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☆ Opinion | Coming Out Late — and Finding a New Life in Midlife
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-24 | by ( Charles M. Blow | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Born, bred, toasted, buttered, jelly-jammed and honeyed in Harlem.”That’s how Audrey Smaltz, a former model and fashion industry veteran who turned 86 this month, introduced herself to me years ago at a Midtown Manhattan reception. She was the grande dame of the room, floating through it, incandescent, fun and unabashedly flirty. “I had fabulous men in my life,” she told me recently, but in 1999, the Olympic basketball star Gail Marquis, 17 years Smaltz’s junior, asked her out to dinner. Smaltz didn’t think of it as a date and said she had no interest in women at the time. But when Marquis kissed her good night, Smaltz recalled, “it was like kissing a man.” She said, “I couldn’t believe myself,” then laughed, punctuating the thought: “Whoa!”They married in 2011.

Persons: “, ”, Audrey Smaltz, Gail Marquis, Smaltz didn’t, Marquis, Smaltz, Gallup Organizations: Olympic, Pew Research Center Locations: Harlem, Manhattan

☆ A Family Trio Starts a New Chapter in the City. Where Could They Find Three Bedrooms?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( Debra Kamin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Ms. Secor, a design consultant, looked out the window at Broadway and saw a stream of people fleeing north. Ms. Secor sold her TriBeCa co-op in 2005, and the couple welcomed twin girls, Romy and Naia, in 2006. But Ms. Secor had lived in New York for more than a decade before 9/11, and she missed the city. But Ms. Hill had different advice. Ms. Hill found some condos that fit the profile, streaming her visits on FaceTime so Ms. Secor could see them from Quebec.

Persons: Anne Secor, Secor, ”, “, Romy, Hill, Ms Organizations: World Trade, TriBeCa, Naia, New, Estate Agency Locations: TriBeCa, Manhattan, Canada, Quebec, Morin, Laurentian, New York, “ New York, Harlem, Flatbush , Brooklyn, FaceTime

☆ Harlem City Council Election Tests Limits of Progressive Politics
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Jeffery C. Mays | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Two years ago, when a democratic socialist narrowly won a crowded Democratic primary for a City Council seat in Harlem, some saw it as a sign that the historically Black neighborhood was becoming more politically progressive. But roughly a month before this year’s primary on June 27, the first-term councilwoman, Kristin Richardson Jordan, unexpectedly dropped out of the race. Her decision has recast the hotly contested Democratic primary, which now comprises three candidates — none particularly progressive. Two are sitting State Assembly members: Al Taylor, 65, a reverend in his sixth year in the Legislature; and Inez Dickens, 73, who held the Harlem Council seat for 12 years before joining the Assembly. All are moderate Democrats who, before Ms. Jordan’s withdrawal, had tried to distance themselves from Ms. Jordan and her political stances, which include redistributing wealth and abolishing the police.

Persons: Kristin Richardson Jordan, Al Taylor, Inez Dickens, Yusef Salaam, Jordan Organizations: Democratic, Council, Assembly, Harlem Council Locations: Harlem, Central Park

☆ What Greta Lee, Lizzy Caplan and Spike Lee Wore to Party This Week
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Emma Grillo | Sadiba Hasan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Monday night, luminaries of music and film, dressed in ruffles, sequins and tulle, gathered in Harlem at the Apollo Theater and in SoHo for a Tribeca Film Festival dinner. Uptown, the Apollo hosted its annual Spring Benefit, where musicians and philanthropists celebrated the theater’s 90th year and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Sean Combs accepted awards. The event included performances by Wyclef Jean; Stout; Gladys Knight, and MC Lyte, who were supported by Ray Chew, the music director for the event, and his band. Downtown, on Spring Street, Chanel hosted the 16th annual Tribeca Festival Artists dinner at Balthazar, which honored women artists who contributed original artwork to the festival’s filmmakers. The crowd included Robert De Niro, Lizzy Caplan, Tracee Ellis Ross, Brendan Fraser, Katie Holmes and Sofia Coppola.

