Current News

Nonprofit Requests Audible Traffic Signal

Help for visually impaired at Columbus-Broadway-W. 65th St. intersection

By Dan Rivoli

March 4, 2010 · Comments 

The perplexing Columbus Avenue-meets-Broadway-meets-West 65th Street intersection is difficult to navigate for most New Yorkers.

But less than a block away is the Jewish Guild for the Blind, where about a dozen legally blind people work and hundreds of people receive services each week.

After years of lobbying by the guild, the Department of Transportation is now studying a proposal to place an audible traffic signal at the intersection. [Read more]

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Feature

Rebecca Stead Goes Back in Time

By Charlotte Eichna

March 4, 2010 · Comments 

Writer Rebecca Stead revisited her 1970s New York City childhood and wove it with a time travel twist for her second book, When You Reach Me (Wendy Lamb Books, $15.99). The young adult novel, which won the prestigious John Newbery Medal for children’s literature in January, follows latchkey kid Miranda as she tries to make sense of a frayed friendship and a prescient series of notes that suddenly start appearing.

We caught up with Stead, an Upper West Side mother of two, after a whirlwind book tour that brought her to Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Cincinnati and Boston. [Read more]

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Politics

STATE OF THE BOROUGH

February 11, 2010 · Comments 

Borough President Scott Stringer gave his fourth State of the Borough address Feb. 4 and used the opportunity to unveil new policy initiatives for his second term. [Read more]

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Education

Space Squeeze for New District 3 Primary School

By Smriti Rao

March 4, 2010 · Comments 

Despite the urging of District 3’s Community Education Council, the Department of Education said it was not possible to increase the number of grades at P.S. 452, a new school slated to open in the I.S. 44 building on West 77th Street in fall 2010.

The department is planning to start three kindergarten classes at the school, but the parent council wants that number increased to five. The move, the parent council argues, would help ease pressure at nearby crowded schools, especially P.S. 87 and P.S. 199, both of which are far above capacity. [Read more]

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Film

Gangsta Epoch

Cynical hip-hop clichés abound in Antoine Fuqua’s ghetto epic

By Armond White

March 4, 2010 · Comments 

Ever since President Obama gave a shout out to The Wire, it’s been impossible for popular culture to portray the African-American experience as anything other than ghetto crime stereotype. Obama’s validation of racist clichés explains the lousy new Antoine Fuqua movie Brooklyn’s Finest, which merges police corruption and African-American fatalism. We’re meant to enjoy this overlong exploration of how three cops interact in the urban chaos as if it were a grand explanation for all that’s gone wrong in big city life, that is, a big-screen version of HBO’s The Wire. [Read more]

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Dining

Stuck on Stecchino

An Italian take on French onion soup, silky pâté and a complex ragu

By Linnea Covington

March 4, 2010 · Comments 

Stecchino is Italian for “toothpick,” and while nothing on the menu includes these little wooden sticks, you will definitely need one after your meal. Especially if the soup of the day is red onion ($6), a luscious, Italian version of French onion soup with a strong burst of oregano. Every day the homemade soup changes, so I can’t promise they will serve it next time. If whatever they serve is half as good as the red onion, though, you will be in for a treat. [Read more]

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Sports

One Year, Two Record-Breakers

Dalton hoops girls Lechich and Cecil both break the 1,000-point mark

By Adam Bloch

March 4, 2010 · Comments 

Inside the main gym at The Dalton School’s athletics building, there is a large banner listing the 1,000-point scorers in the school’s basketball history. The list stretches back decades and includes roughly a dozen entries. But until this year, it featured only one girl, a 2006 graduate named Mia Gliedman. This season, within a month of each other, two girls added their names to the short honor roll.

Steph Lechich started playing basketball with a small, rubber ball when she was 5. She was too small to use a real basket, so her father would mimic a hoop by holding his arms in a circle and allowing her to shoot through it. She’s been draining buckets ever since. Jan. 25, she hit a 3-pointer to pass the 1,000-point mark. [Read more]

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Blog

Voices From Haiti

January 22, 2010 · Comments 

The Haitian Times, a community newspaper based in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, has been on the ground covering the earthquake in Haiti for several days now.

As fellow members of the New York Press Association, Our Town and West Side Spirit are posting some of the work that Haitian Times publisher Garry Pierre-Pierre and colleagues have pulled together under incredible circumstances.

Michelle Rea, executive director of the New York Press Association, reports that the group flew into the Dominican Republic because air traffic into Haiti was restricted to rescue missions. [Read more]

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