When Molly Knefel first moved to Brooklyn four years ago to pursue standup comedy, she was a regular at the Creek and the Cave open mic nights. But as a woman, she was also an anomaly.

Rather than greeting the audience as ladies and gentlemen, the host would open with “Molly and gentlemen” because Knefel, 26, was usually the only woman in the room.

“Still at any given open mic, you are likely to be one of maybe three women out of 30 people in the room,” said Knefel. “And if you’re booked on a show, you’re likely to be the token woman.”

Knefel and many other female comics believe that they face more challenges in getting work than their male counterparts. The blame is largely placed on those who book and produce shows, and with fewer women in comedy, the “women aren’t funny” stereotype persists.

“Even though there are more women than men in the world, I don’t think women flock to comedy clubs,” said Suzy Soro, a comedian living in Los Angeles, Calif. “Maybe they’ll go for a bachelorette party, or with a few girlfriends trying to get over a heartbreak, but guys routinely go.”

Kait Richmond speaks with female comedians

The small number of women at comedy shows, both on stage and in the audience, means more men are hired. Dr. Nancy Berk, a standup comedian and psychologist from Pittsburgh, Pa., said producers and bookers play a big role in shaping audience perceptions of comedy.

“Because women haven’t had the visibility, people may jump to the conclusion that because they aren’t on stage, they may not be funny,” she said.

Dr. Berk said her two biggest shows were Mother’s Day events, and Knefel is often passed over for the general comedy standup shows.

“A lot of times I’ve had people say, ‘Oh, well we’ve got a ladies night coming up in three weeks, I’ll book you on that one,’ instead of just booking me on a regular show,” Knefel said.

Siobhan Beasley, 29, is a former war crimes prosecutor turned comedian living on the Upper East Side. In the two years that she’s worked as a comedian in Manhattan, she’s seen mostly men booking gigs.

“I’ve heard people talk about how if they have a show booked, they will basically want it to be mostly male white comedians, and then they will put in one woman, and one minority,” said Beasley.

Benjy Susswein books for Stand Up New York, a comedy club on the Upper West Side. He said he tries to book diverse shows based on the actual comedy, not characteristics of the comedians like gender, race or where they come from.

“I really only look at the rhythm of the show, or how it will look for the audience,” Susswein said. “So I wouldn’t put two dry, low energy comedians back to back, or two that get laughs from being loud and vulgar. It just feels like you are seeing the same thing again, and it will ruin the energy of the show.”

Susswein acknowledged that women are underrepresented in comedy. He thinks it’s because fewer women than men are interested in getting into standup because of how revealing it can be, and the immense amount of rejection that comes with it.

“I think women, who tend to be more emotional and sensitive, would be turned off from pursuing such a field,” he said.

Susswein added that he doesn’t think there’s a lot of room for sexism in comedy, and that he hasn’t even witnessed any because the industry attracts more open-minded people.

Susswein and the women comedians agree that women like to see funny women, which was proven last year at the box office.

Bridesmaids, starring Kristen Wiig, showcased five womens’ tumultuous journey as a wedding party and grossed $288,383,523 worldwide and picked up two Academy Award nominations.

“It was the first time we’d seen a buddy-buddy female comedy,” said Soro, comparing Bridesmaids to the likes of Wedding Crashers and 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Wiig hurled female comedians to the attention of moviegoers everywhere.

“If Bridesmaids did that well, it means there’s an audience, and there’s an audience that’s as loyal and as engaged as there was for the Hangover,” said Dr. Berk.

The film brought the “women aren’t funny” stereotype back into the public discourse. Some female comedians are tired of the conversation.

“I wish the news would stop publishing stories like ‘Are Women Funny?’ because I feel like that sets us back decades,” said Beasley. “It’s so disheartening to read that.”

But Knefel believes it’s important to keep talking about sexism in comedy as long as it’s a problem.

“Sexism is by no means over in any aspect of society, but I think in comedy, we are very, very behind,” said Knefel. “There are so few other places where men will blatantly and unapologetically be sexist.”

On a typical morning, Erica Jones wakes up, eats a hearty breakfast, puts on her running gear and heads for the door.

Along the way she will pick up running partners, but not the typical type. Her cohorts aren’t people, they’re dogs.

Jones, 32, of Harlem, N.Y., is a professional dog runner for Happy Pants NYC one of the numerous dog walking services that don’t just walk dogs, they run them.

“You come in and they’re just knocking stuff over they’re so happy to see you” Jones said of the dogs she runs.

With over 1.5 million dogs living in the city, many being large breeds in small living spaces, many dogs are left with little room to release pent up energy.

But companies like Happy Pants NYC, provide a rigorous work out. Athletes are hired to take dogs on a vigorous 30-45 minute run during the day, a time when they might otherwise sit idle while their owners are at work.

Jones recently moved to the city from California after quitting a desk job in finance, because she really wanted a change of pace, she said.

“This is my full-time job now,” she said with a smile.

Jones said for her, it’s the best of both worlds. She has run in seven marathons, and combining her love of dogs and passion for running seems to suit her well.

“It’s totally perfect, I love running, I love the dogs,” Jones said. “I love being outside, running is easy and fun for me.”

She heard about dog running while still in California, and even tried putting up ads to seek out people who might be interested in having their dogs exercised, but she said it was difficult to find clientele in an area where open spaces were readily available and many people had their own yards for pups to run in.

So immediately after picking up her two dogs and moving across country, she went online and applied for a running position with David Haber’s company, Happy Pants NYC.

“I think the ad said something like, ‘Do you love to run? Do you want to get paid to run? Do you love dogs?” she said.

Checking yes to all those things, she met with Haber and was approved to proceed to the running test.

“He wanted to see if I could run basically,” she said laughing. Not a problem for Jones, who held her own during the 45-minute trial run around Central Park with Haber and one of the dogs.

Haber, 39, from the West Village, worked in marketing for years before starting Happy Pants NYC.
He wanted to try and do something on his own, less structured than his previous corporate jobs, and when he saw dog walkers around the city he’d wonder if it was something he could make a living out of doing.

