Take advantage of Big Apple opportunities

Sarah Bursley

One of my favorite quotes by Mary Engelbreit is "We don't care how they do it in New York." Until I visited the Big Apple for the first time two weeks ago, I shared Engelbreit's sentiments.

It's not that I ever saw myself as an ignorant Southerner (think Pace Picante commercials from a few years back with the ol' timer's mustachioed face in the camera shrieking "New York City?!") regarding the capital of the world.

And it's not that I don't have family ties there. In fact, my mother grew up in suburban New Jersey while her father worked for DuPont in the Empire State Building. My cousin has lived in Manhattan for 15 years and my great aunt has lived in the same apartment on East 73rd St. for 42 years.

It's just that I never thought New York was all that great. I've lived in big cities (Dallas, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Charlotte), smaller cities (Raleigh, Greenville, S.C., Greensboro, Augusta, Ga.), out West and abroad, so the bug to experience "the big city" never bit me.

And I adore the Southeast.

In spite of my mother's ties, I have always regarded New York as the antithesis of the South.

Much to my surprise, I fell in love with the city when I visited New York for the National College Media Convention Feb. 14-18.

If you are as inclined to loathe the Big Apple as I was, I urge you to take advantage of an amazing opportunity we have as Mountaineers: the chance to stay in Manhattan at the Appalachian Loft.

The 4,400 square-foot Loft opened in December 1998 at 117 East 24th St., one block east from the intersection with Park Ave., in the Gramercy Park district of Manhattan.

The Appalachian Loft was established in 1974 at 67 Vestry St. in the TriBeCa area, just below SoHo.

The Appalachian State University Foundation purchased the new condominium for $860,000 and renovated the space to serve as a base for educational and research projects.

The purchase not only moved the Loft into a residential instead of an industrial area, but also it doubled the floor space and availability for faculty, staff, students, alumni and guests Ð from 12 to 24 beds.

It costs approximately $35 a night for students to stay at the Loft.

To ensure an amazing trip, be sure to plan ahead. A few suggestions will come in handy when you visit the Appalachian Loft.

Ask around before you go.

Chances are, you know someone who has visited the Loft. Faculty members take students on trips there throughout the year. The best pieces of advice I received were from a friend of mine who interned with a magazine in New York last summer.

Besides warning me about the jacked-up beer prices (Bud Lights were $5 each), she told me to wear comfortable shoes, grab coffee at Pax (at the corner of East 23rd St. and Park, across from the 6 subway), buy a Metrocard Fun Pass (it lets you ride any subway or bus until 3 a.m. the next morning for $4), and buy a "Fodor's 2001" guidebook Ð which brings me to my next point.

Buy the most recent edition of "Fodor's."

For the amount of money I paid ($15 at barnesandnoble.com), "Fodor's" was gold. Not only did I learn more than I ever wanted to know about the city before I left Boone, but also the guidebook came with an easy-to-use subway map.

It also provided information about individual neighborhoods, restaurants, theaters, museums and stores.

Just be discreet about where you break out the guidebook so you don't blatantly look like a tourist. Opening the tear-out subway map is a little more forgiving.

Write early for tickets to shows that tape in New York.

"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," "The Late Show with David Letterman," "Live with Regis and Kelly," "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," "Saturday Night Live" and "The Today Show" all tape in New York.

For poor college students, free tickets to tapings are great alternatives to expensive Broadway musicals and plays.

Of course, you only get what you pay for; don't expect to experience the same high-caliber, cultural entertainment as a $100 ticket to the latest Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane production.

But even though I felt like a dork writing postcards in November asking for tickets to tapings in February, it paid off: Kara Hodge and I landed two tickets to see Chris Rock and They Might Be Giants on "Conan" and four tickets to see Glenn Close on "Regis" -- for the price of two postcard stamps.

The catch: Some tickets are impossible. "Fodor's" provides a list of addresses, wait lists ("Rosie," "Dave" and "SNL" are the hardest) and locations to get standby tickets for shows.

If you have time for Broadway, check out the TKTS booth.

According to my great aunt, you should go to the TKTS booth in Times Square on the day of the show you want to see and ask for tickets closest to "house seats." She said that house seats are seats reserved for VIP tickets and that if you sound like you know what you're talking about, the staff generally won't stick you in the rafters or way over on the sides of the theater.

Also, you can buy tickets to most shows without leaving Boone at broadway.com.

Don't feel like you have to see everything in one trip. There are more than 150 museums, 18,000 restaurants (more than 100 are located within the three-block radius surrounding the Loft) and 10, 000 stores in New York, so the chances are pretty high that you will not see everything there is to see in the city.

Many museums (metmuseum.org) and stores (bloomies.com) have Web sites where you can buy the same thing you saw in New York online. You can even buy stationery and calendars from the Modern Museum of Art at The Curiosity Shop on King St. in Boone.

