Uptown Radio

Weiss: We all cried, we were crying off and on all morning.

Weiss says when the principal made the announcement over the loudspeaker, cheers filled the classrooms and hallways.

Bomani: It was really a spiritual, emotional, beautiful moment.

Bushwick Community is a transfer high school of about 350 students, which means it’s for those who are behind or have dropped out.

Martir: I was throwing away my high school career.

That’s Andrew Martir, who came to Bushwick in 1995. He only had nine credits toward graduation, even though he had been in high school for three years.

Lloyd: I appreciate him and I don’t think there is any words or anything I could do for him to show my appreciation
Martir: No, You can, you can get a degree (laughing)

Lloyd: That’s better, that’s good, that’s priceless …

Lloyd is graduating in June and plans to go to college … he wants to study entertainment law or politics. And, he says he’s relieved to be moving on.

Mackenzie Issler, Columbia Radio News.

SOUND: (Sounds of setting up the board).

TYRIQ: White is right here. This is the king that you have to protect, which is the most important piece.

JORDAN: These are knights

(11 seconds)

The 11 year olds play on the same team, but on this Monday afternoon, Jordan is thinking about how he will defeat his teammate.

JORDAN: I moved my pawn right here so I could attack his knight because the knight is more important than the pawn. (7)

Tyriq has his own strategy.

TYRIQ: I moved right here so I could protect my knight and attack these two and have more attackers than defenders. (9)

In a few swift moves, Tyriq captures three of Jordan’s pawns, and a rook. Jordan comes back with a surprise attack.

JORDAN: Check! (2)

Tyriq carefully examines board.

MADER: What are you thinking right now?

TYRIQ: to protect my king (6)

A few moves later, Tyriq corners Jordan’s king: It’s checkmate. The two boys shake hands and reset their board. Tyriq says he likes the competition.

TYRIQ: My rival is Jordan because he makes me play hard and he helps me get better and every time I play him, we have a fun game. (12)

Two other members of the team are hunched over their chessboards a few feet away.

Sounds: Pieces clinking together on the chessboard. “I’m going to get you in check!”(6)

The team of four has less than 20 days before heading to Nashville.

MADER: What’s the farthest away you’ve traveled?

TYRIQ: The farthest we ever traveled was Chinatown…We went to central    park for a tournament before. No, but Chinatown was farther. (13)

These kids are part of a program called Chess in the Schools. The program aims to empower kids in 51 low income schools across the city. P.S. 335 is one of Crown Heights poorest schools. It has a 95 percent poverty rate. To these boys, Tennessee is a world away.

TYRIQ: we’ll be staying in a hotel..with a pool. I hope we have a Jacuzzi in our room, me and angel. I think there’s be a place where we can play table tennis. I hope there’s laser tag and video games in our room. (16)

Jordan has never been on an airplane before.

JORDAN: People have said that when you’re on an airplane, and you look down, people look like ants, and I want to look down to see. (10)

Meghan Dunn is a teacher at 335 and the faculty adviser for the team. She raised the 3000 dollars needed for the trip by sending out donor letters and creating a website. She says the boys have bonded over chess.

DUNN: A lot of the kids around here don’t really have the chance to play on sports teams or be a part of a team. So this is a great opportunity for them to be on a team, and work together. (9)

Dunn says the boys have made more friends and are also more motivated in school. Tyriq’s parents, Leah and Thomas Holland, are happy that their son found an activity he likes. Before the chess team, they tried to put Tyriq in Football, but he didn’t like running.

TIMOTHY: Then when he started doing chess, we were like ‘yeah ok, do your best.’ Then he started crying when he was losing, its like. ‘I hope he don’t, I really thought he might quit’ but he stuck to it (12)

Leah Holland says being part of a team has brought Tyriq out of his shell and made him more outgoing. She also said he has learned patience.

