A poem about Cuny, the school “running his city”

Good morning. It’s Monday. Today we will learn about the national poet’s erotic letter about the school he is attending. We will also receive details of the purchase of a non -profit group from the Metro Theater building on the upper west side.

Some universities have alma Maters. Harvard sings in “Fair Harvard”, and Yale is in line for “Bright College Years”.

The University of New York City has no school song. But this week she gets a school poem, “Dear Cuny.” Written by the National pig, Stephanie Pacheco, who is attending the Borough of Manhattan Community College, one of Cuny’s 25 schools.

Dear Cuny,

I don’t know any other school running his city like you

Painting his city with her face

like you

Everywhere I turn around, every building is a student

Every train basket is a class.

But at least the only loan I have acquired

It’s in my school library

The only debt I owe is to them.

In 53 lines “dear cuny” is too big to print completely here. The excerpt above came from a Pacheco YouTube video reciting a 30 -second version, which is an excerpt.

He will read the poem tomorrow at an event at Queensborough Community College that marks the national month of poetry. Félix Matos Rodríguez, Chancellor Cuny, who is scheduled to attend, called Pacheco’s poem as “a beautiful poetry work that perfectly depicts Cuny’s great impact on New York”.

Pacheco, 21, a master of writing and literature, was chosen as the National Youth Quality Officer last year, the eighth man to keep the title. The first was Amanda Gorman, who read a poem she wrote at the inauguration of Joseph Biden in 2021 and joined the small group of poets invited to celebrate the presidential transitions, including Robert Frost and Maya Angelou.

Pacheco was named the award -winning New York youth poet in 2023 and was also named the first youth poet for the state of New York. He won the three titles in competitions organized through Urban Word, a literary art organization for young people, with support from institutions, including the Academy of American Poets and the Congress Library.

Pacheco said she started writing poetry when she was “in high school”.

Was the poems that he wrote good then? “I’ve grown up a lot,” he said. “I think for an eighth grader, they were good. They had some pace to them.” But he also said that at that moment he did not realize that he was writing poetry. “I didn’t understand the full weight of poetry and what he could do for my story” until high school, “he said. He attended the Mott Hall Science and Technology Academy in South Bronx.

She began performing her poems when she was 15, signing for open microphone dates and poetry. And then, in 2022, “Fresh Out the Pandemic”, he entered the Borough of Manhattan Community College. “For someone who wanted to keep writing and playing,” he said, “it was meaningful to stay local and I wanted to be close to home.

She said that when Cuny approached her to write a poem about school, “it was like: Well, a lady poet, we would like to hear what your experience was. She said she asked for a week or two to work something.

“The first two days, I was very stuck,” he said. “He had to sit down and ask what a student had to be.” Then, he said, “it was like the pen moving on his own.”

“I wanted it known that this young man was a public student,” he said.

“I know the value of Cuny’s attendance. I am proof of the value of public education, but he felt that sometimes this narrative was overlooked,” he added. “I want it to be known that we students, that we students of the public school, that we are excellent, that we are great.” And, he added, “especially worthy poetry”.

Weather

Expect a rainy morning with a temperature hovering in the middle to the high 40s. In the evening, a slight chance of rain returns, with clouds and dip at about 37.

Alternative parking

In fact until Sunday (Easter).

The latest New York news

A non -profit group completed the Metro Theater More at Manhattan’s Upper West Side last week after receiving $ 4 million from the New York State – $ 3.5 million from Gov. Kathy Hochul and $ 500,000 from the Senate of the State.

The non -profit organization, the Cinema Upper West Side Center, plans to turn the building into a complex of five screens. The team says it needs another $ 15 million to $ 25 million to build the new interior, replace Marquee and Scrub graffiti from Art Deco Theater.

The subway closed in 2005. Over the years there was a discussion of the redefinition of the building, but the options were limited. The previous owner, Albert Bialek, died in 2023.

Last summer, the Cinema Upper West Side center announced its offer, with the support of Martin Scorsese, Ethan Hawke and John Turturro, among others.

In December, Micah Lasher – who was elected to the assembly last month – heard that the center of the Upper West Side Cinema was going to lose the 10 January deadline to buy the building from the Bialek estate. Contacted Hochul. On December 26, the commander, who was a boss of Lasher when he was a politics director at the governor’s office, called him.

“I have some Christmas news about you,” Lasher recalls listening to say. “We will save a cinematic theater.”

Ira Deutchman, an independent film producer leading the non -profit organization with Adeline Monzier, said government support meant that it could get an extension to increase the market price of $ 6.9 million. Donations from institutions and people have completed the rest, including a significant grant by Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Hearthland Foundation.

Metropolitan calendar

Subway

Dear Calendar:

I was on the subway platform on the eighth street and on Broadway heading to Uptown. I sat on a bench near the front of the train.

The train shone and got. As the doors were closed, I realized that I had left my laptop on the bench. I left to the door with no result. I watched the computer sitting there on the small white and blue polka dot as the train began to leave the station.

I managed to call my husband, Peter. Maybe he could get to the platform before someone got the laptop. When I couldn’t get him, I called a friend who was in my apartment and asked her to tell my husband to try to reach the platform. Were only two squares from home.

I took on 14th Street, ran to the city center center and waited five minutes before a R. arrived.

When I returned to the eighth street, I fought in Broadway, ran to the Uptown platform and was looking for a laptop. He was gone. Everything, every thought in my mind, every plan of my last game, had left with him.

I called my husband. This time he replied.

“I have it,” he said.

“Where are you?”

“On the platform.”

I looked under the platform, and there it was there, carrying the case. A polite person had taken it and turned it into the station agent.

Whoever you are, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

– Delia Ephron

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and Read more metropolitan calendar here.