Free Republic

McCray’s interview with Essence magazine comes 34 years after she penned a 1979 essay for the publication about coming out as a gay woman. She said she fell in love with a man 'by putting aside the assumptions I had about the form and package my love would come in.'

Some of Manhattan’s wealthiest neighborhoods are exploding in a wave of violent crime that hearkens back to the bad old days when people feared going out at night, according to NYPD data obtained by The Post. Chelsea, Gramercy Park, TriBeCa, SoHo and Midtown South all posted a frightening rise in rapes in the first three months of 2013 compared with the same period in 2012. Felony assaults in the usually peaceful West Village nearly tripled, the new crime statistics show. Greenwich Village’s 6th Precinct tied the Rockaways’ grimy 100th Precinct for the city’s biggest year-to-date overall crime spike. “We are...

Still your mind. Here are some of my favorites to take a break, relax, breathe deep, clear you mind, feel good and not choke diesel fumes: I like to do simple meditations here. Just look and breathe in and out slowly and see what I see, feel whatever I feel. Manhattan: St. Mary's Peace garden - You don't have to be Catholic to enjoy this tranquil oasis complete with bowed bridge over pond, benches and plants. 315 East 47th St, between 1st and 2nd. part of the Holy Family Roman Catholic church. Metropolitan Museum of Art hidden gems - Ditch...

NEW YORK -- Four luxurious passenger ships, including the Queen Mary 2 and the Queen Elizabeth 2, will abandon Manhattan's Hudson River piers and begin docking in Brooklyn next year. Carnival Corp. will move the berths of the four ships to a huge pier the city is redeveloping in the Red Hook section, city and company officials said. The city hopes the shift will create thousands of jobs, spur retail and tourist-industry development and breathe new life into what was once a bleak warehouse district, and bring 250,000 more passengers to the city each year on top of the...