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The article discusses a trend of bookstore owners closing or choosing not to open stores in Manhattan, New York City locations due to increasing rents as of March 25, 2014. Topics addressed include the trend's impact on New York City's reputation as a center of literary culture and the publishing industry, independent stores that have moved to other boroughs of the city such as Brooklyn or Queens, and authors' and store owners' disappointment in the store closings.

The article profiles photographer Brandon Stanton, focusing on his work involving photographing and interviewing people in New York City, which is documented in his book "Humans of New York." Topics addressed include Stanton's lack of formal photography training and his prior career as a bond trader, and his approachability when attempting to document the lives of New Yorkers.

This article describes the grading system being used by New York City to rate its schools. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that the system will give a letter grade to each school and the grades and the reasons behind them will be posted on the Web for public viewing. The grading system keeps the mayor's promise to hold the city's educators more accountable for student performance.

The article presents information about the foreign language translation unit of the New York City School Department. Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein formed the unit in 2004 and it has 40 employees translating school documents of all types into eight languages commonly spoken in New York: Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Bengali, Arabic, Urdu, Korean, and Hatian Creole. Kleber Palma directs the unit and tries to make sure the employees get along by organizing monthly lunches that rotate among the ethnicities.

This article reports on the resignation of the principal of the New York City public school that is devoted to the study of Arabic language and culture. Debbie Almontaser resigned over criticism of her defense of the word "intifada" as a T-shirt slogan. Almontaser, a veteran teacher, apologized for her remarks, but advised Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein of her resignation. She didn't want the attention to focus on her and detract from the school.

The article reports on the dramatic expansion of the New York City Education Department's free meals program during the summer of 2007. The department delivers breakfast and lunches not only to summer schools, but housing projects, libraries, and day camps as well. Officials expect to serve far more than the 6.2 million meals they delivered in the summer of 2006. The $23 million program is by far the city's largest food relief program.

This article discusses statistics that show that graduation rates at New York City's 47 new small public high schools are substantially higher than the citywide average. These figures indicate that May Michael R. Bloomberg's decision to break up large failing high schools seems to be working. The small schools that comprise the former Erasmus Hall High School have graduated 92 percent of their students compared to 40 percent at the large high school.

The article discusses a plan proposed by Harvard Economist Roland G. Fryer to pay students in New York City for attaining exemplary test scores. New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is receptive to the idea, hoping it will encourage student participation at school. Critics say that improvement in school is more important than good test scores.

This article discusses standardized school testing in New York City. Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein announced in May of 2007 that the city will spend $80 million over five years on standardized tests for students, including an increase from three to five exams a year in reading and mathematics for students.

The article focuses on the four high schools for pregnant girls founded by New York City in the 1960s, which are scheduled to close. The schools significantly underperform other city schools by almost every measurement, and their combined enrollment is slightly over 320 students. Pregnancy schools throughout the country are closing as teenaged pregnancy rates decline. Many regular New York City high schools have services for pregnant students. Forty have day care centers.

This article reports on plans by the Khalil Gibran International Academy to establish an Arabic-language school in New York City. However, local parents and protestors have attempted to block the planned Brooklyn, New York, school from being built, causing Academy officials to consider a new location.

The article reports that parents are showing little interest in the parent councils set up to replace the community school boards in New York City when control of the school system transferred to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Parents feel the councils have too little power, causing them to lose interest in the elections. There are a number of seats to be filled on the councils that remain empty. Queens resident Andrew Baumann found that he was the only candidate to show up for an election forum.

The article discusses a fledgling publishing imprint called Bellevue Literary Press, housed in the Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City. The editorial director and sole salaried employee, Erika Goldman, says the imprint is sponsored by the New York University (N.Y.U.) School of Medicine and published by Dr. Jerome Lowenstein, an N.Y.U. professor. The imprint's first title was "Galileo's Gout," by Dr. Gerald Weissmann, also an N.Y.U. professor.

The article focuses on forthcoming changes to the Metropolitan Opera's advertising campaign. The author reviews how the company has relied on discreet advertising tactics for 30 years. According to the author, the opera will now begin advertising in various public places such as telephone kiosks, lamp posts, subway entrances and the sides of city buses. Comments regarding the decision from general manager Peter Gelb are included.

