Episode 5: City Slickers and Soul Food

Summary

The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode 5: City Slickers and Soul Food

Date: November 20, 2015
Host: David Remnick
Produced by: WNYC Studios & The New Yorker

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Episode Overview

In this multifaceted episode, David Remnick guides listeners through a range of stories at the intersection of culture, politics, and identity. The show first examines France in the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks, delving into the lives of French Muslims and the societal consequences of terror. The episode then shifts to an in-depth look at Sylvia’s, Harlem’s legendary soul food institution, exploring themes of community, gentrification, and resilience. The emotional heart of the episode features a father working to quell longstanding violence in Harlem’s housing projects after the tragic loss of his daughter. Rounding out the program is an intimate conversation with beloved New Yorker cartoonist George Booth and a profile of efforts to preserve New York City's endangered languages.

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Segment 1: French Muslims and the Paris Attacks (00:23–12:23)

Key Discussion Points

• Aftermath of November 2015 Paris Attacks:
  George Packer, New Yorker staff writer, discusses the climate in France following the attacks, contrasting it with reactions to the Charlie Hebdo shootings.
• Shifting Perceptions & Motivations:
  No longer focused on justifications; this attack felt random and united the country in fear and grief. French Muslims anticipate backlash, with increased police action affecting their communities.
• Complexities of Radicalization:
  The profile of French jihadis defies simplistic narratives; many are middle class, and there’s no clear “profile” for radicalization.
• Politics & Security:
  France is experiencing a “tidal pull” to the right, potentially putting civil liberties at risk in response to public fears.
• International Dynamics:
  American policy toward Syria and ISIS is examined, particularly in relation to Russia and the challenges of regime change.

Notable Quotes

• On changes in response to attacks:
  “There’s unity on that front. There’s massive fear. And I think Muslims are anticipating a real backlash.”
  – George Packer (01:54)
• On jihadi motivations:
  “It’s pretty damn hard to answer that question... It’s a modern phenomenon... an ideology that says to them, you may feel like nothing... We will offer you everything, the world, a vision of the world made whole.”
  – George Packer (03:56)
• On political reactions:
  “France is at war, which reminds me very much of the days after September 11th, and there’s almost an inevitable tidal pull in that direction.”
  – George Packer (05:23)

Important Timestamps

• 00:23 – Introduction to topics and George Packer’s reporting
• 01:26 – French Muslim perspectives post-attacks
• 02:39 – Demographics of French jihadis
• 03:26 – The enigma of radicalization
• 05:23 – France’s political shift and risk of civil liberties
• 07:03 – Discussion of Russian involvement and Assad
• 11:04 – Intelligence failures preceding ISIS’s rise
• 12:07 – Obama’s pivot to Asia and the persistence of ISIS as a focal issue

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Segment 2: Harlem’s Sylvia’s – Resilience Amid Gentrification (13:59–21:08)

Key Discussion Points

• Sylvia’s Legacy:
  Founded in 1962, Sylvia’s is an iconic Harlem soul food restaurant, now managed by the Woods family.
• Surviving Upheaval:
  The restaurant survived the 1967 riots, thanks to its central place in the community and its founder’s relationships.
• Gentrification’s Double-Edged Sword:
  Gentrification brings both increased business and the threat of displacement for long-standing cultural institutions; Sylvia’s future is preserved by owning its real estate.
• Family Business:
  The Woods children grew up learning every role, from cleaning tables to cooking, illustrating Sylvia’s as a true community and family institution.
• Community Anchor:
  Sylvia’s is described as not just a restaurant, but a social, cultural, and political center.

Notable Quotes

• On surviving riots:
  “That restaurant was about the only thing that was not touched. All other storefronts…”
  – Van Woods (15:48)
• On gentrification’s impact:
  “You can look at it positively… but on the other hand, you’re losing all of these fantastic, great institutions. That’s the sadness of it.”
  – Van Woods (16:40)
• On family involvement:
  “As soon as we were old enough to see over the height of the table, we had to be able to clean that table.”
  – Kenneth Woods (18:07)

Important Timestamps

• 13:59 – Introduction to Sylvia’s and the Woods family
• 14:44 – 1967 riots and the community’s response
• 16:37 – The economics of gentrification
• 17:50 – Family’s upbringing in the restaurant business
• 20:18 – Sylvia’s as a community hub

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Segment 3: Healing Harlem – A Father’s Fight Against Violence (21:47–36:22)

Key Discussion Points

• The Story of Tayshana “Chicken” Murphy:
  Jennifer Gonnerman profiles the aftermath of the 2011 murder of Tayshana Murphy, a beloved basketball star, and her father’s community activism.
• Decades-Old Feud Between Projects:
  Persistent rivalries between Grant and Manhattanville Houses in Harlem result in recurring violence, often with little clear motive beyond identity and turf.
• A Father’s Compassionate Outreach:
  Taylon Murphy now acts as a “street social worker,” working with youth from both sides to defuse conflict and provide mentorship.
• Collective Parental Action:
  Parents who have lost children to violence band together for mutual support and provide comfort to others facing tragedy.
• Vision for Renewal:
  Efforts are underway to convert an abandoned social club into a crisis management center, symbolizing hope and forward movement.

Notable Quotes

• On defusing violence:
  “You being angry is not going to bring her back. I had to stand in the middle of that, and I’ve been standing in the middle of that from then till now.”
  – Taylon Murphy (25:07)
• On the feud’s roots:
  “When you have this ideology that it’s us against them... Instead of saying that we’re all people in the same community...”
  – Taylon Murphy (27:58)
• On poverty’s many forms:
  “Poverty means a lot of things. It’s not just economic... Poor resources, poor outreach, poor parenting, poor mental health, poor services...”
  – Taylon Murphy (28:13)
• On symbolic hope:
  “If I come back and see you in five years... I see a wall full of computers, about 20 young people... doing something positive.”
  – Taylon Murphy (32:42)
• On loss and remembrance:
  “I wear these every day… I look at them as being my yoke. I’ve been wearing these every day for four years.”
  – Taylon Murphy, on his memorial necklaces and laminates (36:13)

Important Timestamps

• 21:47 – Introduction to Tayshana Murphy’s story and her father
• 22:17 – Tour through Harlem and the rivalry’s legacy
• 25:07 – The father’s role in tempering retaliation
• 27:58 – Analysis of feud origins and adult responsibility
• 29:53 – Parental support network, including Monica’s story
• 32:08 – Vision for the community crisis center
• 33:39 – The ongoing trauma of concentrated violence
• 36:01 – Personal tributes and keeping memories alive

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Segment 4: The Art of George Booth – Cartoons, Country Roots, and City Slickers (38:25–47:14)

Key Discussion Points

• George Booth’s Style & Legacy:
  Booth is celebrated for his “dog cartoons” and depiction of quirky, down-to-earth characters.
• Cartooning from Life:
  Finds inspiration in the everyday, often drawing from observed reality and his rural upbringing.
• Spontaneity and Technique:
  Embraces accidents and improvisation in his work, physically piecing together different sketches to capture the perfect moment.
• The Greek Chorus Dog:
  Dogs and cats in Booth’s cartoons act as silent witnesses or comic counterpoints to human behavior.
• Mentorship & Influence:
  Fellow cartoonist Matt Diffee recalls Booth’s impact and their shared country backgrounds.