Persons: Kareem Abdul, Jabbar, Sean Combs, Wyclef Jean, Stout, Gladys Knight, MC Lyte, Ray Chew, Derrick Jones, ”, DJ Kool, Chanel, Balthazar, Robert De Niro, Lizzy Caplan, Tracee Ellis Ross, Brendan Fraser, Katie Holmes, Sofia Coppola Organizations: Apollo, Tribeca, Downtown Locations: Harlem, SoHo

☆ Mark Bradford Strikes a Pose of Quiet Self-Reflection
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( John Vincler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mark Bradford found his way to becoming an artist while working in his mother’s beauty shop. The Los Angeles-born artist used layers of the cheap end papers — thin delicate sheets used to protect hair from burning during perming — instead of paint in the early works that would soon earn him an international reputation, eventually leading to the official United States pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, his most important exhibition to date. Nearly 40 when Thelma Golden selected him to participate in her landmark 2001 “Freestyle” exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, featuring mostly young Black artists embracing abstraction and challenging dogmas of representation, he has emerged as one of America’s greatest living painters. Yet, technically speaking, he continues to use paper rather than paint as his primary medium. In “You Don’t Have to Tell Me Twice,” Bradford’s works take over the entirety of Hauser & Wirth’s five-story Chelsea flagship, his first New York solo exhibition since 2015, showing a dozen paintings alongside two works that set the mood, a sculpture and a video piece that find the artist taking stock and assessing his own meteoric rise.

Persons: Mark Bradford, —, Thelma Golden Organizations: Studio Museum, Hauser, Chelsea, New York Locations: Los Angeles, United States, Venice, Harlem

☆ Apple adds $25 mln venture capital commitment for minority-owned businesses
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

June 14 (Reuters) - Apple (AAPL.O) said on Wednesday it is investing an additional $25 million to three funds working with minority-owned businesses, bolstering its backing for communities that continue to be underrepresented in the technology space. The funds would go to Collab Capital, Harlem Capital and VamosVentures and boost the tech giant's venture capital support for diverse businesses, to $50 million. The statement comes more than two years after the Cupertino, California-based company's foray into VC funding to back entrepreneurs of color. Companies across the spectrum in corporate America have pledged to do more to support initiatives aimed at racial equity after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 prompted a global reckoning over racism. Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju SamuelOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: George Floyd, Niket, Maju Samuel Organizations: Collab, Harlem Capital, VamosVentures, Thomson Locations: Cupertino , California, America, Bengaluru

[1/5] Sekyiwa 'Set' Shakur poses during the posthumous Rapper Tupac Shakur's star unveiling ceremony on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 7, 2023. REUTERS/Mario AnzuoniLOS ANGELES, June 7 (Reuters) - Award-winning rapper, activist and actor Tupac Shakur received a posthumous star on Wednesday on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where his sister and fellow rappers spoke of the musician's legacy around the world. “Tupac knew deep down that he was always meant for something great,” Sekyiwa Shakur said amid the crowd of around 100 people. Shakur was killed in 1996 at age 25 in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas that has never been solved. Tupac Amaru Shakur has become a global symbol of rebellion.

Persons: Shakur, Tupac, Mario, Tupac Shakur, “ Tupac, ” Sekyiwa Shakur, ” Shakur, ”, Outlawz, Malcom Greenidge, David Marvin, DJ Quik, E.D.I, Afeni Shakur, “, Allen Hughes, Tupac Amaru Shakur, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Hughes, Jorge Garcia, Danielle Broadway, David Gregorio Our Organizations: Hollywood, REUTERS, Apollo, Thomson Locations: Los Angeles , California, U.S, ANGELES, Harlem, Las Vegas, California, Africa, Asia, South America, Europe

Here are the meanings of the least-found words that were used in (mostly) recent Times articles. Because the pull of gravity varies everywhere, this model, called the geoid, resembles a lumpy potato. — A Side-Effect of China’s Strict Virus Policy: Abandoned Fruit (Feb. 5, 2022)5. boogaloo — a genre of Latin music and dance popular in the 1960s:Afro-Cuban jazz was pioneered in the 1940s by Mario Bauza in Harlem. — A Vegetable Soup That Delicately Balances Sweet and Sour (Feb. 17, 2023)8. vivace — musical direction to play in a brisk manner:In her Op. — 36 Hours in Oslo (Jan. 26, 2023)And the list of the week’s easiest words:

Persons: geoid, finitude, infinitude, Richard Powers’s, Hope, longan, Worakanya, boogaloo, Mario Bauza, —, deadeye, Diego State’s, Scholl, galangal, vivace, Mitsuko Uchida, tacet, Marina Abramovic, Igor Levit’s, ‘ Goldberg Organizations: New, Diego, Huskies, Aztecs, pla Locations: U.S, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Cuban, Harlem, South Bronx, New York, saunas, Oslo

