The Phoenix NYU
Seen as a leader, far from past trouble
By Westley Reaves Jr. Malik McGhee started preparing last February for three days in June at a New York City networking conference for standout students from historically black colleges and universities. He hadn’t expected to be in that pool of students, handpicked by their business school deans. He’d gotten into trouble with the law while […]
Lessons to lessen Black drownings
Photo by Steward Masweneng on Unsplash By Jaden DeGruy When twentysomething social media strategist Paulana Lamonier was trying to figure out a side hustle, a conversation helped settle the question. “There was this young lady,” Lamonier said, recalling that small talk from several years ago. “She was, like, ‘Oh I can’t swim because my bones […]
Vinyl record sales keep climbing
By Matthew Adams Ask Discog’s marketing vice president why he collects vinyl records and he’ll give a fast reply: “The music … defines who it is that I am and the music that means something to me. I want to own it.” More customers buy music downloads and streaming music but the audience for vinyl […]
Schooling youth in life and the game
By Bradmond Lee-Harewood In 2005, Jamel Wright founded the Harlem Jets, hoping to create an opportunity for his son and other inner city children to grow and develop on and off the football field. “I wouldn’t have known it was 20 years if someone else hadn’t told me,” Wright said. “The work is just that […]
Trauma as a tool to save lives
By Calvin Butts When Natasha Christopher talks about her son’s murder, she’s matter-of-fact. “That destroyed my life,” she said. “No parent should ever be home asleep and receive a call that someone shot your son,” she added. “But it also gave me a voice.” On June 27, 2012, her 14-year-old son Akil had been celebrating […]
Protesting NY Times’ LGBTQ coverage
By Gray Fuller Standing on the sweltering sidewalk at the entrance to The New York Times, a group aggrieved by the paper’s coverage of transgender people spelled out their complaint: Gray Lady Lies Trans People Die. In the bottom corners of the white poster board bearing those words, two handprints were pressed in red paint. […]
South to North, chasing artistic dreams
By Corey Leathers Jr. Eighteen months. That’s how long it took a transplant from South Carolina to go from being a broke college dropout to paying New York City rent with what he’s earned selling his rap records, designing clothes for his BoofNYC brand and walking the runway at New York Fashion Week. He couldn’t […]
Food banks helping more with less
By McGlauthon Fleming IV Amid federal funding cuts to food banks, Xavier Mission in Manhattan has asked its neighbors for support while East Flatbush Village in Brooklyn has been getting less and less food from umbrella organizations like City Harvest that serve food banks throughout the region. “In particular, we get food supplied by [Campaign […]
A life-saving, donated kidney
By Izzy Sy Lying face up and side by side on separate operating room tables, Dr. Alex Hilario and his sister, Elizabeth Hilario, were nervous. They were anxious. A surgical team would extract a kidney from her body to place in his. Her brother’s kidney function had been diminishing for at least 20 years. Two […]
Creating community at a drugstore
By Maurice Brown As a stranger tore past the pharmacy’s shelves, she insisted that the staff behind the front counter answer one question: “Who here is Thomas?” “Oh, *^!$,” Thomas James thought as he braced for a scolding. But seconds later, he saw the woman’s eyes begin to pool with tears as she made her […]
Mental health for Black men
By Johnathan Hooker Black men are among the least likely people to seek mental health counseling. Some Black therapists are trying to change that by tailoring their services to better attract Black males and hosting workshops just for them. In New York City, licensed clinical social worker Frederick Bush on June 11th kicks off his […]
An aid group, mainly, for African immigrants
By Henry Fernandez Planes, buses and blistered feet. Those modes of transit brought two dozen West African immigrants to the United States and, then, one June day to Afrikana, a Harlem nonprofit that helps immigrants build their American lives. Afrikana’s waiting room is where Sweet Mama’s Soul Food used to be. Those looking for help […]
Riffing Bruno to rein in physician burnout
By Shemar Forbes A group of medical students dance, sing and rap their way through hallways, operating rooms and elsewhere inside Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Practice harm reduction … Choice in reproduction … It’s people not patients we treat … Future docs, we all see. We must grant patient autonomy. Priya Makam […]