Notable Quotes

• On authenticity in cartoons:
  “I believe greatly in drawing in cartoons what I see in life. People recognize it and they love it. They laugh at themselves.”
  – George Booth (39:15)
• On country vs. city:
  “Do you still consider yourself a little bit of a country boy?”
  – Matt Diffee
  “No, I’m a city slicker.”
  – George Booth (39:31)
• On drawing dogs and their narrative role:
  “If you put a dog sitting there to look at you... the dog becomes a Greek audience... suffering some of the shrapnel that’s going on.”
  – George Booth (44:06)
• On loss and humor:
  “Jokes are getting bad.”
  – George Booth (46:53)
  “Oh, no, listen, I’m being sincere now. I’m saying that you’re my favorite cartoonist.”
  – Matt Diffee

Important Timestamps

• 38:25 – Matt Diffee recalls meeting Booth
• 39:07 – Real-life inspiration behind cartoons
• 41:23 – Booth’s creative process and childhood beginnings
• 42:52 – On cartooning spontaneity and editing
• 44:36 – Why dogs are essential in his comics
• 45:53 – Booth’s pets and their inspiration
• 46:53 – Sincere praise exchanged between the cartoonists

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Segment 5: Endangered Languages in New York City (47:56–53:58)

Key Discussion Points

• NYC as a Linguistic Mosaic:
  Daniel Kaufman of the Endangered Language Alliance describes NYC as home to 800 languages, with roughly a third endangered.
• Everyday Encounters with Rare Languages:
  Many city residents come from small language communities; daily interactions can reveal hidden linguistic treasures.
• The Challenge of Documentation:
  Efforts to record and preserve languages, ensuring children continue to learn them, are urgent but daunting in their scale.
• Cultural Significance:
  Linguistic diversity represents beauty, unique knowledge, and an irreplaceable “mosaic of what it means to be human.”

Notable Quotes

• On scale and urgency:
  “We need a team of 800 people if there’s 800 languages here. And even then we’re not sure we can do it.”
  – Daniel Kaufman (52:51)
• On the value of preservation:
  “The beauty that is lost, the cosmologies that are lost, and the sense of difference… These little pieces of the mosaic of what it means to be human, those are extremely precious.”
  – Judith Thurman (53:10)

Important Timestamps

• 47:56 – Daniel Kaufman introduces the Endangered Language Alliance
• 48:20 – The unprecedented linguistic diversity of NYC
• 49:15 – Everyday example: a deli worker and a rare Nepalese language
• 52:51 – The preservation mission’s colossal scale
• 53:10 – Judith Thurman on why language loss matters

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Additional Episode Highlights

• Closing:
  Upcoming Events: Preview of next week’s episode with Patti Smith and literary guests (37:17).
  Music and Credits: The episode features the signature New Yorker Radio Hour theme by Meryl Garbus of Tune-Yards (54:43).

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Conclusion

This episode artfully weaves together global and local themes of violence, survival, cultural identity, and artistic expression. The discussions—from terror and assimilation in France to neighborhood transformation in Harlem, the healing work of parents scarred by loss, the quirky genius of a cartoonist, and the preservation of human language—offer a nuanced picture of cities, communities, and individuals facing change, adversity, and the imperative to remember.

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For more stories, images, and articles mentioned in the episode, visit newyorkerradio.org.

Transcript

[Van Woods]

Floor 38.

[Kenneth Woods]

It's very exciting to be having a.

[Judith Thurman]

Conversation with someone when they have that revelation.

[David Remnick]

Actor seems to be interested that. John McPhee's brought this up from One.

[George Packer]

World Trade center in Manhattan.

[David Remnick]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

[Kenneth Woods]

A co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

[David Remnick]

I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us for the New Yorker Radio Hour. Today we're going to meet a father in Harlem who's trying to end a feud that's been going on for decades. We'll also sit down with one of the magazine's most beloved cartoonists, George Booth. Now, some people have called George the king of dog cartoons, but I don't think that does justice to what a keen observer of people he is. But this week I've been thinking above all, as I'm sure you have, about the attacks in Paris, about what they mean for the people of Paris, for the Syrian refugees in Europe, for all of us. George Packer is a staff writer for the New Yorker. He's written about the Iraq War and about domestic politics in the United States, and he recently wrote a long article for the magazine about the lives of Muslims in France. George he spent quite a long time in the suburbs of Paris and the banlieue talking with people in and they must have had a lot to say about what's been happening in the last 10 days or so.

[George Packer]

I asked the main character, as we say in the business of that piece, Fouad Ben Ahmed, what it was like this time compared to after the January tax, Charlie Hebdo and the kosher market. And he said, well, the good news is there's no real debate about any justification as there was for that one, because for some French Muslims, Charlie Hebdo was a Islamophobic, racist, bigoted publication, and.

[David Remnick]

They saw it as a provocation.

[George Packer]

It was a provocation. And as for the Jews, there was not an outpouring of sympathy for them either, to be honest. But this time it was so random. It was just every young person having a good time in Paris on Friday night. And many of them were Muslim, as it turned out, so or at least a number. So there's no sense of what does this say about free speech versus Islamophobia versus correct interpret, blah, blah, blah. There's unity on that front. There's massive fear. And I think Muslims are anticipating a real backlash. People are being rounded up. I don't mean large numbers, but suspects are being rounded up who had not been arrested before. So it's a Different atmosphere. I think it's much harsher.

[David Remnick]

Now, in your article you wrote that 1500 French citizens have gone to fight for or live in the so called Islamic State. They are not all poor, they are not all dispossessed. In fact, in their majority they are middle class.

[George Packer]

I don't know that they have a real accurate statistical sense of the class of the jihadists, but it's true that all the experts said to me we used to think we could profile them. The profile was they're poor, they come from broken families, they get into delinquency, they get into petty crime, they go to jail, in prison, they often get radicalized because that's where the cells begin.

[David Remnick]

And that's not the profile.

[George Packer]

Now, it still is of some of these guys, but not all of them. A couple of them came from more middle class families. So it's very hard.

