features
Mutants of rap: DMC, Jean Grae and others on the enduring connection between comic books and hip-hop
"When Run was like, 'write a rhyme,' I was like, I’ve never sold drugs. I’ve never been to jail. I’ve never been shot. That shit hurts! So when I wrote rhymes I had so sound big, bad—everything had to come out," DMC said. "I was the microphone master, devastating mic controller. I had to have super powers. So I took them from the comics I was into." More
How New York immigration judges are upending a federal crackdown
In a flat, emotionless voice, Judge Bain plowed through lengthy statutes and subsections cited in her ruling as she prepared to announce her decision. Finally she faced the young man whose fate was hanging in the balance.
"I am granting you relief," she said, and signaled him to approach the bench and shake her hand. "Congratulations." More
(2)'Shove it': A portrait of a gay-marriage Republican in limbo
BALLSTON SPA—The next paragraph in the gay rights narrative will be written here, in a windowless vault filled with old paper and softly quibbling lawyers, next week. More
From wildlife refuge to table: A story about the culled Jamaica Bay geese
Since 2009, when Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenburger had to land in the Hudson due to a bird strike by a flock of geese, the federal Department of Agriculture has been doing its best to keeping the local goose population down. More
(16)Getting cozy with Katie
There will be no "Soup"-worthy freakouts here, no movie stars jumping on couches, and no surprise paternity tests. In fact, there won't be any surprises at all. It'll just be Katie, America's most professional empathy technician, running out that hour with some dear, dear friends. More
The story of the story of Cop Shoots Dog
A neat bundle of olive drab baggage was sitting a few feet away from the animal, on the edge of the sidewalk. I took it to be the belongings of a crusty punk. Crusty punks, drifters who combine the grunge of hippies and the combat-boot toughness of punk rockers, have been an East Village/Lower East Side staple for decades. On 14th Street, they traditionally squat near the corners of Third, Second and First avenues, panhandling with cardboard signs and empty cups. Often, a lone crusty punk will travel with a dog, for protection. But where was this dog’s owner? The sight of his belongings near the wounded dog was ominous. More
What the gun control movement can learn from gay rights
There's a reason that nothing's happening to improve gun safety in America despite the mass shootings that now occur so regularly: No one in power is scared of the gun control movement. More
(16)How some upstate environmentalists came to embrace fracking
"That's where the company drilled the well," he said. "We sat here for a months with the tower blinking and the compressor hissing, all summer long." More
(14)Eric Schneiderman's mission to expose America's most influential donors
Eric Schneiderman, New York's Democratic attorney general, is trying to win a fight over independent campaign expenditures that his party, for the moment, is losing badly. More
(1)Inside billionaire Joe Ricketts' dreams of media empire
Ricketts is somewhat enigmatic. He’s not a recluse, but he seldom gives interviews, preferring instead to speak to his public, such as it is, directly, either through occasional blog posts on his personal website, or the professionally edited shorts that reside on his YoutTube channel. He is not a player in the digital media scene; not among its savants, its big-name consultants or its bankrollers, whether they’re do-good charities or venture firms. He is active in politics, but he pays into his political activities directly; there is no discernible political agenda to DNAinfo, and if anything the site seems to skew against determining the course of the conversation, focusing instead on breaking straight news and saturating at the pavement rather than the council chamber and the executive offices of government or the boardrooms of the city’s power elites. More
The streets of Tirana and the roots of Albanian-American organized crime
TIRANA—In June 2010, 17 men were arrested and charged by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan with a long list of federal RICO mob charges that included robbery, kidnapping, murder, drug dealing, weapons possession, conspiracy, extortion, arson, and obstruction of justice. They all came from Albania. More
(1)From the wrong side of Williamsburg to the top of New York City baseball
The list of distinguished alumni from George Washington High School in Washington Heights includes Henry Kissinger, Jacob Javits, and Alan Greenspan.
Also: Manny Ramirez, the now un-retired hitting savant. More
(2)A sometime thing: The history of 'Porgy and Bess,' as complex as the history of race in America
Between the lines of the brief debate that ensued from Sondheim’s temper tantrum, one side seemed to be arguing that the 1935 opera book written by a well-meaning white Southerner was racially insensitive by contemporary standards, and the other side that tampering with a classic text for such reasons was kowtowing to the most humdrum sort of political correctness. Nobody came out of this debate unscarred. More
(4)Pedro Hernandez confessed to killing Etan Patz; now what can Cy Vance do about it?
Bill Fleisher is a connoisseur of cold cases. A former cop and F.B.I. agent, he co-founded the Vidocq Society, a club of experts—retired police detectives, pathologists, prosecutors, and other inquisitive types—who regularly gather for lunch in his hometown of Philadelphia to pick over unsolved murders. The society is named for a 19th Century French detective, the model for some of the first fictional sleuths, and Fleisher is full of grisly erudition when it comes to the history of violent crime. He is not easily baffled. More
(1)Gray and green: The story of a big-city sewer system that worked too well
On any given dry day, 1.3 billion gallons of water flow off the streets and down drains into New York City’s sewage system.
Most of the time the system works flawlessly, and invisibly, and so sewage gets less attention than other infrastructural issues, like transit and communications. Plus sewage is just gross. More
