Just Kids From the Bronx (36 page)

Grandmaster Melle Mel, born Melvin Glover
, is an American hip-hop musician, one of the pioneers of rap, and the leader of the Furious Five. The group produced the song “White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It).” The 1983 music video of that song starred the young actor Laurence Fishburne and was directed by then unknown film student Spike Lee. Grandmaster Melle Mel became the first rap artist ever to win a Grammy for Record of the Year after performing a rap on Chaka Khan’s hit song “I Feel for You,” which introduced hip-hop to the mainstream R&B audience.

Sam Goodman
graduated from Kenyon College in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He received his master’s degree in urban-suburban administration in 1995. His master’s thesis was on his Grand Concourse community.

When he graduated from Kenyon, Mr. Goodman became a Westport, Connecticut, school bus driver and served on the Westport Democratic Town Committee. From 1981 to 1993 he served as executive director of the Westport Transit District. In 1993 he relocated to the Bronx full-time. Sam Goodman has worked as an urban planner for the Bronx borough president’s office since 1995. His family has had ties to the Grand Concourse since the 1920s. Mr. Goodman conducts tours of his neighborhood. “What I really enjoy is sharing perspectives on my home community in order to inform, enlighten, and inspire those who want to learn about this place and its people.”

Joyce Hansen
is a writer of children’s books that explore African American themes. She has been writing books and stories for more than twenty years. Her first children’s book,
The Gift-Giver
, was inspired by her students and her own Bronx childhood. Six of her fifteen books were named Notable Children’s Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies and four of her books received the Coretta Scott King Honor Book Award.

Ms. Hansen lives in South Carolina with her husband, Matthew Nelson, and writes full-time.

Daniel (“Danny”) Hauben
received his degree in fine arts from the School of Visual Arts. Born, raised, and still living in the apartment in the Bronx that his family moved to when he was nine years old, Hauben’s focus has been the urban landscape. For more than thirty years he’s been painting on location in streets and parks, from windows and rooftops. He is an eight-time recipient of the BRIO Award for Excellence in the Arts from the Bronx Council on the Arts. He recently completed a twenty-two-painting commission for the new North Hall and Library, designed by Robert A.M. Stern, for the Bronx Community College. These panels represent the largest public arts commission since the era of the WPA. His paintings are in public and corporate collections, including the White House, the Library of Congress, the New-York Historical Society, and Harvard University. He currently teaches at the Spitzer School of Architecture at City College and the Riverdale YM/YWHA. He can be seen painting on his show
Art and About
on
Bronx.net
.

Dr. Renee Hernandez
received his premed degree in organic chemistry from Fordham University and his medical degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He did his residency with Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and is board certified in internal medicine. He went back to the Bronx to serve his community, where he has his office and medical practice.

In 2012 Dr. Hernandez created the first legal rum and whiskey distillery in the Bronx since Prohibition.

Steve Janowitz
is a retired math teacher who taught at Middle School 118 in the Bronx for thirty-two years. The last ten years of that time he was the school’s math staff developer, where he held workshops on new teaching methods.

His second career became that of comedy writer for and with his wife, the actress and comedian Joy Behar. He modestly says, “My comedy writing was not by design. It just evolved. I always tried to make Joy laugh out loud at least once a day. Often I would say things that she thought were funny and they would end up in her act. I never thought of myself as a writer, only someone who liked to make wisecracks. It took a real comedian to pick out what was worth repeating on the stage.”

Steve Jordan
is a musician, composer, a multiple Grammy Award-winning record producer, and the Emmy Award-winning musical director for the CBS television special
Movies Rock
. In his early career, he played drums for the Saturday Night Live Band and for the Blues Brothers. From 1982 to 1986 he was the founding drummer in The World’s Most Dangerous Band on
Late Night with David Letterman
. Mr. Jordan has also worked with Keith Richards and the X-pensive Winos as a composer, producer, and player. Currently, he is a member of the John Mayer Trio, and records and tours with Meegan Voss, his wife, under the band name The Verbs.

Maira Kalman
is an artist, illustrator, author, and designer. She is the author and illustrator of thirteen children’s books, including those of Max Stravinsky, the poet-dog. She’s done covers for
The New Yorker
and created sets for the Mark Morris Dance Group production of
Four Saints in Three Acts
. She has illustrated several books for adults, including
The Principles of Uncertainty
,
And the Pursuit of Happiness
, and
Food Rules
. Ms. Kalman has had shows of her art in the Jewish Museum in New York City and the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles. She is represented by the Julie Saul Gallery in New York.

Michael R. Kay
received a bachelor of arts degree in communications from Fordham University but began reporting while still at Bronx High School of Science and then at Fordham University for WFUV.

He started his professional career with the
New York Post
as a general assignment writer, with sports-specific assignments to basketball, and later received the Yankees beat writing assignment.

Mr. Kay left the
Post
for the
Daily News
, in 1989, still primarily reporting on the Yankees. At that time, Kay also served as the Madison Square Garden Network Yankee reporter and the television play-by-play broadcaster of the New York Yankees.

Dr. Arthur Klein
, pediatric cardiologist, is a leader in pediatric medicine. His many appointments, positions, and honors include being a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a Fellow in the American College of Cardiology. He has served as the senior vice president of children’s services and chief of staff at the Children’s Medical Center of the North Shore Long Island Jewish Hospital health care system and is now president of the Mount Sinai Health Network.

