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New York Media Boat buys new vessel

Helicopter Lands at Chelsea Piers.

Lisa Kidd, a native of Tunbridge Wells, England, said that her experience on New York Media Boat’s “Adventure Sightseeing Tour” was exhilarating. “New York has so many highlights, but this [tour] may top it,” Kidd said. 

Michael DeVoll said that his husband freaked out when he realized how close the U.S. Navy-style boat would put him to the Hudson River. But the Houston, Texas resident said that the tour was a “mystical experience” due to the warm and bleak weather. DeVoll said he appreciated the tour guide’s vast knowledge, improvisation and personalization.

Barri Arnold Thompson enjoyed her family adventure tour so much that she traveled from her home in Columbia, S.C. to do the tour a second time with her employees. She said, “we did it again because it was so awesome.”

Due to business from serial clients like Thompson and word-of-mouth referrals, like those DeVoll and Kidd received, New York Media Boat was able to purchase a 30-foot boat in early October that will nearly triple the number of people they may have on board.

The Media Boat captain points out a New York City landmark to guests.

The vessel, which seats 15 passengers, is the newest addition to the five-boat fleet. The boat can reach 600 horsepower. CEO Bjoern Kils said the boat’s dual engines increase its dependability and power. Kils said the purchase will allow the company to take tourists out on the Hudson and East Rivers in larger groups. They were only allowed six passengers previously.  

Kils launched New York Media Boat in 2010 to take film and television crews around New York Harbor. Kils said he noticed that the city was being covered both on land and from the air, but that no one was reporting from the water. The Emmy-Award-nominated photojournalist purchased a single boat and first chartered it to media connections he made during his journalism career.

New York Media boat sails down the Hudson River.

New York Media Boat launched its tourism arm in 2012. Kils said that since then, the company’s growth has been exponential. He attributes the increase in business to word-of-mouth and a visible online presence. “Last year there was a whale in the harbor that got 100,000 hits on our website,” Kils said.   

The addition of the new vessel resulted in an uptick in charters for large groups and company outings, Kils said.  

Kils said the company has done television shoots for CNN, “The Bachelorette,” and “America’s Got Talent.” Vogue Magazine chartered a New York Media Boat vessel to shoot the September issue; Jennifer Lawrence was the cover model.

Former broadcaster left her career in journalism for the word “moist” and a comedy club stage

Abby Feldman begins her comedy set in front of a kiddie pool, live from The Creek and the Cave in Long Island City on Feb. 1, 2018.

Abby Feldman wants to know why the word moist makes everyone so uncomfortable. “Everything good is moist,” Feldman said.

Feldman – clad in nothing but a bikini, a pair of winter boots, and a black down coat – stood in front of a kiddie pool at The Creek and the Cave comedy club Thursday, Feb. 1 and performed her love-and-romance-themed set “Moist.”

The set was an in-person spin-off of Feldman’s live, bathtub-shot web series by the same name. Prior to the show, Feldman polled audience members on what made them uncomfortable in relationships and used the content on stage.

Ben Gordon, technical director of The Creek and the Cave, said Feldman’s comedy was unlike anything he usually sees at the club. “[Feldman] takes a real personal angle, asking people what makes them uncomfortable, and tries to find funny ways to spin it,” Gordon said.

Audience members Madeleine Goldsmith and Brandon Garner said the experience made them feel like “naughty children.”

Feldman saying the word “moist” at The Creek and the Cave in Long Island City on Feb. 1, 2018.  She said she does not understand why the word “moist” makes so many people uncomfortable.

“The idea of having a show talking about stuff that makes you uncomfortable is really fun,” Goldsmith said.

But Feldman is relatively new to the comedy profession, only becoming a professional comedian after a stint in journalism.

While creating a documentary about individuals living in an Argentinian psychiatric facility on a Fulbright fellowship in 2012, Feldman said she realized she was no longer interested in journalism.

“It’s irresponsible to be constantly pumping out all of this negative information and filling people with fear,” she said and continued, “I didn’t want to be objective.”

Feldman said she wanted to make people laugh.

Audience members react to Feldman’s comedy at The Creek and the Cave in Long Island City on Feb. 1, 2018.

And she said she plans to continue to do so, using taboo and uncomfortable topics in her comedy.

Feldman said she would eventually like to trade in her kiddie pool for something better: a beveled, jade tub, with a steam room made of Himalayan salt, infused with eucalyptus and covered in crystals.

