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.”

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.”

Nestled underneath a canopy of Washington Square Park’s barren tree branches, “Cornbread,” 49, peered out over the checkered chessboard in front of him, beaming a gap-toothed smile at passers-by, beckoning them to take their place in front of the pawns and rooks scattered about one of the park’s many chess tables.

“Take a seat! Take a seat!” Cornbread pleaded, shifting the plastic chess clock into position next to the board. “And while you’re at it, make a three dollar donation. A man’s gotta eat.”

Unlike most of Washington Square Park’s visitors, Cornbread is one of the city’s estimated 2,648 unsheltered homeless, a hardheaded group that prefers the freedom of a park bench to cramped, rule-laden shelters and missions.

“I’d rather sleep on the streets than stay in a shelter,” said Cornbread, who said his name came from “living on nothing but cornbread for the longest.” “I don’t want to deal with the shelters. If I have to be miserable, at least it’s self imposed.”

And with snow shovels collecting cobwebs and temperatures much warmer than average, the stubborn lot are given all the more reason to brave the elements, leading to less winter traffic at local shelters like the Bowery Mission.

“We still have a pretty steady flow of 130-140 men looking for shelter, and meals, but it’s definitely not as high as usual,” said Matt Krivich, director of operations and a nine-year veteran at the Bowery Mission.

“I’m guessing with five to six inches of snow and colder temperatures, we’d see a lot more people,” he said.

Instead of choosing the Bowery Mission, Cornbread treks out of the park during the evening, first to his “stash spot” where he keeps his collection of cold weather gear hidden from the desperate hands of his unsheltered comrades, then to his sleeping spot of choice, above a heating vent just outside of the United States’ Postal Office at Seventh Avenue and Houston Street.

“This isn’t a real winter,” Cornbread said. “We’re out in the sun right now. It feels like we’re out on a beach right now.”

Under the same sunny skies, Larry Reddick, 47, held up a cutout picture of “Shameless” star William H. Macy next to his face.

“Look at this guy, now look at me,” Reddick said, pulling off his winter cap to reveal his disheveled locks. “I could be his stunt double.”

Larry Reddick, 47, spends his nights on the steps of Judson Memorial Church, where he bundles up in stacks of cold weather gear donated to him over time. Photo by Eric Zerkel

Reddick hardly comes close to occupying a television screen; instead he spends his days and nights occupying Washington Square Park’s benches, playing the part of Adam, assigning names to the parks’ resident creatures. There’s “Choco,” a stout, Hershey-hued curmudgeon of a pigeon, and “Stinky,” the aptly named odorous squirrel. But his favorite is “Rosy,” one of the park’s two massive hawks that patrol the skies, snatching up the likes Stinky for an afternoon snack.

“There used to be five black squirrels in the park,” Reddick said, clutching his hand-me-down binoculars that dangled about his neck. “But thanks to Rosy, there’s only three.”

Like a homeless cartographer, Reddick is exacting in his surveyance of the park. So much so that he can point out each of the 109 “rat-holes” that cover the small stretch of park from Washington Square West to the park’s fountain-adorned core.

But it’s this sort of exacting nature that helps Reddick survive the winter.

“I’m not gonna freeze out here,” he said. “I didn’t come to New York from San Diego unprepared.”

Part of that preparedness is bag upon bag stuffed full of donated cold weather gear.

“I got snow pants, I got jackets, I got a mummy bag in here that’s good for 25 below,” Reddick said.

Reddick was quite adamant about sleeping outside, saying he preferred his spot at the top of the steps of Judson Memorial Church, but said it didn’t hurt that this winter was particularly warm.

“It has been a mild winter, but I’m not worried about sh**,” Reddick said. “Bring on the snow, I can’t wait.”

Unfortunately, not all of New York City’s homeless have the resources, or “spots,” of Reddick and Cornbread, nor do they share the same sentiments about the warm winter.

