Shun the conventional dates this Feb. 14

Whether you’ve been with your significant other for a while or you’re spending Valentine’s Day with someone you just met on the train—or even if you’re single but ready to mingle—you don’t want to go on the same old boring dates year after year. If you’re into committing a charitable act, being spontaneous, devouring sweet treats or doing all three, Our Town has the hookups to guarantee your Valentine’s Day—and week—is as saucy and unconventional as possible.

Donate Blood
What’s sexier than banding together to save lives? What’s more straight-from-the-heart than your own blood? Especially after Hurricane Sandy, which has driven the demand for blood in the city higher than ever. Visit the New York Blood Center’s website to schedule a blood donation or find a drive in your area. If you’re a little woozy post-donation, you can cling to one another as you sip from paper cups of apple juice and nibble on cookies.
nybloodcenter.org

Cupid’s Undie Run
If you want to bond this Valentine’s Day weekend without your clothes on, consider Cupid’s (one-mile) Undie Run through Chelsea and the Meatpacking District. The run will take place Feb. 9 at 2:30 p.m. and includes a post-run celebration at the Brass Monkey bar. All proceeds from the event benefit the Children’s Tumor Foundation. Who ever said stripping down couldn’t be charitable in more ways than one? cupidsundierun.com/NYC

Craigslist It Up
If you and your other half want to spice things up this year, consider posting a “missed connection,” “casual encounter” or personal ad to each other on Craigslist. Be smart with this one; while it’s always fun to be spontaneous and a bit exhibitionistic, remember Craigslist is a public forum and whatever you post is definitely not for your eyes only. craigslist.com

Literary Speed-Dating
If you’re a part of that “still looking for a date” crowd—and maybe just a little bit nerdy—the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in Soho has just the event for you. On Feb. 13 at 7 p.m., the bookstore will be hosting “literary speed-dating” for those who would “rather be judged by their book cover.” While the event is currently sold out, it’s still possible to get on the waiting list, and the bookstore guarantees more similar, coveted events in the future for those who sign up.
126 Crosby St.; housingworks.org/bookstore

The OkCupid Show
Want to learn what not to do this Valentine’s Day? The Housing Works Bookstore Cafe is also hosting a night of dating-horror-storytelling with writers from big-name magazines sharing stories on Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. Consider this a primer on how to behave this V-Day whether you’re meeting someone from the Internet or not.

Gelato Workshop
If you just want to get straight to the sweet stuff this holiday, consider a gelato/sorbet workshop class with your date at Mia Chef Gelateria in Murray Hill. The gelateria hosts 14 different evening classes all through February where expert artisans teach the ancient art of gelato-making. Bring home the fruits of your labor to spoon feed each other while you cuddle up on the love seat in front of your favorite romantic flick.
gelatomia.com

Beginner Salsa Classes
Get intimate with that special someone on this year’s day of love by engaging in a little spicy salsa action (no, not the eating kind). Baila Tango in Midtown West hosts $20 beginner salsa classes for four evening dates in February. Learn the basics from an expert and wow your date on the dance floor with your new moves … or giggle flirtatiously as you stumble over each other’s feet and collapse clumsily into each other’s arms.
bailatango.com

Bank Robbery of the Week

Stolen from Shutterbug
A local professional photographer was dismayed to discover last week that someone had broken into his car and stolen a large black bag filled with expensive camera equipment. The front window had been smashed in, and the unknown perp absconded with $22,000 worth of photography loot.

Very Open House
A couple was packing up their West End Avenue apartment to move when the wife noticed that her diamond stud earrings were missing. She told police that they had been in a jewelry box in a bedroom closet when they were holding regular open houses from February to April, and she hadn’t checked on them since. The sparkly pair was worth $17,800.

Short-Changed Mugger
A 15-year-old was walking down West 78th Street last week when an older teenager approached him from behind and said, “You have five seconds to empty your pockets.” He then stepped in front of the victim to prevent him from fleeing and shoved his hand into the boy’s front pocket to dig for valuables. He came up with a whopping $3 in cash and took off.