Then, about four years ago, he began working as a runner for a company that specialized in dog running and did odd jobs on the side to make ends meet.

“After my commitment to them was finished, I basically went off on my own and tried to do something similar,” he said.

Haber combined his long-time love of dogs and his desire to run a business into Happy Pants NYC (“pants” as in the panting a dog makes when it’s happy after a long run).

At first Haber was the only runner, and with clients emerging in areas scattered around Manhattan, he was literally running all over the city.

Now he’s got multiple runners and clients all over the city. His business is doing well, he said. Prices start at $32 for a 30-minute run and clients choose how many visits per week they’d like, ranging up to five 30-minute visits for $115 per week.

“In the beginning it was just me and I was running sometimes up to six or seven times a day,” he said. “I think I was logging like 15 or so miles.”

Haber’s legs were so sore at night, he could barely sleep, he said.

Soon after he began to build a larger clientele, he started hiring runners to help take the load off, he said.

“The key criteria is definitely someone who loves dogs and has a great temperament to them” he said.

It is important that his runners are able to withstand running long distances, which is why he typically hires experienced athletes, but more important to Haber than athletic ability being able to trust them with the dogs.

“We develop such a close bond and relationship with the owners, and their dogs,” he said. “They’re affording us a lot of opportunities and sort of trust to be in their home and take care of their dogs that people value sort of at the same level as their kids,” he said.

One such client who entrusts her pooch about three times a week in the care Haber’s company is Dr. Nina Mohr, a veterinarian at City Veterinary Care in the Upper West Side.

Mohr, 41, from the Flatiron District, owns a yellow mix-breed named Banana. She said he had some behavioral issues before exercise was introduced into his routine. Mohr started running him years ago, but doesn’t have the time to do it as often as she’d like, so about three times a week, one of Haber’s runners at Happy Pants take’s Banana out to run.

She said dog running is a great alternative to dog parks and dog walking, which don’t offer the energy release that running does, especially for working breeds like retrievers and schnauzers, whose natural instincts are to be moving and working.

“They’re in an apartment, they sleep when we’re gone, they don’t do anything,” she said.

As a result, dogs do sometimes develop behavioral and even medical issues like arthritis and weight problems, but those who can get enough exercise, usually see improvement in these areas, she said.

“I think there are tremendous benefits, cardiac benefits, orthopedic, all kind of things,” she said.

Mohr believes strongly in exercise for dogs. Not only does she recommend running and other forms of exercise to patients, she also swears by it with her own pooch.

At 11 years old, Banana is still in great health and has the spirit of a young pup, Mohr said.

“Before I started running with him, he was sort of more destructive, “ she said. “He had separation anxiety.”

But the running has mellowed him out, she said.

Inside this wooden container sits the flag that covered Johnny Kihm's casket when his body arrived at Dover Air Force base. Photo by Chris Palmer.

NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – Cecelia Kihm’s life changed the day that two strangers knocked on her front door.

It was April 19, 2011. Kihm, 51, a freckled, sandy-haired pre-school teacher, was at home in her green-carpeted living room watching the television show “Ellen.”

She opened the door to two Army soldiers, standing in uniform on the concrete steps in front of her brick rowhome in the Castor Gardens section of Philadelphia.

“When I looked at them, heat just went down my body,” she said.

Her baby-faced 19-year old son, Johnny, had deployed to Afghanistan a month earlier. Several members of his unit had died already, including three that week.

She invited the soldiers in. After taking a few seconds to collect her thoughts, she asked them to deliver the news.

Her son was dead, they said. Killed in combat.

During sleepless nights since Johnny had enlisted, Kihm told herself that if this day ever came, she wouldn’t react like characters do in movies. No violent crying, no denial, no hitting the messenger.

But she was overridden with grief. She kept saying, “It’s too soon. It’s too soon.”

She went upstairs to tell her oldest daughter, Marybeth, who was 24 at the time.

“I didn’t even know how to say it,” Kihm said.

Her husband John, just returning from work, collapsed in agony when he saw the two men in his living room. He cried on the adjacent dining room floor.

And Kihm’s middle child, daughter Meghan, who was then 21, threw up after she was told.

“It was horrible,” Kihm said.

This scene – a family torn apart by news of a young soldier’s untimely death – is not uncommon. As of April 28, 2012, nearly 6,500 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan since the Afghan War began in 2001. Thousands more have died in non-hostile situations, through circumstances like training exercises, illness, or by suicide.

But all military families who lose a loved one have to deal with a variety of unique challenges, according to Ami Neiberger-Miller, a public affairs officer with the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS).

“The experience of military loss is so unique,” she said.

According to TAPS research, more than 80 percent of military deaths are traumatic and unexpected, catching family members by surprise. Military families are often thrust into the spotlight after the death, forced to take up the role of spokespeople to the media and strangers who want to honor the family and the fallen soldier. And some military family members suffer from insomnia, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

“There’s no rulebook to guide families and help them,” Neiberger-Miller said. “It’s a long journey.”

For the Kihms, just over a year after Johnny’s passing, the sadness that comes from being one of those families, shrunken by war, never ends.

“I always feel like I’m stuck in that two week period, from when we found out until when we buried him,” Kihm said. “It doesn’t feel like we just had a year. It doesn’t feel like it at all.”

Marybeth, now 25, put it more succinctly.

“It sucks,” she said.

“If you’re going to be in it, you’re going to be in it.”

At Cardinal Dougherty High School, Johnny ran cross-country and wrestled. But he was especially drawn to the Marines “Delayed Entry Program,” which gives individuals under the age of 18 a chance to work with soldiers to prepare for enlistment at a later date.

Once a week, he trained with the Marines, and throughout high school he dreamed of enlisting after graduation.

In March of his senior year, though, he changed his mind. After high school, he spent a semester at the Abington campus of Pennsylvania State University.

But his interest in the military wouldn’t stay suppressed for long. After his first semester of college, Johnny returned home for Christmas break and told his parents he had made up his mind: he wanted to enlist.

