When I found out that the song had been co-opted by Occupy Wall Street, my jaw dropped. It went viral online. People were remixing it and mashing it up with videos from the protests. The time I wrote it it was a time of social upheaval, the Stonewall Riots had just happened. Forty years later, the same thing was going down in the streets of New York City.

WATCH VIDEO: A video made by Occupy Wall Street protesters that incorporates Melvin Van Peeble’s 1968 song “Love, That’s America.”

Melvin Van Peebles has had a long and eclectic career. After serving in the U.S. Air Force as a young man, he’s directed independent films, including “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song,” which he wrote, produced, directed and starred in. He has also enjoyed a career as a musician and recording artist. In the 1980s he became the first black trader on the American Stock Exchange.

On Feb. 25 at 7 p.m., 92Y Tribeca will screen the 1967 film, “La Permission: The Story of a Three Day Pass” followed by a Q&A with Van Peebles. The screening will be followed by a performance of his band widLaxative at 9 p.m.

More My New York…

In this photo, culinary student Nadya Dunkley cooks chicken at Colors Restaurant, a workers' cooperative created by the Restaurant and Opportunities Center in New York (ROC-NY). Only one in five chefs are women, said Saru Jayaraman, executive director of ROC-NY. Photo courtesy of ROC United.

Viewers of celebrity chef TV shows know that restaurants can be intense workplaces. Literal food fights break out, insults fly and a certain testosterone-driven bravado — less common nowadays in other industries — is often on display.

In the fiercely competitive world of New York City restaurants, great strides have been made to make what was once a boys-only club more inclusive. But labor advocates and employees in the industry say that there is still great inequity in and around the kitchen.

“It’s an incredibly male dominated culture,” said Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of the labor advocacy group, Restaurant and Opportunities Center, and the former executive director of its New York branch. “Only one in five chefs in America are women.”

Scroll Through Our Timeline of Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment in New York City Restaurants:

Our timeline looks at some of the legal developments for women restaurant workers in New York, as well as the industry’s high-profile discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits. MetroFocus/John Farley

A recent report by the Restaurant Opportunities Center United shows that a whopping 37 percent of all sexual harassment claims came from the restaurant industry in 2011.

In New York City, a slew of high-profile sexual harassment cases have been filed by restaurant workers against their employers in the past few years. The most prominent, perhaps, occurred last June, when six employees of the Boathouse Restaurant in Central Park filed federal discrimination charges against the eatery. One manager allegedly forced a female server to view nude pictures of someone he’d slept with on his cellphone.

Nastaran Mohit, a 29-year-old Brooklynite and veteran of the restaurant industry, said harassment is rampant.

“I started catering in Bayside, Queens, when I was 14. That was my first experience with sexual harassment on the job, from an older manager who frequently harassed the female employees — the hostesses and waitresses,” said Mohit.

After that, she worked in restaurants in New York City and Binghamton, N.Y., while attending college, where she said harassment was considered par for the course.

Caitlin Hettinger is the general manager at 9 Restaurant in Hell's Kitchen. Hettinger said she has no tolerance for discrimination or harassment at her workplace, but has witnessed offenses in other restaurants where she's worked. Photo courtesy of 9 Restaurant.

“It was something that was so common that I think a lot of female waitresses and hostesses assumed that it was just part of the job,” said Mohit, who claims her worst experiences occurred at a Greek restaurant in TriBeCa, where the owner made lewd and racist comments.

“I’ve seen other girls be put in compromising situations, where if they didn’t say ‘yes’ to a manager who asked to go out on a date with them or something stupid like that they’d have their shifts cut back. I saw that a lot, particularly in New York City, not up in Binghamton,” she said.

Caitlin Hettinger, the general manager at the restaurant 9, in Hell’s Kitchen, said that based on her experiences working in other establishments, she too believes that sexual harassment is still a serious problem in the restaurant industry.

“Too many times I’ve seen people exploiting their positions of power in other restaurants. They’ll use it as a threat. They’ll manipulate women’s schedules if they won’t go on a date with them,” said Hettinger.

She believes the problem is due in part to a generational divide.

“There’s still an old school mentality where certain managers, owners and their investors think it’s okay to put money into a girl’s pocket, without realizing how degrading that is to a woman’s identity,” said Hettinger.

As a result of these experiences, Hettinger — a long-time activist for women’s and LGBT rights who will soon open her own restaurant, the Summit, in TriBeCa — maintains a strict open door policy to prevent hiring discrimination. And if she hears about sexual harassment?

“I have no tolerance for it! I’ll take them aside and say, ‘These situations you’re creating are making other people uncomfortable, and sometimes when people are uncomfortable it’s sexual harassment.’”

Hettinger and Jayaman both believe the culture of big-name hostile chefs contributes to the problem.

“I think it’s been proliferated with the celebrity chef phenomenon, in which being arrogant and crazy makes you a higher status chef,” said Jayaraman. “It promotes this culture where sexual harassment is rampant.”

