The Next Big Thing is Harlem. It's called the capital of black culture. Lately, it's the epicenter - or at least one of them - of Manhattan's real estate boom. We explore the connection between the two. Also, a true tale of love, death, morality and dinosaurs.

The Next Next Big Thing Caption Contest:
Listen carefully. In between these sounds is a story and it's up to you to write it. We're inviting your ideas on ways to weave a plot out of seemingly unrelated sounds. Author and Next Big Thing contributor Jesse Green will choose a winner to read his or her story on our show. You'll hear the results next week.
Email your stories

Part I:

What's the Next Big Thing?
Pierluigi Gambetti, director of the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center
Jennifer Steinhauer, regional health care reporter, The New York Times

Yet, do we marvel
If Harlem's the true urban African village, can it survive Starbucks? Curtis Fox digs into a new kind of Northern migration and what could be a turning point in Harlem's history.

"If We Must Die"
An old recording of poet Claude McKay on the sonnet he published in 1919, one William Maxwell called the "inaugural address of the Harlem Renaissance."


Part II :

Caption Contest, Part II
Try it! You'll like it!


Of two minds, and maybe more
Storyteller and filmmaker Mary Katzke. It's a tale of keeping one's word, even during intermission.

Beyond the bovine
Cowboy poetry by Linda Hasslestrom of South Dakota. It's called "Hands" and it was recorded at the 1999 People's Poetry Gathering in New York.

Part III :

The buskers are coming!
Music from New York's infamous hole in the ground. If you like it, pledge now. Just drop it in the hat.

Indecision 2001
The Great Matzo Ball Controversy. Jule Gardner reports from Ben's Kosher Deli.

WNYC archives id: 8951