Shelter in the Storm

Published in the Village Voice on November 21

 Tracy Trave was getting desperate. It was Thursday afternoon, two days after Hurricane Sandy had abandoned New York City, and her rented room in Broad Channel, Queens, was still swimming in water.

Before the hurricane hit, she’d evacuated to a friend’s studio apartment on the Lower East Side. When downtown Manhattan lost power, she relocated to a Days Inn on the Upper West Side. But as the hotel began raising rates, the 28-year-old nanny, who moved to New York from Charlotte, North Carolina, just two months ago, found herself stranded.

Trave scoured the Internet for rooms to rent, initially to no avail—until someone suggested Airbnb, the short-term accommodation website primarily for travelers. She soon found Lydia White‘s listing of an air bed in Williamsburg.

“She’s like, the nicest person in the world,” Trave says about her host, a 28-year-old graphic designer who sheltered her new friend for three nights, even though her out-of-town boyfriend had just come to visit. “She’s gone above and beyond.”

Trave paid $10 for her stay, as Airbnb has a $10 minimum for bookings (later waived for Sandy-related guests), but White would have been “happy to do it for free.”

A week after Sandy, officials said that up to 40,000 people remained displaced because of home damage. Thousands were taken in by friends and family, and thousands more packed into ad hoc shelters, but there are many others who had nowhere to go. That’s where the city’s professional amateur hosts stepped up. Perhaps their established online social lodging networks could connect Sandy’s victims to those who could give them, at the very least, an air mattress.

 To read the entire story, click here.

Unified, in America, by International Sport

Published in the New York Times Sports Section on Sunday, September 1 

Vladimir Bicvic takes a shot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a makeshift court in Minneapolis, victorious players locked arms around one another’s necks and broke into an unusual cheer.

“Everyone count in your language,” Shkumbin Mustafa exhorted. “Let’s see how it sounds.”

What followed was a raucous chant redolent of the Tower of Babel — “un, deux, trois!” “eine, zwei, drei!” “ena, dyo, tria” — and then the jubilant hollering of two words that unite men and women from more than 20 countries: “New York!”

The men’s squad from the New York City Team Handball Club had won its fourth national title in five years in May, bolstering its reputation as the best team handball outfit in the United States, where the word handball often evokes two leathery, sun-baked men smacking a blue rubber ball against a wall, not the rapid-firing Olympic team sport that has been described by the club’s players as water polo without water, lacrosse without sticks or soccer using hands.

These players, who hail from five continents, would not need to put the sport in such terms in their home countries, where handball — the preface “team” exists only in the United States — is popular. Although most are European, members of the club also come from Senegal, China, Colombia, Japan, Egypt and the Dominican Republic.

“Not everybody has an easy story coming here or why they came here and who they left behind,” said Mustafa, the club’s president and starting center back. A political refugee from Kosovo, he moved here in 1999 with “a small bag, a tennis racket, a pair of jeans and two T-shirts.” Initially he did not expect to stay long, but now he calls New York City home.

“Everybody needs something to fit in,” he said. “We have the Olympic sport of team handball.”

To read the entire article, go here.

Keeping up with Athletes in an 100-Mile Foot Race

Published on Metrofocus on July 26, 2012

Ben Teitelbaum strapped a portable camera to his forehead and rode on a bicycle alongside ultramarathoners training for a 100-mile race. Photo: Milos Balac

An ultramarathon denotes any race longer than a marathon’s standard 26.2 miles — there’s even an annual 3,100-mile, 51-day race in Queens — but a mystique surrounds the number 100. Fascinated by the people who push their bodies further than most of us could ever imagine, Ben Teitelbaum and I decided to make a short documentary on running 100 miles.

In a city like New York, where traffic never stops, road rules are rarely obeyed, and pedestrians crisscross the streets as if they’re playing a real-life game of Frogger, filming long-distance runners was no easy feat. And with limited resources (no dollies or helicopters), we had to get creative.

 

To read the full story and watch the short documentary, click here.

