The Phoenix NYU
Finding community on foot
By Jalen Long In a city known for its crowded streets, packed subway cars and nonstop pace, one hiking club is helping New Yorkers slow down and reconnect with nature and each other. What began as a small getaway among friends has grown into a thriving outdoor community. Founded in 2024, the Down to Earth […]
Librarian organizes unionists against ICE
By Kwadjo Otoo Public librarian Karl Schwartz first visited the Delaney Hall detention center in 2017, before national news headlines captured ICE officers and anti-ICE protesters in a kind of combat, replete with billy clubs and tear gas. “It’s kind of this dystopian atmosphere … I’ve heard others refer to it as a sacrifice zone,” […]
When the path to a first job isn’t straight
By Mitchell Brown When advisors warned Jade Bramwell about job struggles after college, she wasn’t worried. A year later, that changed. “You come out of college with a lot of expectations,” Bramwell said. “But I didn’t really understand how bad things were until it’s slapping you in the face.” Many recent journalism graduates, including aspiring […]
Schomburg marks 100 years of studying and archiving a disaspora
By Kordell Martin Advocate Kevin Matthews was pondering these times as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture reaches its 100 anniversary as a world-class library: “We haven’t lost anything,” said Matthews about being among the many Black Institutions that have lost federal grants under President Donald Trump. Some people say we got a […]
In a Brooklyn brownstone, parlor jazz
By Marquis Chambers Photos by Brandon Aninipot It started with a Friday night fish fry to celebrate a beloved person who’d died. “My cousins played drums. I danced. We cooked food. We celebrated. And from there, things just started to happen,” said Debbie McClain, of what was happening in her Brooklyn backyard. Jazz lover McClain’s […]
Fractions, flavors, ‘culinary courage’ for kids
By Javon Huynh Surrounded by books, students at P.S. 191 Paul Robeson School in Crown Heights found themselves in a library transformed into a makeshift cooking classroom. Tables were covered with cutting boards, measuring cups and bowls of vegetables. A smart board displayed the day’s lesson, “Mediterranean Rainbow Chickpea Crunch Bowls.” “Whether they put me […]
Preserving and highlighting Harlem’s history
By Marcus Craig Harlem’s Convent Avenue Baptist is a majority Black church in a mainly Black neighborhood. But on a recent Wednesday afternoon, white people filled up most of the seats. They’d paid to hear seven singers, a pianist and a drummer perform black gospel music. I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord […]
Inviting the boss to dinner, hoping for a gig
By Denzel Massaley Inside the lounge of BoxGroup’s office, college students mingled with employees from an investment fund during a private dinner organized by Chelsea Commons, a group of 12 college students who are bringing businesses to themselves and their peers — instead of cold-calling, blind-emailing or otherwise waiting to hear back from job recruiters. […]
For Gen-Z men, a surge in religious faith
By Danny Chung-A-Fung Health, relationships, finances, spirituality. Of those four self-professed pillars of 30-year-old Alex Gittens’ life, the last is what’s first in his heart and mind. It has not always been that way for Gittens. Especially while working three jobs to help pay his way through college, his faith fell through the cracks. He […]
‘Shirley Chisholm’ 5K races toward good health
By Xavier Board In 2021, the Shirley Chisholm 5K Trail run started as a simple way to foster community. Five years later, the event has increased its count and diversity of runners, while also upholding its tandem goals of improving public health and spotlighting the first Black female congresswoman and first Black person to vie […]
A church music ministry for the moment
By Nicholas Gunn — The music inside the sanctuary of Church of the Advent Hope was a long way from the solitary organ and choir more typical of what’s been played at Seventh-day Adventist churches. “I’ve visited a lot of Adventist churches but the music often feels stuck in the past. No drums, no […]
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 […]
Cadence’s vegan chefs reimagine soul food
By Jon David Regis — Executive chefs Haley Duren and Shenarri Freeman place themselves and their East Village restaurant in a camp of plant-based eaters that extends back to pre-enslavement West Africa and, in the United States, includes civil rights and nutrition activist Dick Gregory, who died in 2017, and Queen Afua, a holistic […]
Sidewalk fridges for the food-insecure
By Joel Mitchell — On an early summer afternoon, Asmeret Berhe-Lumax was doing what she often does at the nonprofit food pantry she founded five years ago: Unloading boxes of groceries from a truck and stocking them inside a see-through sidewalk refrigerator and the food crates beside it. “It’s a very simple and straightforward […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Reopening in ‘26, a museum of hip-hop history
By Freddrell Green — As a native of the Boogie Down Bronx, Miles Marshall Lewis said he’s steeped in hip-hop music and culture. He knows how and why it was born and about its lingering impact after more than a half-century of international acclaim. “I saw hip-hop begin from outside my window,” said Lewis, an […]
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 […]
A leader, far from his past troubles
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 […]
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 […]