Thanksgiving sellout from Maria Pautassi on Vimeo.

BY MARIA PAUTASSI AND JUAN GASTELUM

Two rows of 4-year-olds line up below a basketball hoop in Flushing’s P.S. 20 gym. It is 5:00 p.m. on Election Day and the children look around, as if spying on an adult’s world for the first time. In front of them, Lois Lee, their teacher, explains: “You have go see if your name is in that big white book. If it is, you are then allowed to go behind that white box–see over there, the white box where that woman is standing?–and fill in a ballot. Then you go run your white paper though the black box.”

The “special book” is the registry of voter records, the “white box” a voting stand and the “black box” the scanner where voters place their ballots in this year’s election. Like many schools around the city, P.S. 20 is an Election Day polling station. But unlike the other five after-school programs in the building, The Chinese American School Aged Day Care Center holds mock elections in the gym, when is not too busy. It is the school’s way of actively addressing one of the more pressing issues in the local Asian community: low political participation.

A week before Election Day, Lee, the director of the program, stopped a group of 9- year-olds storming down a hallway of the school. “Does anyone know who is the assemblywoman who’s running again this year?” she asked. The kids slowed down, turned to face their teacher and thought for a couple of seconds.

“Grace Meng! Grace Meng!” jumped in a girl of Indian descent, smiling and hoping for Lee’s approval.

“Grace Meng?” asked one of her classmates.

“Yes. Grace Meng. The woman that came the other day!”

The week before Election Day, students at the center alternated their Halloween costume designing with Election Day activities. In the arts and crafts class, they made blue and red paper mache ribbons, which said “Future Voter.” Homework assignments and usual class work were replaced with lessons on how to fill in and scan the ballots in this year’s new voting system. The idea behind the exercise is simple: on Election Day, when parents stop by the school to pick up their well-informed children, the kids will show them how to maneuver in the city’s new voting system.

Two hundred children, nearly all with immigrant parents, are currently enrolled in the program, with another 300 children on a waiting list. Although Lee doesn’t know the exact number of parents who are eligible voters – administrators do not ask parents their ethnicity or legal status – she does know that 20 percent of her students are in the after-school ESL program.

On the last presidential elections, 47 percent Asian citizens living in the US voted – a percentage that was well bellow the 64 percent white participation rate and lower than Hispanic participation rate of 50 percent.

Explaining why the school sends home lessons about voting, Miyoung Sim, a fourth grade teacher said, “We do it because it is said that Asians do not participate and are indifferent to what happens in the community. Some of the children see the Election Day workshops as class work. But some of them really do take the time to think what they are doing.”

Some of children, like Shristi Bhatia, have begun acting as their parents’ mediators. “I only tell my mom what I’m doing in school when important things happen and I told her about Election Day”.

Sim kicked-off her program by asking kids to write down three things they would ask a political candidate to do for Flushing. Siew Teng, a 7-year-old, wrote with perfect handwriting and a surprising knowledge of the needs in her community, “I want to make streets safer by adding more traffic lights, so there are less accidents.” Her other two concerns were the cleanliness of parks and children’s safety on field trips.

The program’s success relies on the parents’ involvement in their children’s education. “Even though they spend most of the day working, Chinese worry about what their children are learning,” says Shalini Dautth, a third grade teacher. “And while looking at their children’s work, they get to learn too.” Some days ago, Dautth sent her students home with an Election Day question pinned to their sweaters so their parents would ask them about it – a way to educate both parent and child. Some still remembered what that paper said.

“What are the powers of the governor?” inquired Shalu, as her 8-year-old students gathered around the kiddy-desk she was sitting at.

“To pardon the criminals!” said a student named Paul, jumping up.

“What is the name of New York’s Governor?”

“Da…. David Paterson!” said a boy named Michael, after struggling to remember.

“The more you have, the more they respect you get,” he said of the drivers, who stopped their cars to let him roll through.

The 5-foot-1-inch, 105-pound 60 year old pulls a metal shopping cart – loaded with empty bottles of Heineken and Corona and five plastic bags that hang over the sides, bulging with aluminum cans and plastic bottles.

For the last 15 years, Dabreo has been collecting and redeeming recyclables as his main source of income, a gig that has become more competitive in the last year as more city residents scrounge for extra cash. As more collectors move in on his turf, Dabreo has shifted his strategy, milking his relationships with building superintendents in the community. For now, that shift has allowed him to earn about $150 per week.

