We’ve all taken a stroll through the Bronx Zoo’s Butterfly Garden, where we’ve come face to face with over a dozen species of butterflies fluttering through a greenhouse, but would you do the same if the room was instead filled with 1000+ colorful budgies?

If you answered yes, then good news–now you can! And, if you answered no, allow us to potentially change your mind.

This Memorial Day Weekend the Bronx Zoo is bringing us its newest immersive experience–Budgie Landing.

Budgie Landing allows zoo guests to walk through a habitat filled with more than 1000 colorful budgies (or budgerigars if you’d like to get technical). The small, boisterous parrots will fly freely through the exhibit, boasting beautiful displays of their colorful feathers and, likely, chirping up a storm.

Guests will have the opportunity to feed the birds from a complementary handheld seed stick, and those lucky enough to get a budgie to nibble will receive an unforgettable up-close interaction.

Let’s be real, how often can you say you’ve come face to face with a budgie?!

Though budgies’ natural coloration is green with white and black accents, you’ll see budgies sporting a wide range of colors at Budgie Landing. This is due to the popularity of budgies as pets, which has inspired the breeding of many colors including blue, grey, white, yellow, and combinations of each.

And, being Budgie Landing was designed to replicate the Australian open woodlands and grasslands of their native range which spans the Australian continent, you’ll feel like you’re literally right at home–well, right at their home–with these boisterous birds.

Budgie Landing is a seasonal exhibit which opens Saturday, May 27 and will be open through October. The exhibit requires a ticket separate from park admission and is $5 per person ($3 per person for members).

Be sure to snag yourself a Bronx Zoo Total Experience Ticket for unlimited access to premium rides and attractions and guaranteed skip-the-line benefits the day of your visit!

The post Step Inside A World Of 1000+ Boisterous Birds At The Bronx Zoo appeared first on Secret NYC.

* This article was originally published here

Word of any new outdoor space in New York City is always a reason to cheer, especially when the digs are as iconic as this: just in time for its 140th birthday, the Brooklyn Bridge will welcome The Arches, a recreational space and community gathering spot set right beneath the landmark in Chinatown, located at the intersection of Rose Street and Avenue of the Finest.

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Announced by Mayor Eric Adams as well as community advocates of Gotham Park and Tony Hawk’s The Skatepark Project, the grand opening of The Arches included the restoration of the iconic Brooklyn Banks skatepark, which has been closed to the public for more than a decade. Along with the skatepark—whose nine-stair feature was broken in by VANS skateboarders like Ben Kadow, Dick Rizzo and Beatrice Domond during the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday, May 24—the new public space will also include outdoor recreations like pickleball, basketball and shuffleboard courts. 

* This article was originally published here

It is November of 2016.

I am in Los Angeles hanging with my friend Ty Davis and his wife Rose. We all three are attending the annual Thanksgiving group gathering to celebrate the holiday at the home of Cedric the Entertainer.

Aside from the Thanksgiving holiday dinner, I am also in LA to launch the first leg of my new documentary to tell the story about those behind Muhammad Ali’s return to the boxing ring in 1970 entitled, “Ali’s Comeback.” 

Early research brought several unusual individuals to my attention relating to this seminal event that lived in or near Los Angles. Jerry Quarry, Jr, son of Ali’s October 1970 opponent and his mother Kathleen, Robert Kassel; the neophyte boxing promoter who put up the $600,000 letter of credit to pay for the fight, Margaret B. Ware; personal assistant to the late Sammy Davis, Jr who attended the fight,  Howard Bingham, Ali’s long time friend and photographer, Stan Sanders, close friend to Howard Bingham,  Kareem Abdul Jabar, and Jim Brown the coordinator of  the 1967 Cleveland Conference where several top pro sportsmen professed their loyalty and support of Muhammad Ali’s stance against joining military during the Vietnam War.

