OFTEN GHETTOIZED INTO the cobwebbed recesses of haunted houses, Tim Burton’s triumphant oddities and alluring grotesqueries are now anointed by one of the world’s elite cultural circles. Halloween’s pumpkin glow may have barely drained from New York’s autumnal complexion, but all things diabolical and dark will be resurrected beginning Nov. 22, as the auteur unveils over 700 never-before-seen storyboards, paintings, drawings, puppets, costumes, sculptures and ephemera at the Museum of Modern Art. It’s a goth girl’s dream (nightmare?) come true.

A SECT OF enlightened individuals lives among us. Their beliefs encompass shamanism, a 2012 doomsday scenario, obscure psychedelic drugs, mysticism, yoga, UFOs, crop circles, occasional communication with Mayan deities and the lingering suspicion that Obama is part of a robot conspiracy. Writer Daniel Pinchbeck headlines the movement, known as Next Age. He sells hundreds of thousands of books and travels around the world, lecturing at festivals and countercultural conferences. I met him a few months ago at his favorite East Village hang, a pirate-themed espresso bar on East Ninth Street and Avenue C to discuss the movement, drug use and what it will be like when the “end of the world” approaches.

You’re my first Web crush since 1997.” The window of the Gchat box flashed green, telling me David had typed a new message.When I read his confession, I felt a girlish pride for winning his attention, but also a sense of hesitation, guessing that Web crushes could only be reserved for pervs, nerds or socially awkward types. A lustful admission was a bit of a creepy thing for David to say considering we hadn’t even met. He was on the other side of the Atlantic chatting to me from Amsterdam while I sat in my Williamsburg loft, hugging my glowing white MacBook to my chest.

Virginia Bartlett, whose proud cleavage and ageless figure embodies the classic glamour of a Latina Sophia Lauren, swears incredible things happened at the Studio Coffee Shop in Hell’s Kitchen. The 68-year-old blond Puerto Rican spent over a decade as the coffee shop’s sole waitress and when she walks down the street she’s still recognized by many. The place, which was no bigger and just as grimy as a doughnut cart, once stood on the ground floor of the Film Center Building on Ninth Avenue between West 44th and 45th streets and has since been transformed into Nizza, an Italian-French restaurant.

For a quintessentially Brooklyn writer, Jonathan Ames sounds awfully L.A. When we caught up with Ames, whose new HBO show Bored to Death premiered on Sunday, he was driving to a rental car depot to renew his wheels. Still, he managed to find some time for the paper he used to toil at to talk about Craigslist, Russian baths and the secrets of his success.

Beyond the tourists listening to live Lennon covers at Strawberry Fields and the jazz band playing on the grass, another sound emerges from the depth of the trees in New York's Central Park: the low bass of dance music. A closer look reveals figures who look like they could have stepped out a 1970s theme movie—perhaps Roll Bounce or the equally disco-tastic Roller Boogie. The weekly dance skaters whizz by in a roped-off oval area, doing what they have done for the past 30 years. And then Lezly Ziering takes the lead.

WISH I COULD blame nuclear weapons, a mutant virus or Hitler for the malformation in my Russian Jewish bloodline, but my theory is a suicide gene. That coupled with an inability to bond during difficult times. We held our sorrow separately, a silent pact—if we didn’t put words to it, nothing was awry. With a child’s vocabulary I tried to convey the dark storms in my head, but felt my efforts swept aside. “What the hell does that kid have to be depressed about?” Dad asked. Mom shushed him. I was unglued and my family found me exhausting.

Winter, December 1991, on the phone. “So you know what I was thinking?” Andreas asks. “What?” “I was thinking if maybe we might want to think about getting married.”

"In the federal trial, AIG alleges that ousted CEO Maurice 'Hank' Greenberg left AIG in 2005 with 290 million shares of illegally seized stock, since sold for an estimated $4.3 billion ..." "A consortium led by Kumho Investment Bank has taken over the headquarters " The disintegrating company's news Googles into my inbox, like jagged rocks down an avalanche. I could tell you about AIG.

So, you throw a five dollar bill into the hat that I’m holding out for you (thank you, sir), and then she’s dancing, just for you, sliding up and down your lap, and turning around to give you a look at those two breasts, those perfect little wonders, those pasty-covered tetas, as she brings her body close enough to make you smell the peaches and cream lotion that’s all up and down her perfect porcelain skin, making you think, oh yeah, that’s right, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

At 71, Fredericka Nelson should be the one being taken care of. After 40 years of cleaning offices to support a family on her own, the Brooklyn mother of six and grandmother of 21 thought she’d enjoy growing old in peace.

Michael Gruson, a successful attorney, got the worst possible news from his doctor in March 2005: His persistent headache was more serious than anything an aspirin could cure. It was the symptom of a malignant brain tumor. A partner at Shearman & Sterling and the head of an eight-member household, Gruson, 69, was accustomed to success and responsibility. Now, with stage-four brain cancer, he was at life’s mercy.

We spend more money on healthcare in the last months of life than at any other time. It’s when we’re sickest and most in need of medicine, doctors and intensive care. According to estimates, nearly 30 percent of Medicare’s annual $327 billion budget goes to caring for patients in their final year of life.

HE WEARS A black hoodie to protect himself from the cold rain. The baby-faced guy is Dominican, probably in his early twenties. He rushes by me at the Graham Avenue L train entrance, pauses and asks, “Matt?” I nod. He leads me down the stairs, examines me silently. Once he’s satisfied that I’m not a threat, he takes $30 from my left hand and pushes a sealed bag of Cheez Doodles into my right jacket pocket. Without another word, he splits for the opposite staircase and races back above ground. I check my watch. It’s 6:30 on a Saturday night under a busy Williamsburg intersection, and I’ve just scored three bags of “Nike” heroin, all hidden inside a re-sealed bag of chips.

"IF SOMETHING HAPPENS, you have nowhere to complain,” says Anna, a 38-year-old West-African nanny. “It makes me worried.” For most of her seven-year career as a nanny, Anna has been fortunate to work for two families that have paid her a decent wage for roughly nine hours of work a day. Her duties usually include taking the children for a stroll or to play dates, cooking dinner in the evening and cleaning.

Unemployed restaurant deliveryman Jianhua Wang says there’s no help left for him in New York’s Chinatown. Not in this economic climate. “Chinatown is full of compatriots,” he says, “but there are many cheaters.”

The first time the police handcuffed Yolanda Hernandez, her child-sized wrists slipped through the rings, so she handed the metal restraint back to the cops. “You don’t need these,” she said, going peacefully to the police station. “I don’t hurt anyone.”

TWENTY-SIX MINUTES after last call on August 23, a loud pop sent a wave of jitters through the weekend drunks, bouncers, desperate lonely-hearts and wide-awake cokeheads hanging out on the Avenue A strip between East 12th and 14th streets. Just as they settled back into their cigarettes and drawn-out good-byes, another bang! rocked them.

IN THE UNITED STATES alone, statistics show that nearly 200,000 women may be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and more than 40,000 might die from the disease.

Recent reports claim that we may have weathered the worst part of the current recession. But the economic slump hasn’t seemed to abate the new development that continues apace on Manhattan’s West Side. As construction workers hammered away at a high rise on the northeast side of West 53rd Street and 10th Avenue last Tuesday, politicians and community members gathered across the street at P.S. 111 to voice their concerns about the severe overcrowding in Hell’s Kitchen public schools projected for the next decade.