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Alex Vadukul

Articles written by the author

14 Aug 2024
NEW YORK — Along a Hudson River pier in 2010, a sailor docked his battered schooner as a crowd watched in quiet anticipation. When he wearily stepped onto land, he had finished a remarkable human journey: Reid Stowe had been at sea for 1,152 days, the longest nonstop ocean voyage in recorded history.
He Sailed the Longest Ocean Voyage in History and Turned It Into Art
14 Aug 2024
NEW YORK — The Black Sheep pub in Midtown was crowded as usual on a recent Friday night, but there was a sense of urgency in the air. Regulars periodically put down their beers to go and wish good luck to the bar’s owner, Tom McGrath, 69, who sat wearing a tracksuit and drinking coffee from a mug.
The End of Loneliness for This Long-Distance Runner
12 Aug 2024
NEW YORK — “I can’t believe how many white people are in Harlem now,” Adam Gussow said. He was strolling around the neighborhood, marveling at how much the place had changed since he was a Columbia University grad-school dropout in the 1980s. “I was the only white guy in Harlem at the time. I just saw a white guy jogging. You never used to see that.”
11 Aug 2024
NEW YORK — It sounds like something out of Dickens: A wealthy private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side wants to build a multimillion-dollar athletic facility that will shroud the remnants of a 19th-century orphanage that was uncovered during demolition. The only thing standing in its way is the local priest — the same man whose accusations led to a cardinal’s being defrocked by the pope.
1 Aug 2024
NEW YORK — There’s a ghostly old flophouse on the Bowery. Rowdy brunch crowds stumble past its stained-glass windows and locked double doors. It’s lonesome but not empty.
30 Jun 2019
NEW YORK — Michael Saviello sat on a little stool in a Chelsea art gallery wiping sweat from his forehead as his new gallerists breathlessly praised his latest paintings. Saviello, known to everyone as Big Mike, was taking the day off from Astor Place Hairstylists, the East Village barber shop he has managed since 1987. He was preparing for his first solo show, which would mark his debut to the New York art world.
How Big Mike, a Barbershop Painter, Broke Into the Art World