Kihm wasn’t exactly thrilled, but she had told her son when he was in high school that she would support him if he decided to join.

“I knew that’s what he wanted,” she said.

Johnny and his parents considered both the Marines and the Army, and eventually decided that the Army would be a better fit. He enlisted, and on March 1, 2010, deployed to basic training at Fort Benning, in Georgia.

“I really thought he was going to be alright.”

Johnny Kihm in his Army gear. Photo provided by the Kihm family.

In June 2010, after completing basic training, Johnny moved to Fort Drum, N.Y., with the 10th Mountain Division infantry unit. He was supposed to stay there until May 2011, when the unit would be deployed to Afghanistan. But the deployment date was moved up two months. They shipped out on March 17, 2011.

Kihm had two phone conversations and four Facebook chat sessions with Johnny while he was overseas. She kept a record of all the interactions in a datebook.

“I would sit by the computer and just look for that little dot to appear,” she said, waiting for him to sign on to Facebook.

Her last phone call with him was on April 15, 2011. The conversation was brief, but he said they would talk more later.

He died four days after the call.

Before Johnny’s death, the possibility of losing her son never felt real, Kihm said. But now, the reality is inescapable.

“Some days it’s more like day one than day two,” she said.

“All this wouldn’t have happened if that wouldn’t have happened.”

While the Kihms grapple with Johnny’s death on a daily basis, they have also found various ways to dedicate themselves to new causes in his memory.

John, Johnny’s father, has taken up volunteering at the Philadelphia Veterans Comfort House, a shelter for homeless veterans.

Cecelia sends boxes of supplies – cigarettes, magazines, Red Bulls – to Johnny’s unit (a pack of cigarettes is accompanied by a note, telling the soldier on the receiving end that they have to promise to quit smoking).

One of her more recent efforts was to style pillowcases for the unit members.

And after finding out that the soldiers don’t have anything to put into the pillowcases, she decided that her next goal is to figure out a way to send the troops pillows.

Together, the Kihms established a foundation – the Pfc. Johnny Kihm Memorial Fund – that, among other activities, is raising money through events and t-shirt sales to refurbish a United Service Organizations lounge for military members at the Syracuse airport, near Fort Drum (the Kihms declined to say how much money they’ve raised so far).

And they’ve received countless gifts, tokens of support and donations in Johnny’s name – occasionally from complete strangers – which they in turn donate to the foundation, or use to buy supplies for the care packages.

Ingrid Seunarine, a bereavement counselor in New York City who directs grief counseling programs for Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens, said that it’s common for people to donate time and energy to various causes after the death of a loved one. Doing so, she said, can help individuals cope with the loss, while also honoring the memory of the deceased.

“You have to keep that connection in your heart,” she said.

“It never stops.”

In the year since Johnny’s death, the Kihms have been visited by scores of wounded warriors and other supporters, wishing to pay their respects to the fallen soldier’s family.

Kihm said she has a deep sense of gratitude for the gestures and the soldiers who go out of their way to support them, especially those in the 10th Mountain Division.

“I feel like they’re mine,” she said.

But she also said that at times, unexpected visits, combined with the milestones that pass without her son – Memorial Day, 9/11, his unit’s first extended period of leave – can make it feel “like the viewing day never stops.”

After a few hours of talking about Johnny, with the smell of a home-cooked meal wafting through her living room, the pain in Kihm’s heart surfaced. With her eyes welling up, she recalled a moment that happened at Johnny’s funeral.

During the ceremony, she said, she reached out and touched her son’s closed casket.
Then she put her hand on her husband. Marybeth had her arm around him as well.

Kihm then whispered to Meghan, telling her to reach over and touch Marybeth.

And they formed a chain, linking Meghan, to Marybeth, to John, to Cecelia, to Johnny.

“We were all holding each other,” she said, her voice quivering.

Later that day, the Kihms would bury Johnny at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Northeast Philadelphia.

But at that moment, they sat together as a family for the last time.

“It was beautiful,” said Kihm, fighting off tears.

The video was produced by Kait Richmond and the story was written by Nicole Guzzardi

More than 150 people, mostly women and a handful of men, gathered yesterday evening at the CUNY Graduate Center for the “War on Women: An Evening of Basic Training” panel, to hear about women’s issues and how they could contribute to stopping the alleged war on women.

The event, which was sponsored by New York State Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, included a panel of feminists, who spoke on how the war on women was real, serious, and in need of further discussion.

“Everyday, I think, when I go to bed at night, that something’s happened that’s outraged me as woman, as a citizen, as somebody who believes in civil rights, and equal rights, and privacy,” Krueger said to the packed crowd.

Issues such as contraception and abortion, which have faced recent debate in the media from the Republican party and President Barack Obama, were a few of the topics speakers highlighted as facets of the war on women.

But some women, like Tatyana Belosouv, a 22-year-old economics and finance student at New York University and treasurer of the NYU Republicans Club, believe social issues like these shouldn’t be the focus of the government at all. Instead, she said, the presidential election should focus more on what the government will do to fix economic problems.

“We’re never going to get everyone to agree on social issues, so why not talk about economic issues, a majority of job losses have been for women, economic opportunities for women, small business ownership by women,” she said.

Others, like Kelly Ziemer, 28, from the Upper East Side, agree that the ongoing economic crisis in the United States is of more immediate importance than social issues, but say that because social issues are continuously being brought up as discourse, so they must be explored.

“I absolutely believe there’s a war on women right now,” she said. “Considering these women’s issues are being brought up, it is important to discuss them and fight for them.”

Belosouv, who is in the Reserve Officer’s Training Corps, a college-based program for training military officers, said she doesn’t believe a war on women even exists and thinks the word war is being wildly misused.

“I don’t appreciate the term war being thrown around so liberally, it degrades the meaning,” she said. “I certainly don’t consider it a war, because that term to me represents a lot of things, a lot of horrible things, that I don’t see happening.”

She said there are far more trying things women have been through, that might be better considered war.

