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Byline: Jennifer Mascia, The Trace Angela Brooks will never forget the FaceTime call from her 10-year-old granddaughter, Nie'Mae. 'She said, 'Granny, please help us. Mama's dead,'' recalled Brooks, 58, a [...]

CORRECTION APPENDEDFor the first 54 years of her life, Cheryl McCray did not understand why she flew off the handle and suffered such violent mood swings. ''I had it all [...]

Anne Corso and her husband, Nicholas, did not believe the storm would be as bad as the news reports said it would be. They were wrong. ''We saw the water [...]

It was not love at first sight. ''He was making fun of me,'' Hlne Afon recalled of her first date with the man who would become her husband. It was [...]

James Glover was a product of a very different New York. In the early 1970s, his preoccupation was hustling, or selling, heroin, in Harlem. Raised in Morningside Heights, the youngest [...]

Since he came to the United States from Haiti 23 years ago, Fritz Salomon has spent most of his time hospitalized for a disease he barely understands. ''The first time, [...]

Two decades ago, millions of Eastern Europeans greeted the fall of the Soviet Union with relief and optimism. But Galina and Grigory Bobarykina, married parents of two who were living [...]

Connie Nelson is in love with the view from her 18th-floor balcony: The glittering towers and spires of Lower Manhattan have beckoned her each day for 20 years. ''This is [...]

Even at 17, Kathy Mallon had a strong will. Mopping floors at a convent in her native Ireland, she decided she had had enough. Defying her parents' wishes, she said, [...]

They came to Harlem for a communal turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Hundreds of families, many disadvantaged, took part in a tradition that stretches back 21 Thanksgivings: those who [...]

CORRECTION APPENDED Blair Munyan, a former United States Navy officer who served aboard a submarine off the coast of England in 1965, was reading an article about abandoned sea forts [...]

His last job was on a network sitcom that drew 15 million viewers a week. Now Charlie Sheen, fallen television star, delivers nonsensical, expletive-laced rants before an audience of roughly [...]

Seven years ago, when Maria Castro was told she had breast cancer, she was terrified by more than the thought of death; she was afraid her illness would put her [...]

Last Aug. 29 was supposed to be a night of celebration. But when Chaka and Carina Gathers returned from the hospital with their newborn son Cason, their third child, they [...]

For emergencies, there is 911. For noise complaints, there is 311. For those in dire straits on Staten Island, there is Devorah Weiss, a social worker whose cellphone number is [...]

When Adelaida Perez was struggling to find customers for her traditional Dominican cakes, her sister, Pura Espinal, prayed that business would improve. Soon after, it did. Ms. Perez, 48, is [...]

CORRECTION APPENDED Nathan Wiener, 82, and Robert Bartlett, 78, are soul mates. ''Bobby means everything to him,'' said Monica Vickers, Mr. Wiener's niece, one wintry Sunday while visiting the two [...]

Sometimes a single moment can sum up a lifetime of difficulty. Last summer, Amber Bufong, then 12, was at camp, taking part in an activity amid the treetops: it was [...]

Most of the time, Jose Ventura, 53, is unflappable. A building superintendent who presides over 86 apartments in Inwood, he fields calls from tenants day and night and battles for [...]

Twice a week, Olguita Rosado bundles up two of her three sons and boards two trains and a bus to Rikers Island to visit her husband, Jose, who is serving [...]

Teria McGhee has been steadily employed for the last three decades, raising four children -- and, beginning last month, a foster child -- largely on her own. They were getting [...]

Disease seems to be stalking Norma Hedgepeth's family. ''I'm an emotional roller coaster,'' she said one evening, wiping away tears as her husband and niece -- who are both fighting [...]

New York is so ethnically diverse that nearly every international calamity has a local dimension. The Southeast Asian tsunami reverberated in Jackson Heights, Queens; hurricanes that hit the Caribbean set [...]

On Christmas Eve, while bringing her mother soup as she lay in the hospital recovering from surgery, Odette Lupis slipped on some ice in the street and broke her wrist. [...]