Former Jeremy Lin Opponents Watch with Surprise, Pride, and Unfulfilled Dreams

Paul Nelson still dreams of playing in the NBA.

At the moment, however, the former Yale starting center suits up for CS Dinamo Bucuresti in Bucharest, Romania, where he plays in a “temporary gym” that “can only fit a few hundred” because the team’s arena is being renovated. In his first year in Eastern Europe, Nelson noticed that the NBA barely penetrated Romanian media – until Jeremy Lin.

“I had never seen NBA highlights on any station until this whole Linsanity-thing began.” Nelson said by Facebook chat. “I can turn on a sports channel that almost exclusively plays soccer, and see Jeremy Lin highlights.”

Nelson, who played against Lin’s Harvard team eight times (winning five) between 2006-10 and knows “the scouting report on him like the back of my hand,” is not the only Ivy League alumnus watching his former rival from afar.

Jack Eggleston, a former Second Team All-Ivy forward for Penn, plays in front of sparse crowds for Bayer Giants Leverkusen in Germany’s third division. Eggleston also says Lin’s story has received unparalleled attention from German media. “They’re always wanting to know what Dirk’s doing,” said Eggleston via Skype, referring to Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki. “They talk about the Heat a fair amount, but this has been far and away the biggest thing and the most significant issue, I’d say, so far this year.”

While the media maelstrom surrounding Lin is understandable in New York, where Lin revived the stagnant Knicks, and in China and Taiwan, where he’s already become a sort of folk icon, there’s no clear-cut explanation why it has erupted in the far reaches of Europe.

Nelson said he believes that people just love to root for the underdog. “Jeremy Lin is like Rudy, if Rudy ended up starting at ND (Notre Dame), going to the NFL, and making a Pro Bowl.” Nelson also cited Lin’s ethnicity and Ivy League pedigree as components of a story that is literally unprecedented, with Lin being the first Asian-American ever and the first Harvard graduate since 1954 to play in the NBA.

Although former Brown point guard Steve Gruber claims not to be surprised by Lin’s ascendancy— “His style of play is well-suited for the NBA,” said the current Marquette Law student in an email—eight other former Lin opponents are as shocked as anyone that he has traded Harvard’s halls for Manhattan’s skyscrapers, igniting Madison Square Garden more than he ever did the 2,195-seat Lavietes Pavilion.

It’s not as if they ever doubted Lin’s talent. In fact, they all lauded his ability to drive to the basket and finish, as well as his comfort with the pick and roll, and they said that their college defenses were geared specifically to stop him. They’re simply amazed at how things have evolved, considering everything Lin had to overcome.

“If anyone pretty much tells you they’re not surprised, I wouldn’t believe them,” said Darren Smith, a former Penn guard who is currently looking for a job from his parents’ house in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and spoke by phone.

But these former Ivy Leaguers’ emotions may be more complex than those of the general public, or even Lin’s former teammates. They expressed profound pride that one of their own has made the NBA, calling Lin a source of inspiration, hope and validation. But some of their feelings are also tinged with a hint of envy, and there’s a little niggling thought in their minds that says, given the opportunity, that could be me.

Less than two years ago, Eggleston, Nelson, and Smith were not that different from Lin, against whom they competed regularly, and often quite successfully. They all had hoop dreams that didn’t necessarily square with accepted reality, their futures seemingly dependent more on their in-class schooling than on-court skills.

Now, Lin’s former opponents chalk up his effectiveness to many different factors, including Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni’s offensive system, the NBA’s better court spacing, and Lin’s fearlessness. “It was a perfect match of opportunity and coach and the situation being great and he just stepped in and filled the void masterfully,” said Eggleston. They also repeatedly stressed that Lin has drastically improved his jump shot, his body strength, and his ball control with the left hand.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled, to be honest,” said former Columbia guard Patrick Foley, who works for Google in New York City. “We know what came out of effort and how grueling it is to be an Ivy League athlete, having to actually go to class. It’s sort of like a brotherhood.”

