Celebrating Community
Sweden is to Europe like the Amazon is to South America. It is a land full of lakes and forests that hug you the very moment of your arrival. Getting on the bus to leave the airport you are driven through a nature scenario, with snowy trees extending miles. If you were sweating in the plane because of your ski […]
Tim O’Brien’s 1990 auto fictional novel based on his time as a young soldier in Vietnam remains a popular choice in high school curriculum across the country. Teaching at a rural school in northern New Hampshire, the average student is removed from the horrors of war and mostly, blessedly, from extreme levels of violence. Although some students do have grandparents […]
Old timers might remember an urban gardener from the last century. Adam Purple, who dressed in purple and drove a purple bike, created a large spiraling garden on the lower East Side which became famous as it was threatened and eventually destroyed by real estate developers. These days, many community gardens in the city are safe from development due to […]
One of the great TV shows was Public TV’s Cosmos. Originally broadcast in the 1980’s, produced by scientist, astronomer and writer Carl Sagan, younger people know the successor shows, Cosmos—A Personal Voyage and Cosmos—A Spacetime Odyssey, both created by Neil deGrasse Tyson, a Sagan devotee and astrophysicist, author and science communicator in his own right. Sagan is described in […]
On February 12, a new and improved state-of-the-art media lab opened at the Red Hook Recreation Center, home of the outdoor swimming pool and recently renovated basketball courts weight room and a a gorgeous learning room outfitted and installed by IKEA (see next page). NYC Parks Commissioner, Amazon head of Community Affairs Carley Graham Garcia and community members celebrated the […]
In addition to the new gym, media center and infrastructure upgrades, the Rec Center now offers a beautiful new learning space courtesy of IKEA. The room includes a comfy lounge with nice lighting as well as a full kitchen area. The room is open to everyone with a Red Hook Recreation Center membership, which is free to those under 25. […]
As the Gaza war continues, Europe is hit by demonstrations organized by pro-Palestine activists in every town, notwithstanding its size or importance. In Pisa, a leading university city, last February 23rd, a small and peaceful demonstration organized by local students ended up with many 15-19 year olds beaten by police with truncheons. The case, starting as a local news, soon […]
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America; and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” As an educator, I’ve been saying the Pledge of Allegiance more or less every morning, five days a week for many of my thirty-four years of life. This means […]
In today’s carb-phobic society, salads are often viewed as the morally straight choice, but sandwiches remain the underdog lunch option: humble, comforting bundles of flavor and texture. But every sandwich is a gamble. Will you pay for a meal you could have easily made at home, or will you be rewarded with a combination more creative than you could’ve mustered […]
Boomer – R.J. Cirillo Millennial – Heather Corbo (hospital pharmacist living in Gowanus) We are at Absolut Coffee on Atlantic Avenue near Hoyt Street, sitting with coffee in ceramic cups. R.J.- “Growing up as a Boomer we always stopped and, like we are doing now, had our coffee. I see more people now, especially your generation, walking with their coffee […]