“You know what was a war, women fighting to serve in the Armed Forces,” she said. “You know what was a war, women fighting to be able to stay at their jobs after having a baby, or have any job other than a teacher, a secretary, or a nurse.”

While Belosouv may not believe the current issues at hand are enough to be deemed war, other young women, like Ashley Rearick, 25, of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, who attended the panel, strongly disagreed.

“They don’t even care about violence against women,” Rearick said about Republicans who oppose renewing the Violence Against Women Act, which provides funding towards the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women. “How can you not consider that a war?”

While a few women acknowledged that more women in general, whether Democrat or Republican, are needed within the government in order for there to be substantial conversation, some believed that having a woman in office who doesn’t support women’s issues will not help.

Shelby Knox, 25, the Director of Women’s Rights at change.org, said it all boils down to rights, and that a woman who isn’t for women rights won’t be useful in fighting the war.

“I think that when women are in the room, no matter what their political allegiance, the conversation is different because their life experiences are different,” she said. “But I will say that, remember, that being a woman does not necessarily mean you are pro-woman and that one of the patriarchies’ best tools is having someone who looks like us and acts like them.”

Cristina Muldow has had breast cancer twice. She’s had two mastectomies, a round of chemotherapy and reconstruction surgeries.

As a member of the LGBT community, it wasn’t easy for her to find the kind of support she needed, even though it is widely believed in the medical field that her community suffers from higher rates of cancer. So, after her battle with the disease, Muldow took on the role of advocate.

She’s now the program coordinator of the Lesbian Cancer Initiative (LCI) in New York City, which offers a continuum of cancer services to lesbian and bisexual women, and transgender people. The LCI recently held its annual Health and Pleasure Fair at the LGBT Center in the West Village.

“The fair targets those in the community who are less connected to medical care,” Muldow said.

Some members of the LGBT community fear discrimination in health care and won’t seek out help when symptoms emerge.

“I am certain that the cancer rates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are substantially higher than for the general population,” said Liz Margolies, the executive director of the National LGBT Cancer Network. “I am convinced. I’ve seen enough indicators, enough small studies confirming our increased risks and enough studies confirming our lower screening rates that there is no question to me. But just having me know it, and running my small organization, there’s only so much noise we can make.”

Margolies said the LGBT community needs to be more aggressive about their health care needs.

“If as a group we have increased risks, we should be hyper-vigilant about cancer screening,” she said. “But instead, what we see in this population is an avoidance of the health care system, and in fact, there’s plenty of studies to show that our rates of mammography, cervical pap smears, and colonoscopies are way below the national average.”

Margolies said that LGBT people smoke and drink at twice the rate than heterosexual people do, increasing the risk of various types of cancers. Lesbians and bisexual women also face more risks because they are less likely to have children or use birth control which also heightens the risk of cancer.

“The reason is that the more periods you go through, the more cycles of hormones coursing through your system, the greater your chance of cancer,” Margolies said. “The same goes for transgender people, who take hormones during the transition process.”

Barbara Warren, the director the LGBT health services initiative at Beth Israel Medical Center, said it is out of fear that people are avoiding doctors’ offices and hospitals.

“They anticipate that they may be treated, at best, tolerantly but not necessarily affirmatively; or at worst, be discriminated against or stigmatized,” Warren said.

Warren was at the health fair representing the hospital with Julie Winslow who screened attendees for cholesterol, glucose and blood pressures.

“Hospitals are recognizing that this is a need, especially Beth Israel, so we are working to make sure people can feel comfortable coming in,” Winslow said.

Warren said Beth Israel is trying to be a model for other large corporations to become LGBT inclusive. But it’s difficult, because research has shown that medical students only get about five hours of sensitivity training on LGBT related issues, and Margolies said that most of it revolves around HIV/AIDS.

“What we see is that even people who are very brave and are out to everybody in their lives think twice about coming out to their oncology health care teams,” Margolies said. “Once they feel like they have a life-threatening illness, it is much riskier to alienate your health care providers.”

Last year, the National LGBT Cancer Network was chosen to train medical professionals in New York City by the Health and Hospitals Corporation. Margolies is optimistic at the progress, but acknowledges that it’s difficult because doctors need to start asking patients about their sexualities.

“If you want to know who these people are, you have to do it,” she said. “And it’s going to feel awkward as you learn a new language and ask these questions for the first time, but we think it’s worth it.”

The need for conversation comes from a lack of options on the initial intake forms that patients fill out when they visit doctors. There are only male and female boxes, leaving transgender people uncomfortable, and the relationship options are single, married, divorced or widowed. So it is frequently up to the patient to let his or her doctor know about serious relationships that, in some states, do not qualify for marriage.

Muldow, who has been cancer free since 2008, said that since she was single while she went through cancer treatment the first time, it was as if her sexuality did not exist.

“It fit into the sort of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ way of going about things,” she said.

She would have preferred to have been asked, so she would not have to worry about the doctors’ perceptions of her.

In the meantime, the National LGBT Cancer Network and other organizations are rallying together for progress. Margolies said that in 2013, the National Health Information Survey will start asking questions about lesbian, gay and bisexual people, and that within a year, there will be a lot more information to work with.

Margolies believes that the health care field is on the right track because views toward LGBT people are changing, especially considering what’s happening with marriage equality.

“Ultimately, my long term goal, is that my organization does not need to exist,” Margolies said. “That everybody who is in the health care system understands the unique health risks and needs of LGBT patients, and treats everybody in a warm and welcoming way.”

Chef Ari Taymor begins prepping a tangerine curd dessert for Alma's first dinner service in a new borrowed space, Brick House Cafe at the end of posh Abbot Kinney Road in Venice Beach, CA. Photo y Edna Ishayik

Chef Ari Taymor excitedly described what’s for dinner: smoked oysters, house made tofu, honey-dijon buttermilk sauce, egg-potato emulsion. He could be reading off Willy Wonka’s grocery shopping list—the items are offbeat, intriguing, and wildly creative.

