This historic week for Brooklyn and the U.S. is being marked daily by New York Street Artist General Howe at the sites where the actual “Battle of Brooklyn” took place exactly 234 years earlier. Brooklyn Street Art is pleased to bring you daily updates on the plundering of boundaries between Street Art, performance art, and historical land-marking along with live social media updates by Kianga Ellis. All week we will travel around Brooklyn tracing the troop movements as General Howe stages small-scale battle scenes to connect us with history and possibly examine the childhood pastime of playing “war”.

20,000 Flanking Almost Every Side on the Eve of Battle

Today Street Artist General Howe installed soldiers at the Jamaica Pass (Evergreen Cemetery) where only 5 Patriots had been stationed to guard and were captured by the original General Howe’s forces, who had marched up the Kings Highway. And you thought that Kings Highway was just a subway stop on the D train on the way to the beach. In fact, Washington’s troops were becoming surrounded on all sides except the water.

Things start to get bad for everyone right about now. ” the people of Long Island were caught in a maelstrom between the two armies–their houses, fields, and gardens burned or pillaged by one side or the other.  As the Provincial Congress finally took drastic action to starve Howe’s forces, the local farmers had been allowed to keep only a bare minimum of food, while the rest of their crops were destroyed.”*

“The Evergreen” Cemetery (© Jaime Rojo)

General Howe explains what took place:

The Action: With tension and anticipation rising, approximately 9,000 Patriot soldiers stand guard at several natural access points to the villages of Brooklyn. The British army begins a covert attack by flanking the Americans on their left side by traveling east to the Jamaica Pass, near modern-day Broadway Junction. With surprising ease, 20,000 British soldiers advance through the Jamaica Pass prepared to overwhelm the Americans by morning.

The Landscape: Park Slope and Broadway Junction/Cemetery of the Evergreens

General Howe (© Jaime Rojo)

General Howe (© Jaime Rojo)

General Howe (© Jaime Rojo)

General Howe (© Jaime Rojo)

General Howe (© Jaime Rojo)

General Howe (© Jaime Rojo)

This six-day event is shared live with the public complete with historical quotes, the General’s musings, and twitpics by Kianga Ellis on

Twitter (www.twitter.com/kiangaellis) (subject hashtag “#RevWar” if you like)

and Foursquare (www.foursquare.com/user/kiangaellis)

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* Quote from The Battle for New York The city at the heart of the American Revolution by Barnet Schecter

See our interview with General Howe, “WAR ON APATHY” on The Huffington Post

Link to other days in the Battle of Brooklyn – just click the date.

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