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  • WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH 2023: Visit sites where NYC women made their mark

    WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH 2023: Visit sites where NYC women made their mark

    Around the city and throughout the five boroughs are sites dedicated to women and their place in our history. You might walk past them every day and never notice. Next time you find yourself near one of these sites, take a moment to reflect on the badass New York women who trod these same city streets before us in shoes far less comfortable than ours.

    Here are a few suggestions:

    • See the Women’s Rights Monument in Central Park. The sculpture by Meredith Bergmann is located at the northwest corner of Literary Walk along The Mall.

    Women’s Rights Monument in Central Park (Shutterstock/Shutterstock)

    • Visit Shirley Chisolm State Park on the waterfront in Brooklyn’s East New York neighborhood.
    • Stop by the Guggenheim Museum. Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery had a 1943 show Exhibition by 31 Women, the first-ever dedicated to female artists in America.
    • Catch a show at the Apollo Theater where jazz great Billie Holiday performed more than 30 times.
    • Walk around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park and visit the Jaqueline Onassis main entrance to Grand Central Terminal. While there, tour the exhibit focused on her work preserving the station and other New York City landmarks.
    • Visit the Eleanor Roosevelt Monument in Riverside Park or stop by Washington Square West where she lived from 1920 until her death in 1962.
    Eleanor Roosevelt Monument in Riverside Park

    Eleanor Roosevelt Monument in Riverside Park (Shutterstock/Shutterstock)

    • See Margaret Sanger Square at the intersection of Mott and Bleecker Sts.
    • Sit on the Gloria Steinem bench in Central Park located near the Met.
    • Visit the Whitney Museum, founded by artist and art patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.
    • Tip your pink pussy hat to Fearless Girl, the statue erected in front of the New York Stock Exchange.
    • Visit the brownstone where Edith Wharton grew up at 14 W. 23rd St..
    • Stop by the Algonquin Bar to raise a glass to Dorothy Parker, the only woman admitted to the Round Table.
    • Next time you walk across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan, take a moment to read the plaque commemorating Emma Warren Roebling, the engineer who led the completion of the work on the Brooklyn Bridge when her husband was injured.
    • Elizabeth Jennings Place on Park Row, between Spruce and Beekman, honors the woman who was forcibly ejected from a car on the Third Avenue Railway line at the corner of Pearl St. and Chatham Square. In 1854, Jennings became the first African-American woman to bring a successful lawsuit seeking to end discrimination on public transportation in New York City. This case occurred a century before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Ala.
    • A street sign at 37 Park Row designating “Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton Corner” honors these womens rights leaders near the site where the office of their 1868 newspaper, The Revolution, once stood.
    • The shrine to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint in the Roman Catholic Church, and its rectory in the James Watson House, at 7 State St. between Pearl and Water, is a charming anachronism at the southern tip of Manhattan.
    • Next time you’re at City Hall Park, look out for the stones honoring Marie Curie, scientist and winner of two Nobel Prizes, and Jane Addams, leader of the settlement house movement and first American woman to win the Nobel Peace prize.

    joanne kroeger

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  • BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2023: Actor Keith David gains Emmy-winning success with voiceovers

    BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2023: Actor Keith David gains Emmy-winning success with voiceovers

    Even as a child, Keith David had special admiration for masters of voice — those few unique actors who skillfully craft moving voice-overs for commercials, TV shows, documentaries and animated programs and make them works of art. Today, David, a classically trained actor who achieved fame and respect for big- and small-screen roles and stage productions, is one of those esteemed voice masters.

    The New York-born actor’s credits are impressive, and so is his voice-over work — which includes many commercials, more than 20 video games, and work with documentarian Ken Burns that won David three Emmy Awards for narration. But voice work is only one part of his well-rounded body of acting. The multi-faceted actor is currently working on several projects.

    He has a television show debuting this month, and a 10-year-old project to bring late singer Joe Williams to life on the stage is also due. All his accomplishments are the result of acting talents he started perfecting as a child.

    Acting was always his focus, but when David added voice work to his repertoire, he satisfied a long-sought desire — and his work has paid off. His voiceover resume is filled with television commercials for upcoming shows, animated programs, and work for corporate clients.

    David’s long affiliation with Burns has brought the actor much notoriety and much honor for his voice work. David won Outstanding Voice-Over Performance Emmy honors in 2004 for his work on “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson;” won another Outstanding Voice-Over Performance Emmy Award for the “A Necessary War” episode of Burns’ “The War” documentary in 2008 and clinched an Outstanding Narrator Emmy Award for “Jackie Robinson” in 2016. There was also an Emmy nomination for Burns’ “Jazz” documentary in 2001.

    Interestingly, David has long thought about the voices that narrated the programs he grew up watching as a youngster. “I’ve been an actor all of my life,” he said. “But I was always interested in doing voiceover work because as a child, I loved watching documentaries, especially about animals. ‘Wild Kingdom’ and ‘National Geographic’ were some favorite things to watch.”

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    But before he entered the voiceover arena, he said, no one mentioned voiceovers as a career possibility. Despite his versatile baritone voice — which ranges from warm and loving to stern and commanding — David said, no one told him: ‘You have a great voice; you should try voiceovers.’

    When David started auditioning for voice work, he discovered that “there weren’t terribly many brothers in the business.” Black actors in the field, such as Charles Turner and Adolph Caesar, were “very few and far between,” recalled David.

    But his self-confidence and invaluable support from his agent paid off. “Finally, I started getting requested. That was a great gift!”

    Keith David won Emmy Awards for the Ken Burns documentaries “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson,” “The War,” and “Jackie Robinson.” (GETTY)

    How did David’s 20-year-plus relationship with Burns begin? “I auditioned like everybody else,” he said simply. He voiced one of the many characters in a Burns’ production, before landing the job of narrator for the “Jazz” documentary — by auditioning for the part!

    “Auditioning is just the nature of the process. It began a relationship that has lasted over 20 years now,” he said, adding that just like Burns’ documentary viewers, he’s learning too.

    “Of course [I’m learning], but also like my viewing audience, do I retain every speck of knowledge that’s disseminated?” said David. “I have to go back and go back in.”

    However, he added, “One of the most wonderful things about any documentary, but especially about a Ken Burns documentary, it invites you to want to learn more on your own.”

    Jared McCallister

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