TAMA Summer Fest
There’s a stretch of Tompkins Avenue in Bed-Stuy, from Halsey Street to Gates Avenue, that is one of our favorite places in Brooklyn. Not only are these six blocks bursting with nearly two dozen excellent Black-owned businesses — including, among others, Bed-Vyne Brew, Brown Butter Craft Bar & Kitchen, Brooklyn Kettle, The Bush Doctor Juice Bar, Byas & Leon, Calabar Imports, Crocus Cafe, Life Wellness Center, Make Manifest, Meat Market, The Narativ, Peace & Riot, Peaches Hothouse, Radical Women, Sincerely, Tommy and Stacked Yoga — it’s also the site of one of Brooklyn’s most magical block parties, TAMA Summer Fest.
Organized by the Tompkins Avenue Merchant Association and the Bridge Street Development Corporation for the past nine years, the latest TAMAFest took over Tompkins on Saturday with friendly local vendors, an American Idol-esque singing competition, hot-off-the-press free copies of New York Times Magazine's landmark 1619Project (with remarks from Bed-Stuy’s own Nikole Hannah-Jones, the project’s curator), a truly adorable kids’ fashion show, a mass Electric Slide (of course), and droves of Black folk. Salute to TAMA for creating a space celebrating the businesses, culture, beauty and love in our community.
