Hudson Burrows

Published Clips

www.ourtownny.com •

The funding cuts are deep; emerging research students are on the front line

Seventeen years ago, Laura Xie watched as her second-grade teacher poured water into a beaker. It’s a cup of water, she thought, big deal. Then the teacher poured oil into that same beaker, and little Xie sat in awe as the golden liquid rested perfectly on top of the water. Her teacher revealed that what seemed like a magic trick was actually the separation of compounds. It became Xie’s first memory of using science to understand the unfathomable. “I thought that was the coolest thing ever,” say...
www.otdowntown.com •

Cuomo tries fighting Mamdani at his own housing game

Andrew Cuomo’s once relatively unplugged mayoral campaign has done quite the 180, as the former Governor has taken to social media to throw shade at Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani. This time, Cuomo’s trying to back Mamdani into a corner, and it’s in the Assembly Member’s own $2,300 rent-stabilized Queens apartment. The quarrel broke out on Friday, August 8, when Cuomo posted to X, “#Rentgate,” using Mamdani’s six figure annual income against him. The post has garnered 34 million views. “Some...
www.ourtownny.com •

NYS’s Nonpartisan Mapping Process Makes Fight Against Texas Tougher

New York has used an Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) to draw congressional and legislative lines since 2014, when voters passed a constitutional amendment to ensure a fair redistricting process. The result was a committee of members who are neither legislators nor public officials, and it was established to avoid partisan gerrymandering. But in a last ditch effort to counter the aggressive G.O.P. agenda, Gov. Kathy Hochul, along with a handful of other democratic governors, is willing...
www.ourtownny.com •

Chaos on Morning Commute Due to Subway Delays Caused by Extreme Heat, Outdated System

Corporate New Yorkers headed to their jobs Tuesday morning, July 29, still shaken from Monday’s horrific Midtown shooting. But chaos returned, as a power outage at the West 4th Street subway station resulted in a domino effect of delays. The cause? Extreme heat and a single tripped breaker. Bracing today’s severe heat advisory, commuters waited for their trains as a muffled voice on a loudspeaker announced the service disruption. First, the B/C trains were suspended in both directions, then the...
www.ourtownny.com •

UWS mourns the loss of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, a beloved actor and community member

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the beloved actor who rose to fame as Theodore Huxtable on the hit sitcom, “The Cosby Show,” died on Sunday at 55. He reportedly drowned in the waters off the Caribbean coast while vacationing in Costa Rica. Warner starred in the beloved show for the entirety of its run, starting when he was merely 13 years old and ending at 21. It was during these pivotal years that Mr. Warner juggled his accelerating acting career with the demands of a prestigious high school. From 1984 t...
www.ourtownny.com •

New Council Law Plans to Double Number of Public Restrooms Across City

When you gotta go, you gotta go, and this is something the City Council doesn’t take lightly. On July 12, major strides were made towards increasing the accessibility of NYC public bathrooms. Legislation passed by the Council last month included a bill with a long-term citywide bathroom strategy. The bill, which has now officially been enacted into law, establishes a plan to increase the number of public bathrooms in NYC to 2,120 by 2035, requiring detailed updates from both active and planned i...
www.otdowntown.com •

Owner Battles Banks Trying to Foreclose on Her 2 Chinatown Buildings

Ping Cheung, known as Penny to her friends and neighbors, is a Chinatown resident and proprietor. She grew up in Guangzhou, China, but has lived in NYC for 45 years. She is the proud mother of a college graduate, and helped raise her own brothers, too, when their mother passed away. She scrubs bathrooms and sweeps hallways so that her tenants don’t have to, and makes sure to separate her buildings’ compost from recycling. And if nothing else, she always pays her mortgage on time. Cheung spent he...
www.ourtownny.com •

Landslide: Julie Menin wins CD5 Dem primary; Is Council Speaker on the Horizon?

