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How Brandon Kazen-Maddox, an American Sign Language Artist, Spends Their Sundays

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How Brandon Kazen-Maddox, an American Sign Language Artist, Spends Their Sundays

Brandon Kazen-Maddox has always felt an affinity with mermaids.

“We both straddle two worlds,” said Mx. Kazen-Maddox, 36, an American Sign Language dancer, choreographer and filmmaker who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.

Mx. Kazen-Maddox, like both their parents, is hearing. But they grew up living with their mother at her parents’ home in Washington State, where their maternal grandparents, both of whom are deaf, spoke with their hands.

Soon, Mx. Kazen-Maddox learned to do the same. “I like to say my words are just along for the ride,” they said.

Mx. Kazen-Maddox has been interpreting professionally since 2012 and has worked on the Broadway production of “Aladdin” and for former President Joe Biden, the composer Lin-Manuel Miranda and the actress Marlee Matlin.

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In a half-hour PBS special scheduled for Tuesday, “SOUL(SIGNS): Making Music Visible,” Mx. Kazen-Maddox documented the process of choreographing, filming and performing an A.S.L. music video for Morgan James’s “Drown,” shedding light on their own relationship with music and sign language.

“I see a lot of A.S.L. as an afterthought or interpretation just thrown in,” they said, “and it ends up not doing service to the Deaf community.”

In 2020, Mx. Kazen-Maddox started the Up Until Now Collective with Kevin Newbury, a director and Mx. Kazen-Maddox’s partner of five years, and Jecca Barry, a producer. The collective, whose projects include “SOUL (SIGNS),” has a multidisciplinary focus on inclusive storytelling.

As a person who yo-yos between various projects, Mx. Kazen-Maddox loves having a home base in a cozy duplex on the Upper West Side of Manhattan along the Hudson River, where they live with Mr. Newbury, 47, and more than a dozen plants.

“My Sunday is essentially five lives in a day,” they said.

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SUN, SUN, SUN HERE IT COMES I wake up at 8 a.m. I try my hardest not to use an alarm. I just think it’s healthier. Sometimes I’ll go to sleep with the windows open so I wake up to the sun.

SOUL SESSION I like to put on Spotify and play healing, meditative sound bowls when I’m in the shower. It’s a nice way to get in tune with my own spirituality and be grounded. Then I’ll turn on something like “The Telepathy Tapes” by Ky Dickens — information that feeds my soul and my curiosity for the universe.

GOING GREEN I’ll drink a smoothie or eat a pitaya bowl from Cool Fresh Juice Bar on the Upper West Side. Then I water my plants with my partner, Kevin — we’re plant daddies — and that reminds me to be grounded and care for the earth. We have 16, so it takes about half an hour.

MEDITATION AND MUD Around 9:30 a.m., I’ll either take the train or jump in the car down the F.D.R. to the Russian & Turkish Baths in the East Village, where I spend a good four hours, at least, working on my body, mind and spirit. The baths are so special because they’re my Danger Room, in X-Men parlance — they help me practice the extremes.

I’ll go in the Russian room, which is like 160 degrees — it’s intense. And the hammam, the steam room, is this place where there’s humidity. I bring my oils; I’ll put lavender in the air and peppermint and will breathe them together. It’s so nice for your skin, your lungs and any opening to your body.

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When I can afford it, I get a series of treatments: a mud massage with mud from Israel, a salt scrub and a soap wash. When they apply the mud, they let it dry for 15 to 20 minutes, during which time I meditate.

STRETCH IT OUT Then I do the dry sauna, where I’ll stretch my splits, my back and my shoulders. That keeps my dance alive, and it’s meditative. And it’s a little bit of a display of, like, take care of your body, everybody. I also love the cold plunge because, when I go in, I think about what it feels like to be in outer space, and what it feels like to be at the bottom of the ocean.

A SHOP THAT ROCKS I pop into one of my favorite stores, Crystals Garden, which is across the street from the baths. They have dream catchers, incense, plants and a whole slew of crystals and rocks and handmade things. It’s a good place to find gifts to send to family or friends.

