You can set your clock by Dana D'Ascoli. Every morning in every kind of weather, she's in Astoria Park logging lightning laps from 5 to 6. And it's not just around the park. Dana's running role in life has been careering away from things she doesn't love to do.

Students at Zoe's school typically take five years to graduate, earning not only a high school diploma but also an associate degree from LaGuardia. Zoe, one of the younger students, is squeezing everything into four years.

Kelly, who just turned 28 and wears a glass-encased live root around her neck, makes her living helping companies grow conscious lifestyle brands online. Her road to conscious consumerism started in, of all places, Long Island, the land of conspicuous consumption.

Don't let the rocking chair fool you. Sure, Norm Sherman is sitting in it shoeless, but he has no real need of rest or relaxation.

Giuseppe Falco pulls a chair up to the table and pours himself a cup of coffee. Pachanga Patterson, his Mexican restaurant with a New York accent, doesn't open until evening, but his day starts at 10 a.m., and he'll be around until at least 8.

I live in what people in the neighborhood call one of the "big houses." The lot is only 20 by 100, which, by Astoria standards, is an average size. It looks big because it is set back from the street, separated from the sidewalk by a terraced lawn that steps up like a tiered wedding cake.

Police are searching for teens involved in a massive Queen brawl that was caught on video and uploaded to WorldStarHipHop.com. A 14-year-old girl ...

There's a matched pair of elephants on Yogi Lala's front sign. You can't miss them because each one is balancing a diamond the size of the Ritz on the end of its upturned trunk.

It's Sunday morning, and the Chabad of Long Island City is at rest. The same cannot be said of the Rabbi Zev Wineberg and his wife, Rivka, who are busy planning for the coming week.

Seventeen thousand. Manfred Edenhofer is embarrassed to admit that that's all the miles he has put on the 2000 ocean-grey Nissan Altima sitting serenely in his driveway.

He shrugs his shoulders and adds the words "Happy Birthday Joey," among the few he knows how to write in English, to the cake. He stands back to look at his work. He smiles.

NEW YORK -- A hotel boom is luring tourists out of Manhattan and across the East River to the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City, where 15 hotels...

It's not the awning. That Italian-flag green flap of fabric is pretty pedestrian. No, what attracts attention to Cassinelli is that it's shuttered so much of the time.

Owen McKagen a strapping young "yes, ma'am" gentleman of the South who looks as though he stepped out of a Tennessee Williams play, has a bright idea to create an aquaponic device the size of a microwave that has an aquarium on the bottom and a garden on the top.

Judy Lopez sits on the couch sipping a soda. Her husband, Ricky, settles into the recliner with Dixie, a bug-eyed pug, riding shotgun on its ample arm. It doesn't get better than this. The trio is content to tune in to the flat-screen TV.

The diamond engagement ring doesn't come off Ronnie Hartley's finger easily. For nearly 46 years, she's worn it, ever since Roger, her dear and dearly departed, gave it to her.

At 9 on the button, when the shop officially opens, Roz puts on her uniform. The cherry-red satin bowling jacket with the Admiral name on it matches her glossy lipstick.

"We all have many different voices," he says. "The voice is such an amazing instrument that I feel like a mad scientist who does different things with it. Like a painter, I try different colors out. It gives me joy every day of my life."

Its future is uncertain, and time may stop for it.

One thing has to be perfectly clear at the start: Joan Murphy doesn't have much to say. So she's set the kitchen table for tea. And she's made some of her banana nut bread so things won't be a total loss.

Two vats of sauce are simmering on the stove when Tina comes on duty at Trattoria L 'Incontro. There's enough to feed an army or two. She recalls the first time she had to make such a big batch. How did it turn out? Perfecto!

She wanted to get off of her feet. That's why Suzi Winson went up in the air. On the flying trapeze. It really was as simple and as complicated as that.

George Phillips, a fire hydrant with Einstein's frizzled hair, is the owner of Astoria Music, but it's more fitting to call him a one-man band because ever since he took over the shop three decades ago, he's remained its one and only employee.

I look left. I look right. Curiously, the carol isn't coming from a car stereo. Or a store. I'm not Dorothy, but I stare at my shoes; will Santa and his sleigh go away if I click my bronze MBTs three times?