[David Remnick]

So what is the motivation? This is of course, the lasting mystery that we've been all grappling with for years. What is the motivation of a young man or a young woman to at some point embrace what to our ears can only seem like a kind of medieval, absolutist version of Islam, be willing to kill an unlimited number of people and blow oneself up?

[George Packer]

It's pretty damn hard to answer that question. I mean, first of all, I stay away from the word medieval because I think even though they think they are interpreting the Quran according to the period of Muhammad and his companions, they this is a modern phenomenon. To me, it's pulling in young people from different backgrounds, but through an ideology that says to them, you may feel like nothing, society may offer you nothing but consumption and good times, or exclusion and contempt. We will offer you everything, the world, a vision of the world made whole. One of the people I met in France was a British scholar who said, it's like the cloud, the computer cloud. It's always up there and wherever you are, whether you're a young guy in Tunisia or a young woman in a small town in France, or you can lock onto it in your own way. It can find you and you can find it.

[David Remnick]

In the wake of 9, 11, the Bush administration went the way it did. And one of the forces trying to hold back and in its mind speak reason to the United States and the government were the French, particularly in the decision to invade Iraq. Now you see France moving to the right. Concerns about security will inevitably start to overwhelm concerns about civil liberties. What do you think that dialogue will be between the United States and France?

[George Packer]

Because President Obama was opposed to the war. He's in a good position to be able to say, we are not giving you unsolicited advice. We're not talking down to you. In fact, we're expressing a sense of admiration for your wisdom about Iraq and about falling into the trap that the jihadis always set for us. On Monday, President Francois Hollande got up in front of the French Parliament and said, france is at war, which reminds me very much of the days after September 11th, and there's almost an inevitable tidal pull in that direction. The public wants to hear that something is being done. The public wants their own alarm answered in some way. But it does worry me, as I think it seems to worry you, that they are going to fall into that trap again. They may start with these roundups and with their already rather punitive brand of secularism, they may start alienating large numbers of French Muslims who certainly don't want the jihadi way, but also don't want to have to pledge allegiance in some compelled fashion. So I worry very much that the National Front approach is going to become the French approach.

[David Remnick]

George, clearly the Russians and Putin are a major player in this. They want to keep a foothold in the Middle east and Syria is their only place, and they want to remain or intensify their position as a world player. Where do you think the Russian diplomacy and military action is going to go now that they've seen an airliner blown.

[George Packer]

Up over Sinai in these talks between Kerry and Lavrov and between Obama and Putin? Because they're talking now. How is the US Trying to push them away from Assad? So that part of this new coalition is based on an understanding that we will pound ISIS and we will begin to create a political transition that has Assad out. Because I don't think the Sunni neighbors or the Sunni Syrians are going to care that we're bombing Raqqa. If Assad seems to be gaining the upper hand. In fact, they might be, and Assad.

[David Remnick]

Has gained the upper hand.

[George Packer]

Yeah. So that pushes Sunnis closer to the Islamic State.

[David Remnick]

All I can tell you is what the administration hopes, because I've been doing some reporting in and around State Department, and not that that tells you everything, to say the least. What they hope is that they can put off the personal question of Assad and get the Russians on board toward ceasefire and an agreement on political transformation and keep the name out of it for a little while. But for the understanding to be at a certain point of time, maybe six months after, nine months after, however long it takes to develop A successor figure to Assad, who, by the way, is not going to be a sweetheart. And I've even heard that there are any number of people who would have been putative successors to Assad who have come to bad ends in that extremely dangerous court.

[George Packer]

They have a thin bench.

[David Remnick]

Yeah, it's an increasingly thin bench. Yeah. So you're watching a political race take shape now.

[George Packer]

Yeah.

[David Remnick]

And I have to say so when you watch the Republican debate there, you're, I assume, filled with confidence. After Ben Carson describes how this will play out.

[George Packer]

I just think they're holding their cards back, but they've got a plan, and it's a.

[David Remnick]

It's a.

[George Packer]

It's a very good one, just as Nixon had a plan for Vietnam.

[David Remnick]

But does anybody. Is there anybody, Is there any politician, Hillary Clinton included, who describes a potential outcome and a potential political process that gives you any, even a meager sense of confidence?

[George Packer]

I don't think they have a clue. What I've been disappointed by is this administration's mistaking its own decision not to get deeply involved in this civil war militarily for involvement of any kind, diplomatically. We've hardly been a factor until just recently. And it seems all to be driven by Kerry more than by the White House, that this desire.

[David Remnick]

I think it's driven by what Barack Obama perceives to be his mandate for being elected. And he has stuck by it in a sense that he's been true to what he campaigned on. But he also arguably created a vacuum by leaving too few troops behind in Iraq, which gave a space to the creation of isil. This is an argument that's made. And now he's correcting that, or trying to. In Afghanistan, if you look at our experience in the last X years, not going into Rwanda was a moral and political catastrophe. You know, where I'm going, going into Iraq, headlong moral and political catastrophe. Going in, in a limited way, in Libya. What do we hear? And the phrase is, now we drop the ball. What a horrible moral thing to hear that we quote, unquote, drop the ball after the intervention in Libya.

[George Packer]

But we always, you know, we swing wildly. We're bipolar, we're. We go from. We can do anything. It just takes our might and our goodness.

[David Remnick]

But Obama's under the impression that the right thing to do is to use the phrase that's vexed him from an article that was published in the New Yorker by Ryan Lizard leading from behind, that somehow a much more subtle American style of participation in coalition building and diplomacy, and that somehow that will get us to the gates of heaven.

[George Packer]

There was a quote in the New York Times from former defense intelligence chief Michael Flynn, who said, In 2012, we had an intelligence report that went to the White House saying there's going to be a strong push for a caliphate. It's going to be very powerful. Here's where it's going to happen. And it was completely ignored.

[David Remnick]

I have to say. Either his attention wandered for a certain period of time, or more likely, the intelligence on this was terrible. When I interviewed Obama about a year and a half ago in the White House and I asked him, you know, I said, you say that you've decimated al Qaeda, and obviously there were other people running around in this nascent group, ISIL was happening. And he said, yeah, you know, some people think if they put on a Lakers jersey, that makes them Kobe Bryant. And it's that clearly signaled. And talk about eyes off the ball, a sense of if not mission accomplished, then at least a sense of forward progress that we hadn't earned yet.

[George Packer]

He wanted to pivot to Asia. You know, as you and I speak right now, he's in Manila, some Asia Pacific economic conference, which is probably what he wanted to be doing with the last two years of his presidency. What's he doing? He's answering questions about the Islamic State.

[David Remnick]

George Packer, thank you.

[George Packer]

Thank you, David.

