Former convicts face many challenges after being released from prison. Click here to see Ana Toro’s multi-media report, which tells the stories of some former prisoners and profiles a transitional program aimed at bringing down high recidivism rates.

New Yorkers depend on immigrant businesses for many of the services they need and the goods they consume. But these entrepreneurs face many challenges – including language barriers, limited access to financing and a lack of understanding of the rules of doing business in the city.

Click here for Tanzina’s Vega’s multi-media report, and hear some immigrant entrepreneurs’ stories and listen to what the experts have to say about what can be done to help such businesses thrive.

The battle to redevelop Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal has been going on since the 1960s. By then, the canal, once one of the state’s busiest waterways, had fallen largely into disuse. Many of the warehouses, factories and other industrial sites that lined the canal’s shores were abandoned.

Now, with residential real estate booming and the city’s population expanding, the area is on the verge of a new era of residential development. But as development plans go forward, every step requires a delicate balance of the city’s enormous need for housing, the environmental cleanup required on a century-old industrial waterway, and the ongoing needs of the businesses that remain in the area.

Click here for Matthew Sollars’ multi-media report.

Prices are up at the Green Farms Supermarket, a Polish foods specialty store in Greenpoint, Brooklyn — and the weak dollar is to blame.

For customers in the heavily Polish neighborhood, getting a taste of much-misssed homeland delicacies is getting more expensive. Merchants, meanwhile, are ordering less goods and fear a dropoff in business. Sebastian Bednarski reports.