Christine C. Quinn is taking a step more commonly associated with presidential campaigns than mayoral ones: She is writing a pre-election memoir. Ms. Quinn, the speaker of the New York City Council and a front-runner among the expected candidates for mayor, is writing a book about her childhood, her coming to terms with her sexuality and her ascent in New York politics, her publisher, William Morrow and Company, said on Wednesday. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literary world still has not recovered from its Pulitzer snub last week, when the absence of an award for fiction incensed publishers, authors and booksellers. But they may find some consolation in a new set of prizes that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will announce on Thursday: the N.Y.C. Literary Honors, given to living writers whose work and lives have been informed by New York City, as a way of highlighting its place as home to the publishing industry and an inspiration to authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greg Smith, the former Goldman Sachs executive whose book proposal about his 12 years at the firm set off a fierce bidding war among New York publishers, has made a deal with Grand Central Publishing, part of the Hachette Book Group, a person with knowledge of the negotiations said Friday. The deal wrapped up a lengthy auction that involved some of the biggest publishing houses in New York, all of whom were vying for the rights to a book they hoped would provide a compelling inside look at a powerful Wall Street firm. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the week, Nathan Englander, the novelist, short-story writer and soon-to-be playwright, is hypersocial, meeting friends for dinner on a nightly basis. But Sundays are mostly about quality time with his girlfriend, Rachel Silver, who is working on her Ph.D. in educational policy studies, and their gangly puppy, Calli, a Labrador retriever-boxer mix. Mr. Englander, 42, is having a big year professionally: His short-story collection ''What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank'' will be published by Knopf this week, and his first play, ''The Twenty-Seventh Man,'' will open at the Public Theater in November. Mr. Englander, a former Upper West Sider who moved to Brooklyn in 2010, spends Sundays with Ms. Silver roaming Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, where they share an apartment. UP AND OFF-LEASH Now we're in the puppy business, so I no longer sleep too late. I get up, and we head to Fort Greene Park, where it's off-leash till 9. I don't know what's happened to me -- I hope it's not because I'm 42 now, but I get up early. It's just strange. I wake up, and if I don't, the dog will surely wake us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a sharp answer to Amazon and its expanding publishing efforts, Barnes & Noble said on Tuesday that it would not sell books released by Amazon Publishing in its bookstores. The ban includes books released by New Harvest, a new imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that recently struck a deal to publish and distribute books released by Amazon Publishing's unit based in New York. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Barnes & Noble has put Sterling Publishing up for sale, nearly a decade after it bought the publishing house, a person briefed on the matter said Wednesday. The move was another sign that Barnes & Noble, the nation's largest bookstore chain, has intensified its focus on the digital side of the book business by shedding other assets. Sterling Publishing, based in New York, has imprints focused on nonfiction, children's books, crafting, cooking and self-help, among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1:30 p.m. Updated Barnes & Noble answered Amazon's challenge in the tablet wars on Monday, introducing a $249 color device called the Nook Tablet. Speaking at Barnes & Noble's store in Manhattan's Union Square, William Lynch, the company's chief executive, set the new Nook directly up against Amazon's recently released Kindle Fire, promoting what he described as the Nook's advantages in memory and multimedia capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New York City Marathon welcomed its 47,438 runners on Sunday with a sprawling village on Staten Island where loudspeakers blared directions in English, German and French. Refreshment stands offered bagels and coffee. Grassy lawns beckoned runners to huddle in a sleeping bag while they waited for the marathon to begin. But for the elite runners who actually had a shot at winning the race, there was a back entrance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IN 2006, when the Brooklyn Book Festival was in its first year, a panel discussion focused on how Brooklyn had shaped the writing of Jonathan Lethem, Paula Fox and Emily Barton. Pete Hamill and Jennifer Egan, both of Brooklyn, talked about their literary inspirations. Dramatic readings from the work of legendary Brooklyn writers were staged in a plaza outside Borough Hall. This year, the festival's sixth, it remains centered in the same pocket of downtown Brooklyn. But its borders have spread far beyond. ''Even though the festival is set in Brooklyn and has a Brooklyn flavor, it's an international festival,'' said Johnny Temple, the publisher of Akashic Books and the chairman of the Brooklyn Literary Council, which leads the planning of the festival. ''We bring in authors from all over the world. It is not a Brooklyn-focused or Brooklyn-oriented festival.