Flea Market Slideshow

Flea Markets Experience Surge of Customers

Flea markets in New York City are currently entering into their heyday of business as people search for alternate means to buy what they need at cheap prices.

            Even on a national scale, flea markets are experiencing an influx of customers. “Flea markets have gone leaps and bounds partly because of the economy we are in right now. People are trying to get buyers and sellers together in a cheap way. An open space tends to accomplish that,” said Mark Blakewood, the executive director of the National Flea Market Association.

With the economy causing layoffs and forcing people to find any extra ways to save money, people are turning to flea markets for shopping opportunities and for extra income.

            “People are not as opulent in their acquisitions. People are not buying new furniture to furnish apartments. Instead they make do by going to flea markets to buy the furniture,” said Alan Boss, founder of the Annex Antiques Fair & Flea Market, a collection of flea markets that includes Hell Kitchen’s Flea Market and the Antiques Garage.

            Now flea markets are experiencing more participation of vendors and more activity by buyers, according to Boss.

“We are doing better than last year when the economy was doing well and people thought their jobs would last forever,” said Judy Gehrke, managing director of GreenFlea, a flea market located on Columbus Avenue between West 76^th and 77^th Streets.

            “The economy of flea markets runs counter cyclical to the economy. When the economy is booming, flea markets are not as successful as when the economy is suffering,” Gehrke said.

            Nanako Miller would have to agree. Miller, who sells boutique-style clothing that she designs herself, has been selling at GreenFlea for the past year.

“I was very skeptical at first,” Miller said. “I had the impression that flea markets were where old people bought antiques.” But after working with wholesalers, Miller decided to eliminate the middleman and go into business herself by selling her designs at flea markets.

            Starting her business before the major economic downturn, Miller has not felt the effects of the recession. “People have stopped buying expensive clothes from boutiques. I provide boutique-quality clothing but at cheaper prices at flea markets and street fairs,” she said.

Customers flock to flea markets to find these great deals. “Now with the declining economy, discounts and thrift prices that flea markets offer add extra appeal for people,” said Sula Haska, a teacher for adults receiving their GEDs. “I usually hate to shop, but something about flea markets draws me in,” Haska said as she tried on a five-dollar red silk shirt at The Store With No Walls in Hell’s Kitchen Flea Market.

            “I come here every weekend. They have the best and lowest prices. Where else can I find a beautiful shirt for five dollars?” she said. 

Internet Revolutionizes Investigative Reporting

The barriers into entering the world of journalism are the lowest they have ever been, said panelists of “The Future of Investigative Journalism,” a discussion of professional journalists held on April 23 at NYU’s Kaufman Management Center.

            “A shift is taking place that is democratizing in a sense. The Internet allows everyone access that used to be only available to the major news media,” said Tom Casciato, director of News and Public Affairs at ThirteenWNET.            

The Internet is paving the way for citizen journalism to become a venue for investigative reporting, said Ted Conover, distinguished writer in residence at NYU.

            Blogs are becoming a new source of news. During the presidential campaign of 2008, The Huffington Post launched the blog Off the Bus, which was introduced as a Web site for citizen journalists to post articles on the presidential race. With blogs such as this, people no longer have to be plugged into any established news organization in order to investigate and write a story, said Conover. 

Investigative journalism is also taking advantage of non-profit services. ProPublica is one such non-profit organization that funds investigative reporting on issues of major importance. Network news stations and major print organs can partner with ProPublica in order to publish the investigative report free of charge, according to Stephen Engelberg, the managing editor of ProPublica. Because traditional news organs are worried about running out of money, ProPublica provides a free alternative to inform the public of major issues.

No longer is it about who publishes the story but rather what changes come from the news, said Engelberg. ProPublica provides a new model for reaching a mass audience with the speed of information.

“New media doesn’t have to mean new values,” said Casciato. Even with changing mediums of communication, investigative journalism is still held to the same high standards as in the past.

UN Reporters Share Undecided Views on New Administration

The new buzzword within the United Nations since US President Barack Obama took office is “multilateral.” Multilateral cooperation is the defining feature of new US relations with the UN, according to statements made by Susan Rice, the newly appointed US ambassador to the UN.

“President Obama’s view is clear, that our security and well-being can best be advanced in cooperation and in partnership with other nations. And there is no more important forum, for that effective cooperation, than the United Nations,” said Rice in a statement to the UN on January 29, 2009.