“Everyday I can come home with a little bag of groceries in my hand,” Dabreo said. He has six other mouths to feed; he lives in a three-bedroom apartment with his wife, his daughter, her husband and their three kids. His wife and his daughter, both home-health aides, split the rent, while he buys food and pays the utilities bills.

Since 1983, the state has charged consumers a 5-cent deposit on beer, soda and wine products, money that’s redeemable with an empty container. As a result, 90 billion beverage containers have been recycled, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation. Placed end to end, that’s enough bottles to reach the moon and back almost 50 times.

Last October, the state added water bottles to the list of redeemable containers. Currently, New York City has 70 official redemption centers – locations where consumers can exchange empty bottles for cash, the department’s spokeswoman Lori Severino said.

An average of three times a week, starting at around 9 a.m., Dabreo unlocks the chain securing his shopping cart to a light pole on the curb outside his apartment building. On a recent Tuesday, fueled by a breakfast of fried bread, eggs and a cup of hot chocolate, he pulled on his black gloves and started wheeling.

“It’s lots of walking,” he said. “It keeps you fit.” A round trip is more than four miles.

Dabreo rolled up Bedford Avenue towards his first stop of the day on President Street. He parked his cart outside the apartment building and made a phone call on his cell phone. Seconds later, a ring of keys fell from the third-floor window.

Years of collecting have earned Dabreo the friendship of neighborhood building superintendents, who stash mountains of bags full of recyclables in building basements for Dabreo to pick up during his morning collecting runs.

“I don’t walk around from somebody’s yard to another person’s yard looking for cans,” he said. He did that for about a decade, scavenging through trash bins to collect at 11 p.m. and returning the next day at noon with his cash.

But the expansion of the law on recyclables – plus the economic crisis – has increased Dabreo’s competition. Community residents, too, have noticed an influx of collectors.

“I used to think that it was irregular, but it is not now,” said a three-year Crown Heights resident. “I’ve noticed at least eight (collectors) on just my block.”

That’s why Dabreo asks supers to stash the bottles and cans for him.

It also allows him to avoid working at night. Two years ago, he said, a group of teenage kids assaulted him during one of his nighttime trips, and they gashed his forehead open with a rock. He hopes never to return to night work.

“It’s too scary,” he said.

For an hour, he hauled the packed bags, sticky with spilled soda and covered in grime, up the basement stairs to his shopping cart outside, coming out with a couple bags each time. Once a mountain of bags flooded the sidewalk, Dabreo ripped open the bags and started organizing. Glass in the cart. Plastic and aluminum in trash bags.

He used collapsed cardboard beer boxes as walls lining the cart so the bottles wouldn’t fall out.

Once his cart was full, Dabreo trudged off to redeem his material: a bag of 120 plastic or aluminum containers sells for $5, a crate of 24 glass bottles for $1.

He stopped on Eastern Parkway, about halfway to the redemption center.

He spied a bungee cord on the sidewalk and snagged it, hooking it onto his shopping cart.

“Maybe I’ll use it on my bicycle,” he said.

At noon, Dabreo reached a redemption center, where the pungent smell of stale beer filled the air. Among stacks of boxed glass bottles more than 10 feet high and mountains of trash bags filled with plastic and aluminum, Dabreo’s collection looked miniscule.

“Everything went wrong with me, you know,” he said, while lining up the glass bottles in cardboard boxes.

He left five daughters in Grenada when he immigrated to New York in the mid-70s. His wife immigrated a year later. He began working at a factory making paintbrushes and received an associate degree in applied science from New York City Technical College. Nine years later, he dropped out of Baruch College, where he was studying accounting, to return to Grenada and bring four of his daughters back with him.

Twice, he tried going back to school, at Brooklyn College and York College. Balancing school, family obligations and a job delivering newspapers led Dabreo to depression, he said, and he dropped out again.

During an early morning walk, when Dabreo was unemployed, he noticed a man with a cart of cans.

“I said here I am, I can’t even buy a pack of cigarettes,” he said. “Maybe if I do this I can buy some cigarettes.”

He tried it out – hopping from trash bin to trash bin, picking through other people’s soiled napkins and leftovers looking for the five-cent redeemable gems.

“After I filled my wagon, I looked for a place to dump it,” he said. “I was embarrassed, but I said, ‘Hang in there, let’s get to the machines.’”

He made $7 that day.

“If I recall correctly, it was finished in 10 seconds,” he laughed.

Today, he made $36.

