For nearly 50 years, the Woodhaven branch of the Walsh-LaBella funeral home served over 150 families annually. Now the funeral home has manages, on average, one burial a week.

With an influx of new immigrants and fewer longtime residents remaining in the neighborhood after retirement, Walsh-Labella has lost about two thirds of its business annually, and like many funeral homes in the area, is trying to figure out how to adjust.

“You have to change with the community,” said John McNamara, a mortician at Walsh-LaBella, which has been open since 1959

Once a neighborhood with predominately German, Italian and Irish residents, Ridgewood now has residents with mostly Polish, Eastern European and Hispanic backgrounds. “This neighborhood used to be all German and Irish,” McNamara said. “Now it’s got the League of Nations.”

Currently, the area is about one-third Polish and Eastern European, one-third Latino and one-third German, Italian and Irish, according to Monsignor Edward Scharfenberger of St. Matthias Parish in Ridgewood.

Fewer families are coming to Walsh-LaBella because the new Hispanic population tends to patronize funeral homes that are run by Hispanics or have a Spanish-speaking staff, McNamara said.

Regina T. Smith, who teaches a course in the sociology of funeral service at the American Academy McAllister Institute of Funeral Service, said people want to use a funeral home with employees that understand their culture.

The overall number of people dying in the neighborhood is also decreasing as people retire to other parts of the state or elsewhere in the United States. St. Matthias had five or six funerals a week in the 1970s, Monsignor Scharfenberger said in an interview. Now, the average is two per week.

The church will celebrate a funeral mass in any language the family requests, Monsignor Scharfenberger said. He estimated that for every 20 funerals held, two are in Polish and two or three are in Spanish. There are also four to six per year in German. Those services are usually requested by the families of older people who believe it’s more dignified for the decedent and not necessarily for the language needs of those attending the service, as those held in Polish or Spanish are.

Many families are no longer sending remains back to their home country, said Robert Taylor, a mortician at the Peter J. Geis Funeral Home.

“Years ago we used to ship more to Romania and Yugoslavia. People have become more Americanized [and] they realized they can’t visit the grave if they ship the body back to the old country,” he said. “Plus, the cost is prohibitive.”

The requirements to send remains to another country varies depending on where the remains are being sent, and the cost of shipping the remains depends on the weight of the remains and the destination. Families essentially pay for the services of a funeral director twice, though, because a licensed mortician is required to pick up the remains in the receiving country, Taylor said.

Some families have begun doing the opposite: bringing the remains of family members who have passed away overseas or elsewhere in the U.S. back to be buried in New York. Walsh-LaBella brings in five to 10 bodies a year from overseas, most from Italy, and about 15 from elsewhere in the U.S., mostly Florida, McNamara said.

The trends are not limited to traditional burials, either. Formal acceptance by the Catholic Church in the 1960s plus a growing acceptance by younger people has caused the number of cremations to increase, according to J.P. Di Troia, president of Fresh Pond Crematory.

The trend is not limited to Ridgewood. Recent influxes of immigrant and refugee populations from Burma, Europe and Africa have changed the funeral business in upstate New York, Stewart Williams, a mortician at the Dimbley, Friedel, Williams & Edmunds Funeral Homes in New Hartford, N.Y. said in an interview.

Language is often the biggest barrier.

“You’re needing to always find a translator and just be very patient with families,” he said.

Changes have affected funeral homes all around the country, too, according to Bob Biggins, a funeral director in Rockland, Mass. and spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association.

“It brings challenges to our members, but it also brings wonderful opportunities for them to continue to be beacons of service that our members have been for generations,” he said.

Hundreds rally against beating of a Queens gay man from luluyilun on Vimeo.

By Lulu Yilun Chen

Hundreds of people gathered on College Point Boulevard in Queens on a Saturday afternoon to denounce the beating of a gay man whom police say was a victim of a bias crime.

Standing across the street from the protest was about a dozen people who said they were friends of the two men arrested. They protested behind barracks set up by the police and held up signs saying that the public should not rush to conclusions to accuse the suspects of bias.

