Thank you Albee Baby

When I was a baby I had a doll named Albee.  Who knew the name would be of such great assistance to me some 35 years later.

When my first child Zachary was born in June of 2009, I have to admit I was totally clueless on most baby products.  I barley knew how to open my kid's strollers.  Again, I was clueless.  I recall one of the first times I took my son out by myself.  I took the stroller put him in it and strolled down stairs.  My plan was to go to meet my wife who was getting her hair cut in the village.  My wife was still on maternity leave and this was my first trip out one my own.  The skip hop diaper bag was packed with all the necessities.  I grabbed the stroller and headed out and got a cab.  For some reason I was able to close the stroller and take the car seat part out and situate it safely in the cab.  Everything was going great.  No traffic, we were heading downtown.  I felt so accomplished.  We got to our destination.  I grabbed the car seat, undid the seat belt and carried it to the trunk where I thought I would be able to open it in a snap.  So I tried and tried and and tried even more.  Couldn't get it open so I had to carry the car seat with my son in it and the stroller on my back.  What a disaster. I arrived at the salon in the village and saw my wife and the hairdresser saw me carrying everything and my wife said, "you are going to Albee Baby so they can teach how to do things."

I must admit, some if not most, of the baby products I bought were purchased in other stores, but they were still willing to go through step-by-step how to open and close all my strollers. I had a bugaboo and a  Maclaren baby stroller. I recall we were traveling with our bugaboo in the Philly area when one of the wheels came off.  We were without the stroller the rest of the trip.  We brought it back to the major baby products store, and they were completely unwilling to fix it, saying we had to send it back to he company.  We were furious and demanded they explain how an $800 dollar stroller was already broken and how could we be without a stroller.  The store was unwilling to help us, but Albee's was.  They replaced the wheel in seconds and made sure it was secure.  We used the stroller for five years after that, no thanks to the major baby products chain.  The Albee Baby staff  taught me how to open and close them and even described in detail how to install and take out a car seat.  The salesman  let my wife and I drive the car up to the store and came outside, while they said it wasn't legal for them to install it, he talked us through the entire process step by step.

With the help of the Albee Baby staff, I was able to be confident enough to take the stroller on the subway, this was when most stations didn't have elevators.  I would often see nannies carry their strollers with the kids in them down the stairs and I would be able to do this now confidently (mind you very, very slowly).  I recall being interviewed for a channel 2 news and told them I had the utmost respect for nannies ability to carry strollers with the baby intact up and down the stars.  I brought all my products to Albee baby and got many tutorials and even had them come up to my apartment to see if everything was baby-proofed correctly.

Two years after my son was born my daughter Sarah was born.  At this point I was very confident taking my son anywhere by train.  We took trips to the Bronx Zoo.  The Central Park Zoo,  where we would go for lunch.  The American Museum Of Natural History and Gymboree rounded out our favorite places. When my daughter was born we started using the Bugaboo exclusively, mainly because by now all the stations that I traveled too had elevators and the staff at Albee Baby had installed a skateboard on the stroller which my son would go on while my daughter was in the stroller.  There wasn't a site in NYC that we missed.  I even took them on the Circle Line and to the Statue of Liberty and many, many Knicks games, although my kids were probably better at basketball than the Knicks were.

I'd like to thank the knowledgeable  staff at Albee Baby because without them, I'd still be standing by the salon trying to figure out how to open the stroller.

NY's best Deals for Parents

Here are some of the best deals I have found as a father or my dads411.   I love children's products like ABC Mouse  and raz-kids,  Gymboree on west 73 provided my kids with a great foundation for day camp.  My kids went straight from the best day camp at the West Side YMCA on 63rd and Broadway.  They will be going there again this summer.  You can't beat the deal.  The West Side YMCA is half the price of other camps and provide the same activities including a pool on location.  The West Side YMCA provided a great launching pad for my daughter who is now thriving at the best pre K in NYC, PS 145 the Bloomingdale School.  Unlike PS 87, PS 452 and PS 333, PS 145 accepts students from anywhere is zone 3 in Manhattan which runs from the West 70's through West 125.  PS 145 accepts students that were zoned for Pre K at PS 87 but weren't accepted there due to space issues.  PS 145 is providing my daughter a great foundation for kindergarten.  I like PS145 so much that I joined the PTA and the SLT.

