OLD_New York Stories of Fascinating Places, Spring 2012




The Freaks: Coney Island’s Sideshow School By Anika Anand

Coney Island Sideshow School teaches students how to perform circus acts like laying on a bed of nails, eating fire and walking on broken glass. It’s the school’s own way of preserving sideshow traditions, and Coney Island’s history.

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Universal Appeal – A Chess Shop in Brooklyn Thrives on Family Spirit – by Natalia V. Osipova

Former subway conductor Christian Whitted, 43, didn’t feel he was fully living until he started his own business. He opened New York Chess & Games shop in Brooklyn in 2008 and made it successful by adding a secret ingredient he couldn’t find in other chess shops in the city: a family spirit.

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Gotham City Roller Wars – By Alex Robinson

For six days out of the week, the Hunter College Sportsplex is exactly what it sounds like: the gym space for the college’s athletic department. But on Saturday night mats get thrown down and it becomes the space of the Gotham Girls Roller Derby who come to skate, block, and jam at high speed.

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The Cooking Artist by Nabil Rahman

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The Game of Life: Generations playing chess in Greenwich Village – by Claudia Bracholdt

The Chess Forum is a home to all generations that come here to play chess. In the morning, it’s children who learn chess and play with their instructors and dads. At night, experienced players come to compete against their friends as well as the clock, when they sit down do play speed chess.

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A Family Affair: Salerno’s Service Station by Christine Streich

Salerno’s Service Station is a three-generation owned and run auto mechanic shop in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. ‘A Family Affair’ looks at the dynamic between three distinct and strong personalities who are forced to get along for the family business.

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Arm Wrestling, Underground: By Daniel Prendergast

Jason Vale’s basement is more than just a place to hold arm wrestling practice. It’s where friendships are made.

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No Lights No Lycra: Dance Party in a Brooklyn Church Basement By Jackie Snow

No Lights No Lycra Dance Party in Brooklyn’s Church of the Messiah. People come from all over New York City for the unpretentious scene. The church basement where it happens is almost pitch black so people don’t feel the need to dress up.

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The Love of the Game: Chess Forum in New York City – Peter Moskowitz

Three men meet several times a week at the Chess Forum on Thompson Street, in Greenwich Village. Chess Forum has been around for decades and has appealed to different crowds over the years. It used to be a haven for gamblers, but now has created a family-friendly vibe.

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From New Orleans to New York: the annual crawfish pilgrimage by Jenny Marc

After learning how to cook in New Orleans, chef Meg Grace flies 300 pounds of crawfish up to her East Village restaurant, The Redhead, each year so New Yorkers can experience one of her favorite southern traditions.

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One of Us, One of Us by Kenneth Christensen — Coney Island Sideshow School, New York City

Coney Island, Brooklyn has been in transition for decades. Most recently, Bloomberg announced plans to revitalize Coney as a year-round tourist destination, with upscale hotels, shops and restaurants. There remain people and institutions, like Adam “the First Real Man” Rinn and the Sideshow School, that are keeping alive the tradition and mentality of old.

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Assignments

Final Cut of 1-3 minutes  due in class Wednesday, October, 26, 2011

Requirements for Written Journalism and  Delivery of each project:

Each final project will be posted on Vimeo on or before the deadline. Remember it takes time to upload and for Vimeo to process you video, depending on the time of day, the traffic at Vimeo and the speed of your connection. This process might take  several hours. If I log on at the deadline and I can’t watch your video, for whatever reason, I’ll consider it a missed deadline and you’ll be automatically dropped a grade to start.

Each piece must be accompanied by the following six written journalistic elements, all of which must be posted to Vimeo with your video:

– a 240 character description of the story. (For use in TubeMogel)
– a longer 250 word description of the story
– a compelling headline and subhead that  are SEO optimized plus at least 5 tags
– a word for word accurate transcript of the final piece
– at least three suitable links to the subject, story or theme from other sources
– a short behind-the-scenes story about how you found the character, something interesting that happened that’s not in the final piece, why you created this story, etc (great for blogging)

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