The Out of the Blocks team put together this audio-portrait of the epicenter of civil unrest in Baltimore in the wake of Freddie Gray's death in police custody.  These are the voices of Baltimore's Penn North community, two days after the neighborhood was ravaged by arsons and looting.

As construction commenced on the largest building project since the pyramids, questions and controversies swirled around Lower Manhattan. How tall? Why two? What's a slurry wall? A kangaroo crane? Where are the small businessmen going to go? What's a world trade center, and who needs it anyway? Guy Tozzoli, the Port Authority visionary behind the building of the Twin Towers, had an inspiration—"Construction Guides." Friendly co-eds in mini-skirt uniforms were posted at corner kiosks on the site to inform an inquiring public and put a pretty face on a controversial issue.

A concise radio show that tells stories with sounds instead of, well, with stories. Every ninety-second episode is about a different sound. We might hear earth whistlers, mudpots, or bridges; a dying language, a forgotten language, or a way to communicate without words; what it's like to have auditory hallucinations, hearing loss, or tinnitus; famous music made by accident, by a murderer, or by a computer; or the call of the world's loneliest whale. We release new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. www.theworldaccordingtosound.org.

INTRO: In the winter of 1977, residents of Martha’s Vineyard were outraged. A bill in the Massachusetts state legislature was going to strip them of their state representative. The island would be lumped into a larger Cape Cod district. Vineyard selectmen proposed a solution. A radical one. Secession. 

OUTRO:  Thanks to Nate Barnett (Bar-NETT) for voicing the Martha’s Vineyard state anthem.  

The story of how members of the mostly white Unitarian Church of Evanston decided to take a stand in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Note: producer Katie Klocksin attended this church while she was growing up.

Ed Crawford had never been to a protest until he heard about the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Robert Cohen, a staff photographer with the St. Louis Post Dispatch, ended up taking a photograph of Ed that would be seen around the world, and change both of their lives.

Jane Toppan was born in Massachusetts in 1857. She attended the Cambridge Nursing School, and established a successful private nursing career in Boston. Said to be cheerful, funny and excellent with her patients, nothing about “Jolly Jane” suggested she could be “the most notorious woman poisoner of modern times.”

The epic journey of a group of Syrian refugees brought together by a famous sweets shop called Salloura. Syrian-American correspondent Dalia Mortada tells the story.

As a law student, Bryan Stevenson was sent to a maximum security prison to meet a man on death row. The man told Stevenson he’d never met an African-American lawyer, and the two of them talked for hours. It was a day that changed Stevenson’s life. He’s spent the last 30 years working to get people off of death row, but has also spent the final hours with men he could not save from execution. He argues that each of us is deserving of mercy.

Vaughn Hood was a 118-pound barber when he was drafted into the Vietnam War. And in Vaughn’s war, most men didn’t survive their first three-month tour.

Now Vaughn Hood runs a hair salon in St. Johnsbury with his wife, Bev. For a couple days, I sat and talked with him in the back of his salon. We talked about war, about hard work, about survival, and hairdressing.

Here is the story of an extraordinary American life.

We are all busy getting older, for better and for worse. Here is an unvarnished perspective on aging by author Marc Estrin.

Marc Estrin is a writer, cellist and political activist who lives in Burlington, Vermont. His most recent book, And Kings Shall Be Thy Nursing Fathers, features the ruminations of Tchaikovsky’s corpse. You can find it on Amazon here, or order it from a local bookstore.

The 1996 movie "Fargo" stirred widespread curiosity about snowy winters, funny accents and bloody mayhem on the frozen tundra of North Dakota and Minnesota. The film won two Oscar awards and inspired a popular television series of the same name. But how well did it actually capture and reflect the region? In this documentary, producers Diane Richard and Todd Melby unravel the mystery behind the parkas, prowlers and wood chippers in interviews with actors William H. Macy (Jerry Lundegaard), John Carroll Lynch (Norm Gunderson), Stephen Park (Mike Yanagita), Tony Denman (Scotty Lundegaard), dialect coach Liz Himelstein, women in law enforcement, and many more. Narrated by Bruce Bohne (Deputy Lou). Essential listening for diehard fans of "Fargo."

In 2013 David Bowie chose the Magic Shop’s hidden downtown location, vintage equipment and good vibes to record his comeback album ‘The Next Day’. He was so inspired that he returned almost immediately to make his follow-up ‘Blackstar’. Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, The Ramones, Blondie and Coldplay are just some that have called the studio their creative sanctuary and the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl made the Magic Shop the centerpiece of his HBO series Sonic Highways. But all the Kudos from recording legends could not save the studio from rising rents and the studio closed at the end of March. 

Four-time Grammy owner Steve Rosenthal gives music journalist Gianluca Tramontana full access all areas and explains what makes a great recording studio. He also talks about some of his legendary clients including Lou Reed and David Bowie. We also witness the studio's last forty-eight hours as producer John Agnello, who has worked with Aerosmith, Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr., produces the last ever session while downstairs Steve Rosenthal packs up twenty-eight years of his life and puts memorabilia aside for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He asks his wife “What are we going to do with all these Natalie Merchant tapes?” as Magic Shop interns fill a dumpster outside. These are the sounds of the last 48 hours of the Magic Shop. We follow the dismantling of possibly New York’s last iconic studio until the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame took the moments and the vintage mixing board was dismantled and hauled away - sold to a rich collector.

Micah Schweizer was skiing in the back-country when he uttered a curse against snowmobilers. But you know what they say—be careful what you wish for.

Story by:  Megan Whitman
Recorded:  July 2016, New York, NY
Music:  Jimmy Fontanez

There was something about the flamingo area at Rancho Palos Verdes'  Marineland that attracted four year-old Megan Whitman.  Maybe it was the color:  pink, her favorite.  Or maybe it was the sheer beauty of the birds.  Whatever the reason, she and her father ventured over for a closer look.  What happened next changed her life.

Megan Whitman is a native of Los Angeles who has lived in New York for the past decade. She is the Director of the Lambert Center for Arts + Ideas at JCC Manhattan, overseeing arts programming for the vibrant community center. Megan received her BA with Honors from The University of Chicago and has a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and dog. 

To read more about the fate of Marineland, click here. 

Reported over 10 years, this close-up view of a mosque in turbulent times debuted on WBEZ Chicago. The Prayer Center of Orland Park is one of the largest mosques in the Chicago area. It sits on a hill 35 miles southwest of Chicago in a township that went for Donald Trump on election day, lighting up a swath of red in mostly blue Cook County, IL. When Malik Ali, a film producer and distributor, and Mohamed Krad, a physician, set out to build it over a decade ago, they wanted to create a model for what an American mosque could be: a place with a savvy American-born imam, vibrant youth programs, community engagement and a home for young and old. Along the way, they faced community opposition, internal challenges, and gunshots. Ten years later, as they face life under the Trump administration, they wrestle with what's next for their community. 
 

Originally released as a B-side, so many deejays began playing Gloria Gaynor's “I Will Survive” that the record company reissued it as a single. It was immediately embraced as an emblem of women’s empowerment and soon became anthem among the LGBT community and survivors of all kinds. Music writer Vince Aletti joins Gaynor herself to tell the story of the recording.

Contemplate the way digital audio – in music recording, and in radio and television broadcast – employs a different sense of time than we use in our offline life, a time that is more regular and yet less communal. Guests include: Ali Shaheed Muhammed of A Tribe Called Quest; and Joe Castiglione, the radio voice of the Boston Red Sox.