A Day in the Life of Hannah Flood

Hannah Flood is a young farmer who lives in New York City and works in the Hudson Valley.

Every morning, Hannah Flood, 24, drives up to Linden Farm in Westchester, NY from her apartment in Washington Heights. Flood has been running the farm since the fall of 2016, when it was purchased by WeWork co-founders Adam and Rebekah Neumann. Linden Farm grows vegetables, herbs, and flowers for WeWork employees in the form of a CSA, a Community Supported Agriculture system. The company subsides the CSA shares for their employees, to provide quality produce for healthier employees.

The Neumanns wanted more access to local organic food for their business, which provides communal working spaces for startups and entrepreneurs. “I’ve always thought that people cater CSAs to families a lot,” Flood said and continued, “But I think there’s something to getting more produce to this younger demographic.” Although starting a farm didn’t seem like the ideal job for a young woman, due to the large amount of harsh physical labor the task demanded, Flood convinced Mr. Neumann she was the best person for the job. In the farm’s earlier stages, Flood worked alone. Now, she has three people working under her.

Flood believes WeWork’s initiative can influence other businesses to adopt a similar system, providing easier access to fresh produce in cities and valuing small local farmers. “This is opening the door for so many small farms collaborations with big business,” she said. Another reason for taking the job, Flood says, was to pay off her student loans. Working at Linden, she gets paid a salary, which is rare for farmers.

Growing up in a rural part of Michigan, down the street from a blueberry farm where she worked as a kid, Flood discovered she enjoyed working with food and plants at an early age. She studied Horticulture at Michigan State University, focusing on fruits, vegetables, and ornamental plants. During her freshman year of college, she worked at high school helping students build fences for an urban farm, and that’s when it clicked: “I want to do this farming thing,” she said and continued, “I just committed and went.”

To pay for her tuition, Flood farmed, bartended, managed the university’s compost program, and worked at the university’s organic farm. “I credit that farm for who I am,” Flood said and continued, “It changed my life.” She learned how to drive a tractor from her production manager, how to weld from the maintenance crew, and discovered her passion for flowers. Flood currently works full-time at Linden and has recently opened her own flower arrangement business with her friend Amanda. “It’s such a nice balance to do with farming food because [flowers are] so much less serious,” Flood said and continued, “They’re just there to be beautiful.”

Flood tends to a strip of spinach, one of the few things that grow in harsh cold temperatures. “The best part about farming is that it erases every season,” Flood said and continued, “and you reset and you get to start again.” This ephemeral quality is what she loves most about flowers: they represent the feeling of one moment, and, since they die, that feeling is never corrupted, and the moment is preserved.

This winter has consisted of a lot of building: Flood and the other farmers have built a cooler and a small greenhouse, and they are preparing to build a bigger one, which will take up almost half of the farm’s working field. Meanwhile, Flood keeps busy doing small, indoor tasks, such as sorting through flowers and seeds. Here, she cuts edible flowers, which she will use to make teas and infusions.

Flood, who was once intimidated by the male dominance in the field, hopes to one day work in an environment where women farmers can learn from one another and focus on how to make tools and equipment better for women. “We need representation in this field,” she said and continued, “We need people saying, ‘straight, six-foot-tall white men are not the majority anymore.’”

Flood claims she got her “farmer-dash-entrepreneur” gene from her mother, a great cook who is confident she will get her “big break” from one of her many ideas. Right now, Flood’s focus is figuring out a better system for the CSA, so that WeWork can scale the initiative and provide for more offices.

Alex Ruiz: A Female Barber in Manhattan

Alex Ruiz is a barber at Harry’s Cornershop on MacDougal Street in New York City. On Friday, February 23 she started her day at 9:30 a.m.

Each appointment begins with a consultation. Some clients bring in photos; others stick to what Alex has done before and request the usual. Alex chats with her regular clients and lets them know that in two weeks she will be moving to another barbershop down the street since Harry’s is closing its doors.

This summer will mark 20 years that Alex has been a barber. She completed the required 500 hours of training at the Atlas Barber School and started working at her uncle’s chain of barbershops.

Alex has lots of regular clients and remembers different details about their life: their astrological signs and birthdays, stories of how their parents met. “I’m part barber, part therapist,” she said and continued, “I hear about everything: wives, girlfriends, medical problems, everything.”

