Category Archives: New York City

Silicon Alley Humming Despite Slow Economy

Posted on May 4, 2010 | Leave a comment

The recent recession may have cut venture capital available to young companies, but it hasn’t prevented a blooming of high-tech startups in New York.

Many of the companies getting attention from venture capitalists and on tech blogs are social media sites, which rely on networks of friends to do everything from picking out gifts to sharing photos.

“New York is a hotbed of innovative startups and always has been,” said Nate Westheimer, co-founder of AnyClip, a company that aggregates clips of movies. Read the full story.

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Posted in economy, New York City

Illiteracy Takes Toll on Job-Hunting New Yorkers

Posted on February 8, 2010 | Leave a comment
Miguelina Benitez is a 34-year-old Bronx resident who wants to work. But she can’t get a job, even an entry-level position at McDonald’s or Victoria’s Secret, and thinks she knows why.

Benitez reads at a third-grade level, one of 1.5 million New Yorkers considered functionally illiterate, meaning they have trouble reading a job description or filling out an application.

“I’ve been looking for work ever since I was 16 and I’ve become very frustrated,” said Benitez, who’s now enrolled in a high school equivalency class through Highbridge Community Life Center in the Bronx. She said she hopes to go to college and one day become a secretary for the U.S. Marshals Service.

An increasingly large number of city residents don’t have the skills to compete for today’s jobs, which require more education and training than ever before, according to a new report by the Center for an Urban Future, a New York research organization.
Read the full story.

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Posted in Bronx, economy, New York City

New Advisory Council Aims to Address Needs of African Immigrants

Posted on February 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

New York Daily News

Prompted by growing numbers and a spate of attacks against African immigrants, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. will announce today he is forming an African Advisory Council.

Over the past decade, the borough’s West African population has grown to an estimated 70,000, evidenced by new businesses lining Webster Ave. that sell everything from canned okra to live chickens and head scarves.

Many of these immigrants – from countries such as Guinea, Mali and Senegal – have done well, but their presence, as well as a reluctance to complain to police, have sometimes made them easy targets for petty criminals.
Read the full story.

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Posted in Bronx, Karina Ioffee, New York City, safety

Frustrations Mount as City, Consumers Debate About What to Do About Techno-Trash

Posted on November 17, 2009 | Leave a comment

New York Daily News

Old computers, iPods, cell phones – Brian Boyd’s got ‘em all. But when Boyd, who runs a social media company, TrakVu, wanted to get rid of some of his electronics, he didn’t know what to do with the stuff.

Watch the video

“I usually try to sell it on eBay, but who has the time?” Boyd said, adding that he had no idea where there might be a recycling center that would accept old electronics.

As our lives become filled with more gadgets, New Yorkers are being confronted with a growing problem: What to do with old electronics that, at least in the view of their owners, are garbage? 
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Posted in economy, environment, New York City

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Hector and Dulce: A Love Story

Posted on September 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

dulceTwenty five years in prison give a man time to think.

And that’s what Hector Martinez did after being convicted of second-degree murder, robbery and arson in 1984. He thought about the day when he made his way to a drug house in Sunset Park to buy some heroin, the blaze that he was accused of starting and the chaos that ensued.

It was not supposed to be like this. Martinez, now 55, grew up in a loving family of Puerto Rican descent, imbued by values of family, God and community. He went to church, got a job at a pharmacy and married a nice girl who spoke Spanish. But he had a double life no one knew about and it eventually caught up with him.

“The way I see it, if I would have continued, I would have ended up with AIDS or killed,” says Hector. “Even after all these years in prison, I’m not angry because this what part of God’s plan.”

Listen to the story.

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Posted in New York City

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