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Reports that the remaining tenants of Pier 17 mall at the South Street Seaport in New York City, led by Gerry Nally, have sued mall operator Rouse Co. for leasing mismanagement. Departure of desirable tenants from the mall; Changes in stores; Rise in number of vacant spaces.

Reports on the business of printing menus in Chinatown, New York City. Nelson Xu's ownership of Jin Printing; Increase in competition in the Chinese menu industry; Difference between Cantonese and Fujianese restaurateurs; Tips in designing menus.

Focuses on changes at the Chelsea Cinema on West 23rd Street in New York City aimed at attracting the local gay audience. Screening of the movie "Gilda," starring Rita Hayworth; Changes in the Chelsea Classics program.

Reports that the New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation is seeking to yield partial ownership of the colonnaded pavilion Grant's Tomb to the National Park Service. Opponents of the plan; Pros and cons of the move.

Reports on the closure of the John A. Reisenbach Charter School in Harlem, New York City. Principal Karolyn Belcher's bitterness at the decision of the State University of New York Board of Trustees, which refused to renew the school charter; Failure to meet standards due to low test scores; Parents' loyalty to the school.

Reports that Tran Han Ho is appealing a judgment about his eviction in New York City. Allegation that his former landlord has used a fake and forged lease to raise his rent; Controversy surrounding Tran Ha Ho's eviction.

Reports that the trustees of the State University of New York declined to reverse a February decision to shut down a Harlem charter school.

Focuses on the types of human behavior frequently observed happening at the Avenue of the Americas located at Greenwich Village in New York City. Recognition of the city block as a place filled with pornography and tattoo shops; Citation of the existence of microclimates in the area that represent the dynamics of society.

This article describes the efforts of members of the New York City Sanitation Department's Illegal Dumping Task Force to catch dumpers who are turning the city's vacant fields into litter-filled lots. The task force is comprised of armed plainclothes officers who were former sanitation workers. Most of the alleged perpetrators act puzzled by the appearance of task force members and insist that they thought the area was a legal dumping ground.

This article discusses the video store industry during 2006. The article notes that many independent video stores, especially those in the New York City area, have had to close in 2006 due to the popularity of mail-order video rental chains such as Netflix. The closing of New York City's Movie Place is profiles, noting that the store was forced to close due to a lack of profits.

The article discusses New York City's stone buildings and the small group of craftsmen who maintain and restore the structures. The author suggests that New York City is currently in an age of glass and steel and it has been decades since stone was the most popular building material. Several restoration projects which have occurred in the city are described. The author tours the stone yard belonging to A. Ottavino Corporation.

The article focuses on NY1 News, a 24-hour cable station in New York City. The transit strike gave the company an opportunity to show its reporting expertise. NY1 employees mentioned include Bobby Cruza and Sandra Endo. Andrew Kirtzman and Elizabeth Kaledin are reporters who have worked for NY1. Other events that NY1 covered include the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. INSETS: Riding the Waves;Defining Moments.

Reports that in the years since 2001 young people have become more visible than every in New York City politics, whether forced by term limits to seek higher office or encouraged by the vacuum of power to seek election. Challenges to running for office at a young age, including struggles to establish themselves in a career and being considered "inexperienced" by opponents; Statistics showing that roughly half of all governors, United States Senators, and members of Congress held their first electoral office before the age of 35; Profiles of some young people who are dedicated to politics and seeking office.

Focuses on the career of Vinny Ignizio, a Republican primary nominee for a state Assembly seat in Staten Island, New York City. Family background; Political affiliations; Influences in engaging politics.

NO records for foot traffic are set at the little Starbucks in the faded strip mall on Forest Avenue, in the Staten Island neighborhood of Graniteville. This Starbucks is an obscure cafe, tucked away near the exit lane of the mall. Its name is absent from the sign listing the stores within; the Starbucks logo can be found at the bottom of the pole that holds up the sign, half-hidden among the weeds. ''I come here because it's usually empty,'' said David Averack, a garbage collector who was on a break in the coffee shop last Thursday. ''I was surprised they opened it here.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IT is on West End Avenue only by the grace of a single block. But 10 West End Avenue, a gleaming, 33-story glass tower at the southern tip of the thoroughfare, at 60th Street, has made the most of its address, emblazoning it on the awning and on a Web site of the same name. With its 50-foot pool, valet parking and white-gloved doormen, the luxury condominium, which opened last summer, clearly looks northward for inspiration, to the prewar behemoths of West End. Still, the residents of 10 West End remember at times that they live a mere block from gritty and industrial 11th Avenue: when bus drivers doze in their parked coaches, or when trucks rattle past, loaded with cars bound for nearby dealerships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

