Glenn Ligon is a renowned artist who gives us new ways of seeing American history, literature, and society. How can we see him better through the lens of childhood? In this episode of Your Hometown, Glenn speaks with Kevin Burke about his experiences growing up in the South Bronx in the 1960s and 70s, including his hour-and-a-half commute each way to Walden, the private school he attended on the Upper West Side from the first grade on. His mother made going to Walden possible for Glenn and his brother, and it involved sacrifices and risks. A commute is one thing. Where it can lead, another.   How would this change the landscape for Glenn and his family? Where would Glenn most feel at home, outside and inside, in his New York? Where would he feel safe, or watched, or like a stranger? And how does a city like New York, with its layer upon layer of construction, class, and culture, define not just the literal paths we take growing up, but the existential ones?   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Archival “Early 1970s New York Subway” from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p16a6SKjwZM “Zora Neale Hurston '28 Sings Halihmuhfack” from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut0xmfgcK3w “James Baldwin: Un Étranger dans le Village" (1962) from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hPEaxeJWZQ James Baldwin on Love and Sexuality from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZPmT3lk6cU Clip from "The Naked Civil Servant" (1975) from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlxn3F2tIWg   Music Beastie Boys - Shake Your Rump (1989) Carl Douglas - Kung Fu Fighting (1974) Mahalia Jackson - Silent Night (1962) Cool Change - Streets of The Bronx (1993) Cher - Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves (1971) Screamin’ Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell on You (1956)   Artwork Charlotte Yiu and Nick Gregg   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”   Special Thanks Jonah Groeneboer and Lisa Koli at Glenn Ligon Studio; and Tate Dougherty and the team at Hauser & Wirth

This is the story of an “inquiring mind” who happens to be a journalist. Sewell Chan is the new editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune. But before his move to Austin, and before his previous roles at the L.A. Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, he was a kid growing up in an immigrant family in the outer boroughs of New York City, where his father drove a taxicab. Both his parents had seen a lot in their lives – but said little. Their New York was the New York of work, of their community, and of striving for a quiet, peaceful place to live, which ended up being in Queens. Yet when you meet Sewell, it's surprising that he came from such a quiet place, because he’s so engaged with the world, with history, with how people live and how things work. In this episode, Kevin Burke talks with Sewell about his coming-of-age years in New York, the meaning of home, and what the windows and doors were from where his family lived out to the larger world.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Archival WPIX Special Report: Blackout '77-City of Darkness from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0LV0zWFsVE Broadway's Lost Treasures - Me and My Girl from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swX0qlHRDV0 Dolora Zajick - Amneris - AIDA - MET 1989 from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZNN0VqaSlE Bill Clinton 1992 DNC Acceptance Speech from https://www.c-span.org/video/?27166-1/bill-clinton-1992-acceptance-speech 1998 Harvard Commencement from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl9Uj6nq4Y4 Times’s City Room Advertisement from  https://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/1194817108917/a-changing-metropolis.html   Music Frank Sinatra - New York, New York (1980) Ella Fitzgerald - Manhattan (1965) Willie Nelson - Texas on a Saturday Night (1985)   Illustration Charlotte Yiu   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

Tiffany Cabán captured national headlines when she came within a hair’s breadth of winning the primary for district attorney in her hometown of Queens, New York, in 2019. It was an audacious move: a young, out-of-nowhere candidate running in her home borough against the establishment on a platform calling for major changes to the system. Snatching a moral victory from the jaws of electoral defeat, Tiffany kept speaking out. Two years later, she’s just won a seat on the New York City Council, where she will have a voice in the debate about what kind of hometown New York wants to be.   In this interview, host Kevin Burke talks with Tiffany about her coming-of-age story and what she experienced back there that made her someone who gets up and chooses to march on the front lines, has the skills to organize – and then has the fire in her soul to throw her whole being into fighting for what she believes in. This is a show about diving down to the first act in the life of a person – in this case, a person who sees something and is moved to do something about it. It’s a search for the people in her life who saw her and did something, and how she learned to stand up for herself and for others.   In a larger sense, it’s also about grace—the kind of mercy and compassionate understanding we find ourselves asking for and being asked to give in our lives—and whether that kind of grace, born of experience, can become the foundation for how we relate to each other.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Archival “Tiffany Cabán @ Rally for Bernie Sanders” from https://www.c-span.org/video/?465364-1/representative-ocasio-cortez-endorses-bernie-sanders-president "Bernie Williams singles in 11th for 4-3 walk-off win” from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iErizZHfs_U “1010 WINS AM and CNN on Sept. 11” from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3dgKUsu-Ls Audience footage of 2019 Tiffany Cabán campaign election party via @Samynemir on Twitterhttps://twitter.com/i/status/1144077394933932033   Illustration Charlotte Yiu   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855) “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,And filter and fibre your blood. “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,Missing me one place search another,I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