Niko Scott echoed his former Columbia backcourt-mate’s sentiments: “It definitely feels good to root for him being that we come from the same place.” Scott was playing this season for Globalcaja Quintanar, a professional team in central Spain, before a shoulder injury forced him to return home to New York last month and get surgery. He expects to be fully healthy by summer, with the hope that Lin’s emergence might benefit him. “I can definitely do things that he does and maybe that’ll mean that I’ll gain more opportunities in the basketball world,” Scott said.

For all those like Scott, Eggleston, and Nelson, who are trying to establish basketball careers, there are even more, like Foley and Smith, who now only break out their high tops for urban league games and pick-up runs.

Injuries stalled Foley after he graduated in 2010, but he is now unofficially “averaging like 35 or so” in the New York Urban Professionals League with his company team. He admits that Lin is more athletically gifted than he was, but Lin’s success has made him reevaluate what could have been. “It’s definitely got my juices flowing thinking how far I could’ve gone at the very least,” said Foley.

With no future in basketball, Foley has to settle for the respect he receives when people find out that he played Lin pretty evenly. “It’s been nice to lend a little legitimacy, maybe add a little rosy glow, on what was once my career,” Foley said.

This Friday night Harvard’s basketball team is visiting Columbia, and there are rumors that Lin will be at Levien Gymnasium. Foley plans to come watch as well, potentially sharing the bleachers with the Knicks’ star. Although their post-college paths could hardly have diverged more, for one night they might be on the same level again, separated by little more than crimson and light blue.

The Secret Life of Horse Racing Valets, or Jockeys’ Caddies

When jockey Johnny Velazquez won the Kentucky Derby last year atop Animal Kingdom, a broad-shouldered man with silvering hair waited behind the scenes to take Velazquez’s saddle, helmet and whip, to clean them, organize them, and stow them away for the next run at glory.

Tony Millan is Velazquez’s valet – he looks after the jockey’s racing equipment – so he knew how much the Derby victory meant.

“For Johnny, ‘cause we’re so close, and it’s a goal that he’s had, I was just overwhelmed and overcome just for him,” says Millan at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, New York. Millan has been Velazquez’s valet for roughly eight years. “You’re a caddy, you’re an assistant, you become everything,” he says.

On a dreary February weekend at Aqueduct, Millan twirls a whip insouciantly while strolling around the complex. Velazquez spends the winter months racing in Florida, and though Millan sometimes travels with his jockey – they went to Japan in December and they’re heading to Dubai in March – the valet is home in New York.

On this day, Millan has no specific equipment to worry about. Instead, he merely has to saddle several horses, a relatively mellow afternoon.

Velazquez hasn’t seen Millan in a couple months, but “he calls me all the time,” Millan says. Their relationship extends past the track and well beyond the horses that originally brought them together, as do others between jockey and valet.

“Johnny and I are best friends,” Millan says, his glazed, glacier blue eyes coming to life behind long, drooping eyelashes. “When he’s here we’re always together. Days off, I mean, we go do things, whether it’s go into the city, have dinner, or just whatever.”

Valets work for both riders and racetracks, getting a percentage of their jockeys’ earnings in addition to their track salaries. They are allowed to manage the wardrobe and equipment of multiple jockeys, but few valets work with more than a couple.

If a valet has a successful rider, he is less likely to take on extra clients. “If you have a good rider that wins races, you can make an OK living,” says Millan. “Are you getting rich by it? No, not by any means. Most of us have two jobs.”

Millan, 50, works construction in the mornings, the same time that Nick Santagata is galloping horses, or giving them workouts.

Santagata has a unique perspective on the subject of jockeys and valets because he has been both in his career. A rider for 32 years, Santagata retired in 2009 at the age of 52. He is now the valet for Maylan Studart.

Although he is not particularly close with Studart, Santagata reminisces fondly about his former valets. “I had one valet in Jersey, we used to go to dinner together, we used to go out and socialize together, we would go to the fights together,” he recalls, gesticulating passionately with his small, powerful hands, weathered from gripping the reins in 37,152 races, according to Equibase.

