Pursuits: Policy, Place, People

Journalism

My first love is journalism. I recently had the pleasure of editing at THE CITY for one year and being part of that spirited investigative newsroom. It’s a joy to share my passion as an instructor in the Journalism Department at Lehman College in the Bronx. I also recently contributed the main essay to the new art book on Brooklyn painter Steve Keene, the most prolific artist in America; and re-released my short film No Man’s Land, set on the beach at Stuyvesant Cove Park, in light of the current razing of East River Park and opposition to the East Side Coastal Resiliency project. My research into the history of the beach formed an exhibit at the 14th Street Y that accompanied the film’s premiere in Summer 2017.

After college, 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 until moving south again to serve as a staff writer for The Tennessean, in Nashville, in the early aughts. I couldn’t stay away from New York though, and served as online editor-in-chief of the policy journal City Limits from 2006-2010. J-gigs since then include editing stints at the Forward and the Daily News op-ed section, and publishing in the Atlantic, CityLab, and elsewhere.

Environment

Experiencing ever-changing Manhattan sparked an interest in the built environment. Around 2000, I became the founding volunteer for Friends of the High Line — which has had a large and essential volunteer corps from the beginning — and experienced the extraordinary process that turned a leftover piece of urban infrastructure into a world-renowned public space. As a writer and urbanist, I was invited to speak about this experience for an episode of Blueprint by the city’s NYC Media channel. returning to the series for an episode on the Staten Island Ferry.

Living in the East Village involved me in the cause of neighborhood preservation. Despite how much the EV and Lower East Side have changed in recent decades, a sense of identity, community, and history remains strong. I saw how the expansion of chain stores was harming the city’s character, and took a job at the nonprofit Village Preservation (then GVSHP) to work on turning that tide. I became an expert in small business preservation — and sadly, a skeptic about whether the city ever will take effective steps to retain retail character, a major part of neighborhood character.

Along the way, I wrote about a little-noticed urban light display that I dubbed glimmerance, and made my first short film about a little-loved urban intersection near my home.

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

Art

A lifelong lover of arts and culture, I’m also a creator, and a documenter of others who create. Contributing to the new art book on painter Steve Keene 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, but never anticipated writing about him!

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 unveil the plaques and celebrate their artistic lineages. Whether leading a panel about saxophonist Ornette Coleman and the Five Spot Cafe, or talking with the intrepid photographer couple James and Karla Murray, I’m a skilled interviewer, comfortable both on stage and in front of a camera.

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