And sexual harassment has a direct effect on the earning power of women in the restaurant industry, reinforcing hiring discrimination and deterring women from seeking or being offered either promotions or the most lucrative shifts, explained Jayaraman.

The majority of higher paid, salaried jobs in the kitchen and in management are occupied by men and on average, female servers are paid only 68 percent of what male servers make, according to the Restaurant Opportunities Center United recent report.

A younger generation of restaurant owners and managers like Hettinger are helping to reduce gender inequality, but Restaurant and Opportunities Center is still calling for a number of policy changes.

In this photo, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay poses in London. In 2011, a female worker brought sexual harassment charges against Gordon Ramsey's restaurant at the London Hotel in NYC. Restaurant and Opportunities Center in New York's Saru Jayaraman said the culture of celebrity chefs can promote sexual harassment. AP/Richard Lewis

“We believe the number one policy change is raising the absurdly low minimum wage for tipped workers,” said Jayraman.

New York State law actually requires that if a server’s hourly wages plus tips do not add up to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, then the employer must make up the difference. But Jayaraman says it should still be more.

“Seven states actually have no difference between the tipped minimum wage [$2.13] and regular minimum wage. California has the largest restaurant industry of any state, and they have no wage difference,” said Jayaraman.

She added that there should be stronger enforcement of gender discrimination and sexual harassment laws and financial incentives for employers who provide training to reduce violations of those laws. She also recommended providing guaranteed paid sick days for workers, which a bill currently in New York City Council would require.

Hettinger, who said her restaurant 9 starts servers with an hourly base pay of just under $5, pointed to an alternative model.

“I look up to Charlie Trotter in Chicago. His restaurant employees are all on salary. So no matter how busy it is, everyone knows what they’re getting,” said Hettinger.

But for young women hoping to get  job in a restaurant, Mohit advises preparing for the reality.

“I think if women had a better understanding of how the industry functions — it’s extremely sexist and in many ways predatory — they’d have a lot more control over the situation,” she said. “Education is a key component. I think a lot of women don’t understand that certain things are outright illegal.”

I wrote a lot in high school, less in college. I enjoyed the practice of writing itself, but I could never seem to find a truly compelling character or a plot that held my interest. By the time I became a corporate lawyer, my writing was limited to merger agreements and late-night emails to friends.

That changed on the morning of Sept. 15, 2008. I arrived early to work at my law firm, WilmerHale, and found that my hall was already buzzing with bankruptcy attorneys and litigators. By 9 a.m., a firm-wide meeting had been called in one of the conference rooms. Every single partner was present. The stress level was at an unparalleled high. The associates glanced around the room at one another, silently wondering if we were all about to be fired.

Instead, the head of the New York office, looking more exhausted than I had ever seen him, announced the unthinkable: Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy. It was the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history; Lehman held over $600 billion in assets. There was no way to quantify the impact on the U.S. economy, much less our firm, which had many financial clients, but we all knew it would be catastrophic.

As two bankruptcy partners walked us through how and why Lehman collapsed, I was filled with the distinct sense that in that very moment, I was living history. Like JFK’s assassination or Sept. 11, people would remember where they were when they found out about the demise of Lehman. When I returned to my desk, all I could think to do was call friends; already, some had lost jobs, others knew they were about to. My New York, comprised mostly of young bankers, lawyers and investment professionals, was profoundly shaken.

“The Darlings” is the story of New York – my New York – the way I experienced it during the fall of 2008. The fictional Darling family, the title characters in my novel, became the lens through which I told it; the father in the family was the head of a large investment bank brought to its knees after being embroiled in scandal. I loved the idea of creating a set of characters whose rise and fall captured New York at a particular moment in time.

People often ask me on whom I based the Darlings. I usually reply that they are a compilation of many people, some of whom I know personally and others who I do not. Of course, there are elements of each character that are entirely imagined. But in truth, the experience that I drew upon most heavily while I was writing “The Darlings” was my own.

The novel "The Darlings" is set in 2008, just after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, once a behemoth in the investment banking industry. Flickr/asmythie

Like Merrill and Lily Darling, I grew up on the Upper East Side. I attended Chapin, an all girls’ private school, and spent my summers out on Long Island. Many of the girls’ tender recollections and anecdotes from their early years – driving out to the Hamptons on Friday afternoons, going on dates with guys who drank too much at Dorrian’s Red Hand – are mine.

I also share many of their concerns: Can I afford to raise my children in Manhattan? Would I be happier living somewhere else, somewhere less stressful, less materialistic or less cutthroat? And, particularly during the fall of 2008, when the book takes place, I wondered whether or not the financial crisis would irreparably change the New York I know and love forever.

