The Lush Side

Baruch High School, located at 55 East 25th Street. Noon.

NYC Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn kicked off  “Respect for All” Week by awarding 24 schools in the City for implementing programs during the last school year to promote diversity and curb bullying. Several of the elected officials who spoke at the conference were victims of bullying or prejudice themselves, and they shared their stories in a bit of a dry way, as politicians do. Even Quinn, and City Council Member Rosie Mendez shared their stories of  coming out as gay individuals and getting negative reactions from their schoolmates.

Overall, the program and the initiative itself is vital. Students should be educated, if not by their parents, then by their school, to be respectful and open-hearted citizens. But, it was hard to reflect on these sentiments with a room full of plastic politicians and reporters at every nook and corner.

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn

State Senator Liz Krueger

City Council Member Rosie Mendez

Some of the content in this post was originally published in Town & Village newspaper.

George Eastman House. Rochester, NY, 3 p.m.

George Eastman, who started off as a bank teller before he got interested in photography,  redefined what photography was in his day, making our lives easier with the  invention of dry plates and flexible film. Then, he gave birth to what we know now as Kodak, a beloved yet dying star.

This weekend, I went on a tour of his house, and learned that not only was he a brilliant man (though he dropped out of school at age 13), but that he was also a generous and humble one. I know that photography is at a decline; like most art mediums today, but it is during these moments that I feel truly inspired. If I never make a penny creating photos, I won’t stop.

Oh, and I was gifted my first film camera this weekend!

More on Kodak, and its recent bankruptcy here.

Times Square, 11 p.m.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Jenna McCarthy

Ryan Seacrest

Derek Hough

Diva lady...

Justin Bieber

Happy 2012, everyone!

Some of these photos were also published in Town & Village newspaper.

A playground at Bushwick Park...a little different, but same idea.

We were all kids once, some more recently than others. I spent my childhood down south. The following is based on my memories of then. Names have been changed.

The little girl scanned the playground for any intellectual activity. The boy in the orange t-shirt was pushing his way past a group of girls who were studying a pre-teen pop magazine very closely. The Hansons, just so you know, had hair long enough to fly in the wind and the voices of sweet angels, so it was no wonder that the ten-year-olds at Janie Stark Elementary spent the majority of their recess periods fanaticizing about their futures with the youngest Hanson brother, specifically…what was his name again?

The black top was peppered with kids waiting in line for a turn at foursquare, and the biggest fleck was a chubby kid from Florida who had never made a ball into the net in his entire grade school career, or at least the little girl had never seen it happen.

She listened quietly to the sounds of light-up sneakers hitting gravel, a girl screaming from getting her hair caught in the chains of her swing, and the sound of bare, kid-palms rubbing against the steel rods of monkey bars—well maybe she couldn’t actually hear that part, but either way it was making her lose her appetite just thinking about it. She looked down at the half-eaten PBandJ sandwich in her lap, the one she had saved at lunch to spare herself the humiliation of sitting alone again. Continue reading →

Bellevue (oldest continuously operating hospital in America) celebrated it's 275th Anniversary today, 1 p.m.

Linda Curtis, executive director at Bellevue.

Some of these photos were originally published in Town & Village newspaper.

Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, 4 p.m. She was a little shy about kissing in front of the camera at first...

Some of these photos were originally published in Town & Village newspaper.

Tree lighting in Stuyvesant Town. Dec. 1, 6:30 p.m.

Some of these photos were originally published in Town & Village newspaper.