Yet on a recent visit, numerous United Nations reporters said they have an overall undecided view on the new US relations with the UN under the Obama administration.

With the backdrop of the Security Council screen and the 15 flags of the nations involved with the Security Council, UN reporters stand behind a metal pole in front of a wooden podium and microphone. Reporters gather here for monthly meetings regarding relations in the Middle East and weekly meetings on security issues around the world, recently including the situation in Darfur and Sri Lanka.  

            Over 250 correspondents have office space at the UN. In the midst of the changing administration, UN reporters said in interviews that they see the day-to-day changes and hear the conversations around the shifting US relations with the UN.

            “Obama wants to make the UN more prominent,” said Matthew Lee, a UN blogger for Inner City Press. “At the same time, the UN may be overly optimistic.”

One of Lee’s observations is that Ambassador Rice has not been very accessible to reporters. She often takes only three questions during press engagements, according to Lee.

            The irony lies in that former UN Ambassador John Bolton under the Bush administration often attended UN meetings but had an anti-UN reputation, said Lee. Now under the new administration, Rice supports multilateral US cooperation with the UN, but she has started off as being less accessible to the press, said Lee.

            Other UN reporters believe it is too early to tell about definitive changes in the UN, even with Rice’s initial inaccessibility to the press.

“If people aren’t around, it doesn’t mean they aren’t informed,” The New York Times' reporter Neil MacFarquhar said. Rice has not been here long enough for anyone to make conclusions about US relations with the UN under the new Obama administration, he said. A change in mood is evident under Ambassador Rice, whose stance on the UN differs from the anti-UN sentiment of the Bush administration, said MacFarquhar.

Overall, no conclusive changes have been established in US cooperation with the UN in the first three months of the Obama administration. It seems like the general consensus is that the future may provide some answers about the possible changes in the US-UN relationship.

Traveling Along Highway 90: A Poet’s Journey to Inspiration

The podium hides most of her body. Illuminated onstage, her black hair falls past her shoulders and blends in with her jet-black jacket. She clears her throat and begins reading her poem, “September Notebook.” The audience sits enraptured with the intensity of her voice as she explores the haunting connection between 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Her voice seems to hypnotize the audience.

            Nicole Cooley, a published poet and professor of English and creative writing at Queens College, reads from her newest collection of poetry, Breach, due to be published next spring by LSU Press. It captures the devastation in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

Born and raised in New Orleans, Cooley never originally envisioned herself writing about her hometown. Yet, she soon changed her mind after driving along the Gulf Coast on Highway 90 in 2007, one year after Hurricane Katrina. Realizing, that she wanted New Orleans to be the backdrop for her next writing project, she wrote for three months and edited the work for a year and a half until she completed Breach.

            The Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans served as the setting of Cooley’s childhood. Her father, Peter Cooley, is a published poet and professor of English at Tulane University in New Orleans. From an early age, Cooley followed in her father’s footsteps as she discovered her passion for reading and writing.

            “My dad used to make me write a poem everyday. We would go to a doughnut shop or the mall. We would pick a word from the dictionary and just write. Sometimes it worked out. And if it didn’t, it was okay because it was good practice.”

Cooley always knew she wanted to be a writer and a professor. During high school, she attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts where she took creative writing classes that provided valuable training. She went on to receive her B.A. from Brown University, her M.F.A. from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop and her Ph.D. from Emory University.

            After receiving her Ph.D., she began teaching at Bucknell University but soon joined Queens College. Currently the 42-year-old Cooley is an associate professor of English and creative writing and director of the newly developed M.F.A. program in creative writing and literary translation.

            Cooley says she loves that Queens is one of the most diverse places in the world, and she uses this environment in her writing. She often writes on the train each morning during the hour-plus commute from her home that she shares with her husband and two daughters in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Cooley lives by the motto of always writing wherever she is, even when she has nothing to say. “If the worst thing you do that day is write a bad poem, then you’ve had a good day,” said Cooley in an interview after her poetry reading.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndaB1qr5758 This link goes to the YouTube video of Nicole Cooley's poetry reading from CUNY's Turnstyle Reading Series.

Snow Cancels Schools and Schedules

A huge snowstorm lengthened morning commutes, delayed flights, and led New York City officials to cancel school as the storm ripped through the Northeast and blanketed New York City with eight inches of snow, according to the National Weather Service.

