WHYY’s Tom McDonald is in Ocean City, N.J., setting up for a live NewsWorks Tonight broadcast on Friday, May 24, at 6 p.m.
Photo 1: The beach at Ocean City, N.J., is starting to look better after replenishment.
Photos 2 and 3: From under the boardwalk, we’re running cable to the broadcast position.
Photo 4: In case of rain Friday, there will be a big covered space for the live broadcast at the Ocean City Music Pier.
Russell Farmer’s barbershop sits on a rundown block in the Lanning Square neighborhood of Camden. On the outside, the facade is bleak — bars on the windows, graffiti on the walls, a police car idling nearby, waiting, ready to chase.
But step inside, and the atmosphere is transformed. The noise of the city fades as the sweet swell of classical music fills the air.
“I regard it as an oasis in an otherwise destitute and arid community,” said Farmer.
WHYY’s Phil Gregory came back from last weekend’s gun buyback in Trenton, N.J., with this photo.
Does one of these things seem … not like the others?
N.J. Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa says a shoulder-fired rocket launcher was turned in among 2,600 other weapons.
I’ve seen it argued that it’s actually an empty missile tube, and therefore not a rocket launcher capable of firing anything, and aren’t we ashamed of ourselves for being duped by N.J. Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa — but that entirely misses the point. Whatever this thing is, however deadly it may or may not be, someone in Trenton had one and traded it in for $250.
If you took this photo, how would you caption it?
Online home videos show happier times in Camden, N.J.
New Jersey’s most dangerous city recently tied its record for the most murders in one year when it recorded its 58th homicide on Nov. 2.
Home videos about Camden, N.J., now being posted online show a very different kind of city. Instead of depicting poverty and violence, they show idyllic scenes in Yorkship Village, part of the Fairview neighborhood from the 1950s and ’60s.
Michael Ruiz fondly remembers his childhood there and is posting the home videos his dad shot to give former residents and others a chance to see his old neighborhood.
Sandy aftermath: Electric linemen deserve our praise
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie hasn’t been bashful about bestowing unbridled praise on to President Obama for his handing of Hurricane Sandy. But if he hasn’t already, the Governor should heap the same amount of praise in the direction of the many electric linemen working tirelessly to restore power to hard-hit areas of New Jersey.
From Medford Strikers to U.S. women’s soccer team, for Carli Lloyd, ‘it’s been a great road’
Listen to an interview with Carli Lloyd, the New Jersey native who scored the two winning goals in the final gold-medal match against Japan at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
Carli Lloyd, right, celebrates with teammates after scoring during the women’s soccer gold-medal match against Japan at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. (Ben Curtis/AP Photo)
In 2016 Lloyd will be 34 years, a little on the “old” side by Olympics standards, but she says she plans on competing at the Games in Rio.
“I feel I’m in the prime of my career right now,” she says. “If I can keep going, I’m going to keep going as long as I can.”
Renovations rob 200-year-old barn of aspects artists prized
The crumbling Swede Run Barn, a 200-year-old structure in Moorestown, N.J., had to be either rebuilt or completely destroyed. The publicly owned property was a hazard and a liability. Preservationists are rallying to save it, but some artists lament the loss of an iconic ruin.
Wild mustangs tamed in South Jersey
This weekend, three dozen wild mustangs will be auctioned off in South Jersey. These are not souped-up muscle cars, we’re talking about actual wild horses, gathered from open ranges in the American west.
One wild mustang was caught in California, corralled, dewormed, driven across the country to New Jersey, and then christened Pauly D, after the hyper-coiffed dude from MTV’s “Jersey Shore.”
The horse is probably ten years old, and had never been saddled, ridden, or even touched by a human hand.
“The first day, week, half month, Pauly was so different from any other horse. He was so wild,” said Amanda Brantmayer, a trainer in Bridgeton, N.J., who had just three months to domesticate him. “Normally, a horse is raised in captivity and he’s been played with since he was a baby, so you just have to teach it stuff, it’s not scared of you. Him, he was scared of everything.”
Farm to table: N.J. nonprofit harvests for those in need
The recession and sluggish recovery have brought increased demand to soup kitchens and food pantries in the Delaware Valley.
This summer, one volunteer group in New Jersey is working to meet that demand with fresh fruits and vegetables straight from the farm.
They are picked by volunteers such as Colton Fejko. On a recent afternoon, he was scouring blueberry bushes on a farm in the Pinelands under the hot July sun.
At 8 years old, he looked more like a pint-sized cowboy than a fruit picker. Wearing leather boots and an American flag T-shirt, he reached for a branch as tall as the top of his black cowboy hat.
“See, if they’re half purple and blue, they’re good, if they’re mostly purple and they have a hole in them, not good,” Colton explained. Colton’s Boy Scout troop and other volunteers were brought together to the Hammonton farm by the nonprofit Farmers Against Hunger.
More than 100,000 people in South Jersey are without power today after storms swept through over the weekend.
