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....October 14, 1:16 PM |
| Fourth-Graders’ Newspaper A Neighborhood Phenomenon
By AZI PAYBARAH After publishing a local soldier’s fear about going to war, the death of a pet hamster and birth of a guinea pig in a pet store’s front window, the 11-year-old editors of neighborhood Boy won’t discuss the one story that led them to write one of the borough’s only independent, all-kid publications.
According to Gabriel Dekker-Lee and Harlan Boar, the birth of neighborhood Boy started when the two fought about the rules in Yugioh, a role-playing card game. Sitting inside Café Ten63 in Long Island City, where kids attending an editorial board meeting for neighborhood Boy disbanded for playtime, Gabriel recalled, “He wouldn’t let me – ” “I don’t want to talk about it,” Boar sheepishly interjected. Lifting his eyes up from the table slightly, he simply added, “It was really nasty.” Holding onto the cards with both hands, Dekker-Lee took note of Boar’s sensitivity to the issue, and admitted, “That night I was the angriest at him [I’d ever been] in my whole life. I don’t want to recall it at all.” Starting Up Urging Dekker-Lee down that tough road of communication was his mother, Maryfaith. A year ago, Dekker-Lee’s parents divorced, turning him from a home-schooled child with a two-parent household, into a public school fourth-grader from a single-parent home. To help him work through these and other changes, his mother, Maryfaith, suggested he take pen to paper and write things out. After Dekker-Lee’s argument with his best friend exploded onto neighborhood Boy’s pages, the ax was buried, friendship restored. But a paper was born, and an audience was beginning to follow. That was 22 issues ago. In a mother-son interview during one of the meeting’s many breaks, Maryfaith explained the paper is “a reflection of the thought words and interests of kids in this neighborhood.” As Gabriel began to interject, Maryfaith wrapped her hand around his mouth, laughed and added, “without interference from adults.” Financing Free Speech Every week, new editions of the eight-page paper are stuffed into a wooden box inside Ten63, delivered fresh from the copy machine across the street at Queens Progress. Already, the paper has turned out a nice profit for its pint-sized founders. “I don’t have an exact figure, not now,” Gabriel said when asked about the paper’s finances. Last year, Café Ten63, the paper’s major advertiser, purchased the rights to neighborhood Boy, and currently sells t-shirts bearing the paper’s name. Other businesses have followed suit, paying the youngsters to be seen in the paper, including Queens Progress, Bella Via Restaurant on Vernon Blvd., the City Mouse Toy Shop, just over the bridge in Brooklyn. In the eight-page publication, as many as three or four advertisers can be seen. Sometimes, though, only one. “We have about $60,” Gabriel said, estimating his paper’s current cash status. During an editorial board meeting, his mother, Maryfaith, explained why. “You guys have been spending your profits as fast as you have been making it.” When asked about the cost of printing, Gabriel explained it was a major expense, but “Depending on who’s at the copy shop, there’s a nice girl – ” Cutting him off, Maryfaith said, “I don’t think we should publish that.” Pausing for a moment, and probably thinking of the adult voice she dutifully tries to keep out of neighborhood Boy, Maryfaith relented and added, “Maybe we should.” |
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