Horace Mann, the elite private school located in the Bronx, prides itself on its approach to diversity—but a recent assembly where students were asked to participate in a poetry exercise resulted in some students using racial slurs and sexist comments, a second assembly to discuss what happened and possibly most embarrassing, a NY Times article about the debacle. more ›

The judge in the sentencing of a 28-year-old prep school teacher who pled guilty to possessing over 9,000 images of child pornography called him a "monster," and scoffed at his requests for a sentence without jail time because he never acted on his urges. "You were a monster, it's just that you were successful in hiding it," Judge Kevin Duffy said. "You didn't take it out on a little child. Those people are totally despicable, but at least they're more honest than you." John Thomas, who has taught at Horace Mann and was slated to teach at Bank Street School this fall, was arrested last August after authorities traced a stream of graphic videos to his home. "I'm not a monster, I'm not a predator…I would never physically abuse a child," Thomas said. He was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison, the Daily News reports. more ›

A 28-year-old who has taught at Horace Mann and Friends Seminary and is currently a counselor at the 92nd Street Y was arrested yesterday on charges related to child pornography possession. Federal prosecutors say they found 43 CDs with "illicit images and videos of children engaged in sex acts" in John Thomas's Harlem apartment. more ›

“I had a tracking box in my bedroom,” he said. Huh? “That’s a box of sand that I walked in, pretending I was an animal. That determined how my tracks would look if I turned or walked backward.” It helped him, he said, to understand the nuances of animal movement. more ›

). In David Carr's NY Times column, Grove does admit, "New York is not Washington, obviously. There are about 20 different major industries that are headquartered here, and I am still on a New York learning curve." And he says he will be doing something multimedia-ish. Now, we imagine the Daily News will get to really usher in the era of Ben Widdicombe, "New York's hottest young gossip columnist." more ›

As far as price and density of private schools go, Gotham has the rest of the country blown out of the water. more ›

We're glad we're not the halls of Stuyvesant or Bronx Science these days, as they were totally shafted when the Intel Science finalists were announced. In fact, none of the finalists for the 65th Annual STS are from NYC public schools - the only New Yorker is Horace Mann student Sarah Kate Rapoport. Does this mean the city's public school science curriculum, even at the magnet schools, sucks? Or was it bad luck? more ›

For far more time than we'd like to admit, we spent our days commuting to and from the stressful center of neon lights and fanny packs that is Times Square. During this period, we were always immensely grateful for the existence of the International Center of Photography, which always provided us with a blissful lunch hour retreat, whether from the stress of the teeming masses outside or just from excel projects gone maddeningly awry. more ›