By Alex Buchholz
Last Monday, April 18, 2016, students, faculty and staff gathered in Eisner & Lubin Auditorium for NYU’s annual Fair Food Fest. The event, hosted by Real Food Challenge at NYU, commenced at 7pm with a keynote panel, moderated by leader of Real Food Challenge at NYU, Natalie Petrulla, which included speakers Marion Nestle, of NYU Steinhardt’s Food Studies department; Nadia Johnson, Policy and Advocacy Director/Farmers’ Market Network Manager at Just Food; George Reis, Supervisor of Landscaping at NYU; and Mike Hollis, Urban Farms Manager at Services for the UnderServed — all experts in their fields. The discussion revolved around the subject of urban agriculture and its future. I was particularly intrigued by the interactivity that held the diverse panel together — it seemed as if the four panelists worked together to construct a vivid image of our current and future states of agriculture. Attendee sat quietly, their attentions captured. During the open Q&A session, hands shot up like May flowers with questions ranging in topics from nutrition to federal government funding for fair food and hunger relief programs. Read more
The second annual 
Weekends are a time for taking it easy and relaxing; they’re also a time for environmentalism – a subject almost unavoidable in today’s day and age. This past Saturday, 
This past Spring Break I traveled to Athens, Greece. Despite questions of their economy and European unrest, I was struck most by the sustainability of the city and surrounding areas. On the bus from the airport to Syntagma Square we passed wind turbines covering every open land space. Even modest houses had solar panels on the roofs. The transit system is easily accessible, with stations located every couple blocks and you can take trains hours outside of the city to far-off ruins. However, Athens struck me as a city in transition. Most buildings in the city are adorned with a combination of graffiti and overflowing plants and flowers exploding from the walls. Clementine trees line most streets, painting orange and green vignettes on every block. Coming from New York, Athens felt like a city in which every room has a balcony. There was little division between outdoor space and indoor, especially in the Taverna restaurants that spill onto the sidewalks. There was an unrest and a tension between the city and the natural world that sprouted up in cracks on the street.
