The Journalist as Historian

Revisiting the Dinkins Era and the 1991 Crown Heights Riot

Previous to this episode: In 1989, after narrowly defeating Republican candidate Rudolph Giuliani, David Norman Dinkins became the first African-American to win a mayoral election in New York City, and in 1990 he took office…

The Cultural Revolution and “No Name Painting Association”

This is Chapter Three of my book Tales of Their Time — about Chinese artists who immigrated to New York in 1980s and 1990s for freedom of expression in speech and art. Before this chapter, there will be an overview of Chinese…

From the Ashes: Metropolitan Avenue

The fire swept through Powers Street, spreading voraciously from one cockloft to the next, the wood-frame houses going up like kindling. By the time it had finally been snuffed out, eighteen families were homeless. Cast adrift in the night.

Juries, Confessions, and Re-trials: The Etan Patz, Adam Sirois, & Pedro Hernandez Story

Chapter 1: The Disappearance

What is the harm in walking alone to the bus stop? It’s only two blocks. Stan and Julie Patz let 6-year-old Etan Patz walk to…

Finding Elise Cowen

Telling the long-lost story of the extraordinary female Beat poet

Thank you for the cool stream of air

You make with your grey wings

Six inches away from my pinky finger

Misinformation led to tolls in Crown Heights Riot

Crown Heights Riot of 1991 in New York City was widely regarded a major black spot in David Dinkins’ career as the city’s mayor. On August 19, 1991, Hasidic driver Yosef Lifsh unintentionally hit two children of Guyanese immigrants, killing…

Photos of child laborers are nondescript, unnamed

There is a photograph taken inside a mill in Fall River, Massachusetts that depicts three rows of cotton spinning machinery that extend out toward the edges of the frame, as if the person taking it were hovering above the centermost row. The…

Youth Employment Program Unable to Solve Racial Tension in Crown Heights

I have been searching online for news stories and government reports about the 1991 Crown Heights riot in New York City — a three-day clash between the African-American community and the Hasidic Jewish…

New York Was Not Beijing

I talked to Wei Zhang online last night. Due to the limited information about him online, I only knew only that he was one of the Chinese artists who emigrated to New York in the 80s — nothing else. I want to write a story about the new life in New York of a group of Chinese artists…