Asad Dandia & Little Syria

On Tuesday, November 19th at 6:30pm, the Coffee House welcomes Asad Dandia, as he discusses his tour of the one-time downtown Manhattan neighborhood, Little Syria.

Asad Dandia is a Brooklyn-born public historian, community organizer, and tour guide. His parents immigrated to the US from Pakistan in the 80's, and he grew up in a working-class neighborhood in deep southern Brooklyn. As an undergraduate, he founded a charity organization to bring food to his community, but was targeted by NYPD informants, pushing him to join an ACLU-led lawsuit challenging the NYPD's surveillance of him and the NYC Muslim population. The lawsuit resulted in a successful policy settlement that brought protections for all New Yorkers. Asad has spent his entire adult life educating and organizing around issues pertaining to civil rights, social justice, and New York City politics. He runs a walking tour company called New York Narratives, which advances new perspectives on the city by highlighting erased, underrepresented, and forgotten community stories. It is the only Muslim-owned domestic walking tour company in the United States. His most popular tours are , which was profiled by the and ; and , which follows Malcolm's footsteps from his teenage years all the way up to his death. He was also an advisor on an important exhibit called at the Museum of the City of New York (where he is a tour guide), and was named a finalist for the . He still does not have a driver's license.

Host or Publisher Coffee House Club