Source: New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/story/94152p-85383c.html
On June 20, 2003 New York Daily News reported that "Joanne Waage began her religious quest by stepping into a hole on a bridge in southern India and breaking the big toe on her right foot... The swelling and pain forced her to interrupt a tour and seek medical help, which, someone told her, was available at a nearby ashram (a Hindu spiritual center). She found not only medical help, but a spiritual appreciation... She thought about writing a spiritual guide to India, a plan that was shelved after she met Jessica Applestone, whose father was the rabbi of a Reform synagogue on Long Island... Applestone was a freelancer who had traveled widely, and she and Waage hit it off immediately. 'One day, we were brainstorming and the idea of a spiritual guide to New York just hit us,' Waage says... The result, which took four years of research and writing, is titled The Spiritual Guide to New York. What makes it unusual is that unlike other religious guides, with their emphasis on celebrated and landmarked New York houses of worship, the one by Waage and Applestone focuses on alternative faiths."