FOOD MODE I go to Joe & Pat’s, which is just around the corner, and order a cauliflower crust pizza. They have this amazing broccoli rabe, and I put that on the pizza, which is red sauce and pepperoni. And then I put their cheesy Alfredo sauce on top of it all. I can eat the entire thing after a morning at the baths, and it makes me feel really great because it’s cauliflower crust and wheat free.

Or I might go to this Japanese place called Ramen Takumi, which is at the northeast corner of Washington Square Park. The Steinhardt roll is my favorite. I love that area, which is very much a home base for me — when I was at school at N.Y.U., I would always be around Washington Square Park and walking through the Village. They also have cool comic book stuff on the walls.

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Often, Kevin and Jecca will come and meet me, and we’ll talk about something we’re doing with Up Until Now Collective.

SIGN CHECK At 2 p.m., I head to Club Cumming for a rehearsal for a performance we’re doing on April 15, the day my PBS special airs. We’re going to have a public screening of “SOUL(SIGNS).” Then we’re creating a show called “SOUL(SIGNS): 3X3X3” which is all about Nina Simone’s music. I’m asking three Black soul jazz singers to each pick a Nina Simone song to sing, and then I will be signing, and the jazz pianist Lance Horne will be playing on keys. And I’m going to work with a deaf director of artistic sign language, Patrice Creamer, to translate all three of these songs from my perspective and with her guidance. I’m so excited.

AERIAL ARTS It’s on to another rehearsal at 4 p.m., this one at One Day One in Dumbo with my aerial hoop coach, New York Cat. I started writing a theatrical production of American Sign Language dance theater called (FREEDOM), which is basically my story: It’s about a Black queer child raised in a white deaf family. I wanted to add an element that would keep my body really strong, which is an aerial hoop, and I had never seen anyone do American Sign Language in an aerial hoop before. So I was like, well, let’s do that!

NEIGHBORHOOD NOSH I get home around 6:30 and cook dinner with food that Kevin picked up from Westside Market, our favorite market. Their Portuguese kale soup is phenomenal.

MOVIE NIGHT Kevin and I wind down by watching a movie recommended by “The Queer Film Guide” by Kyle Turner. It’s this cool book that goes through all these movies that you may or may not have thought have anything to do with queerness — like “The Fly,” for example. Who knew? If it’s nice, we’ll bring our projector up and watch it upstairs on the roof.

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CUDDLE TIME After the movie, Kevin and I will cuddle up next to each other and read our books. Right now, I’m reading “Fourth Wing” by Rebecca Yarros, and it is so good. Those are the kinds of books that I love, fantasy with blends of strong reality. I’m a big believer that what makes it into our subconscious sets our mood. So I try to make sure that whatever I’m listening to before bed is positive and joyful, or interesting and fantastical, so that it affects my dreams.

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Driver Who Killed Mother and Daughters Sentenced to 3 to 9 Years

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Driver Who Killed Mother and Daughters Sentenced to 3 to 9 Years

A driver who crashed into a woman and her two young daughters while they were crossing a street in Brooklyn in March, killing all three, was sentenced to as many as nine years in prison on Wednesday.

The driver, Miriam Yarimi, has admitted striking the woman, Natasha Saada, 34, and her daughters, Diana, 8, and Deborah, 5, after speeding through a red light. She had slammed into another vehicle on the border of the Gravesend and Midwood neighborhoods and careened into a crosswalk where the family was walking.

Ms. Yarimi, 33, accepted a judge’s offer last month to admit to three counts of second-degree manslaughter in Brooklyn Supreme Court in return for a lighter sentence. She was sentenced on Wednesday by the judge, Justice Danny Chun, to three to nine years behind bars.