Be wise about the cash you spend while you are in the city -- you are going to spend a lot of it without even trying.

So relax. Prioritize what you really want to experience, but be willing to go with the flow.

I didn't see the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Radio City Music Hall, Trump Tower or one building in the Financial District, but Kara and I did get to spend five hours with my cousin and her husband touring the Metropolitan Museum of Art and skirting through Central Park, and an unforgettable morning eating brunch and talking with my great aunt at her apartment.

We also had a hilarious afternoon watching Conan perform, our three seconds of fame on "The Today Show," and random late-night conversations at Peculier Pub in Greenwich Village with Jon Loyd, an Appalachian senior interning in New York, and Donnie and Connor, two 21-year-old Irishmen who decided to fly to New York from Dublin that morning on a whim. (People don't say "Come to New York to see the world" for nothing.)

Oh yeah, we went to a pretty cool journalism conference sponsored by Columbia University, too.

Take advantage of the Loft.

Thanks to Appalachian, this Southerner's unexpected New York experience was just the beginning.

Remember black history year-round

Ty brueilly - Sports Beat

As the month of February makes its way to the final few days so does the 2001 black history month. But as any other historical memorial or holiday, the meaning as well as the commemoration should be acted on throughout the year. Like Valentines Day, we should show each other affection year round, as well as Christmas, where we should show our love for Christ year round as well. The same should go for black culture their history. We, as a whole population, which includes every race and color, including black, all have so much to learn from everything the black community has done, and has been through.

From the days that blacks were slaves, and you realize what kind of hell each family was put through. Imagine if you were the next generation, what you would do after you knew your family had been treated that way, could you, being the next generation overcome such tremendous and horrible obstacles and make such positive contributions to society as a whole, like so many people of the black community did? Could you sit and watch someone facing the same racism as you, get beaten bloody in the middle of the street in front of thousands of people, and obey the orders to not retaliate? Being where we are at now in the stream of time, could you imagine going to the movie theatre and asking for a ticket to see a movie only to be looked at with a hard stare and shown a sign that says that they only cater to one color? Could you imagine seeing your mother, father, brother, sister, cousin, aunt, uncle, or your friend, hanged in a tree while you make your way down the street to run an errand? After being treated worse than animals, could you keep on holding strong and prove yourself as some of the world's greatest athletes in such professional sports as the NBA and NFL?

If you think in any way that you couldn't handle any of these things, or if you think you couldn't overcome any of these things, you need to read up and research how they reacted and how they did what they did to get to where they are as a community now, there is no doubt in my mind that you will learn so much.

One month dedicated to black culture is not enough, but instead of me complaining that it's not enough, I am going to go out and research more information on blacks and their significant impact in the United States during the period of time that they have been here. Don't let this Thursday come around and think that black history commemoration is over with, keep going and keep learning. The more you learn the more you will realize. After you realize what has gone on in the lives of past black communities, you too will see that one month is not enough celebration and commemoration for what these human beings have done and you too will strive to learn even more, no matter what month it might be.

Our Perspective ...

Internet abuse can affect entire campus

Child pornography can hurt more than the children pictured or the people viewing it.

Aside from child pornography being disgusting and abusive, it is illegal in the United States to view child pornography and therefore, illegal on the Appalachian State University campus.

Those students on campus who view such child pornography using the university Internet system could create more consequences than most people think.

The Appalachian State University Policy on the Use of Computers and Data Communications states "Computing resources are valuable, and their abuse can have a far-reaching negative impact. Computer abuse affects everyone who uses computing facilities. The same morality and ethical behavior that applies in the non-computing environment applies in the computing environment."

The penalties of being caught for viewing such media may not only affect the viewing audience, but also the Appalachian community as a whole. The student viewing, if caught, will receive a revocation of his computing privileges, legal action may be taken by the university to reclaim monetary loss for the Internet access and the student will be referred to law enforcement authorities.

As a prevention tactic, the Appalachian community may suffer access privileges to many Internet sites. Privacy, necessary for Internet functions such as email, could be lost as a result of repeat violations across campus.

Though Appalachian does not currently take a "Big Brother" approach to monitoring its students, the university can discover who is breaking the law with their university Internet access.

For example, we have the instance reported last week about how one student had the university repair a computer and it was found that child porn had been viewed with it.

Or, someone could just happen to look over a person's shoulder. If this were the case, we would hope the witness would have the sanity to turn the viewer in. We have heard of only one such violation of Internet usage to date.

If you just have to break laws with your Internet usage, find somewhere else to do it. The consequences for illegal and ethically wrong actions may be more far-reaching than students can imagine. If you're going down, don't bring the Appalachian community with you.