[David Remnick]

My colleague and friend, George Packer. We spoke earlier this week. You can find his article about the suburbs of Paris and some of his coverage of the presidential [e-mail] I'm David Remnick. In a minute, another effort to bring peace to a dangerous place. This one a lot closer to home. That's just ahead in the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and this is the New Yorker Radio Hour. The restaurant business, as any of you who are in it know, is impossible, especially in a place like New York, where rents are high and tastes are fickle. So a restaurant like Sylvia's stands out. Sylvia's has been in Harlem for more than a half a century, and if the menu changes, you'd barely notice it sticks to the basics of soul food, fried chicken and catfish and oxtails. Sylvia's is on Malcolm X Boulevard just north of 125th street, pretty much the heart of Harlem. Gentrification is changing this neighborhood, with a lot of the old businesses being squeezed out by higher rents, not to mention many residents. But Sylvia's, it seems to be booming. Tour buses regularly pull up and send in dozens of customers from all over the world. And the Place is still run by the descendants of the original owner, Sylvia Woods.

[Kenneth Woods]

This is my father, Kenneth Woods. He's our CEO.

[David Remnick]

So this property has gotten so much bigger over the years. The original is where and then how did it spread?

[Kenneth Woods]

So dad, you want to.

[Van Woods]

You trace it from two lots. And the second lot was where we opened in 62. Johnson's Luncheonette.

[David Remnick]

Yeah.

[Van Woods]

After the riots in 67, the owners of this property, it was a hardware store and uptown bar was here. Came to my mom and dad and said, we're out of here. We out of here.

[David Remnick]

Basically the block is yours. Yeah.

[Van Woods]

And my brother Van, who our business.

[Kenneth Woods]

Development person, everybody was moving out and he was saying, retain, retain.

[David Remnick]

So in 1967, when there were riots around here, what did the block look like? What kind of businesses were here? Because the change is immense. There was no Planet Fitness, There was no Staples, and there certainly was no Red Rooster.

[Van Woods]

You know, the thing about it is a lot of generation tend to forget the 50s and the 60s. Holland was still. It was a lot of businesses, you know, all up and down this avenue, up and down 125th street, you know.

[David Remnick]

Small businesses, not chains, not box stores.

[Van Woods]

It was a lot of small businesses, a lot of restaurant bars, cleaners, meat markets, the whole nine yards. The mid-60s came, you know, this upheaval, you know, drugs and things of that nature. That kind of changed the whole mechanism. I mean, it wasn't just Harlem that it was happening in, it was the whole city.

[David Remnick]

You know, how did Sylvia's manage to survive the upheaval?

[Van Woods]

Because she was such a people person. She loved people and she loved Harlem. As a matter of fact, I have a picture of the day after the riot. That restaurant was about the only thing that was not touched all other storefronts.

[David Remnick]

I think it was because it was such a cherished institution. It was only five years old.

[Van Woods]

It was only five years old. But she was such a community individual, you know.

[David Remnick]

So now the talk, sometimes the anxiety about Harlem in some corners anyway is about the opposite, about a different kind of possible threat and a boom at the same time. Which is to say that the economics and the face of Harlem is changing. There's gentrification going on. Do you own the real estate or do you lease everything?

[Van Woods]

We own all our real estate.

[David Remnick]

Preserves your future, right?

[Van Woods]

Yes, yes, most definitely. Most definitely. I mean, we would have been somewhat caught up in the same casualty. So that's how the gentrification, on the one hand is this new rise, but on the other hand, you losing all of these Fantastic. Great institutions. That's the sadness of it. You can look at it positively. I think it has really increased the amount of traffic.

[David Remnick]

So it's a good thing for you.

[Van Woods]

Oh, it's been really positive for Sylvia's. We've been blessed and fortunate enough to, you know, to have our real estate so we can somewhat manage the high cost of leasehold, things of that nature.

[David Remnick]

Come, let's go in.

[Kenneth Woods]

So in 67, this is where the restaurant moved to. So this is what I remember, you know, as a kid that we had boobs on the side and this massive counter and a grill. So this was Sylvia's. This was it.

[David Remnick]

This was it.

[Kenneth Woods]

This was it.

[David Remnick]

A typical luncheonette size place. And were you raised to do this? Is it a family business in the sense that everybody in the family knows that this is. This is what they're going to be involved in?

[Kenneth Woods]

Well, here's the thing. We all had to grow up, as we call it, grown up Sylvias in the sense that as soon as we were old enough to see over the height of the table, we had to be able to clean that table. Clear dishes, ask the guests if they wanted more water.

[David Remnick]

Did you learn to cook too?

[Kenneth Woods]

Yeah, yeah, we learned to cook. My dad grew up in the kitchen and after he finished in the kitchen, then he went to become our CEO. But he. My dad can burn. I mean, we can all burn, but he's like legit.

[David Remnick]

Tell me about the neighborhood when you were a kid as opposed to the neighborhood now. What characterizes the change?

[Kenneth Woods]

Oh, my gosh.

[David Remnick]

And what stayed the same when I.

[Kenneth Woods]

Was a small child, and that was.

[David Remnick]

When, you'll forgive me for asking, but when was that?

[Kenneth Woods]

This was in the early 80s. The neighborhood was a bit intimidating, but there was still this energy. People just lined up singing, rapping, drums playing. It was just really, really energetic. And it was a lot of people that knew our family. So it made you feel safe. You knew that someone was looking out for you. And everyone knew, oh, those are Sylvia's grandkids.

[David Remnick]

And that changed. Headed 125th street in the neighborhood changed. Oh my God.

[Kenneth Woods]

When 120, 25th street started to change, it was a heartache. When Rainbow Records closed, I cried. There was no other place like that. That was really sad. And that was kind of like the beginning of the gentrification really showing itself. And it was tough.

[David Remnick]

And what are the perils of gentrification for Harlem? Is it the peril of moving people out? The peril of small businesses? The peril of it becoming More boring in some way.

[Kenneth Woods]

Well, it's definitely a combination of all of the above. I remember thinking that, oh, my gosh, you know, we're gonna have a Disney store on 125th Street. That should be pretty cool. But it didn't last. Just didn't answer to what the community really needed.

[David Remnick]

And you're like a big, small business.

[Kenneth Woods]

Yeah. Yes, we're a big, small business. We're a small business, but we have 100 employees. So that's what.

[David Remnick]

So in a way, you have competition from other restaurants, but no competition when it comes to being a social, political, and cultural center.

[Kenneth Woods]

Absolutely. Back in the day, all of the politicians in the neighborhood, Congressman Rangel Patterson, then Governor Patterson and Pataky, everyone has had meetings. Like, that's one thing that the restaurant is known for, is known for a place where if there's issues that are going on in the community, they would come and go behind closed doors.