LEAH: He knows how to keep his cool a little more. As far as the competition and learning how to compete and be let down, he knows he can’t win every game. But to learn from losing, actually. (11)

A two year study of elementary chess players in the city found that reading levels improve more for chess players than for kids who don’t play chess. A Texas study even found that the game improves standardized test scores. Meghan Dunn says that the benefits go beyond academics.

DUNN: we also want them to walk away with the skill of knowing that I can set a goal and I can reach that goal. Because at the end of the day, that skill is going to be worth more to them in life than just what their score is on a test. (10)

The team will face heavy competition in Nashville. There will be 2100 players competing. Many of their opponents take private lessons or have a coach at their school four times a week. But the boys say they’re ready for the challenge, and have set their sights on winning.

JORDAN: I think we’re gonna do good and have a fun time and we’re gonna win a lot as a team and get as most points as possible. (8)

Jackie Mader, Columbia Radio News.

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Members of the US National team will be competing in London from July 28th until August 5th

HOST INTRO: The Summer Olympics will begin in London in 90 days. In the past week millionaires super stars in the NBA complained that they don’t get paid for their participation.

We don’t normally think of Olympic athletes training in an office building near Times Square. And yet, four of the fencers on the U.S. team and their coach — do that every day.

On a recent afternoon, two of the fencers warmed up at the gym on the second floor.

SOUND:

The fencers running on a strip in the gym

Dagmara Wozniak showed up just in time to start practice.

WOZNIAK1:

“Ready to go?”

(0:03)

They’re all specialists in the sabre, one of three Olympic fencing events, And three days a week, they practice twice a day. The four of them and their coach start with the run of entire gym.

There are 14 strips where fencers can face off and eight targets where they can practice solo. Yury Gelman, the coach of the Olympic men’s team, starts by giving the athletes their instructions.

GELMAN:

“You have six minutes. Non-stop. Target work. Start now for like one minute and then using footwork, use lunges. Let’s go. Double-touches, triples touches, lunge…Non-stop, six minutes.”

(0:14)

SOUND:

Fencers hitting the targets.

Gelman owns this gym — the Manhattan Fencing Center. He’s also the personal coach of four of the fencers.

He gives them 20-minute one-on-one lessons every day. When other fencers show up for his regular class at 6:30, the Olympians usually join them.

SOUND:

Gelman, instructing the class to do certain moves, fencers move in  unison, fading out.

The U.S. is producing more Olympic medalists in fencing than ever. Over a century, US fencers won only two medals. Then, in 2004 and 2008, they won a total of eight.

Keeth Smart is one of them. He won a silver medal four years ago as part of the Men’s saber team event.

In Bryant park on a break from his job in finance, Smart says the mentality of U.S. fencers has changed.

SMART1:

Prior to 1992, the expectation of Olympic fencers was to go to the Olympics and take a lot of pictures. Have a lot of fun at the Olympic games. Then after that, beginning in 1996, the goal was ‘We should be Olympics medals. Today, we expect to win medals.’”

(0:20)

Smart says the reason for the change is geo politics.

SMART2:

“Literally, one the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, we had this influx of coaches and that was the start of the great renaissance of American fencing. Because we have all these coaches coming from Ukraine, Russia, Poland.”

(0:16)

As a result, Smart says, U.S. fencers have been learning the same secrets and techniques as former Soviet Bloc athletes.

But even with that coaching, becoming a world-class fencer isn’t easy. The athletes spend amost all of their time preparing for the Games.

Coach Yury Gelman says sacrifices are part of the training for the fencers.

GELMAN:

They basically don’t have time for friends. For girlfriend, boyfriends. Definitely no time for video games and stuff like this because it’s practice, practice, practice and a lot of traveling also.”

(0:16)

The athletes travel every other week to World Cup events in different countries. That leaves no time for regular jobs or school.

And there is little money in fencing. At most, the athletes get a stipend of 2,000 dollars a month. Some of them work part-time jobs.

