Feed

Emily Anne Epstein

Emily Anne Epstein is the managing editor of The New York Observer.
By Emily Anne Epstein 5/07 5:00pm

nyofood

(Photo by Emily Anne Epstein)

A Crumble in the Bronx

IT IS AFTER MIDNIGHT in the kitchen of Le Baron, a Chinatown dance club. The chefs we have come to meet are squeezed shoulder to shoulder in the tiny space, chopping and frying for the throngs outside. Jon Gray is giving two waitresses in crop tops a pep talk, telling them to get as far into the crowd as they can before distributing the food. The doors have closed and the venue is over capacity. It’s going to be tough, he tells them. Hold the trays high.

Tonight is the inaugural event of his catering company, Ghetto Gastro, which draws on the talents of rising chefs who have earned their stripes at Le Cirque, Jean-Georges and wd~50, among other big names. “How many can we fit on a tray?” chef Dan Levin interjects, referring to the four-bite portions of chicken and waffles.

We pluck one from the trays and the flavor comes in waves. First the sweet crust. Then the feisty curried chicken. The cool heat of scotch bonnet mango butter. The creamy calm of the coconut waffles. And there are two more varieties to go: a fig waffle with chili chicken and foie gras butter, and a Belgian waffle with buttermilk fried chicken and maple butter. Read More

By Emily Anne Epstein 4/23 6:59pm

Photo essay

6 Photos

When the Street Is Home

When the Street Is Home

While the cover story of this week’s Observer describes the plight of homeless families, the problem is growing among individuals as well.

On the Bowery last Friday, a man who gave his name only as Jay was cleaning his white Nike sneakers with a toothbrush. He had just stayed at The Bowery Mission Read More

By Emily Anne Epstein 4/05 1:25pm

DOctor Shocker

Debate Rages On Prescription Status For "Plan B" Pill

Judge Orders Open Season on Morning-After Pill

A federal judge has ruled that the government must make the morning-after pill available to women of all ages without a prescription.

Judge Edward R. Korman of the United States Eastern District Court of New York has ordered the USDA to make the emergency contraception available without restrictions in 30 days.

The plaintiffs in the case, Tummino v. Read More

By Emily Anne Epstein 2/26 6:22pm

Twisted

Photo by Emily Anne Epstein.

Bikram Yoga’s Arab Spring

At noon on a recent Friday, 40 people filed into Yoga to the People’s 27th Street hot yoga studio. “We’re going to be doing a new class today,” instructor Lindsay Dombrowski announced. “It’s going to be super-intense.”

Wearing a tight tank top and short green shorts, Ms. Dombrowski led her nearly naked pupils through a Read More

By Emily Anne Epstein 2/05 7:37pm

Couture Control

(Emily Anne Epstein)

Meet Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the Ego-tamer, Ringmaster and Floor-sweeper of Fashion Week

In the 31st-floor offices of SWW Creative, the walls are beige, the carpet is gray and the cabinets are standard-issue wood-grain. There’s no Eames armchair, no runway stills splashed across the walls, not even a lucite coffee table with a copy of Grace Coddington’s memoir. There’s not a flower in sight.

While fashion professionals are known to obsess over the color of their pens, SWW Creative’s offices are about as splashy as an insurance agency’s. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff is not concerned. Read More

By Emily Anne Epstein 1/01 11:57am

The Neverending Story

Flooding at the WTC site.

Grave Danger: 9/11 Families Fight Plan to Put Remains Seven Stories Underground in Flood Zone A

During Hurricane Sandy, the site of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum complex was overcome by more than 16 million gallons of floodwater, which ruined wires and drywall and ravaged a handful of iconic artifacts.

In an emotional essay on the museum’s website, director Alice Greenwald described seeing “seven feet of standing water throughout the museum.”

“The humidity was thick, like a sauna,” she wrote. “This was a disaster.”

The site’s extensive flooding is renewing protests over a plan to move the 8,584 still-unidentified remains from 9/11 victims into a repository adjacent to the base level of the museum, seven stories below ground. Family members of the dead fear that putting the remains so far under the earth—in flood zone A, no less—leaves them unnecessarily vulnerable to the elements, particularly with researchers still actively conducting DNA tests on those body parts. Read More

By Emily Anne Epstein 11/09/12 6:01pm

A wedding photo salvaged from a flood-damaged home in Staten Island. (Getty Images)

Photographers Offer Free Portraits to Sandy-Ravaged Families

Among the thousands of images taken of Hurricane Sandy’s destruction, showing mangled houses and weeping children, photographs of floating family albums and framed memories lost to the storm have been particularly poignant.

For these families, there is no way to rebuild a photograph of a baby’s first step, a great-grandfather’s smile, a son’s lost tooth Read More

By Emily Anne Epstein 11/05/12 1:40pm

Clean Up

30 Photos

Hurricane Sandy Coney Island

Photos: Stunned by Sandy, Coney Island Cleans Up

Only a few days after Sandy terrorized the Eastern Coast and before droves of generous volunteers began their efforts to rebuild the seaboard, the damage done by the hurricane was visible against the landscapes of the region.

Coney Island, in particular, was littered with refuse from the Atlantic: the remnants of people’s homes, lives and Read More