Its superstar chefs are running mess halls. The students at P.S. 234 have migrated to the Village. The celebrities are nowhere to be found. Even in the seventies, TriBeCa living was never this tough.

BMCC's chess team, the best in the country, has players from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Egypt. But Kasaun Henry may have come from the greatest distance: a crushingly poor background in Harlem.