By Vanessa Romo
Two more city bus lines will be restored along pre-9/11 routes on Monday, Nov. 14, returning service through Park Row. The decision by the N.Y.P.D. to resume service of the M15 and B51 along their original routes has been long awaited by Chinatown residents and business owners, who have not had access to this section of the street since 2002.

B.P.C. committee backs B-ball over tennis in park battle
By Ronda Kaysen
West Thames Park in Battery Park City will likely have the same activities it has now—basketball, community gardens, a tot lot and a dog run—when it is redesigned next spring as part of an overhaul of Route 9A.

With a new center, seniors finally have the floor
By Lincoln Anderson
To the pounding of a wooden kettledrum, clattering of cymbals and high stepping of traditional lion dancers, a new $7.3 million center for Chinatown seniors opened last Friday morning at Grand and Centre Sts.

City agrees to remove garbage trucks from park
By Albert Amateau
The eight-acre Gansevoort Peninsula, used for decades to park garbage trucks, burn trash and store highway salt, will be ready to become part of the Hudson River Park in January 2013, according to an agreement last week settling a lawsuit by Friends of Hudson River Park and a group of elected officials against the city.

Chinatown building evacuated because of carbon monoxide
By Daniel Wallace
The apartment building at 20 Mulberry St. was evacuated at 1:45 a.m. Wednesday morning due to an incident of carbon monoxide exposure resulting from a faulty water heater in the building’s basement.

Vintage shoe store finds a toehold on Hester St.
By Christie Rizk
Girls Love Shoes is not your average shoe store — it’s a history book of shoes within four walls. A cozy, small shop on the Lower East Side, Girls Love Shoes is a vintage shoe store, showroom and archive. The store’s owner, Zia Ziprin, is a fashion designer by trade, but got involved in buying and selling vintage shoes by accident some years ago.

Pulling the words from the ruins
By Charles Graeber
Poetry, says Lawrence Joseph, is the highest form of expression. The 58-year-old poet, who doubles as a law professor at St. John’s University, also believes it is the best medium in which to chronicle our times. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—Joseph has a particularly good vantage point to do this sort of work: he happens to live just blocks from Ground Zero, the site of the biggest, paradigm-shifting event of the 21st century (thus far).