Tim Morehouse was on the team that won the silver medal in Beijing and is on the team now. He says it’s difficult to find the balance between fencing and earning a living.

MOREHOUSE1:

“Sometimes it gets a little but crazy and I have a lot going on like now but most of the time I find it very rewarding. I feel like I live my days with a sense of a good urgency that I’m doing things that I care about.”

(0:10)

Like any sport on the Olympic level, fencing puts a strain on athletes’ bodies.

In the gym, fencers practice hard despite injuries. Dagmara Wozniak has tendinitis in her left wrist. It’s normally taped in order to keep it from moving.

WOZNIAK2:

Not today. I didn’t make it to physical therapy.

(0:04)

She has microtears in her muscle tissue. It always hurts when she’s fencing.

WOZNIAK3:

“It could be better. Just trying to keep the pain level down. It’s been ok but I wish it could be better.”

(0:05)

The key to winning a medal in London, according to Coach Yury Gelman, will be dealing with the pressure.

So, for the next 90 days, Gelman and the Olympic team will be working on building their confidence.

SOUND:

Tim and Wozniak fencing and talking. (joking) You know it’s impossible to hit me know, my parry is so good. You can’t get me…You think you’re about to and then…(shouts when lost the point)

As Tim Morehouse gets ready for a practice bout, he says fencers are not motivated by the perks that high-profile Olympic athletes can get.

MOREHOUSE2:

“I mean it’s a sport you do, because you love it. I’m not doing the sport because I was expecting to get media attention or have million dollar contracts.”

(0:08)

The opening day of the Olympics is July 27. The men’s individual fencing competition starts two days later – on Morehouse’s birthday.

Hristina Tisheva, Columbia Radio News.

SOUND: Ding-dong of train doors opening and closing, and conductor announcing.

And Mark Schweitzer is on his way to work.

SCHWEITZER 1:
IC: “I’m a lawyer—I take the train into the city every day…”
OC: “…I work all the way downtown, so I have to get onto the subway.” (0:05)

SOUND: Fade up thunk-thunk of train going by, and tick-tick of tickets being clipped.

The train is filling up with dozens of commuters just like Schweitzer. And that’s exactly Scott Stringer’s point.

SOUND: Fade out train and ticket-taking.

STRINGER 1:
IC: “Every day, commuters pour into New York City…”
OC: “…and small surcharge of 0.45 percent.” (0:15)

That was Stringer last week, proposing that commuters kick in half a percent of their yearly earnings.

Stringer thinks the tax money would add up to $725 million dollars for the city. And he’d funnel that directly into the the budget for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Noah Budnick helps run a non-profit called Transportation Alternatives. He thinks Stringer’s way of funding the MTA is better than raising fares.

BUDNICK 1:
IC: “When elected officials don’t come up with new ways…”
OC: “…of any transit system in the country.” (0:10)

The commuter tax could ease that burden.

But Queens Assemblyman David Weprin says the tax is a hard sell in Albany.

WEPRIN 1:
IC: “We have a governor that’s taken a public position against…”
OC: “…where they have a large commuter representation.” (0:12)

Weprin has sponsored his own version of the commuter tax. He says it’s Albany lawmakers who have to approve it.

But the mayor can weigh in. It’s just that Michael BLOOMberg — has chosen not to.

WEPRIN 2:
IC: “There’s no question if the mayor got up there…”
OC: “…could have gotten back, certainly, the old commuter tax.” (0:14)

Back in 1966, it was another Mayor, John Lindsay, who had proposed the first commuter tax.

And just like today, there was a group of reluctant Republican legislators from the suburbs.

State budget negotiators spent three days in Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s mansion. Staffers slept on the rug, and the politicians ran out of clean clothes.

SCHANBERG 1:
IC: “They were sending their aides out…”
OC: “…at the haberdashery store on State Street.” (0:05)

New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg covered those negotiations. They concluded at 4:00 in the morning on the last day.

