Fundamentals of Interactive Journalism

Despite all the talk that globalization has made the world smaller, keeping in contact with loved ones who live in another country can still be challenging.

That is especially true when your family lives in a developing country, such as Ecuador, where Internet use isn’t as prevalent as it is in the US.

According to Supertel, a telecom supervisory body, only 12.3 percent of Ecuadorians had Internet at home at the end of 2008. This means most people don’t have access to video chat programs such as Skype, where they could see their families face-to-face.

Alicia Craven, 26, of Oregon taught English in Cuenca, Ecuador in 2007-2008. She said she noticed that Internet ownership “was very low” in Ecuadorian homes. Internet cafes, instead, were the norm.

“Though most places had Skype, the video cameras weren’t as prevalent,” she said. Also, Internet cafes present privacy issues if you try to have a meaningful conversation.

“There’s a certain degree of awkwardness since you are surrounded by other strangers, and you’re not in a booth,” Craven pointed out.

Visits back to the homeland are often not a possibility for those immigrants who are in the US illegally or for those waiting to get their paperwork in order, as the US imposes travel restrictions on green card applicants. In addition, the cost of travel is another problem. Due to these reasons many families must go for a decade or longer without seeing each other.

This is where video conferencing comes into play, such as the service offered by Austro Financial Services in Jackson Heights in Queens. Manager Diego Pinto said some 200-250 families and individuals now use the six-year-old technology service per month. Out of South Americans, the service is so far available only for Ecuadorians.

Many people like video conferencing because of its obvious benefits: it is fast, easy and more personal than a phone call. The recipients don’t have to own a computer –they just need to go to one of Banco del Austro’s operating locations in Ecuador. Unlike with Skype, you can see the whole conference room at the same time, and can squeeze even 10-20 people in the room.

Pinto said that Mother’s Day is an especially popular day for conference calls, one that sometimes includes even mariachi bands playing in the rooms.

The calls aren’t cheap at $1.25 per minute on weekdays, and $1.50 on Sundays, but neither is the technology that makes them happen. According to Pinto, the camera costs about $5,000-6,000, and the plasma TV another $1,000-2,000.

The usage costs are also pricey for the company, as the system needs to function in two countries.  “You have to pay the system here and there,” Pinto said. The customers, though, only pay in the New York end.

Despite the price of the calls, the service keeps getting more popular among Ecuadorian families, many of whom return every month.

“It’s a very beautiful experience,” said Ecuadorian immigrant Jose Flores, whose family recently used the service for the first time to talk to their relatives back in Cañar, Ecuador.

“It’s especially beautiful for the family that’s in Ecuador,” he said.

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Alana Rigal contributed to the reporting of the article. Video by Alana Rigal and Mirva Lempiäinen.

New Greater Bethel Ministries has a Soup Kitchen/Food Pantry in Hollis. It is a storefront with a sign in the window that is hard to see from far away, whether driving or walking along Hollis Avenue near Francis Lewis Boulevard.

Mother Ruby Graham, 77, is the coordinator, wearing a sea captain’s hat, and does most of the cooking. Her assistant, Sister Curtis, and volunteers Sister Meebam (wearing a magenta hat and blouse) and a retired military veteran (wearing an “I Love NY” shirt), help Mother Graham run the place.

It wasn’t easy taking photographs because of the dimly lit place with few fluorescent lights illuminating. Additionally, some of the the people who came to get a hot plate might have been convicts who were released from jail and immigrants according to Sister Meebam. So the ISO had to be increased, and the pictures came out brighter.

An elderly community sees its roles reverse as a young child hands them candy for a change

The holiday celebrates a miraculous victory, where a revolt led by religious Jewish rebels defeated a Syrian-Greek king and his allies, briefly reestablishing an independent Jewish state, before the Romans finally extinguished the ancient Judean state a century later. A tiny isle of victory in a stormy sea of persecutions. (more…)

If you live in a neighborhood with too many “for sale” signs, boarded up homes, and unkempt lawns, you would likely also see ads nailed to telephone poles and lampposts promising to rescue troubled homeowners from foreclosure. Not only are the ads illegal, but the companies behind them may also be bogus.

