Jon and Bernard Whalen are a father and son writing-duo who recently released their second co-authored book, “The NYPD’s First Fifty Years: Politicians, Police Commissioners and Patrolmen.” The book includes a look back at the formation of the New York Police Department in 1898 and the heroism, and even corruption, that has taken place within the organization since then. The book signing will take place February 18 in Queens, NY.
Bernard, 57, is currently a lieutenant in the NYPD and has worked in the force for 30 years. He switched careers from a physical education teacher to the police force many years ago and has not left since. He says he also greatly enjoys writing in his spare time – something he learned from his father, Jon.
Jon, 79, now a retired English teacher, began his career as a corrections officer at Sing Sing and Auburn prisons. However, he decided to leave that role for his love of English and teaching students. According to Bernard, switching careers was unusual for his father’s time, but he says watching his father follow his passion for teaching encouraged him to pursue his own passions as well.
Later, Bernard came up with an idea to publish a novel with his dad. In 2000, they published their first fiction thriller, “Justifiable Homicide.”
Bernard and Jon, or B.J. Whalen, as they call themselves, are working on other novels and hoping to extend “The NYPD’s First Fifty Years.”
*Jon Whalen could not attend the interview due to health issues.
Kelly Carrion, is a multimedia journalist who believes in the incredible influence storytelling has on people, and how they view the world. That is why she has made it her mission to tell compelling stories about extraordinary people. Her articles have been featured on NBCNews.com, NBCLatino.com, LowellSun.com and Nashoba Publishing. She is a recent Boston University graduate. Follow Kelly on Twitter @kellycarrion12.
Elizabeth Schwartz, co-owner of Better Speech Now (Courtesy Elizabeth Schwartz)
Elizabeth Schwartz, a 64-year-old native New Yorker, has always had a fascination with languages. She majored in French in college, she has traveled to four continents, and she is proficient in Spanish. She also earned a master’s degree in speech language pathology.
After working with children with disabilities for 20 years, and then after getting laid off from her full-time job supervising recent graduates in speech language pathology, Schwartz started her own business at 61. Through Better Speech Now, she helps immigrants achieve their professional goals in the U.S. by teaching them how to speak with a clearer American English accent.
“I was thinking about starting accent reduction for quite a while…it was almost the same time as getting laid off,” says Schwartz.
“We won the start up competition in 2012, and they supported us every step of the way,” says Schwartz about the organization.
She explains it wasn’t an easy process since neither of them had ever started their own business before. They had to decide on a business structure, for one.
“We made like 12 drafts of the business plan, and we used the $10,000 we won to market ourselves and pay for a business coach,” says Schwartz. “It’s not like being a lawyer or a doctor — not everybody knows they can improve their accent. That’s how our business was born. We’ve been having a lot of fun.”
What also helped, she says, is the support of family and the community.
“My son is in the tech world, so he helped us with our website and Facebook page,” says Schwartz. “My partner’s cousin has an MBA, so he helped us…and we designed fliers and held an open house in the community.”
She says what she loves most about her work is that she is very passionate about what she does.
“I’m helping people with a significant problem,” says Schwartz. “People come here, and their accent is a real stumbling block for them. Day-to-day tasks can be very challenging — like talking on the phone.”
Schwartz says she also enjoys helping people with interviewing skills.
“We, as native [English] speakers don’t realize how difficult it can be to go someplace where our language is not understood,” she says. “I feel I am helping people with that…and it’s very gratifying.”
One of her favorite success stories is of an attorney from Hong Kong. She says before taking accent reduction classes, he used to shake from nerves in the courtroom whenever he had to argue before a judge.
“I really worked with him and built his confidence,” says Schwartz, adding that the average length of the program is an hour per week, for 12 weeks. “The guy from Hong Kong only had six weeks — that was the shortest, but I’ve had people who needed more.”
Schwartz usually works out of the Art House Astoria, which is in an area of diverse ethnic backgrounds in Queens, but she also has international clients with whom she works via Skype and e-mail.
Besides going to the gym almost every morning, Schwartz says her other favorite activity outside work is traveling to Washington, DC, whenever she can, to visit her 2-year-old grandson.
“He’s the light of my life,” she says. “I adore him.”
What is one piece of life advice she will advise him one day?
“Do what you are passionate about. Define what your passion is about, and that should be your life’s work,” says Schwartz. “When you’re my age, you want to look back and feel like you made a difference. In this economy, a lot of young people just grab whatever job they can get, and sometimes you have to do that, but you shouldn’t have to do that for a lifetime. Figure out what you love, and go for it.”
Nereo López in Queens, New York. (Courtesy Facebook)
Nereo López isn’t a typical 92-year-old; he’s more like a typical young, starry-eyed artist who wakes up at noon and gets inspiration from everything around him. His small frame is overpowered by his bright blue eyes anxiously anticipating what is about to come next in his life. López has not only rediscovered his art, he has gotten a second chance at a successful career and fulfillment.