[David Remnick]

But out in the open, here at the big table.

[Kenneth Woods]

Yeah, but with a little discretion.

[David Remnick]

And biscuits and.

[Kenneth Woods]

And biscuits and fried chicken and collard greens.

[David Remnick]

That's Trines woods, black, at Sylvia's, the restaurant her grandmother opened in Harlem. We also heard from her father, Kenneth woods. Now walk about six blocks west from Sylvia's down 125th Street. You come to a corner where the 1 train roars by overhead. To your left is a housing project called Grant Houses. To your right is another called Manhattanville. Staff writer Jennifer Gonnerman spent time there this year for a story that was called A Daughter's Death. Thanks for coming in, Jennifer. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the story and what was happening in Harlem when you were reporting? Sure.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

The story is about a young woman named Tayshana Murphy. Her friends and family called her Chicken. She was very well known. She was a high school basketball star. She was killed on September 11, 2011. And in the four years since, her father, Taylon Murphy, has become a regular presence in this neighborhood in West Harlem. I think Parlia makes him feel connected to his daughter. He meets and greets all her friends. He knows just about everybody. He tries to defuse any conflicts. He actually calls himself a street social worker.

[Taylon Murphy]

Okay. Right now, we're on all Broadway. This is where the fighting used to occur, and young people come from grand and throw bottles at young people from Manhattanville and vice versa. And this is like a place where it kind of all started from 40 something years ago, you know, now we're using this place as, you know, a place where we can defuse A lot of things that's been going on in the last 40 years. So that's the significance of right here.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

Where did Chicken live in Grant?

[Taylon Murphy]

Well, we, Tayshanna and her mother, her brother, brothers, lived on the 15th floor in 3170. This is the building that's facing you right now. They moved here in 2007 from Queens, you know, looking for, I guess, a better life. We didn't actually know at that time that it was an off and on rivalry between these two housing developments. What's up, man?

[David Remnick]

How you?

[Taylon Murphy]

I'm all right. Last time I saw my daughter was actually on this bench right here. She's wearing a red hood, a blue Yankee hat. I had just got word that a scout from the University of Tennessee was gonna come and look at a play. Cause she was going into her senior year of high school. And I walked by her right here and said to her, listen, I gotta talk to you. I need you to come upstairs. And all I remember is me going upstairs, going to sleep. Next thing I know, my son ran into the door with a friend of his and said that Tayshana had been shot. And she was actually chased into this door right here, this open door, and chased up the stairs. She had a chronic asthma to be such a great athlete. And she was chased right up into this building and chased to the fourth floor. And she couldn't go any further. She was shot three times and killed. Right now. You see over here, they still have candles up.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

Let's go see.

[Taylon Murphy]

Yeah, they still have the candles up. Every year, the young men in the neighborhood do a little memorial for. So this is like part of the memorial that they do every year. And every year I actually go upstairs on the fourth floor, I light a candle here, and then I go upstairs and I light a candle on the fourth floor.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

I'm impressed that it's been four years and we're seeing 25, 30 candles lit for her. I mean, four years is a long time in the life of teenager.

[Taylon Murphy]

Tayshana was so well loved, man. I mean, I think about it, yesterday would make four years from the wake. And, you know, it's something that you wouldn't even believe. It was thousands of people that came out from all five boroughs. I was striving to get the young people to understand that nothing that they would do would bring Tayshana back. You know, you being angry is not going to bring her back. So, I mean, there was times you had maybe like 10 or 11 guys in the street ready to come over here. You know, angry about what happened, and I had to kind of like, stand in the middle of that, you know, And I've been standing in the middle of that for from then till now.

[David Remnick]

To listen to this father so calmly, and yet there's something incredibly lost about him. I don't know how to explain it. Does he have any sense of why his daughter was killed?

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

Her death was part of this ongoing rivalry. There's been a lot of tensions between the two projects between Manhattanville and Grant Houses that goes back decades. She was killed by two young men who were affiliated with Manhattanville Houses. They're now both in prison doing 25 to life. Her murder actually inflamed tensions and kept the feud alive. What's the stakes?

[David Remnick]

What is the feud over?

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

You know, nobody really seems to know. It's not about drugs or money. Probably has more to do with turf, status, identity, even boredom. And the craziest part about the whole thing is that these two housing projects are so close to one another, they're just separated by a single block.

[Taylon Murphy]

Oh, where we going now? I mean, I'm gonna take a walk through Manhattanville. I'm welcome over there. Since I've been doing the community work. I remember when this first happened. I actually walked with a group of men right in front of this building because one of the young men lived in this building545. And I actually told the young people that I loved them, and people were really drawn back by that. They was like, well, how can you love the people that actually had something to do with killing your daughter? I just think that some of these young people are just misguided, you know, and they need that special attention, and they need the attention from people that can connect with them, you know, And I just happen to be somebody that has a connection with them. So right now we're walking down. We're walking across 125th street, which is actually like the medium of the battle zone, so to speak, at one time.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

So sounds like the feud was off and on over the decades. What do you think was fueling it? Why would you know, to outsiders, it might make no sense.

[Taylon Murphy]

I think what was fueling it actually is the inability of the adults to actually step in and be adults. When you have this. This ideology that it's us against them and it's, I'm from Grant and you're from Manhattanville. Instead of saying that we're all people in the same community, and you put imaginary barrier up in your mind and say, well, I can't go over There because they're from Grant. Or I can't hang out with him because he's from another place. Or they might have been looking at it like, oh, well, this is just kids thing, kids stuff. But in all actuality, it's not because in these neighborhoods, violence is manufactured. It's manufactured through poverty. Now, when I say poverty, poverty means a lot of things. It's not just economic, you know, poverty is poor resources, poor outreach, poor parenting, poor mental health, poor services you can have, you know, because everything has to work hand in hand. You know, I'm a stick along, connecting the dots. Monica's here.

[Van Woods]

Monica Castleberry.

[Taylon Murphy]

Monica's son. When was Jamal killed?

[Van Woods]

Saturday. It'd be four years. September 19th, 1911.

[Taylon Murphy]

Eight days after test.

[David Remnick]

Shunt.

[Van Woods]

Yeah, eight days after.

[Taylon Murphy]

Yes, eight days after testing. She's actually part of our parent response team. You know, we partners. We partners because we carrying the same load.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

How did you meet Taylor Murphy?

[Van Woods]

I met Taylor, matter of fact, a few days after or maybe a week after my son was murdered, we met up at some march. I noticed that, I don't know, his Persona, his aura. People are flocked to him, even the children.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

What do you think it is?

