If I had to name the piece of work that I am most proud of from my time at Columbia. I would tell you without a doubt that it was “Truth to Power.”
Actually, hypotheticals aside, “Truth to Power” is my proudest moment from my time at Columbia.
My partner, Evan Wexler and I, were able to spend weeks with Danny Panzella (On the right in the picture) and Craig Fitzgerald (in yellow), two New Yorkers with a real passion for the truth. You see, while the rest of us spend our weekends relaxing, brunching and soaking up the sun, these guys spend every Saturday down at Ground Zero getting the word out about their beliefs regarding what really went down on 9/11 and how this kind of thing has been happening and will continue to happen in the United States. On top of that, you can find them at just about every rally, political event or social gathering of note in New York City ready to get the word out about the truth. In their words, they are the true Patriots. None of this Fox News-Glenn Beck-Tea Party stuff. These guys are the real deal. Call them conspiracy wackos or enlightened patriots, they really don’t care until everyone has heard their message.
We produced this 22-min documentary as part of Duy Linh Tu’s Multimedia Storytelling class. It was, by far, the pinnacle of my time at Columbia. I think most of the people in the class would agree. After watching mine, I would highly suggest checking out the rest of the class’ videos here.
So it’s official. I’m done with J-school. Mom and Dad got in to the city and we’ve been hanging out and seeing some sights. We took the cruise out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on Sunday.
My sister, Clare, is finishing up finals at Cornell, so they scrambled to figure out their camera phones to share the experience.
Figured it out.
Took this one for Grandma. Probably should have shaved … a month ago.
Then we headed off to Ellis Island. I would highly recommend a visit. It really puts a lot of things in perspective. We are a nation built entirely on immigrants.
The Columbia Journalism School Career Fair was today. I spent all day hopping from table to table at the ringing of a bell. It was exactly what I imagine speed dating is like. I met some interesting people and had some good conversations. I’d call it a success.
After the fair, Fred and I rode up Riverside Avenue to see what The Cloisters was all about. The Cloisters is the branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated to the art and architecture of the European Middle Ages. It’s in Fort Tryon Park near the northern tip of Manhattan on a hill overlooking the Hudson River.
It was closed. So we wandered around outside.
Fred was cold.
Great view of Harlem. Cool.
Bonus Shot: The Riverside Church of New York. 122nd and Riverside Ave. I snapped this on the ride back.
One of my courses this is semester is Covering Education. The focus of the class is providing coverage on the New York City public school system.
I’ve been following the plight of the MTA’s budget crisis, which will directly impact almost half of New York City’s 1.1 million public school children who rely on the free or discounted MetroCards that the MTA provides for them in order to take subways and buses to school.
I’ve been on Spring Break this week, essentially catching up on a semester’s worth of sleep and enjoying the sunshine, but the week before I attended a rally and hearing held at the Fashion Institute of Technology. It was the last of five public hearings the MTA held in each borough to discuss the proposed cuts in services and jobs to make up for the transportation authority’s $750 million budget gap.
Before the hearing, the transportation workers union held a large rally to show their displeasure with the upcoming cuts, which would cut jobs, shut down or reduce bus and subway lines, and end the free MetroCard program.
I spoke with Richard Jasmin, 52, a bus driver in Brooklyn (pictured above) at the rally. I asked him about the cuts to the student fares and what that meant for him. He said, for one, he’d be scared for his life because kids would “do anything to get to school.”
I don’t remember ever wanting to go to school so badly that I’d assault a bus driver. Let’s hope he was joking.
The giant inflatable rat, a union rally mainstay in NYC, was in attendance as well.
A small, but vocal group of high schoolers, mainly from Harlem, showed up to voice their displeasure over the loss of their MetroCards.
It was high security at the hearing. They even confiscated my reserve of almonds in my messenger bag.
The auditorium only held 600 people. It was filled to capacity and a steady line snaked out and down the hallway. Outside, the rally continued for the news cameras.
Inside, everyone got their two minutes to speak before the board, which included MTA chairman Jay Walder himself.
The final vote on the fate of the MTA cuts will occur on Wednesday, March 24.
We’ve been getting lots of snow in NYC lately. It started dumping halfway through Thursday and just never stopped. I rolled out of bed at 7:30 this morning. Much to my surprise, Columbia was closed. So I rolled over, turned off the alarm and fell back asleep.
Later, I ventured over to Central Park to see a fresh blanket of thick, wet and heavy snow.
I got a call just before midnight last night. It was CJ, with whom I have been spending lots of time for my master’s project on pit bulls in New York City. His oldest (and dearest) of his two dogs, Snow, had been peeing a lot and he had just passed it off as a UTI. However, he had just received news from a vet that in fact it was something much worse. Snow had Pyometra, a bad infection in her uterus, and the vets gave her two days to live unless she had surgery. The Manhattan vet he was visiting estimated $2000 for the surgery. CJ knew he could do better so he found a vet in Queens where he could get the same surgery for nearly half the price.
I met him and Snow up in Harlem around 11:30 a.m. Thursday and we hopped in the car and zipped over to Queens.
At the vet, Snow and CJ waited patiently. She didn’t give off the impression of a dog who was two days away from death, but she did do a lot of whining and squirming while we waited for her turn in the examination room.