At about 4:30 a.m. on October 8th two men attacked Jack Price, 49, of College Point, outside a local deli at College Point Boulevard and 18 Avenue in Queens after he stopped to buy a pack of cigarettes on his way home. The two men repeatedly beat and kicked Mr. Price, all of which was caught on videotape from a security camera, according to police.

After the assault, the suspects fled the location, leaving Mr. Price with a shattered jaw, broken ribs and a collapsed lung. Mr. Price managed to return to his home and call 911. He was rushed to Booth Memorial Hospital where he is currently being treated. He was able to identify the two suspects and make an account of the crime, according to police.

Police said that Daniel Aleman, 26, was arrested three days after the assault and charged with felony assaults as a hate crime. Daniel Rodriguez, 21, was apprehended in Virginia five days after the attack.

Supporters of the victim marched down College Point Boulevard from 20th Avenue to 14th Avenue, joined by many city officials, including Helen Marshall, the Queens borough president, Scott Stinger, Manhattan borough president, and Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, who is openly gay.

Daniel Dromm, the Democratic candidate for City Council district 25, led the crowd chanting, “Now is the moment. Now is the time. We say no to hate crime,” “LGBT, we celebrate diversity,” and “Jack Price was under attack. What do we do? Fight back!”

It was a diverse crowd that ranged from moms carrying seven-month-old babies to men with dressed-in-pink Chihuahuas and grey-haired women holding rainbow flags with the printed words “equality.”

About 300 people stopped at the nearby Popenhusen playground to give speeches, according to organizers. Family members of Mr. Price and city officials, including William Thompson, the City comptroller and mayoral candidate, delivered speeches to the crowd.

“The answer when it comes to hate crime,” said Thompson, “The answer is no.

“We are sending out a message of what we will allow in this city and what we will not,” added Thompson. “We will not be silent in any act, in any community. We will come together, we will let those people know it is wrong and you will not get away with it.”

Joanne Guaneri, 42, the sister-in-law of Mr. Price, embraced her daughter, Amanda Guaneri, 15, listening quietly to the speeches as they stood close to the stair-converted-stage in front of the crowd.

Joanne Guaneri then walked to the microphone and spoke in husky voice, “They beat my brother-in-law until near death. For $10. And for a pack of cigarettes.

“Put aside the hate crime on this, they beat a man to near death and that is why I am out here,” said Ms. Guaneri.

The youngest speaker was Jack Price’s niece, 15-year-old Amanda Guaneri, a student at Bayside High School.

“I am proud of him (Mr. Price) to be my uncle. Whatever he is, he is my uncle. I love him and I will stick behind him,” said Amanda Guaneri, “I want to say to the people following Daniel Rodriguez: Why? Why? He did wrong. You shouldn’t be behind him.”

Those words were directed at a group of 14 people, who supported Mr. Rodriguez and rallied right across the street on College Point Boulevard, arguing that the public should not jump to conclusions and define the beatings of Mr. Price as a hate crime.

Marcel Gelmi, 26, who has known Rodriguez for 11 years, said he was not biased toward gay people.

“Why is this a hate crime? Because Jack Price says so? Those cameras pick up no sound,” said Mr. Gelmi, 26. “Danny had a lot of gay friends.”

Hate crimes are not common in Queens, according to Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker.

“The two hateful people who we believe committed this crime are not representative of Queens County or College Point,” said Ms. Quinn. “The two men who did this are a minority.”

The last time an assault related to the gay community happened in Queens was in 2001, when Edgar Garzon was attacked outside of a gay club in Jackson Heights, Queens, and died because of the injuries.

However, incidents motivated by bias based on sexual orientation were up 5.5 percent within the past two years since 2006, accounting for 16.6 percent of hate crimes conducted in the United States, according to F.B.I. reports.

President Obama signed a bill on Wednesday that finally declared it a federal hate crime to assault people based on sexual orientation, gender and gender identity.

In the past 10 years, the House and the Senate separately approved the hate crimes expansion numerous times. But congressional Republicans repeatedly blocked final passage.

The new policy will expand the definition of a 1968 hate crime law that applies to people attacked because of their race, religion or national origin.