Writing about New York and the Hamptons felt nostalgic, fun, inspiring. I began to listen more closely when my friends told anecdotes about their jobs, their friends, their lives. I became more aware of my surroundings: What kind of people frequented the Regency Hotel’s Library? What did the townhouses in the Seventies look like? What was on display at the MoMA? I revisited old haunts from my childhood: the Central Park Boat pond, my old bus stop. I called my mother and my friends when there were details I couldn’t recall. I invited acquaintances to coffee and peppered them with questions about their jobs at law firms, banks, hedge funds and government agencies. I learned that there is nothing more satisfying to me as a writer as remembering a story, seeing a detail, or hearing a description of a person and thinking – yes, that’s exactly right – and then being able to incorporate it in my work.

Everything I did, no matter how dull, became fertile ground for my book. I still remember attending a very formal, rather stiff charity benefit one evening at which I knew almost no one. At my table were several people who didn’t seem to know or care what charity was actually being benefited. The women seemed much more interested in what everyone was wearing than what the keynote speaker had to say. Two of their husbands were professional rivals who seemed intent on besting one another at the charity auction (one walked away with a sailboat, the other settled for a golden retriever puppy).

Ordinarily, I would have left irritated by such a scene; that night, I sprinted home, exuberant, knowing my first chapter was about to be born.

Also like Merrill and Lily, I grew up around a family business. My father ran a mutual fund that was founded by his brother and has, over many years, employed several family members, including myself. This was a formative experience for me, and as I wrote “The Darlings,” I knew it would be central to the development of my characters as well. For better and for worse, family businesses tend to blur the boundary between work life and home life. For my family, and for the Darlings, family is business and business is family.

Cristina Alger's novel "The Darlings" is inspired by her life -- as both an Upper East Sider and an analyst at Goldman Sachs. Photo by Deborah Feingold.

The Darlings, of course, have much more complicated professional and personal relationships than does my family. To start with, my father wasn’t a criminal, and my mother isn’t an icy socialite. While I occasionally turn up at black-tie benefits, I spend most nights at home on my couch in my sweatpants, and am neither as accomplished as Merrill Darling nor as frivolous as her sister, Lily. As I always say, the Darlings aren’t based on any one family in particular. But there’s just enough fact in each of them that they all feel real to me.

I started writing “The Darlings” not because I loved the craft of writing (though I do), but because I wanted to tell a particular story –the story of New York as I knew it.

Cristina Alger was born and raised in New York City, where she currently resides. “The Darlings” is her first novel. A book release event is at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 21 at Barnes & Noble, 150 East 86th St., Manhattan.

Once again this week, one bold man proved he can accomplish great things despite the timeworn bureaucracy of New York. We speak, of course, of Nik Wallenda. But amazing as it was for him to win permission to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope, we’re not jinxing him by calling him a winner until he makes it to the other side. For the rest of this week’s Winners & Losers, the only death they had to defy was political:

New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio speaking at a protest against public transit in 2010. This week he moved to allow church worship in public schools and pressured the Bloomberg administration to release data on NYPD officers diagnosed with cancer after 9/11. His calm and measured approach makes him one of this week's winners. Flickr/Digi Art 2011_Jason.Kuffer

Tom DiNapoli — The state’s “nice guy” comptroller may not have a bad word to say about anyone, but he rolls deep. Take, for instance, the business community’s coordinated effort to bash DiNapoli after he picked apart Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan for a new, less-generous pension tier for state workers. Faster than you can say “defined contribution,” DiNapoli’s allies in the labor world leapt to his defense, sending out a string of releases criticizing the pro-Cuomo groups for piling on their beloved comptroller. DiNapoli may speak softly, but his union pals carry the big sticks, which should come in handy as Cuomo ramps up his effort to push through pension reform.

Dan Huttenlocher — The new dean of the city’s much-touted tech campus is tall, gangly and unabashedly geeky about all things technical. Huttenlocher will become the public face of the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to cultivate and grow the city’s burgeoning tech sector. And he’s up to the task, he says. His first priority is attracting a top-notch faculty and student body in order to meet the mayor’s expressed goals of spinning out hundreds of companies and billions in new revenue. Huttenlocher’s is the first new job; let’s hope he can pave the way for tens of thousands more.

Dora Irizarry — Finally, someone with some real power tries to cut through the crap on redistricting! The Brooklyn federal judge sided with a group of voters who asked to intervene in the insider-driven process, and called on a special master to start drawing new lines. Her logic is that the Legislature hasn’t done any work on Congressional lines, even though the petition process starts in six weeks. It all sounds reasonable to us, which is what makes Irizarry’s position so unique.

David Paterson — So his memory of meeting future Knick standout Jeremy Lin in 2007 was unsupported by the facts. So what? When the former governor returned to the Capitol this week, he reminded everyone why he was so frustrating while in power – but also why he was able to charm his way to power in the first place. At the unveiling of a Black History Month exhibit, he explained how he became New York’s first black lieutenant governor: “I answered the phone.” And the first black governor? “I answered the phone.” We suspect he’ll be remembered as a successful radio host as well.

