January 1, 2006

AFTER a few too many flutes of Champagne and a long night in a haze of crowded bars, another round of drinks may be the last thing running through hangover-clouded minds this morning. But once the fog clears, at least one neighborhood fixture in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, is hoping for a second look. The bar, at Court Street and Fourth Place and now known as P. J. Hanley's, opened in 1881, selling stiff drinks to workingmen who wanted to get drunk fast. For its first century, and a couple of decades more, even as the faces changed, the broad-shouldered toughness of the docks nearby was a constant. But with demographic changes and a new owner at the helm, the old bar finds itself in a tricky and unfamiliar position: It must attract new customers, ideally without driving away the old ones.

IT was months before the cameras were set to roll on one of 20th Century Fox's most ambitious projects for 2005, a $140 million historic epic about the Crusades by the director Ridley Scott. And still there was no one to play the leading role of Balian. Mr. Scott had at first envisioned Russell Crowe, the scowling, muscled star of his ''Gladiator'' hit, to play the role of a blacksmith and reluctant Crusader in the Holy Land. But Mr. Crowe had other projects on his slate, and would not alter them to fit the director's timetable.

Bobby Grier, first black player

It may seem corny, but Faye Marie Trapani, 28, a second-year M.B.A. student at Baruch College in New York, says she is proud of her school's slogan: The American Dream Still Works. She sees its evidence in the people she encounters at the Executive-Student Partnership, a mentoring program that matches Baruch alumni with students seeking jobs. ''A lot of them came from nothing; they were poor kids from the city, who couldn't afford tuition,'' Ms. Trapani said.

JUST north of this city, you can climb to the top of a bluff overlooking part of the dark concrete barrier that is slowly snaking its way northward along the West Bank. For now, it stops abruptly in a cloud of construction dust at a makeshift checkpoint a few hundred yards from here. But at dusk, its future path is outlined by a necklace of lights. Following routes traveled by Israelis, the lights turn eastward, to trace the contours of barren hills before coiling tightly around the Kochav Yaakov settlement. The surrounding territory, inhabited by Palestinians, is enveloped in darkness.