Culture

Sunset Park’s Rec Center Chess Club Just Beat Everybody

The Knight Owls, a teen chess club that meets in a repurposed storage room, won the citywide Five Borough Team Championship on Sunday, taking the title on a tiebreak. Their coach is a retired doorman who never made it past club player himself.

Under the BQE, a Gray Wall Becomes a 300-Foot Love Letter to Sunset Park

Muralist Yara Mendoza and eight teenage apprentices spent six weeks painting the underpass at Third Avenue and 39th Street. The finished work gets its ribbon-cutting at 4 p.m. today.

The Icebreakers Don’t Take Summers Off

The Brighton Beach Icebreakers built their reputation on January plunges, but the winter swim club meets all year, including 7 a.m. Wednesdays in August. We joined them at dawn to find out why.

Greenpoint Turns Back the Clock to 1977 as a Film Crew Takes Kent Street

An indie feature called "The Last Payphone" has dressed a block of Kent Street with vintage signage, period cars, and a working phone booth. Filming runs through Wednesday, to the delight and mild inconvenience of the neighbors.

A Crown Heights Basement Held 40 Years of Jazz. Now You Can Hear It.

Contractors renovating a Sterling Place brownstone found 212 reel-to-reel tapes from the Blue Door Lounge, a Nostrand Avenue club that closed in 1987. The Brooklyn Public Library will digitize the collection this fall.