• A&E

  

  A Little Village in the Big City

• SPORTS

  

  Spring In, Fall Back

• FEATURES

  

  Emily Martin: Hitting All the Right Keys

• OPINIONS

  

  Wasted Potential

Mayoral Control: Efficient Decision Making or One Man Rule?

By SADIE BERGEN

Before Mayor Michael Bloomberg was elected, “most observers agree that the school system was a big mess,” Stuyvesant’s Parent Coordinator, Harvey Blumm said. “Nobody had control or accountability.” The members of the Board of Education (BOE) were picked by the mayor and each borough president. And then the BOE picked a chancellor. However, this system meant that members had separate and often conflicting loyalties, and “nothing really got done,” Blumm said. (More...)

Emily Martin: Hitting All the Right Keys

By HANNAH O’GRADY

Many of us will only gaze from a distance at Gracie Mansion, the Mayor’s formal, white-columned residence. Some might gawk at its fancy rooms during a guided tour. But on Friday, May 1, while many Stuyvesant students were unwinding after a long week of cramming for Advanced Placement exams, sophomore Emily Martin was cruising in a limo to the mansion on the East River—for the second time. She was on her way to play the piano for Mayor Bloomberg and “some congressmen,” Martin said modestly, just two weeks after being invited to entertain “a bunch of UN ambassadors.” The gig at Gracie Mansion came about as a result of a last-minute recommendation from chorus director Holly Hall. (More...)

Spring In, Fall Back

By EDDIE CYTRYN

4:00 p.m. Wednesday May 20. It was a quiet, humid, spring day in City Hall Park. Kids sucked on popsicles and sat on the edge of the fountain while adults relaxed in the lush oasis of downtown New York. (More...)

Neighborhood Profile: Cultural Heaven or Yuppie Haven?

By JACOB SUNSHINE

Bronze statues dot the plazas. People gossip and talk about politics on street corners. Traders hawk mysterious perfumes and gold ornaments. This is not the Roman Forum, not an acropolis in Ancient Athens, but rather the culturally rich and diverse neighborhood of Harlem in New York City. (More...)

The Forgotten Film Reel: The Band’s Visit

By SARA HASSAN

In the bleached white setting of the Negev Desert, the sky-blue uniforms of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra stand out. In Eran Kolirin’s “The Band’s Visit,” an Egyptian police band is on its way to perform at the Arab Cultural Center in Petah Tiqva, led by the stubbornly self-reliant Tawfiq Zakaria (Sasson Gabai). When they get lost in the fictional town of Bet Hatikva, they are forced to rely on the kindness of Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), an equally self-reliant restaurant owner who, along with friends Itzik (Rubi Moschovich) and Papi (Shlomi Avraham), gives them a place to stay until the buses began running again the next morning. It is during this night that the Arab and Jewish cultures clash in a strangely new way: Tawfiq, bound by his duties to represent the nation of Egypt, promotes a strained and civil manner among his men. (More...)

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