From his tough childhood growing up in the Bronx projects, to his time as a Daily News reporter Paul LaRosa gethered enough unique life experences to write a fascinating book.It's called "Leaving Story Avenue." Continue reading →

Myra Greene grew up in New York, where she was used to being around people of different races. But as she embarked on her photographic career, her work and travels took her to places where she was the only African-American.And she knew it.“I’m always thinking about race,” she said. “I recognize it when I’m the only black person in a room. My white friends will notice I’m the only black person, too. But they don’t notice a room full of white people.”They might now.“My White Friends” is a series of some 50 portraits of — you guessed it — Ms. Greene’s white friends. Shot in color, and posed to the point of performance in some cases, the images delve into questions of race and self-perception. ... Continue reading →

Not sure what this sign means but it’s bolted to a lamp-post at the corner of 57th Street and 8th Avenue Camera: LG Electronics, Inc. LG-VX5600 Continue reading →

A narrow catwalk extends about 30 feet from the lip of the building to the cockpit of his climbing tower crane, a Favco 1500 with a 500-horsepower diesel engine and a 135-foot boom. Two more steel ladders lead up to a deck, where his enclosed cockpit awaits. He takes his place in a well-padded ergonomic chair in a cabin the size of a closet. The floor-to-ceiling glass windshield allows him a breathtaking panoramic view of all that lies below and above. On the narrow shelf to his left, there is a pair of binoculars, a personal coffee-maker and a book, “New Testament and Psalms,” left behind by another crane operator. Mr. Gordon is among an elite cadre who operate the roughly 200 cranes that swing ... Continue reading →

Life is full of miracles, big and small. Unfortunately, this cake recipe is not among them.Now, this is a perfectly fine chocolate cake recipe, but a miracle short-cut it ain't. In fact the only short-cut I could see is that one need not wait for the butter to soften. Continue reading →

Paul LaRosa's 333-page journey through the first three decades of his life is a remarkably fast read. "Leaving Story Avenue," LaRosa's fifth book, takes him from Manhattan's mean streets of East Harlem to the drug-infested, gangland of the James Monroe housing projects in the Bronx, to his indentured servitude as a copy boy for The New York Daily News to an award-winning reporter in the inexplicably hedonistic and cruelly unforgiving city of New York.At times, the memoir has the feel of the comic books that the author cherished growing up as the oldest of three children to a blue-collar World War II veteran father and a stay-at-home mom. With little guidance about the ways of the world and unflagging respect for his loving but barely ... Continue reading →

As New Jersey Judge Glenn Berman began his build-up to the sentencing of former Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi, it really sounded as though he was about to lower the boom on the young man. Continue reading →

As New Jersey Judge Glenn Berman began his build-up to the sentencing of former Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi, it really sounded as though he was about to lower the boom on the young man. Continue reading →