Class started three weeks ago today. So far, so good. I’m happy with all my courses so far – Strategic Management, Decentralized Development Planning, International Economic Development, Fundraising, and Building Effective Teams. The last two classes are shorter courses – worth 2 credits each, but that only means I’m not in class every waking minute for the rest of the semester. Until they’re done in about four weeks, it’s lots of work!
I spent my morning at PS 270 with a group of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders who signed up for the Photography Explorers enrichment class. I don’t know all the details of how the program started, I just signed up through New York Cares’ website for the project. I arrived, without a camera of course, early and awaited Francine the coordinator.
When Francine arrived, she briefly explained what was going to happen – take the kids outside with cameras, let them do their thing, then come back inside to print out a single photo. During the explanation, kids and additional volunteers began to filter in. By ten after ten, we were outside on the playground taking photos of kids on the swings, on the playground gear, pretty much anywhere.
I worked with Crystal. She led me around and took photos of me doing silly stuff on the monkey bars. I, in turn, tried to get her to take photos of flowers or photos of people at interesting angles. She wasn’t interested. She got some great shots and I got some great shots.
Just before we headed in, I showed her the fountain. I hit the on button to release a small stream of water. I told her to take a photo. She missed the stream a few times, so I showed her how to time it. A couple other people came over to have fun with the fountain, too.
The girl, Mioshi, said she really enjoyed taking photos. She thought she was going to be a photographer when she grew up. When she printed out her photo, it was of a woman pushing a shopping cart on the sidewalk. She snapped the shot while the woman was unaware, so it was a very honest expression on the woman’s face – determination and tiredness.
Mioshi titled her photo album page with “Mioshi Documents Brooklyn”. I don’t think of 3rd, 4th, or 5th graders using a word like document, but she did. I was impressed. She went on to describe the woman and where she met her.
The last time I volunteered with kids, I was trying to read to kids in a domestic violence shelter. Not the best first experience. I haven’t really wanted to work with kids since then. After this morning, I have at least one positive experience to balance the reading experience..
Dogwoods on 5th Ave
I started this blog entry a couple weeks ago when Spring really was arriving. It has come and gone. I was struck, more than once, by the tiny buds that appeared on the branches of trees one day, then exploded into beautiful white or pink blossoms the next.
Park Slope is a beautiful place. But the winter turns it into a rather barren landscape. The approach of warmer weather has caused 5th Avenue to transform their nakedness into a lively ensemble of delicate blooms that entice everyone to come out to enjoy their beauty.
From the kitchen window, the ivy has been dormant since late October. In the period of five days, it went from no leaves to fully covered. I tried keeping track of the transformation each day, but I didn’t do a great job. I have a few photos of a barren wall, then a photo with it fully covered. Oh well. Perhaps next year.
The Spring has also brought the rains. There have been a few gorgeous days, a few hot days, and many rainy drizzly, slightly dreary days. I do enjoy the rains, though. I love to here the tires of the incessant traffic roll through puddles and along the slick road. I love to hear the rain hit the roof, the windows, and see the occasional raindrops come down the chimney.
I participated in the New York City annual survey of the homeless. It’s called Homeless Outreach Population Estimate, or HOPE 2009. You can read more about it on the HOPE 2009 website, but in a nutshell, the survey takes a point-in-time look at homelessness on the streets of New York City. It gives the mayor a way to track progress toward his goal to reduce the homeless population by two-thirds in 2009.
My piece of the puzzle was to go to Coney Island and walk with a group of folks, who also volunteered, to canvas three sections of Brooklyn. They gave us maps with the routes we needed to walk and an orientation to the methodology for approaching and interviewing people on the streets. After the interview, we would need to decide whether we think the person is homeless.
We had a room full of people, probably about 50 volunteers and about 30 or so police. Because of the area my group was assigned, we didn’t need police. We might have, actually, but not because it was a rough neighborhood. Quite the contrary.
When we arrived at the first location, the BMW’s, Lexus’s, and Mercedes, in driveways no less, all gave a clue that we would be the ones out of place. No homeless to be seen, but the cops on patrol did look stare at us a couple times wondering why we were on the street at midnight.
That’s the other thing, the survey started at 12:15am and ended when we were done or 4am, which ever came first. It was a chilly January night, so you can imagine that we were anxious to talk to people or get our survey done.
The first survey block led to no encounters. Upon arrival at the second, the houses, their condition, and the kind of car sitting out front, or in the drive way, again said we wouldn’t find homeless people out here. There were very few people on the street at all.
It didn’t take long for us to realize we were on one of the control group areas. If we were to find homeless people in a rich neighborhood, you know the City would have real problems. As it was, we chatted amongst ourselves. One of the volunteers was a computer programmer, another ran a homeless outreach unit, and the fourth ran a marketing business. All very nice folks.
We ended the evening after having walked about six or so miles according to my trusty pedometer. I went home and promptly crashed.
I’ll be interested to see the results of this year’s survey. I don’t know how long it takes to crunch the data and massage the results, but I’ll make a second post. In the mean time, it felt good to help the City, even if I personally didn’t see anyone to help.
Today was a delicious day. It began with a peanut buttered flat bread and coffee for breakfast. Although not necessarily considered one of the world’s greatest culinary delights, I thoroughly enjoy it as a morning starter.
The real fun, though began with the food tour. In October 2008, when my mom came to visit, I signed us up for a food tour through the UVa Club. We did a dessert and wine tour around the 70s on the Upper West Side. The company that provided the guides and was City Food Tours. We enjoyed it so much, I thought it would be great to go on another.