Santagata also has a profound appreciation for the valets’ value, admitting that the racetrack could not function smoothly without them.

“When you come back after a race, you might have ten minutes, five minutes just to clean your face, put your silks on and go out,” he says. “If you don’t have no valet, you can’t clean your saddle, make a helmet, clean your boots, clean your whip, put the saddle up and then go out.”

Both Santagata and Millan maintain that the jobs of jockeys and valets are easier, more fun, and more worthwhile if they foster tight bonds. “It’s like a marriage,” offers Eddie Brown, a former valet for 38 years who is now Aqueduct’s Assistant Clerk of Scales, which means he weighs the jockeys before each race.

Spend 10 minutes with the affable 75-year-old, and he’ll regale you with enough tales to make Chaucer swoon.

He boasts about meeting three presidents and Fred Astaire, the great dancer and movie star who married jockey Robyn Smith. Brown laughs at how “Errol Flynn was so drunk he didn’t know where he was at.” (Flynn was another major movie actor from the 1930s through the ‘50s.) He also takes delight in mentioning that he saddled Secretariat when the legendary horse won his first race.

Brown has “done everything here,” from training horses to working the parking lot, but in his 50 years at the racetrack, his proudest moments might have come from his relationship as a valet with his riders.

He worked for 12 Hall of Fame jockeys and says he became intimate friends with most of them. “I was Jose Santos’ best man. Another champion rider. And I was very proud of that,” says Brown in a Matzoh-ball thick Brooklyn accent. “You grow quite a relationship with them. It’s something that’s hard to explain, how you get attached to them. You go to ballgames with them, when he goes to throw out the ball at Yankee Stadium and you get to go to see Joe Torre in his dressing room and spend some time and talk horses.”

Millan, Santagata, and Brown all say they got involved with racing for the love of horses. But it’s the camaraderie in the locker the room, the “goofing around” and the “horseplay,” according to Millan, that keeps them coming back.

Hunter College Seeks Its Place in East Harlem

Good fences make good neighbors, some say, but if a school of social work is moving into town, the set of expectations might be a little different.

Hunter College’s School of Social Work is nearly a full semester into its residency in East Harlem, and Dean Jacqueline Mondros hopes to establish a reputation as “great neighbors.”

“I would like it to be said that we came into this neighborhood in a respectful way as collaborative partners and that we helped them to make this neighborhood stronger,” said Mondros.

Although the school is not hiding in its mansion – a $135 million state-of-the-art building on Third Avenue between 118th and 119th streets –- it is still figuring out its public face.

Through a field placement program mandatory for all 1,100 students, the recently renamed Lois V. and Samuel J. Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College does have over 100 students interning at East Harlem-based organizations, twice the amount from last year, and the administration plans to increase the number.

Still, the true impact of those agencies, not to mention their interns, is tough to quantify, and the Hunter-East Harlem relationship engenders mixed feelings.

The school has “done a lot to make it seem like it’s reaching out to the community, but I don’t know,” said Master of Social Work student Will Engelhardt. “Most people feel like Hunter hasn’t done much.”

Student Cynthia Rodriguez, whose field placement concerns Hunter’s community outreach, said that while the administration is clearly committed to East Harlem, the school’s plan of action is “vague” and “ambiguous.”

Nevertheless, Hunter is not merely standing idly by, and three other MSW students are now playing a somewhat unofficial role in examining the Hunter-East Harlem relationship and offering suggestions to shape that plan.

“What feedback we’re trying to give them is really what’s going on in relation to how they think they’re doing and how they’re really doing in the community,” said Meredith Marin, who is working with Gabby Macklin and Breiny Scheinert.

The trio is currently researching an assignment on “exploring community needs.” As the only group covering East Harlem, their project “has a particular relevance that extends beyond just an assignment,” Marin said.

