The Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc. is a private, nonprofit educational women's volunteer organization aimed at improving communities and the social, cultural, and political fabric of civil society. With 298 Junior League chapters in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom as of 2024, it is one of the oldest and largest of its kind. Members engage in developing civic leadership skills, fundraising, and volunteering on committees to support partner community organizations related to foster children, domestic violence, human trafficking, illiteracy, city beautification, and other issues. Its mission is to advance women's leadership for meaningful community impact through volunteer action, collaboration, and training.
Jennifer Westfeldt is an American actress, screenwriter, and producer. She is best known for co-writing, co-producing, and starring in the 2002 indie film Kissing Jessica Stein, for which she received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Screenplay and a Golden Satellite Award for Best Actress - Comedy or Musical. She is also known for writing, producing, starring in, and making her directorial debut in the 2012 indie film, Friends with Kids, which was included on New York Magazine's Top Ten Movies of 2012 list, as well as NPR's Top 12 of 2012.
A street game or street sport is a sport or game that is played on city streets rather than a prepared field. Street games are usually simply play time activities for children in the most convenient venue. Some street games have risen to the level of organized tournaments, such as stickball.
The Rosie O'Donnell Show is an American daytime variety television talk show created, hosted, and produced by actress and comedian Rosie O'Donnell. It premiered on June 10, 1996, and concluded after six seasons on June 27, 2002.
Viola Spolin was an American theatre academic, educator and acting coach. She is considered an important innovator in 20th century American theater for creating directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life. These acting exercises she later called Theater Games and formed the first body of work that enabled other directors and actors to create improvisational theater. Her book Improvisation for the Theater, which published these techniques, includes her philosophy and her teaching and coaching methods, and is considered the "bible of improvisational theater". Spolin's contributions were seminal to the improvisational theater movement in the U.S. She is considered to be the mother of Improvisational theater. Her work has influenced American theater, television and film by providing new tools and techniques that are now used by actors, directors and writers.
Children's street culture refers to the cumulative culture created by young children. Collectively, this body of knowledge is passed down from one generation of urban children to the next, and can also be passed between different groups of children. It is most common in children between the ages of seven and twelve. It is strongest in urban working-class industrial districts where children are traditionally free to "play outside" in the streets for long periods without supervision.
Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids is a 2004 Indian-American documentary film about the children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, Kolkata's red light district. The widely acclaimed film, written and directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, won a string of accolades including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2005.
Mo Willems is an American writer, animator, voice actor, and children's book author. His work includes creating the animated television series Sheep in the Big City for Cartoon Network, working on Sesame Street and The Off-Beats, and creating the children's book series Elephant and Piggie.
Breakdancing or breaking, also called b-boying or b-girling (women) is a style of street dance originated by African Americans with notable contributions from Puerto Ricans in the Bronx.
Punchball is a sport spawned by and similar to baseball, but without a pitcher, catcher, or bat.
Stoop ball is a game that is played by throwing a ball against a stoop on the pavement in front of a building. Historically, it has been popular in Brooklyn and other inner cities. In Boston, the game is known as "Up-Against." In Chicago, the game is known as "Pinners." In Chicago's Bridgeport area the game is called "Three Outs". The game is also known as "Off the Point". It first became popular after World War II.
The Good Night Show is a defunct television programming block for preschoolers that aired on the Sprout channel. It was designed to help preschoolers get ready for bedtime. The block featured recurring themes based on preschoolers' nightly routines, such as dreams, brushing teeth, and cleaning up before bed.
Jesus Camp is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing about a charismatic Christian summer camp, where children spend their summers being taught that they have "prophetic gifts" and can "take back America for Christ". According to the distributor, it "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view" and attempts to be "an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community".
Julie Blackmon is a photographer who lives and works in Missouri. Blackmon's photographs are inspired by her experience of growing up in a large family, her current role as both mother and photographer, and the timelessness of family dynamics. As the oldest of nine children and mother to three, Blackmon uses her own family members and household to "move beyond the documentary to explore the fantastic elements of our everyday lives."
Lost in the Crowd is a documentary film by Austrian filmmaker Susi Graf about LGBT homeless youth in New York City. The film tells the story of a group of kids focusing on how they became homeless and their attempts to survive on the streets of New York. Their struggles with addiction, sex work, and HIV are portrayed throughout the film and told by the featured personalities in the film. Most of the youth say the reason they are homeless is because they have been rejected by their families for being gay or transgender. The lives of LGBT youth in shelters are portrayed, as well as finding "new" families in the ballroom scene, featuring ballroom icon Willi Ninja who died shortly after being filmed for Lost in the Crowd.
When You Reach Me is a Newbery Medal-winning science fiction and mystery novel by Rebecca Stead, published in 2009. It takes place on the Upper West Side of New York during 1978 and 1979 and follows a sixth-grade girl named Miranda Sinclair. After Miranda finds a strange note, which is unsigned and addressed only to "M," in her school library book, a mystery is set into motion—one which Miranda ultimately must face alone. At the same time, Miranda juggles school, relationships with her peers, and helping her mom prepare for an upcoming appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid, a popular game show hosted by Dick Clark. Important characters in the story include Miranda's mother; Richard, her mom's good-natured boyfriend; Sal, Miranda's childhood best friend; and a homeless man who lives on Miranda's block and is referred to only as "the laughing man." Central themes in the novel include independence, redemption, and friendship.
Let's Move! was a public health campaign in the United States led by former First Lady Michelle Obama. The campaign aimed to reduce childhood obesity and encourage a healthy lifestyle in children.
Polixeni Papapetrou was an Australian photographer noted for her themed photo series about people's identities. Photo series she has made include Elvis Presley fans, Marilyn Monroe impersonators, drag queens, wrestlers and bodybuilders and the recreation of photographs by Lewis Carroll, using her daughter as a model.
The traditional games of New York City are one of the notable aspects of New York City's culture; many of them were brought over by the diverse mix of immigrants that settled in New York City, particularly from Europe. Many of these games used street furniture and other features of New York City's high urban density and were therefore also played in other cities of the United States. Most of these games have declined or disappeared in the modern era.
