Manhattan has one of the lowest per-capita energy consumptions and smallest carbon footprints of any place in the United States. New York City's gas consumption is not very different from the 1920 U.S. average. And over 75 percent of Manhattan's households live without a car, in a country with over...

It was a quiet and dull late August evening in 2008 both inside and outside Eye Adom African restaurant in the Bronx. The kitchen was teeming with prepared food and underutilized staff. Yet, beyond all the empty tables, Efo, the Ghanaian-American owner, sat excitedly, smiling at the live telecast of...

"Jungle bunny, African booty-scratcher," Ramatu Bangura rattled off just a few of the names she's heard used for African students by their fellow classmates in city schools. "Diseased, wild-dancers, bald-headed, hyper-sexualized."

A second generation African immigrant herself, Bangura is a program manager at the Sauti Yetu Center for African Women,...

Imam Konate began the prayer one weekend afternoon at Masjid Aqsa in Harlem. Crowds chatting idly on the sidewalk slowly ambled into the hall. They removed their shoes and placed them on the shelves lined along the walls around the entrance. The worshipers formed rows facing Mecca, and greeted each...

Near the intersection of Exchange Place and Broad Street in New York City's financial district, three distinct smells pervade the air: cigarette smoke, pretzels, and construction dust. A young man dressed formally carries a yellow placard through the tourist crowd urging, "Believe in the Lord Jesus." The steps of the...

The customer, dressed in whites, looks flustered as she stares at the menu on the "NY Dosa" cart at Manhattan's Washington Square Park. She asks the man behind the cart details about his dosa's ingredients.

"Rice and lentils, only," he explains. She isn't convinced and asks again.

"All...