[Van Woods]

That compassion, dedication. He's a dedicated individual.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

I remember you telling me once that you would talk to each other late at night on the telephone. How late at night?

[Van Woods]

2, 3, 4. Morning didn't matter. And he would pick up his phone, he'll speak.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

And at 2, 3, 4 in the morning, what were you guys talking about?

[Van Woods]

How we feel. We were venting, you know, how angry we may be at that time, you know, what's going on with our cases at that particular time and moment. It's a clique of us that does, you know, that does that. As far as parents, we go out to maybe a crime scene, God forbid someone's shot. We go to help, you know, a parent who has lost. We sit with them at the hospitals, we help them with funeral arrangements. It's just, you need that support. And a lot of people are there while the cameras are there. But after the cameras are gone, you see nobody. We're not like that. We're there from the beginning to the end. And we're going to keep on even after the fact. So that's what we do.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

I should tell you that actually Monica is not from Harlem. Her son, Jamal Singleton, was actually killed in Brooklyn.

[David Remnick]

You know, all the same, I listened to this and the normal tones in their voice. His daughter was killed, her son. Are there people like talent around the city that do this kind of work in any concerted way?

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

Well, in the course of reporting the story, I met a number of his friends. And in the four years since his daughter was killed, he's recruited a number of other parents from around the city who have also lost their children. And they all work together to try to help other parents. And here in West Harlem, they took over an abandoned social club, which is really still a bit of a wreck. I mean, there's no sign, there's holes in the ceiling, there's no windows, no bathroom. It's still got junk inside from the prior tenant. But the hope is that they can renovate the place and transform it into a crisis management center for the community. I remember the first time I walked in this place, you couldn't step in because the. The smell was overwhelming.

[Taylon Murphy]

The stench was incredible. The smell smelled like Caucasus.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

Just.

[Taylon Murphy]

It was just disgusting in here.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

And this is a place that you fought for a year or two to get access to, actually. And now you're paying how much rent for this place?

[Taylon Murphy]

Oh, man, we pay fourteen hundred dollars in rent.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

What do you think it would take to make this storefront really work?

[Taylon Murphy]

We've got a quote. I think we had one or two contractors come in, but I remember one of the quotes was like, 47,000. Well, actually, we've been doing good because we've been starting to get different donations. Tables, chairs, juices for the young people, water chest, chalk.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

If I come back and see you in five years and walk into the storefront, which now is just sort of full of junk, and the walls bare in, the ceiling, caving in, what do you think I'd see if we come back in five years?

[Taylon Murphy]

I see a wall full of computers. I envision about 20 young people being in here just working on different things, whether it be resumes, getting ready for work or online classes, whether it be GED or college classes. I can see us having one of these tables outside and actually doing some arts and crafts on a nice day with the younger children, or maybe even playing chess. I mean, that's my vision, and I can see it happening here.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

I think one of the things that I really learned from spending time with you was what it feels like, the intense concentration of homicides in the city. So even though the homicide numbers aren't that high last year, they're actually the lowest they've ever been in New York City history. That's not much solace to anybody who lost a kid. And it seems like pretty often when somebody is killed in New York City, you've got a connection to them. They're a friend of a friend. Somebody knows them.

[Taylon Murphy]

I mean, I think that happens for a couple of reasons. I think, number one, a lot of these murders or, you know, crimes against the community are only happening in certain designated areas.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

You know, almost 20% of the shootings in the city happen in the projects, which is only about 5% of the city's population. Tell us about Jihad Marshall.

[Taylon Murphy]

Oh, man. I mean, Jihad Marshall, I got that phone call. He was a young man that actually grew up with my daughter. He wasn't into anything, any criminal acts. He wanted to be a chef. He used to do hip hop or rap music. And I got a call saying that there was a shooting in Queensbridge and a bunch of young men were shooting at each other or shooting in the courtyard, and he accidentally got shot. He wasn't the intended target. And Jihad's death, like a lot of these young people's death, really affected me because he was a young man that he called me Unc, he called me his uncle. And he was a young man that ever since my daughter died, he was always wanted to showing me that he wanted to get out. He wanted to get out of the neighborhood. He wanted to do something positive, and he also wanted to give back.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

Wasn't he at the picnic in May that you held for Chicken?

[Taylon Murphy]

Yeah, he actually was at the picnic. Every year I do a big picnic out in Queensbridge, which actually Queensbridge is the biggest housing development in the country. I was actually born there. And Jihad has been to the picnic every year since Chicken had passed.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

And this is the picnic marking her birthday. Right. So this year was her. For her 22nd birthday. And it wasn't that long afterwards, right, that you got the phone call?

[Taylon Murphy]

It wasn't that long afterwards. So, I mean, that really. I mean, that struck me. I took that kind of heart. I actually went out to see his mother, consoled his father, actually put together a walk showing our disapproval to the violence.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

You know, are you still wearing Chicken's picture around your neck? What do you have on?

[Taylon Murphy]

I wear. Still wear the laminate, still wear the picture around my neck. I wear these beads, your Chicken's name.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

On, and beads on their necklace and bracelet.

[Taylon Murphy]

And also I wear these laminates.

[David Remnick]

You.

[Taylon Murphy]

Know, these are actually from the wake.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

So you've got two on gold chains around your neck. Pictures, laminated pictures of. Of Chicken.

[Taylon Murphy]

I wear them every day. I look at them as being my yoke. I've been wearing these every day for four years.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

And when are they gonna Come off, do you think?

[Taylon Murphy]

I think they'll come off. When we actually get this place fully operating. I think I'll pull them off and hang them up in the storefront.

[David Remnick]

That's Taylon Murphy talking with staff writer Jennifer Gonnerman on Old Broadway in Harlem. I'm David Remnick and this is the New Yorker Radio Hour. We're going to take a short break. I'm David Remnick and welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. We've got something special on next week's show, a conversation with Patti Smith recorded live as part of the New Yorker Festival. I thought when we finished Horses, then.

[Kenneth Woods]

We go back to our job, you.

[David Remnick]

Know, I took a little hiatus and.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

They said, no, you tour. And it was like, tour where? And they said, finland.

[David Remnick]

Going to Finland. I was ready.

[Taylon Murphy]

Yeah.

[David Remnick]

That's next week. Week on the New Yorker Radio Hour. It's not easy to describe a cartoon by George Booth. They're full of visual jokes and strange detail. Here's one. A guy has driven his ancient car up to a run down service station in the middle of nowhere. There's a flat tire leaning against the wall. A rotund man in dirty coveralls has come out and he's saying, I'm Leonard and I'll be your auto mechanic. For today. It's classic weird George Booth, the way he makes old fashioned people deal with contemporary manners and it's just the tiniest bit cruel. Booth started publishing in the New Yorker in 1969, which is right around the time cartoonist Matt Diffie was born.