Bookstore credits success to pandemic
By Marley Joseph Self-proclaimed visionaries Janifer Wilson and Kori Wilson, a mother-daughter duo, opened Sisters Uptown Bookstore in January 2000; however, they did not see success until after the pandemic began. They credit their survival during a period when many businesses closed, but the tally of independent bookstores such as Sisters continued to increase. According […]
“Rage” room helps the uptight unwind
By Brandon Henry She grabbed a baseball bat and used it to bust up a desktop computer and a flatscreen TV that had been propped against a brick wall. “I happen to prefer the glass. Today, it was the healthiest way to express my anger,” said the woman, referring to her objects of choice to […]
Young adults grapple with high living costs
By Salmoncain Smith-Shomade Tameka Pierre-Jean, a brand manager at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, has a master’s degree and five-plus years of marketing experience. But the 28-year-old Brooklyn native cannot afford to live on her own, given that the average rent on a 447 square-foot studio apartment, according to Apartment.com’s most recent data, was […]
Major events shape Gen Z views, protests
By Auzzy Byrdsell A month before Faith Andrews-Owens was born in 2001, terrorist hijackers steered airplanes into New York City’s Twin Towers. When she was 11, in February 2012, a self-described neighborhood watchman in Florida shot dead 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. In December of the same year, a gunman killed 20 kids and six adults at […]
Skaters roll out across NYC
By Niles Garrison Founded in 1996, Wednesday Night Skates‘ weekly rollout has skaters crowding streets and creating their own kind of traffic while dancing to music. “I travel with two JBL speakers but we have guys carrying around boomboxes while skating,” said Michael Grebinsky, a Wednesday Night Skate volunteer organizer. “We enjoy ourselves during our […]
Testing battery swap for delivery E-bikers
By Christian Thomas A six-month pilot program aims to ease the way for guys and gals who make deliveries to New Yorkers’ homes and offices via bicycle. PopWheels, a Brooklyn-based battery swap network, and bike repair workers from Spheara have partnered to outfit deliverers who travel by E-bikes with fully charged batteries from Swobbee. “We are […]
From going hungry to helping
By Jaden Perry When Elliott Carter was homeless and struggling with drug addiction, The Church of Saint Francis Xavier helped him turn his life around. “Xavier gave me a chance to sit down and eat and get my mind straight. All that chaos out there. I could be calm in here, and I could ask […]
A legendary Harlem spot for B-balling
By Cameron Adams A spot at 155th Street in Harlem is known as The Mecca, a place where legends have shown what they were made of. Officially, the New York City-owned space is Holecombe Rucker Park, founded in 1974. NBA stars such as Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have played on that court. […]
Finding a voice in art
By Grant Hines Watson Mere didn’t speak until he was five years old. Instead, he expressed his wants and needs with pen and paper. “So, if I wanted to use the bathroom, I would draw a toilet. If I wanted to eat, I would draw a piece of spaghetti or spaghetti and meatballs, or something […]
Going from UN expert to a life off the grid
By Darius Osborne Gisele Kamanou traded in her cell phone for a produce stand and her job at the United Nations to do what she really wants: educate the public about her alternative approach to food and lifestyle. “I refrain from advertising myself because of the modern processes it involves … So many constructs and […]
Blacks in radio industry C-suites
By Shimei Cook During June’s annual celebration of Black Music Month, Shelley Wade, an afternoon host at New York City’s 94.7 FM The Block, and Dion Summers, Sirius XM’s vice president of urban music programming, told The Phoenix’s Shimei Cook about their workdays and relatively long careers and the impact of Black music on society. […]
Lots of losses, lots of loyal fans
By Tyon Posey It has been 12 years since any of New York’s eight major professional teams won a championship. For sports enthusiasts connected by passion and pride to their favorite teams, that’s a huge blow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjpiPxBJyQA “Real sports fans are gonna be with their team win or lose thirty years, forty years. I might […]