David Johansen is one of the all-time front men in music and an artist who keeps changing the game – not by degrees but by solar systems. In the 1980s, he had everyone feeling “Hot, Hot, Hot” as Buster Poindexter. Then he showed up as the taxi-driving Ghost of Christmas Past in the Bill Murray film Scrooged. Before all this, he was the glammed-up lead singer of The New York Dolls, the mythic rock band of the downtown NYC scene of the 1970s. Hard rock, punk rock, glam rock, heavy metal – the Dolls sit atop a lot of family trees. To this day, whatever room he walks into, from loft spaces to the swanky Café Carlyle, David Johansen owns it.   In part one of this epic two-part interview, David talks with host Kevin Burke about coming of age on Staten Island in the 1950s and ’60s, a kid riding bikes, buying and listening to records, going to Catholic School, joining a band, and graduating from high school at the height of the Vietnam War. How did he get from the house his grandfather built on the North Shore to the pulsating East Village at the dawn of an era he’d help define? This is the origin story of a true original.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Archival All In The Family Opening Theme (1971) “Horn Battle in New York - Carnival Miracle vs Harbor Tug” from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeAJbDSITAk “Traditional Latin Catholic Mass Easter Sunday” from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6AOvStZS64 Clip from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1961) from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5yvMExqKNA “Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?” From my Fair Lady (1964) Murray the K at the Brooklyn Fox from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHu9Y0zI0t0 Bob Dylan, talking on the radio, 1966, 26th January, 1966 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG1pITY_m8E   Music: Buster Poindexter - Hot Hot Hot (1987) New York Dolls - Jet Boy (1973) David Johansen- Heart of Gold (1987) David Johansen - Animals Medley (live) (1982) from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zc-DQiI8tA Enrique Caruso - Vesti La Giuba, Pagliacci (1907) David Johansen - Big City (1979) David Johansen And The Harry Smiths - Well, I’ve Been to Memphis (2000) Howlin’ Wolf - Tail Dragger (1969) Robert Preston - “Ya Got Trouble” from the Music Man Soundtrack (1962) The Platters - The Great Pretender (1960) Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels - Sock it to Me, Baby (1967) The Fantastic Johnny C - Boogaloo Down Broadway (1967) Wilson Pickett - In The Midnight Hour (1965) New York Dolls - Personality Crisis (1973) Janis Joplin - Bye Bye Baby (1967) New York Dolls - Lonely Planet Boy (1973)    Illustration Nick Gregg

Part two of David Johansen’s Your Hometown episode is the portrait of an artist in the process of becoming. If Staten Island was the setting of David’s coming of age, Manhattan would him into his next act. Hear David talk with host Kevin Burke about living in the East Village, the early days of the New York Dolls, the birth of Buster Poindexter, and performing at the Café Carlyle. David’s hometown journey is an invitation to dive into what it means to be an artist and to find what in their origins stories is knowable and what remains enigmatic – even to them – as they continue looking around the corner, following their instincts and their muses.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes Archival Oh Madeline “Play Crystal For Me” from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UlhfUzsu6A&t=1s All Dolled Up: A New York Dolls Story Found Tapes from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92HhdXuqc4g New York Dolls footage Local TV Story, 1973 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGnZ4RsUpBE Man's Country New York Gay Bathhouse commercial from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er1Ri3qKavw From Hot, Hot, Hot to Camelot, Buster Poindexter Plays Café Carlyle from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxULtuLMNiI   Music New York Dolls - Personality Crisis (1973) Prince Buster - Enjoy Yourself (1968) New York Dolls - Bad Girl (Demo) (1972) “Cabaret in the Sky” (1974) from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNTN1gpuz38 David Johansen - In Style (1979) "Wilkommen" from Cabaret (1972) New York Dolls - Stranded in the Jungle (1973) Buster Poindexter- Whadaya Want (1987) Edvard Grieg Impromptu, EG 175 (1896) David Johansen - Mara Dreams the Moongate of Uncommon Beauty (2007) David Johansen - Piece of My Heart from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUxAIMvuqQk (2016) David Johansen & Larry Salzman - James Alley Blues (2005)   Illustration Charlotte Yiu   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

