Met up with Fred. Biked to Central Park. They had a rail jam going on.
Fred indulged in some swag.
This woman was grooving to the tunes supplied by the Red Bull mobile sound system.
She had moves.
Next, we cruised to 125th St. in Harlem. First, I had to stop off at the heated bathrooms of the Lake House. Fred held my bike.
Went to Dr. Jay’s. Fred scored some cheap threads. An old, probably homeless, man pooped his pants in the store and got chased out. The ensuing chaos made for quite a scene. Back outside I snapped a shot of the Apollo before we left.
I wolfed down a torta at Taqueria y Fonda with Fred. We parted ways and I cruised to the Animal Care and Control shelter on 110th between 1st and 2nd Ave. I met up with Evelyne Cumps, a volunteer who runs the Compassion program at the shelter. She and the other volunteers walk the dogs in the shelter, many of whose fates aren’t very promising.
This is Baby. Baby was listed as “questionable.” Evelyn said she like the dogs who need work. She walked her around the corridors of the shelter, stopping to give her pieces of meatloaf she bakes herself at home for the dogs.
This was the second visit to the shelter for my pit bulls story. The first visit, I only saw the dogs up for adoption. There were 18 of them that day. Only two didn’t have any pit bull in them. Person after person came in looking for a small dog to adopt. Nobody wanted a pit. Tonight, I got to go back into the shelter where the dogs are held that haven’t been put on the adoption list yet. More of the same. If I had to guess, it was 95 percent pit bulls and pit bull mixes.
After that, I headed to Brooklyn Bowl where Hot Chip played a DJ set. I don’t have any pictures. There were a lot of hipsters there.
My assignment was to travel from Coney Island to Times Square, document it and produce a 60-second clip of the journey.
I hadn’t been to Coney Island, so I was excited for the opportunity to see that part of the city. It’s a place that is both eerie and wholly intriguing. Now that it’s winter and the attractions are closed, it has a real post-apocalyptic ghost town feel. Vibrant colors and wide open natural light made it great for filming.
I chose to bike there, because I figured everyone else in my class would take the subway. It was a 30-mile ride to get there that took me down the west side bike path, across Canal Street, over the Manhattan Bridge, down Flatbush Ave to Prospect Park then all the way down Mcdonald Ave. until I made it to the Boardwalk. (Geography nerds, see map below).
I’m starting a new course this semester called “Covering Education.” It’s focused on reporting on the New York City public school system. My professor, LynNell Hancock, has partnered all of her students with an embed school that has someone on the inside who is willing to serve as a sort of liaison inside the school. I paid a visit to my embed school, Aspirations Diploma Plus High School, in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn today. I thought I’d share a little of my experience:
I walk through the door of Aspirations High School and into the open lobby. The fluorescent lighting bounces off the clean white linoleum floors and freshly painted white walls with blue trim.
It feels like a hospital.
“Um, excuse me, sir?” A voice barks at me from my periphery. It’s ripe with sass.
I haven’t set foot in the school for thirty seconds, and I’ve already blown the security checkpoint.
Oops.
The nice uniformed security guard takes my ID, lazily fills out a log book and makes me sign my name. I ask her for directions and she vaguely points me to the end of the hall. She snaps her gum loudly at me as if to signify I am someone else’s responsbility now. I turn right down the hall. To the left, in the other half of the building, is another high school, the EBC School. This is a new concept to me. I have always gone to schools that had their own building. Thus, a school is a physical entity defined by its building. Now, I am in one building that houses two schools.
Two minutes in and my mind is already blown. Keep reading →
This is Snow and Layla. Snow, the white one, is a nine-year-old pit bull. Layla, her daughter, is five. I’ve been hanging out with Layla and Snow a lot this week for my master’s project which is a piece on pit bulls in New York City and how they are such a polarizing dog, loved by some and feared by others, here in the city.
The dogs live in the Grant Houses in Harlem with their owner CJ. I came along with CJ and his friend, Jay, while they took the dogs out for some exercise in Morningside Park. It was a balmy 45 degree day in the middle of January (no complaints here) and the dogs were enjoying the sunshine. Keep reading →
I rode my bike down to the Haitian embassy at Madison Avenue and 39th Street tonight to catch a prayer vigil held by Reverend Al Sharpton for the victims and survivors of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that rocked Haiti late Tuesday afternoon.
In attendance were Sharpton, Reverend Jesse Jackson, New York Governor David Paterson, US Senator Kristen Gillibrand and a slew of New York City politicians.
They all spoke of the devastation and pledged aid in the form of money, political will and prayer.
Things are quickly wrapping up here at J-school. It’s pretty incredible to think that I’m already halfway done.
One of the bigger projects I produced this semester was for my Digital Media Newsroom course. My partner Alex and I produced a story package that involved text, video and audio slideshow components about the pest control industry in New York City and how it has been affected by the recession and the boom in bedbugs.
I recently filmed, edited and produced this recap of Eric Haze’s solo show in downtown Manhattan for Format Magazine.
Haze is an accomplished graffiti artist, entrepeneur, graphic designer and now a burgeoning fine artist.
He walked me through the exhibit and then we sat down for a little one-on-one interview.
It was certainly a challenge trying to make still paintings move in video, but I think everything came out pretty well. Check it out over at their site.
This is Evelyn Rivera and Eddie Marrero, two former workers at the Stella D’Oro cookie factory. They were gracious enough to let me into their homes for one of my final features for my RW1 course.
My new feature story for The Bronx Ink about Eddie and Evelyn and their fellow Stella D’Oro workers who are now out of a job due to the closing of their cookie factory that had existed in the Bronx for 78 years is up now. Read it here.
This is Cosmo.
Look out bedbugs, Cosmo will find you.
For my Digital Media Newsroom class, My partner Alex and I have been documenting the pest control business and how the outbreak of bedbugs in New York City have allowed them to stay afloat, and often profit, during the recession. Keep reading →
I enjoyed a quick trip back to Michigan for Thanksgiving. My family hopped on the road to Kewadin, Mich. to celebrate the holiday at grandma’s house which is located on a corner of my uncle’s apple and cherry orchard, overlooking the Grand Traverse Bay. We stuffed ourselves full of delicious food per the holiday tradition. Before gathering around the television to watch the Lions lose yet another Thanksgiving game, I took a walk around the orchard to help digest. Keep reading →