☆ ‘It’s About Connections’: Alicia Graf Mack Remakes Juilliard Dance
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Brian Seibert | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The Juilliard dance department, under her leadership, seems like a happy place. Raised in Columbia, Md., she joined Dance Theater of Harlem at 17 and was an immediate standout: a tall, long-limbed, exceptionally graceful ballerina. Told she was too tall by American Ballet Theater and New York City Ballet, Mack reinvented herself again, becoming a star of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and greatly expanding her stylistic range into modern, contemporary and hip-hop. Asked back by the Ailey company, she squeezed out a few more years, then moved into teaching dance at Washington University and Webster University in St. Louis. A child of professors, she found her “happy place” at universities, she said, and realized that helping serious students on the cusp of their careers was what she wanted to do.

Persons: Mack, ”, “, Alvin Ailey, St . Louis Organizations: Juilliard, Dance Theater of Harlem, Columbia University, American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey, Washington University, Webster University Locations: Columbia, Md, St .

☆ Heading Uptown With $250,000 and Some Hope. Could They Afford a Co-op?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Debra Kamin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Ms. Smith, a television lighting designer, and Mr. Estep, a theater props manager, were renting a three-bedroom townhouse with a terrace in Borough Park, Brooklyn. But their rent, at $1,850 a month, was well below market rate, and Ms. Smith, 40, and Mr. Estep, 43, couldn’t bring themselves to leave. The time had come to fulfill those wedding vows. “We needed somewhere that felt like home,” Mr. Estep said. Email: thehunt@nytimes.com]“It couldn’t be a bunch of compartmentalized rooms,” Mr. Estep said.

Persons: Dante Olivia Smith, John Estep, Smith, Estep, couldn’t, “, ” Mr, —, Mr, Ms, ” Allison Deutsch, ” Ms, Deutsch Organizations: Borough Park , Brooklyn ., Oxford Property Group Locations: Borough Park , Brooklyn, New York City, Midtown Manhattan, Harlem, Kingsbridge, Bronx

☆ Pride Month in New York Is Back. Here’s How to Celebrate.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

New York City’s official Pride theme this year is Strength in Solidarity, an apt reminder that Pride was born as a protest movement against bigotry wherever it manifests. Also that day, Christina Aguilera headlines Pride Island, the big annual dance party, at Brooklyn Army Terminal. New York’s official Pride calendar also features a Juneteenth brunch with Black L.G.B.T.Q. chefs on June 18 and, on June 24, events centered on people of color and a Youth Pride party. The annual Dyke March — “a protest march, not a parade,” according to organizers — is June 24.

Persons: Pride, Billy Porter, Randy Wicker, Christina Aguilera, Black L.G.B.T.Q, “, — Organizations: Solidarity, ABC, Pride, Brooklyn Army Locations: Hudson, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Harlem

☆ Where to go this summer: A dozen destination ideas
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-28 | by ( Marnie Hunter | Jane Levere | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Peru"Peruvians are welcoming travelers back with open arms," says travel one travel expert. And perhaps most importantly, the city offers excellent value, in part because it will be the winter/low season there during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer. It’s home to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including megalithic temples that date to the 4th millennium BC. Although summer is the rainy season, Gellis says showers are often brief and intermittent. AlbaniaAlbania is a Mediterranean gem that’s likely to be less crowded this summer than Greece and Croatia, says Joao Donadel, another EMBARK Beyond travel advisor.

On a warm Friday at noon, the Upper West Side, Manhattan, location of Janie's Life-Changing Baked Goods sees a steady stream of customers. Tucked below street level, the bakery's small but inviting, greeting patrons with the rich smell of butter and a colorful display of some of its signature cookies: triple berry pie crust cookie, chocolate pie crust cookie, pecan pie crust cookie, apple pie crust cookie … In the back, CEO and founder Janie Deegan is running around and putting the final touches on some other pie crust cookies. The pie crust cookie is 'my honor roll student'Even as she sold favorites like fancy cakes, Deegan experimented. She brought her pie crust cookie. CNBC Make It"I took cakes off the menu and really just concentrated on pie crust cookies and our other cookies," she says.

