Cityscape

[Editor's Note: This is an encore presentation of Cityscape from September 18, 2019.]

Questions like “how’s your social life?” or “did you spend time with family this weekend?” aren’t typically asked during an annual checkup at the doctor’s office. Most physicians tailor their questions to asking how a patient is physically feeling, not the status of their social calendar. But our guest on this week's "Cityscape" focuses on how factors like friendship and compassion can lead to a healthier life.

Dr. Kelli Harding is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Her new book is "The Rabbit Effect: Live Longer, Happier, and Healthier with the Groundbreaking Science of Kindness." It focuses on the science of human connection rather than traditional biological health.

Our guest this week is author and New Yorker cartoonist Ken Krimstein. He joins us to talk about his new graphic narrative called “When I Grow Up.” It brings to life the accounts of six Eastern European Jewish youths right before the start of World War II. It was long thought the Nazis destroyed the autobiographies, but they were discovered in 2017 hidden away in a Lithuanian church cellar.

She toured with Beyoncé and Victor Wooten, but now bassist Divinity Roxx is stepping into the spotlight with her first family music album. It’s called Ready, Set Go!

Divinity is our guest on this week’s show to talk about her new album, as well as her two new picture books, life on the road with Beyoncé and more.

We all have stories from the pandemic. What was the last fun event you attended before going into quarantine? Did you reconnect with an old friend on Zoom to pass the time? What went through your mind when you got your first vaccination?

Our guest this week has penned a book reflecting on her experiences during the pandemic, and she’s encouraging others to put their pandemic stories on paper too. Kate Walter’s new book is called "Behind the Mask: Living Alone in the Epicenter."

Bronx Bound Books is the newest bookstore rolling through the Bronx. The mobile store runs out of a bus and makes affordable reading material accessible to Bronx neighborhoods that otherwise lack independent bookstores. Books Through Bars NYC is a nonprofit organization that sends free books to people in prisons all over the country. People who are incarcerated can write letters to the organization requesting reading material, and Books Through Bars NYC fills those requests with everything from history books to comics to dictionaries. Joining us on this edition of Cityscape is Latanya Devaughn, owner of Bronx Bound Books, and Victoria Law, a co-founder of Books Through Bars NYC.

Celebrated actress Tovah Feldshuh has played some big names, including Golda Meir, Katherine Hepburn and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But in her first book, Tovah introduces us to perhaps the biggest character in her life: her mother, Lily. In her memoir, “Lilyville: Mother, Daughter, and Other Roles I’ve Played,” Tova explores the bond between mother and daughter, and how we grow to understand our parents better as we age. Tovah joins us this week to talk about her new book and her latest show, "Becoming Dr. Ruth." The limited-run show runs through Sunday, January 2, 2022 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City.

Coney Island has a long and storied history. While its heyday may be long gone, the seaside area is still known as a place for fun and excitement, as well as a good hot dog!

Photographer Larry Racioppo has captured images of Coney Island during some of its darkest and brightest days. His new book "Coney Island Baby" includes photographs depicting Coney Island in the late 1970s, when a series of fires devastated its amusement area. But, it also shows happier times, including images of the early days of the famed Mermaid Parade, one of the events that helped to usher in a new era on Coney Island.

Larry Racioppo is our guest on this week’s Cityscape, along with writer, historian and journalist Kevin Baker and Dick Zigun, Founder of Coney Island USA. Both Kevin and Dick contributed essays to Larry’s book.

In this episode of Building Brooklyn, we hear the story of Canarsie in reverse, from the racial unrest in the 1990s, to the anti-integration school boycotts in the 1960s, the community of Canarsie's Black residents in the 19th century, all the way back to Brooklyn's first residents, the Native Lenape people, who gave the neighborhood its name.

Brooklyn is constantly changing. This episode takes a look at the changes on just one street in one neighborhood: Eighth Avenue in Sunset Park, which many call Brooklyn's Chinatown. In the early 1990s, BPL and the Museum of Chinese in America collected oral histories about Sunset Park. We dive back into that archive, with help from Professor Tarry Hum, urban planner and former Sunset Parker.

In the early 1900s, if you walked around Sunset Park, you might have heard Finnish being spoken on the streets. That's because the neighborhood was home to the largest concentration of Finns in New York City, and though most have since gone from Brooklyn, they left behind their co-operative spirit. The Finns built the first non-profit co-operative apartment buildings in the nation, many of which are still standing today.