New York Tokyo Tag for Adults

After the tourists and business people left for the day, a group of tag enthusiasts and Japanese culture buffs descended on Battery Park for a sunset game of tag. About 13 adults and teenagers scampered around in front of the Clinton Castle in one of the most aggressive games of tag I've ever witnessed. The scene grew heated when runners accused the games organizers of secretly adding another chaser in the middle of the game without telling anybody.

Graffiti in Morningside Park

One of New York's most famous forms of urban blight, or, if you prefer, street art, has all but disappeared from Morningside Park. A stroll through the park turned up very few examples of graffiti, and park-goers and employees are quite pleased about it.

The roughly 30 acre park has playgrounds, baseball fields, a swampy pond, and only eight instances of graffiti. The writing is small and relatively unassuming - nothing too large or colorful. 

One of the tags was poignant. Penned on the steps of the park's southwestern entrance were the words, "RIP Daddy." Some were simple exercises in self-promotion, featuring only a clearly written name. Others were nearly illegible.

Parents watching their children on the playground say they feel the park is safe and clean. Under a close watch from both the NYPD and the Parks Enforcement Patrol, the park is improving - and one of the most visible signs of that change is the lack of graffiti. 

"It used to be much more unsafe," says Parks Enforcement officer D. Louis. "Basically we try to patrol around the premises as much as possible." 

Park visitor Maria Lancaster is satisfied with their efforts.

"It's fine," she says. "It's clean enough. There's no graffiti or garbage on the ground."

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Memorable Moment: Politics, Sex and the 1 train

It was a Sunday afternoon, and the September sun poured through the window of the elevated train onto my New York Times Magazine. I felt an anxious guilt over putting my schoolwork on the back burner over the weekend. I squished the nagging voice – now that I am in J-school I imagine the ghost of Joseph Pulitzer hectoring me – and returned to the article about how income inequality harms the Republican Party.

Another voice, this one coming from my left instead of inside my head, said, “Do you think that’s true?”

The man sitting next to me wore a paint drizzled sweatshirt. He tapped my magazine and announced that the New York Times had gotten the story wrong.

The train dipped underground as he explained his disillusionment with politics. Poor people would not return to the Democrats because the liberals, in over 70 years, had not earned their loyalty by delivering what they promised. The Republicans, he said, at least had not courted voters in his poverty-stricken neighborhood, promising jobs and prosperity.

I was so engrossed I forgot my stop. His arms swung widely as he spoke, lurching his monologue from poverty to Barack Obama. A great orator, but a lousy speaker was his diagnosis.

The train pulled into the 59th Street station, and he hauled himself to his feet, giving me a quick goodbye. Before I could begin to digest his ideas, he poked his head between the closing doors to offer this last assessment.

“Obama looks like a boxer who just had sex with a woman [when he debates],” he said. “He looks all weak in the knees.”

Profile: Escape from Arizona

Some New York transplants don't come here looking for fame or glamour. Lauren Harrison left Phoenix, AZ, simply to escape a dead-end relationship and a monotonous routine.
“I kind of moved here to escapeall the negativity in Arizona,” Harrison said, resting a meticulously made up cheek on her hand. “I dumped my boyfriend I was living with and I bought a one way ticket to New York.”
Harrison, 24, had been working as a dance teacher since she was 16. She had started dancing as a kid to correct the scoliosis that twisted her spine. She was passionate about jazz and modern dance, cleaning classrooms at her studio just so she could attend extra classes. Her enthusiasm left her longing to find other ways of expressing herself artistically, an ambition Phoenix did not easily satisfy. New York, she hopes, will provide fertile soil for her germinating love of music.
Within three months of relocating, Harrison discovered a new talent for sales. She works at a furniture boutique in Soho and is now one of their top sales people, grossing around $120,000 per month for her store.
“I really don’t know why I’m here, Harrison said. “Everyday it seems like an adventure.”

Roundup: Profile and Memorable Moment

Profile:
http://campverdebugleonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&subsectionID=1&articleID=21085

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/scoliosis/DS00194

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/arts/dance/13giordano.html?scp=3&sq=jazz%20dance&st=cse

http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/spotlight/dance.html

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/soho/?scp=2&sq=soho&st=cse

Memorable Moment:

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine/

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/01/10/jschools

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0410.html?scp=1&sq=joseph%20pulitzer&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07Inequality-t.html?scp=4&sq=income%20inequality%20and%20gop&st=cse

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/other-stops-the-real-elephant-in-the-republican-party-greed/?scp=6&sq=republican&st=cse

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/07/20/poverty_is_key_theme_for_democrats_in_08/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/23/obama-debate-flashback-ob_n_128682.html