Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism

“Equal Opportunity is the Law”- reads a sign (with an accompanying one in Spanish) in the lobby of the Opportunity for a Better Tomorrow (OBT) building. Young men and women crowd near the front desk, waiting for classes to begin. They are dressed in some very good-looking suits, and laugh with each other as they turn off their cell phones. Their school day, and work day, is just beginning.

OBT is a program developed to train youths ages 17-21 with job and life skills. OBT’s two locations in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park and Bushwick neighborhoods provide young adults not only with a productive venue in which to succeed in the work-force, but also hope for a better future, a future of which they most certainly can be proud.

Shawn Fonville, now an OBT employee, is a graduate of the almost 17 week program. Mr. Fonville, 21, admits that not having found this outlet would have left him on the streets, without a higher education, and without motivation to use his intellectual assets to his advantage. Mr. Fonville is a Bushwick native, and entered the program already having his high school degree. Many students who first start out with OBT do not have their high school degrees, and therefore OBT provides them with pre-GED classes, in addition to their other classes.

OBT is a full time commitment; it is not only school. Often times, OBT is the students’ first taste of a job. Students do not have to pay for textbooks, but must come prepared and on time to school in the proper attire (signs throughout the hallways very clearly state and show business dress code).

William Ortiz, OBT’s Bushwick Site Administrator, shared how he felt about working for OBT, and about how gratifying it feels to know he is helping young people not only in his community, but throughout the 5 boroughs.

OBT also provides students with internship opportunities (11 weeks of paid work), tapes its students so that they may self review their interview skills and progress, and also follows up with students with post-graduation counseling. Graduation for students entails celebrating their first hire.

OBT opens doors for students who have the potential to succeed, but not the means. OBT guides them, and by providing them with “transferrable skills” (skills which can help them in any work environment) OBT allows students to make the most out of their lives. OBT is a job, a school, and a family.

A cross between hip, Brooklyn nightlife and grade-school birthday party, Make Fun is a weekly happening that allows anyone with 10 bucks and time, the materials and space to get creative.

The event, which attracts a crowd ranging from professional designers to neighborhood kids, came to life again last week, for the first time since an April fire destroyed the original space.

On the night of its rebirth, founder Kae Burke moved from guest to guest in her new Buskwick studio–the fruits of her labor, back in bloom.

If you’re tired of the bar scene, Make Fun might be the place for you. Last Tuesday I checked out this do-it-yourself, sewing hangout in Bushwick and found out that sewing is cool!!!!

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Tuesday night at Make Fun in Bushwick

“It’s like a trash snail has crawled through here, leaving a trail of trash behind it,” said Keith McNally, 29, a resident of the area. “Everyday I’m impressed by the new and different things I step in on the sidewalk. I find it hard to believe they are cleaning these streets. If I saw a guy with a garbage bazooka firing bags of garbage around, I’d only be 80 percent shocked, instead of 100 percent. People really don’t care. I see people dropping stray wrappers all the time.”

 Plastic bags, food wrappers and fecal matter from dogs are strewn down Broadway on the south side of the neighborhood. Yet the area has consistently scored high marks on the Street Cleanliness scorecard. The Mayor’s Office of Operations runs the scorecard system and Bushwick has ranked above 90 percent for acceptably clean streets and sidewalks for most of the 2008 fiscal year. 

This is my neighborhood. And when I try to find out how the streets are rated as “clean” this is the answer I get:

“I have no idea how they come up with those numbers,” said Kathy Dawton, a press contact at the Mayor’s Office of Operation. “They must ask the people who live there. “

They don’t ask the people who live there in fact NYC.gov has a very detailed description of how the streets are rated. 

The Mayor’s Office of Operation’s website describes how the numbers are reached.  A team of “street raters” drives around unannounced and makes a visual decision and grade on each city block.  They make these reports in each community district twice per month. The scorecard system is based on a point system ranking 1-3, with 1 being the street with no litter and 3 having the highest concentration of litter.

The sample that is used from each district to measure the score is a fixed number of streets that are evenly distributed through all parts of the community district.  The time and days of the week the ratings are done at random so the scorecard can have an accurate sample. 

So here are some pictures of my clean neighborhood. Because it’s so clean the Department of Sanitation is actually cutting down on the amount of time they clean the streets.