Much of the argument I am trying to present in my piece on pit bulls is that they are treated almost as a minority. People fear them and hate them without ever really trying to understand them as a breed. It was quite refreshing to see CJ conversing openly with the two other couples about their dogs in the waiting room. They all had much smaller dogs, but it was clear that everyone in the room was speaking the same language: the language of passionate, concerned pet owners.
Questions like “What is she in for?” and “What about your dog, what is he here for?” were thrown around.
They joked about spaying and neutering and their apprehensions, projecting their human fears of their own castration onto their beloved pets. The surgery Snow was facing was essentially a glorified spaying. Her uterus would have to be removed in order to take care of the infection.
After much waiting, Snow got up on the table. She wasn’t too keen on having her swollen and painful private parts probed and put up a bit of a fight by growling and thrashing. Her metal chain and long nails on the metal exam table sounded like hail on a tin roof as she struggled to get down and away from the vet’s probing hands.
The vet very quickly and methodically produced a leather muzzle from the drawer for her to wear as a precaution. CJ and another veterinary technician held her tight. Snow leaned into CJ’s embrace, as if hoping to bury herself in his thick black leather jacket to escape from the uncomfortable probing.
A quick x-ray showed her uterus was in bad shape, and her spine was a bit arthritic from giving birth to puppies.
The uterus is the dark mass near the right half of the x-ray.
CJ haggled a bit with the vet to get the bare minimum of services rendered to get Snow healthy again. Then, he told Snow he’d be back first thing in the morning on Saturday to pick her up.
CJ dropped me off at home. I ran out to the 110th Street station to snap a quick stock shot of the subway for my latest Covering Education blog post.
I’m covering transportation and safety issues for the course and the post was about a new report released by the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy that projected MTA fare hikes to be at least 15 percent to make up for their $400 million budget gap. Last month, they voted to phase out free and discounted MetroCards for the city’s public school students. The report calculated that this hike would cost a working family of four with two school aged children an extra $2300 a year in transportation costs.
For a simple blog post, I spent entirely too much time on an accompanying infographic on the history of MTA fare hikes. I’m pretty proud of it though.
I only took the subway up to 116th St. Then, I walked back down to my apartment. Since I had my camera, I figured I’d finally take the picture I’d seen countless tourists take before on my daily walk to and from school. This is Tom’s Restaurant. Probably best known as “the Seinfeld Restaurant.” Although, the diner scenes were shot on a set, they used this shot of the actual Tom’s Restaurant in the show.
Look familiar?
The restaurant is also the inspiration for the song “Tom’s Diner,” which was released in 1981 by Suzanne Vega.
My personal favorite, and probably a bit more familiar is the 1990 remix by British group DNA.
I caught a cool glimpse of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine as I turned to cross the street to head back home.
I finished the day off glued to my computer, working on various projects. The computer work was only broken by a nice run in Central Park. I listened to the first episode of the new Freakonomics podcast. I’m a fan and it will fit nicely into my running repertoire.
I like busy days. I never seem to get through everything i’m supposed to, but I always go to bed feeling complete.
It’s snowing here in New York City. Schools are out all over the city. Even I had my classes cancelled. As a Michigander who spent four years in Burlington, Vt., I can’t say I’m overly impressed by this “blizzard.” But when a city the size of this one gets hit by a decent amount of snow, it does become clear what a hinderance the slushy white stuff can be.
My block has been embracing the snowfall with enthusiasm. The guys in the neighborhood have been out since 11 a.m., crafting this beautiful couple in celebration of the blizzard, Valentine’s Day and Jennifer Lopez (check out the ba-donk-a-donk on that beauty).
Met up with Fred. Biked to Central Park. They had a rail jam going on.
Fred indulged in some swag.
This woman was grooving to the tunes supplied by the Red Bull mobile sound system.
She had moves.
Next, we cruised to 125th St. in Harlem. First, I had to stop off at the heated bathrooms of the Lake House. Fred held my bike.
Went to Dr. Jay’s. Fred scored some cheap threads. An old, probably homeless, man pooped his pants in the store and got chased out. The ensuing chaos made for quite a scene. Back outside I snapped a shot of the Apollo before we left.
I wolfed down a torta at Taqueria y Fonda with Fred. We parted ways and I cruised to the Animal Care and Control shelter on 110th between 1st and 2nd Ave. I met up with Evelyne Cumps, a volunteer who runs the Compassion program at the shelter. She and the other volunteers walk the dogs in the shelter, many of whose fates aren’t very promising.
This is Baby. Baby was listed as “questionable.” Evelyn said she liked the dogs who need work. She walked her around the corridors of the shelter, stopping to give her pieces of meatloaf she bakes herself at home for the dogs.
This was the second visit to the shelter for my pit bulls story. The first visit, I only saw the dogs up for adoption. There were 18 of them that day. Only two didn’t have any pit bull in them. Person after person came in looking for a small dog to adopt. Nobody wanted a pit. Tonight, I got to go back into the shelter where the dogs are held that haven’t been put on the adoption list yet. More of the same. If I had to guess, it was 95 percent pit bulls and pit bull mixes.
After that, I headed to Brooklyn Bowl where Hot Chip played a DJ set. I don’t have any pictures. There were a lot of hipsters there.
Connor Fieldman Boals 