Talking the Bronx 04.17.13
Open House: Solace on the Line
This coming Fri., Apr. 19th from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m., the Bronx Museum of the Arts will present an Open House of its new exhibit Solace on the Line.
A year ago, Todd Heisler, a New York Times staff photographer who has won two Pulitzer Prizes for photography, and Susan Hartman, a journalist whose stories have been featured in The New York Times, Newsday, and The Christian Science Monitor collaborated on a photo essay about an extraordinary “prayer call” that unites members of the Ebenezer Assembly of God Church in the Bronx.
The prayer phone call, held at least twice a day, is a consolation for Assembly of God’s members, many of whom are live-in healthcare aides who work for weeks at a time without going home to their Bronx neighborhoods. On their cell phones, singing prayers in Twi (the language most spoken in Ghana), they connect with their pastor, Benjamin Boakye, and each other.
Solace on the Line, extends their stories.
The exhibition features Todd Heisler’s photos of congregants on cell phones at work in patient’s homes, sitting on Manhattan park benches as well as at a joyous church service that culminated in the christening of a baby girl.
An accompanying video, A Higher Calling, follows the 6’ 4” Pastor Boakye in his storefront church. For more, please visit www.toddheisler.com.
Susan Hartman’s text details the lives of these congregants, and what the call means to them. Inspiration for the story came while she watched her mother’s live-in home health aide on a prayer call with Pastor Boakye, singing as she threaded beads into a necklace.
For more, please visit www.susanhartman.net.
The Bronx Museum is located at 1040 Grand Concourse at 165th Street.
For more information on the exhibit, please visit www.bronxmuseum.org or call 718.681.6000.
Monroe College to host 4th Annual Male Empowerment Event
Monroe College will host its 4th Annual Male Empowerment event with over 400 local high school students this Thurs., Apr. 18th from 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at the King Hall Gymnasium, located at 2501 Jerome Avenue (north of Fordham Road). This is a role-modeling event designed to inspire young men to achieve in school and in life. Serving as key speakers are Ryan Mack, President and CEO of Optimum Capital Management, LLC and Cedric Perry, producer and author. Mack will speak on what is takes to succeed and Perry will be doing a live taping of one of his programs during the event. In attendance also will be doctors, attorneys, police officers, firefighters, bankers, professors, Monroe faculty, staff, and student counselors. The professionals present will be matched up with groups of young men for more intimate discussions on the value of education, participating in productive activities, fatherhood, relationships, and other related subjects in an effort to combat the issues that keep young men from succeeding.
For more information or to RSVP, please contact Garvin Reid at 646.393.8551 or at greid@monroecollege.edu.
SHARE NY Luncheon
Safe, Healthy, Affordable and Reliable Energy (SHARE) is hosting a luncheon workshop for business owners to learn about Entergy’s supplier diversity program on Thurs., May 2nd from 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. This event will take place at Don Coqui Restaurant, 105 Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains, NY.
Contractors, environmental and waste management, chemical, engineering, maintenance, electrical and HVAC vendors are encouraged to attend.
Walter Lloyd, Director of Supplier Diversity and Sam Davis, Senior Manager for Materials, Purchasing and Procurement of Entergy will be the featured speakers. Their presentation will provide detailed information on the supplier diversity program and how Entergy awards contracts to minority and women owned businesses (MWBE’s).
Entergy, a SHARE member, owns and operates the Indian Point Energy Center in Westchester County, NY that generates approximately 2,000 megawatts of electricity for homes, business and public facilities in New York City and Westchester County.
“With an increased focus on clean and affordable energy like nuclear power, SHARE is committed to providing its members a platform to explore and discuss business opportunities in this space,” stated Frank Fraley, President, SHARE New York.
Business owners are expected to leave with a comprehensive understanding of Entergy’s diverse suppliers’ operations, policies and business concepts. SHARE members and MWBE business owners will have an opportunity to speak directly with Entergy contracting representatives.
Limited seating is available and interested participants must RSVP by April 26th to rsvp@shareny.org or 212.905.8921.
Manhattan College hosts writer Honor Moore
Honor Moore, an award-winning poet, memoirist and nonfiction writer, will speak at Manhattan College on Wed., April 24th, as part of the English department’s Major Author Reading Series (M.A.R.S.). Moore’s 2008 memoir, The Bishop’s Daughter, was named “Editors’ Choice” by the New York Times Sunday Book Review and was selected as a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
The event will be held at 4:30 p.m. in Hayden Hall, Room 100. It is free and open to the public.
A former Times theater critic, Moore is also the author of three poetry collections and editor of several additional works, including the Library of America’s Amy Lowell: Selected Poems and The New Women’s Theatre: Ten Plays by Contemporary American Women, which includes Moore’s own Broadway play Mourning Pictures. She has received awards in poetry and playwriting from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts.
The Bishop’s Daughter is a chronicle of Moore’s turbulent relationship with her father, Paul Moore Jr., an Episcopal priest and activist who would become Bishop of New York, touching on issues of war, race, family, sexuality and faith. Praising “the power of the book’s raw emotional honesty,” the Times Book Review said of Moore’s relationship with her father: “This brave book is a testament to her own love for him.”
Designed to engage and expose students to modern literature, M.A.R.S. has brought several notable writers to campus for readings and book signings since its 2010 launch. They include Pulitzer Prize winners Junot Díaz, Jennifer Egan and Claudia Emerson; National Book Award finalist Joshua Ferris; essayist Phillip Lopate; and Marie Howe, the current Poet Laureate of New York State.
For more information on M.A.R.S., contact David Eye, visiting assistant professor of creative writing, at 718. 862.7921 or david.eye@manhattan.edu, or Adam Koehler, assistant professor of English, at 718. 862.7546 or adam.koehler@manhattan.edu.