As a chef, Taymor does not lack enthusiasm, talent or dedication. What he lacks is a kitchen to cook in. Until he finds one, he and his team are operating a vagabond eatery called Alma Food and Wine, hopping from location to location, cooking out of storefront kitchens around Venice Beach, Calif., and trailing their growing clientele of foodies along with them.

The crew of three chefs and one managing partner have been looking for a suitable restaurant space to move into, slogging through a forest of red tape to obtain licenses and permits needed to open a restaurant in Los Angeles. So far, no luck.

But instead of waiting for the real estate stars to align, the team decided to fire up the grills and get started. They asked the owner of a café on Rose Street called Flake, if they could take over the space in the evenings (the café closes at 3:30) and got permission.

Voila! Five nights a week, the neighborhood coffee shop transitioned into a prix fixe, farm-to-table haven of cookery. Creamy soups, fresh vegetables and savory main dishes started coming out of Alma’s ad-hoc kitchen.

“We were working off of two induction burners and a little tiny camp stove,” said Taymor. “There was no oven, no heat, no gas.”

Despite roughing it, the food was good enough to get attention from the Los Angeles Times and other outlets. Accolades poured in and so did investment offers.

But finding a space of their own remained a problem. Attempts to lock in real estate were met with licensing snafus, long waits for permits, and other deal breakers. So on a recent Friday, the team took over the after-hours at the Brick House, a café with a full kitchen at the end of the posh shopping corridor on Abbot Kinney Road.

“We’re on the move,” said Dinnelle Lucchesi, the managing partner of the roaming project, as she polished silverware in preparation for their first dinner service in the new space.

“We don’t have a place for our stuff,” Lucchesi said. “We keep our things in our cars, our houses, our own fridges.”

Life was not always so up in the air for Taymor. He and his team of two chefs were running the kitchen at Saluté, a wine bar in Santa Monica. Taymor was recruited by the general manager, a friend who promised free-reign of the kitchen.

But when ownership changed hands, the culinary range became more restrictive and Taymor felt stifled.

“We want to cook the food that we want to cook,” said Taymor. “So for us, we were in a place where we couldn’t do that. We felt it was better to take a risk, step out on our own, see if our food could stand up for itself.”

Alma’s food is a personal twist on modern American cooking. In coming up with weekly-changing menus, the team is driven mostly by what’s in season and what’s for sale at farmers markets. But the ideas for what to do with those ingredients come from experiences and nostalgia.

The ingredients for tangerine curd--the dessert that came with the prix fixe at Alma recently. By Edna Ishayik

“We think about stuff that we like to eat, ingredients that are coming into season, stuff that our farmers are proud of and we use them to express memories that we have of food and of places we’ve been, places we’ve worked, people who have inspired us,” said Taymor.

His childhood spent on the coast of northern California was the spark for celery root, smoked lardo, pine and apple soup. The dish was meant to invoke the Santa Cruz mountains, the scent of the ocean, pine trees and camp fires.

Moving locations every few weeks can make it more difficult to come up with new menu items every few days. But there are upshots to starting off as a roving feast The Alma crew has been able to test the restaurateur waters and see if they could secure financial backing without significant risk.

“It’s given us time to nail down our concept, get our team flowing in a really efficient way and we’re not putting ourselves out there, vulnerable for bankruptcy,” said Lucchesi.

Also among the benefits are the people enjoying the group’s offerings.

“We’re building a community around the name, and the concept, and the food,” said Lucchesi. “They are a part of us literally building our dream.”

Before dinner is served on their first night in their latest borrowed kitchen on a recent Friday, the chefs are preparing. They call out to each other in a secret language of measurements, ingredients and techniques. Bins clatter, spoons bang, knives chop, a blender whirs as the group gets accustomed to their new surroundings.

If they don’t find a permanent space soon, Taymor estimates Alma will work out of the Brick House Café for another month or so. Then the team will have to find a new kitchen to camp out in.

“We’re just these people kind of looking for a home,” said Lucchesi. “That’s what it comes down to.”

In a long dank subway corridor below 14th Street, commuters and travelers hiked past in droves, filling the space with the repetition of clicking heels and pounding footsteps.

But Donald Green does not move amongst them. He sits atop plastic milk crates shoved into a corner and stuffed to the brim with various scraps of paper covered in remnants of his prose.

Small, dilapidated home-made signs dot the area around him, “A New York Times Published Poet Shares his Poems,” the signs read, breaking up the continuity of concrete and soiled tile for 10 feet in either direction.

Those that pause to read the signs fall victim to Green’s marketing trap, and he pounces on them, a cool customer with over 30 years of poem sales experience.

“Excuse my bohemian appearance,” said Green, a toothless smile barely peeking out behind the uneven bristles of his unkempt beard, “but are you interested in buying some of my poems?”

For Green, poetry is life, an over 50-year “journey” to reach literary fame, that peaked in 2000 when he was quoted in an article in The New York Times, and has since consumed him, leaving him in a pedestrian expressway clinging to past successes and future dreams.

Soliciting his stanzas on the streets and in subways has been Green’s only job since the late ’70s. He worked days in the book acquisitions department at Columbia University’s Butler Library and at night he wrote poetry, fostering a love that existed as young boy growing up in the heart of Harlem and in the wake of the Harlem Renaissance.

“The dream of fame begins very young,” said Green. “I remember sitting in my room in Harlem, no more than six, and thinking, ‘I want to be known, I want to be recognized, I want to be noticed,’ and fame is the way to that.”

In 1970, at the age of 23, he got his first taste of that fame: four of his poems were published in an anthology of young black poets called, “We speak as liberators.” Shortly thereafter, Green made his first television appearances, reading poetry twice on both the now defunct local New York television show, “Like it is,” and NBC’s “Someone New.”

“Looking back on it now, I took it all for granted,” said Green. “I was poet, on so many television shows, at such a young age.”

Emboldened by his early successes, Green scrapped his job at Columbia, where he said he had “run out of material,” and instead set up a table around Manhattan selling poetry with the hopes that he would grow as a poet and gain notoriety.

“When I went out and started selling and meeting people in the ’80s, I had a beautiful freedom when I wrote,” said Green.

