When the six month anniversary of Hurricane Sandy arrives, it will be marked by homes that have yet to be rebuilt, possessions that have yet to be replaced, and lives that have yet to be mended.

Dick Zigun was ready for a two-foot flood. In three decades at Coney Island, every hurricane he had seen blew through like a tourist passing the board...

NEW YORK — Grants for homeowners to fix their properties, spending to install generators at public housing complexes and competitions to create ...

NEW YORK — Small businesses in New York City may be eligible for another $1 million in grants now available to help recover from Superstorm Sand...

While there is still optimism about rebuilding, it is now tempered -- by defiance and determination -- as well as by an accumulation of memories, filmed, told to, listened to, overheard, strung like pearls and worry beads on our all too human necks.

New York neighborhoods are changing thanks to Mayor Bloomberg's initiative MillionTrees NYC, which is making the landscape of the city greener, one tree at a time. But planting trees is only the first step in improving the NYC environment.

Sometimes it seems strange to give thanks for what we have when so much has been taken away. I went to the Rockaways for the first time the weekend after Hurricane Sandy hit New York, and then again this past weekend.

The opportunity to do service in Brighton Beach instilled in me a sense of appreciation. Being able to interact with individuals, see them eye to eye, talk to them face to face and hear their stories from their own mouths allowed it to all set in. It made it all real.

The new grassroots organizing group People's Relief and local residents have taken control of Hurricane Sandy relief efforts in several Coney Island public housing developments where government agencies' performance has been inadequate.

Most of the people I spoke with in Ocean Village said they need information: a centralized location where they can learn when their power might come back, what transportation is running, how they can get food stamps, or charge their phones.

With higher temperatures for longer periods and deep rain or snowfall, life is not easy. The costs of weather damage may trump complaints against a sluggish economy in less than two years. The next election will be a very interesting one.

With so many things in the path of destruction, the cleanup and reconstruction for Hurricane Sandy feels like watching a giant machine trying to pick up a billion match sticks one at a time.