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Category Archives: Story Queries
Protected: Loli’s Soul Food & Catering in Hempstead
Posted in Small Business, Story Queries
Tagged Hempstead Village, Nirvani Harriram
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Protected: Small Business Query: DUB Pies – Not Your Momma’s Apple Pie
Posted in Small Business, Story Queries
Tagged Down Under Bakery Pies, DUB Pies, Greenwich Village, Jennifer Ross, small business, Story Query
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Protected: Roti Shops in South Richmond Hill – Small Business
Posted in Story Queries
Tagged Kamelia Kilawan, small business, South Richmond Hill
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Questions & Lede–
Interview questions;
1. Do you live in Queens?
2. How long have you been writing for the Queens Courier?
3. What led you to do this job? Why this specific publication?
4. What would you say most motivates you to work in Journalism?
5. What kind of stories are you most excited and passionate about?
6. What goals do you want to accomplish in your line of work?
7. Did you attend college? What major and what was it like? Is it comparable to what you do? Has it shaped your life?
8. Do you have any key mentors? Do they contribute to who you are today?
9. Have you had any life changing experiences, that helped alter what you are doing today?
10. What changes have you seen in the neighborhood you write about?
Is there a specific area?
11. What’s next for you?
Lede;
At 30, Cristabelle Tumola has become the web editor of the Queens Courier. There she gets to decide whats going to be read by viewers on the day to follow headlines. Whether its deciding on short pieces, crime stories, breaking news and what social media publications is in need of updating, Tumola is on it.
Posted in Neighborhoods, Story Queries
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Reverend John Francis of Woodhaven
If there is anything that unites the diversity in Woodhaven, it’s the Catholic faith. At around eight o’clock in the morning, people of all ages and ethnicities gather in St. Thomas the Apostle church to attend the Sunday Mass. Reverend John Francis is one the pastoral staff that witnesses this gathering.
I had met Rev. Francis a few times in the past when he made visits at home to administer the Eucharist for my grandparents. He’s roughly fifty-years-old and he’s been a part of the local parish for a very long time, long enough to gain a perspective of the neighborhood and the diverse people that makes it up.
During the interview, I will be asking him about his experiences of meeting families who just moved in the neighborhood, senior citizens—like my grandparents—who have been living there all their lives, and of course, the young students in the local Catholic school of the same name. What led him to devote his life to priesthood? I’m also curious about his knowledge of the history of Woodhaven and how he perceives the changes within the community. I’ll also be asking how the St. Thomas Parish helps unite the diverse Woodhaven community and how they accommodate the increasing number of Latin American ethnic groups in the neighborhood. This raises questions of how the church is dealing with budget issues within the parish, as well as within the school.
Additional sources that I will be interviewing are the head pastor of St. Thomas church, Rev. Frank Tumino, the school principal, Joseph Carpenter, and the altar children. I will be asking them about their personal experiences with Rev. Francis during the many years he had served the parish.
Posted in Story Queries
Tagged Roxanne Torres, Woodhaven
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Faces Query, Hempstead
Between North Franklin Street and Main Street in Hempstead you could do a lot of things. You could buy sneakers from Street Gear; you could grab breakfast at the deli; and if you push past the clear doors of 247 Fulton Avenue, you could go upstairs and find a place of worship.
After the Sunday morning service at Reigning in Life Training Center, I met with Pastor Curtis Riley. He’s been living in Hempstead for 42 years and now at the age of 56 he sat before me clad in an off-white suit and olive dress shoes, beaming. We were going to talk about Hempstead and he knows it well. Looking back to when Hempstead first began to buzz with thoughts of revitalization years ago, he felt that the people of the time were not ready for change. He said they were devastated by malls that rose up and chased stores away, skewing taxes and raising concerns. He mentioned revitalization projects going on today that totaled billions of dollars.
“It’s still taking longer than it should because we should’ve been at a shovel in the ground,” he said.
Looking at the map below with all of its red points- a neighborhood dotted with churches- I thought of the blotch of the recent death of Dante Quinones Wright, a teen recently gunned down in Hempstead. I asked the pastor about the high crime rate that stained the same streets lined with churches.
“Unfortunately…we focus on getting people to heaven but we haven’t taught people how to live on earth,” he said, “I was guilty of that.”
To focus on the latter he founded the Hempstead Rebirth Community Development Corporation. While he said that pastors should not be involved in political structures, he believed that it was a shared responsibility of pastors to educate their people to get involved in what they are called to do. For this to materialize, the churches have to get along.
“Let’s get back to ‘It takes a community to raise a child’,” he said. “Let’s get back to those philosophies instead of just ‘do you’.”
Churches in Hempstead
Posted in Story Queries
Tagged Hempstead, Neighborhood Faces Query, Nirvani Harriram
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Neighborhood Faces Pitch; Forest Hills
With the E, F, and M subway lines running through the heart of Forest Hills, this area in central Queens is just a twenty-minute train ride from Manhattan. Residents of Forest Hills love being so close to the city, using it for work and play. However, the essence of Forest Hills is anything but city-like. Local shops, family owned businesses, and antique stores line Metropolitan Avenue. Most buildings are no more than a few stories high. One of the real draws of Forest Hills, for residents and visitors, is being able to wander shady residential streets and “The Avenue,” feeling like they are far away from the crowded streets of Manhattan.
Pat McLaughlin uses this great trait of Forest Hills to her advantage. She is an English teacher at a high school in Manhattan and regularly rides the F from the Forest Hills station into the city. Although she lives just outside of Forest Hills, in Kew Gardens, most of her free time is spent in Forest Hills.
McLaughlin, is an equestrian lover and stables her horse at Lynn’s Riding School in Forest Park, located in Forest Hills. She is an ideal person to interview for a “Neighborhood Faces” article on the neighborhood. She works in a city environment, living a short commute away from her job, but is able to enjoy aspects of what most would label a “country life.” I’d like to ask her what is so appealing about this hybrid lifestyle. Forest Hills and McLaughlin give different meaning to what living in a city “requires.”
Posted in Profiles, Story Queries
Tagged Thomas Seubert
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Elie Sutton; Gravesend
Elie Sutton, now in his mid 80’s, is a community legend. Born in Aleppo, Syria, Mr. Sutton was instructed to leave his home at the age of 19 by his father, when at the time Syrian Jews under the control of the Ottoman Empire were facing a severe economic decline and a wave of sharp anti-Semitism following the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948.
In the next 5 years, Sutton found himself traveling from Egypt to Lebanon, from Iran to Shanghai, in a perpetual state of homelessness. At the age of 24 he finally crossed the continent and found a home in Brooklyn, NY, and established himself into the Sephardic Jewish community in Gravesend. From then on, Elie Sutton was on the forefront of nearly all the major changes and progressive advancements of the community. He took a leading role on community committees, helping to create new infrastructure, schools, and religious institutions.
When I get a chance to meet Mr. Sutton, I hope to ask him firsthand of his incredible journey from Syria to Brooklyn, which is documented in a book called Alien at Home: Divine Intervention, written by Bahia Abrams. I also would like to ask him in detail about the start of my community, and through what conflicts and challenges it had to go through to become what it is today. He has been described as brilliant, clear-minded, vibrant, personable, and extremely loving and generous. I am excited to see what I could learn from such an incredible man.
In addition to Mr. Sutton, I hope to also interview my Great Grandmother Virginia Sultan, who has lived in Brooklyn all her amazing 97 years, and has truly become a longstanding pillar in the community.