A Friendly Robbery
Last Saturday night, a 62-year-old Upper West Side resident was enjoying herself at a local pub, catching the basketball game and tossing back a few. She left to grab some Chinese food and was walking down West 84th Street when a man approached and struck up what she remembers as a “friendly conversation,” until it turned violent. The man suddenly hit the poor woman, who, being intoxicated, fell to the ground and injured her left elbow and knee. The perp snatched $200 in cash from his victim and fled.

Motorcycle Getaway
Last Friday around 2:30 p.m., a witness watched as a couple of beefy guys pulled off a high-end motorcycle heist on Central Park West. The thieves pulled up in a green Plymouth Voyager van with Virginia plates, lifted a Suzuki motorbike into the back and drove off. The 2009 model moped is worth $10,000. Police are still analyzing security camera footage of the theft.

Date Night Gets Ugly
After finding himself the victim of a nasty blackmail scheme, a local 51-year-old man finally brought the police into a sordid situation. The man told cops that he had been trawling the “women seeking men” section of Craigslist recently, looking for a date for the night. He corresponded with one woman over email, then on the phone, and arranged for her to come to his apartment. After speaking to her again, however, the man said he grew uneasy with her demeanor and cancelled the date, feigning illness. She phoned back and asked to meet, which he declined, then it took a turn toward extortion.
An unknown gentleman called the victim demanding he pay $40 for the woman’s cab fare. The demand soon escalated to $440, and the perp told him to get cash from the ATM, put it in an envelope marked “Chris” and give it to his doorman for pick up. After the victim agreed and followed through, the perp shook him down twice more for a total of $940 by threatening to break down his door and kill him if he didn’t cooperate. The victim put a stop to it by calling the police.

iPhone Bandit Still on Prowl

Keep your cell phones in your pockets. The iPhone “Lone Ranger” is still on the loose, working the 90s between Third Avenue and Riverside Drive. The thief rides up to people on a bike while they are chatting on the phone and snatches it out of their hand mid-conversation, making a getaway before they can do anything about it. So far, there have been 18 reported incidents. Police are still on the lookout for him and advise people to safeguard their cells, only using them when necessary.

Linsanity Causes Thiefsanity

An Upper East Sider got more than he bargained for when he purchased Knicks tickets off of Craigslist. The victim met up with the potential ticket seller at 68th Street and Lexington Avenue, where he paid $250 for a pair of Knicks tickets. Later, when he showed up at Madison Square Garden, he was told that the tickets were forged.

Cell Phone Commotion

A young woman was walking on 82nd Street and York Avenue, talking on her cell phone, when two men jumped her, pushed her to the ground and tried to take the phone. The woman fought back, screaming as loud as she could, but it was to no avail. The men pried the phone loose and took off running down the street.

Waiting on a Train

A 21-year-old woman was preparing to get on the train at the 59th Street station when a perp came up and struck her in the left side of her face, grabbing her wallet. The thief made off with $16.

All’s Well That Ends Well 

The police happened to be in the right place when a woman was walking on 88th and Lexington and a thief snatched her bag and took off running. Far from being scared, the woman chased after him and followed him back to a car the thief jumped into, starting the engine. Seeing that the passenger side door was open, the feisty female reached in to grab her purse right as the thief gunned the engine, throwing her to the ground before she could take back her property.

But luck was on the victim’s side. A police sergeant happened to be passing by and she was able to flag him down. The two went in hot pursuit and caught up with the thief, who had ditched the bag out the window when he saw that he was being followed. Too bad a couple of witnesses saw him trying to get rid of the evidence.

The criminal was arrested and taken to jail.

Early Commute Surprise

A man was heading down the stairs of the 68th Street station to go to work when he felt a sharp object against his back and heard a voice say, “Don’t even call. You know what time it is.” The man handed over his wallet, $95 and a Metrocard. The thief headed east on 68th Street.

New York is a city with a booming elderly population—there are over 3.4 million people over the age of 65 living here. With that aging population come the predators who single out older victims for their nefarious swindles. In an age of small-time Internet scams and big-time Ponzi schemes, everyone is a potential victim of financial crimes, but the elderly are particularly at risk and are often targeted by would-be criminals.

