Category: Stevens

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Cuisine Corner: 53rd and 6th

My great friend, Justin Eusebio, who I met the very on my first day of my collegiate life has just written a brilliant article on his experience of 53rd and 6th. He is the weekly writer of the “Cuisine Corner” for The Stute and this happened to be his very last piece. I have included his last article below which you can also read here on The Stute’s website and make sure to visit his Yelp page here for other reviews from a countless other places.

If you have enjoyed the experience that is 53rd and 6th then you’ll enjoy this article just as much. If you have no idea what this is, then MAKE SURE you read this article and go out tonight to enjoy the food. For those that don’t get it — it is located on the corner of 53rd Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan.

Cuisine Corner – 53rd and 6th

People thought I wouldn’t do it, or that it couldn’t be done. But here I am, in my last review that I will ever write for The Stute, writing about the pinnacle of my college dining experience. I was introduced to this miracle on wheels over five years ago when I was a young freshman, and it has kept me coming back more times than I can even imagine. While it is known by many names, 53rd and 6th, Chicken and Rice, Lamb and Rice, or Platters, there is only one experience that is second to none.

A few weeks into my freshman year, my new friend, but now long time roommate, told me about a place in NYC that he has been going to for years. While at first I had thought we were going to a brick and mortar restaurant, I was surprised to find that our destination was a once random street corner. Marked by the iconic yellow plastic bags and yellow sweatshirts, the line said it all. Never have I stood in line for an hour for street meat, but I was assured it was worth the wait. Platters can be enjoyed in all physical conditions; however, when you are at the brink of starvation, this meal can take you to nirvana. That night I felt like my insides were cannibalizing themselves, which made for the perfect conditions to enjoy that meal. With my first bite, I saw heaven, and the angels were eating Platters. Since then, I have gone in sweltering hot evenings, monsoon-like rain, and blizzard level snow, but like the postal service, no elements have kept them from being open.

Being a self proclaimed Platters veteran, here are some common misconceptions and rules to follow if you’re going for the first time.
Continue reading “Cuisine Corner: 53rd and 6th”

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Pigott Falls Short Of Incredible NCAA Record

By being held scoreless in today’s game against Ithaca College, Stevens Women’s Lacrosse captain Alyssa Pigott has fallen just short of a remarkable NCAA streak that started way back on March 3rd of 2007. I have been told by our Athletics Department that the NCAA record stands at 68 games even though the record I found was Amy Appelt from the University of Virginia (according to NCAA Women’s D1 Records: Lacrosse) who scored a goal for her squad in 66 consecutive games. Appelt set the record over the course of her four years at Virginia from Feb. 27, 2002 to March 13, 2005 and ended up scoring 83 goals in her 85 career games at Virginia. Pigott’s streak snapped in her 68th collegiate game, just one game short of tying the all-time NCAA mark. She did however set the Division III mark, beating the record of Scranton’s Liz Baumbach who scored in 45 straight from March 28, 2001 to May 10, 2003. (NCAA Women’s D3 Records: Lacrosse)

Alyssa, who had scored a goal in every single game of her career until today, has scored 222 goals and remarkably has scored 6 goals (4 times) in a game as many times as she has been held to just one. Not surprisingly, a very balanced scorer both at home and on the road, she has averaged 3.26 goals per game in 31 home games while averaging 0.01 goals more in 37 games away from Hoboken. While amassing a 50-18 record since her freshman year, she has also averaged 3.46 in matches her squad has won as opposed to just 2.72 in losses. As if all those numbers were not enough, it is remarkable that she had scored a goal in every single game of her collegiate career up until the one earlier today in Ithaca, New York.

Usually I don’t write about an individual student-athlete setting some record but I thought this one deserves some attention. I had initially found out about the record a couple of weeks ago but due to a superstitious nature of a couple people, decided to hold off posting about it until she had at least tied the record. It also gave me some time to look up and calculate a couple of these stats so I guess it worked out in the end.

Alyssa and her Ducks went undefeated on a Spring Break road trip in Texas earlier this season by defeating Bowdoin College and SUNY Oswego before coming home and dropping a tough one against #6 Colby College in another competitive battle between two ranked teams. I talked with Coach Celine Cunningham earlier in the season on Coach’s Corner where she spoke of the high goals that this squad has said and we saw it by the continued display of excellence on the field with a thrilling triple overtime win against #8 ranked Union College early on in the season.

There was also a piece in Lacrosse Magazine in early March titled “Pigott Ready To Speak Up For Ducks” where they discuss the develop of Pigott not only as a player but as a leader and you can see that success has translated to wins against ranked opponents as opposed to the first year or two. With overall records of 12-8, 14-6, and 16-2 the past three season and 3-4 against ranked opponents (3-1 in their last 4 outings), you can see the dramatic improvement for the Ducks in the last 4 years.