[Matt Diffee]

The first time I sold a cartoon and got to come into the building, I came up, saw Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor and came down in the elevator and I was just grinning ear to ear because I was so happy. And the doors opened in the lobby and I was face to face with you, who was my cartooning hero. And I said, hi, Mr. Booth, my name's Matt Diffie. I just sold my first cartoon.

[George Booth]

Welcome aboard.

[Matt Diffee]

That's what you said to me right then. It was the best thing I ever heard.

[George Booth]

I remember that in detail.

[Matt Diffee]

I remember seeing your work when I was a kid. And I think the first one that really made me laugh was the woman outside at the yard sale saying, there's more inside. The whole yard is covered with clutter and knickknacks and she's saying, there's more inside.

[George Booth]

That was a real scene, really, that I saw. I exaggerated it, but it was reality.

[Matt Diffee]

Back in Missouri?

[George Booth]

No, it was in New Hampshire, I think. Okay. Yeah, I Believe greatly in drawing in cartoons. What I see in life, people recognize it and they love it. They laugh at themselves.

[Matt Diffee]

Do you still consider yourself a little bit of a country boy?

[George Booth]

No, I'm a city slicker.

[Matt Diffee]

City slicker. They've turned you, huh?

[George Booth]

Haven't you noticed?

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah, you're pretty slick. And you're from the city.

[George Booth]

Your background is country, isn't it?

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah.

[George Booth]

West Texas. Yeah.

[Matt Diffee]

Rural Texas. North Texas. Yeah.

[George Booth]

There you go.

[Matt Diffee]

But we have that in common. I think we both kind of come from the country, and then we've cleaned ourselves up mostly.

[George Booth]

Absolutely.

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah. But you still do a lot of country folks in your cartoons, for sure.

[George Booth]

I love it. Oh, Maw Maw, I can't help it. Yeah, I can't. I bet you can't either.

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah. I like those people and I know them. Yeah. Maw Maw Maw Maw, how many cartoons would you say you are secretly drawing? Your Maw Maw in them?

[George Booth]

The New Yorker series on Mrs. Ritter House.

[Matt Diffee]

That's based on your mom. Yeah. There you go. She was quite a lady. It sounds like you've told me quite often.

[George Booth]

I'm drawing her on 9 11. New Yorker said, we'll look this week, but we're not printing anything. Yeah.

[Matt Diffee]

Right after it happened.

[George Booth]

So I submitted a cartoon about 911 because it was a very serious subject. And I drew MAU Maw sitting in a chair and she was praying. And then I put out in front, I put a cat in a prayer position because he's flat on the floor, covering his eyes with his two front paws. And they printed it.

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah, it was nice.

[George Booth]

Only cartoon they printed that week.

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah, that was a nice little response. So tell me how you work. What's like a normal day for you, cartooning wise?

[George Booth]

I think a lot. I read a lot. I never get my mind off of cartooning.

[Matt Diffee]

Really?

[George Booth]

If I'm traveling. Traveling on a train. You're probably the same way.

[Matt Diffee]

A little bit. Maybe not as much as I should be. You're just a tinkerer, sort of.

[George Booth]

Well, it's. I started cartooning at three and a half years old. I drew a racer car stuck in the mud, a Model T racer car. And Maw Maw was sitting there with me and she was impressed with that.

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah. Now, could she tell what your drawing was? Because I looked at my early drawings and they're pretty bad. She could tell it was a momo drawing.

[George Booth]

Well, I can remember the drawing. There was no question about it because that old car was stuck in the mud and it was a Razor car. She told my dad about this incident.

[Matt Diffee]

A budding cartoonist here in the family.

[George Booth]

Yeah. This crazy kid. Yeah. Thinks he's a cartoonist. My dad had his mimeograph machine there and reams of paper and he said, well, let George have all the paper he wants as long as he doesn't waste it. So I always had something to draw with. And I remember sitting in first and second grade drawing when I should have been doing my lesson in school, where.

[Matt Diffee]

The other kids always coming to you to say, hey, draw this, Draw my dog, draw this so I can give it to my girlfriend.

[George Booth]

I had some of that. Yeah.

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah, I was always that kid. I think you draw with a ballpoint pen, is that correct?

[George Booth]

I have. I shouldn't have, but I did. But I work. I work with a medium permanent ink in the ink thing now.

[Matt Diffee]

But I wonder if that came from being a kid and having so much paper that you. You drew quick, probably. Right. I feel like you're a fast drawer.

[George Booth]

Fairly fast. I use a copy machine too. I'll draw a dog and then I'll draw him again because I'm not quite happy with him. And then I'll rip his head off and put it on the other drawing.

[Matt Diffee]

Tell the kids you're ripping dogs heads.

[George Booth]

Off, make a copy. Or I'll draw him facing left to get an expression and then I'll flop it on the light table and trace him facing right because that's what the need is. But I get the feel that I need.

[Matt Diffee]

There's something. Yeah, I think there's something about you draw quick, a bunch of different options and then you edit yourself and you choose. And I've seen some of your originals have a lot of cut out pieces that you stick on, paste them together. Yeah. And just compile the best of several versions.

[George Booth]

The way I define that is a lot of times the. The line I get or the drawing that I get or the expression I get is an accident. And I believe in accidents, in good drawing.

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah, Your work definitely has that spontaneous feel. And I wish I could draw that way. I get really tight and I tend to overdraw a little bit. I mean, it's my style. It suits my dry sort of cartoon style.

[George Booth]

But when it gets like that, you.

[Matt Diffee]

Should scream, scream, scream and start over. Do draw quicker.

[George Booth]

I get a kick out of names too.

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah, you've got some great ones in your cartoons. Merch is my favorite.

[George Booth]

There again is the real reality. Those are real people names like Arnie.

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah.

[George Booth]

Natalie Dit Burner was a name my.

[Matt Diffee]

Grandmother Was named Gussie Clarine Diffie.

[George Booth]

There you go.

[Matt Diffee]

That's a good one. Tell us why you draw so many dogs in your cartoons.

[George Booth]

It's because if you have a man sitting in the living room, a husband who suffers husband things. Say he has a dingy housewife who's sticking her head around the corner from the kitchen and she's complaining about something, and her reasoning is no good. This can go either way because sometimes women have good logic and men don't. She says something dingy, the man has to tolerate it. But if you put a dog sitting there to look at you, the reader, the dog becomes a Greek audience. And sometimes I do it with cats and could do it with anything, even a cow looking at you, as long as they suffer some of the shrapnel that's going on.

[Matt Diffee]

So you draw the animal, always looking at the viewer or not.