After pocketing his money, Dabreo paused to light a cigarette. After a drag, he decided to stop by another apartment complex to pick up the keys for the next day’s run.

Then, finally, the workday was over, but he had one more stop to make.

“Let me just grab my mega millions results here,” he said, at the corner of Sterling Place and Underhill Avenue.

Every week, he makes this $2 investment. He’s looking for the right number to retire.

“You never know. You just never know.”

South of the Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue intersection, the bustling commercial epicenter of Flushing’s Chinatown, stands an unlikely survivor in the digital era. “The Rhythm House. Indian, Pakistani movies and TV Series,” reads the billboard, a reminder of the neighborhood’s Indian past.

Though less than 4 percent of Flushing residents are South Asian, The Rhythm House manages a swift trade, thanks to the Indian, Pakistani and Afghan customers who arrive from other neighborhoods.

People come here from Jackson Heights and Jamaica, as well as Long Island and New Jersey. “They come once or twice a month and take 30 video cassettes and DVD’s,” says Raj Singh, the store’s owner. By his reckoning, he’s had more than 11,000 customers from out of town since 2006 – that, even though Bollywood movies are available online.

“We could get movies just a block away from where I live,” says Sameena Khan, a customer who drove 20 minutes from Jamaica to reach the store.“But every time I come here I feel special.” She was there to have her daughter’s Sweet Sixteen souvenir DVD made in the store – a service that few, if any, video stores in their neighborhood provide. Singh gives them full attention – plus free soda, juice and ice cream. His movie advice for the Bollywood collector is free too.

Thousands of VHS cassettes, DVD’s and CDs line the store’s wall, displaying what Singh calls “a full entertainment package for the family person.” Everything from “Sholey,” where many of the later bets-known Bollywood actors debuted to “Yash Chopra’s Veer-Zaara” a 2005 blockbuster love story. The cabinet displays Hindu, Sikh and Muslim music CD’s in order to attract a larger audience too, along with Pakistani stand-up comedy DVD’s and customized CD’s – Singh’s specialty and what definitely keeps his store going.

When The Rhythm House first opened in 1998, Flushing was known as an Indian haven. Between 1990 and 2008, however, the Indian population dropped from 14,000 to 9,000 – a drop that has not only affected the neighborhood’s geographic landscape, but the businesses.

Four Indian video stores have closed between Kissena Boulevard and Franklin Avenue on Main Street, says Sunny Daner, a clerk at Flushing Video, the only other remaining Bollywood rental shop left in Flushing. A fifth one opened a year and a half ago, but closed four months later. “I knew they would close,” says Singh. “The owner just wanted DVD’s and he couldn’t keep up. The customer wants everything in one store.”

When Singh bought the run down store from its previous owner four years ago, during the height of the Indian exodus, he didn’t hesitate. “It was a risk, but starting a business is always risky.” Movies had been his passion ever since he was a computer-engineering student in India. He’d go into movie theatres in his town at least tree times a week. Now, he hand picks his videos online and from video stores in Jackson Heights’ Little India — the very same stores who lose clients to The Rhythm House 20 or more minutes away.

Two weeks later, on her way home from work, Lopez was mugged by two men who slammed her to the ground, took her bags and left her bleeding on the street just one block from her new home. Three weeks after the attack, Lopez is still in emotional pain from the experience and physical pain from her injuries – two facial fractures that required doctors to wire her jaw shut and insert a plate in her chin.

Tenants of Lopez’s building, the Clock Tower, said that even the local police precinct community officer admitted that this incident affected the precinct more then others – not only because Lopez complained about the safety only two weeks before getting mugged, but also because of the consequences for Lopez, and for all of them.

The Clock Tower, a converted warehouse on the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Bruckner Boulevard, has become a symbol of gentrification as the first big conversion in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. If its tenants start to lose confidence or move out, many worry that Mott Haven will lose its chance to become a better neighborhood.

“I have mixed feelings now,” she said “I don’t want this to damper my feelings about this place. But there were moments when I questioned the move.”

It was Friday, Oct. 22. Around 6 p.m. Lopez got off the number 6 train at the 138th Street station in Mott Haven.

She crossed Lincoln Avenue to a deli to pick up some juice, carrying her purse and a shopping bag. “There was a guy in there, I didn’t have a good feeling about him. He had his hood positioned in a way that I couldn’t see his face,” Lopez recalled.

A petite woman with a distinct, trendy short haircut, Lopez then walked down Lincoln Avenue, around the Mitchell Houses projects, past the J&E Auto Parking and car wash and under the Major Deegen Expressway overpass. She heard a noise and turned, but saw nothing.

