Bar Crawl Radio

We talked about the issue of NIMBY attitudes in our Manhattan Upper West Side neighborhood and the lack of mayoral leadership in solving the problem of homelessness -- with NYC District 6 Council person Helen Rosenthal, Corinne Lowe, co-founder of UWS Open Hearts, Joshua Parkin, founder of helpNYC, and Da Homeless Hero, a sheltered resident of the Lucerne Hotel.

This is the first in a series of BCR conversations addressing the issue of homelessness in our neighborhood -- with politicians, spiritual and mental health experts, sociologists, UWS neighbors, and the men and women who are living without permanent shelter. It is our goal to raise awareness of the problem and of finding humane solutions that work for the entire community.

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Jon Ross, the founder and head of Micro Aid International joined Rebecca and Alan on the patio of Ellington in the Park on a beautiful Autumn afternoon.  Jon Ross was with on BCR #36 at Vino Laventino – where we no longer record because the owner kicked Alan out several months ago – but that is another story. 

In our previous conversation, we got into some depth on Jon's life and work building single-family, multi-generational homes in third word disaster areas. Now he is carrying out this important work during a global pandemic. Micro/Aid International is a non-profit that goes into third world disaster areas after the NGOs, Government agencies,   news media have left and builds single homes by accessing the local economy and resources. Please consider contributing to their efforts.

Contact Rebecca and Alan at [email protected]

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This BCR episode recorded in front of the regal Greek Orthodox Church on West End Avenue and W. 90th Street in Manhattan's Upper West Side. Rich Collier -- the “High Exalted Mystic Ruler of the Unusually Smooth Productions” -- joined us out on the street for his brand of fresh-air trivia. Rich is a multi-year Emmy-winning host for  “Roll Play” – where guests are challenged with trivia about NYC -- now on Create TV. He was a host and producer of “Subway Q & A” – one of the highest rated series in the unfortunately brief history of The Metro Channel – for which he was awarded a dozen NY Emmy Awards and won three in the category “Outstanding on Air Achievement” awards.

The BCR Open Mic attracted several of our neighbors to answer some "Roll Play" style trivia. See how well you can do with Rich's questions -- you are bound to do better than we did.

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Once again – Bar Crawl Radio’s portable studio is set up on West End Avenue and 92nd Street -- this time for the "We Walk / Park(ing) Day" on-the-street event. And things were buzzing around as as our UWS neighbors too over the street. Local community organizations working for various socially positive changes were represented.

"We Walk" was part of the worldwide "Park(ing) Day" celebration in which walkers and bikers take over "metered curbside parking space for “creative experimentation, political and cultural expression, and unscripted social interaction.” It is organized by the” American Society of Landscape Architects.” 

For this BCR episode we talked with reps from Streetopia, Time Lapse Dance, D3 Green Schools, Public Design Commission, former NYC Parks Commissioner -- Andrian Benepe, and State Assembly member -- Linda Rosenthal. It was a busy day but your BCR hosts handled it and had a great afternoon on the Upper West Side.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will NYC bars survive? Between early March and early May, over 100,000 small businesses nationwide have shut down and our neighborhood bars in NYC have been hit hard. More than 80 percent of the city’s restaurants and bars did not pay full rent in June, according to the NYC Hospitality Alliance. In this COVID19 moment, it is clear that we must social distance if we are going to beat this corona virus – but at what cost? In general -- NYCers have been doing well -- and we want to get back to enjoying our great bars -- but is it too soon? And what is going to happen to outdoor bar and restaurant business as we enter the fall?

We talked with Matt Gebhard, owner of Gebhard's Beer Culture Bar--our favorite watering spot in the Upper West Side--about his efforts to keep his business afloat in the face of inconsistent and hard-on-business city policies. We were joined by Gebhard's midtown bar manager--Peter Malfatti

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This was a fun +hour talking with two brilliant poets who mentor each other's new work. MERVYN TAYLOR born and lives in Trinidad, and now retired there, Mervyn graduated from Howard and Columbia Universities. He taught at Bronx Community College, The Young Adult Learning Academy,  He has published six books of poetry and won the Paterson Poetry Prize for sustained literary achievement.  His poetry focuses on the particular and the personal, but there's always somehow the consciousness of the world.

Mervyn suggested that we invite SUSANA H. CASE to the BCR conversation because he found that there was an affinity in their work. Susana has written seven books of poetry and two of her chapbooks have won poetry prizes. Her work appears in many magazines and anthologies. Dr. Case is a professor and Program Coordinator at the NY Institute of Technology.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

BCR is recording in the middle of West End Avenue -- where it is safe - for a conversation with popular scientist Nathan H. Lents, the author of Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes (2018). Lents also maintains the Human Evolution Blog and writes for Psychology Today under the tagline “Beastly Behavior: How Evolution Shaped Our Minds and Bodies.”

Recently, he has been countering supporters of intelligent design who complain about scientific approaches to effective policies on combatting COVID19 pandemic and in April he survived the disease. Nathan was with us for BCR #16 on our first and only Margarita Crawl.

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