What do stay at home moms and dads do when their kids are at Gymboree or the West Side YMCA day camp?  The NY Sports 76th Street and Broadway mysportsclubs.com  is one of the best deals in NYC at $20-$40 a month for unlimited classes.  It gives me a place to work out when my kids are learning and playing.

Also how about going over to Trader Joe's on the upper west side to take care of all your shopping? Other NY deals that can't be beaten are memberships at the American Museum of Natural History,   where my kids and I spent countless hours on days we couldn't go to the  Bronx Zoo because of the weather.  Memberships to the Bronx Zoo and the American Museum of Natural History are as cheap as they come and provide endless entertainment and education for your kids.  A premium membership at the Bronx Zoo gets you unlimited access to all premium attractions (Children's Zoo, 4-D Theater, Bug Carousel, Congo Gorilla Forest, JungleWorld, Zoo Shuttle, Wild Asia Monorail, and Butterfly Garden) at the Bronx Zoo plus free parking at the Bronx Zoo and New York Aquarium as well as all other New York City zoos.  

NWA is wanted for a homicide, um, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

NWA is getting tons of praise and recognition and rightfully so.  They were certainly trailblazers and spoke for the black youths in Compton LA and elsewhere in the country.  They didn't hold their punches they used words and lyrics that were frowned upon by the white powers to be in the music industry.  I first become aware of them as a freshman at Franklin Pierce.  I become interested in them because they spoke about what they went through on a daily bases, getting stopped by cops on a daily basis.

I stared hear very negative comments about them in the media and I started asking why.  I recall white people in the 1960's saying "fuck the pigs" referring to the police in the 1960's.  Those people at the time were arrested and sent to jail or just beaten up.  I aquavit NWA the same way as I think of the people who said "fuck the pigs" in the 1960's they were using their language to get things done just like NWA did in the late 1980's.  I think the members of NWA including the late Easy E, Ice Cube, Dr Dre, MC Ren, DJ Yella and Arabian Prince the same way I think of the civil right leaders who in the 1960's said "Fuck the pigs.”  Herald E Heller who managed NWA and helped them break into the white music industry. Well now NWA is wanted for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Well there's another rap band that came to prominence around that time too.   Tribe called Qwest spoke of injustices by the police during that time, but they achieved this without using inflammatory words.  They spoke of the same injustices and were known to do the impossible like Broadway Joe.  They were lyrical  poets writing about the issues in Brooklyn but didn't use inflammatory language to do so.  In the rap industry that's dominated by rappers who routinely talking about killing people demeaning women, they did this too but did so without the language.

Tribe Called Qwest disbanded in 1998 even though they were still pretty successful and well known, but they never sold out, the stayed to their roots. I recall them coming to Franklin Pierce in 1998 and talking with those from the school who grew up near then in Brooklyn.   Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi white, were never too big to be approached and talked to they were never too big to remember where they came from. 

I always wondered by they broke up in the 1998, I thought they had a great future, but I guess they wanted to remain true to themselves and not sell out to the music industry.  The 2011 documentary film entitled Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, directed by Michael Rapaport was about them.   Jimmy Fallon and “The Tonight Show”  hosted  to a very reunion show for A Tribe Called Quest.  The reissue of their debut album, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm.

But I don’t want to “play them out like their name was sega” but I want to give them my respect.  Whenever I see John Starts at Knicks games I think of their song 8 million stories and to top it off Starks got ejected.  Well I’m out to Carvel to get a Milk shake, take care.

In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that separate but equal schools were unconstitutional

The problem is that schools in New York City are separated by race and not equal. Michael Mulgrew, President of the United Federation of Teachers, when you de-segregate public schools then you can bash charter schools.