Fast forward to today and I’m on a tasting tour of the Lower East Side. It’s the place of immigrants. Early in the history of the city, it was farm land, but soon after the Revolutionary War, it began to become a merchant’s district. In the mid 19th century, the successive waves of immigrants seemed to find their way to the dilapidated tenements that characterized the area and left their ethnic imprint.
Although we saw quite a bit of Chinatown’s spillage into the Lower East Side, Nicole pointed out quite a few Jewish places that show the Old World past of the businesses and neighborhoods.
The Doughnut Plant
We began the tour with the Doughnut Plant. I’m not really a big donut fan, but these are made with fresh, organic, homemade ingredients. Apparently the creme brule donut is to die for. The owner spent a couple months perfecting the donut. We had pistachio donuts and cranberry jam filled donuts. They were light, sweet, and delicious. When we finished, I didn’t have any of the heavy feeling I usually get after thinking about eating a Dunkin Donut.
From there, we moved to the Bialy place, Kossar’s. I’d never heard of a bialy, much less tried one, before I moved here to New York. They are similar to a bagel, but not quite. They are not boiled before they’re baked, they don’t have a hole in the center, and usually there is a sprinkle of real onion in the middle. The result is a tasty treat – when well done – that hits the spot. Not too heavy, not to light.
Pickles!
Next stop was the Pickle Guys. I’m not really a pickle fan; I enjoy a good relish like everyone else, so I wasn’t terribly excited. Still, how do you expand your horizons without trying something new? Nicole, our guide, gave us three varieties of pickles – a new pickle, a sour pickle, and pickled carrots. The carrots were soaked in vinegar and had a heated kick to them. They were my favorite. The pickles were cucumbers soaked in the brine solution for varying lengths of time. The full sour pickle has soaked the longest and tasted, well, sour. Imagine that. The new pickle tasted more like a salty cucumber.
We wandered north, toward Houston Street, where we stopped for a coffee at the Roasting Plant. There a former Starbucks executive, and manufacturing engineer, had designed a machine to roast, grind, and brew your coffee to order. Guatemalan coffee too light and the Yirgacheffe too bold? No problem, just ask the staff to mix them to your preference. The system looks like a 1980′s sci-fi mail chute with the vacuum tubes that connect the roaster to the storage spots to the grinder. Still, you have to admit, the coffee was delicious. I would highly recommend a visit, paired with a tour of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, to kick start your day.
Coffee!?!?
After the Roasting Plant, we went to Piada for a sandwich. I had La Dolce Vita, which is bresaola, parmigiano, and arugula. There was also a balsamic vinegar to give it a little umpf. Delicious. No two ways about it. Simple and delicious. We chased the sandwich with a chocolate bon bon from the Cocoa Bar.
It was a great morning with beautiful weather – sunny and mostly above freezing – that complimented the gastronomic delights we sampled. I highly recommend this tour – Nicole was a great guide – not only for the food, but also the wander through the ancient history of New York.
This week, I began a temporary job with New York Cares. I’m the Warehouse Coordinator for their Winter Coat Drive. For the month of December, New York Cares collects coats from all across the City. This year is the 20th year of the coat drive. Last year, the collected and distributed over 90,000 coats. This year, we hope to do better, but we’ll see how the economy works its hand at New Yorkers’ generosity.
To collect the coats, they have set up collection points at police precincts in all the boroughs as well as the transportation terminals – Penn Station, Grand Central, Port Authority. To get coats from the precincts and transportation terminals, UPS and Avant pick up and deliver bags of coats every day. Individuals and other organizations can also drop off coats at the warehouse – 250 Hudson St.
The building on Hudson St used to house a printer. Now it’s being renovated for office space. We have a dusty floor all to ourselves. It is in this place that we break down the deliveries, sort them into mens, womens, kids, and infants coats, then rebag them – five coats to a bag – and put them in a big pile. The coats are given to agencies that submitted applications to distribute coats. It’s a first applied, first served situation. We start calling the first applicants to come pick up coats for their works.
Many of the agencies are churches. It’s unfortunately there are so many applicants – indicating the great need in New York – but it’s great that we can help out.
So far, we’ve sorted about 300 mens coats, 360 womens, 60 kids, and 30 infants. The bags of delivered, unsorted coats have piled up, awaiting the tender labors of volunteers who want to help sort them. That process begins next week. It should be good. In addition to the bags from the police precincts and the transport terminals, Sing Sing Prison made a few too many coats for the prison guards. We have about 1850 additional unisex coats to handout.
Although the first week is slow, I’m told that it gets hectic and crazy. I enjoyed the laid back first week and I look forward to some of the ferocious intensity that characterized the early days of Hands On Gulf Coast life.
This weekend, my Dad and I built some shelves for the apartment. It was my first real attempt at building something functional. So, with an idea and about $40 in 2x4s, 1x4s, hardware and some donated material, my Dad and I busted out two 4ft x 2ft shelving units.
I was a little worried they would be rickety despite our best efforts to make them rock solid. Today, my fears have been proven to be unfounded. I’ve got the shelves loaded up with about 350lbs of stuff. Most of it is photos, journals, and other accumulated books from my childhood. I used the scale from home to measure each box.
Here is the shelf unit unloaded and loaded. You’ll notice it looks very lonely without its mate. That’s because I left two pieces of the second shelf at home. Oops. The pieces should come in the mail soon.