Michael Grimm — We didn’t break the story about Michael Grimm’s sketchy fundraising and checkered business past, but we were the first to saddle him with the old journalistic cliche “embattled.”  The embattled Staten Island congressman’s questionable business history earned him another unflattering portrayal this week in the New York Times. Grimm has capitalized on his record as a former Marine and FBI agent, but the rest of his resume had stayed under the radar, including business ties with former convict Carlos Luquis and a history of regulatory trouble.

Mark Grisanti — What actually happened at the Seneca Niagara Casino? The world may never know, but it also seems like the Buffalo senator isn’t quite clear on the story himself. That, along with conflicting eyewitness accounts, has cast doubt on the story that Grisanti was merely trying to break up a fight and then defend his wife. It might be too muddy to end up hurting his 2012 re-election effort – but it hardly helps.

Joe Lhota — The MTA’s new chairman is a straight shooter who calls it like he sees it. But that can backfire sometimes, as Lhota found out this week after he said Sen. Bill Perkins “does nothing but talk and talk and talk.” Lhota apologized after the Times quoted him, commending Perkins as an “excellent legislator,” but it was an unusually rookie mistake for a man who was hired as a government veteran.

John Liu — If the Losers list opened a Hall of Fame, Liu would be on the first-ballot short list. Week after week, the news gets worse for the mayoral contender whose prospects of keeping his current job are now being questioned. His planned big comeback speech yesterday was marred by a report that his aides had to round up audience members to fill the room – and by one of his campaign fundraisers, who got indicted the previous day. It all followed the announcement that First Deputy Comptroller Eric Eve was leaving, after sources said he clashed with Liu’s political operative, Chung Seto, who really shouldn’t have much to do with Liu’s government operations. We’re also pretty sure the New York Post wrote a few bad editorials about Liu this week, though they’re starting to blur together.

Nick Spano — In New York state, politicians are always pleading guilty to some crime or another. But the former Westchester senator’s guilty plea on relatively light tax evasion charges for underreporting $50,000 in income is a doozy, because his lobbying firm, Empire Strategic Planning, is watching its clients run away: just as the state gets serious about legalizing gambling, Spano’s $540,000 contract with Genting is going down the tubes. The plea could also weaken the political future of his brother, Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano, but nothing hurts as bad as that gambling money. Genting was going to pay the firm $25,000 a month, an amount that could have made up eight years of underreporting in just eight weeks.

Vote for this week’s winners and losers at City & State.

In 1986, when Frank Jump was 26 years old, he was diagnosed as HIV positive. It was a time when doctors still knew little of the disease. They estimated Jump only had a few years left to live.

The doctors were wrong. Nearly 10 years after his diagnosis, things started looking up for Jump — literally.

In 1997, he “discovered” an ad for Omega Oil, a cure-all tonic, painted on the side of a New York City building. It was the beginning of a quest to photograph old ads painted or glued to the sides of city buildings, ads he views as relics of New York’s past. The quest has consumed Jump ever since.

“New York is a never-ending process,” Jump explained in an interview with WFUV’s Cityscape. “Building and reconstruction and renovation of New York is constant. As new buildings go up and old buildings come down, there’s going to be new ads revealed. It’s exciting to watch. I think this will be something I do until the day I die.”

Click below to see Frank’s photos of fading ads and to read the stories behind them:

Frank Jump's first “discovery” and the ad that sparked his interest in documenting fading ads. In 1997, he was walking with a friend in Harlem when he first noticed it at the intersection of West 147th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. To get the right shot, he wrote that climbed "the construction scaffolding that still surrounded the newly built police department precinct building" adjacent to the mural. You can see the rising brick support columns at the construction site in the foreground.

Photo by Frank Jump.

For an entire summer, Jump photographed the slow growth of vines over an ad for Eaglo Paint in Brooklyn. Jump remembers that the effects of nature made an impression on him. He wasn’t sure what would come of documenting the transition, but only a few weeks after the final photograph of the Eaglo sign that he took in 1998, painters scraped away the vines and covered it over with a silver, water-resistant paint. Eaglo Paint company used a great deal of toxic chemicals in the manufacture of its paints, which help them last a century in the bitter cold and blistering heat of New York’s seasons.

Photo by Frank Jump.

Frank Jump coined the term "ediglyph" to describe fading ads and graffiti. It's combination of the word "edifice" and "petroglyph," an ancient wall carving.

Jump photographed this ad on White Plains Road in the Bronx in 1997. He notes that often the old ads remain untouched by modern graffiti taggers. “Where the two works of art collide -- the ancient painted message of a long deceased commercial artist and the cryptic message or cartoon image of a spray paint artist -- a uniquely significant ediglyph is created.”

Photo by Frank Jump.