Chef Priyanka Naik is a self-taught vegan cook, Food Network champion, social media influencer, and author of the cookbook, The Modern Tiffin. In this episode, host Kevin Burke talks to Priyanka about her New York story. How did growing up on the South Shore of Staten Island as the daughter of immigrant parents shape her senses—and her sense of home and the world. What about being a kid on Staten Island drew Priyanka closer to her roots in India? What sparked her passion for taking her family’s traditional recipes and putting her own modern spin on them? And what is the deeper source of her creativity, drive, and sense of daring to put herself “out there” in print and on camera as a virtual one-woman show?   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Archival Clip of Chef Priyanka Naik from her website https://www.chefpriyanka.com/receiving-the-1st-copy-of-my-debut-cookbook-the-modern-tiffin/ Clip of Chef Priyanka Naik from Instagram https://www.instagram.com/reel/CSZZscsDDa7/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link Clip of Chef Priyanka Naik from Instagram https://www.instagram.com/reel/CSQWMGOj5gn/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link Clip from CNN broadcast announcementhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuHfSo5YI_M Clip from Throwdown with Bobby Flay (2020)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVp9QteuveQ CNN coverage from September 11, 2001 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VveRmJpFW6o   Music Billy Joel, “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” – The Stranger (1977)   Illustration Nick Gregg   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.”   Recommended Reading Priyanka Naik, The Modern Tiffin (Simon & Schuster, 2021) Chef Priyanka’s website: https://www.chefpriyanka.com/

Sonia Manzano is one of the most influential voices in the history of public television. For more than 40 years, she was our neighbor, Maria, on Sesame Street, and she continues to connect her experiences and imagination through her new show for PBS Kids, Alma’s Way. In Part Two of her Your Hometown episode, she talks with host Kevin Burke about how she made her way from her coming of age in the South Bronx to Sesame Street and how the real and fictional maps of those neighborhoods – one real, one imaginary – overlapped inside of her and in the TV worlds she created for us. As a magical storyteller, Sonia knows just where to go in her memories for that powerful combination of laughter amid pathos – the funny in the sad, the lessons in the every-day.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Archival Chesterfield Cigarettes Kinescope Tobacco Commercial from the Perry Como Show  Father Knows Best: “Bud Takes Up The Dance” – Season 1, Episode 1 (1954) Louis Prima & Keely Smith – “Don't Worry 'Bout Me” Little Rascals: Our Gang of Follies of 1938 Original Godspell Cast on the Today Show Godspell Cast performs at the Tony Awards (1972) Sesame Street: Show Open Season One Clip from Sesame Street Episode 0832 (1975) Classic Sesame Street: “Maria’s Interruptions” Classic Sesame Street: "Maria's Present for David” Classic Sesame Street: "Maria Discusses Her Jobs” Classic Sesame Street: "Mr. Hooper Helps Gordon” Sesame Street Unpaved: "Mr. Hooper's Death” Clip from Sesame Street Episode 2615 (1989) Clip from Sesame Street Episode 3658 (1997)   Music “A Boy Like That” from West Side Story (1961) Nina Simone, “Feeling Good” (1965) “America” from West Side Story (1961) “Razzle Dazzle” from Chicago (1996 Broadway Revival Cast) "Just My Imagination" - The Temptations (1971)    Illustration Tunshore Longe   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.”   Recommended Viewing Alma’s Way and Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street   Recommended Reading Sonia Manzano, Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos

