On Tuesday night in the basement gym at Hunter College many fair skinned, non-tattooed young men ran up and down a court dominated by an imposing Jewish kid from Pennsylvania. (Well, okay there were some tattoos. One player on each team had one.)

Hunter College was hosting a double header against NYU. First the women’s teams played, and then the men’s teams.

Hunter cheerleaders did all they could to build the audience, which could hardly be called a crowd, into a frenzy. They didn’t succeed, but their commitment was admirable. For the women’s game they had six cheerleaders. By the time the men’s game began the squad had grown to nine.

There were also a few more bodies in the bleachers by the time the men’s game began. It was a mix of family, friends, and other athletes from Hunter, including a wrestler who shouted that his match was the next night before following up under his breath that no one would attend.

Hunter player Lorenzo Brown’s mother and father were at the game. According to the mother, they are at every game. Same for the family of NYU player Andy Stein, the imposing Jewish kid who looks like Tim Tebow and is finishing up his senior year.

Tuesday was special for the Steins with Andy scoring his 1000th point as an NYU player. His mother made a brief attempt at heckling the Hunter fans before seeming to realize too few people were paying attention for it to matter.

But it wasn’t boring. The teams showed up with as much spirit as you’d hope to see anywhere. During the announcement of the starting line ups the players bumped their coaches with as much gusto as the Miami Heat (minus the egos and over the top technological fanfare).

It’s just that the timing of everything felt a bit off. The cheerleaders weren’t in place when the line-ups were announced. The shot clock on one side was purposely turned off because it kept buzzing at the wrong time. When Hunter’s center, Panagiotis Koutsoloukas, missed a rebound and fell to the ground, he did so awkwardly, without the smooth manner in which many athletes can take a fall.

And even though NYU blew Hunter out – they won by 22 points – they didn’t feel completely cohesive either. Maybe it’s because it is division three. Stein, the clear star of the game, didn’t have any illusions of going into pro-basketball. If he didn’t, what could the others hope to do?

But they played hard. Really hard. It was clear that they cared. My favorite moment of the entire night was probably watching two of the women’s players celebrate a beautiful assist. If you want your athletes to care, and you like it at least a little bizarre, then yeah, maybe division three basketball in New York City is for you.

This video will give you a glimpse at how riggers put the tree up, how they decorate it, and the way it looks in its final state.

A tree rigger holds a rope attached to the tree.

A little backstory on this year’s tree: This is the 79^th annual tree at Rockefeller Plaza. Nancy Keller of Mifflinville, PA donated the tree after being approached by a representative from Rockefeller Center who spotted the tree on her property. Keller and her family were on hand the morning the tree arrived in New York.

It was driven up to NYC on a flatbed truck and put up on Friday November 11^th. It was lit on Wednesday, November 30^th. The tree will be on display through the first week of January. After it is taken down, the wood will be donated to Habitat for Humanity.

One thing that was hard to capture on film is that the tree is also held in place by cables. If you visit, take a look up and you will see cables attached to the top of the tree and connected to 30 Rock, the famous building that anchors Rockefeller Plaza.

To read more about the details of who hoists the tree and how, check out this great little article from Popular Mechanics.com

[image and video by Daisy Rosario. Song in video courtesy of Amil Byleckie via freemusicarchive.org]

Let’s just acknowledge right away that this is an informal survey, and I only had a small pool of respondents. But there are a few answers in which there was real consistency, so let’s focus there.

The last question of the survey asked people to describe how they felt others viewed them because of their unemployed status.  All but three respondents wrote either “lazy,” or some synonym of lazy.

Lazy is a hot word right now. President Obama recently used it in reference to a lack of foreign investment on the part of the American government. Republicans jumped on the President’s remark, some claiming he called the American people lazy, others saying it showed the President didn’t see the country the way its citizens did. And with all the back and forth as to whether to not Occupy Wall Street is a legitimate movement or a bunch of lazy hippies, the word’s connotations might be stronger than ever. If nothing else, this survey shows that these people believe they will be viewed in that light.

The survey also asked people how hopeful they felt that they would find work, and once they did find work, how likely it was that the job would pay enough. The numbers hovered right around the middle on finding work again, but the majority of respondents were – to varying degrees – less hopeful about finding work that paid well.It may be a small survey, but it definitely showed that being unemployed makes these people feel anxious, and worried that others will see them as less than. Whether or not you think the unemployed actually are lazy, it looks like at the very least it will make you feel as if you’ve failed.

This is fun lazy, that’s not the lazy they mean.

[video courtesy of NBC, The Lonely Island, and Hulu]

The New York City Marathon is an all-city affair, passing through many neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. There are five bridges on the marathon route. The uphill incline that begins each bridge is a challenge for runners, particularly as they get more tired throughout the race.

The Madison Avenue Bridge, which connects the South Bronx to Harlem, is the final bridge on the route. From there runners turn left onto Fifth Avenue and head down towards Central Park and the finish line.

Watch this slideshow for the sights and sounds of the marathon as runners make their way over the final bridge.

[all images by Daisy Rosario]

I have lived in Harlem for a few years now and I really love it. It is a friendly and polite neighborhood, rich with characters and full of history. I grew up in Brooklyn, and I find it reminds me of some of the best parts of the version of Brooklyn in which I grew up.

