By Aaron Simon Gross and Harrison Vijay Tsui Before every game, when the Yeshiva University basketball team huddles for a pep talk, “one of the guys talks some Torah, connecting it to basketball,” says Matan Zucker, 22, a wing and team captain.  “You have the most observant guy and the least observant guy, but there’s no division. Everyone’s together.” They’re the Maccabees, appropriately named after a group of ancient Jewish rebels who took control of Judea in 167 B.C. But instead of claiming land, they’re after another winning season. For the season opener on Nov. 7, they’ll head to Wes ..read more

By Lipaz Avigal and Aaron Simon Gross On a recent Tuesday night, 50 Jews sing the hymn “Adon Olam” on the ground floor of a Harlem brownstone. As is common in orthodox congregations, they are divided by gender, the men’s section curling around a makeshift altar and the women’s section merging into the kitchen. They’re separated by a low table covered with a red cloth. Behind the table, one congregant prays in a nonbinary section. “We wanted to create a space that offered something different, that expressed liberal progressive values and felt truly inclusive regardless of observance, denominati ..read more

By Sherry Fernandes On a recent morning, the first-floor classroom where Billy Green teaches chemistry is pulsing with music, a track one of his pupils chose. As teams of students rotate among five tables, five equations on the board describe problems to solve. If Green taps one of the teenagers on the shoulder, a different student must take the lead in explaining the solution. “This exercise ensures they’re collaborating,” said Green, 42, who teaches chemistry, in both English and Spanish, at A. Philip Randolph Campus High School in Harlem. “This helps my students engage and listen to each ot ..read more

By Sonia Kopelev Evetta Petty is unpacking dozens of different types of hats at her store, Harlem’s Heaven Hats on West 147th Street, preparing for an upcoming magazine photo shoot. She stocks every imaginable kind and color of women’s headgear, from casual daytime sunhats to luxe cocktail hats covered in hand-applied Swarovski crystals. She’s wearing one of her own creations, an intricately layered black evening hat held with a large gold pin.  For 33 years, Petty’s studio has catered to a variety of clients, from neighborhood churchgoers to supermodel Gigi Hadid for a recent photo shoot ..read more

By Daniela Araujo Padron and George Fabe Russell The NBHD Brulee, a coffee shop in Harlem, opened its doors on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in late 2019, only to close when the pandemic hit. It reopened three months later, offering sidewalk service in a covered seating area. Last year, NBHD won a grant which helped it build a shed for outdoor seating. It’s well-designed, said Duane Chan-Shue, 52, the shop’s owner, but there’s no assurance it will meet future city requirements. The city has a habit of “changing the rules as they go along,” he said. “Right now, we’re in the dark.” Outdoor d ..read more

By George Fabe Russell The former site of an old plumbing-supply warehouse sits below the busy 155th Street Viaduct, near where it converges with Macombs Place to cross the Harlem River. An under-performing post office and a mid-century motel, nearby on Macombs Place, occupy asphalt-filled lots with prime frontage on the major diagonal boulevard. A small, overgrown corner lot abutting a bus terminal sits empty, penned in by a chain-link fence. These sites can be found in the Bradhurst Brownfield Opportunity Area, a rough triangle bounded by Edgecombe Avenue, the Harlem River and 145th Street ..read more

By Kari Anderson In 2016, Pinky Cole closed her restaurant, Pinky’s Jamaican and American Restaurant on West 145th Street in Harlem, for the evening. Then came a call from the fire department: Her restaurant was burning. “Restaurant is pitch-black, the ceiling has caved in, everything is destroyed and I was sick,” Cole recalled. “All of the time and energy I that I put into growing this business, now I have nothing.” After two years of operation, Cole couldn’t afford to repair the damage from the grease fire. Now, she is returning to Harlem with a new location of her cult favorite restaurant c ..read more

By Kari Anderson This summer, leaders Tia Fletcher and Leighann Starkey took their Harlem Girl Scouts camping upstate, where they pitched tents in a wooded area near waterfalls and a lake. “It’s not too often that a lot of girls who are in the shelter system have those experiences, where they get to travel places and get these camping skills,” said Fletcher. Fletcher and Starkey’s group is part of Troop 6000, a Girl Scout troop for children ages 5-17 in families living in the shelter system. According to Girl Scouts of Greater New York, Troop 6000 has served 2,000 Scouts since it began in 2016 ..read more

By Sonia Kopelev Representatives of Harlem Hospital and its community advisory board fielded questions and criticisms from the public during a videoconference meeting Wednesday night about a plan to shrink a satellite clinic in Hamilton Heights as part of a redevelopment of the property as a mixed-use residential building.   Under the plan, the size of the clinic at 1727 Amsterdam Ave. will be reduced from about 59,000 square feet to 17,000 square feet.   Andres Orejuela, a member of Concerned Citizens for a Better Harlem, a neighborhood organization, asked about the community’s futu ..read more

By Rachel Lim and Sherry Fernandes Earlier this month, Prisleidy Hernandez, 23, had no heating or hot water in her apartment on Post Avenue in Inwood.  Martha Medina moved into her apartment on West 160th Street, Washington Heights a few years ago and, last February, found herself heating water on the stove to take a shower. For a week and a half, “the apartment was freezing and the space heater was not useful,” she said. Not having these utilities is “very uncomfortable” said Sahiana Perez, a high school student who lives on Arden Street, Inwood. “I have to shower in the cold, and someti ..read more