But no matter how he evolved as a poet, Green saw little kick-back. With no publishing deals, and very few public appearances, Green’s career was on the decline.

“The level of fame I dreamed of could never be achieved by a poet,” said Green. “It has taken me many, many, years to accept that.”

That is, until a couple of major New York publications came calling. After Green was quoted in The New York Times, and had an article in New York Magazine written about him, Green redefined his business, creating signs with The New York Times and New York Magazine articles and logos plastered across them while taking on the persona of a distinguished poet.

“I’ve noticed, when you have a calling card that says you were published in The New York Times, people walk by and go, ‘Wait, wait, wait, The Times? The Times? Let me go back and see what this guy has here, ’” Green said. “It’s a very impressive thing for a poet to have.”

Green often recounts his encounter with Bruce Weber – the journalist for the New York Times that included his poem “Hope” in the Times article some 12 years ago – in vivid detail calling Weber simply “Bruce,” as if in casual conversation.

“Bruce was a very straightforward man,” said Green. “He knew what he wanted.”

But in a phone interview Weber remembered little about Green after 12 years. Weber admitted he was working on a difficult assignment, trying to piece together snippets of arts celebrations of the millennium from around the globe when he spotted Green’s set-up in the East Village and thought he might get an interesting quote. Aside from that, Weber’s memory was vague.

Still, Weber admired Green’s commitment.

“I have respect for a guy who believes in the written word,” said Weber of Green. “I like the idea of a guy who believes in the written word so much he’s not ashamed to present himself as a poet.”

During the digital age, Green has garnered support across the web for his eccentric persona and off-the-cusp poems. A series of youtube videos, blogs, and even a Facebook group were created in his honor, all of which he uses to market himself to passers-by.

“I’m very well known on YouTube,” Green said. “I walk into McDonald’s and the people who work there say, ‘I’ve seen you on Youtube! You’ve got five stars!’”

Green often brings conversation back to his association with authors and performers who have achieved the fame he sought so badly. At a 1992 book signing for Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward P. Jones, Green recalls a photographer ignoring Jones in favor of taking pictures of him.

“That’s when my career really took off,” Green exclaimed.

In another encounter, he recalls congratulating a teenage Aretha Franklin on the street after a performance at the Apollo Theatre.

“She was so moved by me,” Green said. “She was so full of pride. I made her night.”

But in reality Green is a proud, but poor man: a single poem sells for just $1, an original “on the spot” poem goes for $5, and for the low price of $10, your original poem can sit alongside a collection of his 10 best, stapled together shoddily between two pieces of thick blue construction paper and articles published about him in New York Magazine and The New York Times.

“I’m not a rich man, but I keep money in my pocket, “ Green said.

Green said he is not homeless, that his family has supported him so he doesn’t have to pay rent, and can continue to live out his lifestyle.

But his clothes are tattered, soiled with dirt, his fingernails long. He hardly leaves the corner of the subway, staying “sometimes past midnight,” and arriving, “before five in the morning.” When he does leave, he stacks his belongings neatly in the corner, and covers the signs with his namesake in AM New York newspaper clippings.

“I pack up all of my things so well, you can’t even tell what it is. I don’t leave out any signs that say I’m a New York Times poet.”

The table he used to sell his wares above ground is now broken, discarded alongside the remnants of food donated by New York City Samaritans who look at him and think he’s homeless.

“People resent my lifestyle,” Green said. “They think, ‘he’s a poet, he’s doesn’t make money, he doesn’t fit into the way society works, he’s a poet sitting out on the street.’”

So they drop off food, money, and clothes. Green relishes certain instances when the donations allowed him to live a different lifestyle. Once, he said, a man in a trench coat left him a $100, another time a woman left him, “an expensive peacoat, like the businessmen wear.”

Still, Green clings to his pride. As long as donations are anonymous he accepts them, but if they ask, he politely declines.

“Sometimes they ask if they can give me the food. If they ask, I say no, ” Green said.

He lumbers around; the pain from untreated hernias stifles his movements. He tries to hide them beneath baggy clothes, and walks into a corner and faces the wall so that others can’t see him readjusting his clothes, but they protrude from his lower abdomen like a stanza against his frail frame.

When asked about the toll his lifestyle is taking on his health, he offers a coy response.

“They aren’t life threatening,” Green said. “They are fine, the doctors said they are fine.”

But the same people that bought his poems in the past often stop by to check on him, concerned about his health. One woman embraced him and then pointed towards the bulging hernia and said, “You need to get that checked out, Donald.” To which he responded, “I know, I know.”

Yet, in spite his current situation, Green still holds onto the dreams of his past. He said he is working on a new book of poems, which he claims he will sell to a contact at HarperCollins he met selling his poetry.

“I still might be able to write shows that go to Broadway,” Green said. “I still might be able to write songs that go to Broadway. There is still space for fame.”

Closer than best friends, Carmen Greico and her golden retriever, Bud, spend every waking moment together, and when she’s not awake, he’s lying nearby to ensure her safety. But this relationship is much more than one of companionship: Greico is blind and Bud is her guide dog.

“He is a pet and he is a worker,” she said. “There’s a very strong emotional attachment, very strong; there has to be, because you put your life, you put your safety, in this animal’s care.”

Greico, 64, of Levittown, Long Island, has been blind since she was 4-years-old and was diagnosed with retina blastoma, a cancer of the retina.

For years she used a white cane to help her get around. While attending college in the city, she said she didn’t feel the need for a guide dog because of the all people around to help her across busy streets.

But when she moved to Long Island, things were different. The streets were quieter and there were less people around to help, she said.

Years later, Greico is with her fourth guide dog and she said they have completely changed her life. The dogs have provided Greico with a chance to go where she needs to without fear, she said.

“I enjoy having the independence of being able to move around in my environment without having to necessarily ask for sighted assistance,” Greico said.

Most foundations that train the blind with guide dogs won’t do so until the person is 16 years old, but it wasn’t until her late twenties that Greico began to explore the idea of using a guide dog, she said.

