Learning and Democracy

By the time Land Stevens reached the podium in Foley Square on a gray Tuesday morning, some three hundred thousand blue-collar New Yorkers had gathered beneath a low ceiling of...Read More “Independent Workers’ Party Brings 20-Hour Workweek” »

Still slim at 83, Barack Obama stands a bit stooped, hair and beard white, eyes alert. He’s in the courtyard of the partially renovated Melrose Houses in the Bronx, sun...Read More “Learning How to Be Human” »

Outer Queens, 2044 On the second Saturday of each month, before the heat builds in the converted dormitory corridors, Mara wheels the newspaper bundles down the service ramp and into...Read More “How Mesh Artists Organize” »

It’s nine AM and twenty-five thirteen-year-olds walk south down 5th Avenue, turning uphill toward Sunset Park. They are blindfolded. Each has a hand on a rope controlled by two teachers,...Read More “Art Class And The Blank Slate Epidemic” »

Risographed posters cover the wall of the Manhattan gathering space. Lively pinks, yellows, and greens layer map grid, the connecting arrows of a diagram, and the shapes of fruit, loaves...Read More “The New Literacy” »

On a Tuesday afternoon in March, Darius Okafor is editing in a borrowed room on the fourth floor of a building in Bushwick. Once a garment factory, the floor became...Read More “The City You Pay For” »

The day before New Yorkers voted on Initiative 7, the sky above Midtown filled with light bulbs. They were six feet in diameter, drone powered, drifting above the heads of...Read More “Building The DIY Network That’s Beating Big Tech” »

The scene is one New Yorkers know well, even when the issue changes: a crowd gathering outside a public building that has suddenly become more than just a physical space....Read More “Not in Our Neighborhood” »

Just a few years ago, when national elections were sputtering back to life, the literacy crisis took center stage. Election officials realized that the reading challenges had grown so severe,...Read More “They Funded Rockets. Now They’re Funding Readers” »

Riawv B. is 48 years old, and for the past fourteen months, a city-run computer system has been unable to confirm that he exists. His credential kiosk reads Not Displayable....Read More “Not Displayable” »

Forty-two people sit in a circle on couches, chairs, and the parquet floor of a Crown Heights brownstone parlor. Ranging in age from perhaps fifteen to twenty-five, they are listening...Read More “When NYC’s Youth Suffered from Possession, These Nurses Stepped Up” »

A row of folding tables has appeared on Fordham Road in the Bronx, near a bodega whose wall still bears the watermark from the 2032 flood — a faint brown...Read More “Big Barter comes to the Bronx” »

It’s September in New York City. The parks are green, and the air is crisp — crisp enough to make the offshore wind turbines spin in steady arcs off the...Read More “What a NYC Highschooler Needs to Graduate in an Election Year” »

One year after securing expanded powers, NYC Housing Czar Jex Radbone is overseeing a renaissance in affordable housing. Gone are the days of endless paperwork and bureaucratic hurdles. “You need...Read More “Need a NYC Home? Here’s the Passcode.” »

“The torch is finally going back up,” remarks an approving Li Wei. She wears a blue windbreaker, which is fluttering along with her black hair as the electric ferry glides...Read More “The De-Growth Job Training Hub On Governors Island” »

Local Politicians, activists, and NYPA representatives announced today that New York City plans to build the Museum of the Pipeline (MOP) in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The museum will sit amid the...Read More “Thermal Pipeline Hub To Host City’s Newest Museum” »

Led by Congresswoman Cardenas, Immigrant Success Network Pushes for Nationwide Child Poverty Relief Through Education Reform They met in one of New York’s family sanctuary shelters 20 years ago, at...Read More “Former Refugees Spearhead Anti-Poverty Movement” »

There are refugee camps in Mexico and Turkey now rivaling the size of the world’s largest cities. It’s a result of the tragic storms of the last seven years in...Read More “People Fleeing Climate Crisis Finally Win Refugee Status” »

Next month, a sweeping federal law nicknamed the “Green Light Bill” is set to shutter almost all of the cannabis shops across the nation. This bill also fast-tracks the right...Read More “Cannabis Shops Close as Green Cards Open Doors for Immigrants” »

Jeehae Fischer walks into the room with a broad smile, sits down on her crystal-clear hover couch, and the audience erupts as she announces her latest guest: Senator Min-Ji Kim....Read More ““The Pink Elephant in the Room” for Korean Community” »

In a once-unthinkable display of bipartisan cooperation, Republicans and Democrats have joined forces to spearhead bold housing legislation. And this time, they’ve managed to save public housing in the state....Read More “Meet the Republicans Who Saved NYCHA” »

A political earthquake has struck the Bronx. In a landslide victory, the Land Party, a progressive political movement organized by the Mott Haven Community Land Trust, swept the borough’s recent...Read More “Land Party Sweeps Bronx Elections” »

Forget skyrocketing prices. Forget property ownership as a path to generational wealth. In today’s New York City, homeownership means stability, not investment. A decade of progressive legislation is now bearing...Read More “Why Housing is No Longer a Good Investment” »

For over a decade, it stood as a symbol of broken dreams, one of many unfinished luxury supertall skyscrapers towering over Brooklyn and Queens, its skeletal frame choked by weeds...Read More “From Ghost Skyscraper to Public Haven” »

Blanche Rootbeam’s morning coffee routine has taken on a new dimension. Every day, 70-year-old Rootbeam shares a cup with Anala Babu, her 22-year-old neighbor, who, along with her girlfriend Sally,...Read More “Finally Catching Up To New Jersey” »

Protestors flooded the opulent gold-plated entrance of the Kushner Casino in Brooklyn this morning, covering the lobby with old mattresses. They also pulled the electronic gambling “pokies” out of the...Read More “Protestors Shut Down Brooklyn’s Largest Casino As Flood Waters Rise” »