“This is a very inclusive event,” said Laura Daley, the Director of Development at East Side House Settlement, a South Bronx non-profit that works on community education through family development. “Between the people racing in wheelchairs to those from all over the world coming to race here, it’s incredible. The marathon is for everyone.” 

A runner pushes a wheelchair participant in The Bronx and The New York City Marathon. Photo by Laurel Poole. November 7th, 2021.

The Bronx supports this idea, with people of every age and class coming together to dance and cheer on runners they may or may not know. 

Set up with a table of balloons and cowbells, Daley was tracking eight runners that she had never met before.  

“Go Willie!” cheered Daley. “I don’t know him, but he seemed like he needed that extra little boost.” 

This is how the entire city, especially those within the boroughs orient themselves towards the marathon. While running or cheering in the Bronx, a person becomes a member of the community. 

Stationed in front of their community center in the South Bronx, Daley and other organizers cheered on their marathon team for the seventh year in a row. 

“It’s so fun, everybody gets onboard,” said Daley. “It’s a charity race, so most of these runners are running for a cause that they care about.” 

This year, East Side House Settlement has a team of eight people from all over the country who volunteered to run. They have raised more than $40,000 in 2021 for the charity. 

The funding will go towards East Side House Settlement’s daycare and afterschool programs, college access programs, and career training. The center has been a proud Bronx establishment since the 1960s.  

“It’s a great opportunity for charities to fundraise and meet new people, and to support people who support us,” Daley said. 

Since being established in 2006, the New York City Marathon charity program has raised over $350 million for over 1,000 non-profits globally. Runners pass by one of these non-profits in the Bronx. The East Side House Settlement’s buildings are all “within spitting distance” of the marathon, according to Daley. 

As the top edge of the marathon map, and a turning point before the finish line stretch, spectators can feel the excitement that runners have rounding the corner onto Morris Avenue. 

“Running through all of the boroughs of New York City is pretty iconic,” said Daley. “Especially turning the corner in the Bronx.” 

The post Community Organizations in the Bronx Welcome Back the New York City Marathon appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

According to a study conducted in San Francisco, book return late fees affect high-need communities disproportionately. Within the New York, Brooklyn, and Queens library systems those with a median household income below $50,000 were six times more likely to gain fines and have their card blocked. 

Fritzi Bodenheimer is the Press Officer with the Brooklyn Public Library. She said  that removing late fees aims to eliminate a barrier for those returning to the library this fall.

“A lot of people when they get fines, they also get nervous and then they don’t come back to the library,” said Bodenheimer. “That’s the last thing we want to happen. We really don’t want to go after people for their money, we just want the books back.”

Bodenheimer also said that those impacted frequently by fines are the most vulnerable in the community. The public libraries are able to track overdue books and the percentage of blocked cards within different branches, while checking the neighborhood’s poverty and income rates. In 2017, the libraries assessed blocked cards citywide and found that 80 percent of blocked youth cards were located in low-income communities.

Nancy Mandl has been a cardholder at the Brooklyn Public Library for over 30 years. She said that the new policy will hopefully correct practices that were isolating to low-income people in the community.

“Research shows that it wasn’t working,” said Mandl. “They were just setting up a blockage to people coming back to the library. They weren’t making any money from it and it was slowing book returns down.”

Mandl is optimistic about the new policy’s potential for attracting youth back to the libraries after the pandemic. 

Callie Eisner, 22, is originally from Philadelphia, and is a student at Hunter College in Manhattan. She said  that the New York Public Library has been a safe haven for her throughout the pandemic. 

“Since I moved here for school, being able to use the libraries when everything was online helped me connect with the city and feel more at home here,” Eisner said. 

For many people who are new to the city, the public library is a place to build community. Among its 92 locations, the New York Public Library system puts on 93,000 events each year. Meaning it shouldn’t be a place that people avoid. Eisner said  that returning books to the Manhattan branches can be inconvenient, causing stress with late fees. 

Kathy Clarke, 43, also stressed over late fees. She said that it was easy to avoid fines for her personal check-outs, but as a nanny it was difficult to keep track of her family’s. 

“We had to come up with a system,” said Clarke. “We made a rule that no library books could go on the bookshelf and the receipt with the date had to be highlighted on the fridge.” 

Late fines made the library a nuisance in Clarke’s work. She said that the new policy changed her attitude towards bringing the kids in, although she is skeptical about whether people will return their books on time. 

“It’s a give and take situation,” Clarke said. “You know, everyone will have to do their part returning the books now. But, hopefully, it will help people come in more.” 

Library cards used to be blocked once they reached a fine of $15. Now the program only asks for late books to be returned in order to check out new ones. 

According to Brooklyn Library Press Officer Bodenheimer, other urban systems that have eliminated late fines, like the Seattle Public Library, still see books being returned on time. People may assume that without late fines there is no incentive for cardholders to bring the books back, but this isn’t the case.

“People don’t keep the books,” said Bodenheimer. “They generally respect the contract that a library has and wants to promote, which is providing a vast resource for the whole community to share.”

In Chicago specifically, eliminating late fines caused a 240 percent increase in book returns. Almost 11,000 cardholders who had fees erased with the policy then renewed or replaced their cards within a year. Five months after eliminating late fees 361,000 books were checked out, marking a seven percent increase from the previous year in only a few months. 

More than 50 different library systems across the country have moved to eliminate late fines, but as a combined system the NYPL is now the largest to do so. This marks a major change in equitable accessibility to learning resources. 

“We always say that libraries are the most democratic institutions,” Bodenheimer said. “You can come into the library and everything we have is free. You don’t have to have a certain income, you don’t have to buy a cup of coffee, you can stay all day and buy nothing. Fines challenged that notion, but now we can really say it.”

