New York Is Full Of Models (It Only Takes A Camera To Change Your Mind)

In case you’re approached on the subway and asked if you’ve ever done modeling, know that it may not actually be for an episode of Candid Camera:

Every weekday evening, Simon Rogers rides the uptown No. 1 train from his job in the garment district to his home on the Upper West Side. He usually sits near the door for a good view of people climbing aboard, but on this day Mr. Rogers was seated near the center of the car because the train was crowded. Almost automatically, he began evaluating his fellow passengers, and his eyes found an older man in a newsboy cap and glasses.

There was something intangibly compelling about the man, and Mr. Rogers weaved his way through the throng of subway riders toward the stranger. As he approached, Mr. Rogers, a native of England, leaned in close. In a winsome British accent, he said quietly, “Excuse me, sir. I own a talent agency and I think you’d be good for it. There’s something unique about you.”

Mr. Rogers, who specializes in so-called real-people models, fished out a business card emblazoned with the name Ugly New York and handed it to his catch, who introduced himself as Russell Avery.

Before Mr. Avery could get the wrong idea, Mr. Rogers quickly added: “We have all kinds at my agency. All shapes, all sizes. Tall, short, fat, thin. Great-looking people, people who’ve really been hit with the ugly stick, and everything in between. If you’re interested at all, there’s a Web site at the bottom that you can check out and give us a call.”

After placing not just one but a second story in the Sunday papers, may he get a thousand voice mail messages tomorrow from hopefuls.

Potatoes Are So 1910 . . .

. . . so the knish gets gentrified:

They may say potato is king at Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery, but it is starting to get some competition from nontraditional ingredients.

While the bakery is still firmly devoted to its original savory and sweet cheese knishes, special knishes periodically appear on the menu that reflect the neighborhood’s changing tastes and demographics. As the knishery moves closer to its centennial in 2010, it now caters to a number of distinct crowds: the traditional knish lover who grew up on them; tourists who don’t know what a knish is; and a newer, younger generation that may not necessarily have had knishes before or know they are supposed to be eaten with a dollop of mustard.

With these varied groups in mind, Yonah Schimmel now produces special knishes, including jalapeno and cheddar, salmon and pizza — and even pumpkin-raisin in October and November.

“It tastes like pumpkin pie,” employee Dane Lepson said of the pumpkin-raisin knish.

“I invent lots of new ones,” Lepson said. “Do you know what the next knish is going to be?”

“Ice cream?” manager Alex Wolfman joked.

“Spinach and feta,” Lepson said.

This is a far cry from the knishes Yonah Schimmel himself made when he opened the store in 1910.

New York, In Its Gluttonous Quest To Provide Its Citizenry With Anything And Everything Anyone Could Possibly Desire, Even Offers 4H Club

So what does the Post do? They go with a lede that the neither the principal nor PTA will be able to photocopy and send around. Real thoughtful:

“Hoe” is not an insult at John Bowne HS in Queens — it’s a learning tool.

That’s because the 2,900-student Flushing school hosts the Department of Education’s sole agricultural program — with a 3.7-acre farm, barnyard animals and all — which made history yesterday by serving student-harvested crops on the lunch menu.

Yes, the five vegetables in the veggie wrap, the basil in the pesto sauce and the cherry tomatoes in the pasta dish were all homegrown, shipped hundreds of feet, not miles.

“It’s just unbelievable. I didn’t know it would be real hands-on stuff,” said senior Sasha Ford, 17, one of the 540 students who manage the farm.

“You get to plant the stuff, grow, harvest and sell them, and it makes people happy to buy them.”

Students spend two of their four years working year-round on the farm, which in addition to producing apples, raspberries and collard greens is also home to chickens, goats and alpacas.

Compost A Shark? Who Knew?

Three sightings makes a trend:

Sunbathers found a shark on Staten Island’s South Beach yesterday — a dead, blue-eyed beastie no more than 2 feet long.

The silver-skinned, dorsal-finned sand shark was no man-eater, but it fascinated beach-goers who found it floating near the northernmost end of the beach.

Victoria Torello of Prince’s Bay and Maria Sciabica of Grasmere called the city Parks Department in order to save the shark from becoming poked at and picked apart by seagulls and curious beachfolk. Parks scooped the animal into a black plastic bag and took it away, most likely to be trashed or composted.

“We just felt bad for it,” said Ms. Sciabica. “It’s God’s creature.”

Sand sharks are fairly prevalent in the New York Bay, according to marine environmentalist Jim Scarcella of the Natural Resources Protective Association, who occasionally sees them pulled up on fishing lines off the Ocean Breeze pier.

“They’re becoming more and more common because of changes in the ecosystem,” he said, noting that the scavengers will slither into shallow waters when food becomes scarce further in.

“The good news,” he added, “is that they pose absolutely no risk to bathers or swimmers.”

Another 2-foot sand shark, a live one, washed up at Coney Island over Labor Day weekend, prompting a lifeguard there to rescue it from the blows of frightened swimmers and coax it back to sea.

A 5-foot thresher shark also scared beachgoers at Rockaway Beach in Queens that weekend: A greater threat, because the thresher is known to be more aggressive, Scarcella said.

Greenmarkets And Their Ooh-I’m-So-Righteous 150 Miles Are For Chumps And Suckers

When a Brooklyn man eats only what he farms in his own backyard, we discover that “eating locally,” ironically, can go too far:

In three weeks of eating nothing but Farm-fresh food, I lost 29 pounds, down from my pre-Farm weight of 234. Abs: That’s the upside of only two meals a day. The downside is the expense. Not counting my own labor, which was unending, I spent about $11,000 to produce what, all told, is barely enough to feed one grown man for a month. But I did learn something about food: Unless you really know what you’re doing, raising it is miserable, soul-crushing work. Eating food fresh from the farm, on the other hand, is delightful.

(Hey, no need to punish yourself!)