Larry Jackson, 56, speaks in muted tones, his hands too cracked and sore from the cold to shake hands. After losing his “dream job” as mortician in sunny Los Angeles, Jackson hitchhiked across the country, arriving in New York City on his last dollar and dying hope for work just eight months ago.

Larry Jackson, 56, spends his nights along the the East River and comes to Tompkins Square Park during the day to make and sells Cigarettes for 50 cents. Jackson has just one blanket and struggles to keep warm, even during one of the warmest New York City winters in history. Photo by Eric Zerkel

“When I came here it was nice and warm,” said Jackson. “Now, not so much.”

Unlike Reddick and Cornbread, Jackson is a newcomer to homelessness. He has just one blanket, and few friends among the vagrants of Tompkins Square Park.

He says he only opts for the Bowery Mission as a last resort, instead choosing his meager sleeping spot on a bench on the windy banks of the East River, where he says he “won’t be bothered” by those looking to take advantage of him.

“I just want a sleeping bag,” Jackson said. “God willing, if I can just get a sleeping bag, and a nice spot to squeeze into next to a building, I’d be good.”

While the warm winter continues to rage on, Cornbread, a 13-year veteran of the New York City streets, knows that those ill-equipped, like Jackson, face a grim future.

“This cold isn’t a joke,” Cornbread said. “I know two people who died out here. They were just sleeping out here, and they died.”

It was 10 p.m. on a recent Friday night and business was booming at The Experience Unisex Salon in Crown Heights. An interracial couple held an intimate conversation in French while they sat in the waiting area. A stylist tightly sewed wavy blonde extensions into her African-American customer’s hair. VH1 Soul played on the two large flat screen televisions filling the spacious salon with R & B.

Black-owned businesses like The Experience Unisex Salon are all over this working class neighborhood, which, according to the 2010 Census, is 72 percent black. But as gentrification seeps into the neighborhood, diversity has brought hope and new clients to this busy salon.

“We have clients of all backgrounds, Indian, White, Latinos, and Blacks,” said Khalil Wright, 37, the salon’s co-owner.

Wright and his partner Zakeyah Ryan, 32, opened the salon in 2006 and within three years noticed a change in clientele.

Blue-eyed and blond-haired, Nate Olson,29, has been a client of the Experience Unisex Salon since he moved to Crown Heights from Iowa three years ago.

“You can come here and talk to anyone about anything,” Olson said. “It’s definitely a place where all types of people catch up to talk about things going on in the community.”

The number of white residents in Crown Heights has increased 20 percent, according to the census data. For many of the black salon customers, this was their first time sharing a salon with white neighbors.

“I grew up in Crown Heights and before this shop, I’ve never been to a barbershop and a white man was in the chair,” said Amaechi Aneke, 30, as he watched his barber cutting a white customer’s hair.

On a recent visit, every customer was greeted with a hearty welcome from the staff and then waited patiently for a free stylist in one of the red, blue or yellow chairs.

“We are a black-owned business, but we don’t focus on the color of people, we see hair,” Ryan said.

Asian-Americans find a new hero from Pavement Pieces on Vimeo.

Gary Tsai emerged from Madison Square Garden late Friday night filled with swagger. Wearing perhaps the city’s most in-demand clothing item, a blue number 17 Knicks jersey, the Taiwanese-American student strutted outside the arena as if he were Jeremy Lin himself.

“He’s my hero,” said Tsai,23, referring to Lin, the New York Knicks point guard and the NBA’s first-ever Asian-American, who has stunned the basketball world with MVP-like averages of 27 points and 8.5 assists during six straight Knicks wins. “I wish I was him.”

Just a few weeks ago, Lin’s story would’ve seemed far-fetched had it been pitched as a Disney script: an undrafted and overlooked Harvard graduate, cut by two NBA teams and then picked up by the struggling Knicks.