Take, for example, the case of an 82-year-old widow living on the Upper East Side. The elderly victim was robbed of $53,000 over a period of several months as 30-year-old Sylvester McCoy stole checks from her home and forged her signature many times over.

Or think of the example, perhaps made worse by the victim-perpetrator relationship, of Peter Wilde, who abused the power of attorney he exercised over his aging parents to steal over $1 million from the couple. Or the case of Carolyn Turner, a home aide to an 81-year-old woman living on the Upper West Side, who stole over $25,000 from her employer. Turner swiped the victim’s debit cards and forged checks without her permission in order to make credit card and car payments not only for herself but for her adult children as well.

These are just a few of the cases that have been prosecuted in the past year, and those only show the crimes that are reported and solved, an outcome not always feasible for elderly victims. “What is common for all these and for so many elder abuse cases is they take place based on existing relationships, whether it’s a home health aide, a family member or someone trusted and known to the senior—that’s the vulnerability that the defendant takes advantage of,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance in an interview.
The Elder Abuse unit in the DA’s office specifically investigates and prosecutes cases of financial fraud and other types of elder abuse. They take on roughly 650 cases each year and work to prevent crimes; Vance has spoken at senior centers around the city, hoping to give seniors the tools they need to recognize suspicious situations and the confidence to report crimes when they happen.

“There is just an enhanced vulnerability when you get older,” Vance said. “There is a reluctance to either know what’s going on or, even if you know what’s going on, to have the courage to report it because it might be people who are in fact taking care of you.”

Sometimes, the person is not a family member but someone an older person has come to trust. The Council of Senior Centers and Services (CSC), an umbrella group that represents New York City’s senior centers, has collected stories of elder abuse in which city services have been able to intervene and help.

One case involved an 80-year-old man living on the Upper West Side who met a 46-year-old woman at a ballroom dancing class and befriended her. When his friend said she needed $38,000 to get her harassing landlord off her back, he willingly loaned it to her, then allowed her to move in when she lost her apartment anyway. Within months, this former friend became a threatening roommate who refused to pay back the loan and routinely threatened to kill her victim.

“Over 30 percent of elder abuse cases are perpetrated by family members and friends,” said City Council Member Jessica Lappin, who chairs the Council Committee on Aging. “It’s important for people to know that there are support services out there for them. If they are being exploited, they should feel comfortable about speaking up.”

The scams that target older people are often complex and well-oiled. Mortgage scams or deed thefts, in which people trick seniors who are homeowners into signing away their savings or their property, are common. Donna Dougherty, the attorney in charge of legal services at Jewish Association Serving the Aging, said seniors who have their lives, finances and wits about them can still get taken by these types of scams.

“I’ve had people who have lost their entire savings and whatnot, and they were professional people. I had someone who had worked at the Federal Reserve and got taken by a mortgage scam. It was terribly embarrassing to her; she was brilliant with finances,” said Dougherty. “You have to understand that it’s a crime. They really are looking to give you false information and mislead you; it has nothing to do with intelligence.”

While those crimes usually require a personal connection to the victim, some criminals chose their targets at random, anonymously.

“There are scams going on when a [person pretending to be a] grandchild who lost a wallet calls and needs a ticket home,” said Bobbie Sackman, director of public policy at CSC. “They’re preying on people’s fears that they’re alone. Some people might not have their full cognitive abilities, so they just prey on these older folks to get whatever it is they want to get. That’s a common one, when they call from another place.”

Police reports confirm the trend. Officer Ross Dichter, crime analyst for the Upper West Side’s 20th Precinct, said that identity theft and online scams are some of the fastest growing crimes, and he routinely comes across reports targeting elderly victims.

“Someone approaches an older person on the street, they say, ‘Hey I found this envelope with $50,000 in it, go get me $5,000 and we’ll split this between the two of us, no one has to know,’” Dichter explained, describing a scheme he said happens all the time. The victim goes to the bank, takes out thousands of dollars in cash and hands it over. The swindler gives up their “share” and quickly disappears, leaving the elderly person with an envelope stuffed with tissue paper and out five grand.