This is Jump's only photo from Staten Island. The slogan, “Eventually. Why not now?” is barely legible on the bottom right, and was supposedly a serendipitous find from the trash of a senior ad man. It was rescued by a young member of the firm who later became the first president of General Mills, Inc. The New York mill was built after the one in Minneapolis shut down and is the first to use automatic steel rollers.

Photo by Frank Jump.

According to Jump, this image taken on 47th Street in 1997 “best illustrates the collision of two advertising eras and serves as a time capsule.” A friend called Jump after a building had been demolished to expose this ad. That didn't last long as one year later it was obscured again when a new building rose in the same lot. Jump notices the juxtaposition of ads in the background: one advertising Broadway shows, a spiraling red and white ad for Levi’s rises above an ad for a stereo system. In the lower left corner of the image is a banner for “Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.” Jump said he feels it's an on-going testament to the continual renewal of New York City.

Photo by Frank Jump.

Jump has displayed his collection of photographs of faded ads in museums and recently compiled them into a book, “Fading Ads of New York City.”

As Jump entered his second decade with HIV, he said that the decaying ads came to represent the friends he lost to AIDS. “I’ve watched many, many, many, many people die. I even have address books with telephone numbers that I just stapled shut because everybody in it was gone,” said Jump.

Click below to hear Cityscape host George Bodarky’s interview with Frank Jump about the fading ads project:

The artists who painted the ads, some of which go back to the late 19th century, were called “wall dogs.” When Jump began publishing photographs of the ads on his blog, fadingad.com, several of the “wall dogs” contacted him from their nursing homes.

Jump, who is now 52, will stop at nothing in his quest to shoot the ads. He has scaled rickety fire escapes, pulled over on busy highways and walked along elevated train tracks. Jump admits to faking appointments in certain buildings to get up to the roof and even outrunning guard dogs to get the right angle in the right light.

“This book tells two stories,” wrote Dr. Andrew Irving, an anthropologist, in the book’s foreward. “That of New York City and its obsession with money, advertising and renewal over the last 150 years; and the story of the life of a teacher and photographer who has dedicated much of his time to documenting and archiving the hundreds of gigantic advertisements that were painted, often by hand, on the sides of walls and buildings.” Jump feels that the faded ads open a window into the New York of yesteryear and can change the way we see the city.

Does Jump think the city should restore the ads to their former glory? He says no. Just like every living thing, they were meant to fade away — or be torn down unexpectedly.

Eric Klinenberg is the author of “Going Solo,” a new book about the seismic social shift that’s taken place in the past 50 years as more people than ever are living alone rather than with family members or roommates. According to Klinenberg, Manhattan was only very recently replaced by Washington, D.C., as the most popular place to live alone in the U.S. MetroFocus spoke to Klinenberg about the facts of single life in New York City.

Q: In the past 50 years, the number of American adults living alone has tripled. What does that look like in New York City?

A: Today there are more than 1 million people living alone in New York City. In Manhattan, about one in two households are occupied by singletons. Some of the people who live alone are old, but they are a minority. The largest group of people living alone are between the ages of 35 and 65. Most of them have been married or lived with someone in the past but at some point they decided they needed a place of their own and the freedom to do what they want, when they want.

What’s surprising to me is that it’s more expensive to live alone. People are actually paying a premium to live alone.

Q: Why do singles choose New York?

A: If you can afford living alone in New York, you get a lot of luxuries that support your lifestyle. You can stay out late at thousands of bars and restaurants. There are laundromats where you can drop off and pick up your laundry. Some neighborhoods are particularly amenable to this, like Brooklyn Heights and Chelsea in Manhattan.

Raul Torres, 54, left, stands outside his one room apartment in a hallway of the Cecil Hotel in the Harlem section of New York in 1996. Eric Klinenberg says that single room occupancies and hotel residences like this one are declining in New York. AP/Bebeto Matthews

Q: What about those for whom single living isn’t a choice? For example, people who live in single room occupancies (SRO’s) because they can’t afford anything else…

A: The housing stock available for relatively poor people to live alone has shrunk not just in Manhattan but everywhere. That world of SRO’s and of hotel residences was bulldozed over by developers. Look at the Bowery — that area is now synonymous with hipster hotels and swanky restaurants. In the book I do write about Common Ground, a pioneering organization trying to design beautiful places for poor people to live alone, but also have companionship.

Q: In the book you describe early 20th century Greenwich Village as a crucible for the solo lifestyle…

A: People usually think of the Village as a gay man’s neighborhood but there were also large numbers of people, especially women, who came to the Village to get a taste of urban freedom. In the book I document the incredible transformation of the residents and also the housing stock in the Village. Within a few decades it becomes a living laboratory for going solo. By 1930, half of all men in the Village were single and 40 percent of women. It’s taken the rest of the country a long time to catch up.

Q: So is it still just the bohemians, gay people and working women living solo?

A: No. Now everybody does it. From young adults to the oldest of the old to lefties and culturally conservative Christians. It’s completely mundane and yet we haven’t really named or identified it as a way of life.