This is in response of Michael Mulgrew's Be Our Guest column on March 18, 2016.  Its shocking that even though schools were desegregated in the 1960's, it still exists and it exists in Manhattan, one of the most diverse cities in the nation and the world.  The worst examples of this are PS145, which is almost entirely black and Spanish, where as P.S. 199 on West 70th Street has scores twice as high as the city average and most money than most schools combined. The majority of the students at PS 199 are white. Yet P.S. 191 has the complete opposite make up and their test scores are far below the city average mainly because of the disparity of money between PS 199 and PS 191.

The same disparity in race can be seen in PS 84 Lillian Webber which has 60% population of black and Spanish and only 35% white, yet the school around the corner PS 333 has 64% white 27% black and Spanish.  One might ask why two schools, PS 84 and PS 333 have such different racial make ups, and the answer lies is PS 84 accepts all students and PS 333 has a lottery which is closed to the public so they can pic and choose the students that attend their school without any oversight.   You might expect a school named after ‪#‎BookerTWashington, who was an African American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States, between 1890 and 1915, ‪#‎btwhspva to have at least the same amount of black students as white students, but just like others in zone 3, the school, MS54, located on West 107th street has 65% white students and only 10% black and 14% Hispanic students ‪#‎D3equity, ‪#‎D3equityineducation.  This is also true about schools below 95th Street on the Upper East side, which are all white.

Natalie Russo, the principal of ‪#‎PS145 put together a great panel on the lack of diversity in Manhattan's district 3 public schools. Michael Alves, Controlled Choice Pioneer, Lisa Donlan, District 1 Parent Leader, Rene Kathawala District 3 parent leader, Clara Hemphill Inside Schools Editor and Kim Watkins, Community Education Council district 3 were very informative. Also thank you to Councilmen Mark Levine for attending. 

Dr. Russo is nice enough to select students from anywhere in zone 3, even students who were zoned for PS 87 but weren't given a spot there.  But when those students leave pre K they go to PS 87, PS 452, PS009 the same schools that didn't have a spot for them in pre k, leaving Dr, Russo's school, PS 145 under its capacity and therefore not entitled to certain funds.  The ironic thing now is that PS 87, PS 87, PS 452, PS009 aren't even selecting some students for kindergarten who were zoned for those schools and therefore they need to either attend PS191, a low funded school or forget going to public school. I suggest those students remain at PS145 and help Dr. Russo get the funds she needs to improve the school.  

Unfortunately the panel will accomplish nothing because many public schools in the west 70s, west 80's and west 90's below 96th Street will continue to pick only white students 

‪#‎D3equity, ‪#‎D3equityineducation. The good news is that my son's school ‪#‎HHLAis the most diverse school in the city and maybe even the nation, with no race prevalent.  How are these racial discrepancies  alright with Michael Mulgrew? 

 It seems that Mr. Mulgrew and the city's united federation of teachers is trying their hardest to keep schools segregated and the only people who are willing to give black and Spanish students a chance are charter schools which the mayor and the city's united federation of teachers are trying to close.  I'm glad Charter Schools have the Governor on our side. 

The solution is to give parents who are zoned for very good but over crowded schools the option to select nearby schools and give them a tax incentive to do so.  That way people who are zoned for the schools like PS87, PS452, PS166 etc have a financial incentive to enroll their kids in schools like PS145, which is a great school but suffers from low enrollment because parents take their kids out of the school after pre K.   The parents should get the tax incentive to send their kids tp a school like PS145 and the school would get additional money from the state for being fully enrolled. Also maybe PS145 which accepts students from anywhere in zone 3 (something PS 166, PS87 and PS 452 don't do), needs to require students who enroll in Pre K to stay entire at least Kindergarten.  Also maybe PS145 and other schools should get all students into a second language program therefore there's more an incentive to remain in the school and build on the spanish or russian language skills they've acquired.  Maybe there should be a cap on the money school can get through donations from large donors and if they go over that cap, the money gets distributed to other schools that don't have access to large donors.