The Manhattan Times

Shhhh!

Shhhh!

While Yankee fans had their long-awaited return trip to the Canyon of Heroes the other week, Mets fans have had very little to cheer following the team’s injury plagued season.

It’s been a particularly difficult time to be a Mets fan for the youngest New Yorkers, such as Tarik Ramadan, 6, whose short life has included a heart-breaking loss in the playoffs followed by the team’s epic collapses in the final days of the last two seasons.

Yet he’s such a fan of the Amazings that he’s memorized all the players’ numbers and even speaks the names Strawberry, Gooden and Hernandez in properly deferential tones.

Last month he and his father, Zead, were in Times Square when who should they pass but the head Met himself, General Manager Omar Minaya.

After Zead told his son who it was, Tarik spontaneously called out, “I love the Mets,” just as Minaya was stepping off a curb. As Zead described it, the GM melted and walked over to the youngster.

“We had a really rough year,” Minaya said. “I promise you we’ll be champs next year. Stick with us.”

Shhhh!

Riverstone Senior Life Services staged its annual fundraiser Thu., Nov. 12 with an evening devoted to Honoring Our Stories, profiling the many different ways the center’s seniors are telling their life stories through writing and art.

Several seniors displayed artwork – some of which had been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art under a special program. Another group of seniors presented lap robes they had made for residents at Isabella Geriatric Center. And participants in the Riverstone Memory Club read stories they had written about their lives, including Irma Seguinot, Candido Sencion, and Hector Bori.

Besides being a great way to pass the time, Riverstone executive director Rebecca Carel said “Art is a wonderful way of expressing yourself and exercising your brain.”

The evening’s refreshments were provided by the usual suspects, X-Caffe, Coogan’s, Carrottop, Boca Chica and El Presidente, as well as newcomer Vines on Pine.

Shhhh!

Local blogger Alex Castex-Porter of the Uptown Current noted in a recent post that the latest release of the Grand Theft Auto video game series now has an added module called The Ballad of Gay Tony that, to some degree, is inspired by Northern Manhattan.

The character Luis Lopez is a Dominican-American from the neighborhood of Northwood, which includes some features of the local landscape, although not the GWB. While users of the video game can have their players perpetrate all manner of bad behavior, Porter argues that it doesn’t necessarily give Dominicans a bad name. In fact it’s a rare instance of a Latino being elevated to the starring role in a video game narrative, and the first Dominican to rise to video game prominence who wasn’t an alter ego for a real life major league baseball player. Of course, Porter notes, Lopez does from time to time use a baseball bat to beat people to death.

Shhhh!

And kudos to Martin Collins who was recently promoted from community liaison to deputy chief of staff in the office of Assembly Member Adriano Espaillat. While the position likely comes with new responsibilities and challenges, hopefully he won’t entirely abandon his ongoing battle with the district’s broken street lights and graffitied mailboxes.