When they lived in the Dominican Republic, Jose Alonzo's nine children socialized only occasionally, as they have three different mothers. Here in New York, seven of them are roommates in [...]

Khalilah El-Amin's apartment in Brooklyn is warm and inviting and smells like butter, the result of a batch of chocolate chip cookies she baked earlier. Her sons Emmanuel, 7, and [...]

When Orlando Garcia was selling crack cocaine, he was making $900 a day. ''I had everything I wanted,'' he said. And so did everyone around him -- he financed the [...]

Sharon Weir may not be happy that her son is openly gay and identifies himself as transgender, but she will fight for his right to exist in peace. ''He and [...]

At the flip of some switches on his computer, Jason Celik's room fills with a melodic hip-hop beat. After a few bars, his older brother's sleepy, streetwise rhymes kick in, [...]

Whenever life throws an obstacle in Desiree Whitlow's path, she simply changes direction. Her high school boyfriend strayed nine months after their daughter, Monae, was born, so Ms. Whitlow ended [...]

Larry Waldo's family is so large that annual reunions involve a printed program 50 pages thick, with updates on family members and a four-day itinerary. Though Mr. Waldo, 59, has [...]

Tyrone Garrett has been admitted to the hospital for manic depression more than a dozen times. ''I was in Brooklyn V.A., Manhattan V.A., Northport V.A., Kingsbridge V.A., Maimonides, Kings County, [...]

Lydia Monserrate lived in 13 foster homes in the past five years. But she is not an orphan. ''I asked my mom a thousand times if I could come back [...]

Preston Chaney is a man of few words. If he were given to boasting, he might reveal that he is the first person in his family to graduate from high [...]

The economic collapse has taken a toll on vast segments of society, but it has affected some groups disproportionately. Among those are children. The Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness [...]

''Her hands are stuck in a fist. She can't balance when she walks. When she's mad she starts throwing things, banging on tables and doors and walls. She can't really [...]

Arleen Griffith owes $1,500 in back taxes, wages a daily war against addiction and has asthma, emphysema and sarcoidosis, a potentially deadly inflammation of the organs. Yet Ms. Griffith, 53, [...]

Patricia Walsh says she is 58, but her sinewy appearance and the absence of gray hair make her look younger, as if the aging process has been frozen in its [...]

When Johana Calvache's husband received a cancer diagnosis, she did not panic. Even though her daughter had lost her eyesight to the disease at age 4, she did not descend [...]

When Melissa Razick was 7 months old, doctors told her mother that she would never speak, but her mother did not believe them. ''I said, 'She is going to talk,' [...]

Bae Reh and his wife, Moo Pro, were raised on a five-mile-long patch of land they were not permitted to leave, except to gather leaves to fortify the bamboo huts [...]

By the time Trumont Williams was 12, he was pocketing $30 to $50 a day as a lookout for crack dealers. This was in the late 1980s, when the drug [...]

In 2004, when Cynthia Turay was deciding what to call her beauty-supply shop in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, she wanted the name to reflect her bumpy journey. She settled on God's [...]

There is an armchair in the living room of Fran Sax's apartment covered with the stuffed toys that her patients have asked her to care for: Minnie Mouse sits next [...]

In Gladys Rosario's family, mental illness is not just an affliction but a legacy, one that has touched each member in a different way. Two of Ms. Rosario's brothers, Edwin [...]

Separation is Julio Santana's birthright. In the 1980s, his paternal grandfather legally emigrated from the Dominican Republic, settled in New York and began the process to legally sponsor his wife [...]

Devon Armstrong and Winifred Oldham do not hear the doorbell anymore. They say they get eight hours of sleep each night but barely have the energy to rise from the [...]

CORRECTION APPENDED Until Sept. 11, 2001, Dianne Romano was the one doling out charity, not the one receiving it. From the time Ms. Romano, 57, was a teenager, she ran [...]