Bahamas: Big & bold at Penn
Rail hub features giant posters aimed at luring New Yorkers
Touting an amazing travel experience that’s a little more than three hours away — but a universe removed from the drudgery of New Yorkers’ daily wintertime commutes — the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, Investments & Aviation has visually taken over Manhattan’s Penn Station with more than 200 giant eye-catching Bahamas posters promoting the lure of the island nation to commuters.
The month-long campaign is aimed at The Bahamas No. 1 market in the country: the Northeast. The promotion offers a sweepstakes prize of a three-night, air-hotel package for two, part of a partnership with JetBlue Vacations. Visit bahamas.com for more information on The Bahamas.
HELPING MEN COPE
Men are too often left to grapple with emotional issues on their own, according to Jamaican-born author and filmmaker Ian Wilson’s new book, “Men Sharpen Men: Messages for Inspiration and Meditation for Men,” which provides help for guys in need.
Wilson, a St. John’s University graduate, former health care executive and youth mentor who has created educational films for young people, penned an easyto-digest book of “simple and short daily entries” and Biblical quotes supporting men through “love, conflicts, relationships, wealth.”
“I have been fortunate to have men in my life who support, listen and advise me,” said the author, who admits that part of the impetus to create “Men Sharpen Men” came from his personal experiences and “the need for books and materials that could promote my own personal well-being. Most men don’t have that forum or safe space where they can open up and be transparent about their feelings, challenges, fears, insecurities, joys and dreams.”
TONEY’S LEGACY LIVES ON
For the first time in decades, the Friends of Crown Heights Educational Centers celebrated the holiday season and entered a New Year without its president and CEO Vaughan Toney, but his immense contributions during his 22-year tenure are everlasting.
Succumbing to cancer last September, the St. Vincent and the Grenadines-born Toney, 68, died after “a career spanning more than four decades of exemplary public service and advocacy in the fields of child care and early childhood education, legislative reform, community empowerment and political activism,” according to his obituary on the Friends of Crown Heights
Educational Centers website.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves was among the many mourners at Toney’s September funeral service.
JAMAICA’S ‘DANCE FORCE’
L’ACADCO — United Caribbean Dance Force, a leading contemporary dance company in Jamaica, recently made a successful return to New York City after a 20-year absence.
The event at the Jan. 11 performance at John Jay College’s Gerald W. Lynch Theater was held before an enthusiastic audience and presented under the theme “building bridges through the arts.” The show included works staged by L’ACADCO Artistic Director L’Antoinette Stines, and choreographers Jessica Shaw and Orville McFarlane.
Talks are reportedly underway with Alison Wilson, Jamaica’s consul general to New York, to bring L’ACADCO back to the city. Visit lacadco.com for more on the dance company.