Incumbent Council Member Julie Menin reigned victorious over challenger and first-time candidate Collin Thompson, claiming 73 percent of first-choice votes for the 5th City Council District covering a huge swath of the Upper East Side. Menin ran on the issues of quality of life and affordability, public safety and sanitation, and improving public schools and early education, all of which resonate closely with the Upper East Side demographic. “We are in unprecedented and challenging times that re...
www.chelseanewsny.com •

Why have one career when you can have two? A lawyer’s guide to classical music

Ian Carleton Schaefer is a conductor through and through. On the podium, he has to think a millisecond ahead of his ensemble. “How am I going to get the orchestra from piano to double forte?” With his clients, he applies that same logic. “How is what we do today going to set the precedent for what we do later?” The triple threat conductor, classical musician and labor and employment lawyer is a big believer in pursuing multiple callings. Having been brought up to seek a traditional career, Schae...
www.ourtownny.com •

Historic Village Church’s Plan for New Mission Building Stirs Neighborhood Controversy

Nestled in Hudson Street just a few blocks from the Hudson River sits the Church of St. Luke in the Fields. The Episcopal church has been a quintessential West Village gem—charming, historic, and iconic—since its construction in 1821. But the parish hall, which burned down in a 1981 fire, has yet to be rebuilt, and has left the church with four decades’ worth of limited space to conduct outreach programs that support the local community free of charge. On April 7, 2024, Mother Caroline Stacey pu...
www.westsidespirit.com •

Taste of the West Side postponed due to zoning issues

The 15th anniversary of Taste of the West Side, a festival that features many of the West Side’s most iconic restaurants, has been postponed from the last weekend in May to the first weekend in October. According to Event Chairman Don Evans, the move was due to “local issues.” “There was a zoning issue regarding one of the spaces,” said Evans. “It had been at the school yard at 77th Street since the beginning, but when I spoke to the group of new teachers there, [they said] they’re working on on...
www.westsidespirit.com •

New 5G Cell Tower Plans Spark Controversy on UWS

A 32-foot 5G tower recently installed on the Upper West Side on Columbus Avenue between 94th and 95th streets–the first of four scheduled for the neighborhood–is stirring heated debate. Fourth Generation (4G) and Fifth Generation (5G) cellular technologies may be one generation apart, but 5G requires taller and denser infrastructure, according to the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI). In other words, for NYC residents, faster service entails larger, more overt cell towers. Council Me...
www.otdowntown.com •

Over 2,400 Fines Handed out by Sanitation for Compost Violations; Some Council Members Object

The city appears to be escalating its crackdown efforts against building owners who violate the new composting law even as some city council members are pushing a bill to scrap the law governing food scraps. The Department of Sanitation as of April 11, had issued 2,463 summonses citywide, DSNY spokesperson, Vincent Gragnani, told Straus News. The composting law became effective back in October, but it was not until April 1, 2025, that the Department of Sanitation began issuing monetary fines to...
www.otdowntown.com •

Search for Owner of Tiny Pup Rescued from East River

On the foggy morning of March 30, a small, white dog with a pink harness was seen treading in the East River near the South Street Seaport. The NYPD received a 911 call for the dog at around 8:11 a.m. and the NYPD Harbor Units responded immediately, a police spokesperson told Straus News. Officers Jared Desalvo, Jenny Driscoll and Joe Pascone were dispatched to the scene, working together to locate the small pup, retrieve her from choppy waters and lift her onto the rescue boat. The dog was brou...
www.ourtownny.com •

Protestors take to Tesla’s Meatpacking Showroom to object against Elon Musk

For the fifth week in a row, hundreds of people turned up at a Tesla Showroom in the Meatpacking District on March 29 to protest the cuts that Elon Musk and DOGE are making and in the latest several Democratic leaders were among the crowd. The protest in the West Village, was part of a nationwide Tesla Takedown campaign with demonstrations at over 200 showrooms nationwide with a goal of 500 worldwide, making it the largest anti-Tesla initiative to date. The billionaire was the largest political...
www.ourtownny.com •

The People’s Theatre to Uplift NYC’s Immigrant Community

Located in the heart of Washington Heights, where locals revere their heated and enthusiastic domino games, sits the largest performing arts organization north of Harlem. The People’s Theatre, previously known as the People’s Theatre Project, is recognized for its mission of making theater for and with the immigrant community. This April, The People’s Theatre will debut their first production under its new name. Written by award-winning playwright Marco Antonio Rogriguez and directed by The Peop...
www.otdowntown.com •

Marchers Rally Downtown to “Stand Up for Science”

