Stargaze, Explore Global Art, and Build Community in Sunset Park This Nov. 5

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — An ongoing project aiming to celebrate Sunset Park's immigrant communities is hosting a stargazing and arts event on Nov. 5.

The gathering is being put on by The Sunset Park Railroad, the creative vision of lifelong neighborhood artist and filmmaker Harry Mena.

Mena described the multi-faceted effort as "a community building project that celebrates our historic immigrant communities and our collective humanity," one that will also promote exposure to the sciences and compile a growing collection of oral histories drawn from the neighborhood's immigrants.

Saturday's "Unity Under the Stars" event will start at 7 p.m. at the Sunset Park Recreation Center, and is being jointly sponsored by Assemblyman Félix W. Ortiz, the neighborhood's Madine Muslim Community Center, St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church and the NYPD's 72nd Precinct.

It will feature a brief astronomy lecture from Irene Pease, a member of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York, after which guests can gaze through a new telescope Mena received as a donation and which has now been gifted to the Rec Center itself.

Meanwhile, inside, Mena said presentations will be given by a Norwegian-American folk artist, a Palestinian expert in Arabic calligraphy, a young Mexican-American artist, and Chinese poet and author Huang Xiang.

Mena said he has many other public events and artistic productions planned as part of the Railroad project.

"We're trying to create inclusion and partnerships," he said. "We ought to celebrate our differences, and our common interests as well."

If you have any questions about the gathering, or if you'd like to learn more about The Sunset Park Railroad, you can contact Mena directly by calling 917-202-8725, or by emailing him at hc.mena4@yahoo.com.

Top image courtesy of Riziki Nielsen/Flickr