New York City Public School’s 1.1 million students got their first official snow day in five years.

“There are no words for how excited I was,” said Willem Joseph, a 10-year-old fifth grader at P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village, as he slid down a tiny hill on his bright red sled and crashed into a pile of snow in Washington Square Park. “When I woke up at 7:56, I just knew it was going to be a snow day since I usually have to wake up at 7:30 for school.”

“This is way better than school,” Ava Gural, an eight-year-old student at the Little Red Schoolhouse, said with snow in her brown hair, only one pink glove on, and rosy cheeks from the wind.  She didn’t have her own sled but used cardboard instead to slide down the hill.

Hardware stores overflowed with customers needing salt, shovels, and Ice Melt.

“This morning from the moment we opened we were very busy,” said Joseph Breit, manager of Brickman Outlets Ace Hardware in Greenwich Village.

            Others had no customers at all. Barry Fisherman, a 65-year-old ophthalmologist on Long Island, said as he walked through Madison Square Park that he had to close his practice for the day because his secretary and many of his patients could not make the commute.

Classes at the French Culinary Institute were also canceled because of the snow, which threw off 39-year-old culinary student Keith Fisherman’s schedule.

“We decided we might as well take advantage of the day off and grab some burgers,” said Keith as he went to grab a burger from the Shake Shack in the snow-covered Madison Square Park. 

Protestors Demand Changes in NY Housing Laws

Low-income tenants and activists gathered despite the cold on the steps of New York’s City Hall today to protest what they called landlord fraud in a series of rent increase loopholes.

The tenants and activists also released a report titled “The $20,000 Stove.” This report calls for the elimination of a program that lets landlords raise new tenants’ rents on rent-controlled apartments by 1/40^th the cost of improvements made on apartments.

Landlords are raising rents without showing documentation of the improvements, said Irene Baldwin, the executive director of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, an organization of 93 affordable housing groups. Some landlords use the no-documentation loophole in the program to claim false improvements and raise rent prices without having to show proof, said Baldwin.

            “We need to crack down on this abuse,” said New York State Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried of Chelsea and Midtown. “Businessmen go to jail when they commit fraud. Landlords should go to jail too.” 

            After rent reaches $2000 each month, landlords can charge whatever they want because the apartment is no longer under rent control, said Baldwin.

“I hope changes come soon,” said Carmelo Robles, a 78-year-old volunteer for the Mirabal Sisters Cultural and Community Center, a non-profit organization promoting tenant rights for immigrants and low-income residents of West Harlem. “If nothing changes, pretty soon we will all be living on the streets.”

Current legislation to change the 1/40^th program will be voted on in the upcoming months in the New York legislature in Albany. If passed, the new legislation will require landlords to provide proof of any improvements and will also change the amount landlords can charge to 1/84^th the amount of documented improvements, said Stephen Levin, the Chief of Staff for New York State Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez of Brooklyn.

            “Right now landlords are in control, ” said New York State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn. “But we will not rest until the days when landlords abusing tenants comes to an end.”

Every Day with Rachael Ray Seeks Help from Search Engine Optimization

Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine’s online component recently turned to Search Engine Optimization to boost readership in the online community through search friendly results and headlines.

SEO uses information, such as Web sites’ data of online traffic, to determine which key words in an online search would produce the best searching results. A repetition of embedded words within the search is utilized to help a specific Web site gain a higher ranking in the list of search engine links.

Every Day with Rachel Ray’s Executive Editor Online Diane Dragan was hesitant at first to consider the importance of the SEO results. But she soon realized that SEO could provide valuable information to improve the Web site’s search engine rankings.

Dragan describes the process as a “tug of war” with constant “pushes and pulls” to increase online audience traffic while also maintaining valuable content. The Web site for Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine hopes to use the results of SEO to provide the readers with online friendly headlines and interactive material to balance with the printed magazine.

By turning to SEO, the online division of Every Day with Rachael Ray Magazine intends to turn a person’s simple online search into a way to help increase the scope of online visitors to the Web site. For example, when online surfers are searching for the newest recipe for a dinner or planning a menu for a party, Search Engine Optimization would allow for more traffic to come to the magazine’s Web site by utilizing vital key words in the embedded data.

The ultimate accomplishment of SEO would lead Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine to the much-coveted first link in the Google ranking.