Another common scam is through Craigslist, when a scammer answers an ad posted by an older person advertising a service like babysitting. The swindler corresponds and agrees to pay the person in advance, then sends a check for far too much money. The scammer then claims it was a mistake and asks the person to mail back the difference in cash; meanwhile, the check bounces and they become unreachable.

Some schemes that target elderly victims aren’t necessarily criminal but fall into the category of consumer fraud. Council Member Gale Brewer said that her older constituents are bombarded by mailings soliciting information from them and that they often get confused about what is legitimate and what’s not. She has also heard of scams that collect low monthly payments in exchange for supposed ownership of land or property, which turns out to be for nothing—send in $10 a month and get a piece of land in Florida, for instance—that operate just this side of legally through complicated fine print disclaimers.

“They can make $80 million a week off of these scams. They’re not small operations,” Brewer said. “They have the best attorneys in the U.S. and they usually stay just above the law. They only prey on the elderly. You can’t quite believe that people would actually do these things but they do.”

Advocates say there are ways for seniors to protect themselves and for loved ones to be on the lookout for signs of financial exploitation. The DA’s office has worked to educate major banks to be aware of unusual transactions in their older clients’ accounts, and anyone helping an elderly relative should be alert for changes in spending or strange bills being delivered. Dougherty cautions that anyone who tries to isolate elderly people and not allow them to seek outside advice should not be trusted.

“Seniors, like everybody else, need to be vigilant without necessarily being fearful,” Vance said. “Being vigilant may be something as simple as checking your credit card statement, checking your bank statements. When someone calls you on the phone and it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

My alarm would go off every morning at 5:20 a.m. I would throw on a grimy brown T-shirt, often still stained from the night before, dingy Nike sneakers and too-tight jeans. My blonde hair was carelessly thrown into a ponytail or braid, I wore no makeup and usually chipped nail polish. To top off my look, I had to wear a tan baseball cap two sizes too big. This was my typical attire as a food service worker at one of New York City’s most popular bakeries.

No, I never aspired to work in a bakery. I was just one of the many recent college graduates in 2009 that had either been laid off or were “underemployed.”

I had struggled for six months to find full-time work and was only able to find temping gigs on Craigslist (working as a receptionist at a real estate office, collecting signatures for nonprofits, cleaning the sides of boats out in Connecticut). Needless to say, my work history was about as irregular as my birth control routine—when I finally landed a full-time job at a swanky Chelsea bakery, I thought, This is great! But in the world of food service, that excitement quickly dwindled into burnout.

It took two solid hours to open the bakery. The inventory: an endless array of cookies, cakes, brownies, scones, muffins and breads. The appeal to eat any of it was quickly diminished by the overpowering and sometimes nauseating smell of sugary sweetness.

The bakery opened promptly at 7:30 a.m. and, like a bank or the DMV, people would line up out the door, eagerly drooling over the chocolate croissants, apple coffee cake and lemon bars. I generally gravitated to making the drinks—less interaction with people, less shifting around. Coffee, lattes, hot chocolates, macchiatos, americanos—all, basically, drinks I could never afford.

The rule I was taught was two shots for a large cappuccino, one shot for a small, followed by a lot of foam and just a touch of steamed milk. I never followed this rule. I made all of the drinks, cappuccinos and lattes, exactly the same (no measuring, no concept of espresso to milk ratio). Even the toughest coffee connoisseur never questioned my barista skills; any complaints I got were because the drinks were too hot. Looking back, my drinks probably tasted terrible.

We had another rule at the bakery that I never understood. The idea of stellar customer service entailed putting the milk and sugar in the customer’s coffee. If someone asked for two packets of Equal in their coffee, it was, “Of course, absolutely.” The problem with this was that the majority of the time, customers would complain that you put too much or not enough of something in, defeating the purpose of the ass-kissing.

After the initial 9 a.m. rush of grumbly people on their way to work passed, life at the bakery slowed—but not for long. There were still salads and sandwiches to be brought out, iced drinks to be made, tables to be wiped and product signs to be readjusted before lunch hit. The great thing about food service is the diverse array of people working in it: struggling artists, single moms, divorcées, college graduates, high school graduates, foreigners, etc. Food service is a very non-cliquey business—whoever you are, wherever you came from and however you want to define yourself, you have a place.

