Capital New York

Dear friends, We are excited to announce the release of our...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:47:36 -0400

Dear friends,

We are excited to announce the release of our first e-book, Making the City: Selected stories from Capital New York. We chose 16 stories, published during the past three years, that we feel reflect on our mission to investigate, explore, question, and explain the messy city of New York to a knowing community of readers and participants.

»>You can buy it here on Amazon or on iTunes for $4.99.

You do not need a Kindle or tablet to read our e-book. You can read it on your desktop, or send it to your iPhone with the Kindle app.

Let us know what you think!

Also, join us for a release party, Reading the City, on July 2 at 7 p.m. at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, featuring readings of New York stories by Capital co-founder Tom McGeveran and writers Starlee Kine, Azi Paybarah, Sheila O’Malley, Steven Boone, Steve Kornacki, Glynnis MacNicol, and more, hosted by Gillian Reagan. (Stay tuned for more details!)

Here’s the introduction to the book, written by editors Tom McGeveran and Josh Benson:

A Palestinian food-cart vendor with a secret recipe and a Chinese family struggling to earn its living with a takeout restaurant in the South Bronx; an ambitious young politician with a knack for working the press and a police chief who’s better at politics than his boss; a character actor trying to break into opera and a hip-hop group from Philadelphia that has made its way to the top of the late-night television pyramid; a famous woman who would challenge the supremacy of The New York Times and a self-deprecating man who would be its shining knight; the street hustles of the perennially homeless and the street photography of a fashion icon.

These are some of the characters we’ve covered at Capital New York over the last three years, since we began publishing from a cluster of white melamine Ikea desks in a windowless room in Soho in June 2010. The story subjects are a diverse group, but they have in common a desire to fix their fates against the roiling reality of life here. They’re famous, infamous, unknown, or invisible, but they’re all part of the same messy project of New York City.

This place is both hard to describe and endlessly describable. It’s a city of disparate instances, and it’s in the disparities that the engine of the city becomes, barely, visible.

E.B. White, that inescapable and comforting shadow under which anyone who wants to think or write about New York City must work, knew only some of these varieties of the New York experience, in fact. But he in turn knew what he didn’t know, as he wrote in his 1949 book, Here Is New York:

A block or two west of the new City of Man in Turtle Bay there is an old willow tree that presides over an interior garden. It is a battered tree, long suffering and much climbed, held together by strands of wire but beloved of those who know it. In a way it symbolizes the city: life under difficulties, growth against odds, sap-rise in the midst of concrete, and the steady reaching for the sun. Whenever I look at it nowadays, and feel the cold shadow of the planes, I think: “This must be saved, this particular thing, this very tree.” If it were to go, all would go — this city, this mischievous and marvelous monument which not to look upon would be like death.”

It’s a city of stories. Telling them in their specificity, and smashing them all together without an overweening concern for their comfort or compatibility, is the only real way to tell the story of New York. It’s an endless project that’s so rewarding because it’s a project that can never go away. It’s what we’ve tried to do with this website: To tell some of these stories, in their utter specificity, as a way of getting at the big stories that defy the keystroke.

This is a selection of articles we’ve published over the last three years, and not a collection, because with writers like ours, as passionate about their subjects and as determined to get the story right in its utter specificity, there can’t be a final anthology. Which is why we are so thankful for the last three years of Capital, and for the time to come. And which is why we hope, if you find these stories as compelling and immersive as we do, there will be ample occasion for more selections like these ones.

Buy Making the City: Selected stories from Capital New York on Amazon or on iTunes.

explore-blog: Mean Streets – an interactive map of bike...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:46:34 -0400

explore-blog:

Mean Streets – an interactive map of bike accidents in NYC. Counter with this vintage illustrated guide to bike safety, then follow up with WNYC’s Bike Advice series.

Anthony Weiner and the tossed-salad model of leadership by Josh...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:41:09 -0400

Anthony Weiner and the tossed-salad model of leadership by Josh Benson

mexicanfoodporn: huffposttaste: webbys: How’s everyone...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:39:57 -0400

mexicanfoodporn:

huffposttaste:

webbys:

How’s everyone doing?

CHEESE PARTY.

I eat, you eat, everyone eats.

We have chocolate parties at the office that look very similar to this scene.

buzzfeedsports: Barclays Center welcoming coach Kidd [via]

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:46:49 -0400

buzzfeedsports:

Barclays Center welcoming coach Kidd [via]

Borough president to Major League Soccer: Forget Queens, build...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:05:36 -0400

Borough president to Major League Soccer: Forget Queens, build in the Bronx

Private First Class Lawrence Bartlett, Niagara Falls, New York,...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:49:08 -0400

Private First Class Lawrence Bartlett, Niagara Falls, New York, examines the four fallen lions which once adorned the top of the Siegestor, built by King Ludwig I, in 1844-1852 in tribute to the Bavarian Army. Munich, Germany, June 13, 1945.

From the Records of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas

robinhoodnyc: In 2001 Tanya Ridley was working as a...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:57:12 -0400

robinhoodnyc:

In 2001 Tanya Ridley was working as a receptionist in a dentist office. While she was thankful she had a job, she never felt like it was where she was supposed to be.