‘Lin-sanity’, as the craze surrounding the 6-foot 3 guard has become known, has swept through New York City like an unexpected but glorious winter storm, and nowhere has its effect been as deeply felt as among many Asian-Americans, who have witnessed Lin’s rise to international stardom with particular pride.

To Tsai, a student and East Village resident, Lin is a pioneer who “gives Asian Americans hope.” He’s not alone in his sentiments.

In Chinatown, everybody has been paying very close attention to the Lin phenomenon, according to Mark Hokoda, an editor at Time Magazine and a neighborhood resident.

“It’s certainly getting attention, because how many sports heroes have [Asian-Americans] had?” said Hokoda, 55. “Like zero basically.”

At Yello, a quiet, modern bar on a sleepy, dimly lit Chinatown street, Lin’s remarkable 38-point performance against Kobe Bryant’s Lakers suddenly injected the space with the atmosphere of a rowdy sports tavern.

“This place was going nuts,” said Hokoda, a regular customer of the bar. “It was quite a scene.”

A night later, about two blocks away at Winnie’s Bar, a spirited crowd gathered around a big screen TV normally used for karaoke. Patrons cheered when Lin sunk a late game free throw to lead the Knicks past the Minnesota Timberwolves, as bartender Tommy Chen looked on.

“Usually it’s only me and one or two guys [watching basketball], that’s about it,” said Chen, 24.

But lately, he said, everyone from the neighborhood seemed to be dropping in to watch the Knicks.

Lin’s mystique – highlights of the quick, athletic guard scoring at will against some of the world’s best players – has also reached the Far East.

Lin, whose parents emigrated to the West Coast from Taiwan in the 1970s, has become “must see TV in Asia,” according to the Taipei Times, an English newspaper in Taiwan.

“This guy is crazy in China right now,” said Wayne Qin, 24, a Columbia University student from outside of Beijing, who chats regularly via social media with friends back home. “They think he is a hero.”

Qin and some fellow Chinese classmates were unable to snag tickets to the Lakers-Knicks game Friday night, so they instead caught the contest on a monitor just outside the main gate, where about 100 people had gathered. Lin is a hero among Chinese hoops fans, Qin said, because he undermines the stereotype that the only talented Asian basketball players are giant center types.

“It shows that we can play point guard,” said Qin, moments after the monitor showed a lightning-quick Lin zig-zag through the lane and convert on an acrobatic layup attempt. “We all love him.”

Lin’s ancestry, however, isn’t of primary importance to many Knicks fans – at least when compared to another, more significant matter.

“We needed a good point guard like this,” said Mike Paperz, 31, a hip-hop artist from the Bronx. “Now we’re definitely getting to the playoffs. He’s bringing New York back.”

Long after the red double-decker bus carried the newly crowned Super Bowl champs through the Canyon of Heroes, hundreds of Giants fans turned celebration into chaos.

A deep blue mob rode roughshod through Lower Manhattan’s Franklin Street, going on a two-block rampage that left at least two arrested, and an unmarked police car destroyed.

The incident started innocently enough, in the middle of Broadway at the intersection of Franklin Street, when the unruly fans started climbing up street signs, surfing through the crowd, and chanting, “Let’s Go Giants!” But quickly the mood changed.

In a crude homage to Eli Manning, fans of Big Blue chucked beer bottles and cans into the air, hitting some of their fellow fans in the face and drenching them in froth. The police quickly stepped in, forcing the group down Franklin Street towards Sixth Avenue.

Not content to simmer down, the group became increasingly brash, briefly jumping onto the roofs of the cars lining Franklin Street as they pleaded for their comrades to cheer them on. The group continued to the intersection of Franklin and Church Streets where they came to a standstill in front of police barricades, continuing to chant and pop confetti into the crowd.

The situation reached its crux when individuals from the crowd climbed onto an unmarked police car parked just inside the barricades. People from the mob took turns atop the police cruiser, first jumping up and down on the trunk and hood, before moving to the roof to get a higher vantage point.