In food service, you always have one scene-stealer of the day. The woman who screamed because the orange juice wasn’t freshly squeezed, the line-cutters, the indecisive tourists and those who were just angry. There’s really no right or wrong way to react to such hysteria, though I found that remaining silent and staring blankly back seemed to do the trick. We did occasionally have a celebrity appearance—Rachael Ray, Tom Colicchio, Molly Shannon—so there was a faint hint of glamor in working behind the counter.

I’m happy that my food service days are behind me. I don’t miss the customer always being right. I don’t miss smelling like a Krispy Kreme donut. And I don’t miss putting half and half in someone else’s coffee. The next time a food service employee asks you how you take your coffee, know they really don’t care and are just counting down the minutes until they get to clock out.

Still, I can think of worse jobs.

REchirp.com works with a similar concept: Interested buyers or renters go to the website, browse the listings and make a bid or a “chirp.” If your chirp is accepted by the owner, you get to start negotiations.

REchirp creators Marc Blum and Andrew Green came up with the idea after years of living in New York and moving from apartment to apartment.

Upper East Sider Marc Blum came up with the website REchirp with partner Andrew Green. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

“It was always a tedious process to find an apartment—dealing with brokers, Craigslist, the New York Times. And we thought there should be an easier process of finding real estate in the city,” said Blum, who has a background in both online and traditional advertising.

The childhood buddies were raised on the Upper East Side and currently live at Normandie Court, on East 95th Street, with their families. Figuring that people bid to get the best rates on insurance, hotel and car prices, the duo guessed that people would probably also be willing to bid to buy or rent an apartment. Combining Blum’s background in advertising with Green’s previous work in technology and consulting, they came up with the idea for the real estate website. After working on the start-up for almost two years, REchirp went live a few months ago. The site, now Green and Blum’s primary endeavor, has four full-time employees and is run out of an Eighth Avenue office.

“The biggest differentiator of www.rechirp.com is that when a user searches for a property, they do not search by price,” Blum said. “The idea behind the site is that when a user sees a property they are interested in, they submit a ‘chirp,’ which is a dollar amount they would be willing to pay for that apartment.”

The creators hope that users can submit chirps anywhere from 10 percent to 40 percent below the listed price. This would give the broker an incentive to work with the bidder and start negotiations at the chirp amount.

Unlike Bid on the City, the bids at REchirp are non-binding, and people can make as many bids as they want on different apartments. Thirty days after the property is listed, the site holds an auction—the first of which took place this month—in which buyers have to make a winning bid in half an hour. The bidding increments increase from $50,000 to $250,000 and the site gives the winning bidder 48 hours to make a down payment in escrow. Bid on the City also positions itself more as a high-end marketing firm for properties, rather than an auction house, and it is geared toward foreign buyers.

REchirp, meanwhile, hopes to cater exclusively to New Yorkers.

“I think the true distinction between us and them is that our chirps are not binding,” Blum said. “Moreover, we have thousands of listings that a home seeker can submit a chirp on, while there are never more than just a handful at a time with Bid on the City.”

So far, REchirp has almost 4,000 listings, mostly from Manhattan, and Green and Blum hope to add properties from across the city as the business grows. They are already working with nine brokerage firms.

Real estate brokers, meanwhile, are eyeing the new service with some skepticism.

“If people are putting bids without any financial commitment,” said real estate broker Joel Maskovitz, “they are not locked in. If thousands of people bid for fun, I am not going to pay to download false leads,” he said.

Brokers, he argued, already work to negotiate the best prices for owners.

“It would be bad for me to talk to anyone who is bidding low,” he said.

Michelle Araujo, a broker who works with NYC Vertical, pointed out that for the minimal fee of listing one property on Craigslist, she often gets hundreds of queries, many of which turn into customers or good leads. Without an in-depth knowledge of the city real estate market, she added, most bidders would be shooting in the dark on a site like REchirp.

Blum and Green, meanwhile, agree that their users have to have a certain sophistication to use the website. They say the service has been designed by New Yorkers for New Yorkers, and caters to savvier renters. They declined to specify exactly how many deals have been made through the site so far, but said that REchirp has helped a few home-seekers find an apartment of their liking.