One local elected official is aware of the problem…

…As are community organizations. The Chhaya Community Development Corporation (Chhaya CDC) helps homeowners understand the housing scams:

When asked for details on the business practices of 1-888-HELP-161, a representative refused to explain the extent to which the company evaluates the credit history of potential clients. I was asked to provide my email if I wanted further information. The representative provided his company’s name as the “Save My Home Program.” A search on the Better Business Bureau site for the Hempstead-based Save My Home Corp. revealed a phone number that was no longer in service.

What kind of people would be likely to respond ot an illegal pole ad? South Jamaica activist and 2009 City Council candidate Joseph Marthone (D), believes that in certain situations, people may not know where to turn. “Some people might not be thinking in a moment of desperation,” said Marthone.

Activist parents often make a lot of noise, but they don’t always achieve their goal. That’s not the case with Jackson Heights Green, a group of young, well-connected parents who have organized to expand the neighborhood’s only public park. They first created a “play street,” the closure of an adjacent road on every Sunday. Now, they are lobbying politicians to turn that street into a park and to take an adjacent parcel with eminent domain.

In their first victory, parents of Jackson Heights Green organized the 78th Street Play Street

The owners of the parcel, which is occupied by a Toyota dealership, are unwilling to sell to make way for a larger park. JH Green estimates that the land is worth about $4 million, said Ed Westley, a member who met with local politicians.   State Senator Hiram Monserrate has pledged $2 million, Westley said, and Councilwoman Helen Sears may commit funds if the group is successful.

Barbed wire separates Travers Park from a Toyota dealership. Parents have targeted the dealership for eminent domain.

In the meantime, the city is planning to convert a nearby schoolyard into a playground, part of May Bloomberg’s planNYC. This should also relieve some of the tension in this park-deprived community.

Jackson Heights, Queens, ranks second to last among New York City neighborhoods for the number of parks per resident.  It has recently seen an influx of young families, creating tension on the neighborhood’s one public park.

In a Queens’ warehouse-turned-gallery space called Refuge, throngs of party-goers sought haven in electronic dance music on a frigid night last November. With floor-to-ceiling speakers throbbing jungle, drum&bass or haus, and pulsating dancers twirling in flamboyant garb until sunrise, this gathering was on all accounts a rave. But, it was a rave with a mission: to raise money for the non-Hodgekins Lymphoma Society, and a young woman afflicted with the disease, Fay Serafica.

In September, 27-year-old Fay Serafica from Queens got a phonecall. It was her doctor who said she must go to the emergency room immediately. She had gone in earlier that day to get tested in an attempt to find out why she why she was always short of breath and her white-blood cell count clocked in as dangerously low. The CAT scan revealed a tumor in her chest that was larger in mass than her heart. She was diagnosed with lymphoma on the same day as the birthday of her boyfriend at the time, she said. The following day was her mother’s birthday and when Fay underwent surgery.

Friends came to her bedside in the hospital and started to plan a way to help Fay. After all, she gave much of herself to planning raves and underground parties. Now it was time for the party to give back, celebrate and raise money for a dear friend.

In a framed photo perched on the piano of her parents house, Fay looks very different in a traditional cap and gown from her trendier look of an angular Cleopatra-styled wig she started to wear, dramatically-lined eyes, and cheetah-spotted tights that peek out of black boots and a skirt. She has always lead a busy life, like when she juggled a job of 35 hours and full-time study at New York University for Arts Administration. She has worked with the gallery Ad-hoc and has she’s been instrumental in organizing artsy events, like raves, for years.

She talks about having cancer in a sarcastic, sardonic tone that her friends love her for. Fay said that she is often the youngest person in the waiting room when she was going in for treatments. But, she has found invaluable support in others afflicted with the same disease around her age.

Fay had her last chemotherapy session in the first week of December. She will start radiation therapy soon. She looks forward to gaining her strength back when it’s all over. So do her friends who miss her presence behind-the-scenes and on the dance floor.