The case against Ms. Yarimi, a wig maker with a robust social media presence, became a flashpoint among transportation activists. Ms. Yarimi, who drove a blue Audi A3 sedan with the license plate WIGM8KER, had a long history of driving infractions, according to New York City records, with more than $12,000 in traffic violation fines tied to her vehicle at the time of the crash.

The deaths of Ms. Saada and her daughters set off a wave of outrage in the city over unchecked reckless driving and prompted calls from transportation groups for lawmakers to pass penalties on so-called super speeders.

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Ms. Yarimi “cared about only herself when she raced in the streets of Brooklyn and wiped away nearly an entire family,” Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said in a statement after the sentencing. “She should not have been driving a car that day.”

Mr. Gonzalez had recommended the maximum sentence of five to 15 years in prison.

On Wednesday, Ms. Yarimi appeared inside the Brooklyn courtroom wearing a gray shirt and leggings, with her hands handcuffed behind her back. During the brief proceedings, she addressed the court, reading from a piece of paper.

“I’ll have to deal with this for the rest of my life and I think that’s a punishment in itself,” she said, her eyes full of tears. “I think about the victims every day. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about what I’ve done.”

On the afternoon of March 29, a Saturday, Ms. Yarimi was driving with a suspended license, according to prosecutors. Around 1 p.m., she turned onto Ocean Parkway, where surveillance video shows her using her cellphone and running a red light, before continuing north, they said.

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At the intersection with Quentin Road, Ms. Saada was stepping into the crosswalk with her two daughters and 4-year-old son. Nearby, a Toyota Camry was waiting to turn onto the parkway.

Ms. Yarimi sped through a red light and into the intersection. She barreled into the back of the Toyota and then shot forward, plowing into the Saada family. Her car flipped over and came to a rest about 130 feet from the carnage.

Ms. Saada and her daughters were killed, while her son was taken to a hospital where he had a kidney removed and was treated for skull fractures and brain bleeding. The Toyota’s five passengers — an Uber driver, a mother and her three children — also suffered minor injuries.

Ms. Yarimi’s car had been traveling 68 miles per hour in a 25 m.p.h. zone and showed no sign that brakes had been applied, prosecutors said. Ms. Yarimi sustained minor injures from the crash and was later taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

The episode caused immediate fury, drawing reactions from Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Mayor Eric Adams, who attended the Saadas’s funeral.

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According to NYCServ, the city’s database for unpaid tickets, Ms. Yarimi’s Audi had $1,345 in unpaid fines at the time of the crash. On another website that tracks traffic violations using city data, the car received 107 parking and camera violations between June 2023 and the end of March 2025. Those violations, which included running red lights and speeding through school zones, amounted to more than $12,000 in fines.

In the months that followed, transportation safety groups and activists decried Ms. Yarimi’s traffic record and urged lawmakers in Albany to pass legislation to address the city’s chronic speeders.

Mr. Gonzalez on Wednesday said that Ms. Yarimi’s sentence showed “that reckless driving will be vigorously prosecuted.”

But outside the courthouse, the Saada family’s civil lawyer, Herschel Kulefsky, complained that the family had not been allowed to speak in court. “ They are quite disappointed, or outraged would probably be a better word,” he said, calling the sentence “the bare minimum.”

“I think this doesn’t send any message at all, other than a lenient message,” Mr. Kulefsky added.

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Video: What Bodegas Mean for New York

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Video: What Bodegas Mean for New York

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Bodegas have been an essential part of New York City life for decades. Anna Kodé, a reporter at the New York Times, breaks down the history, challenges and triumphs of the bodega and the people who run them.

By Anna Kodé, Gabriel Blanco, Karen Hanley and Laura Salaberry

November 17, 2025

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Video: Why Can’t We Fix Penn Station?

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Video: Why Can’t We Fix Penn Station?

new video loaded: Why Can’t We Fix Penn Station?

The biggest thing holding Penn Station back from a much-needed rehaul is what’s on top of it: Madison Square Garden.

By Patrick McGeehan, Edward Vega, Laura Salaberry and Melanie Bencosme

November 13, 2025

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