Earlier this year, the children living near the El Jardin del Paraiso public park in the East Village got to adopt and name the trees on their block. Now, as the adoptive “parents” walk to school each day, they pass “Smokey,” “The Stickbug,” and “Mama Hey Hey,” each of the seven trees identified by a plaque bearing its new name and the names of all the participating children. Webs of string cover the plant and flower-filled tree beds to make it harder to throw trash in them – which, up until last spring, was what everyone seemed to do.

The neighborhood’s efforts to restore the trees were made possible with the Citizens Committee for NYC’s “Love Your Block” grant, which gives up to $1,000 to 25 neighborhood groups for community projects.

J.K. Canepa, a member of the steering committee for the El Jardin del Paraiso Medicinal Plot, says that before the community came together to restore the trees in their neighborhood, the tree pits were de facto garbage cans.

“Somebody put some bulbs in there so a few little daffodils keep poking up in the springtime, but otherwise, it was bags of dog turds and candy wrappers and bottles,” Canepa said and continued, “It was horrible and the kids walked past it every day to go to school.”

In addition to the funding, the grant program, which is in its 11th year, also provides these 25 neighborhoods with assistance from the New York Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection, Sanitation, and Parks and Recreation.

When Canepa and her friend — co-applicant Marie Argeris — applied for the grant, they decided to take advantage of all four departments, getting the Department of Sanitation to pick-up trash from around the neighborhood, water barrels from the Department of Environmental Protection, bike racks from the Department of Transportation, and a tree pruner from the Department of Parks and Recreation who helped the kids plant.

According to the Citizens Committee program coordinator Marina Gonzalez Flores, while the program aims to support lower income neighborhoods, the larger impact is the cross-cultural and cross-gender relationships that people build within their neighborhoods.

“It’s not only just cleaning and planting something in the ground, but it’s also coming out and meeting the person who lives next to you or the new neighbor that has come into this neighborhood,” Flores said.

Canepa hopes that passing the adopted trees every morning and seeing their names will give the kids in El Jardin del Paraiso a sense of empowerment.

Transportation in New York City is characterized by crowded subway cars, speedy yellow cabs, and the grid system which makes for an extremely walkable landscape. With the launch of Citi Bike in New York in 2013, people are saying goodbye to these classic means of transportation and have welcomed biking as an efficient way to navigate the city.

Since its inception, nearly 300,000 people have joined the membership service, which costs only $169 per year, while an unlimited monthly MetroCard will run you $121. There are many pros to this service and biking in general, such as its attractive price, decreased carbon foot print and health benefits. However, as more and more people choose to bike as their primary mode of transportation, combating cyclist fatalities is crucial.

In 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio launched Vision Zero in New York City. This network “works to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries, while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all.” It also places responsibility on policy makers to anticipate potential accidents in city design.

Vision Zero was founded in Sweden and became the country’s official road policy in 1997. The strategy has worked tremendously considering that Sweden’s annual road death rate is 3 out of 100,000, while the United States’ is four times that.

Mayor de Blasio says one of his top priorities is to make city streets safer for all New Yorkers. In a letter on the Vision Zero website, de Blasio says, “We won’t accept this any longer. I make that pledge as a parent, and as your mayor.” With its Vision Zero program, the mayor’s office is working to reduce deaths and serious injury.

Unintentionally prophesied in the early 2000s by the likes of American rapper Eminem in his song “Stan,” stan culture and its growing prolificacy have become immensely widespread in recent years, enough so that Beyoncé’s dedicated fanbase, the Beyhive, were parodied on Saturday Night Live in 2014 and the term “stan” was entered into the lexicon of the Oxford English Dictionary earlier this year.

Despite the subculture’s prevalence online and in burgeoning youth cultures that cannot separate themselves from the internet’s omnipresence, most news media is lacking in its coverage of stan culture, and what limited coverage there is pertaining to it can be disparaging, with articles often noting the extreme extents to which some stans express their devotion to a celebrity they idolize.

The severity of sensationalism pertaining to stans this year alone has ranged from the harmless reporting of stans, sometimes deemed as superfans, waiting hours in line for a Lady Gaga concert in Miami to a celebrity gossip blog reporting on Taylor Swift’s legion of stans, dubbed Swifties, commenting rat and mouse emojis on Kim Kardashian’s Instagram posts to an article reporting on the aggressive nature some stans direct towards their own idols on Twitter.