Robert Klein
is an actor, singer, and stand-up comic. One of his first jobs was as an improviser in the Second City theatrical group in the 1960s. He made his Broadway debut in
The Apple Tree
in 1967. His first comedy album, in 1973,
Child of the Fifties
, was nominated for a Grammy and his second Grammy nomination came for his album
Mind Over Matter
. Robert Klein returned to Broadway in the Neil Simon comedy
They’re Playing Our Song
, for which he earned a Tony nomination. Mr. Klein has appeared in such films as
The Owl and the Pussycat
and
The Back-up Plan
. He is the author of
The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue
and has done eight comedy specials for HBO.

Robert F. Levine
graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1963. He has practiced law for more than forty years, representing clients in all major areas of the media and entertainment industries. Mr. Levine has a particular expertise in the publishing industry, where he acts as attorney and literary agent for many celebrated authors. He also produced the motion picture
That Championship Season
, based on the Putlitzer Prize–winning play.

Suzanne Braun Levine
, writer, editor, and nationally recognized authority on women, families, and the media, was the first editor of
Ms.
magazine (1972–88) and the first woman editor of the
Columbia Journalism Review
. Suzanne Levine was named a
Ms.
“Woman of the Year” in 2004.

She developed and produced the documentary
She’s Nobody’s Baby: American Women in the 20th Century
, which won a Peabody Award. Ms. Levine reports on the continuing changes in women’s lives in her books, on television and radio, at lectures, and on her website. She is the author and editor of numerous books, including
Inventing the Rest of Our Lives
,
Fifty Is the New Fifty
, and
How We Love Now
.

She is married to attorney Robert F. Levine and has two children.

Born in Poland,
Daniel Libeskind
became a U.S. citizen in 1964. His firm Studio Daniel Libeskind has designed cultural, commercial, and residential projects around the world. They include the master plan for the World Trade Center in New York City and the Jewish Museum Berlin. Current projects include Zlota 44, a residential high-rise in Warsaw, and Haeundae Udong Hyundai l’Park, a mixed-use development in Busan, South Korea, which when completed will include the tallest residential building in Asia. Mr. Libeskind has received numerous awards, including the 2001 Hiroshima Art Prize, given to an artist whose work promotes international understanding and peace. It had never before been given to an architect.

Rick Meyerowitz
is an artist/illustrator and writer, who over the course of his career has done thousands of illustrations for advertising agencies and magazines. He is also the author of eight books, at last count. He and his friend Maira Kalman created the much talked about
New Yorker
cover “NewYorkistan,” which was published in December of 2011. Later that week, the
New York Times
magazine wrote, “When their cover came out, a dark cloud lifted.”

Hector Nazario (“Nicer”)
: See
Tats Cru

After graduating from Pratt Institute in 1960,
Barbara Nessim
entered the New York Society of Illustrators show, which marked her becoming a professional artist, her childhood ambition. Ms. Nessim was one of the few full-time professional women illustrators working in the United States in the 1960s. She carved a niche for herself in the competitive field of graphic design, doing illustrations for publications such as
Rolling Stone
,
Time
,
Ms.
, and
New York
. Her work has been exhibited in museums worldwide, including the Louvre in Paris. Her most recent major show was a fifty-year retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2013.

Margaret M. O’Brien, S.C.,
attended the College of Mount St. Vincent during and after her novitiate period, where she majored in English and education. She later earned her master’s degree from Columbia University in library science. She has been a teacher, a library media specialist, and a school principal and has overseen the Sisters of Charity mission in hospital care, nursing homes, and hospice. Sister O’Brien’s work has taken her from Staten Island to Guatemala, culminating in her current position as treasurer of the Sisters of Charity, New York, where she has helped maintain the focus on the religious and human values in the midst of difficult financial circumstances.

Sotero Ortiz (“BG 183”)
: See
Tats Cru

Al Pacino
’s acting career has spanned more than fifty years and has included plays such as
Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?
for which he won a Tony Award in 1969. He has starred in many movies, including
The Godfather
,
Serpico
,
Dog Day Afternoon
, and
Scent of a Woman
. Mr. Pacino has won all of the major acting awards—Tony, Oscar, Emmy, British Academy Award, and Golden Globe, as well as having been elected the best actor of all time by the British television audience for Channel 4. He has also directed, produced, and starred in
Looking for Richard
, a documentary about William Shakespeare’s
Richard III
, and has performed as Shylock in Shakespeare’s
The Merchant of Venice
both on Broadway and on film.

Chazz Palminteri
is an actor, writer, and director. He wrote and performed in his one-man play
A Bronx Tale
, which led to his acting in the movie of the same name, directed by and costarring Robert De Niro. Mr. Palminteri has appeared in more than fifty films, including
The Usual Suspects
and
Analyze This
. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Cheech in Woody Allen’s
Bullets Over Broadway
. He also directed the movie
The Perez Family
, starring Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams. Chazz Palminteri is a member of the Actors Studio in New York City.

Regis Philbin
graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1953, earning a degree in sociology. He is a media personality, actor, and singer, known for hosting talk and game shows since the 1960s. He is most widely known for
Live! with Regis and Kelly
as well as
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
and
Million Dollar Password
.

Regis has been in front of the camera for some fifty years and is considered a cultural icon in TV broadcasting. He has beaten his own record in the
Guinness Book of World Records
for most hours on camera … 16,548.5 hours over the span of his career.

Regis Philbin has recorded four albums of songs. His latest CD is
Regis and Joy, Just You, Just Me
, which was made with his wife, Joy.

Colin Powell
graduated from City College of New York (CCNY), earning a bachelor’s degree in geology, but found his real calling in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) during that time. He graduated from CCNY with a commission as a second lieutenant in the army. Powell served two tours in Vietnam, earning a total of eleven military decorations, including a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, and the Legion of Merit.