Officially from Stevens, Alyssa was credited with goal number 200 in the win against Union College but my numbers only had her at 198 goals through the three games this season even with through using the ‘official’ statistics from Stevens Athletics. Breaking down her data year by year, she is credited with 53, 67, and 73 goals in her three full seasons and 30 so far this year which puts her up to 222. I only counted 52 goals her freshman year but that is an argument for a different day.

Once again, congratulations to Alyssa Pigott on a remarkable individual run, setting the D-III record and continued success to her and the rest of the squad the remainder of the season.

Feel free to check out statistics and game recaps from each of her games through out here career: 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 available via StevensDucks.com or follow Stevens Athletics on twitter @StevensDucks.

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Joshua Sacco: Great Speaker, Has Awful Parents

Great moments are born from great opportunities, and that’s what five-year-old Joshua Sacco had on Sunday night in front of a sold out Opening Night at Fenway Park. This kid apparently gained his fame last year when his YouTube clip grew in popularity and gained near cult status. He used the speech Herb Brooks gave his ‘Miracle on Ice’ squad before they went on to defeat the Soviets — with a little twist of course. Last Sunday night (opening night for the 2010 baseball season), he took his act from hockey to baseball and delivered the inspirational speech following by a few fist bumps by the Red Sox players.

Anyways, he still needs better parents to use his public speaking ability to improve his skills rather than saying “Screw ‘Em” in front of a sold out crowd at Fenway Park. Either way, he already has better public speaking skills than me so who am I to criticize?

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Stevens And The Lack Of Recycling

There was a rather interesting take in my Public Policy class last night where the professor asked how many students recycled. I don’t think I recall a single person raising their hand much to the dismay of the professor but that leads to an overlying situation on the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology.

Although the administration on campus along with the students and faculty have tried to make efforts at times individually, but there is only so much they can do without an institution to support them. Until I moved into the 538 apartments, I never recycled on campus simply because there was no place to drop off the recyclable materials. Even moving off campus, it’s not like Stevens provided us with recycling bins which is something I learned about half way through the year — it turned out my roommate had gone out and purchased a bin for us that we have used since moving in. Even though I don’t know the exact amount, I would be fairly confident in taking the under if it O/U on our building was 1.5 apartment (not including us).

It is important to note that recycling on its own probably will not make that huge of a difference. People need to start making a concerted effort to reduce energy use on a person level by turning off lights in rooms that are not in use or turning the thermostat down a few degrees just as spring- and summer-time roll around. Students at Stevens live really close to the city and are most certainly within walking distance of almost every where they need to go so reducing the driving is not a very pressing issue. However, getting them to maintain this lifestyle once they are out of Hoboken is a much more troubling task.

There is a Green Engineering program at Stevens that claims the following mission statement:

The Green Initiatives Committee at Stevens represents all major constituencies on campus and is working to promote green approaches to all facets of the campus  environment, from academics to infrastructure, from purchasing practices to recycling. Most importantly it is fostering a green philosophy which is at the heart of reducing the carbon footprint of the campus and making sustainability a core value.

Not really sure how much of an impact they will really have on the day-to-day life on campus but the addition of solar panels have been good (not really sure how effectively they are being used) but its a start. Another positive step could be the addition of recycle bins through our very tiny campus and more reasonable usage of lighting probably wouldn’t hurt in the long run either.

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First Coach’s Corner Interview

Earlier this week, the Stevens Athletics Department launched its own YouTube channel. It is a pretty good way to share views of the coaches, student-athletes and even some game footage from the games that take place. I think they have done a pretty good job adapting the change in social media by connecting with fans through Twitter, Facebook and now YouTube.

The first interview was conducted by Rob (our Sports Information Director) which was done two days ago with the Head Baseball Coach John Crane and the second one, which is embedded below, is my first one with Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach Celine Cunningham.

There are going to be more of these as the semester progresses and selfishly, it is quite unfortunate this is all starting in my last semester. However, comparing it to how things were when I first started school here — the change has been awesome.

Blame the darkness of the video on a gloomy, rainy day in Hoboken but I thought the interview went beautifully and Celine is always a pleasure to talk to, both on and off the record. She’s a huge Maryland fan and she took some Duke jabs at me before the interview so I’m homing Coach K and company take care of business in the ACC.

While watching this video, please be critical towards me — as critical as you can get, as I want to use this to improve my own techniques like I definitely should have had a straighter posture and maybe applied a couple of follow up questions. What else do you suggest?

To view this video at the Stevens YouTube Channel, click here.