“I wasn’t ready for a guide dog at that age,” she said. “In some ways I didn’t want to have the responsibility of traveling with a guide dog while I was going to college and graduate school.”

Greico first became interested in the idea when she was invited to an event for the Guide Dog Foundation. It was there that met a golden retriever.

“[He] was so calm and so, you know, not what I thought a guide dog was,” she said. “It kind of turned me around.”

And so began her longstanding relationship with The Guide Dog Foundation of Smithtown, Long Island.

The foundation, which is completely run on donations, not government funding, offers an in-house program to train the dogs and their new owners, she said.

“They know who you are, the environment you live in, the kind of work you do, and you’re interviewed personally, as well as having references,” she said.

Bill Krol, communications manager at The Guide Dog Foundation, said the entire process, from room and board, training, to the dog itself, is free of charge to the blind or visually impaired.

The foundation trains their clients for four weeks at their campus and also takes them to shopping malls and real world situations, to acquaint them with using the dog in public, Krol said.

“I love hearing them say that they have the freedom now to go wherever they want,” Krol said.

It worked wonders for Greico, she said.

“The guide dog right away enabled me to move faster, with less stress on myself, [not] considering everything what might be in my way,” she said.

Greico enjoyed the experience so much that she and long time friend Debbie Nicolay, 58, of Levittown, Long Island, began raising and eventually breeding their own puppies to be donated to Guide Dog Foundation.

Nicolay began raising puppies, with Greico’s help, in the late 1990s. Nicolay had a background in dog training and wanted to put it to use, she said.

“It was a way to combine those skills and help others,” she said.

Volunteer puppy raises will have the dog for the first year of their life, and then give it back to the foundation for formal training as a guide or service dog, Krol said.

Giving them back is the hardest part, Nicolay said.

“And then the tears start, the water works begin, because you’ve had this dog for a whole year, you love her,” she said. “So we always say, you’re going away to college, that’s the way we can cope with it.”

That may be why she and Greico own six dogs of their own, including Bud. All of their dogs have either been guide dogs and retired, or were trained to be but didn’t make the cut for reasons like size and ability to guide on harness, Nicolay said.

After raising them for years, Nicolay got her black Labrador, Jo.

They began breeding Jo so they could donate puppies to the foundation to be trained as guides.

“She’s a great mom, she’s just such a good mom,” Nicolay said, smiling. “And we love working with the foundation.”

A vanilla ice cream cone double-dipped in fudge and smothered in peanuts made its way from the Mister Softee truck in the East Village to the reaching hands of Ava Castillo, 4, who was held up to the counter by her mother Josephine, 32. Ava’s eyes lit up as she buried her face into the cone, instantly staining her rosy-colored face with remnants of melted chocolate.

“Last winter, I know for a fact I wasn’t buying this little one a cone the first week of March,” said the Park Slope, Brooklyn mom, as she wiped Ava’s face now sprinkled with peanuts stuck to the corners of her mouth. “Ice cream trucks or food carts in general were hard to find because there was no business, but now they’re all over the place.”

Most of New York City’s food trucks have experienced a surge in customers due to the unusually warm winter weather this year, with temperatures skirting the 40s over the past few months and no major snowstorms hitting the Northeast. Food trucks were hit hard with dangerous blizzards back in 2011 and 2010 that forced hundreds of vendors to close until early spring.

But some, like Belgium-born Wafels and Dinges, parked in Columbus Circle, took out their shovels and continued business.

“Last winter was a hard time because we had a big snowstorm and not many people came out, but we made sure we did so customers knew we were there and that built our reputation,” said employee Azamat Alanazaron of Borough Park, Brooklyn. “Our customers are important to us and we want to make them happy. We know waffles do just that during any type of weather.”

Alanazaron added that thanks to social media like Twitter and Facebook, they were able to update foodies on their location before trekking out into the storm.

Like Belgian-inspired Wafels and Dinges, Little Cupcake Lover, a small dessert cart located on Lafayette Street in the East Village, suffered a loss in profits the past few winters that forced them to close its ovens until early spring. This year, however, the cart has served nearly 200 customers daily, a major increase from last year.

“There was so much snow in 2010, we had to close until spring because there was no business, no one was out,” said employee Bahy Elsayed of the two-year-old baking business. “This winter was good, we tried to work Monday through Friday and the temperature was between 30 to 40 degrees, which is good for this time of year.”

Mobile bakery Sweetery NYC, which travels around the city serving treats like muffins and scones in addition to hot and cold beverages, was also in business last winter. But president and co-founder Grant Di Mille said business was slow since “people don’t want to go out.” During slow winter months, Sweetery relies on a catering business with clients including Food Network and the Weather Channel.

Sweetery NYC customer Ellen Dobrin of Gramercy, said she noticed more food trucks out this winter and attributed it to the warmer weather.

“It’s definitely still chilly out, but nothing like it was the past few years,” Dobrin said. “Temperatures were in the single digits and this year we barely reached the ‘teens, so that definitely had a positive effect on all the food trucks that are popping up more and more each day.”

Mediterranean food vendor The Chabah, also in the neighborhood, said bad weather does not affect their business. Serving classic favorites like falafel platters and chicken gyros to more than 100 hungry customers daily, Chabah said rain or shine, they try their best to make it to their location on the corner of 66th Street and Broadway.

“We have to work, no matter what,” he said. “We have regular customers that rely on us and we value their business. We don’t want to lose them because we decided not to open on a snowy day.”

On the narrow streets of Kathmandu, the name “Phiroj Shyangden” is more recognizable than that of Bob Seger or Cat Stevens, legendary rockers who’ve both written songs about this exotic city less than 100 miles from Mount Everest.

As lead guitarist and vocalist of 1974 A.D., the popular band whose concerts have packed stadiums and caused traffic nightmares throughout Nepal since the mid-1990s, Shyangden – with his pierced eyebrow and patented dark sunglasses obscured by wavy black bangs – could rarely surface in public without being hounded for autographs or irritated by gossip-like whispers.