Q: Do you think that singles are stigmatized?

A: There are a number of myths that are damaging and add to the stigma of singletons. We have a tendency to characterize big social changes as social problems. We have this story that we tell ourselves about the decline of our communities and the end of collective life. But I don’t see things that way. While more and more people are living alone, we’re finding new ways to connect with each other. It seems to me it’s a problem of over-connection, of online social networks reinforcing these superficial ties.

That being said, I’m not advocating for going solo. This is not a case against marriage; I myself am married with two children.

From left, actresses Kim Cattrall, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon pose for photographers as they arrive for the premiere of "Sex and the City 2" in 2010. Television programs and films tend to glamorize single life but the committed relationships that the four main characters in "Sex and the City" settle into are more reflective of real-life statistics. Most singletons were married or lived with a partner at some point in their lives before going solo. AP/Shizuo Kambayashi

Q: Television shows like “Sex and the City” paint an idealized picture of the fiercely independent urban woman. Are Carrie and her female friends reflected in the statistics?

A: Popular culture tends to exaggerate and glamorize the experience but most people who live alone are not quite so fabulous. The show does reflect the reality in that there are enormous numbers of women single in the city and they are supporting each other in powerful ways. But once they hit the big screen, all four women shot off towards marriage in their own trajectories, which disappointed a lot of people who followed the television show. The reality is that most people do get married at some point, but they are doing it later than ever before. And people can get out of it and instead of moving back in with family or friends, they’re getting places of their own.

Q: For some seniors, living alone can be dangerous. What did you learn about how the city can improve the lives of seniors living in New York City?

A: We know what helps. Homecare helps. Daily Meals on Wheels delivery helps. Specialized transportation for those with impaired mobility helps. Living in a densely populated neighborhood with a rich commercial life helps. Unfortunately, with the economic recession, the city has cut back on a number of programs for the elderly. I think that’s a shame.

Eric Klinenberg is a professor of sociology at New York University and the editor of the journal Public Culture. “Heat Wave,” his first book, examines how a blistering heat wave in Chicago in 1995 revealed deeply-rooted social problems. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children.

He will appear in New York at book events on Feb. 21 at 6 p.m. at the NYU Wagner School and on Mar. 6 at powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn, hosted by n+1 magazine.

This interview, which was conducted by MetroFocus Production Coordinator Daniel T. Allen, has been edited and condensed.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Thursday a deal between state education officials and teachers' unions that determines how a teacher's performance is evaluated. AP/Evan Agostini

State education officials announced Thursday a deal on teacher evaluations that settles, in part, a months-long impasse between education officials and the state teachers union. The deal, announced just hours before a deadline imposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, secured nearly $1 billion in federal Race to the Top funds that were contingent on a statewide teacher evaluation system.

The deal also resolved a disagreement between City Hall and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which represents city school teachers, over how teachers can appeal poor ratings.

“This agreement is exactly what is needed to transform our state’s public education system,” said Cuomo in a statement. “I am pleased that by working together and putting the needs of students ahead of politics we were able to reach this agreement.”

The terms of the state deal are as follows:

• Forty percent of a teacher’s annual review will be based on student performance on standardized test scores. Twenty percent of the total 40 can be based on state test scores and the remaining 20 on scores developed by an individual school district, or a third party, pending state approval.

• The remaining 60 percent of a teacher’s score will come from direct observation of the teacher, as reported by students, peers, parents and independent evaluators.

• The evaluation system features a four-tier rating system for teachers and principals: ineffective, developing, effective and highly effective.

But while the deal has been heralded as “groundbreaking” and “historic” by Cuomo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, there are still details to be ironed out. While a deal on teacher evaluations was reached between the state and the state teachers’ union, City Hall still has no such deal with the UFT; they have only brokered a deal on the process by which teachers can appeal poor ratings.

And, according to Gotham Schools, the agreement does not end the dispute between the city and the UFT over Bloomberg’s plans to “turn around” 33 low performing schools by closing them and replacing much of the staff.

Indeed, Bloomberg said in a statement Thursday afternoon that the agreement does nothing to save the 33 schools.

“[We are] moving forward with our plan to replace the lowest-performing teachers in 33 of our most struggling schools so we can immediately begin turning them around and giving our students the support they need,” Bloomberg said in a statement.

For the mayor, “time is of the essence,” reported the New York Times.

“If the city and teachers’ union finalize a new teacher evaluation system within a year, it will still be two years before teachers can receive two ineffective ratings, positioning them for dismissal,” read the report.

Watch 02/16/12 on PBS. See more from The Capitol Report.

Susan Arbetter reports on the teacher evaluations agreement. Video courtesy of the Capitol Report.

The city has until Jan. 16, 2013, to finalize an evaluation system with the UFT.

Cuomo admitted tension still remained between City Hall and the UFT.