FOR the first hour or so, the gathering of the Manhattan Beach Neighborhood Association on June 3 resembled any other such meeting. About 70 residents fidgeted and murmured in the auditorium of Public School 195, while a procession of local officials trooped up to the stage. Police Capt. Georgios Mastrokostas, commanding officer of the 61st Precinct, drew applause when he recounted a fleeing robbery suspect's desperate jump into Sheepshead Bay. And the audience fired angry questions at an official from the parks department. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

THE portion of Emmons Avenue that lies along the western half of Sheepshead Bay is a merry waterfront strip lined with party boats and seafood restaurants. But to the east, the mile-long road drifts away from the water, getting lost in a tangle of blocky concrete buildings that includes a towering nursing home, a shelter for homeless families and a forlorn hotel. The residents of this part of Emmons Avenue in Brooklyn have not always been landlocked, though. For decades, they could follow an alley beside the Palm Shore Club, a private beach club at Emmons Avenue and Ford Street that let nonmembers use its dock free of charge. True, the club was closed and the area padlocked around 2000 or so, but a few years ago a residential complex started rising on the site, and the neighbors anticipated a reopening of their longtime access to the water. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IN early March, when the city scrapped its plan to build a 2,040-bed jail on a scrubby tract of waterfront in Hunts Point, the project's many local opponents exulted. ''Every polluting plant, every difficult project does not have to be built in the 16th Congressional District,'' announced Representative Jose Serrano, who represents the South Bronx. And Kellie Terry-Sepulveda, the executive managing director of The Point, a social services organization, praised the city ''for knowing when to listen.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IN mid-April, a young black man in Crown Heights was struck with a baton and sprayed with Mace by two white men, according to the police, and ever since, tensions have run high in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Jews and blacks who live there eye one another warily, and police patrols and surveillance have intensified. But there is another split on these streets, not between Jews and blacks but between Jews and Jews. The feuders, paradoxically, are neighborhood patrol groups that officially aspire to keep the peace. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

GENERATIONS come and go on West End Avenue. White-collar types have replaced exiled Viennese Jews, and the Freudians in ground-floor suites have given way to cognitive behaviorists. But for all that, the structures along the avenue have barely changed. Since the 1920s, West End has presented the same sleepy procession of ornamented brick and limestone 15-story apartment buildings, with an occasional town house from the 1890s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SOME 200 times a day, the M96 bus wheezes westward. As its name suggests, its route is mostly a straight shot across 96th Street. But around Broadway, the bus takes on acrobatic airs: it lunges up the avenue, turns laboriously onto 97th Street while dickering with Broadway traffic, pushes a block westward, and then executes two more lefts, finally swinging east onto 96th Street at West End Avenue. Cyrus Adler is a daily, disapproving witness to this lumbering ballet. A sturdy 80-year-old entrepreneur, author and retired physics instructor with an infectious laugh and a grizzled goatee, Mr. Adler lives in a book-crammed apartment on West 97th Street. He insists that the M96 route would be simpler and less dangerous if the westbound bus stuck to 96th Street, making a single complete turn where the street ends in a small grassy triangle that sits against the Henry Hudson Parkway. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IN 2002, when the car-sharing company known as Zipcar brought its first 10 small Volkswagens to the city, an article in the Automobiles section of The New York Times offered the speculation that the venture's cars might one day ''become as familiar to New Yorkers as the pushcart hot dog vendor.'' More than five years on, that prediction is closer to being true. The company has 1,100 vehicles in the city, which can be picked up at more than 100 different sites. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

THE retirement party, held in a back room at the Church of St. Agnes on East 43rd Street, had all the elements typical of such gatherings: teary photographs, a table piled with small gifts, even two cakes topped with the words ''Happy Retirement,'' although the retiree was not allowed to taste them. That did not appear to bother the guest of honor, a squirmy, 11-year-old snow-white Lab named Ruger who, on Thursday afternoon, was snapping up chunks of diced chicken tossed at him by an admirer. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

THE official name of the two-square-block collection of grass, asphalt, swings and jungle gyms at Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope is J. J. Byrne Park. But to the old men playing dominoes there and the nannies keeping an eye on strollers, that name means little. ''It's always 'Who was J. J. Byrne?' '' said Kimberly Maier, executive director of the Old Stone House, a historical center in a 17th-century farmhouse in the little park. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ROBERT BENFATTO, the usually serene district manager of Community Board 4 in Manhattan, was standing in his lemon-yellow office suite last week pointing an accusing finger at Nelly Gonzalez, a staff member. ''She's always holding up bills and saying, 'How am I going to pay this?' '' Mr. Benfatto said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

