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OP/ED The Demise of Public Education: Mr. & Mrs. Moskowitz* Push for More Charters in Williamburg

September 11, 2012 By Brooke Parker Leave a Comment

By Brooke Parker

The Demise of Public Education: Mr. & Mrs. Moskowitz* Push for More Charters in Williamburg

Eva Moskowitz, CEO of Success Academy, who earns close to half a million dollars a year, is one of the highest profile figures in the charter school industry, touting charter schools as the solution to “waste in education.” There’s a lot of money to be made in charter schools when you add up the start-up financing grants, charter management fees, new market tax credits, no-bid contracts, and minimal oversight.

The BBOX Boom: Pump up the volume on new radio station

June 23, 2012 By José Otto Campos Leave a Comment

DJ ForPlay streams live every Monday night 7:30-9:30pm on BBOXRadio.

There’s a new radio station in Williamsburg: BBox Radio. They’ve declared they will be the voice of Brooklyn. Well, Brooklyn is known to be a bit schizophrenic, so one more voice doesn’t hurt.

BBox Radio, the online radio station, was created last year during an international competition. Urban Space Management hosted the competition at Dekalb Market in downtown Brooklyn. Dekalb Market closed for the winter, which forced the winners, BBox Radio, to look for a permanent venue.

Ten Years of Music in Williamsburg 2002-2012: An Oral History

June 20, 2012 By AP Smith Leave a Comment

Musicians, promoters, and influencers in Brooklyn (left to right): A.P. Smith (Chief/Bodega), Joe Ahearn (Silent Barn / Showpaper / Clocktower Gallery), Conrad Carlson aka DJ Dirty Finger (Black Label Bicycle Club), Pat Noecker (RAFT / These Are Powers / Liars), Edan Wilber (Death By Audio), Carlos Valpeoz (Bikes In The Kitchen), Michelle Cable (Panache Booking). Photo by Benjamin Lozovsky

Ten Years of Music – A Williamsburg Oral History: 2002-2012

Tod Seelie, 33, moved to Brooklyn in 1998 to go to Pratt Institute in Clinton Hill because it was the least expensive school that accepted him. And that says a lot considering the annual tuition was $30,000.

Tourist-burg-point-wick—Tourism and Williamsburg Converge

May 9, 2012 By Mary W. Yeung Leave a Comment

Even after The Deluge, they kept coming. Tourism in New York City has never been more robust after 9/11. Back in 2002, while some tourists canceled their visits, there were more than enough curiosity seekers to take their place. The truth is, when the world focuses their attention on a single epic event taking place in a famous city like New York, some of those people will want to make their next trip a pilgrimage.

Last year, fifty million tourists visited New York City, compared to 35 million in 2001. Economists will tell you that the weak dollar has made vacationing in America a relative bargain. But that doesn’t explain why tourism in the rest of the United States declined by 2% last year, while it was up 2.5% in New York City. Mayor Bloomberg, understandably, would like to take a lot of the credit, citing quality of life issues (the beautification of public spaces like the High Line, and park-like traffic islands throughout the City). The Mayor also credits his effective overseas marketing campaign, conducted by NYC & Company, the agency charged with promoting the City.

In 2006, he merged three separate marketing departments—NYC & Company, NYC Big Events, and NYC Marketing—to create one powerhouse promotional agency. (The Comptroller’s office is not so happy with NYC & Company right now, but that is a whole other story.) This March, NYC & Company announced that it had set a goal of steering over 55 million visitors to the Big Apple by 2015, with a laser-like on the 18- to 29-year-old youth market. Currently, the youth market makes up about 30% of the total, but most of that is domestic tourism, not foreign. The city plans to host many special events that would appeal to young people, and help them find affordable lodging and eateries.

OP-ED What Charter Schools Were Meant to Be

March 12, 2012 By Phil DePaolo Leave a Comment

By Phil DePaolo

The latest contested issue in Williamsburg is the attempt by former Manhattan City Council Member Eva Moskowitz, who turned entrepreneur, to open her brand of for-profit charter school (Brooklyn Success Academy Charter School) at the same location as JHS 50, at 183 South 3rd Street. The school, which houses 470 middle school students, also houses another public school, the Academy for Young Writers, which is scheduled to move elsewhere. At a recent hearing, hundreds of local residents came out to oppose the opening of the Success Academy charter school. It’s been documented that Moskowitz bussed in hundreds of Harlem residents to give the appearance of community support.

Charter schools in New York were started by the late Al Shanker, the former president of the American Federation of Teachers, among others. Shanker believed that charter schools couldn’t change education if they were disconnected from regular public schools. He wrote in a 1994 column in the New York Times: “Charter schools must have autonomy to get where they want to go, but they must also be part of a system that has a central purpose, and that means a system that has decided what kids need to know and be able to do. Otherwise, they will end up like all those alternative schools of the 1960s, relevant only to themselves and useless to the system as a whole.”