I am a director in LA without a crew. But with the phenomenal help of my producer, Brittany Wyatt, and Henry Woods (“Mr. Resourceful”), who later becomes executive producer to Ali’s Comeback, they  harness this special opportunity to make several phone calls. They are able to lock in interviews with Robert Kassel, Jerry and Kathleen Quarry, Stan Sanders, and Margaret B. Ware. Margaret later stepped in with Howard Binghuam, but learned he was in hospice. Kareem simply bowed out. Henry,  assiduously worked on Jim Brown through his wife, Monique. But she would only give us a definitive “maybe.”

I commandeered my friends Ty and Anne Loreano to provide transportation and camera support in cruising down to Palms Desert to interview Robert Kassel, and to swing around to several other LA locations to acquire the other interviews.  It is several days later and we still have nothing from Monique on interviewing Jim Brown. 

It is now 8:30am on Sunday morning. The phone rings. It is Henry. “Art, just got off the phone with Monique. If you can over to Jim’s home by 10:00 she says he will give you that interview.” 

I jump out of bed, take the fastest shower ever, then Ty and I make a bee line straight to Jim Brown’s place. Monique greets us at the gates, guides us to the lower level into a spacious room with huge bay windows. Upon entering there is an imposing action oil painting of Jim during his pro football days. The power and strength of this painting made me think of Superman flying against the forces of nature. Instead of an “S” emblazoned across his chest there was the bold number “32.”

Monique made I clear, “You get 30 minutes.” Ty and I wasted no time setting up the two cameras. We set up the lights and did a preliminary sound check. Then waited… and waited… but no Jim. 

Going over my interview script with Ty, I see his eyes suddenly get big and he freezes as if someone struck a gun in his back. I looking back over my shoulder, and strolling in with a walking cane in hand is this giant of a man. I now know what Biblical David must have felt like when he first got a glimpse of Goliath. This huge, broad shouldered, Godiva chocolate man dressed in a brown casual shirt and piercing eyes approaches. He extends his hand saying, “Hi, I’m Jim Brown” (Like I needed him to say that!). I extend my hand Only to see it disappear inside his. I then turn to Ty, who still looks mesmerized, and say, “This is my camera man, Ty Davis.” When Ty shakes Jim’s hand I am praying that he doesn’t explode there on the spot. 

I guide Mr. Brown to a high chair we found in the room. Then adjust the lights to model his face. I grab the lav mic and said, Mr. Brown, I need you to tuck this up under you shirt and bring it out at the top.” I clip the mic to Jim. Then say, “Can you please give me a count down backwards from ten. From the time he said “10,” I saw the audio meters jump as if they were awestruck by Jim too. By the time he got to “Nine” I chimed in and said, “Thank you. Got it.” 

The interview went extremely well. He spoke of his early career as a sportsman, his time as a movie star, and his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. We discussed the Cleveland Conference of 1967 orchestrated by him and several other top African American athletes of that day to support Muhammad Ali’s stance against joining the military on religious grounds. He spoke affectionately when discussing his relationship with Muhammad Ali. “We were like brothers, but I was the older one.” Jim chimed.

Monique had returned but saw that Jim was engaged in recalling important memories. So did not interrupt. Nearly an hour later we wrapped. While packing Jim says to me, “Young man, you asked some good questions.” He asked had I also interviewed Bill Russell? I said, “No.” He then  offered to put me in touch. I had already extended my return flight to cover a few additional interviews. I was leaving the next day, so declined. But, in hindsight, should have taken Bill Russell’s’ information anyway.   

Everything packed back into Ty’s BMW, we’re cruising down the winding Hollywood Hills back to his house, and a song of Oscar Brown, Jr comes to mind: “I’ve always live by this golden rule: Whatever happened don’t blow your cool. Your have to nerves of  steel, and never show folks how you honestly feel.” And just like the character in his song, I lost it screaming, “I just interviewed the great Jim Brown!” 

I told him where to sit in his own home.

I told him what to do with the mic.

I told him where to look. 

I looked him in the eyes and asked questions that engaged him for nearly an hour. 

Hearing of his passing yesterday opened the floodgates to all those wonderful memories of my hour with Jim Brown. 