It was still light, and Lopez could see people walking on the far side of the street as she rounded the little garden next to her building. She heard a noise again but before she could turn around, two men overtook her, pushing her down from behind.

“I hit the pavement with my face,” Lopez said. “They hit me so fast and so hard that I thought I was hit by a truck.” In seconds, the men had grabbed her bags and were gone.

Her purse held her wallet, work keys, make-up bag and other small accessories. The other bag contained three items: a brand new pair of shoes that Lopez wore to work before switching to flats for the ride home; a bottle of port she had purchased on her lunch hour; and a book – “Down These Mean Streets,” Piri Thomas’ classic memoir about growing up on the tough streets of Spanish Harlem of the 1930s.

“Ironic, huh?” Lopez said.

In addition to the two facial fractures, Lopez was left with several cuts on her head and hands. One of her teeth was damaged; she had numerous bruises.

She was lying on the street, bleeding from her face, confused and in shock. Three men saw the incident. “A man in a truck shouted he will follow them,” Lopez recalled “One gentleman called the 911, and another handed me paper towels so that I could wipe the blood of my face.”

To fix the fractures, Lopez was in surgery at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx for three and half hours. Doctors put a plate on the front of her chin and surgically anchored metal pins and wires into her jawbone and surrounded tissues to keep the fractured side of her jaw from moving.

Three weeks later, she still looks as if her lips were sealed. And they literally are. The wires prevent her mouth from opening. “I can’t eat,” she said “but at least now I can speak a little.”

But while the physical injuries are getting incrementally better, Lopez said her visions of the events of that Friday are as livid as if she were reliving them. They come to her in the most unexpected moments.

“It’s almost like…” she said, looking for words. Her eyes were wet; a tear came down her face. “…Like part of the peace inside me was hurt. It needs to heal.

“I could be doing anything, be on my computer, watching TV, and I feel them pushing me,” she said, “I feel their hands on my back. Then I hit the ground.”

Lopez, whose family is originally from Puerto Rico, was born in New York and grew up in Manhattan. She later moved to the North Bronx and raised three children – two sons and a daughter. Her daughter is now married and has a small child of her own. “I always lived very close to everyone else before I moved here.”

Lopez moved to her current apartment in March from the old neighborhood in the North Bronx. She looked online and found the Clock Tower. She said she liked the friendly feel of the place. Neighbors introduced themselves in the corridor; there is a small gallery in the building, where some of the artists living in the Clock Tower often have shows.

“It felt like a family,” she said.

But her real family was concerned about the move. Lopez’s younger brother went as far as to talk to officers at the 4-0 about safety, “They told him about the crime statistics and he felt ok,” Lopez said. Her older son was concerned, but he consented once he checked out the neighborhood.

Back then, she had convinced her family – and herself – that the area was better than its reputation.

According to New York Police Department crime statistics, approximately 400 robberies a week took place on average in the city last year. In Mott Haven alone, police investigate an average of one robbery every day, police statistics say.

Lopez went outside alone for the first time on Nov. 8, more than two weeks after the attack. But she has not yet gone out on her own after dark. For two weeks, she stayed with her daughter and her family.

Being with family helps, she said, but it has its challenges too. “When you go through something like this, you are not the only victim,” she said. “My children and my mother are victims too.”

Lopez said she tries to put on a happy face and convince her family that she is recovering.

“You don’t want them to think you can’t make it. I don’t ever want to lose my independence. I try to behave just as I behaved before it happened, I don’t think they can tell the difference.” What she does different, she says, is pray a lot.

Officers from the 40^th came to the hospital to check in on Lopez and question her about the attack. They have since taken Lopez shopping and even came to visit her. “Officer Claudia Mera and others helped me in their own free time,” Lopez said. “I got so many telephone numbers from people I don’t even know. It was an overwhelming reaction.”

The two muggers have not been caught or identified, and the investigation is still pending, according to Detective Brian Sessa, a spokesman for the New York Police Department. The truck driver who ran after them managed to get a piece of clothing, but nothing else.

This past Wednesday, a meeting with tenants was held in the Clock Tower. Commanding Officer Nikas and eight other officers from the 40^th Precinct came to discuss the safety in the area. The turnout of the tenants was large, more than 40 people came to hear Community Affairs Officer Dimas Cortez speak about crime statistics and undercover prevention operations in the area. To show that not all police efforts are recognizable, he brought an undercover lieutenant, dressed in a hoodie and casual pants.