The Cruz de Boyacá winning photographer — one of the highest honors in Colombia — who had traveled the world taking photos, giving nearly 20 exhibitions, and published more than 10 works, saw his career plummet 12 years ago. The man who met Gabriel García Márquez and Pope Paul IV had his center, the Nereo Center of Teaching and Culture of Photography in Bogota, Colombia, shut down due to lack of funds. He says after the age of 40, in Colombia, it is very hard to find work because you’re considered too antiquated.
López says he was having thoughts of ending his life when a friend called from New York. She heard the distress in his voice about not being able to find a job, and how he was feeling depressed, so she bought him a ticket to the city that never sleeps — arriving the next day — to see if he’d like it better. He says he didn’t just like it better, he found another reason to keep living.
“As soon as I arrived, I ran to all the photo galleries,” says López, describing his eagerness like a kid in an amusement park.
The title of his photo book published last year, called “Nereo López: Un Contador de Historias,” describes what he is precisely — a storyteller. He says there was a time he used to have 14 cameras of different sizes to tell his stories. Now, he just uses one to make his life simpler and lighter — a compact Canon G9.
“Photography still fascinates me,” says the man who one day started observing the faces of people leaving the subway and started a series of photos of just that. “What I have learned is to see.”
The talented López wasn’t always a photographer. He lost both parents at age 11, and started working when he was a teenager in a movie theater in Colombia, where he was promoted to manager after 10 years.
“It was World War II, and you couldn’t travel in a plane with a camera during that time,” says López, explaining how his photography career began. “A friend asked me to watch his camera while he went on a trip, and I started to practice with his camera.”
He says he learned on his own with a book and a correspondence course that he never finished, and he was always asking questions.
“I started taking photos in a series — like a movie,” he says. Still today, he says he’s always thinking in series — perhaps because of the many years of films he’s seen in the movie theater where he worked. “I always have my photos in my head, and I figure out what series they will go in later.”
When he was 27, he quit his movie house job, and started working as a photojournalist at one of Colombia’s largest newspapers, El Espectador. That is when he says he started to travel all over Colombia and started his photo collection for the book, “Colombia: Que Lindo Eres”/”Colombia: How Beautiful You Are.”
“The subjects I most gravitated towards were children,” says Lopez who also has a series called, “Niños Que No Rien”/“Children Who Don’t Laugh.” “Perhaps because I didn’t really have a real childhood.”
In 1957, he became a chief photographer of the photographer’s magazine, Cromos, in Colombia. He says he was a photojournalist for 15 years before he started his center of photography where he taught up to 100 students at a time.
Since he’s been in New York City, he has not wasted any of his precious minutes. He’s been recognized by the New York City Council and has shown his work at the Queens Museum and El Museo del Barrio.
“It hasn’t been easy, because I don’t speak English,” says López in his native Spanish.
He says he’s happy to not have to develop photos the old-fashioned way anymore. He’s well-equipped in his new one-bedroom apartment, in a building for the elderly, with bare white walls lined with varied books, including “Macs for Dummies.” The centerpiece of his living room is a shiny new 27-inch Mac computer, complete with scanner and printer. He explains he loves his craft even more now with modern technology.
“For me, paper is obsolete,” he exclaims, laughing.
One of the highlights of his week is going to a senior center in Queens, NY. Even though he moved to a different neighborhood, he still goes on Tuesdays, because that’s the day the seniors dance after lunch.
“To see these seniors dance and have fun is life,” he says, joking that no one is older than him. “They have a desire to live. I take photos demonstrating their desire to live.”
He says he would like to publish a book of these photos called ”La Primavera del Ocaso”/“The Spring of the Sunset,” but he’ll only do it if it can have that name. He also started making goals for himself again — to be featured in a large museum such as, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and to live in Spain and Paris one day.
“When I came to New York, I said to my friend, ‘I came to New York too late,” says López, eager to start on a new project with some young artists he’s encountered. “My friend responded, ‘You never arrive too late to New York, you just came with less time,’ but I hope to live 100 years more…I haven’t arrived to where I wanted to arrive, but I’m on my way.”
López says when he came to the U.S. and obtained his residency, and citizenship five years ago, he saw a new horizon.
“When one sees a horizon, one sees life,” says the photographer with never-ending vision. “Here is where I’ll stay.”
This article was originally published on NBCLatino.com on January 10, 2013.
Ellen Young in the Chambers being introduced by the Speaker as a freshman member, and the first Asian American woman in the legislature in January 2007. (Courtesy Ellen Young)
Ellen Young is not one to stay still, or stay quiet.
The 62-year-old volunteers as the first, and only, Asian member of the Grievance Committee for the Second, Eleventh, and Thirteenth Judicial Districts. As one of 15 committee members, she reviews complaints against attorneys from Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. She says she spends the rest of her time at the newly founded Golden Age Learning Center, which serves approximately 200 seniors.
Kelly Carrion, is a multimedia journalist who believes in the incredible influence storytelling has on people, and how they view the world. That is why she has made it her mission to tell compelling stories about extraordinary people. Her articles have been featured on NBCNews.com, NBCLatino.com, LowellSun.com and Nashoba Publishing. She is a recent Boston University graduate. Follow Kelly on Twitter @kellycarrion12.
