WHAT IS PIGTOWN?
Pigtown rings nostalgic for those Brooklynites who know.
The neighborhood known today as East Flatbush was once a mass of sprawling unpaved roads, shanties and land used for pig farming - a Wild West populated by Italian, Irish and Jewish immigrants. Pigtown's history is a rich folklore unknown to many of today's residents - that of a place that was host to raucous gangster violence and lawlessness.
Fast forward to the 1960's...
By now the name is long gone, the streets are peppered with wood-faced Victorians and row houses. Brooklyn is urbanized and the area is home to a small but culturally significant renaissance. Doo Wop lives. Murray the K at the Brooklyn Fox lives. The Paramount Theater lives. The scene is set at a candy store owned by a woman who runs numbers out of it. Her son, a young greaser, uses his mother's store as a headquarters for his gang.
The name of that gang is PIGTOWN.
This man grew up to be the father of Michael "Kaves" McLeer, a child of love born and raised in Brooklyn who made his bones following calls of creativity - from writing graffiti on NYC subway trains to tattooing to music-making to painting canvases the world over.
PIGTOWN ATELIER uses this rich history of a borough and a family to weave itself into the present.
Located in Industry City, Brooklyn PIGTOWN TATTOO & ATELIER serves as a bustling creative hub - a mercantile store, art space, and tattoo shop. A living room. An art studio. A place for trinkets, memories, talking, painting, thinking, making.
PIGTOWNATELIER.COM is the online extension of that space where you can purchase from a curated collection of goods and artworks.
So with this we say HELLO and WELCOME.
PIGTOWN ATELIER was founded by Michael KAVES McLeer and Donna McLeer with the vision of collecting all of their artistic projects under one umbrella. It is the wellspring of our sister companies- creative endeavors that reflect our artistic vision:
TUNNEL VIZION MEDIA - established in 2000, a boutique multimedia, content production, and editing company.
LORDZ OF BROOKLYN - a pioneering hip-hop band hailing from the Brooklyn, NY established in the late 1980s/1990s and continues to create music today.
THE BROOKLYN FIREFLY - a neighborhood staple artisan pizza restaurant, bar, and live jazz venue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.