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When you are a writer, even Sunday is a workday. J. Courtney Sullivan, 29, whose second novel, ''Maine,'' due out next month from Knopf, is expected to be one of the major beach reads of the summer, usually goes to the Brooklyn Writers Space at some point during the day. Still, she makes time for walks with her puppy, for breakfasts fit for a lumberjack and for lazing around the apartment in Park Slope that she shares with her boyfriend, Kevin Johannesen, 34, owner of a company that manages advertising sales for Internet start-ups.JULIE BOSMAN UP AND OUT We used to sleep in, until we got a puppy four months ago. His name is Landon, and he's a 6-month-old hound-shepherd mix. Landon usually sleeps at the foot of our bed. Every morning around 7 a.m., he lets us know that the day has started. We now have to get up and be out the door by 8 a.m. at the latest to take him to Prospect Park, where they have off-leash hours until 9 a.m. We adopted him from Bideawee, a great shelter in Manhattan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Walking down Madison Avenue on a sunny afternoon last week Steve Martin had the look of a movie star in thin disguise, wearing tinted glasses and a charcoal fedora that covered his familiar white head of hair. But once inside the Gagosian Gallery, one of the most high-powered galleries in New York, he peeled off his coat, revealing a dark suit, burgundy tie and perfectly polished black shoes that made him look more like one of the art dealers he describes in his new novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On Monday afternoon, Jai Cha walked out of the Barnes & Noble at 66th Street and Broadway in Manhattan as he does nearly every week -- without a book. ''I'm just killing time,'' said Mr. Cha, a 30-year-old lawyer, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. ''I've been coming here to read Bill Simmons's 'Book of Basketball,' about a chapter at a time.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New York City's child welfare agency said Monday that it would sever its foster care contracts with Little Flower Children and Family Services of New York, an 80-year-old Roman Catholic agency that has been troubled in recent years. The decision was included among dozens of child welfare contracts announced by the Administration for Children's Services, completing a process that occurs every nine years or so. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Bloomberg administration is planning to require more homeless families to get jobs in order to qualify for rent subsidies, city officials said Tuesday. For the last three years, the city had provided certain homeless families with vouchers good for one or two years of free or steeply discounted rent. Since the program began, more than 18,000 families, and some single adults, have received the so-called Advantage vouchers, more than 7,500 of them last year. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Bloomberg administration said Friday that the number of people living on New York's streets and subways soared 34 percent in a year, signaling a setback in one of the city's most intractable problems. Appearing both startled and dismayed by the sharp increase, a year after a significant drop, administration officials attributed it to the recession, noting that city shelters for families and single adults had been inundated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Standing to address Judge Daniel Turbow in Family Court in Brooklyn, a city prosecutor confidently listed the reasons why the 16-year-old boy in the courtroom should be sent upstate to a juvenile prison. He was a member of the Bloods, the prosecutor said, and he later joined another gang. He was arrested once for grand larceny and twice for assault. He went to school drunk and spat on the dean of students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Edwina G. Richardson-Mendelson has been the administrative judge of the New York City Family Courts for nine months, in charge of the judges responsible for the detention of dozens of young people charged with crimes, the vast majority of whom suffer from some form of mental illness. But it was not until last September that she was informed of what struck her as a startling fact: The State of New York does not have a single full-time staff psychiatrist charged with overseeing the treatment of the 800 or so young people who are detained in state facilities at any given time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

