Pursuits: Policy, Place, People

Journalism

My first love is journalism. I’m currently pursuing interesting stories at the School of Labor and Urban Studies, the 25th and newest division of CUNY. I recently had the pleasure of editing at THE CITY for one year and being part of that spirited investigative newsroom. It was a joy to share my passion as an instructor in the Journalism Department at Lehman College in the Bronx…until enrollment in journalism classes dropped (an understandable, if sad, response to the state of media).

I’m a skilled interviewer, comfortable on stage and camera whether leading a panel about saxophonist Ornette Coleman and the Five Spot Cafe or exploring the urban underground with intrepid photographer couple James and Karla Murray.

After college at UVA, my first job was as a newspaper reporter at the [then family-owned] Northern Virginia Daily in Strasburg, Virginia, in the mid-90s. Being a rookie reporter in the rural Shenandoah Valley was an incredible education. I pursued freelance writing and editing in Washington and New York City — with a spell spent obtaining a new perspective at The Tennessean in Nashville, following 9/11 — eventually serving as editor in chief of the online policy journal City Limits from 2006-2010. Other journalism gigs include editing stints at the Forward and the Daily News op-ed section, and publishing articles in The New York Times, The Atlantic, CityLab, and elsewhere.

Environment

Living in ever-changing Manhattan sparked my interest in the built environment. I became the founding volunteer in 2000 for Friends of the High Line — which has had a large and essential volunteer corps from the beginning — and was part of the the extraordinary process that turned a leftover piece of urban infrastructure into a world-famous public space.

I was a commenter for an episode of Blueprint about the High Line, produced by the city’s NYC Media channel, returning to Blueprint for an episode on the Staten Island Ferry.

Living in the East Village led me to pursue neighborhood preservation in other ways (including appreciating the phenomenon that I dubbed glimmerance).

Seeing how the expansion of chain stores was harming the city’s character, I worked at the nonprofit Village Preservation (then GVSHP) to try to turn that tide. I became an expert in small business preservation — and a skeptic about whether the city ever will take effective steps to retain retail character, a major part of neighborhood character.

The natural environment has captured my imagination more than ever in our climate-chaos era. I’ve been learning a lot as a part of the Long Island nonprofit Ecological Culture Initiative. There is so much we must do differently, and so little time in which to do it. 

Art

I’m a creator and a documenter of others who create. Contributing the definitive profile of painter Steve Keene to the new art book on the most prolific artist in America is one of those times when life comes full circle. I've been a Keene fan since the 90s, when he I both lived in Charlottesville, yet the chance to take a deep dive into his world appeared as a welcome surprise.

I’ve made two short dance films about unique Manhattan locations: No Man’s Land in 2017, set on the beach at Stuyvesant Cove Park, and Intersection: Babel in 2012, about the little-loved intersection of East 14th Street and First Avenue. My research into the history of the beach formed an exhibit at the 14th Street Y that accompanied the film’s premiere there in Summer 2017.

I’ve explored what museums are today (a CityLab most-read story of 2019), a surprising development in classical music, and how we humans love to sing together. In my East Village work, I installed plaques commemorating great people like James Baldwin and Frank O’Hara, and great places like the Fillmore East and Martha Graham’s dance studio — in each case convening living writers and artists to celebrate their artistic lineages.

Making new films may lie in the future for me. Publication of my own fiction and non-fiction does, too. Creative writing was my real first love, after all…until I learned it pays even less than journalism!