Media The Top 10 Most Popular Village Voice Online News Stories of 2015
by Village Voice staff
The year is drawing to a close, and the Village Voice is taking the opportunity to look back on the incredible stories of 2015. Some were of great social import and others were more playful, but they all ignited conversations and brought us a little closer together. Without further ado, here are the top 10 blog posts that you, our dear readers, read most.
10. NYU Student Who Fought Housing Costs Is Ordered to Move Back to Campus or Drop Out
A New York University student who grabbed headlines when she accused the school of pulling a bait-and-switch with its sticker price has been forced to move in to university housing under threat of expulsion. Nia Mirza, who, after being told by university officials that she could live with relatives near NYU’s Washington, D.C., campus in order to help offset the cost of her tuition, says she must now move in to campus housing if she wishes to continue her education there. Read more…
9. This Brooklyn Artist Took Nude Self-Portraits at New York’s Slave-Trade Landmarks
For the last several years, however, artist Nona Faustine has worked to shine a light on New York City’s buried legacy of slavery in a striking series of self-portraits titled “White Shoes.” The photographs feature Faustine posing before famous New York landmarks and locales: City Hall, the State Supreme Court Building, Wall Street — forgotten marketplaces where African men, women, and children were once bought, sold, and rented into slavery. Read more…
8. Mayor of Whitesboro, N.Y., Insists This Village Seal Is Not Racist
Despite the criticism, Whitesboro village officials maintain that the wrestling match was an important event in the village’s history and helped build relations between White and the area’s Native American population. Read more…
7. Prosecutor Says Freddie Gray’s Knife Was Legal Under Maryland State Law
In what has become a much-too-familiar pattern, there are questions about how Freddie Gray died and whether the officers who arrested him used excessive force, causing the neck injury that severed his spinal cord and, apparently, killed him. The municipal code under which Gray was arrested resembles New York’s law in several ways, and its peculiar wording is equally ill-suited to modern technology; as we discovered when we looked at gravity knife laws in New York, knife statutes often have not kept up with current knife designs. Read more…
6. Meet the Two New Yorkers Who Are Starting a Preschool for Adults
A preschool. For adults. That’s right. Anyone 18 or older can enroll in Preschool Mastermind, a month-long course where adults can relive their pre-K days with activities like finger-painting, show-and-tell, nap time, and even a class picture day that prompts you to “dress your 4-year-old best.” Read more…
5. A New York Photographer Dresses Up Penises in Cute, Tiny Costumes (NSFW)
Dick pics will always be gross, but they could stand to be a little funnier. That’s the goal of New York–based photographer Soraya Doolbaz, who showed off her collection of tastefully photographed dick pics — each penis is turned into a character via rather cute, doll-sized costumes — earlier this year. Read more…
4. This Video Shows NYC Exactly 25 Years Ago, on July 18, 1990
Even for midtown, there’s a lot going on in this brief video, shot 25 years ago. The scene opens with a stumbling man who leans on a fire hydrant before it gets weird. The video was shot by a man visiting Manhattan with his two sons and their friend, during a summer weekend in 1990. Read more…
3. A Fervent Cop Supporter Changes His Mind About NYPD After Gravity Knife Arrest
Carsten Vogel, who has always been a police supporter and even counts some cops among his friends, was arrested by police for possession of what they deemed an illegal gravity knife — the problem is that it was actually a legal blade manipulated by the arresting officer to act like a gravity knife. Read more…
2. Here’s a Very Brief Tour of a 100-Square-Foot Upper West Side Apartment
“My living room is Central Park,” says the man who rents a 100-square-foot apartment on the Upper West Side. Grayson Altenberg recently moved to New York from Wisconsin to work in a restaurant at Lincoln Center. Altenberg was gracious enough to give us a brief tour of his small living space. Read more…
1. A Manhattan Landlord Is Evicting an Entire Block of Latino Business Owners
“Buildings are being sold in the community, new landlords are coming in with no regard to the community, to the businesses, even the residents that have been there a long time,” Quenia Abreu, the president and CEO of the New York Women’s Chamber of Commerce, tells the Voice. “You can open a business and invest your life’s savings, $100,000, $200,000. And when the lease expires, the landlord can say, ‘I don’t want you anymore, goodbye,’ and give you 30 days.” Read more…