☆ 2 Bodies Found in Manhattan Rivers Are Identified as Missing Boys
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Hurubie Meko | Asmaa Elkeurti | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The bodies of two boys, who family members said were together shortly before they disappeared over a week ago, have been recovered from separate locations in the waters off Manhattan, the police said Saturday. One of the boys, Alfa Barrie, 11, who lived in the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx, was last seen on May 12, the police said. Alfa was reported to the police as missing on May 14, and his body was recovered on Saturday morning from the Hudson River at West 102nd Street. Garrett was reported missing on Monday, and his body was recovered from the Harlem River, on the east side of Manhattan, on Thursday morning. On Saturday, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office said Garrett’s cause of death was accidental drowning.

☆ Jordan Neely Will Be Mourned at Funeral in Harlem
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Maria Cramer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jordan Neely spent the last few weeks of his life riding the subways of New York, hungry, desperate and alone. At his funeral on Friday, which will be held at 11 a.m. at Mount Neboh Baptist Church in Harlem, friends and family members will gather to mourn him. The May 1 killing of Mr. Neely, who the police said had been acting in a “hostile and erratic manner” on an F train before another subway rider placed him in a chokehold for several minutes, quickly divided political leaders and led to protests around the city. It has sparked debate around the country between those who believe the man who killed Mr. Neely, Daniel Penny, responded with violent vigilantism to a person who needed help, and those who believe he acted because he was trying to stop a threat. And it has raised questions about safety on the subway and the care provided to homeless and mentally ill people living in the city.

☆ At Harlem Funeral for Jordan Neely, an Outpouring of Grief
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Maria Cramer | Hurubie Meko | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jordan Neely spent the last few weeks of his life riding the subways of New York, hungry, desperate and alone. But at his funeral on Friday at Mount Neboh Baptist Church in Harlem, hundreds gathered to mourn him, including friends, family members, prominent Democratic politicians and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who delivered his eulogy, in a public outpouring of grief for a man who spent his final days in solitude and anonymity. It has sparked debate between those who believe that the man who killed Mr. Neely, Daniel Penny, responded with violent vigilantism to a person who needed help, and those who believe he was trying to stop a threat. And it has raised questions about safety on the subway and the care provided to homeless and mentally ill people living in the city.

☆ Bill Perkins, Defender of His Harlem Constituents, Dies at 74
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Bill Perkins, who for 24 years as a legislator from Harlem championed his community — by, among other things, challenging Donald J. Trump’s aggressive demand for the death penalty when five teenagers, who were later exonerated, were arrested in connection with a rape in Central Park in 1989 — died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. His death was announced by his wife, Pamela Green Perkins. She did not give a cause, but Mr. Perkins had undergone treatment for colon cancer and, according to Richard Fife, a family spokesman, had developed dementia. In 1989, when five Black and Hispanic teenagers were charged with the rape of a white jogger in Central Park, Mr. Perkins was among the first Black civic leaders to publicly raise questions about the evidence and to suggest that there had been a rush to judgment. At the time he was president of the tenants’ association of Schomburg Plaza, the Manhattan apartment complex where several of the defendants lived.

☆ The Rev. Timothy Keller, Pioneering Manhattan Evangelist, Dies at 72
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Nevertheless,” he continued, “we launched Redeemer Presbyterian Church, and by the end of 2007 it had grown to more than 5,000 attendees and had spawned more than a dozen daughter congregations in the immediate metropolitan area.”Today the church has several locations in Manhattan, though the main one is on West 83rd Street near Amsterdam Avenue; the others are on the Lower West Side, on the West Side at Lincoln Square, on the Upper East Side and in East Harlem. In addition to those who heard him preach in person at any one of those churches, thousands downloaded Mr. Keller’s weekly sermons from the Redeemer website. His dozens of books have been translated into 25 languages and sold an estimated 25 million copies. “Fifty years from now,” the journal Christianity Today wrote in 2006, “if evangelical Christians are widely known for their love of cities, their commitment to mercy and justice, and their love of their neighbors, Tim Keller will be remembered as a pioneer of the new urban Christians.”

☆ Sean Penn, Tye Sheridan reunite on screen in Cannes competitor 'Black Flies'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/5] The 76th Cannes Film Festival - Screening of the film "Black Flies" in competition - Red Carpet Arrivals - Cannes, France, May 18, 2023. Sean Penn, Tye Sheridan and Director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire... Read moreCANNES, May 18 (Reuters) - Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan are reunited on the big screen after more than a decade in "Black Flies," a gritty tale about New York City paramedics that premiered in Cannes on Thursday. The two actors previously appeared together in 2011's Palme d'Or winner "The Tree of Life," directed by Terrence Malick. Oscar-winning Penn, 62, plays veteran paramedic Rutkovsky while Sheridan, 26, known for his role as Cyclops in the X-Men film series, stars as Cross, who is just starting in the field. Former boxer Mike Tyson, Michael Pitt from "Funny Games," and Katherine Waterston of "Inherent Vice" also have parts.