Ethnic Groups Reach Roadblock

Tables were set in a C-shape facing a wooden podium where a microphone stood. The board members filled in the chairs as the clock neared 6. When the meeting began, the members of the public, who had signed up to speak, stood up before members of Community Board 5 to plead their causes. A major part of the committee’s agenda consisted of the approval or disapproval of a group of ethnic celebrations to take part in Midtown.

            The atmosphere in the board meeting had a sense of uneasiness as numerous representatives of the ethnic groups stood before the board in the public session in order to speak on behalf of five cultural groups that were planning to have celebratory parades on Madison Avenue between 23^rd and 26^th Streets at various points in the year. One by one members of the Philippine Independence Day Council, Pakistan Day Parade & Fair Committee, Sikh Cultural Society, the Muslim Foundation of America, and the Federation of Indian Association asked for their events to be approved.

            Conflict ensued because the Joint Parks and Consents & Variances committee of Community Board 5 recommended denial of the events until “City Agencies [agreed to] engage in a tripartite dialog with Community Board 5 and the applicant” to find the best venue suited for these growing cultural events. The decision of the board greatly affected the members of these groups who attended the meeting because they wanted the board’s support for the events. The board’s main concern was that as the events grow, the city has to deal with more crowd control, more sanitation problems, and more strain on the communities where these events take place.

            When the decision was made with a unanimous vote to deny approval of the events, the members of the cultural group stood up without making a scene and walked out of the meeting. Dipak Patel, the elected president of the Federation of Indian Association, was angered by the board’s decision. After speaking with him and the other representatives, I realized that their main initiative was to provide a learning experience for the members of the communities of New York City. Patel, originally from Punjab in India but now residing in New Jersey, remarked, “New York City is supposed to be a melting pot, and here I am seeing nothing is being practice. There is a lack of awareness of these celebrations.”

Patel and the various sponsors of the other ethnic groups say that they are open to discussion for the future of the events. They want to compromise but not at the extent of losing the approval of the board. Patel made the fascinating analogy that the board’s denial of these immigrant and religious groups’ events would be similar to an educational institution denying students out of state to come and study in the college.

            David Diamond, a Community Board 5 member and former board president, said in response to the board’s decision, “We denied the request in order to stop and take a look at the problem to figure out a solution.” He remarked that the board’s suggestion does not actually have political power. It is up to the Street Activities Permit Office to supply the groups the permits needed to have these events. Yet support of the community board in which the events take place seems like a necessity in order to have a successful celebration. 

Chinatown Frenzy

Frustrating is the first word that comes to mind when I started my interviewing for the Chinese New Year by going to the Chinatown parade. People swarmed the area surrounding Mott Street as they waited impatiently for the parade to begin. I set out to interview shop and bodega owners in the area to find an angle for a story, especially in reference to the declining economy. Many owners did not speak English or did not want to be interviewed. This set the tone for the rest of the afternoon as I attempted to find people in the crowd of parade-goers to talk about their personal financial experiences in the present state of the economy. Once a few started talking with me, it got a bit easier to find people more willing to talk. I realized that I had to put myself out there and ask as many people as I could because eventually people started responding to the questions.

            During this experience, I learned a lot about reporting and interviewing in New York City. I never realized how difficult it is to interview people. Going into it, I had no idea what people were going to say in regards to my questions, so I did not know what article I would be able to write from the quotes I would receive. After my first time interviewing, I learned that it is necessary to get full contact information for any people that I interview. I forgot to ask my interviewees their ages as well as their hometowns because in the heat of the moment I did not remember all the essentials. I also need to learn a better short hand so that I can accurately write down everything that the interviewees say. You never know what gem of a quote a person will say, so you always have to be ready for it. I also want to improve my professional demeanor when reporting so that I develop a mutual respect and comfort with the person I am interviewing.

            One story that I believe would be interesting to pursue would be the takeover of Little Italy by Chinatown. When I was in the neighborhood, I noticed that the once historic neighborhood of Little Italy has been shortened to a few blocks along Mulberry Street. This story could be done at different angles, such as a reaction piece with perspectives of Little Italy residents and business owners as well as Chinese business owners who have taken over the neighborhood. The impact of this story may not be on a national level, but it is important to the people in that neighborhood as well as tourists who are going to this area.

            Next time, I plan on being more prepared with questions and a positive outlook, and hopefully I will get a few good quotes to make a good news story.