“Our goal is not to replace Craigslist, New York Times or anyone,” Blum said. “Anyone who is online will go to a bunch of sites [while apartment hunting]. We are hoping REchirp is one of them.”

“Why can’t it just be family?” I asked Dad, as he checked on the stuffing. “Aren’t we crazy enough?” “No, we’re boring. Besides, remember the year we invited the Nigerian prince Mom met on the street? That was so much fun,” he enthused.

“Besides,” Mom chimed in from the dining room, where she was polishing unmatched wineglasses. “It’s Jewish tradition to invite those less fortunate into your home on even an American holiday. It’s a mitzvah.”

“It’s not a mitzvah,” I replied, “if the mystery guests you invited massacre us.”

“That’s not a very positive attitude.

They’re probably just as frightened as you are. They probably think we’re a bunch of weirdos who will poison the yams,” Dad said, “Try to think of it from their point of view.”

“I don’t know who they are,” I reminded him, burning my tongue on scalding sauce.

Yet, I couldn’t stop obsessing over the cyber guests. My parents wouldn’t allow me to see their Craigslist post, or the emails they’d received in response. Thanksgiving was one of the only days in the year my father sat down with Babbi and Zayde, my beloved grandparents and his patronizing parents-in-law. I wanted us to laugh together over a 20-pound bird and give thanks our dysfunctional Hebrew clan was gathering in my parents’ living room surrounded by papiermché masks and antique furniture Dad rescued from Dumpsters. Instead, I worried the Internet—which had caused me enough stress already (Why had someone from my clothingoptional college days stolen my profile picture and made it his own?)—would ruin any chance at family redemption. Even if our mystery guests weren’t mass murderers out to slaughter a bunch of neurotic New York Jews, I reasoned no well-balanced person would attend a Thanksgiving dinner from an Internet ad on a notoriously nefarious website.

“Oh, you’re not the Craigslist people,” Dad said, disappointed, when he opened the door for my friend Lauren. She had just moved to Brooklyn from Orange County and I’d invited her so

I could have someone to get drunk with when the carving knives became deadly weapons.

“Nice to meet you,” she laughed. “I’m serious,” Dad said. “Where are the people from Craigslist? I’m going to go email them.”

“He’s not joking?” Lauren asked me. Babbi and Zayde showed up five minutes later with a crateful of Zinfandel and gin. Mom rushed around putting out cheese and crackers. My younger brother drank wine in his room. My uncle, Mom’s 54-year-old bachelor brother, rang the bell with six packs of beer, inappropriately smooched Lauren near the mouth, but didn’t mention anything about me blocking him on Facebook.The basset hounds barked, running circles around people’s feet and my parent’s house filled with the smells of roasted vegetables and cinnamon; Billie Holiday on the old record player; ice clinking in my grandparent’s gin and tonics. Just as I was setting the table, the doorbell rang.

“That must be them!” Dad shouted, running to get it.

He pressed the buzzer long and hard, grinning with excitement. Two stunning girls walked in.They both had dark pixie cuts and stylish pea coats. I never imagined hot people used Craigslist.

“Thank you so much for hafing us. We from Spain, so muchas gracias, we had nowhere else to go,” lisped one, her beautiful green eyes sweeping the room.

“Come in, have a drink, sit next to my sons,” Dad pushed the girls towards me.

“Who are those ladies?” Babbi asked Lauren.

“They’re from the Internet,” Lauren told her.

“I’ll have another gin and tonic,” Babbi decided.

All through dinner, I couldn’t help staring at our sexy cyber strangers, now sitting and laughing, passing stuffing around the table. By the end of the meal, my uncle had Green Eyes cornered and was drunkenly flirting, talking about his latest windsurfing trip to Maui. Babbi and Dad were avoiding each other at opposite ends of the table. My brother was heaping his plate for the fifth time and Mom was making coffee. I pulled Lauren onto the couch, spilling my Merlot.

“Thanks for having me,” she grinned. “No problem, you fit right in with my fucked-up family,” I said.

Royal Young just completed his debut memoir Fame Shark.