PARKING spaces on the Upper West Side are precious resources, to be hoarded like coal in wartime. The familiar street-cleaning shuffle requires paramilitary levels of vigilance and guile. So it is no surprise that the city is eyeing the neighborhood as a place to test a new program that would raise and lower the price of parking to match demand. The system, known as performance-based pricing, was pioneered by Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at University of California, Los Angeles. Under the system, which is in use in Pasadena, Calif. and part of Washington, D.C., the price of parking fluctuates over the course of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

THE New York Aquarium is a notoriously unwelcoming structure: a walled seaside compound with no sea view and a parking lot for an entrance. All that seemed about to change in October 2006, when the city announced three finalists in a design competition to reshape the aquarium's exterior. ''The aquarium can be iconic,'' Joshua Sirefman, then interim president of the city's Economic Development Corporation, said at the time. ''We want to change it into a 21st-century institution.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

THE setting was the gymnasium of a Children's Aid Society community center on East 101st Street in Spanish Harlem, where a half-dozen ragged lines of men and women stretched the length of the room. At a long table, officials frantically typed on laptops, while in a corner, two photocopiers rumbled away near a photographer sitting by a white screen. Behind the table, a young man rhythmically worked a collection of rubber stamps. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

HAROLD GREGORY, 52, was sitting at a desk in his peeling, leaky three-bedroom apartment, in a squat city-owned building on a dreary block of Morrisania in the Bronx. ''This building sometimes lacks heat and hot water,'' he said, ''but it's better than dealing with a personal landlord.'' Mr. Gregory's desire to stay put has made him a thorn in the city's side. He is the first retired alumnus of an 11-year-old city program that waives income ceilings and waiting lists to allow New York City police officers to live in low-rent public housing, as long as they perform some community service and leave when they retire. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SEVENTY-FOURTH STREET, the main drag in the South Asian section of Jackson Heights, Queens, is something of a sucrose alley. There are New Aladdin Sweets, Al-Naimat Sweets and Restaurant, and Delhi Palace Sweets, whose fogged-up window is stacked high with steaming trays of desserts. But few of these items are selling briskly these days. At Shereen Mahal Sweets and Restaurant, for example, the rice puddings and cardamom-scented dough balls have been languishing in the display case. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information regarding the unhygienic conditions of the West 30th street Heliport located in Chelsea, Manhattan, New York City. It refers to the complaints made by the residents of the area, who go to the River Park near the helicopter landing space. It states that the residents find the heliport noisy, dirty and unsafe, and have filed a lawsuit in the State Supreme Court for its closure.

The article offers information on Cadell Robinson, a resident of Saint Nicholas Houses, a public housing project, in New York City. It is mentioned that recently he was shot dead by a person named Terell Rice, after an argument related to the craps game, a popular gambling game of the housing project, between the two broke out. It is stated that Robinson was famous among the residents of the area as an aspiring singer.

The article reports that Juan Pablo Duarte, founding father of Dominican Republic was denounced by the fliers of No.1 train of New York City. The train runs through the city's Dominican neighborhoods, Washington Heights and Inwood. The Spanish newspaper "El Diario," reported on the posting of the fliers, who called Duarte a 'white devil.' This came as a shock for many Dominicans as Duarte is regarded as a hero by them, who helped them in winning independence for the country in 1844 from Haiti.

The article presents information on the problem of sinkholes that persists in the streets of Seymour Avenue in Pelham Gardens, Bronx, New York City. Though some of the holes were filled in by the city crew but the author says that, if experience is applied, they will be back. An engineering report on the problem has been completed by Department of Environmental Protection of New York City.

The article offers information on the dispute between New York Board of Education and various non-profit organizations over the eviction of the Public School 99 building. It is mentioned that in 1970 the Board of Education closed down the school following the eviction of the Rev. James A. Polite Avenue by its residents. The building was than occupied by many non-profit organizations in 1980 who started Morrisania Multi-Service Center but were asked to vacate the premises in 2005.

The article reports on a state bill that would require New York City to translate absentee ballots, voter registration cards and other electoral paperwork into Russian language. It is informed that the material regarding voting is currently rendered in Chinese, Spanish and Korean. It has been argued by Valerie Vasquez Rivera, a board spokeswoman, that the addition of new translations would open the floodgates to demands from speakers of other tongues.