“Are there continuing, outstanding issues when it comes to education between the city and the UFT? Yes, yes, that is clear,” Cuomo said, Gotham Schools reported. “We never said we were going to resolve all the open issues.”

WATCH VIDEO: The music video for MEN’s song “Off Our Backs.”

Fred Armisen is the co-creator, co-writer and co-star of “Portlandia.” He is also in his tenth season as a cast member of “Saturday Night Live.” Armisen began his career as a musician in the Chicago-based post-punk band Trenchmouth and played with the Blue Man Group.

More My New York…

Stephen Ritz, who teaches in the South Bronx, has transformed the lives of his students with the "edible wall" of produce he built in his classroom. Photo courtesy of Green Bronx Machine.

“I am not a farmer. I’m a parent, a resident and a teacher,” I said at the opening of my presentation at the January TEDx Manhattan conference, “Changing the Way We Eat.” I didn’t need a pitchfork or overalls to explain how growing produce in my science classroom transformed the way my students treat their relationship to food, community and employment.

I am a special education teacher at the Discovery School in the South Bronx. Our students are the most marginalized and disenfranchised in New York City. They live in the poorest congressional district in America and the situation is not improving. They are getting fatter, sicker and poorer — they come to school hungrier and needier than ever.

In this photo, a student at Discovery High School waters crops planted in a vertical farming apparatus. A unit similar to this one was installed in teacher Stephen Ritz's classroom. The first 10 students who participated in his program improved their health and their grades in school and are now all attending college. Photo courtesy of Green Bronx Machine.

In 2009, we built an “edible wall” to grow fresh vegetables in our science classroom. I had been gardening for years and at the time, I saw this as an opportunity to engage students in the curriculum — I wasn’t looking to grow food.

Six months later, my students were routinely growing enough food in one classroom to feed 450 students a gourmet vegetarian meal every 90 days. That’s fresh and direct Bronx-style, zero miles to the plate!

My students’ attendance rate increased from 43 to 90 percent. Our student-run farmer’s market selling student-grown produce put the bake sale to shame. We regularly attracted over 500 local parents and neighborhood residents in a school that usually has to fight just to get 50 parents to attend a parent-teacher night. Our “Fresh Squeezed Bronx” tagline became the talk of the town.

WATCH VIDEO:

A video of South Bronx teacher Stephen Ritz’s presentation the TEDx Manhattan conference in January of 2012. Ritz, together with his class and community members, has grown 25,000 pounds of vegetables in the Bronx while improving his students’ attendance and academic performance.

Green Bronx Machine students outfitted a private home in Southampton with a green roof. Ritz says that the technical skills they've learned are helping them earn a living while attending school. Photo courtesy of Green Bronx Machine.

Moreover, the students learned construction skills from building the infrastructure of urban farming. They translated that hands-on experience into a business repairing affordable housing in the South Bronx. Just a stone’s throw from the Kingsbridge Armory, an edifice that’s at the heart of a citywide debate around living wage, my students comprised the youngest nationally certified workforce in America, all earning living wage of $15 to $20 per hour while attending high school.

By the spring of 2010, we had founded Green Bronx Machine, a nonprofit organization that expanded our work beyond the classroom. We’ve installed green roofs and green walls at Rockefeller Center, the John Hancock Tower in Boston and multi-million dollar private residences in Long Island. From the South Bronx to Southampton! The first 10 students who participated in the Green Bronx Machine program went from being super-sized and under-credited to healthy, fit high school graduates who are all attending college. Our second cohort of 10 students are on track to graduate at the end of this year.

WATCH VIDEO:

A video promoting the launch of Green Bronx Machine, a nonprofit organization dedicated to greening the landscapes and mindsets of urban America.

The December 2011 issue of Principal Leadership magazine highlighted our program as an exemplar of service learning. These are hard-earned accolades. We come to school early and stay late. We develop patience, team work and camaraderie.

I find these skills to be critical to success in life, and 25,000 pounds of student-grown vegetables later, I’ve come to realize the best thing we’ve grown is socially conscious young adults — engaged citizens who are ready, willing and able to contribute to a new local economy.

Stephen Ritz poses for a photo with his students among the fruits of their labor. Although his program at Discovery High School closed last year due to issues with available space in the school building, Ritz says he plans to expand his model to other schools and perhaps other cities. Photo courtesy of Green Bronx Machine.

Although our program at Discovery School closed in August 2011, we’re taking the show on the road. At the end of February, we’ll present our work to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at a teachers union conference on green schools in Denver. The Blue Green Alliance, a grassroots initiative to create green jobs, has exposed our work in other cities like Philadelphia, Houston and Detroit. People want what we have. We’re exporting Bronx talent in ways we never expected.

I’m also planning to take on a new cohort of special needs, at-risk students. I want the worst of the worst. Based on my experience over the past three years, we’ll turn them into the best of the best.

Stephen Ritz is a teacher and administrator at the Discovery School in the South Bronx and is the founder of Green Bronx Machine. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and New York City government recognized him for his work with inner city youth.