Their exercise in community assessment, which has video and print components, has been turning heads. According to Marin, both State Assemblyman Robert Rodriguez and Mondros have personally asked for copies.

When the school announced several years ago that it was moving uptown from East 79th Street – a decision triggered by financial implications and the desire to improve its physical space – Hunter realized that it was thrusting itself into an already roiling discussion of gentrification and social responsibility.

Unsurprisingly, public officials have said all the right things.

Former New York Gov. David Paterson said that the move would give the school “the opportunity to engage with a vibrant, diverse and growing population in need of the vast array of services Hunter offers.”

State Sen. Jose M. Serrano echoed those sentiments: “Having their main facility in East Harlem will be a great addition to the neighborhood. The services they offer will undoubtedly bring much-needed resources into our community.”

Hunter, at least rhetorically, has also taken on the challenge of becoming an agent for “positive social change,” in the words of longtime professor Terry Mizrahi.

On the school’s website, Hunter touts the “unparalleled opportunity for the School to ‘live its mission’” to “seek and encourage social work talent for and from the least advantaged.” In East Harlem, where almost half the residents don’t graduate from high school and the unemployment rate is around 17 percent, the school has found a neighborhood with real need.

Although the facility itself inspires passers-by to slow down and peer curiously into the large glass windows, Hunter’s presence is not widely recognized. “I had noticed it one day, but I didn’t really know it was there,” said Laura Dara, who lives just a few blocks away.

Yet Marin has discovered that “Hunter’s done a lot more so far for the community than people really know about.”

For one, the school has opened its doors for public events. Hunter hosted a youth summit last summer, and Mondros, who was recently honored by an East Harlem consortium of human service agencies, said that in January the school plans to hold a “community meeting so we have community people telling us what they would like to see us do.”

Marin and Mondros stress that the school is not charting a course without input from East Harlem. “They’re focusing on partnerships a lot. That’s been a really primary theme,” said Marin. “They’re very vigilant about working with what’s already here in the community.”

Even so, there are questions whether Hunter can make a significant difference in East Harlem without its students truly embedding into the neighborhood. “There are almost no students that live in East Harlem,” said Marin, and Queens-based Cynthia Rodriguez admitted that they were “in and out of the 116th Street subway stop.”

Local business owners also said they haven’t seen much benefit from the addition of Hunter. “Same for my business,” said Peter Dei, the owner of a 99-cent store across the street. “No change. No different. All the same.” And Faris Ali, who works at nearby Super Delicious Deli Food Inc. said that his rent increased when construction of the school began, but business was only starting to improve.

Another point of contention is the response of East Harlemites to Hunter’s aspirations. Until Hunter proves itself, residents may view the school with a wary eye. “The residents are kind of jaded. They’re kind of like, ‘Oh yeah? What’re you going to do for us?’” said Marin.

Next week Hunter will at least answer that question for 100 East Harlem children, as the school is donating 100 books in support of primary education. That’s just one way Hunter is trying to become a great neighbor.

East Harlemites Decide How to Spend $1 Million: Update

In the basement of a New York City Council District office in East Harlem one recent Tuesday evening, three women sat at a large oval table poring over a nine-page listing of 105 citizen proposals for local parks and recreation projects.

Some were modest and very specific: Repave paths in St. Mary’s Park in the south Bronx. Others sought grander goals: Build a park reserved exclusively for the newly popular extreme urban sport of parkour. And several were maddeningly vague, for a process that is supposed to come up with concrete plans for particular sites: “Jogging tracks,” read one proposal, while another suggested “Play grounds renovations.” Neither specified where those projects should be carried out.

“There’s not enough information on some of them to vote yes or no,” said a frustrated Kioka Jackson.

Jackson, 37, and her colleagues in this venture, Susan Rodriguez and Frances Mastrota, hold no elected office. But an innovative experiment in democracy, called participatory budgeting, has given the trio of East Harlemites the power to sift through proposals and help determine which might get implemented in Council District 8, which also includes Manhattan Valley and Mott Haven in the Bronx.