My assignment was to go to strip clubs and ask the dancers what they thought about the presidential election. Seriously.

Turns out that most of the clubs on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens (my beat) are actually bailarina bars–Latino clubs where women dance with you for cash. Only a couple are strip joints, so I shifted my focus.

Many of the men at these bars are immigrants who moved to New York without their wives or girlfriends. They’re lonely, looking for attention.

Once a good song comes on, a guy will ask a woman to dance. The girl keeps track of how many they dance together and when he decides to stop she’ll charge him $2 per song. Its a modern version of taxi dancing.

New York Magazine must have heard about my story and they decided to write a long piece on bailarina bars in this week’s issue. So, I won’t write too much more.

You might enjoy reading my notes from the night (even though their quality indicates why I didn’t land the New York gig). I was typing them on my Blackberry–it blended in more than some guy writing on a note pad. Here’s what I saw (unedited):

La escuelita-bar on Roosevelt
Five girls in one corner of the dance floor.
Like a high school dance.  Or cotillion with thumping music.
Ladies selling long stem roses, bucket of Coronas.
Fast twirling on dance floor La cumbia, regeton
One girl leg up on table.
Shifts to guys grinding, can’t dance.
One guy has bought a full bouquet of roses.
Bent over.
Drunk stumbles into table.
Classical guitars.
Everyone breaks out on the floor.
Transaction atmosphere, girls using cell phones like they’re bored, waiting for someone to ask them to dance.
$2 per song, she keeps track.
Autoparts shirt and work boots.
Woman in fishnet shirt, butt hanging out.
La machata – what I danced
[I later figured out this is la bachata, although I definitely couldn't do it like these guys]

Shea Stadium played its final game on September 28th, one of the saddest games I can remember.

For some disclosure: I’m not a huge Mets fan, though I try to follow their trials and tribulations. My uncle was a ball boy and a bat boy for the “Amazin’s” in the 1960s (his last game at Shea was the Giants’ Super Bowl victory in 1969), and I’ve been to a handful of games at the old Shea Stadium. My uncle told me the other day the last game at Shea “broke my heart.”

My uncle and my cousin went to the final game, and in the car ride up, my cousin said “this could either be the best game or the worst.”

And it was certainly the worst.

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     Skillman Avenue, an alternative road to Queensboro Bridge, is competing for Queens Boulevard’s title, “The Boulevard of Death.”   There have been 11 known pedestrian-related injury cases due to crashes on Skillman Avenue alone from 1995-2001.

     That’s when the “Safer Skillman Avenue” coalition decided to step up and take action.

     The group of residents and parents volunteer to raise public awareness about the dangerous avenue where schools and parks are located.  After working with Transportation Alternative, they recently handed out a petition to implement the daylighting technique to make one intersection, 52^nd street, safer. Daylighting involves removing street corner parking where parked cars can disable the vision of both pedestrians and drivers.

     Alice Farrell, a 52^nd Street resident is an avid supporter of the group’s plans:

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     Still, some are not happy about taking away parking.  Al Volpe, is a 40-year plus woodside resident and 6-year community board member:

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     Farrell’s response on safety, “A human’s life matters more…” 

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     Though some are weary of hearing spots being removed where it’s tough enough to find parking, 270 signatures prove otherwise. “Safer Skillman” plans to present them to their community board.

Petition signing on September 19, 2008, to increase visibility on 52nd Street./ Photo Credit: Economides

The businesses of Maspeth have a reputation, built on ethics and community involvement. They hope this can help them survive the current economic crisis.

“We give back to the community. We’re not here to make money, but also enhance the lives of the residents,” said Thomas K. Rudzewick, the senior vice president of the Maspeth Federal Savings.

In spite of the growing unease about the economy, the feeling in Maspeth remains positive, even among the bankers and realtors who bear the brunt and blame for the nation’s financial woes.

The recent plummet of stocks has resulted in the collapse of the banking superpowers Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the insurance staple AIG. Yet the local bank appears to chug along smoothly.

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