is the third annual skateboarding exhibition from 1 to 7 p.m., courtesy of the Homage skateboarding emporium at 151 Smith St. Competitions will include “Les Manny Royal,” “Les Best Trick” and “La Haute Ollie.”
“We expect from 30 to 40 competitors and many spectators,” said Homage employee Evan Walsh, who said that skateboarding products would be passed out as prizes.
Smith Street’s Bastille Day was founded by Bette Stoltz, executive director of the South Brooklyn Local Development Corporation.
“When the French community started to grow in several Brooklyn neighborhoods, I was approached about starting a Bastille Day block party and I couldn’t resist,” Stoltz told the Brooklyn Eagle in 2006. “Me being a Francophile, married to a Frenchman for the past 40 years and fluent in the language, made it an easy sell; getting tons of sand poured onto Smith Street was the hard part.”
The actual Bastille Day, which began the French Revolution, took place on July 14, 1789.
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