The post New York Public Library cancels late fees appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

The bar is a Liverpool Football Club “official” fanbase, and there has been an uptick in excitement towards the sport over the last two years. Owner Vinnie Evans is a New York transplant from Liverpool, but has been in the city since 1999. He opened the bar in May of 2012 and has watched it grow in popularity, especially over the last two years. 

Vinnie Evans is originally from Liverpool and has watched the team grow in popularity over the last two years. Photo by Laurel Poole

Evans said that the English Premier League, including teams like Liverpool, is different from others because of the sense of loyalty and community. 

“It’s easy to see why people are becoming Liverpool supporters because we have the best history, the best fans, and ultimately the best community anywhere,” Evans said. 

With a slogan like, “You’ll never walk alone” it’s not hard to imagine why people are becoming Liverpool fans following a year of isolation. Many take the slogan quite seriously, with some people saying it to each other solemnly as a friend leaves the bar. 

People like Michael Busa, who help to run the Liverpool FC Brooklyn branch think the audience has grown ever since their 2020 Premier League championship.

“It’s hard to say whether this is people becoming fans of the club since COVID hit, or since we started winning games,” Busa said. 

Tom Farrell was walking down the street with his two year-old daughter in 2014, when he described seeing a wave of red heading into the Monro. After wandering in, the two became regular visitors and fans of the club. Farrell noticed a big difference in people’s attitude towards the club in the last two years.

“A decade ago they wouldn’t even show these games on TV, no one would have been here,” Farrell said. “But during COVID, people would reserve seats in the backyard just to sit outside in 30 degree weather. There were more people reserving seats and coming in just because they wanted the community of it [The Monro].” 

A close opportunity for Liverpool to score hits the sidebar and gets fans hopes up at the Monro Pub in South Slope. Photo by Laurel Poole

With shows like “Ted Lasso” rising in popularity, American audiences are intrigued by the global soccer community. The series is an Apple TV comedy detailing an American football coach becoming accustomed to coaching in the English Premier League. Echoing themes from Liverpool’s slogan, the show details how a sport can bring people together. 

Demian Knott has worked as a bartender at the Monro Pub since November of 2019. He said that stay-at-home orders actually caused a spike in interest.

“You know, because of the time difference, games are on from like 10:00 am to 5:00 pm which was difficult [to watch] before,” Knott said. “But with everyone working from home, it was like perfect to have on in the background.

Slowly, Knott believes people started finding their team affiliation and the Monro. Or the other way around. 

Demian Knott has been a bartender at the Monro since 2019. Here he is pouring drinks before the game starts, while everyone finds their seats. Photo by Laurel Poole

According to research from Nottingham Trent University, being in community while going through a crisis has major mental health benefits. During the COVID-19 pandemic, soccer allowed people to connect over traditions they don’t even understand- like memorizing the ending anthem of each Liverpool game. 

No one in the bar seemed to know where it came from or why they sing it (along with many of the other songs), but they threw themselves into the lyrics,

“When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high

And don’t be afraid of the dark”

The post Park Slope bar captures soccer frenzy appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

As a newly trained firefighter, Minogue was taking his first vacation day when he saw Flight 11 crash into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. He grabbed his uniform and told his wife, “I’m going to work. I’m not sure when I’ll be back.” 

Minogue watched the towers fall as he drove along Grand Central Parkway. After arriving at the firehouse in Corona, Queens, Minogue was dispatched to Ground Zero. When his company got to the Twin Towers, “Everything just stopped in time. We walked through the glass and we saw the pit. We saw the World Trade Center.” 

Minogue said it was like a scene from a movie, with so much ash falling that it was almost black. He noticed how bizarre the rest of his company looked, 

“They were just covered, like somebody opened a bag of flour and dropped it on them,” he said.“Their eyelids were caked with it.” 

Three days later, Minogue’s role with the fire department changed. With 343 firefighters lost on September 11th, they needed someone to play taps, the 35 second song played by a single trumpet at the end of service member’s funerals. 

 “So, I would still go to work, then I would go to a funeral to play taps. Sometimes two, sometimes three funerals a day. In the end, it got so busy I was pretty much offline,” Minogue said. 

With only one other bugler in the NYFD, Minogue played taps at around 170 9/11 memorial services. Yet, each song was never the same.

“I played it different for everybody, because everybody is unique,” he said.“I think everybody needed a different song. Ya know, for me, it’s a gift that I could give back.”

Minogue kept playing taps as a fire department lieutenant, but in 2006 he developed a cough. At age 46, Minogue developed stage four throat cancer and high-grade bladder cancer from exposure to the 9/11 ash and debris.

 “Everything I had done with the ceremonial unit was over, they had to run without me,” he said. The illnesses forced Minogue to retire and leave the fire department. 

As of September 2021, over 200 active and retired NYC firefighters have died of illnesses linked to 9/11 according to the Scientific American. Even more have developed cancer and survived, including Minogue, who said it was because of his strong attitude.

“Two doctors, separately, would call me the poster boy,” he said. “My friend Mark and I had radiation burns and our faces were all red, but we were always smiling and laughing.” 

Many of Minogue’s friends and colleagues also deal with the lasting health effects of being at Ground Zero. The destruction of the Twin Towers created an ash of computers, concrete, and pipes that first responders inhaled. In 2019, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published a study finding that 9/11 first responders are 25% more likely to develop prostate cancer, 41% more likely to develop Leukemia, and two times more likely to develop thyroid cancer compared to other people. 

On this 20th anniversary of 9/11, Minogue is still playing taps on his trumpet, but said he doesn’t have enough breath to hold the last note. Despite all of his health problems, he said he would still go back and do the same thing again. 

“When you’re on this earth, you have to do the best you can for others, without asking anything in return,” he said. “That’s it.”

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