Nolan Feeney, a music editor for Entertainment Weekly, reported on stans for the entertainment magazine, going so far as to interact with some on the social media platform, Twitter, and the online pop culture forum and stan mecca, ATRL. “I think a lot of articles about stans have been very sensational and focused on how they’re ‘crazy’ or ‘rabid,’” he said, “But I just knew there was more to it than that.”

The coverage of stans is made even worse by how the current definition of the term “stan” has been propagated by the Oxford English Dictionary as “[a]n overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity.”

Such an interpretation of stans and their prevailing culture in the contemporary world seems to bear some form of negative connotation with being a stan; as if to be a stan is to be Eminem’s “Stan,” i.e. someone who repeatedly and violently strives for acknowledgement from their favorite celebrity to a point where the obsessed fan would harm themselves or others for the attention of a celebrity.

Among those who consider themselves stans of a celebrity, there is a sense of a different perspective within stan communities of what it means to be a stan. Anthony Davis, 20, has been stanning Nicki Minaj since sixth grade, and finds the media’s portrayal of stans to be exaggerated yet sees truth in the culture’s obsessive tendencies.

“I feel like a stan is just engrossed in who they [celebrities] are as a person and everything,” Davis says as he scrolls through a seemingly endless Twitter feed on his phone teeming with images of and tweets in reference to the Queens rapper he devoutly follows.

Krista Burton, 20, is a Swiftie who has a different reasoning for what comprises a stan while also distinguishing her feelings as a stan from that of a fan.

“You can be a fan of a specific artist and not really place an emotional development in them,” she says. “But since Taylor Swift has been a huge part of my life and present throughout the journey, I don’t think the word ‘fan’ is strong enough to decide how I feel.”

However, Burton does recognize that there is a detrimental aspect to stans in this subculture of what some may regard as extreme fanaticism. “I think for a lot of people it can be really unhealthy,” she says. “I know Swifties who are always on their phone watching Taylor’s movements.”

“Like, they know when she’s online and they just start reposting their content to get noticed,” Burton continues. “It really gets unhealthy, obsessive, and stalker-ish.”

Regardless of Davis or Burton’s perceptions on what a stan is, it is certain that articles on the topic of stan culture are very few this year despite “stan” entering into the vernaculars of numerous teens and young adults, as well as of Nicki Minaj in her verse on Katy Perry’s song “Swish Swish” and of news outlets like Buzzfeed that tend to market themselves towards younger segments of the population.

A quick search of the term “stan” on Buzzfeed’s website yields more than 40 articles and listicles that relate to the word in some manner. A decent portion of these search results are in reference to comic book writer Stan Lee and actor Sebastian Stan.

Interestingly, however, the website seems to have overhauled its use of the word “stan” in over 25 pieces within the past two months alone. Of these pieces related to the term “stan” in Buzzfeed’s search results, only a few analyze the impact and psychology of the stan, with one analysis focusing on the media’s negative spin of fan and stan culture in pop music throughout time. The rest mostly use the term “stan” as if it were any other verb akin to “love” or “admire,” which provides a positive spin for a currently underrepresented and misrepresented culture in the news.

As much as Buzzfeed has begun overdosing much of its content with themes related to stan culture, even going so far as to have an entire week dedicated to stans this year, it seems to be the only non-specialized news outlet bringing it any form of considerable press coverage.

However, what content Buzzfeed does publish in relation to stans may not be enough to spur a movement like the fervor of groupies in the 60s, but it is comparatively more in quantity and, in some regard, quality; that is, if those other outlets are even publishing anything at all concerning an ever present subculture that has become less underground and more airborne nowadays thanks to the prevalence of the internet and social media making stanning more accessible to those with a Wi-Fi, broadband, or cellular connection.

What little media coverage stans do receive, Davis does not believe it is generally positive. “I think that the media portrayal is kind of skewed negatively, but I’m not sure if it’s always intentional,” he says. “The things that are worth talking about sometimes are the things other people outside of stan culture notice or when it gets extreme.”