Between appointments, Alex drinks strawberry milk, the only ‘girly’ colored item in her arsenal. Alex has had experiences with sexist clients and said, “Some guys don’t think I can cut beards because I don’t have one, but I like beards on guys, I’ve seen a lot of them, plus you know, this is my job. I know what I’m doing.”

Alex is open about having worked at a shop where she was sexually harassed by the owner and his son. She’s happy that the number of female barbers is on the rise since when she started, there was only a handful.

After lunch, Alex reapplies her lipstick in the barber chair. She and Angle, who mans the front desk joke about her extensive makeup routine. She blowdries her lipstick before her next client walks in.

Alex was born in Queens and lives in the Bronx with her 17-year-old son. She dreams of living somewhere with a backyard where she could enjoy a glass of wine. She is thinking about moving back to Queens or Flushing after her son graduates high school.

A Day in the Life of Producer, Poet, and Shop Owner Noni Williamston

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“We know Tongue is a political erotic series. It’s not porn on the mic, but it’s a stretch for intersectionality. So how do we address that as beings?” Noni Williamston, founder of the production company Newark Women in Film, asked her poetry group as they prepared for their show on Black kink on February 22, titled “Tongue.” “Our theme is, in order to decolonize our minds, we have to decolonize our bodies,” she said. She later explained this meant that sexuality and the role of the body are often not discussed in the conversation about eradicating racism, however, she says it should be.

IMG_9577The women congregated in Williamston’s Newark, NJ home that morning to practice and refine their poems. Williamston adorned her dining room with posters from her internationally recognized film production company. Williamston considers herself an “ethical entrepreneur” as she not only runs her female-centered film company, but also owns a store which sells organic beauty products, and organizes for-profit events for her poetry group. Her film organization produces films coming solely from Newark women while her poetry group venerates the voices of Newark women writers. “The literacy rate in Newark is so low compared to the places around us,” Williamston said and continued, “I hope me and my women can help change that.”

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D’or, one Williamston’s oldest friends in the group, rehearsed a poem with a rap embedded within it. She was unbashful as she bellowed out lines about sex and her own body. “It’s all about how you were raised,” D’or said before she began her poem. “I’m extremely comfortable with my body. As soon as I find out there’s a naked room at a club, my friends already know I’m going to be gone for the night.”

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“As a writer, I believe words can go anywhere. Today’s word is fluid. Words are fluid, language is fluid,” Williamston said as she prepared the heat press used to create the t-shirts she planned on selling at the show.

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At around 6:00 p.m. the women of Tongue migrated to the Mocha Lounge where they’d be reading their array of political erotic pieces and marketing their own merchandise. Williamston displayed her hand-made, organic beauty products which she sells at her store in Newark, The Conscious Room. Williamston explained how there is a myriad of avenues to “decolonizing your body,” one being poetry, another being skin care.

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Newark locals began to flock into the confines of Mocha lounge, transforming the coffee shop into a stage for Black kink poetry. “I love the people of Newark,” Williamston said. “I came here from Texas and I noticed right away that it was all Black people here. But there’s Black Caribbean, Black Puerto Rican, Black Mexican—there’s so much diversity within our community.”

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Williamston and D’or prepared for the show by checking the mics. D’or had to ensure that everything was in place for her first piece, where she would enter the room strolling down the stairs and fanning herself with a black lace fan while “It’s a Man’s Man’s World” played in the background.

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Williamston opened the show by introducing herself by her stage name, Poet on Watch and proclaiming a phrase she repeatedly stated throughout the night, “If your Black revolution does not include Black women, queer people, or people with disabilities, then it is simply white supremacy with a darker face.”

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After seven different poets take the stage and fill the room with their thoughts on racial inequality, the politics of sex and what it means to be both black and queer, Williamston finishes the show with her poem, “What I Want in my Bed.” The audience began to snap as she read out the lines, “Turning over to your morning joy with sunshine beaming through my gapped teeth.”

Williamston hoped that her audience would receive the piece with the same excitement she felt while writing it. “Whatever energy we put into our work as creators, that’s the energy people will get out of it,” said Williamston. “I cannot create something that destroys me. What is that going to do for me, my work, or the people consuming it?”

Day in the Life: A Syrian Family Escaping War

Bisher Samman, 28, fled Syria in 2012 due to the civil war. He left abruptly, so he could not complete his three-year business management program; only eleven credits from his entire Syrian education transferred. He is now enrolled at Manhattan Community College, and works part-time as a cashier at a local pharmacy. He must redo his coursework while caring for his family in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. “I have to pick my mom up from the doctor’s office. She’s the boss of the house,” he said.