Food Network chef and food justice advocate Danny Boome gives us tips for how to cook in small NYC kitchens. AP/Anonymous

Danny Boome has made a life out of cooking and sharing recipes. He is the host of the Food Network show Rescue Chef, and is a burgeoning force in the New York City food justice movement, which seeks to give New Yorkers better access to healthy foods.

Boome, a 5-year resident of New York City, is leading a workshop at the Just Food Conference on Feb. 25 about how to cook in tiny, NYC apartments.

He discussed how to make the most out of the New York City kitchen with MetroFocus.

Q: What’s the best, and worst, thing about an NYC kitchen?

A: The best thing is that it forces you to be tidy and organized. The worst thing is it’s demoralizing! You don’t feel like cooking or eating in it. Small kitchens are a pain because as humans, we’re hoarders.

Q: What are your tips for cooking in a small kitchen?

A: 1) Preparation is key. Try to prep many of your ingredients before you cook. Then you can work through the stages of a recipe with organized ease.

2) “Mise en place,” meaning “Everything in its place.” Keep your surfaces clear and organized; it will give you an optical sense of space. Most importantly, clean as you go. Don’t let trash and dirty dishes build up. Get them out of the way. A clean work space creates less stress in the kitchen.

3) Use your oven and microwave. For some reason home cooks don’t like using them! Use your oven to keep food warm. Pre-cook vegetables and side dishes and then heat them up in the microwave when you’re ready to serve. Both of these methods will save you space on the stove top. And don’t forget to protect your food with foil in the oven and plastic wrap in the microwave.

4) Clear out all of the things you don’t need and will never use. Are you really going to need a fish poaching pan or the 32-piece set your mother-in-law gave you? Only keep what is absolutely essential. For most of us, that is two good sauce pans (medium and large), a crock pot and a skillet/frying pan.

5) Use what you do have. An immersion blender can make soup or grind coffee. A skillet is good for an omelet or a grilled cheese sandwich. Use your sauce pan as a garlic press. And your oven isn’t just for storing kitchen equipment you don’t use. Use your imagination and have fun in the space you do have!

Q: Is there anything you teach that really surprises people?

A: We teach people that they can cook a lot of things in their ovens and microwaves. You can make a stew in your oven and use your stove top for prep. The oven is your best friend in a small kitchen. Most people don’t know it but you can make a sponge cake in your microwave in seven minutes! I want to show people that they can use equipment in different ways. People buy something and think it’s for one thing only.

Q: What do you tell people who don’t think they can cook — especially in tiny spaces?

A: It amazes me what can be made in small kitchens, if you just have faith in yourself. We have forgotten to use our instincts. People are always asking for permission. “Can I do that?” they ask. “Of course you can!” I tell them. I give people permission to have fun.

WATCH VIDEO:

Danny Boome visits Newark, N.J. to teach healthy cooking to a desperate chef in this episode of the Food Network’s “Rescue Chef.”

Q: There are so many amazing restaurants to eat in here…Why should New Yorkers bother to cook at home?

A: New York is a city for foodies. You can go to Bobby Flay’s restaurant and have an experience, but why wouldn’t you try and recreate that experience at home? The thing that fascinates me about New Yorkers is the foodie pretentiousness. “Yes, I’ve been here and here,” but no one’s willing to make it. It’s easier to criticize than to try. We have such amazing food here, and we should support the amazing stores and local farmers. We have fabulous green markets and CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture). New York state has some of the best wineries and farms in the country.

Q: Is there anything about New York kitchens that makes you chuckle?

A: The funniest thing about the New York kitchen is how many spices people have. When you open a cupboard they fall on top of you! It’s that one purchase you’ll use once and never again, but yet you think, “I must have this!” If you need it, you should get it, but remember that you have it when planning your next meal. Most spices only last a couple of weeks if they aren’t sealed air tight.

The amount of pots and pans is also just amazing. IKEA has made a huge business out of selling pan racks to New Yorkers. People inherit stuff, too. I’ve got friends with the whole Le Creuset set and it just sits in the closet! I don’t know why they don’t sell it on eBay and pay the rent for the month!

Q: Why are you working with Just Food?

A: For the past year I’ve been working with the nonprofit I started, Better Fed Than Dead, on the Better FED Project, which explores community-based food education programming. I am partnering with Just Food on it and wanted to get more involved with them. I’m a chef and a food advocate, and Just Food is a leader on food issues.

Q: What will you teach at your Just Food workshop?

A: On “Rescue Chef” one of the first things I always find is that people need to be taught common sense. In the kitchen, we forget how to merge our time and our environment. We will go over how to use your space efficiently, and how to simplify equipment needs. What do we need and what do we not need? You know, people say “I have this panini maker, but where do I put it?” That’s the starting point.

Multimedia Web Editor Georgia Kral conducted this interview, which has been edited and condensed.