micropolisnyc:

Until recently, European tourists seeking poverty-porn have been crowding onto buses to ride through “a real New York City ‘GHETTO,’” i.e., the Bronx.

The controversy that erupted over the tour caused the operator, Real Bronx Tours, to drop it today. 

But the NY Post tagged along last week as one tour guide, Lynn Battaglia,made snide comments and gazed at impoverished locals.

As the bus idled across from historic St. Ann’s Episcopalian Church, Battaglia launched into a description of the crime, poverty and violence that plagued the South Bronx during the 1970s recession.

As she spoke, a line of two dozen poor people — including one man visibly agitated by the onlookers — waited for handouts from the church pantry.

“I don’t know what that line’s about, but every Wednesday we see it,” Battaglia told the tourists. “We see them go in with empty carts, and we see them come out with carts full.”

Bronx Borough President slammed Real Bronx Tours last week:

“To have foreigners come and gawk at a long line of people who are less fortunate than they are and to make money off of that and to view them as they are some sort of entertainment is pretty disgusting.”

humansofnewyork:

My last wife was 47 years older than me.”

“47 years???”

“Yep. We met when she was 80 and I was 33. She came to the nursing home where I worked, and everyday she would spend six hours with her dying husband. I said to myself: ‘If she ever loves me like that, I’ll be OK.’ We married a couple years later, and stayed together until she died at the age of 96. If I had any money, I’d make a movie about it.”

brookhavenlab:

Bring on the sunshine! April showers are behind us (we hope) and the sun is shining a little longer each day here in the northern hemisphere. That means the 200-acre Long Island Solar Farm (LISF) at Brookhaven Lab is producing increasing amounts of renewable energy for Long Islanders and data for our researchers.

The 32-megawatt solar array—containing 164,312 photovoltaic panels—provides energy to power 4,500 local homes, but we’re also using it to advance solar forecasting, study the potential impact on local wildlife, and enhance our ability to integrate renewable energy sources into the grid. 

Check out this update on LISF’s first year of operation from Pat Looney, who leads Brookhaven Lab’s Sustainable Energy Technologies Department. Where else are you gonna find box turtles, huckleberries, and 54,000 megawatt-hours of solar energy?

nevver:

Moore, Oklahoma

Central Park back in April

(via nevver)

Dress accordingly

spiritualevolution1111:

“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.”

~ Andrews Boyd

Artist: Sarah Meech

(via hybrid-machine)