He got his information from the governor’s butler at the time.

Schanberg said that it was Rockefeller, with his presidential aspirations, who brokered the final deal.

SCHANBERG 2:
IC: “He didn’t want to see a bunch of guys…”
OC: “…without a solution.” (0:06)

Transportation and rising fares could be a key issue in the 2013 mayoral campaign, according to Transportation Alternatives’ Noah Budnick.

BUDNICK 2:
IC: “There are seven and a half, eight…”
OC: “…you can have a huge slice of New York City voters.” (0:13)

The commuter tax wouldn’t cost those voters a single cent. But that doesn’t help its chances in Albany.

Nat Herz, Columbia Radio News.

–The tape from Scott Stringer’s speech is courtesy of WNYC.

To read Schanberg’s compelling account of the 1966 negotiations, click here.

Acacia Squires, Columbia Radio news.

Ambi: Outside Ryan home

Sound: Door opens

Stephanie Ryan: Hi, come on in

Guzman: thank you

Ryan leads the way through this spacious three-bedroom house.

Stephanie: I thought that was the next logical step and I had some really good jobs and I really enjoyed it out. But unfortunately things changed, and now I’m back home.

Guzman: She went back to school for a master’s in special education and got a teaching job.

Stephanie: He bought out my mom. And he doesn’t have a lot of money with his current job.

Guzman: Jim Ryan lost a well paying job in human resources during the recession.

Stephanie: She would cook food and go grocery shopping and take care of the cat. I did too, but I was used to her doing those things and when she left, it was like ‘Oh boy, now I have to do this on my own.’ — I’m obviously going to do it and I’m fine with it. But it was a huge eye-opener.

Guzman: Jim was also shocked at how much everything costs on a single income.

Jim: We had thought about selling the house, but you can’t sell a house for a profit right now. Or your profit is greatly reduced.

Guzman: So now Stephanie pays him $500 a month for rent and helps out with groceries.

Jim: And that’s a big help to me, because running a house is not cheap.

Guzman: Social analysts, like those at the Pew Center are finding that the Ryans’ situation is pretty common. 3 in 10 adults are either living with their parents or have in recent years.

Parker: Many middle aged adults are also going through difficult economic times, so it may be providing additional income to them that’s helping them stay afloat, too.

Guzman: Jim Ryan knows other parents in the same boat. Like his girlfriend, Brenda Petti.

Sound: Watching dance recital on TV (Nsync music)

Jim: Do you remember how you used to get nervous?

Stephanie: Oh gosh, I’d get so nervous!

Guzman: Petti’s daughter recently moved back home. She finishing her masters and works part time.

Petti: You know, you’re supposed to be the one taking care of them and providing for them, and there were times when I had to borrow money from her, just to get by.

Guzman: Petti says that having her daughter back at home has distanced them in some ways. It’s brought back old patterns — arguing about each other’s whereabouts and who hasn’t done the dishes.

Petti: I also, when I was young, was a boomerang too. Because I was out on my own and found myself back at home. So I can see how my daughter feels. Because I know how I felt when I had to go back home and live with my parents. I didn’t like it at all!

Guzman: This isn’t always the case for all boomerang children. Half of the 2,000 boomerang children Pew surveyed said that living at home hasn’t affected their relationship with their parents.

Jim: you want an umbrella?

Stephanie: It’s nicer when the pool’s open

Stephanie Ryan: It’s nice, and you know my dad works really hard to keep everything.

Guzman: She says there are lots of childhood memories here.

Stephanie: Yeah, we have our own little stream. When were kids we’d go… we could actually go underneath the street onto the other side. There’s a tunnel under there.

Her father Jim Ryan says that keeping the house with Stephanie gives her a chance to focus on her life goals. If and when she decides to move out again, he says he’ll reconsider selling the house.

Jacqueline Guzman, Columbia Radio News.