Meet Election Candidates: Ron Rosenbaum for Albany School Board

Incumbent candidate  for Albany School Board  Ron Rosenbaum held a campaign sign at Solano Stroll parade. Rosenbaum is well-known in the community as a former principal of Albany High School and an Albany resident for more than three decades. He wrote the following message addressed to Albany voters:  

Albany’s Biggest Street Fair: 2008 Solano Stroll

Did you take a stroll on Solano Avenue yesterday? Did you see faces familiar, faces new, and faces  smiling everywhere? Watch the slideshow below on Albany’s biggest street fair, and share with us your strolling stories.

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Albany Today goes on summer break

 Dear Readers,

As you are reading this post, I am on my way to Beijing for my summer internship. I am excited at the trip because I will have a chance to report on the Olympic Games and also see my family.

Karen Nierlich: my children led me into the world of photography

Albany artist Karen Nierlich smiled at her photo show “Fragile and Resilient”at Albany Art Gallery. Nierlich wrote an article below about how her children helped her to enter the fascinating world of photography. Photo by Linda(Linjun) Fan.

As they say “kids change everything”. When I had my second child, one change I made was switching from painting to photography. I’d been a painter for 20 years, but now as a parent with two kids, I found I had little time for the solitary and intensive pursuit of painting.

Albany high schooler wrestles with hard life choices

Taylor Raphael, an Albany high schooler, had walked through a turbulent journey in the past year, battling against drug addiction and winning wrestling matches. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan.

Taylor Raphael stood tall on the awarding podium of Newark Memorial High School Gym, smiling at flashing cameras and cheering audience. He had won fourth place in the North Coast Section Championship and would be the only Albany wrestler to compete in the state wrestling championship. Few in the the applauding crowd knew about the turbulent journey he had taken to be there.

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It was an afternoon in springtime, 2001. School was over. Taylor and another boy at Albany Middle School crept into a deserted concrete tunnel near the school. The boy, a seventh grader, a year older than Taylor, asked Taylor whether he would like to try some weed.

Albany High School seniors reflect on college application experience

Ian Allen, a senior at Albany High School, will be attending Columbia University in the fall. Several hundred students will soon graduate from the school and go to various colleges across the country. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan.

Madeleine Miller-Bottome, another senior of the school, talked to Ian and several other students on their college application experiences and wrote the following story.

Albany kids study cooking at MacGregor’s Culinary Arts Program

Alexia Richie, a teacher of the Culinary Arts Program of MacGregor High School greeted several dozen excited third-graders, who walked from Cornell Elementary to take their first cooking class. MacGregor has been offering weekly cooking classes to Albany children since Feburary. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan.

Slideshow: 2008 Albany Art and Music Festival

Albany’s young singers and musicians touched a chord in the community with their performance at the city’s Art and Music Festival Sunday. Watch the slideshow below for the fascinating moments of the festival:

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Albany celebrates cultural diversity at music festival

Albany resident Carol Ginsburg sang a Yiddish folk song at a storytelling and music festival at the Albany Community Center Saturday. Community members enjoyed a lively performance of Jewish songs, Native American stories, African American drumming, and Latin American instruments at the festival. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan.

Osha Neumann: creating art out of waste at the Albany Bulb

On weekdays, 69-year-old Osha Neumann works as a defense attorney for homeless people at a Berkeley law center.  On weekends, he changes into his torn jacket and builds brilliant sculptures at the Albany Bulb, a former landfill that pokes a mile into the San Francisco Bay.

Neumann has created a number of impressive sculptures at the Bulb in the past ten years, using styrofoam, driftwood and scrap metal collected at the waterfront. One of them, a female statue called the Water Lady, was once promoted as an Albany landmark.

City staff fail to enter Talbot house

By Linda (Linjun) Fan

City staff of Albany failed to enter the house at 1075 Talbot Avenue Wednesday, as the owners of the house didn’t show up for an inspection scheduled by the city.

About a hundred neighbors have signed a petition letter recently urging the city to act on the house, which they regard as a nuisance property.

Video: Homeless person plants trees at Albany Bulb

By Linda (Linjun) Fan

Michael Welch, a homeless person living at the Albany Bulb, joined a group of young people planting trees at the former landfill recently. They hauled compost, dug holes with shovels, and planted a dozen fruit trees at various spots of the Bulb. Welch planted a fig tree near his camp, which was the first tree he had ever planted in his life. Watch the video below for more of the story.

MacGregor construction class gets support from community

Greg Armstrong-Mazul of MacGregor High School of Albany prepares to cut a board at his construction class. The class is taught by a volunteer teacher Mark Kalman, who brings his own tools for students to practice carpentry. Kalman is now able to purchase new gear and material for the class with the recent donation of $1,000 from Albany Education Foundation. Photo by Linda (Linjun) Fan.

Different paths to faith- Albany youth practice diverse religions

Saint Ambrose Catholic Church in Albany. Photo By Linjun Fan.

The article below is written by Madeleine Miller-Bottome.  Madeleine is a senior at Albany High School, and also a well-known singer in the community.

I have been going to church for 11 years and have recently decided to begin the process of being confirmed. With my own apprehensions and hesitations at the thought of committing myself to being a Catholic, I found myself wondering if there were any other people my age who found strength and identity in their faith while I was feeling so unsteady with mine. As I begin my journey into what it means to truly practice a religion-I wanted to talk with a few students who have already made this discovery.

Fledgling reporters from Albany High School join Albany Today

Dear readers,

I am excited to announce to you that a group of fledgling reporters from Albany High School are joining me to write news stories for Albany Today.

Some of them will write about the big games of their sports teams, some will write about the issues of special concern to high schoolers, some will share with us their views on national politics, etc.