The men began arriving last Wednesday, first a trickle, then dozens. By Friday there were hundreds of them, along with a few women.

They set up their tents and mattresses on the sidewalk in Long Island City, Queens, unpacked their Coronas and cards – and settled in to wait as long as five days and nights for a slender chance at a union job as an elevator mechanic.

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More than 230,000 U.S women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. Sharon Harris is one of them.

In addition to medical treatments, Harris has developed her own form of therapy to cope with her illness: flash mobs. Harris has participated in nearly 40 of these public dance performances since 2011. She calls flash mobs her anti-chemo.

Harris, 43, was not surprised when she was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer in 2010. Several women in her family have battled the disease.

While undergoing treatment for cancer, Harris re-evaluated her life. A caretaker by nature, Harris spent much of her time doing for others. However, when she needed support after her diagnosis, some of her friends did not return the favor.

Rather than focus on the negative, Harris decided to make some changes. She stopped doing so much for others and started pursuing the passions she never had time for in the past, including a life-long love for dance. Through flash mobbing – public dance performances that seem to occur spontaneously – Harris has found a new group of friends. They call her the Flash Mob Queen.

As a child in Greece, Fotis Flevotomos could not read letters on a class blackboard. Flevotomos, 35, was born with ocular albinism, a genetic condition in which the eyes lack melanin pigments, causing blurry vision, sensitivity to bright light and a difficulty in perceiving depth.

Despite his condition, Flevotomos grew up to become a piano player and an artist. He made watercolor and ink drawings of still lives and landscape,  but not many portraits. Although he was interested in human figures, he found it difficult to draw people. “I am quiet slow when I draw… and then I have to be really close so it’s a relationship that has certain requirements and for me it’s been difficult to find models with whom I feel comfortable,” he said.

Last year, Flevotomos was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to be a visiting artist at the New York Public Library. Since September, he has been engaged in discussions and workshops on the accessibility of art for people with low or no vision. He writes blog posts about the importance of subjective vision in making art, and the relationship between music and paintings. He recently wrote about the affinities between Monet’s weeping willows series and Mozart’s Requiem.

In New York, Flevotomos started using an iPad application as a drawing tool, which helped him overcome some of his vision problems. Inspired by the diversity of people in the city, he decided to draw his first portrait in many years.

With the flick of his wrist, DJ Esquire — a club and competitive DJ — can always get the party started.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, DJ Esquire, a.k.a., John Chavies, 35, uses an eclectic mix of hip-hop, 1980s rock and video game theme songs to create unique tracks. He’s won several major DJ awards, and even traveled to London in September to represent the United States in a global DJ competition.

But Esquire’s winning streak hit a snag last year when he failed to notch a repeat championship at a regional DJ competition in Hartford, Conn. Esquire drove to Connecticut with visions of filling his empty trunk with prizes and awards. Instead, he filled his trunk with beer to take home.

Now DJ Esquire returns to Hartford, carrying with him the desire to win, but also the fear of failing again. Will he pull off a flawless set? Will his nerves get the best of him? Can he reclaim the No. 1 spot?

Nikki Romanello,  whose work blurs the line between art and science, invites viewers to contemplate their place in the web of life.

The evolution of Romanello’s art reflects evolution in nature: Found bones become bones cast in glycerin, which become skeletal animals from alternate pre-histories, which in turn become prints. In her latest project, she uses “living paper” created by feeding kombucha tea to bacteria to create sculptures of tubeworms that live near hydrothermal vents deep in the ocean.

She wants her art to reflect the transience of existence, the haphazard nature of evolution and the connections between all living creatures.

Ivan Szendrö, a self-styled, modern-day shaman, says he can reveal your “legend” for $75. Knowing your legend – and subsequently, your “hero” – heals you and helps you solve problems, he contends. Szendrö, who lives in Palisades, N.Y., wants to bring his message to a larger audience.

Szendrö’s spiritual awakening came in 1970 in his Hungarian hometown of Nagygec. He was a young atheist actor living in Budapest, and was visiting Nagygec when a flood destroyed the village. The villagers connected the flood with ancient mythology – and Szendrö saw himself as part of the legend.

He started touring from town to town on his bike, spreading the story. Years later, he ended up married with two daughters in Palisades. There, Szendrö changed his approach and began offering personalized sessions. He says he wants to help people – and not be seen as a “freak.”

Besides his spiritual activities, he takes care of a senior citizen and a disabled person, and works part time as a hotel waiter. He has a dream: to rebuild a bridge in Nagygec that plays a major role in his personal legend. All the money Szendrö makes as a shaman is dedicated to this goal. So far, he’s saved $10,000.

When Kevin McIntyre, 34, an actor living in Queens, told his boyfriend of two years he wanted to perform in drag, David Fisk gave his blessing. He accompanied McIntyre, a.k.a. “Charmaigne Aultra,” to the clubs, serving as a bodyguard of sorts. Fisk watched as Charmaigne, wearing only a bra, shorts and heels – along with four pounds of foundation and a wig – danced, lip synched and teased other men.

But when Fisk got cancer, it became McIntyre’s turn to take on a supporting role.

To say his boyfriend’s illness was a roadblock to McIntyre’s career sounds callous, but it’s also inaccurate. McIntyre decided to treat Fisk’s diagnosis like a pebble in his pumps – something that needed simply to be dug out, with time and care. He insisted on maintaining as normal as possible life for himself and Fisk. McIntyre initially kept up his weekly drag performances at the Barricuda in Manhattan. He needed the break from the hospital routine to revive him.

McIntyre, know by friends for his optimism, recalls days at the hospital that were actually fun: He and Fisk played board games, watched TV and he shared the gossip from the “girls” at the club. On Fisk’s worst days, McIntyre knew to “turn off” the charm and just be present. Fisk needed McIntyre’s big heart and his patience – and he was ready to share them.

You want ketchup with that? If you’re dining in Manhattan, it’s going to cost you.

Many McDonald’s franchises in the borough are charging customers extra to drench their Big Macs in the condiment.

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College student James Polite remembers when he had every reason to give up.

Ostracized by his family for being gay, he said he was kicked out of his Brooklyn home at age 13 and placed in foster care. He said his mother told him he deserved to be disowned.

But his fortune changed a year later after a chance meeting with City Council Speaker Christine  Quinn, who offered him an opportunity to intern in her office. The two say they quickly developed an emotional bond that’s deepened over the last six years. Quinn has since paid for some of Polite’s living expenses and helped him get into Brandeis University.

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