Baseball season is back in full swing, and though much of the sports chatter has been about the Mets’ strong start and A-Rod’s return after a season-long suspension, we have our attention focused on the city’s two minor league teams–the Mets- affiliated Brooklyn Cyclones and the Yankees-affiliated Staten Island Yankees. Come June 19th, these two teams will be starting their seasons with a game against each other. With the big game under two months away, Guy Zoda is getting ready to reprise his role in community outreach and promotions for the Brooklyn Cyclones, or, more specifically, as fan favorite King Henry.

As an entertainer and performer, Guy came up with the character King Henry years ago. He produced and starred in a community access show called “The King Henry Show,” which aired in 30 cities from New York to Hawaii and won a home video award in 2008. On a whim in the early 2000s, he donned his King Henry costume and made his royal presence known at a Cyclones game. What started out as fun for fans later turned into professional entertaining at home games and a community position with the team.

We recently spoke with Guy about Brooklyn, his love for entertaining, and what makes minor league baseball special.

See what King Henry has to say

Architecture, Coney Island, Design

Coney Island Design: “Defending the Honor of American Pop Culture”

Image © Javier Ignacio Acuña Ditzel

Coney Island is an entertainment destination in New York, with its beach and amusement park rides, but it is also a city center for weirdo culture and kitsch. The neighborhood’s aesthetic has developed into something like an early 20th century carnival surrounded by ’60s and ’70s storefronts which may or may not be conscious of their dated designs. So the question is, how do you design a new building in a neighborhood which is so identified with an attractively shabby, authentically dated look? Buildings like the Coney Island Museum face that difficulty with each passing year.

See the retro Americana design of Coney Island here

Coney Island, Furniture, Red Hook

Uhuru Design Turned Coney Island Boardwalk Planks Into a Rollercoaster Chair

When Coney Island was torn up in 2010 to make way for the glitzy new Luna Park, a part of its history was ripped out: the weathered, decades-old planks of the beach’s iconic boardwalk. Luckily, two Red Hook-based designers — Jason Horvath and Bill Hilgendorf of Uhuru Design — took in the landfill-destined wood and used them to build functional pieces for the home.

Check out more of the cool pieces