For the immediate future, Lopez hopes to start back to her job as an executive assistant at Mount Sinai Medical Center in a week’s time. It’s a new job — Lopez learned she was hired only a few days after she was mugged.

“I had a job interview three days after the surgery,” Lopez said “I looked horrible, I couldn’t speak. My nose was broken. I had stitches on my chin and I couldn’t open my mouth. But I was hired.”

Her mouth will remain wired until at least the end of December. She has been living on soups and smoothies since the attack, and has lost 10 pounds so far. Still, she is making a list of foods she will have once she can chew again. Steak and onions. Pork chops – her favorite. Rice and beans.

Lopez is determined to stay in the Clock Tower. A few days ago, more then five months after she requested them for the first time, additional lights for the underpass where she was mugged were finally approved.

In the grainy photo, the two of them look at each other as they stand under the rabbi’s portable Sukkot on the corner of 42nd Street and Madison Avenue, in front of the rabbi’s burgundy RV – a mobile temple he wheels out from Crown Heights four days a week.

“It’s going to be a great year!” she said, and typed those words into her phone in a group message to her mother, sister and brother-in-law, along with the picture.

Strunin has been visiting Baumgarten’s “mitzvah tank” almost every Tuesday for 15 months, ever since her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. A self-described Reformed Jew, Strunin is one of the 350 weekly visitors to the mobile-temple – an outreach program started by the Chabad-Lubavitch Youth Organization in 1989, a program of the Orthodox Jewish sect headquartered in Crown Heights.

Strunin is part of a smaller circle of alienated Jews who regularly visit the mobile temple — some for more than a dozen years — to grow closer to their culture and faith.

“He teaches me everything,” Strunin said. “I didn’t even know how to spell Sukkot.”

Inside the van, pictures of Menachem Schneerson, the former leader of Chabad and considered by Lubavitchers to be the messiah, don the walls. Stashes of “tefellin,” the leather arm and headpiece men wear once a day to pray, are stocked in the cupboards. Piles of yarmulkes sit on the counters for the men to wear on their heads as they cross through the van’s open door.

The mobile-temples have been around since 1974, but most only hit the pavement on Fridays. Baumgarten is the first in New York to provide services Monday through Thursday.

“I’m their service adviser, their rabbi, their therapist,” Baumgarten said.

Baumgarten originally chose street corners with heavy foot traffic to park the van; by parking at the same corners for years he has developed a clientele. He estimates that 80 percent of his visitors are regulars, while 20 percent are strangers – Jews and non-Jews alike – curious about Jewish faith and culture.

Brett Rosen, a self-identified Conservative, spiritual Jew, was introduced to Baumgarten through a family friend 14 years ago when his then 6-month-old son was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease.

“It helped because I felt like I was giving 110 percent to many areas,” Rosen said. At the time, he said, he was working a full-time job in financial services and raising three kids. He now also runs a non-profit. “This was my spiritual life that needed help.”

A regular visitor to the van, Rosen has developed a close relationship with Baumgarten; they have spent holidays together and visited Schneerson’s grave in Queens. Baumgarten installed “mezuzahs” – an ornament that contains a piece of parchment with a verse from the Torah – on the doors in Rosen’s home.

“I’ve called him when someone is ill, sick in the hospital,” Rosen said. “Sometimes he’ll do a prayer right on the phone. He’s just always there for me and my family.”

Baumgarten makes sure he’s readily available to his clients walking by on the street too – even if just for a quick prayer.

“Watch this,” Baumgarten said to Strunin, in the middle of their conversation. He approached and shook the hand of a young man wearing a business suit, who then followed Baumgarten to the van to receive a blessing.

“Get out of here,” Strunin said, impressed by Baumgarten’s popularity on the street.

“Eat your heart out,” Baumgarten replied, with his Bluetooth glued to his ear, answering and making phone calls every few minutes telling friends and clients to come visit the van.

Before Steve Leiter started visiting 16 years ago, he would see the van parked on street corners and purposely avoid walking by it. His first visit was out of guilt, he said.

“One day I said, ‘What am I running away from?’” Leiter recalled. “It’s been 16 years and I’m still here.”

Leiter visits the mobile-temple on Thursdays. He came to do a special prayer.

“I’m out of my zipcode today,” he said, since his visit this week was on a Tuesday. “I have a doctor’s appointment today and I’m a little nervous about it.”

