Lifestyle & Culture
Food and fellowship at a senior center
By Eliana Mercedes The green sign at the entrance lists what Greenwich House Center offers: Lunch, arts, music, culture, crafts, games, health, well-being, friends and fun. June Grancio, 85, participates in several of those activities. Especially, she loves the friendships and the Tuesday shopping trips to the supermarket. Sometimes, she dines there at the center. […]
Teaching martial arts, creating community
By Arianna George Clouds of dust rise into the air from a sandpit across from the Washington Square Fountain. Exchanging blows and throwing kicks as they spar, members of the NYC Fight Club stir up that haze. What began three years ago as a search for a place where Martin Cheung, 35, the fight club’s […]
Where dogs’ play, size doesn’t always matter
By Chloe Minja Lee Cheng Frankie weighs roughly 15 pounds. One of his best friends at George’s Dog Run is Matilda, a golden retriever several times his size. Monica Matta, 37, jokingly calls 3-year-old Frankie, whom she fostered for a month before adopting him last week, the “irritant” of the dog run. He loves rough […]
Citi Bike price hikes deter some, not others
By Sebastian Urrutia For those who don’t pay an annual membership fee, it costs $4.99 to unlock either a non-electric or electric Citi Bike, with the latter immediately charging 41 cents per-minute to ride and the former offering the first 30 minutes for free. So what makes the bike ride — versus hopping the subway […]
Chaplain ministers to fire responders and victims
By Adrie Quinn By Adrie Quinn For the Rev. Pamela Holmes-Saxton, few workdays are the same. A morning may begin, as it did recently, with a plaque dedication honoring a fallen firefighter. From there, she might make hospital visits to injured first responders or stop by firehouses and emergency medical service stations to counsel those […]
Having a main gig and a side hustle
By Sharnali Zaman Cardboard boxes of Honeycrisp apples, maraschino cherries and roma tomatoes were lined up horizontally on the top shelf of Mike Jones’ metal food vendor cart. It was 93 degrees on that corner of Greenwich and Chambers Streets, where he stood tending to that rolling cart and his customers. His face was wet […]
Fashioned-stamped in New York City style
By Briana Mirville The everyday, seen-on-the-street fashionistas of New York are unapologetically themselves. A woman wearing a flamingo pink tutu sitting over a white formal ball gown on a Tuesday may not be a remarkable occurrence for those used to the city, but for newcomers, it might spark inspiration. Using their curated clothes to express […]
Where the sidewalk is an art studio
By Liz Namgung In the winter of 2000, Fejzo stepped onto the jet bridge at John F. Kennedy airport, bags heavy with art supplies from Albania. He began drawing as a child. Now, at 48, living in his adopted city, portrait sketching has become his full-time job. His workspace isn’t the standard walled, windowed studio. […]
Loving and reading books, as literacy declines
By Marvely Gonzalez Sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park, with his partner beside him, Thomas Hummel was reading “The Communist Manifesto.” That book by Frederick Engles, Hummel said, gives the reader “a world of knowledge beyond your immediate experience.” It lets Hummel, who works in IT at the Queens Public Library. “ learn […]
Nostalgia (and sales) at a stationery store
By Ocean Hiller Luke Georgiades’ handwriting is messy, the equivalent of a 5-year-old’s scribbles, he said. But the woman he met the previous night loves letters and journaling. So, drawn to the cat-themed logo of stationery store Niconeco Zakkaya, he stepped inside to write her a message on a postcard—his scrawl aside. “There’s nothing like […]
Frenzy over fuzzy, furry key chain
By Chanelle Liu Inside the compartments of the computer monitor-sized organizer were clothing customized to fit fluffy, hand-sized, keychain versions of Labubu dolls, which also come in larger sizes. To the right of that sidewalk display, three rows of boxes of Labubus were stacked. Some were opened, so customers could see which color they desired. […]
For the love of chess and, sometimes, money
By Sarah Levine The younger man bounded down the four steps to the basement of a Tenth Street brownstone, punching a secret password into the keypad. Its green checkmark flashed. The older man opened the door and waved him inside. Four hundred dollars was that Tuesday night’s prize at the Marshall Masters Chess Club. Somewhere […]
Mixing old and new at a Portuguese bakery
By Sienna de Silva Businessmen in navy suits slowed their brisk pace, craning their necks and looking over their shoulders as they passed the hole in the brick wall on Saint Johns Place where bakery workers take customers’ orders and pass them sweet treats. Like those businessmen glancing backwards to read the menu placard screwed […]
How selfies reshape the concert experience
By Cailyn Williams Concert-goers Lara Afolayanka and Ashley Simplice steadied their cellphones, positioning the camera lens to capture the Barclays Center display screen as it shifted from a WNBA player advertising an upcoming game to a banner touting that evening’s Brooklyn stop on Tyler the Creator’s sold-out Chromakopia tour. “I definitely went on Pinterest and […]
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 […]
Paragraph by paragraph, a writer’s room
By Sri Sowmya Tanguturi When she started crafting her first book, “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson utilized Paragraph Workspace for Writers, a spot on Fourteenth Street reserved for writers. Among that workspace’s various offerings was a flexible schedule. “I had assumed that I would go to the office on a nine-to-five schedule,” she said. “But […]
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 […]
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’s House
By Grace Andino Twelve years into their fight to protect the Merchant’s House Museum, those who staff the facility on East Fourth Street said they still are hoping planned construction of a hotel next door will not proceed. They argue that the construction will threaten the museum’s structural integrity, possibly causing the place to crumble […]
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 […]
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 […]
Gender, sexuality labels confuse some, give clarity to others
By Jayden Perera Male, female, transgender, gender neutral, non-binary, agender, pangender, genderqueer, two-spirit, third gender … Those are some of the labels for sexual identity and gender identity, which are two different categories. Some people say they understand some but not all of the labels. Some people accept all the labels. Some think some of […]
Weighing whether to grow old in New York
By Juan Colon During the six months he spent recovering from back surgery in 2020, Ralph Steiber, 76, couldn’t walk up the five flights of stairs leading to the Lower East Side apartment he’s lived in since 1975. “I couldn’t live here … ” Steiber said. “I had to rent out an apartment building with […]
Clotheslines save costs, help the environment
By Shafiul Haque For the immigrant Guventurks of Middle Village, Queens, hanging clothes out to dry is a family tradition. “My wife is from the countryside in Ireland and they always hang the clothes outside,” said Ufuk “Fred” Guventurk, 59, a Verizon technician who lives on 81st Street. “Clotheslines have also existed in my family […]
Fed up New Yorkers fight litter
By Kennedy Gayle Two weeks ago, Myles Smutney watched a man chuck a bottle out of a car. Responding to that offense, she picked up the bottle and gestured for him to roll down his car window. She threw the bottle back into the vehicle. She and the man exchanged a few words, she said. […]
Building community at the coffee shop
By Erin Yoon The customer was going on and on about how good the juice was. For two consecutive days, the man explained, he had bought that juice three or four times. “I guess I’ll be seeing you frequently then,” said barista Breslin Logan, 27, as his customer grabbed that pineapple juice and walked out […]
“Chalking back” to street harassment
By Cameron Alleyne In one Instagram post, a 13-year-old spoke out about a man who, first, asked her for directions and then flashed her as she turned to answer. In another, a woman shared that she was berated after not acknowledging a man who was catcalling her. On sidewalks around the world, girls and women […]