“All the normal progress of science is being delayed,” said Dr. Marc Gartenberg, professor at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “And this delay will affect our next generation of scientists.” On Friday, March 7, everyone from doctors to PhD candidates to energized allies saturated Washington Square Park as part of nation-wide “Stand Up for Science” rally. While the main event took place in Washington, D.C., there was an impressive turnout for the NYC demonstration. Abby Haber, 26, is a soon-to...
www.ourtownny.com •

Emma Justus Honored Her Father by Founding Club Care

In many ways, Emma Justus is your typical 17-year-old girl. She loves hanging out with her dog, excels in school, and looks forward to for her beloved sleep-away camp each year. What you don’t see everyday, though, is someone her age running a multi-chapter organization that gives back to children and families affected by cancer. When she was just 11 years old, Emma’s father, David Justus, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a terminal brain cancer. He died two years later, in 2020. Losing a parent...
www.chelseanewsny.com •

Actress Michelle Trachtenberg Dies Suddenly at 39-years-old

Her blue, doe-eyed headshot and charming, sometimes-devious smile was a face most people recognized whether or not they could put a name to it. But her name was Michelle Trachtenberg, and on Wednesday Feb. 26, she was found dead at the young age of 39. Police responded to a 911 call at approximately 8:01 A.M. at 1 Columbus Place in the Midtown North Precinct. Officers found Trachtenberg unconscious and unresponsive, a police spokesperson told Straus News, and when EMS responded to the scene, she...
www.chelseanewsny.com •

W Train Subway Birth Is Being Called a “Miracle,” but Was It?

In the middle of a weekday, subways are typically filled with people going about their daily routines. Nina Burleigh, a journalist and professor, was doing just that. She was riding the W train, which she takes every week, to go teach a graduate journalism course at NYU. On Wednesday Feb. 12, everything was same-old. Get on the train, take it a few stops downtown and go teach a five-hour reporting seminar. That was the plan, at least, but then she heard a baby cry from the opposite end of the su...
www.westsidespirit.com •

Anne Frank The Exhibition Brings Tragic Story to Life, Re-creating the Famous Annex

I look down at the sheet of glass that separates me and a large-scale map of Europe. Small red flags flood the region, each representing thousands of concentration and extermination camps. It’s an incredibly sobering experience, gingerly stepping across what felt like a memorial for six million Jews. Visitors can come in and out of the room, but the flags remain below the glass, pinned to their very last moments of survival. Never before has Anne Frank’s story been physically portrayed outside o...
www.chelseanewsny.com •

Erik Bottcher Objects to DSNY’s Proposed New Rule on Trash Bags

The Department of Sanitation’s proposed rule regarding cleaner streets may be valuable in theory, but City Council member Erik Bottcher warns in a letter to the DSNY that it will bring about “unintended consequences that could negatively impact the cleanliness and livability of our neighborhoods.” The proposed rule would prohibit bagged trash on all sidewalks, both publicly and privately owned, in an effort to curb rat infestation and improve sanitation. Any entity that fails to comply with the...
www.ourtownny.com •

Anne Kelemen, a Holocaust Survivor, Celebrates 100th B’day with Bideawee Foster Pup

“This little dog has given me so much pleasure. He has been the highlight of my birthday,” Anne Kelemen, a Holocaust survivor and longtime animal lover, told Bideawee on her 100th Birthday. Separated from her parents at just 14 years old, Kelemen left Vienna on the Kindertransport, a two-year rescue effort to save children, largely Jewish, from the Nazi invasion. She was brought to safety in England, where she picked up a job on a local farm and deepened her love for animals. When Kelemen immigr...
www.ourtownny.com •

Mayor Adams: No Regret About Skipping MLK Day in NYC for Trump’s Inauguration

Mayor Eric Adams ditched Martin Luther King commemorations in New York City to make a dash to Washington D.C. in the wee hours of the morning on Jan. 20 but despite public backlash, including from some longtime supporters, he said he has no regrets. “We had a new president, and I’ve said it before, I’m not going to be warring with the president. I’m going to be working with the president. And that’s my responsibility as the mayor,” said Adams during an in-person media availability on Jan. 21. Pu...
Load More

Follow Me