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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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A world seethes beneath New York where love-seeking straphangers interact with stolen glances between jostling bodies.
Those who enter that world at the L train’s Bedford Avenue stop in Brooklyn take to the Internet more often than riders on any other line to turn furtive eye contact into trysts.
In romance fever’s high-season – the two weeks before and after Valentine’s Day – 421 men and women posted to the “missed connections” thread on craigslist.org hoping to connect with a stranger they chatted with or made eye contact with underground.
(To see maps of the missed connections, click here.)
The Bedford Avenue stop sparked 16 of those postings – the most for any station servicing a single line.
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“Peck Moss Group.” “Brack Capital.” “For Sale.”
These are some of the signs — and new neighbors — that have been popping up along the Bowery, dismaying local residents, as a new boutique hotel district is burgeoning in a neighborhood rich with history.
While college students and tourists flock to the Bowery’s new nightlife attractions, including recently opened bars, such changes are loathed by longtime residents.
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Jade Stebbins developed her love of books thanks to her mother - and Reading Is Fundamental (RIF).
“I love books because I like to read,” said Jade, 5, as she handed copies of “The Berenstain Bears” and “The Gingerbread Boy” to her mother, Jacqueline, at the Brooklyn Public Library branch in Gravesend.
But other children may not get the same head start as Jade.
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DUMBO’S got a brand new bag.
The DUMBO Business Improvement District is handing out free reusable canvas bags to the neighborhood’s 1,300 households - and some storeowners are offering shoppers incentives to use the environmentally-friendly sacks.
“The plastic bag situation is terrible for the environment, and we know that paper bags are equally as taxing,” said Anna Castellani, owner of Foragers Market on Adams St., where shoppers who bring a reusable bag now get 10 cents off their bill.
Manicurists are biting their nails over the current economic downturn.
It may not be your ordinary economic indicator but spending at spas is down, according to customers and owners in Williamsburg.
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Katia Frishman tried for four years to get pregnant and finally underwent in vitro fertilization, only to miscarry after three weeks.
The 37-year-old Upper East Side woman and her husband didn’t give up, but decided to supplement their efforts with a method rarely mentioned in Western fertility clinics: Acupuncture.
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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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A small group of union-backed protesters railed against labor and living conditions at one of the nation’s largest senior care providers’ facilities Feb. 27 on the Upper West Side.
The company, in turn, accused protest organizers of waging a publicity stunt to collect more union dues.
Standing outside Atria Senior Living on West 86th Street, between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive, eight protestors wore SEIU stickers and called for unionizing service workers at all 23 New York Atria homes.
Union Effort Stymied
Rabbi Michael Feinberg, a community activist, held up an anti-union flier Atria purportedly distributed to its workers.
“This filer says nothing about the fact that it’s their democratic right to improve their workplace situation, to improve care for residents,” Feinberg said.
Protest organizer Daniel May charged that in recent years Atria has increased rent, made medication mistakes, locked-in patients and otherwise neglected its senior population. Atria should “begin to sit down with workers and talk about how they can address providing adequate staffing, adequate training to make sure the residents get what they need,” he said.
‘Half Truths’
An Atria spokeswoman countered that the company, which provides residential services to more than 13,000 senior in 27 states, is the victim of an ongoing smear campaign by the powerful Service Employees International Union.
“The SEIU’s press release and protest are part of an ongoing corporate attack campaign to tarnish Atria’s reputation and get more members and dues money,” said Amy Risley, the spokeswoman. “The SEIU continues to lose credibility by attacking our company with distorted claims and half-truths.”
While the SEIU forces picketted, Susan MacArevey spoke about her mother’s death at an Atria care facility in Albany.
Her mother hit her head after suffering a heat attack and stumbled around, said MacArevey, who traveled from Wisconsin to attend the protest. A family member discovered the body the next day, MacArevey added.
One Woman’s Story
No one had checked on her mother that night, she said. Only one worker had been assigned to look after approximately 134 residents all night, she said.
Atria confirmed that MacArevey’s mother was a long-time resident at Atria Shaker in Albany but refused comment on her case.
Since May 2007, SEIU has continuously campaigned against Atria care facilities nationwide, including a Jan. 28 protest at one Davis, CA center over rising rent costs.
On March 4, SEIU plans a protest outside of Rockefeller Center against Lazard, Ltd., the investment firm that is affiliated with Atria’s private owners.
Linnea Covington and Daniel Macht contributed reporting
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At lunch time in the Financial District, Alvin Badall wrapped and served a veggie roti for a regular from Buffalo, a chicken roti with pepper sauce to a man from the West Indies, and a shrimp roti to an Englishman – in less then five minutes.
Despite the freezing temperatures, a line of people formed at Nio’s Trinidad Roti truck on Front St.
“It’s a fast food that has the taste of home,” said Ramin Ganeshram, author of “Sweet Hands,” a Trinidadian cookbook. “It’s cheap, it’s quick and if you like it, you can go back — you don’t have to make the investment of immersion right away.”