But such hassles no longer plague Shyangden, who continues to sing his hits, albeit from a less glamorous platform: The Himalayan Yak, a restaurant in Queens whose website proudly declares, “Good news for all yak meat lovers: We now have yak meat on our menu.”

Three years ago, Shyangden sang and played guitar to the roars of thousands; these days, the closest thing to a roar during his performances is when the “7″ train, just outside the Jackson Heights eatery, thunders across the elevated tracks above Roosevelt Avenue.

“To be honest, sometimes I feel very embarrassed playing here,” admitted Shyangden, in his customary soft, deliberate tone that would be a whisper if any quieter. “Sometimes I have to play in front of two tables, in front of three people, instead of playing in front of 50,000 people. But I have to do it. This is for my bread and butter.”

Shyangden, 45, is one of several household names in Nepal who have traded the limelight for better financial opportunities in America.

It’s an immigrant narrative with a peculiar twist: celebrity musicians and actors from a faraway land abandoning their fame and ending up among their fans and fellow countrymen in a neighborhood in Queens. The dynamic, however, often leaves “regular” Nepalese-New Yorkers surprised to find such well-known artists living, working, and in many cases struggling, right alongside of them.

Samir Shahi, a Jackson Heights resident and fan of Shyangden, said that back in Nepal it would’ve been “nearly impossible” to cross paths with the rock star.

“But in New York, I see [Shyangden] every week,” said Shahi, 25, whose iPod includes numerous Shyangden tunes. “Here I’ll bump into him.”

According to Shahi, Nepalese celebrity sightings are not infrequent. He said he recently spotted Gauri Mulla, the famous Kollywood (Nepal’s film industry) actress, on the subway.

Ang Chhiring Sherpa, the Editor in Chief of The Everest Times, a Nepali language newspaper in Woodside, put it this way:

“In Nepal, people like Shyangden, they cannot meet in a public area. It’s impossible,” said Sherpa, the first South Asian journalist to climb Mount Everest, according to his business card. “But when they came here, everybody is busy, and nobody cares who he is.”

In Nepal, an underdeveloped, landlocked country scrunched between China and India, Shyangden said he would typically earn just 20,000 rupees (approximately $244) for large concerts and as little as 2,000 rupees, or $24, for small shows. He also worked as a grammar school music teacher, although that job similarly paid “very little.”

“It was very hard to support my family in Nepal,” said Shyangden, who departed for New York in 2009 while his wife and teenage daughter remained in Kathmandu.

Shyangden acquired permanent U.S. residency as an “alien of extraordinary ability,” a special category of American immigration law that allows foreign citizens who possess a “record of sustained national or international acclaim” to bypass standard bureaucratic procedures and automatically obtain a green card.

Once in New York, which Shyangden describes as “a very fast city” and “vastly different from Kathmandu,” he met two Nepalese immigrants who had been playing a regular gig at The Himalayan Yak: Rajesh Khadgi, 38, an eccentric, eternally-headbanging former drummer of Robin and the New Revolution, one of Nepal’s best-known bands, and Prazwal Bajracharya, a pony-tailed, soft-spoken 30-year-old computer networker who had belonged to an underground Kathmandu band called Lithium.

Blending traditional Nepali folk music with modern genres of rock and roll, blues and jazz, the trio performs several nights a week at the restaurant, which draws a predominantly Nepalese crowd.

Dr. Tara Niraula, an expert on the Nepalese community and an administrator at Bankstreet Graduate School of Education in Manhattan, said that he has spoken with a number of Nepalese celebrities about their transitions from fame to obscurity.

“In Nepal, they were primetime, they had all the attention and prestige,” said Dr. Niraula, who noted that several Nepalese movie stars also reside in Baltimore. “Then all of a sudden, [the fame] is gone and that’s a difficult thing, because in their heart they are different.”

Each morning, Shyangden awakes at 8 a.m. and calls his wife and 14-year-old daughter in Kathmandu. He spends his days practicing guitar, composing songs, and discussing music and life with his band-mates over tea at a Bangladeshi café. To supplement his income from The Himalayan Yak, Shyangden also gives private guitar lessons to Nepalese children.

Shyangden hopes for his family to join him “in the near future,” but “it is a very long process,” he laments, one that “requires a lot of money.” Still, his combined wages from singing and teaching are far greater than what he earned in Nepal, which helps his family.

The Himalayan Yak is at the heart of Queens’ South Asian cultural hub, with the colorful commercial strip of “Little India” just around the corner. Its spacious, rectangular upper floor is outfitted with gold and brick walls, multiple paintings of Buddha, a photograph of the Dalai Llama, and two miniature stuffed representations of the restaurant’s mascot and namesake.

Against this backdrop on a recent Thursday night, Shyangden and his band played an acoustic show in front of about 15 people. Shyangden said he “loves playing” at the restaurant, even if, at times, the miniscule crowds challenge his ego.

At around 11 p.m., the band broke into a cover version of the Eagles’ Hotel California, with Khadgi, the greasy-haired drummer, head-banging and flailing away at his drum set like “Animal” from The Muppets. Once Bajracharya, who’d assumed lead vocals, belted out the famous line, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave,” Shyangden erupted into a guitar solo that whipped the tiny audience into delight.

“Every time I hear him play, my energy, my vibe, gets better,” beamed one of the few spectators, Xlabia Khadka from Kathmandu, who now lives in Jackson Heights. “Whenever I come here, half of my stress just goes away.”

It was almost midnight, and up on stage, Shyangden showed no evidence of tiring. His eyes half-closed as if in a trance, Shyangden sang “Gurans Phulyo,” his original composition that once dominated the radio airwaves of Kathmandu.

Across a two-person table, Khadka’s friend, Mohan Poudel, 23, sang and clapped along.

At the song’s conclusion, Poudel smiled and shrugged, as if trying to communicate how surreal he found the scene before him.

“When I first came to New York, I said, ‘What the hell is Phiroj Shyangden doing here, playing in this restaurant?’” said Poudel. “I knew him as a star.”

“But that’s the New York life. He’s trying to survive, just like us.”