I’m passionate about using personal stories to tell larger stories and I’m always interested in busting stereotypes. I think stereotypes are actually useful, as long as they aren’t applied in every single situation.

The assignment was just to interview someone in our neighborhood and write some text around it. We were able to style it any way we want, so I imagined mine as a piece that would be part of a larger series about neighborhood characters.

 
A Brief Look at Lawrence R. Scott by Daisy Rosario

Billy Beyrer loves wrestling. He has since he was a kid, so when the opportunity to wrestle in front of a paying audience presented itself, he jumped at the chance.

Billy isn’t really a wrestler per se. He plays the character Whole Lotta Denim as part of the UCBW, a comedy-wrestling group that performs at the UCB Theatre. Wrestling is already fun and silly, but these comics take it to new levels.

This month, Billy won the UCBW World Championship at AutumnSlamn, one of UCBW’s seasonal homages to the pay-per-view events put on by WWE. He defeated the evil Wall Street, a guy dressed in a suit with a Bluetooth in his ear.

For Billy’s story and the sounds of the match, check out the clips below:

How Billy found his character by Daisy Rosario

Billy on how he got interested in wrestling by Daisy Rosario

Billy on his favorite wrestler and when he got to meet him by Daisy Rosario

The sounds of Billy’s match by Daisy Rosario

[image courtesy of Billy Beyrer]

1. A group of protesters march out of Washington Square Park towards banks. A short time later protesters at a bank close to the park would be arrested while attempting to close their bank accounts.

2. The gathered crowd, a mix of protesters, journalists, and interested people, as seen from the east side of the park.

3. Police barricaded the perimeter of Washington Square Park’s famous and recently renovated fountain.

4. The table of a group distributing a socialist newspaper.

5. Two of the people distributing a socialist newspaper answer questions for a passerby.

6. Young people stand on stone park benches to get a better view of one of the many speakers. Different groups were in circles all around the park, sharing information via the “people’s microphone.”

7. Older women (and a veteran) stand back from the crowd while trying to hear a speaker in the park.

8. An older Puerto Rican protester shares a laugh with a man who just took his picture.

9. A group of people in doctor’s coats stand together with a sign that says “Doctors for the 99%” on the north side of the park. They were one of many separate circles sharing information at the time. As seen through the Washington Square Arch.

10. The Washington Square Arch as seen from outside the park. Police and tourists kept their distance, but many took pictures of the action from behind the barricade surrounding the arch. The “Doctors for the 99%” sign is visible on the lower left.

[all photos by Daisy Rosario]

Lisa Magid and Katie Simon are both 25 years old and unemployed. Add in the fact that both are interested in improv comedy and there is good reason to think that they probably have a lot in common. But when it comes to unemployment, they’re taking it differently.

Simon, a graduate of Columbia University, was working as a software developer when she was laid off. She had high hopes for all the things she could get done with her newfound free time. She didn’t anticipate the malaise that can take over a person without a set schedule. Simon said she found it, “harder to get things done than I thought it would be.” Despite working in one of the few industries that has consistently had work available over the last few years, she now worries about finding her next job. Simon says she is bad at interviewing and that getting a new job might be harder than she originally thought.

Magid is taking it all in stride. Having recently graduated from Brandeis, she was working as a server when she became unemployed.  Now she does occasional part-time work as a transcriber. “I feel like I’m young enough that I don’t mind,” said Magid. In fact, the idea of being employed might hold more terror for her. Magid said she was “scared to be employed in a way because I’m scared I’ll get stuck.” Her fear is, in part, motivated by the high unemployment rate. She worries she would feel so grateful to have a job that she’d stay even if she hated it.

Unemployment can be a mixed blessing for some. Fill out the survey below to explain where you stand, whether you are unemployed or underemployed.

[above image courtesy of cathredfern via flickr]

“This rejection is worse than in relationships,” says Dave Ritz, 45. With unemployment holding strong at 9.1%, Ritz is one of many Americans struggling to cope with the insecurity of unemployment. He goes on interviews but doesn’t get hired.

He went on to explain that at least with a relationship, you can always think of there being some reason it doesn’t work, that person just isn’t the one. Jobs are different, though, in a way that he says makes it “more personal.” “Jobs are like clothes,” says Ritz. What he means is, they’re adjustable. You can make changes to fit them or make them fit you. So when it doesn’t work out with a job, it hurts all the more.

As someone who is 45 years old, Ritz goes up against younger people for the same jobs and worries that the rejection will happen before he even has a chance to truly represent himself. “I’m a little bit older,” he says, adding that he feels potential employers “don’t value all the skills” that he has accumulated.

And he does have skills. Ritz had an extensive resume in the hotel industry before moving to New York. Once here he made a very good living as a waiter in a hotel restaurant. Being a waiter was a step down for him, since he had hotel management experience, but the pay was good and the benefits were great. Until one day when he and 30 other people were called in and told they were being laid off. Ritz claims that 10% of the hotel staff lost their jobs that day.

Ritz has interviewed for and tried jobs he wouldn’t normally want because of his long-term unemployment. One job involving ferrying children to tourist attractions had him out from around 4am until after midnight and paid less than $100 for the entire day. That does hurt.

So I pose the question to you: Can the rejection of unemployment hurt more than the rejection of a relationship?

[image courtesy of Sean MacEntee via Flickr]