Pysanky Workshop

Pysanky is the Ukrainian tradition of decorating eggs for Easter. New York's Ukrainian Museum has held workshops to teach the art of painting Easter eggs since 1977. In 2018 it attracts a diverse following, including many who are neither Orthodox nor Ukrainian, but are interested in art just the same.

Gottscheers

Gottscheers are a German speaking immigrant group that hail from what is now Slovenia. The Gottscheers were uprooted from their homeland after World War II. Many settled in New York City. Each year they celebrate their culture in at a "Volkfest" in Long Island, a tradition that has continued for nearly 70 years.

Astoria, Queens

Scenes from Astoria, Queens. While it's one of New York city's traditionally Greek-American enclaves, many new immigrant groups live there also now.

The Cretan's Association

 Athens Video Superstore

 Cafe Boulis

 Omonia Next Door bakery

Greek On The Street food truck

Titan Foods

Greek-Americans anxious about the stability of their homeland

Greek- Americans in New York ponder the fate of their homeland as Greek voters cast ballots on a referendum to accept an international fiscal bailout.

Scenes from Harlem

Scenes from New York's Harlem, the heart of Black America.

Street mural on 125th Street. 

The legendary Apollo Theater on 125th Street.

Typical Brownstones, Malcolm X Boulevard.

Street Mural, corner of 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard.

Sylvia's Restaurant of Harlem. Co-founded by Sylvia Woods, the "Queen of Soul Food".

 Magic Johnson Theater

"Swing Low", statue in tribute to Harriet Tubman.

Street Vendor on 125th Street.

 

Home of the Amsterdam News. 

New York's Little Syria

A lot of attention has turned to the proposed Islamic Cultural Center planned for New York's lower Manhattan, surely due to its proximity to Ground Zero. At best, many of the arguments against the center are short sighted, overlooking the neighborhood's history. At worst, many of the naysayers are pandering to xenophobia and Anti-Arab sentiment. What many don't realize is during the first half of the last century, this same section of lower Manhattan was home to “Little Syria”. This ethnic enclave was the destination of Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian immigrants, centered on Washington Street just steps from City Hall.

At that time, the Muslim population was no greater than 5%, as most of the Arab immigrants were Christians. No mosques served the community, but rather 3 churches served the mostly Christian immigrant population. This included St. George Chapel of the Melkite Rite, inactive, but still standing 103 Washington Street.

The Little Syria neighborhood has since been razed to make way for urban renewal projects, most notably the World Trade Center and the entrance to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

An Irish enclave in New York

As the economy in Ireland grows and recedes, so does Irish immigration to the United States.

A perfect example is New York's Woodlawn neighborhood. Woodlawn straddles both sides of the Bronx and Yonkers border. Forty percent of residents here claim Irish ancestry. Although the percentage slipped in the past decade, the number of immigrants arriving in again increasing, concurrent with an economic downturn in Ireland.

Russian Radio in New York

Corporate take overs and consolidations have made the New York radio dial pretty dull in the last few years. That's why it's so refreshing to find Danu Radio.

Formerly known as "Radio Pozitiv", Danu Radio is a Russian language radio station broadcasting out of Brooklyn that air music and talk shows.  While the music is Russian language, there's an international sensibility to programs like the dance music show that transcends any language barriers.

The talk shows function as an important outlet for the Russian immigrant community.

Programs include a morning show, listener call in programs like Почти дома, an Armenian language program titled Армянское Радио, and a talk show featuring Seva Kaplan, known as the founding father of Russian radio in the US. Danu Radio's website compares Kaplan to the outspokenness of shock jock Howard Stern, although that description is hard to validate as there are so few Russian speaking Howard Stern fans available to judge.