By Alex Mikoulianitch

This Bronx-born window washer has a one-of-a-kind view of Manhattan from the top of some of the highest buildings in the city.

Edward Nieves, 43, dropped out of Theodore Roosevelt High School during his sophomore year and never had plans to go to college. His family situation forced him to look for work immediately and to start supporting the family.

“My mother had six kids, and of course I was the one helping with the bills,” Nieves said. He himself is now a father of two daughters.

A friend of his found him work as a window cleaner, something Nieves has stuck with ever since.

“It started out as a summer job,” Nieves said.

“Then I went back to school, and things were not going good and I decided to keep working. I waited until I was 18 years old and I got into the union.”

Nieves began working at different stores and shops, doing minor work around town. Since then he has moved on to work at Palladium Window Solutions, a New York-based window cleaning company specializing in high-rise buildings.

But Nieves’ schedule isn’t a typical one. Sometimes he finds himself on the job deep into the night or right when the sun rises.

“Sometimes you got to start at 12 in the morning, 3 in the morning, depends on what we got to do,” Nieves said.

And after working as a window cleaner for more than 25 years, Nieves has no plans of changing anything.

“I’m happy,” Nieves said. “I’m very happy. Right now, everything is going the right way.”

Aside from work, Nieves doesn’t really indulge in any hobbies or activities and instead opts to spend more time with his family. They moved to Pennsylvania five years ago.
“Just be with my family, go to the movies, shop with my wife,” Nieves said. “When I lived in the Bronx, I used to go hang out, play dominoes, but now I dedicate time to my family and do what I can.”

Nieves doesn’t see any change in his future, either. Working and keeping a steady job and supporting his family in the best way he can is what’s most important to him.
“It’s just work and just keep on,” Nieves said. “And then, who knows?”

By Alex Mikoulianitch

If a student happened to graduate from Harry S. Truman High School in the Bronx 33 years ago and came back for a visit, they would still find Michael Rosado working away meticulously, fixing up machinery, keeping the fields and being the all-around handyman he is so known for around the school.

Born and raised near Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Rosado recalls the hardships of growing up. Rosado’s father, who Rosado says knew six languages including French, Italian, Spanish and Filipino, died when Rosado was 16, leaving his mother to take care of the family.

“She had to take up the mother and the father load,” Rosado said. “That was kind of tough on her because she had to cook, check our homework, make sure we got the right education.”

Rosado’s original plan was to serve in the military after he graduated from high school, but a proposition from a friend to go work and help out the family changed those plans completely.

“A friend who worked at a school across from Truman High School offered me a summer job,” Rosado said. “I went there and—I was 20 at the time—I worked there for the summer.” Eventually, he says, they offered him a permanent job. That kicked off a daily routine that starts at 5:30 in the morning and ends at 4 in the afteroon.

Rosado’s official position is school cleaner, or janitor, but his duties encompass much more than just cleaning.

“If they need me to fix a machine, I’ll fix the machine,” Rosado said. “If they need me to fix a door, I’ll fix the door. If I have to work and go on the fields, I’ll go on the fields. So there isn’t exactly a specific title [for what I do].”

Looking back, he says, “I think the true reason I stayed at Truman High School for 33 years is the family I have there,” Rosado said. “All the workers there, my guys, we all chip in, we do what we got to do, we have a great principal who works with us, we have a family that makes me proud of the guys that I work with.”

When Rosado isn’t working with his guys at the school, he has hobbies to enrich his life in other ways. Rosado’s personal passion is cars. From a young age, he learned to work with cars, fix them and play around with the parts. Even today, a lot of his friends come up to him and ask for his expertise.

“On Sundays I go play basketball with all those guys that are over 50,” Rosado said. “And if it’s not shooting hoops, it’s probably working on a car. Saturday is my relax day, where I try to catch up with my family, and catch up on that lost time during the week.”

Rosado still lives in the Brooklyn neighborhood where he was born, with his wife and kids.

Fordham University may not offer quirky classes in its continuing education program, but what it does offer has been attracting students for over 60 years.

“We’ve been doing continuing education since 1947, offering bachelor degrees to adults coming back to school in the evening,” said Isabella Frank, Fordham’s dean of continuing education and professional studies. “Currently we have about 900 credit-seeking students, of whom about 800 are going for their bachelor degrees, and the other 100 are taking classes either for credits to apply to medical school or switch careers.”

The program offers two major degrees: a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science. But most of the majors offered in an undergraduate program can be sought out by those interested in continuing education and professional studies.

“You can take most of the majors that exist in a traditional undergraduate program, but it depends on which campus you are in,” Frank said. “We have three campuses, so we have 900 students spread out throughout the three campuses, one in Lincoln Center, one in the Bronx—the main Fordham campus—and one in Westchester. So [for example] Lincoln center students, if they can take day classes, they can take some of the day majors.”

The most popular majors include economics, organizational leadership, psychology and communications, according to Frank. The University also boasts a new three-year-old business program at Fordham’s Westchester campus. There is also an option to create an individualized major, which allows students to draw classes from different areas within the professional studies program.

But while this may sound like a regular line-up most colleges offer, Fordham offers its own set of special classes.

“Because this is a Jesuit university, we do have classes that you’re not going to find in other schools,” Frank said. “There is an emphasis on philosophy and theology. For example, we have a senior values seminar called ‘Death and Dying,’ and we have a philosophy course called ‘Classical Values: The Art of Living.’”

Besides the unique philosophical courses, there are also courses in more modern fields of study.

“[For example] we have cyber-security, which is a growing field that we will be going into more,” Frank said. “We don’t have sexy-sounding titles the way other schools might, but we have a very strong core curriculum that our students take, [along with] online classes and intensive weekend classes.”

