Monthly Archives: July 2024
From Ecuador to the US, selling her wares
By Jasmyn Centeno Mercedes Masaquiza places her handmade, crocheted keychains, beaded bracelets, and blouses across the fold-up table she placed on a spot at the Columbus Circle entrance to Central Park. She sits down, then, on second thought, she gets up to adjust the hats on the rack and re-position her palm-sized crocheted flowers in […]
Election 2024: The youth vote
By Pushing a shopping cart down the frozen food aisle at Trader Joe’s, Sofia Khan, age 21, felt her phone buzz in her pocket. A notification from Apple News alerting her that the current U.S. president just dropped out of the upcoming election, only 4 months before the voting polls open. “I thought it was […]
A sanctury for vendors
By Tiara Edwards Inside a sanctuary hidden by arched brick-walls is a 168 year old church-yard filled with a maze of vending tables with vendors conversing with customers. Each vending table with similar products, displayed jewelry, books, clothing, and antiques located on Avenue A and 1st Ave. “I got gold!”. A man with a baseball […]
Bridging music industry’s gender gap
By Michelle Kang Amina Walker has sung for as long as she can remember: at home, in the car, in her bedroom, on city streets. But when she’s on stage, she gets butterflies in her stomach. And when it’s her turn at the mic during Sound Thinking’s weekly jam sessions, she puts herself out there, […]
Paragraph by paragraph, a writer’s room
By Sri Sowmya Tanguturi Two buildings. One business. No Buildings. No Business. Paragraph Workspace for Writers, on 14th Street, was founded in 2005 by Joy Parisi, to provide a space that caters to writers’ needs. In 2019, Paragraph opened a new Location in WIlliamsburg, Brooklyn, which shut down in 2021 due to COVID. Two years […]
Pickleball, pickleball and more pickleball
By Christian Sourbrine On a recent Saturday afternoon, more than five dozen people lined up at Riverside Park in Morningside Heights,waiting for their chance to square off in a game of pickleball. As the players, who ranged in age from 14 through their mid-70s, waited for up to 30 minutes for an open court, they […]
Braiding hair, for cash and culture
By Kelsi Bowen A woman with brown micro-locs sat in the second of eight chairs stretching from the door to the back wall of Latifa Natural Hair Salon. The woman wore a multi-colored orange, yellow, red, blue and green silk chiffon maxi dress she had made in Senegal, where she was born. Oval-shaped, faux gold […]
Melting pot in a barbershop
By Asma Aouissi Meant as a gag when it was created in the 1940s, the barber shop sign aimed to attract a melting pot of customers. It announced: “We speak: Italian · Russian · Farsi · Spanish · French · Polish · Uzbek · Greek · Moroccan · Portuguese · Romanian · Bengali · And […]
Learning English to make an American life
By Sophia Lian At the U-shaped table, six adult students looked intently at their classwork with their pencils in their hands, ready to learn a life-changing skill. Those students come to that Lower East Side location from Sudan, Guinea, and Haiti. And they do so for one reason: to study a new language. “If you […]
Fighting to save historic Merchant House
Between a graffitied garage and park, lies a seemingly ordinary townhouse. However, for some residents, it holds a tight-knit historical community at risk. Walking down East 4th Street reveals an intimate glimpse at the 19th Century that now struggles to stay afloat. The 12-year fight to protect The Merchant’s House Museum faced a setback in […]
A safe space for students with autism
By Haaniyah Faisal Fostering a safe space for autistic students. Helping patients find their voice. Encouraging them to accept and be confident in their autistic identity. These are some of the responsibilities of Yvetta Ma, an intern for the NYU Langone Health Hospital Center passionate about providing a space for autistic teen girls to feel […]
Learning and healing from cancer
By Isabella Cabral His sister died of breast cancer, his stepdad of aggressive prostate cancer. And, now, as Dion Summers sat, nervous and uncomfortable, tissue paper of an oncologist’s exam table crinkling underneath him, he heard what he didn’t want to hear. “Oh, this needs attention,” said a nurse, looking at a scan of his […]
For 40 years, training next-gen journos
Michelle Yang is a high school student who’s worked with her school paper for two years, ”I was looking for free journalism programs.” She says I wanted to be in a diverse program with a diverse group. She and other children of color her age found the urban journalism program at NYU because it was […]
LES arts, activism center to reopen
By Mariyatou Jabbi When Victoria Law walked through the doors of that Lower East Side organization all those years ago, she planned to help the nonprofit hand out meals at Thompson Square Park. She went there as she was wondering who she would be as a grown-up. “‘I don’t have to be a doctor or […]
Finding community on a chessboard
By Yifei Kevin Niu Brett Fisher and MJ were locked in a game of chess that July afternoon, sitting on wooden benches beneath a Hangman’s Elm in Washington Square Park, the steady hum of New York City in the background as each move brings one of them closer to the $5 prize. That local hotspot […]
A broken elevator, crawling pests, big tuition
By Senida Wright Weinstein Hall, one of NYU’s biggest dormitories, has its pluses and its minuses. “Location, No. 1,” said Lacy Hardy, 21, an NYU film major and peer assistant at Weinstein. “ It is so nice being super central. The 6, N & R [subway trains] are all right here, so it is so […]
Selling art where it’s against the law
By Aisatou Kabba For years, Marty Allen has been selling his handmade puppets and Bryan Closi has been peddling his photography on some of the busiest spots in Manhattan, including ones where selling their work is illegal. “I’ve had my stuff confiscated and the police threaten to push me out. And when they do come […]
A “game-changer,” gluten-free bakery
By Zoe Ntouvas Growing up in a family of restaurant owners, food was the world to Josh Borenstein. That world came crashing down in 2007 when he was diagnosed with celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder causing severe abdominal bloating, nausea and fatigue. “Food was, like, his passion, his life, his whole world, so it’s very […]
Music that heals and transforms
By Matthew Chen A brown upright piano was situated beside a red bass drum and, around the drum, were crash cymbals and ride cymbals on instrument stands. A guitar was mounted on a hook on a pale blue wall, above three amplifiers. Tambourines, more drums, maracas, a xylophone, boom sticks and brass instruments were tucked […]