City Lit: Union City

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A book review of Working Class New York: Life and Labor since World War II, by Joshua B. Freeman, The New Press, $35, 432 pages.

After the Factory

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Swingline was more than a neon sign over Queens. For the workers who made staplers and staples there, it offered everything they needed to get a foothold in New York. A year after it closed, many are still struggling to find a job to call their own.

Bronx

Mommy Nearest

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The city is launching a visionary plan to house foster kids in the same neighborhoods they’ve been taken from. But for it to succeed, foster parents will have to get more than grief for their trouble.

Liu's Ends

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John Liu is poised to become New York’s first Asian City Councilmember. Now all he has to do is convince fractured Flushing he’s the one and only man for the job.

The Marshall Plan

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An advocate for the elderly and mentally ill says she’s doing clients a favor by moving them to supervised homes. There’s just one problem: she’s supposed to be preventing their eviction.

The Last Place They’ll Go

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Unemployed and unable to work while caring for a sick husband, Ellen Sorokina should be at the front of the line for housing assistance. She’s not. New rules say that working people get help first.

Latino

Cops and Collars

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After the Diallo verdict and Dorismond killing, a group of religious leaders kept the peace among furious Bronx residents. Now they want something in return: real community policing.