On a recent Saturday afternoon, Gil Teitel stood in his tiny Arthur Ave. grocery store amid bottles of olive oil and hanging cuts of salami, and pointed to the crowd of shoppers. “And where are you from?” he asked them.

“Howard Beach,” said one customer. “Mount Kisco,” another answered. Long Island, Connecticut and Westchester were among the other responses.

This informal survey by the 73-year-old owner of Teitel Brothers grocery echoes the findings of a soon-to-be released economic impact report by the Belmont Business Improvement District.

Ben Schwartz wakes to the chirping of grasshoppers and the wind rustling through the trees of Wassaic, N.Y. He gets up at the hint of dawn most days – though earlier on Wednesdays – to work a rich plot of land that yields herbs and produce. He finds his reward in the faces of the Bronx  residents who buy the medicinal herbs, teas and produce that Schwartz hopes can help keep them healthy.

While some community-supported farmers head straight to pricey parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, Schwartz and his partners, with the help of a generous donor, bring their products to the neighborhood that he believes need them most: the South Bronx.

South Bronx residents have high rates of diabetes, but little money to buy expensive organic produce or medicines. The farmers do a brisk business at the Mott Haven Farmers Market and Harvest Home North Central Bronx Farmers Market.

Still, Schwartz and his colleagues earn little money from their endeavor. They have no health insurance and split earnings from the farm. While the goal is to eventually “pay people a living wage,” the Wassaic Community Farm is providing an outlet to people who are looking to, as the saying goes, “live in the world and not on it.”

The MTA’s recent proposal to cut down on litter by eliminating the garbage cans in subway stops may seem unusual, but Bensonhurst merchants are urging the city to learn the lessons of a similar ongoing experiment on 18th Avenue that they say has failed.

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About 50 Tibetans packed a small basement on 73rd St. in Jackson Heights on a recent Monday and set up a makeshift altar. A portrait of the Dalai Lama and Snow Lion flag of Tibet flanked an image of Buddha.

Then the mantra of the Sangcho Monlam, a prayer for the dead, filled the room, normally a Burmese center. They were mourning two Tibetans — a nun and a monk — who set themselves ablaze to protest China’s rule.