Life is truly not measured by the amount of breaths we take. It is about those moments that take our breath away.

In fond memory of the great Jim Brown, I share his segment from our film, Ali’s Comeback: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/828655793

The post My hour with Jim Brown appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Harlem Bespoke:  We just took the above photo on Sugar Hill and really soaked in the history of the neighborhood.   This distinct corner at 148th and St. Nicholas Avenue is really unique because of the barrel front townhouses that line the avenue and also for the jazz clubs that used to be in a few of the commercial spaces.  A fire burned down one of the brownstones over a couple of years ago but much still remains intact in this landmark district.

With that said, there is also a little known fact the wealthy Bradhurst family of the early 1800s had a cottage here when this was all countryside.  Nothing is really left but streets named aft the famous country folk in the heights but some early photos have documented these charming homes.  Check out our past post on a rare image of the Bradhurst Cottage that would have been situated at this corner of Harlem before the neighborhood was called Sugar Hill: LINK

HarlemBespoke.com 2023

* This article was originally published here

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A poem written for President Joe Biden’s inauguration has been placed on a restricted list at a South Florida elementary school after one parent’s complaint.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, poet Amanda Gorman vowed to fight back. Her poem, “The Hill We Climb” was challenged by the parent of two students at Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, along with several books.

“I’m gutted,” she wrote. “Robbing children of the chance to find their voices in literature is a violation of their right to free thought and free speech.”

Gorman, who at 17 became the country’s National Youth Poet Laureate, said she wrote the poem “The Hill We Climb,” so “all young people could see themselves in a historical moment,” and that she’s received countless letters and videos from children who were inspired to write their own poems.

She became an international sensation at Biden’s inauguration, where she was the youngest poet to read at the ceremony since Robert Frost was invited to John F. Kennedy’s in 1961.

In “The Hill We Climb,” Gorman references everything from Biblical scripture to “Hamilton,” and at times echoes the oratory of Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. With urgency and assertion she begins by asking, “Where can we find light/In this never-ending shade?” and used her own poetry and life story as an answer.

She said she planned to share a message of hope for Biden’s inauguration without ignoring “the evidence of discord and division.” She had completed a little more than half of the poem before Jan. 6 and the siege of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

The poem and books are still available in the media center for middle school-aged children, Ana Rhodes, a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade school district, said in a statement.

While book bans are not new, they are happening much more frequently, especially in Florida — where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has championed policies that allow the censorship of books some have deemed inappropriate for children in schools, causing national uproar.

DeSantis, who entered the 2024 presidential race Wednesday, has leaned heavily into cultural divides on race, sexual orientation and gender as he gains support from conservative voters who decide Republican primary elections.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned the decision to ban Gorman’s poem, saying Biden and his administration stands with her.

“The President was proud to have Ms. Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet, speak at his inauguration,” she said.

“Banning books is censorship, period,” she added. “It limits American freedom — Americans’ freedom — and we should all stand against that type of act.”

Yecenia Martinez, principal of the K-8 school, which is part of the Miami-Dade public school system, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about the poem’s ban. The school is named after Bob Graham, a former Democratic governor and U.S. senator from Florida.

Daily Salinas, the parent who objected to the poem and books, told the Miami Herald she’s not “for eliminating or censoring any books.” Salinas said she wants materials to be appropriate. It was not immediately clear what she objected to in Gorman’s poem.

After her complaint, a materials review committee made up of three teachers, a library media specialist, a guidance counselor and the principal, determined one of the books in question was balanced and age appropriate, and would remain available for all students, the newspaper reported.

The other four were deemed “better suited” or “more appropriate” for middle school students. The books were to remain in the middle school section of the media center, the review concluded.

“And let’s be clear: most of the forbidden works are by authors who have struggled for generations to get on the bookshelves,” Gorman’s post said. “The majority of these censored works are by queer and non-white voices.”

The post Amanda Gorman’s poem for Biden’s inauguration barred for younger children by Florida school appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here