I remember hearing about this story featured more than a year ago on the Today Show:
Lukasz Zbylut, a high school student in Brooklyn, who emigrated from Poland in 2003, applied to seven Ivy League schools — and was accepted by every one of them. He decided to enroll in his “dream school” of choice — Harvard.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYVzBZNFqkA&w=525]
In this New York Times interactive feature, Gail Anderson (Creative Director of Design at SpotCo), narrates the evolution of the poster art for the Broadway revival of Ragtime. Based on the 1975 novel by E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime tells the story of three groups in America, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Harlem musician; Mother, the matriarch of a WASP family in New Rochelle, NY; and Tateh, a Latvian Jewish immigrant.
For designers, it’s definitely a must-listen as she explains several possible directions and the thinking behind their final choice. Always good to know about all the work that goes into making a final product, so much of which the those of us not on the project never hear about.
One of my classmates kindly shared a link to a project called City of Memory, a web-based memory project covering New York City areas. Here, you can find stories that relate to the history and personality of NYC’s overall history; the stories are organized by an interactive map or themes. City of Memory is a project curated by City Lore New York Center for Urban Culture, a non-profit cultural institution whose mission is to document, preserve and present the living cultural heritage of New York City.
In this particular tour entitled, Brighton Beach Boardwalk, Rita Kagan and her husband, Jack, talk about the history of Brighton Beach and how it’s utilized by the Russian Jewish community today. Rita is joined by her friends Anna Malkim aand Vita Lisina. Anna sings a song she made up about Brighton Beach.
Good Magazine produced a video on immigration:
“People have flocked to the melting pot we now know as America for the last 13,000 years. Since 2000, the U.S. has welcomed more than 10 million immigrants, who leave behind places like the Philippines, India, China, and Mexico. Our latest video, “Coming to America,” explores the history, politics, and challenges of taking in the world’s “huddled masses.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3JToii4Aq4&w=525]
