Fighting for local independent retail on the Upper East Side

Check out a story I wrote for Our Town Newspaper this week. Councilmember Garodnick is looking into ways to fight the proliferation of chain stores like drug stores and banks through zoning and planning law reform.

Manhattan Borough President doesn’t like the DOE’s plan for overcrowded schools

Borough President Scott Stringer doesn’t like how the Department of Education is handling the problem of overcrowded public schools on the Upper East and Upper West Sides. In particular, he’s unhappy with the waitlist timeline. He says the plan allows for too much uncertainty for parents of children on waitlists.

Parents and community leaders in both neighborhoods are anxious about the problem. Several prominent community leaders hope that the issues of overcrowding the DOE has faced in the last year will spur the department to look for more long term solutions such as opening new schools in new buildings.

Check out my stories on the issue for West Side Spirit and  for Our Town.

Capturing Central Park

Rain Reflection by Edwin Bobrow

Edwin Bobrow is an 82-year-old consultant who has turned his hobby of snapping pictures of Central Park into so much more. Check out my brief about his photography, and check out his current exhibit at the Works Gallery on Madison Avenue.

An Olympic Gold Medalist visits an Upper East Side Middle School

Check out the article I wrote for the Our Town newspaper about Wagner Middle School’s visit from speed skater Apolo Ohno! It was pretty exciting to see the Japanese-American athlete playing games with the sixth graders.

Apolo Ohno, the most decorated American Winter Olympian ever.

OTTY Profiles

Our Town newspaper, the community weekly for the Upper East Side of New York City, recently held it’s annual OTTY awards. The OTTY awards, which stands for Our Town Thanks You, recognize community leaders, educators, business owners, and more that make an impact on the Upper East Side community. The paper held an awards ceremony last Monday night for all of those recognized and had a special section in the paper with profiles of each of the recepients.

As an intern for Our Town and West Side Spirit, the Upper West Side community weekly, I wrote two of the profiles. Both of the community builders I profiled, Loretta Ponticello and Sarah Gallagher, were amazing people with great stories.

Check out what I wrote: Loretta Ponticello and Sarah Gallagher.