Every other weekday, Leiter wraps tefillin to pray at work. One of his coworkers, a young Orthodox Jew, brings the leather straps and headpiece to the office. But he comes back to the van at least once a week because he said it feels like home.

On his way out, Leiter removed the brown velvet yarmulke with gold trim from his head, kissed it and placed it on the van’s counter.

“Not to oversimplify things,” he said, “but I keep coming back because it makes me feel good.”

The newly opened asthma center in East Harlem set an ambitious goal for itself: to cut in half the number of asthma hospitalizations in the neighborhood by the end of the year.

Young children from low-income families are three times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than those from wealthier families, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. It’s a statistic borne out in East Harlem – the neighborhood with the highest rate of asthma hospitalizations in the city and one where 38 percent of people live in poverty, according to the 2006-2008 American Community Survey.

“The number one risk factor for asthma is poverty,” said the medical director of the East Harlem Asthma Center of Excellence, Dr. Wilson Wang.

Indeed, East Harlem registered 494 asthma hospitalizations in 2007, the last year with available statistics. By contrast, the neighboring Upper East Side, one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, registered only 82 hospitalizations that same year.

Taking these numbers into consideration, the center, which has been providing medical care to families since 2008, decided to address the socioeconomic aspects of the condition when it launched the neighborhood’s first asthma walk-in center in August. And so, when a parent visits the walk-in with their child, they are greeted first not by a doctor but by a social worker.

Before the walk-in center was launched, the Center of Excellence acted mainly as a liaison between the Department of Health and non-profit associations in the neighborhood, such as the Harlem Children’s Zone Asthma Initiative. Now, it provides parents with direct and unmediated assistance.

Carmen Diaz-Malvido, who trains the center’s counselors, said the first thing counselors ask parents is how long their child has had asthma. They then make sure that the parent really understands what asthma is. “Parents would often say, ‘Oh, my child doesn’t have asthma today,’” said Dr. Betty Perez-Rivera, director of the walk-in center. “They don’t realize that asthma is a chronic, not an episodic, condition.”

Counselors then ask about each potential trigger for asthma in the home. A trigger can be anything from a scented candle or unaired mattress or pillow covers, to a dusty carpet or allergy-inducing cleaning supplies, Diaz-Malvido said.

The biggest triggers are common in substandard homes, such as moldy walls and pest-infestations, Wang added. The East Harlem walk-in center not only provides parents with mold remediation services and food containers to ward off rats and rodents, but it also pays for pest extermination, which costs $500 per apartment on average, Wang said.

Recently, the center has started collaborating with the New York City Housing Authority to reduce triggers in public housing. This collaboration is crucial in East Harlem, which is home to more than 80 percent of the city’s public housing projects, according to the Housing Authority. As a result, the housing authority has been quicker to respond to residents with asthma who complain of asthma-inducing conditions such as a broken window or leaking pipes, Wang said, noting, “We take the biggest cases to [the Housing Authority] and say ‘We have to figure this out now.’”

Yet it is not only housing conditions that cause high asthma rates in East Harlem. Half of all public housing residents smoke, according to the city Department of Health, a factor proven to instigate asthma. Another common trigger is air pollution – and East Harlem has that in spades: 277 buses pass by Manhattan’s two bus depots, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and both are in East Harlem. This helps explain why one of every four children in East Harlem suffers from asthma, according to a survey conducted by the Harlem Children’s Zone.

The center’s employees emphasize the risk of second-hand smoke and direct parents to smoking cessation programs, yet they have not lobbied the city about the pollution factors.

Over the past four years, the Center of Excellence has also urged schools in the neighborhood to create an “asthma-free environment” for students. Some have responded well. P.S. 72 on 104 Street restructured its entire facility to achieve this goal: replacing carpets, removing mold from its walls, and running workshops for students and faculty to teach about asthma and its triggers.

The center has also been trying over the past few months to create a support group for teenagers, said Teodora Evtimova, a coordinator at the center. But, she said and sighed, “teens are notoriously hard to get to.”

As for whether the center expects to meet its goal of halving hospitalization numbers by the end of the year, the counselors are cautiously optimistic. “We have families who went from having their kids in the hospital four-to-five times a year to no episodes at all,” Diaz-Malvido said. At this rate, the center may yet turn around East Harlem’s infamous asthma reputation.

