A Look at Jazz & 'Downton Abbey' on Tonight's METROFOCUS

A new edition of the award-winning MetroFocus premieres in the New York metro area tonight, January 22 at 7:30 p.m. on WLIW21 and Thursday, January 23 at 8:30 p.m. on THIRTEEN and at 10:30 p.m. on NJTV.

Preview video

The next edition of MetroFocus examines the success of mentoring in the public schools starting with a visit to the not yet two year-old Academy for Software Engineering near Union Square. Reporter Rick Karr shows us how the new public high school is incorporating the iMentor program into the curriculum. It's a new approach to mentoring that combines face-to-face interaction with weekly emails and four-year long relationships with students. In a follow up interview, iMentor CEO Mike O'Brien tells MetroFocus host Rafael Pi Roman, "We're trying to partner with the schools that have the biggest college challenge, serving majority first-generation college students from low-income communities, and prove that those students can get into college and complete college at the same rates as their peers all across the country."

President of the Rockefeller Foundation, Judith Rodin, has some serious suggestions for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to make the city more resilient and ready to withstand another Superstorm Sandy. The Rockefeller Foundation named New York as one of the first cities to be funded in the new 100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge, a project designed to help cities around the world implement urban resilience plans through technical support and funding for the cities to hire Chief ResilienceOfficers. Rodin recommends that de Blasio move quickly on this. "He absolutely must appoint a Chief Resilience Officer. Our resources will support that individual, and this is somebody who must have the capacity within City Hall to kind of bring all the silos together, knock the relevant heads that need to get knocked."

NJTV reporter Lauren Wanko has the story of veterans in New Jersey bringing a workhorse from the Vietnam War back to life. The veterans' mission to restore a 1964 Huey helicopter that served two tours is an opportunity to bond, and Marine Sergeant William Carolan told Wanko, "With this project and projects like this, it will help Americans realize what we've sacrificed and what the American people need to remember, so we don't repeat our past."

And what do the PBS Masterpiece series Downton Abbey and a Broadway musical have in common? Jazz. It's 1922 on the British drama and jazz is becoming all the rage upstairs and downstairs. In "After Midnight," a new musical at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, the story of the Harlem Renaissance comes to life with the music, history, and rhythm of jazz. Director and choreographer Warren Carlyle and principal dancer Karine Plantadit give us an inside look at what made jazz a sensation in the 1920's and 30's.

MetroFocus is an award-winning multi-platform news magazine focusing on the New York region. The MetroFocus television program features interviews, in-depth reporting, content from many partners and solutions-oriented reports from the community. Major areas of coverage include sustainability, education, Science and technology, the environment, transportation, poverty and underserved communities. MetroFocus.orgamplifies that reporting with daily updates and original stories that also cover culture, government and politics, the economy, urban development and other news in the metropolitan region. More information at: thirteen.org/metrofocus/about-us-faq/

MetroFocus is a production of WLIW21 in association with WNET, parent company of THIRTEEN and WLIW21. For 50 years, THIRTEEN has been making the most of the rich resources and passionate people of New York and the world, reaching millions of people with on-air and online programming that celebrates arts and culture, offers insightful commentary on the news of the day, explores the worlds of Science and nature, and invites students of all ages to have fun while learning.

MetroFocus is made possible by James and Merryl Tisch, the Ford Foundation, Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, Charlotte and David Ackert, Jody and John Arnhold, Betty and John Levin and the Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn Foundation. Corporate funding is provided by Mutual of America.

Website: thirteen.org/MetroFocus (full episode available to view after 1/22 broadcast)

Facebook: facebook.com/MetroFocus

Twitter: @MetroFocus

MetroFocus Series Overview