[George Booth]

The animal does not have to look at you. If you're looking at the back of his head, you know he's suffering.

[Matt Diffee]

Have you owned both dogs and cats, personally?

[George Booth]

I've had kitty cats, and I had a sheep. My brother had chickens that were pets. Yeah, I had a dog in Pearl Harbor.

[Matt Diffee]

Okay, so in the Marines, you had a dog.

[George Booth]

You had a Marine dog?

[David Remnick]

Yeah.

[George Booth]

I tried to think, oh, I was in a transit center waiting to catch that ship or go somewhere, and all these Marines standing real stiff at attention. And my dog would come chasing a mongoose through the ranks one way. And then you wait a little while, they come back, the mongoose is chasing the dog.

[Matt Diffee]

I was like the silent film.

[George Booth]

Yeah.

[Matt Diffee]

Currently you have cats. At least one. You have a house cat, don't you?

[George Booth]

Yeah.

[Matt Diffee]

So I think you kind of like cats better.

[George Booth]

Cats are awful smart. I can't understand their intelligence.

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah, they're almost too smart. I like dogs because they're dumb. I think makes them lovable.

[George Booth]

Dogs are like people. If you work it dumb a little bit, it works for you.

[Matt Diffee]

It certainly worked for me. Well, George, I think we're about done, But I just wanted to say while we're here on the radio that you are my. You are my favorite cartoonist.

[George Booth]

Jokes are getting bad.

[Matt Diffee]

Oh, no, listen, I'm being sincere now. I'm saying that you're my favorite cartoonist. Well, I really appreciate what you've done, and I've took a lot from it.

[George Booth]

I appreciate that, Matt. You're my favorite West Texas. Exactly.

[Matt Diffee]

Favorite cartoon from Texas. Yes.

[George Booth]

Hey, Matt, is this for radio?

[Matt Diffee]

Sure.

[George Booth]

You go ahead and get out of the tub, and I'll and dry off if you want to, and I'll use the towel after you do.

[Matt Diffee]

All right.

[David Remnick]

Matt Diffie and George Booth. We've got some images of their [e-mail] we have one. I have one more story for you today, this from Judith Thurman, who's been writing for the New Yorker since 1987. Her story is about a man who's trying to preserve some of the many languages that are gradually disappearing.

[Daniel Kaufman]

We are at the intergalactic headquarters of the Endangered Language alliance here on 3 West 18th Street. I'm Daniel Kaufman, Executive Director.

[Judith Thurman]

Dan Kaufman is a linguist. His real passion is supporting and recording and documenting the endangered languages of New York City, which turns out to have a greater concentration than any other city in the world.

[Daniel Kaufman]

We've estimated that there are 800 languages spoken in New York and that maybe a third of those are endangered.

[Judith Thurman]

Look, if you're in New Yorker and you take taxis, you will run across in a day speakers of 10 or 12 languages. But I had no idea in recent decades how many different groups representing endangered languages had settled in the five boroughs.

[Daniel Kaufman]

Jackson Heights is, according to the census, the most linguistically diverse neighborhood in America. So walking down Roosevelt Avenue, you could hear Quechua, Quichua, Quiche, Nahuatl, Amusco.

[Judith Thurman]

So Dan is a very quiet, studious looking guy, and he has that kind of quiet intensity that I found with everybody in this field. They choose to listen.

[Daniel Kaufman]

This was somebody who worked in the deli across the street from us. She's from Nepal. And I asked her what language she spoke, and it turned out she spoke a language that was highly endangered and totally undescribed language called Gale.

[Kenneth Woods]

Nino means we.

[Taylon Murphy]

Gwane means all.

[Daniel Kaufman]

Whenever I asked her to translate a word, she would just. Just break down laughing.

[David Remnick]

Here, here.

[Kenneth Woods]

Oh, my God.

[George Booth]

I don't know.

[Matt Diffee]

Yeah.

[David Remnick]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

No.

[Daniel Kaufman]

She couldn't remember because by the point that we spoke, she had already not spoken her language in so long. Even though she'd young, she was like 25 or something. But this was a language that she had spoken back in her village when she moved to Kathmandu, she stopped speaking it then she moved here. So it was just somewhat foggy. Remembrances of words passed. This sound clip is from a language called called Gurung, which is a language spoken in the Himalayas and Queens, of course. Actually, I was surprised to find out that it is an endangered language. You would think that the numbers of speakers is the dominant factor, right? Actually, that's not really the case. The most important factor is how the language is transmitted to children. It's not clear how many tones exist in the various dialects. A tone is like in Chinese, you know, you have ma, ma, ma. Those kinds of tones change the meaning of the word. So one of the first things we want to do if we want to really write down his language precisely, is we have to figure out how many tones it has. Has. Let us go to the country of Gabon. Iota is a Bantu language of Gabon. And the Iota stories are quite interesting because they're always interspersed with songs. That's Victorino Ramos, and he's talking about the kind of discrimination that he faced as a child, as a Nahuatl speaker. Yeah. Some of these languages, like I said, they give way because people are made to feel ashamed. In more extreme cases, it's genocide. So that's Zagawa, one of the three living languages of Darfur. And that area of the dialect was completely wiped out. A linguist can devote their whole lives to understanding one language.

[David Remnick]

So.

[Daniel Kaufman]

We need a team of 800 people if there's 800 languages here. And even then we're not sure we can do it. So it's. Yeah, it's a bit hopeless, but it's a challenge.

[Judith Thurman]

It's a rescue mission. It is digging people out of the rubble. A friend called me to say she had liked the piece on endangered languages. But then she said very candidly, tell me personally if you deeply feel that this matters. And I had to ask myself for a second, do I? And then the answer was really there and unequivocal, and it really does matter. The beauty that is lost, the cosmologies that are lost, and the sense of difference. One thing I did say also to her was that these little pieces of the mosaic of what it means to be human, which are encoded in language, those are extremely precious.

[David Remnick]

Judith Thurman is a staff writer for the New Yorker. Her article on dying languages took her from Santiago de Chile to a Mohawk community in New York. You can find [e-mail] and that wraps it up for today. Next week, the rock musician and writer Patti Smith joins us and novelist George Saunders and Jonathan Safran Foer compare notes. Two highlights from the New Yorker Festival. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us and see you next week.

[Jennifer Gonnerman]

Although we're filled with doubt the vicious circle turns and burns without you oh.

[George Booth]

I cannot live and forgive the earning burning I believe.

[Kenneth Woods]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards. This episode was produced by Emily Botin, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen.

[David Remnick]

Frillman, David Krasnow, Sarah Nix, Paul Schneider.

[Kenneth Woods]

And Steven Valentino, with help from Becky Cooper.