Photos: Mold growth in a bedroom of an apartment on 118 Street and Park Avenue before the East Harlem Asthma Center for Excellence brought in Microecologies, a company that fixes indoor environmental problems, to do mold remediation. Courtesy of Microecologies

On a cold Sunday morning, as the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine opened its doors on 112^th and Amsterdam, a different kind of crowd lined up to enter. Some had furry coats, others had slimy skin and a few even had horns. It seemed like Noah’s ark had landed on the steps of the world’s largest Gothic cathedral.

Llamas, goats, a yak, macaw, pony, camel and thousands of others lined up for the procession to celebrate the Feast of St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and the environment.. Each of the nearly 1,500 people sitting in a pew was accompanied by at least one pet – who sat on the floor, or a lap, or the pew itself. As St. Francis had wanted, it was truly a celebration of the relationship between human and God, animal and God and humans and their loyal companions.

Celebrated on the first Sunday of October since 1984, this “blessing of the animals” is renowned for the variety of animals it brings together. Those who come from sanctuaries, shelters and farms – and those who are pets of regular churchgoers and generous donors — get to be blessed inside the church. Other pets have to wait for the afternoon fair to get their blessing outside.

Despite stiff competition, Chuckles the parrot was one of the lucky ones. As he majestically stood on his owner’s shoulder before the procession began, his light blue and yellow feathers stood out among the dark grey clouds. He quietly observed the crowd, posing like a seasoned model for curious onlookers and participants. “It’s his 13^th year so he’s become a pro,’ said Linda Raeside, who has had Chuckles for 19 years. “Now he’s just hanging out, chilling, waiting for the ceremony.”

The event’s director, Tenzin Dharlo, said more than 2,000 animals and their owners attend the ceremony and subsequent blessing every year. “It’s the cathedral’s biggest event,” Dharlo said.

Reverend Canon Victoria Sirota agreed. “This is the highest point of the cathedral’s life. It brings together regular worshipers but also people from everywhere, people who don’t usually come to services but who feel welcome when they bring their pets.”

In her four years at the church, and despite her allergies, Sirota said she’s blessed more than 200 animals and was bitten only once. “I’ve blessed everything from dogs to rabbits to parrots. I’ve even blessed ashes and animals on iPhones!”

The fair, which followed the church ceremony at 1 p.m., was held behind the cathedral and stood on both sides of the walkway. Right in the middle, all the way from Portland, Oregon, stood Doni, a 6-month- old goat. Doni came to the ceremony with p:ear mentor a nonprofit organization travelling around the United States to raise awareness of homeless youth. As Doni hungrily munched on apples handed him by his owner, Justin Oswald, Doni caught the eye of one participant in particular: Lobo, the dog.  But Doni tense: isn’t interested. “I think he feels he has enough attention,” Oswald knowingly said. “He can be picky.”

On the far end of the asphalt was the petting zoo, with animals from the Green Chimney School. The school, which gathers students from broken homes and promotes animal-assisted therapy, brings to the fair 10 to 15 animals every year.

But it was in the neighboring garden where the highlight of the day took place. Rand Frew, an assisting priest, conducted more than 70 blessings in the course of a couple of hours.  After 15 years, Frew said he sees this event as a blessing not just of animals but their owners as well.

“I bless the companions and the person who takes care of them too because however you define their relationship, they both take away something powerful from it, something that brings a sense of holiness, love and friendship,” he said. “And that, I believe, is what today is all about.”

Tourists from as far as Belgium and near as Long Island huddled around the window of the tiny Fried Dumpling eatery on Mosco Street in Chinatown. They were captivated as they watched three immigrants from mainland China roll out rice flour dough for hundreds of dumplings—just $1 for five pieces.

This group was on a food tour of Chinatown and Little Italy with Alana Hoye, who founded Ahoy New York Food Tours in 2008. Ahoy is one of a growing number of companies in New York City to provide local foodies, tourists and culture seekers with an opportunity to learn about the food and history of the city’s diverse neighborhoods. Though food tours have been around for the past 15 years, the increased focus on Chinatown demonstrates how food tours can bridge the cultural and language barriers to the authentic cuisine of China and Southeast Asia.

Hoye’s tour runs three times a week and is Ahoy’s most popular offering.  In fact, sign ups for the tour so outpace Ahoy’s East Village tour and dessert tour that Hoye is cancelling those and sticking just with the Chinatown option.

Many people feel overwhelmed with all the food options in Chinatown — even those from the metropolitan area. A full 30 percent of her domestic clientele are from the tri-state area, said Hoye.

