New Neighbors

By Alex Granados,

Published March 3, 2011 at 10:40 AM EST

Efland, North Carolina artist Dave Alsobrooks wanted to bring some life to empty historic buildings in Durham, North Carolina. So, he painted pictures of ordinary people doing everyday tasks, and he posted them in the windows of vacant Durham properties. It's part of “New Neighbors,” a project he developed to help revitalize North-East Central Durham. Host Frank Stasio will talk about the project with Alsobrooks and Cathleen Turner, director of the Piedmont regional office of Preservation North Carolina.

Alex Granados

Alex Granados joined The State of Things in July 2010. He got his start in radio as an intern for the show in 2005 and loved it so much that after trying his hand as a government reporter, reader liaison, features, copy and editorial page editor at a small newspaper in Manassas, Virginia, he returned to WUNC. Born in Baltimore but raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Alex moved to Raleigh in time to do third grade twice and adjust to public school after having spent years in the sheltered confines of a Christian elementary education. Alex received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also has a minor in philosophy, which basically means that he used to think he was really smart but realized he wasn’t in time to switch majors. Fishing, reading science fiction, watching crazy movies, writing bad short stories, and shooting pool are some of his favorite things to do. Alex still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up, but he is holding out for astronaut.

See stories by Alex Granados

Frank Stasio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.

See stories by Frank Stasio