Feeney believes the size of stan culture partially contributes its misrepresentation. “Part of [it] is just that stan culture is so big,” he says. “There are all kinds of stans and all kinds of stan communities and all sorts of ways to be a stan.”

Thomas Fortune, 21, stans multi-platinum solo artist, Beyoncé, and agrees that the media seems to represent the most extreme stans that “drag” and “come for” people mostly on the web. “It’s this unfiltered kind of anger and a celebrity as an excuse to come for people slash [sic] insult people,” says Fortune in his formal explanation of the two stan jargons mentioned.

Apart from the sensationalism of stan culture through the reporting on its most extreme proponents, the media representation of stan culture could be the result of a lack of journalists like Feeney who are well versed in contemporary pop and internet culture, or of a lack of being online where stan culture abounds in its natural habitats of social media comment sections and message boards on pop culture forums.

To improve on both the negative and lack of coverage of stan culture, Feeney suggests improving upon the coverage of pop music, which he believes is integral to stan culture considering how musicians tend to have greater and more represented stans in the media.

“I think you can’t really have serious, legit reporting and criticism about stan culture until after you have serious, legit reporting and criticism about pop music,” he says. “So I think as that trend continues or that type of pop coverage becomes more commonplace, coverage about stan culture will grow, too.”

Burton believes stan culture shares a direct relationship with the internet, and that it may receive better reception once both it and internet access mature. “I think stan culture is just beginning,” she says. “The more connected the world gets, the more intense stan culture will get.”

Whatever the trend may be for the coverage of stans, there are signs that it truly is in its beginning stages as Burton suggests, and that it is starting to receive fairer and wider coverage. Just this year, The New York Times culture reporter, Joe Coscarelli, highlighted the relationship between Taylor Swift and her Swifties, and how their strong relationship has emboldened Swifties to prevent leaks and preserve their matriarch’s good image.

Only time will tell whether the media reception of stans improves. All that is known is that these digital upgrades of now outdated groupies will continue subsisting off of Wi-Fi connections to feed their borderline obsessions of the idols they cherish. The internet is their sandbox and social media their pails and buckets which are rapidly forging virtual communities and societies that may soon rival those of the real world.

Major streets are blocked off. The subway is packed. Sidewalks are crowded and Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” blares from multiple directions, the bass turned up so earth-shatteringly loud that it can be heard through the Nassau Station underground. Despite all the commotion, the atmosphere in Greenpoint is not one of stress. It seems that today, on the morning of the 2017 TCS New York City Marathon, New Yorkers do not mind the disruption to the city’s sights and sounds.

At the corner of Manhattan Avenue and Greenpoint Avenue, spectators crowd along the street to see runners prepare to cross the Pulaski Bridge, marking the halfway point of the race. Neighborhood residents and international travelers alike bring the enthusiasm, practically dangling off fire escapes to wave posters and handing out free bananas by the bunch on the sidelines. There is a slight drizzle in the air, but that doesn’t deter the bands set up every few blocks playing covers of 80’s rock songs.

Christina, a resident of the neighborhood, came to the bustling intersection to cheer on three of her friends. “I’m two for three so far. I missed one,” she says, her neon pink poster rolled up below her arm. She has watched the race here four times now, though she claims she would never want to run it herself. Still, she loves the energy that the race brings to her area. “I think it’s really inspirational, and the camaraderie is great.”

While some only have to go out on their balconies or sit on their porches to see the race, others have to plan their trips months or even years in advance. Sharon, a woman in her mid forties, came all the way from South Africa with her husband to cheer him on in his first marathon. She stands on the sideline with a friend waving a full-size South African flag. She has never visited the city before this week, but her husband’s decision was more about timing than location. “Basically, it was in a year’s time from when the decision was made, and that’s enough time to train,” she says with a shrug.

A sight that brings a smile to the faces of nearly every runner that passes is a man in a full cow costume leaning over the sideline barrier, furiously rattling a cowbell and screaming cheers. Brian, who is from Seattle, is donning the outfit to cheer on his girlfriend and her sister, and chose the location because it’s nearby their Airbnb room. His favorite part of the race so far is the reactions of runners when they see total strangers cheering them on. “You can call anybody’s name here,” he says, then proves his point by screaming, “LET’S GO, MARY!” at a passing runner in a pink t-shirt with her name printed across the front.