Jewish & World News

The bucolic farms of middle America are getting some stiff competition from the rooftops of New York City. A growing number of commercial farms housed several stories high throughout the city are producing crops year-round — in many cases without even using dirt.

David Pabana was standing on a sidewalk one day this fall when a baseball some children had been playing with rolled into the fence behind him. He threw the ball back to the children. It was at once the most routine act of neighborliness and one of the strangest journeys a baseball can make in New York City. When the ball left Mr. Pabana’s hand, it was in Queens. When it landed, the ball was in Brooklyn.

Queens, New York - Brazen fare-beaters skip turnstiles once every 10 minutes at one Queens subway station - right under the noses of token booth clerks. More than 157 riders were spotted sneaking through an emergency exit into the subway system at the Elmhurst Ave. station on the Queens Blvd. line during a one-day survey in March.