Less than two years ago, Torey Baker was an 18-year-old high-school dropout facing prison time for robbery. When a judge in the Bronx sentenced him instead to six months in an alternative program, plus probation, he considered himself lucky. But he didn’t know the half of it.On his first day, the counselor who administered his drug test asked Mr. Baker if he had any interest in hip-hop. Because if he did, there was a recording studio right down the hall.“My mind was blown,” Mr. Baker said one recent evening as he hunched over a laptop in a conference room, fiddling with beats. “I showed up at the studio the first day, and then I just kept showing up.”The studio belonged to One Mic, a project ... Continue reading →

Screengrab by GhentArtJump flap! 2:43 p.m. Wednesday.We are approaching fledge day, when the juvenile hawks of Washington Square Park take their first flight out of their 12th-floor nursery at New York University’s Bobst Library and begin the next phase of their development in the broader confines of the park. Wednesday is 43 and 44 days since Boo and Scout emerged from their shells. Typically, red-tailed hawks take flight between 42 and 46 days of life, though hawks in urban areas can take longer. Last year, the baby hawk named Pip by readers first used its wings after 49 days on the nest and sailed to a rooftop on a neighboring building.So, what to expect before, after and when Boo and Scout take flight? Some answers ... Continue reading →

May 17, 2012, 11:21 amPolice Seek Man Who Robbed Bank With a Phone Call By ANDY NEWMANN.Y.P.D.Before: the robbery suspect enters the bank…If you can bank by phone these days, why not bank-rob by phone?That, the police said Thursday, was the modus operandi of a man who looted a bank in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, last week.N.Y.P.D.After: the suspect leaving with the loot.The man walked into an Alma Bank at 140 58th Street at 10:20 a.m. on May 8 and told an employee he wanted to open a joint account with his girlfriend, who was not present, the police said. He made a call and handed the phone to the bank worker, who was told by the person at the other end that the man standing ... Continue reading →

May 15, 2012, 3:53 pmBrooklyn’s Art Deco Sears Store Is Now a Landmark By ANDY NEWMANVictor J. Blue/Bloomberg NewsThe Sears, Roebuck building on Beverly Road in BrooklynThe Sears, Roebuck store in Flatbush, Brooklyn, an 80-year-old Art Deco structure with a distinctive 10-story corner tower, is now a city landmark.The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the building on Tuesday. The store, the only New York City project of the architecture firm Nimmons, Car & Wright, opened at the height of the Great Depression in 1932, providing 300 jobs, in a ceremony presided over by Eleanor Roosevelt, then the state’s first lady.Ms. Roosevelt is said to have made the store’s first purchase, a pair of baby bootees. Landmarks Preservation CommissionThe store has an auditorium that fits 650 people ... Continue reading →

DossierEd Ou, a former New York Times intern, spent much of 2011 covering the Arab Spring.After more than a year covering the Arab Spring — struggling with intransigent bureaucracies, governments hostile to journalists and people who didn’t want to be photographed — Ed Ou was relieved to encounter a subject where images came easily.Camel-jumping.Yes.Mr. Ou, 25, was in Yemen for The New York Times recently when, slightly bored by a presidential election that featured just one candidate, he decided to revisit the remote region of Tehama, which had been the site of one of his most memorable photographic experiences.It was in 2009 while studying Arabic and photographing in Yemen that he first heard of men who jumped over camels.“One day, I was visiting Tehama, and ... Continue reading →

Bobby Bank/WireImage, via Getty Images.Art Garfunkel will ease you back from your nowhere place.People say stupid things sometimes.Especially to celebrities.But. … So what?This is a question we have been grappling with for days on City Room, ever since we published a Metropolitan Diary entry from a man named Arthur Engoron who once spotted Art Garfunkel at an Italian restaurant uptown.I walked over and said, “My name’s ‘Art,’ too.”He smiled politely.When I got back to my table, my friend Robert asked me, “Well, what did you say?”When I told him, he replied, “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of.”But was it?This seeming piece of fluff drew an impressive range of responses.Some readers wrote of their New York encounters with Mr. Garfunkel: swapping laughs outside a ... Continue reading →

May 2, 2012, 9:24 amMeeting Art Garfunkel By ARTHUR ENGORONDear Diary: Art Garfunkel graduated from Columbia College several years prior to my enrollment there, but my classmates and I all knew about him.Kathy Willens/Associated PressThe singer in 2003.Some years after I received my degree I was back in the old neighborhood, eating at V & T, a local Italian restaurant, and noticed that he was a few tables away.I walked over and said, “My name’s ‘Art,’ too.”He smiled politely.When I got back to my table, my friend Robert asked me, “Well, what did you say?”When I told him, he replied, “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of.”But was it? Readers who enjoy reading several entries in the same click can do so here. Please ... Continue reading →

Andy Newman/The New York TimesNot trash: Bags and bags of flower bulbs await the discerning scavenger at Bryant Park.Attention urban gardeners whose travels bring them to Midtown: Bryant Park and Greeley Square are redoing their plantings, and are giving away about a gazillion yanked-up hyacinth, tulip, daffodil and muscari bulbs.The Bryant Park bulbs were on the south side of the park behind the library, but as of 2 p.m. were being moved to a spot near the fountain. Early Monday afternoon, there were maybe three dozen big contractor bags filled with dirt, cuttings and a healthy scattering of the bulbs — some scrounging and hand-dirtying is required. A sign nearby read, “Please help yourselves to free flower bulbs.”Joe Carella, a spokesman for both parks, said ... Continue reading →

May 1, 2012, 1:31 pmCar Accident Knocks Out D.M.V. Computer System By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEYThe state’s Department of Motor Vehicles computer system was briefly paralyzed on Tuesday morning after a car accident upstate damaged the agency’s computer server, making first-of-the-month lines at the agency’s offices even longer than usual.At 8:15 a.m., a car struck a transformer in Menands, five miles north of Albany, and shut down an Internet server used by 86 offices, according to a department spokeswoman, Jackie McGinnis.By 9 a.m., the agency’s central office had gotten power back, but computer systems throughout the state remained down. Ms. McGinnis said that workers at the agency’s offices around the state remained open, answered questions they could handle manually and encouraged visitors to the agency to wait ... Continue reading →