The article focuses on issues related to a ledge on West 190th Street in front of the Washington Heights building in New York City, causing injuries to the elderly residents of the area. A law enacted in 2003 declared the owner of the adjacent property responsible for injuries sustained on broken sideways. Following reports of tripping pedestrians, State Senator Eric Schneiderman sent a letter to Shalco Investment II to get the pavement repaired. The owner has made the due corrections.

The article reports that mayor of New York City, Michael R. Bloomberg, has announced his plans to redevelop Willets Point in Queens, New York City. He said all the plots will be bought to construct housing units, offices, a convention center and a hotel in place of scrap yards and automobile body shops. It states that business owners of the place are worried because they are working there for the past many years. It is reported that the city will reach to agreements with the owners.

The article presents information about a man named Nathan Hodge, who was once the mayor and policeman of a block in 125th Street at Harlem in New York City. He was a regular figure in the block and was known as a peacemaker and a guarantor of the block's security. Hodge gave money and clothes to many homeless men of the block and was also called Big Blood. On May 29, 2007, Hodge died due to a heart attack while he was exercising in a nearby park.

The article presents information on Marcus Garvey Park in Central Harlem, New York City, in the bathroom of which a man was killed in June 2007. The park is considered as a restricted place by the residents of the neighborhood, who stated that the murder is the result of the carelessness shown by the city police. William Castro, Manhattan Borough Commissioner from the city's Department of Parks & Recreation, stated that the park will be patrolled by officials of the department.

This article discusses controversial new and larger billboards that were erected in New York City. Some residents and business owners object to the size of the billboards that are larger than the standard size. Those who live and work closest to the signs are the most adamant about their obtrusiveness and ugliness, while others accept them as part of typical advertising. Michael Achenbaum, president of a hotel that advertises on one billboard, has offered to display local artists works on the back.

The article comments on the condition of railfans who wait to get a call from the U.S. Metropolitan Transportation Authority (M.T.A.) to drive a subway train. Retired tax lawyer, Vincent Sbano, said that he wanted to drive a subway train since his childhood and gave the exam in 2003. Sbano started as a trainee operator on April 30, 2007. It has been estimated that the authority gives priority to the applications from transit workers and discriminate against train fans.

The article reports that Irv Smalls, the executive director of the youth soccer club FC Harlem Academy, is seeking permission from New York City for using small concrete surfaces in West Harlem, New York City, to play futsal, a form of soccer. Smalls has designed a plan called Concrete2Green. The plan involves laying rubberized mats painted with futsal lines over the concrete surfaces.

The article reports that administrators of religious preschools are concerned over the possibility of falling under the ambit of New York City regulations that so far cover only private preschools. The religious preschools were exempted from such regulations for over 25 years. Even at better-financed schools, the proposals have concerned administrators long used to functioning without many of the restrictions that other private preschools have to follow.

The article offers information related to the efforts made by Jose Adames to replace Michael Bloomberg, mayor in New York City, since 2005. Adames has spread many stickers and fliers in newspaper boxes, phone booths, bus stops and lampposts in Manhattan, New York City. The stickers and fliers depict many accusations against Bloomberg. Adames also accuses Bloomberg of filling invalid voter petitions during his campaign for the 2005 mayoral election in New York City.

The article presents information related to the Feast of San Gennaro, an eleven-day street fair in Manhattan, New York City. Sean Sweeney, a member of the Community Board 2, said that everyone who lives around there says it is disgusting. It has been stated that the feast is a very important tradition for the Italian-American community.

The article focuses on the John T. Brush Stairway in Washington Heights, New York City. The stairway is made of concrete and steel. It provides a shortcut from the housing projects along the Harlem River in New York State to the subway stations in Broadway, New York City. Some residents of the area say that it should be destroyed as it is in a bad condition.

The article reports that a memorandum was sent to the residents of the 1,700 apartments in the residential complex East River Housing in New York City on March 16, 2007 which asked them not to own dogs. Dog owners talked about taking the help of a lawyer. According to the city's pet laws, no person who openly keeps a pet for three months can be punished for violating a clause that does not allow him to own pets.

The article reports that staff members from the office of Daniel Doctoroff, New York City's deputy mayor for economic development, have put up a plan before legislators to construct a 35-story tower at the playground located at First Avenue, New York City, to house the United Nations offices. Janel Patterson, a spokeswoman for the city's Economic Development Corporation, informed that residents will be compensated by a planned esplanade and bike path along the East River, New York City.