“U.S. transit workers have been hit hard by the coronavirus. More than 120 have died from the disease just within New York City Transit, and drivers and transport workers represent the second-largest share of work-related cases, according to a Harvard study. Sarah Feinberg, interim president of New York City Transit, joins William Brangham to discuss…
New York City Health Department reports staggering COVID-19 numbers. As of May 17, there are 190,408 confirmed cases of COVID-19. The details can be numbing: Confirmed deaths: 15,888 Probable deaths: 4,832 50,120 people hospitalized Five of my immediate family members live in New York. My sister Virginia Ruiz Badillo and our brother, Donnie Ruiz live…
Margaret Ruiz is my sister. She and her husband live in the Forest Hills section of Queens, New York. The borough of Queens is an epicenter for COVID-19. As of May 10, the number of infections in Queens was 55,380 out of a total citywide of 178,766. The death count in Queens is 4,455. Confirmed…
“The new documentary “Decade of Fire” looks back at the history of a crisis that unfolded in New York City in the 1970s, when the South Bronx faced a near-constant barrage of fires that displaced almost a quarter-million people and devastated an entire community. Co-directors and producers Vivian Vázquez Irizarry and Gretchen Hildebran tell the…
“Fifty years ago this week, a group of young radical Puerto Ricans took to the streets of New York City to announce the formation of the New York chapter of the Young Lords. Formed in the same radical tradition of the Black Panther Party, the activists soon became a force in the community that inspired…
Stan Douglas picks up where Miles Davis left off by creating the epic six-hour video “Luanda-Kinshasa” (2013). Inspired by his experience making pause-button mixtapes in the early 1980s, Douglas imagined a recording that combined elements of Davis’s last studio album from the 1970s, “On the Corner,” with Manu Dibango-inspired Afrobeat. “This is a very tenuous…