While there have been improvements in diversity within writers' rooms in recent years, writers of color, women of color, disabled writers and LGBTQ+ writers in Hollywood still lag in opportunities. Demands for more compensation and larger writers' rooms may be newer concerns for what Hines refers to as the "upper echelon of writers," but this has been an unresolved struggle for underrepresented writers for years. "When it comes to the issues of writers of color, there's a constant feeling of being left out of the negotiation," Hines said. Many WGA members also believe the specific strike demands, including adding larger writers' rooms, offer a better chance for writers on the sidelines to join in. "That would be absolutely huge for all kinds of underrepresented writers, and disabled writers as well, because we are wildly underrepresented," said Jamey Perry, vice chair of the WGA's Disabled Writers Committee and "Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector" writer.

☆ Kassa Overall Knows Artists Feel Pressure. His New Album Explores It.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Marcus J. Moore | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On a cloudy afternoon, the drummer Kassa Overall strolled past his first New York City apartment, a second-floor room in a Fort Greene brownstone. He had moved to Brooklyn after graduating from Oberlin in 2006 to play in the local jazz scene while improving his chops as a beatmaker. Overall flew back to his native Seattle and wondered what was next. “I went from being a touring musician and always having extra income to barely having enough,” he said over lunch, opening up about his hard times without any apprehension. “I felt like I wasn’t as successful as it felt like I was on the internet.”

☆ Can Reparations Bring Black Residents Back to San Francisco?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Tim Arango | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

SAN FRANCISCO — Standing at the stoop of her childhood home — a slim but stately Victorian shaded by an evergreen pear tree — Lynette Mackey pulled up a photo of a family gathering from nearly 50 years ago. The men were all in suits, the women in skirts. Ms. Mackey, a teenager in red bell bottoms, stretched her arms wide and had a beaming smile. Soon after that time, in the 1960s and 1970s, Ms. Mackey watched the slow erasure of Black culture from the Fillmore District, once celebrated as “the Harlem of the West.” The jazz clubs that drew the likes of Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington disappeared, and so, too, did the soul food restaurants. In many cases, the old Victorian homes were torn down and replaced with housing projects, but the city kept Ms. Mackey’s home standing, and it has since been renovated into government-subsidized apartments.

☆ Opinion: The dubious MLK Jr. quote about Malcolm X
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Opinion Peniel E. Joseph | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, long a contentious backdrop to the history of civil rights and anti-racist activism in America, is under new scrutiny after the bombshell news that a quote denigrating Malcolm X, published in Playboy and attributed to King, is apparently fraudulent. This new information adds to the ongoing rethinking of the relationship between King and Malcolm X. Of course, this is not to suggest that we stop teaching “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” since all memoir and autobiography is an act of literary creation. The complexity of his relationship to Malcolm X is handled judiciously. Balancing the bitter and beautiful parts of the relationship between King and Malcolm X helps us come to terms with past and contemporary historical traumas.

Some Chinatown residents benefited from the development boom, selling properties to developers or drawing more customers from increased foot traffic. Some residents have shown tentative support for the luxury buildings, saying they might make the neighborhood safer or bring in wealthier Asian residents who could boost Chinatown's economy. Manhattan Chinatown's housing stock is "really aged," which has led to costly fires, according to Thomas Yu, executive director of Asian Americans for Equality. Chinatowns and the pandemicMany debates surrounding luxury development and affordable housing were accelerated by the pandemic, which shuttered hundreds of businesses across Chinatowns. However, business owners who spoke with CNBC said Chinatown's businesses, though still recovering, are keeping the city's culture alive.

☆ How I went from working on cruise ships to taking more than 20 a year as a guest — and make a living doing it
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-13 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Next thing I know, I'm in a room with a bunch of Broadway types, performing on a cruise ship. From cruise crew member to cruise YouTuberI figured I'd get maybe 100 views on YouTube. In 2021, when the cruise ship industry was coming back, I started jumping on every ship that I could as a guest. I no longer work for any cruise companies and was able to go full-time with my YouTube channel in 2022. J. Alexander was working in entertainment when he started posting videos about what it was like to work on a cruise ship.

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