Blog & News

It’s been years since David Cully worked in a classroom, but when he sits down with four- and five-year-olds in our Early Learning program, it’s clear he feels right at home. As Cully reads the classic picture book Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, the children crowd around him, pointing at the illustrations, making […]

We’re excited to announce that the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice has released a list of six titles shortlisted for this year’s inaugural award. The shortlisted works are: Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo (Random House) Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Becoming Ms. […]

No water, no heat, no gas. Ear-splitting noise. Vibrations so hard they shake the pictures off the walls. Floorboards removed so you can see all the way through to the story below.  Landlords knocking on the door day and night, demanding that the apartment be vacated. Tenants and organizers at the Goddard Riverside Law Project […]

One wants to be a doctor. Another dreams of going to Disney World. One aims to be president of the United States (inspired, she says, by President Obama). And one wants to be a mermaid. Every child in the room had a goal. And Gabrielle Walter, better known as Miss New York 2017, wanted to […]

Names and identifying details in this story have been changed to protect privacy. At 6:30 on a warm, clear Wednesday morning, sleepers still occupy most of the stone benches in Columbus Circle. They slumber under cardboard, newspapers, or plastic sheeting. Most have a shirt or sweatshirt over their heads to block out the sun Ñ […]

When Lincoln Square Neighborhood Center announced at a recent meeting that it would be open as a cooling station during heat waves, local residents burst into applause. “Lots of people who use the Center have no air conditioning,” said Susan Matloff-Nieves, Deputy Executive Director of Youth and Aging Services at Goddard Riverside, which recently merged […]

“What is a fish shaped like? Are they little squares?” “No!” cry the students of Goddard Riverside’s Head Start class, watching as Bilingual Science Educator Bilexis Casado of the American Museum of Natural History begins drawing a fish. “Would we find a fish in a tree? Why not?” “They don’t have arms!” “That’s right, Kayden. […]

Rising college students from our Options Center enjoyed some words of encouragement from Michelle Obama at New York’s Public Theater on Friday. “Look how good you look!” the former First Lady said, beaming at the crowd from the stage. “I couldn’t be more proud of you.” Obama began organizing College Signing Days as part of […]

Betsy Newell remembers the man who didn’t speak. Formerly homeless, he had moved into a room at Capitol Hall, one of Goddard Riverside’s supportive housing residences. “Several years ago I went to our annual meeting,” she recalls in her office at the Park Children’s Day School on the Upper West Side. “Ten residents had written […]