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This fall, WNYC asked listeners for their stories about active service men and women returning home from Iraq. David Pierce wrote in with his story about an art project documenting the daily life of an army squad in Iraq. Pierce did the project with his friend Justin Wilkens, who served two deployments in Iraq. We caught up with the high school buddies in Brooklyn.

The US Postal Service may close thousands of brick and mortar post offices by the end of the year as mail volume falls and an increasing number of people pay bills online.

New Yorkers remained largely unfazed by the news that a credible, but uncorroborated terrorism threat had been made against the city to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks — prompting heightened security around the five boroughs.

New York City public school teachers report back to work on Tuesday to prepare for the start of the academic year — but this year they will be without the annual stipend they received for school supplies.

P.S. 124 Yung Wing School was scheduled to lose three teachers this year, if cuts threatened by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg went through. Because of seniority protections, teachers with the least experience would have been the first to go, and Mr. Lee was only in his third year. But there he was this summer, studying his new classroom, imagining the children that will soon fill rows and pass through corridors.

Thirty-four post offices in New York City are among those that could face closure under a new plan by the U.S. Postal Service to monitor 3,653 post offices nationwide to decide if they should be shuttered.

Much of the city's black population has moved south, including one group of former New Yorkers who now make their home in what's sometimes called the New South.

The crackdown on cyclists who break NYC traffic law is widespread around the city and not targeted at any one neighborhood or offense, according to results from our crowdsourcing project. 

By Walyce Almeida

Sometimes brutal honesty is the best medicine.

After sending a thank-you note to the respondents of a Public Insight Network question about job fairs, one of them emailed me. Richard Williams stated he felt the Public Insight Network is "very distant and not rewarding."

Reading those words broke my heart. But after corresponding with Richard, I have some new ideas to ensure a positive experience for Public Insight Network participants. I think our system works best ...

By Walyce Almeida

WNYC Radio is putting together a series called "Bloomberg by the Numbers," which will focus on different New York City services Mayor Michael Bloomberg has invested in. We're relying on the Public Insight Network sources to provide anecdotal evidence of how successful these services are.

By Walyce Almeida

You may have already heard that the census data for the last decade came out this week. WNYC Radio has been anticipating this and planning our news coverage despite not knowing what the data would show.

In preparation, John Keefe, WNYC's Senior Executive Producer of News, built an interactive map that would allow people to easily understand the data in a visual way. If I were you, I would play around with the map for a little bit.

As soon as the data came in, we populated the map and explored the figures to identify newsworthy stories. A few things stood out to us and we reported on those right away. Below you'll see our top three census stories and the interactive map. Finally, there is a Public Insight Network form asking for your reaction to the data and observation that may or may not support it.

By Walyce Almeida

WNYC Radio's Public Insight Network has about 80 educators across New York City and New Jersey. I lovingly call them our army of parents and teachers because we often need to summon them to provide insights on a variety of education-related stories.

A few days ago, Beth Fertig, our education reporter asked me to find in our Network a social studies teacher who was adapting his or her classroom lessons to the revolution in Egypt and the events occurring across the mid-east as well as Libya and Tunisia.

The 9/11 Generation Speaks: This spring and summer, WNYC’s Radio Rookies, is holding a workshop to help young people tell stories about growing up in the New York area since 9/11. We are looking for people for whom 9/11 was, in some way, a pivotal moment in their growth. Ideally, participants will range from kids who lost family members to those impacted less directly by 9/11 and its aftermath: maybe they lived near the World Trade Center; perhaps the attacks changed their lives because of their parents' line of work or their family's religion; maybe their own convictions have been challenged or led them to take some action. We know that 9/11 affected different people in many different ways, and we hope to be surprised by some of the stories young people have to tell.

When the demonstrations started in Egypt in January, teacher David Bally got excited. His mother is from Syria and he chairs the social studies department at the Lyons Community School in Brooklyn.

By Walyce Almeida

Cathie Black, school closures, teacher layoffs, PCB's...

Lately, there has been one event after the next in the education world that could have a big impact on students, parents and educators. WNYC Radio wanted to capture the consequences of such events, understand the current state of New York City schools, and discover new aspects of the story we may have overlooked.

While I feel bad taking advantage of the challenges in education, it was the perfect way to begin engaging people in the Public Insight Network and to convince new people to join. Education affects everyone one way or another.

By Walyce Almeida

There are different ways to get people to join our Public Insight Network. My favorite way is meeting people face to face at one of WNYC's special events.

For Martin Luther King Jr. Day, WNYC and WQXR hosted Made in America: King's Dream in Today's Economy. The speakers at the event really dove into King's ideas on labor rights and how all kinds of people should be given the opportunity to achieve the "American Dream."

Hello! I recently joined the WNYC family as the Public Insight Analyst, or as some of my co-workers like to say, the bridge between you and our newsroom. My job is to listen to your personal experiences and knowledge and relay it to WNYC's journalists. With your permission, they will use your insights to report on what's really going in your world and your neighborhood.

New Yorkers are famous for crossing streets whenever they feel like it, taking a blasé attitude toward crosswalk signals. But the signs tend to capture the attention of pedestrians when the "walk" and "don't walk" icons are lit up at the same time, which is the case at intersections all over the city.

When Republicans take control of the House of Representatives in January, it'll put New York City's delegation back into the minority and largely out of power. Except for Michael Grimm.

The 40 year-old former Marine and FBI agent will be the only Republican in the New York City delegation, making the freshman lawmaker the go-to guy for New York City's federal needs.

So who exactly is he?

When they came into style in the early 20th century, department stores put the good life on display and served as social destinations. Share your stories and memories of going to department stores.