They are just three of dozens of volunteers on nine different committees –- from Housing to Education to Parks and Recreation -– who are currently slogging through 557 of their neighbors’ ideas collected at community meetings this fall.

Melissa Mark-Viverito is one of four City Council members trying out participatory budgeting. Whereas Mark-Viverito and other elected officials normally speak for their residents when allocating public funds, they are now encouraging those residents to speak for themselves.

So, instead of shouting from the sidelines, Jackson, Rodriguez, Mastrota and the other volunteers have to draw up a citizens’ game plan and put it into action. In each district, at least $1 million will be spent next year on infrastructure improvements chosen directly by constituents.

Mark-Viverito’s community outreach started with local nonprofit groups. When Rodriguez, who runs an organization dedicated to AIDS/HIV research and treatment for women, learned about the new program, she quickly jumped on board. “I think what Melissa has done is really ambitious,” said Rodriguez. “Once you build that foundation of people participating in their community, good things can happen out of it.”

Rodriguez, Jackson and Mastrota are part of an eight-volunteer team of “budget delegates,” tasked with whittling down the parks and recreation idea list into a handful of specific proposals.

The ideas were gathered in October and early November, when the entire council district was invited to suggest an idea -– any idea -– whether at one of several neighborhood assemblies or through an online form. Hundreds of suggestions later, small committees of untrained volunteers must find a way to assess all those potential projects and submit just a few for a final community-wide vote in March.

The first parks and recreation budget delegate meeting had a disappointing turnout. Five of the eight volunteer committee members didn’t show, and Mastrota immediately pointed out, “We don’t even have a quorum.”

The delegates were joined by two facilitators. Also volunteers, facilitators are members of the council district office, the local community board or major community-based organizations, people generally more knowledgeable about governmental processes who help guide the committees in their decision-making.

One of them, Will Engelhardt, taped two oversized sheets of paper to the wall — one labeled Priority, the otherNon-Priority — and recommended that each delegate come up with five projects for each list. But that exercise wasn’t as simple as it sounded.

After Rodriguez described Thomas Jefferson Park, on 112th Street between First Avenue and the FDR Drive, as a “ghetto park” and a “dump,” Mastrota bristled, responding that it had received a “high rating.”

And somehow “Redevelopment of Blake Hobbs Park” made its way onto both hanging sheets of paper.

“I thought that there was some tension between the delegates, and that at times people weren’t listening to each others’ ideas,” said Engelhardt. “But I think that is to be expected, as most budget delegates will probably have strong opinions about certain issues.”

The delegates themselves expressed exasperation at the early lack of progress. “It’s a little discouraging when meetings drag on and you don’t get to the meat and potatoes of what you need to do,” said Rodriguez.

However, Mark-Viverito said she was pleased with the vigorous debate. She briefly visited the parks and recreation committee session, engaged in small talk with the budget delegates, reminded them that “we want to go by what’s on the list, as far as projects people have identified,” and then left them to their work. She later issued a statement saying she was “thrilled to see a strong level of participation and engagement from the delegates.”

More than 1,000 cities around the world use some form of participatory budgeting, but Chicago is the only other U.S. city to try it. The experiment that began there in 2009 “shows clear signs of promise, growth, and rapid extension,” according to a report issued earlier this year by the Harvard Political Review.

Although $1 million can’t change the whole district’s landscape, it is a significant portion of the annual $5 million or so that Mark-Viverito controls directly for these types of infrastructure projects. To put that into perspective, New York City’s budget has been estimated at $67 billion by the City Office of Management and Budget.

Despite the initial stumbling blocks, Jackson, Rodriguez and Mastrota remain optimistic as they discuss whether to create green streets in East Harlem or implement free WiFi throughout the entire district, two of the proposals on their long wish list.

“I really do love what’s going on here,” said Rodriguez. And when, after the first few frustrating hours, Mastrota was asked if she still believes participatory budgeting is worthwhile, her eyes narrowed with intensity as she emphatically proclaimed, “Yes!”