Then, after the tragedies of 9/11, Tanya saw the many opportunities to rebuild New York City. She wanted to take part in the rebuilding, but knew that wouldn’t happen sitting behind a desk. Without experience, she applied and was accepted into the pre-apprenticeship program at Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW). She entered the program knowing how to type and answer phones, but upon graduating 6 weeks later she acquired skills in painting, trim work, reading a floor plan and she even learned how to lift a 65 pound bucket of concrete without breaking a sweat. Like many of her females peers, Tanya was fearful of math, but in just six short weeks she understood more than she had mastered in all her years of schooling. Tanya credits her instructors and NEW social worker Linda Young, who provided her with the resources she needed to succeed.

Tanya completed the training program and graduated in the fall of 2007. In 2008 she was hired as a Metal Lather (building and installing metal framework for internal and external walls) with Local 46 Metallic Lathers and Reinforncing Ironworks Union. She has since held steady employment. On her first job as a Lather, working for Roger & Sons Concrete, Tanya completed her goal as she found herself reinforcing the foundation of Tower 4 at the World Trade Center. She is especially proud of the fact that for the first year of her apprenticeship, she was the only female Lather on the project.

Robin Hood has been funding NEW since 1990 and it is because of success stories like Tanya’s that we’ve continued to support them with more than $7 million since that time.

Tanya continues her relationship with NEW as she now serves as a mentor to pre-apprentices in the program. Her motto is: “Good Things come to those who work hard” and her hard work is definitely paying off.

nyphil: The Bird is the Word The Firebird, that is. This week’s...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:19:59 -0400

nyphil:

The Bird is the Word

The Firebird, that is. This week’s concerts at the Philharmonic feature the suite from Stravinsky’s popular ballet, based on a popular snippet of Russian folklore. However, the music as we know it now almost never was: Ballets Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev commissioned the 27-year-old Stravinsky to create the score after composer Anatol Liadov missed out on the opportunity and other candidates (including Tcherepnin, Glazunov, and Sokolov) backed out.

Stravinsky had his misgivings, but Diaghilev, along with Ballets Russes colleagues Michel Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Léon Bakst, and Alexandre Benois, met with him in a summit that led the young composer to accept the commission, which premiered just over 100 years ago, on June 25, 1910. It also sparked a longstanding collaboration with Diaghilev, which included the momentous Rite of Spring and another work that will be performed by the Philharmonic this month, Petrushka.

(Images of costume and set designs for The Firebird courtesy of the New York Philharmonic Digital Archives.)

newyorkisforlovers: wonderchebs: 2013 Easter Parade and Easter...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:58:06 -0400

newyorkisforlovers:

wonderchebs:

2013 Easter Parade and Easter Bonnet Festival in New York City by mistergalaxy on Flickr.

David Seifman to be named political editor of 'New York Post'

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 13:31:00 -0400

The move seems a logical step given Seifman’s seniority on the Post’s political team, for which he’s been covering City Hall since 1982. But it also puts a crucial city politics gig in play in the run-up to this fall’s heated mayoral election.

azipaybarah: (via Video briefing: Discussing government...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:02:04 -0400

azipaybarah:

(via Video briefing: Discussing government surveillance | Capital New York)

nycgov: NY Waterway Ferry at sunset Photo by @nycgo

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 11:43:05 -0400

nycgov:

NY Waterway Ferry at sunset

Photo by @nycgo

'The futility of retreat': Bloomberg hopes to withstand climate change without conceding to it

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:36:08 -0400

'The futility of retreat': Bloomberg hopes to withstand climate change without conceding to it:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg today unveiled a raft of proposals that he said would help New York City withstand climate change.

42inchtv: Kanye West’s New York Times interview and “Mean...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:35:22 -0400

42inchtv:

Kanye West’s New York Times interview and “Mean Girls.”

"It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and..."

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 10:01:50 -0400

“It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart”

- Anne Frank

Anne Frank was born today in 1929. This quote is from her diary, “The Diary of a Young Girl” which was written while her family was in hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. She died in 1945 and her diary was published in 1947 by her father, Otto Frank. You can get a copy of her diary at the library.

(via nypl)

azipaybarah: (via Bloomberg proposes a Battery Park City for...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:40:06 -0400

azipaybarah:

(via Bloomberg proposes a Battery Park City for Manhattan’s East Side | Capital New York)

artsfortransit: We love that Ming Fay’s Shad Crossing, Delancey...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:19:48 -0400

artsfortransit:

We love that Ming Fay’s Shad Crossing, Delancey Orchard at the Delancey St-Essex St Station is featured on the popular list of Untappedcities’ Foursquare. Also, if you happen to Instagram this great image while you’re down there, use the hashtag #artsfortransit !

untappedcities:

Featured Foursquare List: Subway Art in NYC http://bit.ly/1bsdjw8

wnyc: Subscribe to WNYC’s YouTube channel and get first look at...

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 10:53:31 -0400

wnyc:

Subscribe to WNYC’s YouTube channel and get first look at all our breaking bands, New York characters, familiar faces and secret places!

Layoff day at the 'New York Post'

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:07:15 -0400

Layoff day at the 'New York Post':

Today’s layoffs were all in the newsroom, and brought the total number of positions eliminated at the Post to about two dozen.