But life for him wasn’t always pleasant.

As he starred in the recent Off-Broadway show, “Lower Ninth,” Akinnagbe talked about his life before and after “The Wire.”

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Superman bursts through the front of a Bensonhurst home, fist raised and ready for action.

James Dean is a few feet below the Man of Steel, leaning against a wall with his hands in his pockets. The rebel has a cause - to protect the flowerbed.

Nearby, a portly monk prays, his eyes closed and his lips curled into a slight grin. The sign around his neck reads, “Pray for The Campanellas - especially Steve, who needs the most help.”

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“Hello buddy,” he said as he intercepted the man’s path and pulled papers from the black Polo Sport bag slung around his shoulder. He thrust the bundle towards the captive observer. “Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Do you like poetry?”

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On a blustery evening at Chelsea Piers, union members from the Lower East Side Tenement Museum had the door slammed in their faces outside the museum’s 20th Anniversary Gala Dinner.

The Tenement Museum Union, affiliated with United Auto Workers Local 2110, has been trying to organize part-time and per diem workers at the cultural institution for more than a year. Museum management repeatedly has said it only will recognize a union that includes both full-time and part-time employees. Full-time workers, so far, haven’t organized.

(more…)

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Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs, straitjackets and water-filled oversized milk cans - but the one thing he could never get away from was publicity.

Larry Sloman and William Kalush, authors of “The Secret Life of Houdini,” theorize that the magician was fatally poisoned by a vengeful clairvoyant on Halloween of 1926, and not felled by a ruptured appendix as long believed.

They want Houdini unearthed from his grave at in Ridgewood so tests can be performed.

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As residents, developers and the city duke it out over Coney Island’s future, artists, curators and editors are looking back to its past.
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When 13-year-old Steven (King) Ayala strides confidently down the hall at South Bronx Preparatory, students follow.

When he enters Rosaleen Knoepfel’s sixth-grade classroom, people notice.

When he freestyles in her after-school program, his rhymes ring.

“Think twice,” he raps. “Wrong or right, think twice, day and night, think twice, death or life.”

King is one of more than 40 students in the after-school Urban Art Beat program at the middle school at 145th St. and Third Ave. in Mott Haven.

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Photographer Anke Michaelson found artistic solace in church.

Churches in and around Staten Island’s North Shore are the subjects of Michaelson’s new photography series, Midnight Churches. The pictures, shot at night, feature churches whose lights are off, save for a few prayer candles in some.

Michaelson, 27, said she photographed the dark church interiors by placing two cameras in each house of worship and allowing the film to expose between one and three hours – creating a scene that can’t be seen by the naked eye.

“It’s just an extraordinary view of something everyone knows,” said Michaelson, whose pictures are on display in her husband’s restaurant, Marie’s Gourmet. “You get this effect like sculptures are illuminated and the colors are different.”

Michaelson said she chose churches because of the stained-glass windows. Sometimes she would have to visit a church four or five times to get the effect she sought. “It was definitely a learning experience,” she said.

The project was funded by a grant from the Council on the Arts & Humanities of Staten Island (COAHSI), said Michaelson, who has lived on Staten Island since emigrating from Germany as an au pair.

Her husband of seven years, Brian Michaelson, said he is glad to have the photos in Marie’s Gourmet, noting the works give the Italian café a feeling of warmth.

“I love them. I think they’re amazing,” he said. “When I was hiring, people came in and would call the booths pews. The pictures communicated that to them subliminally.”

The pictures, which will be on display through at least February 2008, are being sold for $500 to $700 each. Marie’s Gourmet is located at 977 Victory Blvd.

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The city’s rising cost of real estate and gentrification have forced some well-known music clubs to go silent. The Bottom Line, Wetlands, Fez, Tonic, and Sine-e are now gone. Mo Pitkins is the music scene’s latest casualty. While venues come and go, bands are always able to find new places to play. And, from jazz to rumba to rock and roll, there’s always an audience in New York City. (more…)

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WILD LIFE: John-Kaarli Rentof, 12, makes a friend at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.

The 250 nature enthusiasts — ages 2 to 81 — hiked the 9,000-acre grounds armed with butterfly nets and binoculars as part of the park’s first BioBlitz, organized by Queens College and the Jamaica Bay Institute.

The tally: 665 species, including birds, mammals, insects and fish.
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