Emmy-winning writer and actress Sonia Manzano, who played “Maria” on Sesame Street for more than 40 years, talks to host Kevin Burke about growing up in the South Bronx and how she draws on the “love and chaos” of her childhood to teach children—something she’s still doing through her new animated series for PBS Kids, Alma’s Way.    Filmed in Manhattan and Queens, Sesame Street wasn’t that far from Sonia’s own hometown in New York City. Sesame Street is a fictional place that evokes city life from the stoop to the subway and apartments above stores. But Sonia grew up in the very real place of the South Bronx—most vividly on Third Avenue near Crotona Park. How different was Sonia’s New York from the one she helped to create as Maria? On our TVs, Sonia gave us something we needed: a feeling of love and safety, empathy and imagination. Where did she find these things when she was a kid?   This is a two-part episode. In the first part, Sonia takes us from the world of Sesame Street—actually, her audition—back to her beginnings in the South Bronx. And in part two, she explains how she got from the Bronx to Sesame Street and lived a second childhood as an adult with experiences to share. So, “come and play” and “sweep the clouds away” – by listening to one of the truest teachers you’ll find in New York or any hometown.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Archival Sesame Street: Show Open Season One Clip from One Touch of Venus (1948) “Whistling” Sound from Opening Scene of West Side Story (1961). Final Scene from West Side Story (1961).   Music Sesame Street: “I Can Remember (Bread, Milk, Butter)” “Guajira Guantamanera” by Josiéto Fernandez (1929) “Esta Navidad”: Puerto Rican Christmas Song – Unspecified: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings / Folkways Records (1958)  “Tonight – Quintet” from West Side Story (1961) “Tonight” from West Side Story (1961)   Illustration Nick Gregg   Recommended Viewing Alma’s Way and Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street   Recommended Reading Sonia Manzano, Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx   Special thanks Gloria Bonelli

Suzanne Vega is that rare singer-songwriter whose work becomes part of the soundtrack of their hometown -- in her case, New York City. In this episode, Suzanne illuminates her childhood in East Harlem in the 1970s and how her experiences of the city, inside and out, flow through her work, even as she embraces the freedom to write from different perspectives. Suzanne's latest album is "An Evening of New York Songs and Stories," and as she discusses such songs as "Luka," "Gypsy," "Tom's Diner," and "Zephyr & I," we meet an artist fully alive to the truths of her coming of age and to the souls that linger in an urban landscape layered by time and memory.   In particular, when "Luka," a song about child abuse from a young boy's point of view, was first released in the 1980s, Suzanne shied away from questions about whether she was writing from experience or imagination. Not only was it a matter of artistic principle, but as she reveals, she also was afraid of what her stepfather, the novelist Ed Vega, might think. All these years later, Suzanne talks as never before about her personal connections to "Luka" and how its truth spoke to other people's truths.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Archival 2007: Irish in the Americas Puerto Rican Iconoclast: The Work and Literary Lives of Edgardo Vega Yunqué   Music Suzanne Vega - Luka (1987) Suzanne Vega - New York Is My Destination (2016) Suzanne Vega - New York is a Woman (2007) Suzanne Vega - Gypsy (1987) Lou Reed - Caroline Says (Live at Firenze 1980) Suzanne Vega - Would You Like Another One? (2020) Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner (1992) Suzanne Vega - Walk on the Wild Side (2020) Suzanne Vega - Zephyr & I (Acoustic) (2010) Suzanne Vega - Luka (2020)   Illustration Nick Gregg   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”   Recommended Listening Suzanne Vega, An Evening of New York Songs and Stories    Recommended Reading The Passionate Eye: The Collected Writing of Suzanne Vega   Special thanks Steve Addabbo, Chris Schimpf, Mark Spector