Bisher’s mother picks up her flu medication at the Nu-Edge local pharmacy. After settling into the Syrian community in Bay Ridge, the Samman family encourages their relatives to also seek refuge in the United States. Her brother applied for asylum through the United Nations two years ago, but his case stopped once Trump entered office. She worries about the portrayal of Muslims under the new administration. “We are very bad in media, the Muslims,” she said and continued, “They think we are oppressed. Even if we are wearing hijabs, it does not stop us from anything else. We can go anywhere. We can study. We can marry.”

Bisher’s father, Walah, works as a hardware wholesaler in Syria. He travels back and forth between the United States and Damascus to import and export products. However, business has declined due to the civil war. “Since the war started, everything stopped,” Bisher said and continued, “We lost tons of money. We used to have eleven workers in the store; now we only have two. We lost business. People die. People lost everything. You cannot ask anyone to give you money at a time like this. Last week, a bomb fell in front of his store. Thank Allah no one was hurt.”

The Nu-Edge Pharmacy located at 707 5th Ave in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, employs Bisher along with other Middle Eastern immigrants. More than a store, the Nu-Edge Pharmacy stands as a pillar in the Bay Ridge Arabian community. Employees gift the pharmacy with novelties from their home countries such as Syria, Egypt and Palestine. They watch soccer during business hours, and speak Arabic to the customers.

In his quiet neighborhood in Brooklyn, Bisher goes outside for a quick smoke. Even after six years, he still struggles with calmness. “After the war in Syria started, we did not sleep for a few days,” Bisher said and continued, “It was just bombing, bombing, bombing…”

Bisher’s younger brother, Sam, 5, attends an elementary school with other Middle Eastern children in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He was born in the United States. On weekends, Sam spends quality time with family and watches his favorite television show, Spongebob Squarepants. “My tooth just broke off,” he said.

Sam wears a tarbosh — a Middle Eastern headdress, and presents an adorned tray — a seneya –for serving meals. During business trips to Damascus, Bisher’s father, Walah, collects hand-designed Syrian antiques for their home.

Bisher’s mother prepares afternoon coffee on the stove. Stronger than traditional coffee, the Syrian blend — kahwa — carries a potent, dark taste. “Most people cannot handle the bitterness,” she said.

Sam helps his older brother, Bisher, with household chores in the kitchen and prepares the coffee tray.

From Fedoras to Fascinators: a Day in the Life of a Milliner

British milliner Julia Knox looks at her to-do list on Sunday, October 15. The hat maker owns and operates East Village Hats on East Seventh and First Avenue, where she handmakes hats for women and men on premises. Customers can pick up a pre-made hat or have one custom made. “About 40 percent of customers will get them custom,” Knox said.

At East Village Hats, headwear from straw hats to fascinators (or headpieces) to felt fedoras line the walls and the shelves. Knox, who was trained in millinery at the Fashion Institute of Technology, makes most of the hats in the store. She prefers to make casual hats, instead of the fancier statement pieces popular in her home country of England.

Knox sews in a ribbon to what will become a felt porkpie hat using a sewing machine from the late 1800s. Felt is Knox’s favorite material to work with due to its versatility and flexibility. “Felt is really easy to work with, it’s really sculptural, it holds its shape, whereas straw is more fragile, you’ve got limits,” Knox said.

Knox takes a blowtorch to a felt fedora in order to create a distressed look that she says is in fashion. The heat creates a light discoloration to the dark blue felt and ribbon, making it look as if the material was bleached.

After working for a few hours, Knox stops at nearby taqueria for a burrito. East Village Hats, which was known as Barbara Feinman Millinery before Knox took over and renamed and relocated the shop just down the street, has been an East Village staple since 1998.

Leaning on a stack of Panama straw hats, Knox talks to a customer about the merits and history of Panamanian straw. Throughout the day, a steady stream of people wander in, attracted to the hats in the window, and wander out without buying anything. But Knox welcomes regulars with open arms as well, offering up hats she thinks they’d like and chatting easily.

What’s Eating Actresses?

In the entertainment industry body image is an issue that many actresses are hyper aware of. The woman in this film explain the body image issues and eating disorders obstacles while working in a field that is constantly pitting them against one another.