- can't help with the NYC classes, but one of the greatest things about digital photography is that it is relatively cheap to experiment and take shots in more marginal situations.

You might also want to look at a site such as www.pbase.com - and specifically at the section on popular galleries: http://www.pbase.com/galleries?view=popular

These can be quite inspirational - you can find an artist you can relate to and then explore the sorts of images they try and capture.

-You should check out the Learning Annex. They have classes in both basic digital photography and intro to Photoshop.

http://www.learningannex.com

-but a good technical class would be nice or a book on the subject regarding the technical aspect (ie how to interpret histograms, filtering etc..)