“A lot of these things are funky,” said Sandra Mandelup of Long Island, of the Asian food delicacies. She has visited Chinatown before but signed up for Ahoy because she wanted an expert to guide her through its culinary maze. “I would never go into stores and try them myself.”

Just last month, one of the city’s most famous sightseeing companies, Gray Line, added dining tours including a Tastes of Chinatown tour. Earlier this year, New York Food Tours added a Chinatown food tour, said founder Candy Chan. Other Chinatown food tour initiatives have been around longer.

Susan Rosenbaum has been running food tours through The Enthusiastic Gourmet since 2001. In each of the five years that followed, patronage for the Chinatown food tour doubled, said Rosenbaum. She estimated that when she started the tour nine years ago, only three other companies competed with her. Now, there are 23.

It’s difficult to get an exact tally of the number of food tours in Chinatown because the Office of Consumer Affairs, which licenses tour guides, does not track the types of tours given. The Guides Association of New York City, an organization of tour guides, lists 54 guides on its change in Web site who provide culinary tours in Chinatown.

Niche tours of specific neighborhoods, like culinary bike tours or tours of food carts, are on the rise, according to Marjan Inbar, spokeswoman for New York City & Company, the city’s official tourism board.

“New York City has a lot of repeat visitors,” said Inbar. “So maybe the first time they come they want to do the iconic types of things. When they come back they want to visit a certain type of neighborhood and food tours are a great way to do that.”

The Ahoy tour group made its way across Canal Street toward Çhinatown. Mostly silent until now, the group started asking questions about a fruit stand on Mott Street.  Hoye described the unfamiliar jackfruit, longan, rombutan, lychee and durian fruits.

“Do the fruits change? How often do the stands stay open?” asked John Sobiech, visiting with his wife, Janet Scholl, from Milwaukee, Wis. The couple visited New York City a few years ago but explored only midtown. This time they wanted to explore more of the city, said Sobiech.

Aji Ichiban, a Hong Kong-based candy store and self-proclaimed “munchies paradise,” has some of the most exotic offerings of the day, including preserved plum, Thai durian milk candy, dried shrimps, and mandarin peel.  Samples are free.

The candy store Aji Ichiban is a special treat for Belgian Yingjia Fu, who lived in Shanghai for the first seven years of her life. “Those are all of the candies I grew up with,” Fu said.

“I don’t speak Chinese and I don’t know anyone here,” said Fu. “The tour is a unique chance to get a good explanation and see little shops like this.”

The concept of taking non-Chinese people to Chinatown to explore the food culture dates back more than 100 years, when ‘slumming parties’ were popular. Middle class white people were taken through the unfamiliar neighborhood to observe the exotic food and Chinese immigrants, both deemed objects of fascination. Hoye refers to this historical precedent and told the group that “slummers were people like yourselves.”

“Americans have long had an interest in Chinese food,” said Bonnie Tsui, author of “American Chinatown: A People’s History of Five Neighborhoods.” “The ‘foodie’ love affair with it actually began in earnest in late 19th-century New York, before chop suey restaurants oversimplified traditional flavors for mainstream acceptance.”

“In more recent times, of course, there has been a reversal. There’s more of a demand for ‘authentic’ Chinese cooking,” saidTsui.

Throughout the tour, Hoye pointed out restaurants and shops for tour-goers to visit on their own: Peking House for duck; Ping’s Seafood for the obvious; Wo Hop for Cantonese snails; Joe’s Shanghai for soupy dumplings; and Ten Ren Tea Time for her favorite combination: black tea with lychee and tapioca.

Hoye noted that Mott Street is the heart of Chinatown but reminded the tour-goers that Chinatown has immigrants from other regions of Asia, which is why the sit-down portion of her tour is at the Thai restaurant, Pongsri.

Pongsri claims to have authentic Thai food and is the oldest family-run and operated Thai restaurant in New York City, said Hoye. The group of 13 shared six dishes many tour goers grab a takeout menu on their way out.

“Tour groups come in two to three times a week,” said Pra San, a worker at Pongsri. “It’s good at a time when business is not so good.”

Within 15 minutes after the tour has ended, Scholl and Sobiech walked down Canal Street with Hoye’s recommended tea from Ten Ren. They have also returned to Aji Ichiban to purchase some dried delicacies.

“It’s good,” Scholl said of the bubble tea. “But it’s hard to suck through a straw.” She lifted the straw from the plastic cup to show the black tapioca pearl stuck like a stopper to the end. With new culinary options come new challenges.