Sherrilyn Ifill walks into court with history behind her as president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund. It’s the legal arm of the civil rights movement, and Sherrilyn is in its vanguard. Her hometown is Jamaica, Queens, a neighborhood in New York City where she grew up in the 1960s and '70s. That’s what Kevin Burke explores with her in this conversation, starting with the first question Sherrilyn asks whenever she takes on a new legal case: “Tell me about the history of this place.” That’s because she knows every town has one: the layers of time, buried and built over, that reveal why things are the way they are, from the bulldozing of Black neighborhoods to make way for highways to brutal acts of violence like lynchings, erased from the public square and, over time, memory. Sherrilyn wants us to see these scars of history all around us and how they impact the struggle for equal justice in America. She’s compared this process of discovery to swallowing the red pill in the sci-fi action film, The Matrix. Once you see the past in the present, you can’t unsee it. What is the connection between Sherrilyn’s civil rights work and her powerful personal story and all she experienced in her New York?   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Music Judy Garland – “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” (1944)  The Freedom Singers -- “We Shall Not Be Moved at the March on Washington” (1963) The O’Jays -- “Use Ta Be My Girl” (1978)  Choir of Zion Methodist Church -- “Jesus Leads Me All the Way” (1970) James Brown -- “Lost Someone” Live at the Apollo theater (1972) The Human Condition with Beverly Grant -- “Clifford Grover” (1974)    Archival Martin Luther King Jr. Funeral Services 1978-Boston Massacre, Game 2 (WPIX-TV Audio) The Huntley-Brinkley Report, July 31, 1970  May 17, 1973: Televised Watergate Hearings Begin  Barbara Jordan Impeachment Speech Exclusive: Riots that followed a Queens police shooting, 40 years later The Matrix (1999) Rosedale: The Way It Is (1976)    Illustration Nick Gregg   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter

Our guest is the Rev. Al Sharpton, whose activism has made him a fixture in the press for decades in his hometown of New York City. Lately, though, we often see him as the eulogist at funeral after funeral of those taken too soon through violence. He does it with enormous grace and power, including after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. And there’s a reason for that. As Rev. Sharpton explains to Kevin Burke in this rare interview, there’s a traumatic incident that happened to him a long time ago, when he was 9 years old, that gives him the ability to speak to children who are in pain, because there is a pain deep inside of him that permanently shaped the arc of his formation as a preacher and future civil rights leader. It’s a story he doesn’t tell often, because it’s so surprising and unexpected, but in this episode, you’ll hear him share it in the most personal way. In listening, you’ll also gain an understanding that may forever alter the way you see this icon of our times.    Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Music Ernestine Washington – “Teach Me How to Wait”  Mahalia Jackson – “Walk In Jerusalem” (1963) Mahalia Jackson – “No One Knows the Trouble I've Seen” (1963)  James Brown – “The Payback” (1973) James Brown – on Soul Train (1973)    Archival Bishop F. D. Washington Preaching at the COGIC Holy Convocation in 1978  Rev. C. L. Franklin – “Lo, I Am With You Always”  Adam Clayton Powell Jr. – “Keep The Faith, Baby” (1967) Sermon Excerpt - Dr. William Augustus Jones, Jr.  "I am somebody!" - Historical footage of Rev. Jesse Jackson leading a crowd in a chant of solidarity Reverend Al Sharpton delivers eulogy at George Floyd’s funeral (2020) George Floyd Funeral: Rev. Al Sharpton Delivers Eulogy (2020) Jan. 21, 2013: Inaugural Ceremonies for President Barack Obama   Illustration Nick Gregg    Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.    “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”   Special thanks Rebecca Stanford

Maria Bartiromo anchors three different shows on the Fox Business Network and Fox News Channel and was the first TV reporter to broadcast live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. She doesn’t come from the world of CEOs, however. Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, she was a kid growing up in Dyker Heights and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where she worked the coat check at her father’s restaurant and catering hall, The Rex Manor. Her whole family pitched in there, including her mother, who also had a job at the local OTB (Off-Track Betting). In that world of hard work, family, and sacrifice, what did Maria learn that would help her break through the doors of the Stock Exchange? What lessons she absorbed from her family and hometown remain with the Maria we see in the world of cable news today? Join Kevin Burke at the intersection of place, time, and memory for another episode of Your Hometown.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast. If you like what we’re up to, leave us a written review on your favorite podcast app. Thank you.   Show Notes   Music Joey Ramone - "Maria Bartiromo" (2002) Frankie Valli - "My Eyes Adored You" (1974) Bing Crosby - "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?" (1932) Donna Summer - “Last Dance” (1977)   Archival "Battle In Burma," British Pathé (1944) "Crazy George Yelling for Horse at Off-Track Betting" (2009) "Maria Bartiromo, Anchor & Global Markets Editor, Fox Business Network, Rings The Opening Bell" (at the New York Stock Exchange) (2020)   "Experience Wall Street Stock Trading in the 1980s" (2020) "CNBC's Maria Bartiromo at 10:14 AM on 911" (2020)  “CNBC on Sept. 11 (Fixed Broadcast) 8:34 AM - 11:25 AM” (2016) from CNBC on Sept. 11 (Fixed Broadcast) 8:34 AM - 11:25 AM “Mr. Softee Theme” (2011) “Bargain chain Century 21 to shut down after nearly 60 years” PIX11 (2020)   Illustration Nick Gregg   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”   Special Thanks Emily Burnham and Caley Cronin

Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the most well-known scientists on the planet. In addition to authoring numerous books, he hosts the wildly popular podcast, StarTalk, and has helped revive the epic TV series Cosmos that originated with Carl Sagan, whom he met when he was in high school. Neil is also the director of the world-renowned Hayden Planetarium, part of the Rose Center for Earth and Space that he helped launch at the American Museum of Natural History in his hometown of New York City. In this episode of Your Hometown, we turn a giant lens on the galaxy of Neil’s childhood to explore the origins of his mission to make science fun and intelligible to the public. What inspired him as a kid growing up in the Riverdale section of the Bronx in an apartment complex called, of all things, the Skyview? What were the forces that propelled him, and what were the barriers he had to push through to achieve his dreams?   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.     Show Notes    Music Theme from “Head of The Class” (1986) Christopher Cross - “Arthur’s Theme” (1981) Gladys Gooding - V-Disc 741 (1947)   Archival Intro to “Startalk Podcast: Cosmic Queries Galactic Grab Bag” (2021) Cosmos: Possible Worlds Official Trailer (2018) Clip from "Dark Universe" | Hayden Planetarium (2014) “Watch the moment men first landed on the moon” – CBS News Coverage of 1969 Moon Landing “President Johnson Opens New York's World Fair 1964” - (2014) “Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City” - (2014) “2015 West Indian Parade” - (2015) WABC Music Radio 77: Chuck Leonard reports on the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (April 4 1968) - (2011)  Opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) Opening scene of Escape from New York (1981)   Illustration Nick Gregg   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”   Suggested Reading The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist, Letters from an Astrophysicist, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Cosmic Queries: StarTalk's Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We're Going.

In an industry where most startups go up, down, and disappear, Danielle Guizio is a New York-based fashion designer on Forbes’s 30 under 30 list. If you think of the biggest celebrities on the style pages today, you’re likely to find a photo of them wearing her designs.  She describes the line – which shares her name, Danielle Guizio – as “celebrating the modern-day woman who aims to deviate from the traditional and push boundaries in all aspects of life.” She has even revived the corset, which Ariana Grande wore in black satin on the set of her music video for “7 Rings.” Because of her age, one might assume Danielle came to her success in a straight line. But as we hear in her interview with host Kevin Burke, Danielle’s coming of age was more jagged and uncertain, filled with experiences that brought her face-to-face with some scary and ugly sides of life.  Out of all this, she placed her big bet on designing clothes that make young women like her, as she says, feel confident and strong.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Music Ariana Grande - “7 Rings” (2019) Haul + Try On Essentials - The Hess Twins (2021) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf8Z4esNaMg)  Britney Spears – “Lucky” (2000) Whitney Houston - “How Will I Know” (1985) Nirvana - “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (1991) Lady Gaga - “The Edge of Glory” (2011) "Kylie Jenner Hits the Met Gala in a showgirl inspired dress" (Daily Mail YouTube Clip, 2019) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHgm_iyU-FE)    Illustration Nick Gregg   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”   Special thanks Michelle Bao

Lynn Nottage is the first woman ever to win two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, and she’s one of the most important voices writing for the stage and screen today, with works that include Infinite Apparel, Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Ruined, Sweat, and MJ: The Musical, an upcoming show on the life of Michael Jackson. She often writes about characters in private, intimate spaces, where and how real people really talk. It’s a process that began in her hometown of New York City, where she was a girl growing up in the Boerum Hill section of pre-gentrified Brooklyn. On the surface, she says, it was the kind of neighborhood people passed through to get to other neighborhoods in 1970s. But to Lynn, it was the setting for her story, starting on her block and in the brownstone where her parents, Wally and Ruby Nottage, raised her and her brother and hosted family, friends, artists, and activists. There was lots of noise in the house, especially in the kitchen. Lynn still lives in that house today, a wife, mother, professor, and playwright surrounded by the memories and materials of her ancestors.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes Music Original Composition: Sterling Steffen   Illustrations Nick Gregg   Archival Etan Patz Disappearance: Original News Report, Pat Harper, WPIX 11, May 28, 1979   Poem  Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)    “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.    “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”    Suggested Reading Poof!; Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Infinite Apparel; Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine; Ruined; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; Sweat   Special Thanks Elisabeth Frankel

