Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary Life
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Featured story: My So-Called Lungs (Revisited)

Laura Rothenberg tried to live a normal life, with lungs that betrayed her and the awareness that she might not live to see her 30th birthday.

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Featured story: The Drum Also Waltzes

At the age of 16, he played with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. He went on to make landmark recordings with …

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Featured story: The Unmarked Graveyard: Live at WNYC

We bring you many stories each year, but we don’t often get to share the work behind them. We recently …

Diary
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History
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Diaries We give people tape recorders and help them document their own lives in their own words

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Josh’s Diaries: Tourette’s

Josh has Tourette’s Syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable tics and involuntary verbal outbursts.

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Amanda: 16 Years Later

At the age of 17, Amanda knew she was gay. But her parents kept insisting she’d grow out of it. Today, a lot has changed in the country, and within her own family. In her new story, Amanda goes back to her parents to find out how they came to accept having a daughter who is gay.

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Portraits Extraordinary stories from ordinary places

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Walter Backerman, Seltzer Man

Once there were thousands of seltzer men in New York City. Today, Walter Backerman is one of the last.

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Love at First Quarantine

Gali and Joshua made the surprising decision to quarantine together, after their very first date. Part of our series Hunker Down Diaries.

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Histories Exploring the past to tell the History of Now.

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America Vs. America

On March 1, 1954, four young Puerto Rican New Yorkers launched on attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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The Rise and Fall of Black Swan Records

The story of the first major black-owned record label and the mystery behind the man who created it.

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