Global City NYC reporters explore religious, culinary and cultural traditions in the city’s ethnic neighborhoods.
By Samara Abramson – An American Tries Flamenco
Every Saturday, Jorge Navarro teaches a flamenco lesson in the basement of a church on Christopher Street in the Village. Navarro, a dashing Spaniard with curly black hair, teaches his students in a dance studio with three bare white walls and another wall covered floor to ceiling with mirror.
By Suzie Xie – Chinatown’s Second Story
By Mantai Chow – Chinese Chess War
In a small park in the heart of Manhattan’s Chinatown, dozens of elderly men from the Chinese community gather each day. At first glance, it’s hard to see why they’re there; there’s little conversation and the main activity is the occasional movement of a hand and arm.
By Mary Kekatos – The Art of Making Phyllo
There’s a Greek bakery on Manhattan’s 9th Avenue that’s been making delicate, papery phyllo dough by hand since 1923. Almost no one does that anymore. It’s just too labor intensive, so most Greek bakeries buy factory-made phyllo. But not Poseidon Bakery.
By Ellen Chen – Sounds of Haiti
The CD player has gone the way of the Walkman and the record player before it. For several years, consumers have increasingly turned to their smartphones to listen to digital music, and the change has destroyed once-giant retailers like Virgin and Tower Records.
On a street in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood, Ellen Chen found one of New York City’s rare surviving CD retail stores.
By Zara Lockshin – Bargaining in Chinatown