Sigourney Weaver is one of the greatest movie stars of all time, and many of us think of her as the tough, no-nonsense screen heroines she has played in films from Alien to Avatar. But that’s not how she saw herself as a girl growing up in Manhattan, where she was Susan, the shy, bookish daughter of a dynamic set of parents in that whirling scene of trailblazers in television’s first golden age. In this revealing episode, hear how she found empowerment roaming the streets of New York and attending an all-girls high school where she discovered her name.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Music This Is Your Life, with host Ralph Edwards and honoree Roger Williams (1959) I Married Joan: Season 1 Episode 1: Pilot (1952) John Lennon Murder: Original News Report, Eyewitness News (December 8, 1980) “Give Peace a Chance” Live Recording @ Strawberry Fields in Central Park, NYC “Ghostbusters,” by Ray Parker Jr. (1984)   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”   Recommended Films (Sigourney Weaver’s NYC films) Eyewitness Ghostbusters Ghostbusters 2 Working Girl The Guys My Salinger Year   Special thanks Holly Chou

Richard Price is a writer’s writer, with novels that include The Wanderers, Clockers, Freedomland, and Lush Life. He’s also collaborated on such landmark television series as HBO’s The Wire, The Night Of, The Deuce, and The Outsider. Hear him talk with Kevin Burke about how New York City is better understood as a series of hometowns and how growing up in the Bronx shaped him as a writer of human drama and dialogue in stories set in the gritty landscapes of urban America.   Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”   Read Richard Price, The Wanderers, Clockers, Freedomland, Lush Life   Watch The Wire, The Night Of, The Deuce, The Outsider   Special thanks Lorraine Adams

This is part 2 of a “double-album” interview with Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, who grew up in Hollis, Queens in the 1960s, ’70s, and early ’80s, where he became one of three founding members of the Hall of Fame hip-hop group, Run-DMC. Hear DMC talk about his childhood passion for comic books, how they introduced him to his hometown of New York City and inspired his creativity as a rapper, and how they ultimately informed his search for meaning and identity as the adopted son of Byford and Banna McDaniels – a secret he didn’t discover until he was 35. Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.   Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.   Show Notes   Music Theme from “Mighty Thor” (1966)  Kool DJ Red Alert Live on KISS FM in NYC (1984) “King of Rock” Live at Live Aid- RUN DMC (1985) “Walk this Way” - RUN DMC (1986) “Angel” - Sarah McLachlan (1997) “Son of Byford” - RUN DMC (1986)   Illustrations Nick Gregg   Poem Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)   “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.   “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.   “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”   Read Darryl McDaniels, Ten Ways Not to Commit Suicide: A Memoir    Special thanks Darryl McDaniels, Richard Barone, and Stephen Petrus.    We are also grateful to the Museum of the City of New York, our co-presenter on this New York City feature series, and especially want to thank Whitney Donhauser, Sheryl Victor Levy, Fran Rosenfeld, Keith Butler, Jerry Gallagher, Jennifer Hernandez, Lillian Lesser, Danny Curtin, Corin Infantino, Lizzy Marmon, Brittney Benham, Meryl Cooper, Robin Carol, Chie Miyajima, and Tara Dawson.

In the first of a two-part interview, Kevin Burke speaks with Darryl McDaniels, the legendary hip-hop artist from Hollis, Queens, where he and his two friends formed one of the truly pioneering groups in American music: Run-DMC. Darryl was the “DMC” in that equation, and together with Joseph “Run” Simmons and Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell, he put Hollis on the map for an entire generation. Before then, Hollis was the neighborhood where they were kids growing up in homes and on streets where the gaps between blocks sometimes felt like the borders between different kingdoms. For more, including artwork and a hand-drawn map of Darryl’s hometown, visit us at yourhometown.org. And check out the show’s New York City series page, including information on live events with our co-presenter, the Museum of the City of New York at www.mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast

Hear from our host, Kevin Burke, on the importance of telling the stories of the highs, lows, and unforgettable moments of childhood through Your Hometown.