MILAGROS “AMY” LATORRES-RIOS has lived a life that defines what it means to receive from your community when in need and give back to others when able. As a 12-year-old she was invited by Center for Family Life (CFL) founder Sister Geraldine Tobia to join the Sunset Park community center, and she never left. At..
GOVERNOR PATERSON ANNOUNCED LAST WEEK THAT DANNY SIMMONS, co-founder and vice chairman of Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, is now a member of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). An accomplished painter and curator, Simmons is also co-founder and executive producer of younger brother Russell Simmons’ “Def Poetry Jam” on HBO; founder of..
FOR 20 YEARS, MURIEL GUÉPIN was a financial analyst. Tired of the tough corporate culture and desiring a more personal setting, she quit her job in June of 2008. Guépin enrolled in an evening course at Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation to learn how to develop a business plan, and before the course was even finished..
VIOLET EAGAN has been skating “forever.” She trained at Lake Placid with several Olympians, and although she never competed in the games herself, she was capable in all of the steps. Four years ago, Eagan decided to share her favorite sport with her favorite neighborhood — Park Slope, where she has lived for 25 years..
IN HARD ECONOMIC TIMES, the arts are perhaps not hit particularly harder than the rest of us, but they are often hit quickly, and have to enter a creative and urgent fundraising mode to keep afloat. So many independent groups and institutions depend on the generosity of their supporters, who also suddenly find themselves facing..
NOTHING IS SPELLBINDING in quite the same way as an exquisitely illustrated children’s book. Independently owned Enchanted Lion Books knows how to bring them to life, and does so at the rate of seven to 10 per year, each project carefully chosen by sister publishers CLAUDIA and ABIGAIL BEDRICK. “We seek out books that are..
BETH J. HARPAZ, TRAVEL EDITOR for the Associated Press, where she has worked for 20 years, is about to be known, professionally, by another name: Mom. She has just released her third book, “13 Is the New 18 and other things my children taught me while I was having a nervous breakdown being their mother,”..
IF YOU FIND YOURSELF WANDERING around Prospect Park or the Gowanus Canal, you might spot artist AMANDA KAVANAGH traipsing through the greenery and past the old brownstones with her sketchbook, watercolors and pens. “I’m a bit schizophrenic when it comes to my subject matter,” she says. “One day I’m working on water and trees, and..
POLITICALLY-MINDED NEW YORKER AND SINGER/SONGWRITER CHRISTINE LAVIN will be the next act in First Unitarian’s First Acoustics series on Jan. 10. Known for her sense of humor, evident in her lyrics and onstage performances, Lavin has produced 18 solo cds and more with friends under the name Four Bitchin’ Babes. Her songs have been performed..
BROOKLYN-BORN MEL HABER still doesn’t know how to cook a steak or mix up a drink, but he has under his belt decades of entertaining the crème de la crème in Palm Springs. Although he made “every mistake in the book” after pulling up his Coney Island roots and heading for the desert, he has..