When it became clear that damage was being done to the car, some fans climbed on top of the vehicle, catapulted themselves into the air, and body slammed the roof, collapsing it entirely. Another fan stomped the windshield of the vehicle, leaving it in shambles.

Giants fan Mohamed Yousef, 22, watched the incident unfurl.

“A bunch of people just took their shirts off and jumped on top of the police car,” Yousef said. “It was stupid, crazy, and unnecessary.”

After the car had taken a five minute beat-in, police quickly apprehended two of the shirtless ruffians, slamming them to the ground and cuffing them. The arresting officer had no comment on the incident, but verified that the destroyed car was in fact a police cruiser.

Ars Metnak, 22, said he had seen the same group of fans jumping on top of a van near the Century 21 in the Financial District earlier in the day.

“I don’t get it, the way they are acting is crazy,” said Metnak.

In an ironic twist, Herman Maisonave, 47, of Queens, stood just around the corner from where the perps sat in handcuffs, holding up a sign that read, “Please don’t arrest me. I’m not occupying Wall Street, just celebrating a Giants win!”

“I’m just here to poke fun at the NYPD, and give Giants fans something to laugh at,” Maisonave said. “I saw this coming.”

And while the rest of the dispersed mob lauded Maisonave’s sign as they walked by, the longtime Giants fan had harsh words for those that caused the bedlam.

“What they did, puts a sour note on all Giants fans,” he said.

In the early morning hours of November 15th, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg changed the face of Occupy Wall Street forever. Teams of police officers flooded the park, pulling protestors out of tents, sending them scrambling into the black of night, leaving in their wake the remnants of their 33,000-square-foot piece of paradise.

Before that moment Zuccotti was amorphous, a thermometer of the ever-changing scope of the Occupy Wall Street movement. In the early days, when the nights were warm and the company few, Zucotti resembled a mountain valley—a couple hundred protestors – heads resting against the cool, slick granite – dotting the otherwise open space like columbines, enveloped by the towering peaks of the financial district.

But as the movement grew, the park evolved. In true homage to Manhattan, space became a sought after commodity. Mattresses, airbeds and possessions wrapped in blue tarps turned Zuccotti into an ocean of inaccessibility; a stroll in the park was no longer an option. Tents sprang up in erector-set fashion—the domed domiciles, each decorated with the flair of their respective occupiers, made Zuccotti look more refugee camp than urban picnic spot.

One look at the park now and there’s no sniff of a revolution. When the sanitation plows rolled in after the raid of Zuccotti Park, they pushed out a nearly two-month accumulation of personal items: tents and tarps, homemade signs and mattresses, but most importantly, the occupiers. A Friday night at Zuccotti no longer hears the methodical beat of drums, or homegrown acoustic melodies set to lyrics of protestation.

Now the ground is clean, almost too clean for the outdoors; the sheen of granite reflects the sparkle of honey locusts draped in white lights; and the steps, once battered with the words, “All day, all week,” now only hear the laughter of a playful child.

The post eviction era of Occupy Wall Street kicked off with a march from Tribeca’s Juan Pablo Duarte Square back home to reclaim Zuccotti Park.

The march went largely unsupervised by the NYPD, culminating in the protestors spilling off the sidewalks and onto Broadway at Walker Street, holding up southbound traffic as they chanted and slowly stepped their way toward their former home.

When the crowd of several hundred reached Broadway and Chambers Street, they came to a standstill, dancing in circles, tapping their feet to the rhythm of drum beats and chants of, “Get up, get down, there’s a revolution in town.”

One man, clad in shirt and tie, called out from a second story window, pleading for the protestors to stop. But the clump of boisterous protestors stayed until NYPD officers, like cowboys on horseback, came streaking down Murray Street, blocking off Broadway and cutting off protestors, pushing them back onto the sidewalk.

No clashes with police ensued. The group reached Zuccotti Park where they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, smashed and clumped together.

The protestors were allowed back in the park in the evening, but are no longer allowed to camp there.