While it is common to see continuing education programs geared toward middle-aged adults, Fordham’s age range is from 18 all the way to 66.
“We have 18-year-olds who are full-time dancers in the NYC ballet of ABT and so they sort of take classes Monday evenings given their rehearsal schedule,” Frank said. “I think our age range, though it shifts every year, is in the low thirties, but it does range from 18 to 66 or 67.”

The application process for continuing education is different from that of a typical four-year degree program. The admissions process doesn’t review SAT scores but judges the applicant based on his or her readiness to attend school and understanding of what the program is like, according to Frank.

Fordham accepts up to 75 transfer credits and takes into account any prior courses that the applicant might have taken, even if they were completed 30 years ago.
For more information, visit Fordham.edu.

Our Town’s Karaoke Idol is searching for Manhattan’s best singers

By Alex Mikoulianitch

Aspiring singers who want to unleash their inner crooner or rock star will soon have a chance to do it, for the opportunity at cash and performing in front of a large crowd.
Our Town is hosting Karaoke Idol this October after a one-year hiatus and is offering a total of $1,500 in prize money—thanks to a partnership with Lips, an Upper East Side club, and Absolut Vodka—for the participants who bring their A-game performance and voice talent to the stage.

The competition will select six finalists to duke it out for a $1,000 grand prize going to the first-place winner and $500 to the runner-up. The contestants won’t be judged solely on their singing prowess, however. While pitch, rhythm and tempo are all taken into account, the singer’s stage act, and how they perform, is also a huge part of the final grade.
The event starts with two preliminaries. The first will be held on Oct. 9 and the second on the 23rd. Three finalists will be selected from each event and will be given a chance to go to the Finals which will be held at Lips, a supper club on East 56th Street famous for its glamorous setting and drag entertainment.

“Lips is very excited to be holding this year’s Karaoke Idol,” said Yvonne, co-owner and entertainment director at Lips. “Lips has been doing karaoke for many years every Tuesday night, and we have noticed each year more and more people come to sing on our stage. With so many TV shows about finding the next star, everyone wants their moment onstage—and baby, do we have a stage for you to sing on.”

Yvonne thinks the new venue for the competition is going to make it particularly memorable.

“This will be the most unique venue yet for Karaoke Idol,” she said. “First, for the simple fact that all of the waiters are drag queens. Lips also has one of the best stages in town to perform karaoke. So [people are welcome to] come in and check out our over-the-top decor that only a drag queen could design.”

Besides the $1,000 grand prize, the winning Karaoke Idol will be given the opportunity to record a professional CD at Jambox studios, while the runner-up will get studio time. The remaining finalists will be given gift cards. All the finalists will get a complimentary hairstyle makeover from Dramatics NYC.

The competition is open to all amateurs; those looking to reserve a spot onstage should send questions to karaokeidol@manhattanmedia.com or call 212-268-0393.

In the new anthology Central Park, edited by Andrew Blauner, the spirit of the uptown oasis is richly captured in 244 pages. Prominent writers such as Paul Auster, Susan Sheehan and Thomas Beller all pay tribute to the greatest city park in the world. Blauner sat down with Our Town to talk about the making of this book and honoring Central Park and its history.

Our Town: What sparked the idea to make this book?
Andrew Blauner: It’s ironic, but it was actually my decision to move out of New York. I grew up in Manhattan and lived very close to the park and always cherished and treasured it. I started getting these pangs of withdrawal and of what it would be like to not have the park as basically my back yard. The more I thought about it, as present and prominent as it is, it struck me that Central Park was to some extent under-appreciated. There had never been a book like this. There have been essays and parts of people’s memoirs and short stories and that sort of thing. But, I felt this was an opportunity to celebrate the place that I loved and that meant so much to me as a way to give something back.

Why did you decide to collect other people’s stories?
If I were a writer, I imagine that I either would have tried to write a Central Park memoir of my own or certainly include it as a chapter or have it as a thread to run throughout the book. There is a book called Writing New York that Phillip Lopate edited. In the introduction he writes about “why a collection [of stories],” and I think New York is so vast that no one writer’s voice could or should try to capture it all. Even if I had the talent and ability to do it, I’d probably be more drawn to kind of curating and putting together the book this way, so that it would be a collection of voices and stories.

How did you go about getting all the submissions for the book?
You reach out to writers—“I admire your work”—and you enlist or engage somebody to write something. Sometimes a writer will say, “I would love to do it but it depends on what you can pay me or how much time I can have or what specifically you’re looking for.” But it all amounted to basically having a small group that in one form or another made a commitment, or maybe even wrote a piece speculatively. In this case I think, the same way I was drawn to put this book together born of certain affection and gratitude and admiration for the park, I think that’s, in some way, kind of what the writers felt; they relished the opportunity to pay tribute.

What was the most difficult part about putting this book together?
The least difficult part was the actual editing itself, just because they were all such great writers—it was almost like being the manager of an all-star team. You just have to try not to screw it up, because it was almost like putting the blocks in order. It was more finding the right sequence and rhythm and structure and editing in that sense. The most difficult part was the [publishing process], breaking through the gate and finding the gatekeeper, the publisher, that would see the way clear to take on the project. It was the toughest hurdle to clear.

Now that the book is out, is there anything that you would want to change about it if you had a chance to go back to the editing process?
Like with almost anything, you always wish you had more time or did some things differently. But if I really break that down, like what really would I have done differently, I don’t know in this case if there’s anything specific [I would change]. I mean the percentage of people that I approached and who ended up writing for the book was very high but, at the same time, sure I would’ve loved to have something from, say, Roger Angell and Joan Didion and John McPhee. But when I look at whom we ended up with […] I wouldn’t want to take anyone off this team. I have no regrets, I only have ongoing hopes and inspiration.