Hughie Reid sitting in the front room of his funeral parlor (Photo: Aleksandra Mencel/NY City Lens).

An Irish American in Little Poland

Hughie Reid loves money. That’s why he went into the funeral business. Becoming an undertaker was not exactly a life-long vocational dream. Reid, now 86, says that as a kid growing up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn what he really wanted was to own a German delicatessen like Fred O.’s, the store he worked at every morning […]

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Education Helps Young Adults Lift Themselves out of Poverty

Danielle Duval, 23, lives in a shelter and depends on food stamps and supplemental security income to get by. But she said she is trying to put her life together through education. Her first goal: to pass the General Educational Development (GED) test. She’s getting help—at the Henry Street Settlement, a social service agency on […]

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Polish Greenpoint’s Iconic Kiszka

The red awning reads “KISZKA” in big white letters; directly beneath, the words “HOME MADE COLD CUTS” flap in the breeze.  Faded images of different meats displayed in the shop’s window, each labeled by name, serve as a quick lesson in Polish protein. “What kind of kielbasa do you want?” a blonde woman on a […]

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Surfers Honor Their Roots at Rockaway Beach Surf Club

If you closed your eyes to take in the onshore salt air and the long riffs and soft ukulele of surf music, you’d think yourself in Hawaii or San Diego or Venice Beach, not a bar in New York City. That is, until the A train screeched directly above and a jet outbound from JFK, […]

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Stacy, another sixth-grader at the new Highbridge Green School said her favorite subjects are reading and writing. (Hilary Brueck/ NY City Lens)

Change for the Greener for a Few Bronx Sixth-Graders

At Jose Gonzalez’s house, an early riser is antsy to go to school. “I’ve never seen my child waking up so early,” Gonzalez said. “At 6:20, he’s sitting on the chair, waiting for me to take him to school.” Never mind that the 11-year-old doesn’t have to leave the house for another hour and a […]

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Red Hook Grain Silos Play Host to a Music Festival

The hulking Red Hook Grain Terminal has loomed over the mouth of the Gowanus Canal since 1922. Following the decline of the industry it was built to support, its concrete silos have been abandoned for nearly half a century, a relic of Brooklyn’s industrial past. One Saturday in late September, however, music throbbed from within […]

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Bronx

(Photo: Paul Sakuma for AP)
Apple-Picking Robbers Caught Enjoying their Fruit

Oct 14, 2013 | Discuss

  There’s an app for that robbery: two New Yorkers who were robbed at gunpoint Monday, Oc…

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Brooklyn

Hughie Reid sitting in the front room of his funeral parlor (Photo: Aleksandra Mencel/NY City Lens).
An Irish American in Little Poland

Oct 17, 2013 | Discuss

Hughie Reid loves money. That’s why he went into the funeral business. Becoming an undertaker was …

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Manhattan

Duval_feature
Education Helps Young Adults Lift Themselves out of Poverty

Oct 14, 2013 | Discuss

Danielle Duval, 23, lives in a shelter and depends on food stamps and supplemental security income t…

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Queens

surf-feature
Surfers Honor Their Roots at Rockaway Beach Surf Club

Oct 03, 2013 | Discuss

If you closed your eyes to take in the onshore salt air and the long riffs and soft ukulele of surf …

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Staten Island

Some of the necklaces and DVDs that Jackson sold to festival goers at the heritage day. (Photo: Akinoluwa Oyedele/NY City Lens)
Blacks on Staten Island Celebrate their Roots

Oct 03, 2013 | Discuss

A woman near the stage gyrates her hips, punching both fists forward alternately to the beat with th…

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