More than a half-dozen gentrified neighborhoods in Brooklyn would lose subsidized day care centers for low-income families under proposed city budget cuts, Bloomberg administration officials said Wednesday. A list of the 15 day care centers that are scheduled to close in July, 10 of them in Brooklyn, was released by the Administration for Children's Services, and the agency tried to head off protests by unions, elected officials and families that have vowed to fight the closings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Bloomberg administration plans to merge the city's Department of Juvenile Justice into its child welfare agency, signaling a more therapeutic approach toward delinquency that will send fewer of the city's troubled teenagers to jail. The integration of the agencies is effective immediately, and was announced by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in his State of the City speech Wednesday afternoon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Gov. David A. Paterson proposed on Friday that the State University of New York and the City University of New York be allowed to set their own tuition rates, a plan that would end a longstanding policy under which tuition increases are determined by the State Legislature. The measure will be part of his budget proposal on Tuesday, according to a statement from Mr. Paterson. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Bill de Blasio began his term as New York City's public advocate with a teasing question to a shivering crowd outside City Hall. ''I had planned to present you with a broad and comprehensive vision for the future of our city,'' Mr. de Blasio said. ''But given the weather, would you prefer the condensed version instead?'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

He was identified on paper only as James Unknown, a white male in his 50s with a temporary address near 57th Street and Second Avenue. On a wind-whipped Wednesday night as the temperature plunged below freezing, two social workers set out in a van to find him, the first of 10 homeless people scattered across Midtown Manhattan they would look for that night. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As the number of New Yorkers applying for food stamps, enrolling in Medicaid and checking into homeless shelters climbed last year, the welfare rolls presented something of a riddle: they continued to fall. But last month, nearly 355,000 people in the city received welfare payments, a 4 percent increase over the year before, according to city officials, who predict that if the economy does not recover, the growth will continue for at least 18 months. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

She was a caseworker for New York City's child welfare agency, a job known for its grinding stress, high turnover and power to make anyone cynical. For four years, her days were spent investigating reports of abuse and neglect, calming angry parents, testifying before judges and, most painfully, removing children from their homes. But Lakisha Scriven's co-workers can barely stop themselves from talking about the shoes. High heels, in pink and black and green, no matter the occasion. They ushered Ms. Scriven into work, into parties and into the city's gloomiest conditions as if she were Carrie Bradshaw with a penchant for social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The hallway in the long, narrow apartment in Washington Heights is kept dark most of the time, to save on energy bills. In one bedroom, damp laundry hangs from the railing of a canopy bed, a neat rectangle of blue baby blankets and teddy-bear-dotted clothes, all belonging to 8-month-old Kyler Barr, who is sleeping soundly in the next room. ''Since he's a preemie, I don't want to use the washing machines at the laundromat,'' said his mother, Tysheen Barr, with a self-deprecating chuckle. ''I'm paranoid. But there might be germs left in there that aren't good for him.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

New York City shelters are so full that homeless men and women have been left to sleep on benches, floors and dining room tables over the last three months, violating a landmark 1981 agreement, Legal Aid lawyers charged in court papers on Wednesday. The motion by the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless also alleges that homeless women have been transported on buses after midnight to a shelter in East New York, Brooklyn, where they have been allowed to sleep for less than five hours before being required to leave again in the morning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A woman who in 2005 falsely accused a man of rape, leading to his wrongful conviction and imprisonment, pleaded guilty on Monday to two counts of perjury. The woman, Biurny Gonzalez, 27, acknowledged in State Supreme Court in Manhattan that she had falsely testified under oath before a grand jury and during a trial when she asserted that the man, William McCaffrey, had sexually assaulted her. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, is to unveil a long-term plan on food policy on Monday, a plan she says goes beyond the issues of trans fats and sugary sodas to address the production, transportation and sales of food in New York City. Her initiative, called FoodWorks New York, is meant to build on the efforts of the Bloomberg's administration's food policy coordinator, Benjamin Thomases, whose office improves access to food for low-income New Yorkers. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg first established the food policy coordinator's office in 2007. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

More than two decades ago, New York started down a path that was considered a hallmark of child welfare reform by creating and strengthening its minority-governed, neighborhood-based foster care agencies. By last month, when the city severed ties with Family Support Services Unlimited, a troubled 27-year-old agency in the Bronx, the number of those agencies had fallen to four from more than 15. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Want a swine flu vaccination at a free clinic this weekend? Get in line. The seven city-sponsored weekend clinics for swine flu vaccinations were reporting sharply higher volume than last weekend, particularly at the location on the Upper East Side. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Margaret, a 15-year-old, was placed in five different foster homes in a single year. Calvin, 18, spent 15 years being shuttled among his mother, aunt and a residential treatment center. Devin, a 13-year-old, has been in foster care his entire life, even though he wants to be adopted. These are a few of the thousands of New York City children who have languished in foster care for years because of delays in Family Court, inadequate casework and a lack of urgency throughout the city child welfare system, according to a report being published on Tuesday by the advocacy group Children's Rights, which studied records of 153 foster children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For the first time in years, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg finds himself governing New York City from a most unaccustomed vantage point: Vulnerability. Ninety million dollars and a near-constant loop of negative commercials about his opponent later, the mayor ended election night in possession of a surprisingly modest margin of victory -- far narrower than pollsters had predicted and with 100,000 fewer votes than he won in 2005. This could have profound implications for the tenor of a third Bloomberg term, not least that it is likely to hinder the mayor's well-honed ability to cow Democrats and liberal interest groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]