“I think it’s one small part of a large picture which needs to be painted in order to have a world where everyone can be a full person without being physically, psychologically, or legally punished because of their gender or sexuality,” said Marisa Ragonese, head of Generation Q, a program for young gay and lesbians.

Mr. Price underwent surgery for a puncture in his lung last Tuesday and is now in stable condition, according to Ms. Guaneri.

Known for attracting top designer merchandise and budget fashionistas, the Housing Works thrift store in Chelsea is filled most Tuesdays with shoppers armed with vouchers.

These shoppers are the homeless, the people who are HIV-positive, as well as the drug addicts, who are receiving social services, job training and health care services, all supported by Housing Works. They are the “certificate holders” who get to shop at the store with their vouchers.

They walk around the mid-century furniture scattered around the store, peer into the glass cases filled with designer sunglasses and funky costume jewelry before heading to the back where racks of designer clothing await them should they choose.

“People come in disheveled after living on the street and are just so thankful,” said Dana Cook, manager of the Housing Works on 17th Street in Chelsea, the first of 10 thrift shops that have positioned themselves as being a destination for both the fashion conscious and people in need. The certificate entitles the holder to a free product from the store. For some this may be his or her second pair of pants or the first-ever item of furniture for a previously homeless person, who has received accommodations through Housing Works.

The thrift division provides as much as 40% of the financing for its parent, Housing Works Inc, an organization dedicated to helping homeless and poor New Yorkers living with HIV or AIDS.

But the Housing Works thrift shops have never been your typical secondhand shop. It is selective in what it resells, how it merchandises, retailing only new or gently used high-end products donated by shoppers and fashion designers. Recent donations included a piano, an 18th-century desk from the singer Harry Belafonte and a 500-piece collection of Yves Saint Laurent clothing.

At a time when shoppers are skittish and major retail chains are reporting dismal sales figures, thrift stores operated by Housing Works are expanding. The nonprofit organization has just opened a new outlet in trendy Soho, taking the total up to 10 stores, with three openings in the last year. With celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker extolling the virtues of the thrift stores on YouTube and models donating their last-season Prada dresses, this store has made thrift chic and fun among the Manhattan party crowd.

“Sales are way up since last year and we are easily meeting our budget,” said Cook.

When the economy goes down, thrift stores do well but Housing Works, unlike other thrift stores like the Salvation Army or the Red Cross, is riding the trend better than most. In fact, the store promotes itself more as a fashion destination with tempting, stylized window displays, artfully arranged vignettes and a cool factor that attracts movie stars and celebrity interior decorators. Combine this with prices marked down to 20% of the original value and you have an unbeatable combination of innovative philanthropism.

The first store started in Chelsea and was the size of a small corridor and large pieces of furniture had to be sold from the street outside the store. Today the store occupies a 4000-square-foot sprawling space.

Richard Vorisek, the president, joined the company 18 months ago after working for Ralph Lauren, the high-end fashion designer for the last five years as vice president and has twenty years of corporate retail experience under his belt. In his new role, Vorisek has introduced an aggressive online sales site and is pushing for increased partnerships and donations from big-name fashion designers such as Marc Jacobs.

His actions, helped by recession-conscious fashionistas, are paying off. This year, sales of apparel and furniture at Housing Works have increased by 10 percent over last year to $12.5 million and are forecasted to increase by 20 percent next year.

Vorisek, who took a 70 percent salary cut when he joined Housing Works, says that the entire premise of the charitable store and the organization is one of payback to society and of second chances and forgiveness.

But by playing to the nuances of a fashion-conscious market, abundant celebrity endorsements and regular monthly events featuring artists and creative designers, thrift chic is adding to the bottom line of countless homeless, faceless New Yorkers.

“The sale of this Art Deco-style sofa for $200 will provide food for one person for four weeks,” said Connall McMenamin, 78, who has been volunteering at the Chelsea store for 10 years.

More than half the workforce at the thrift stores are volunteers, while some work for minimum wage. McMenamin joined when he lost two close friends to AIDS in 1996. In fact at Housing Works, one quarter of all employees are formerly homeless people living with AIDS and HIV, many of whom have struggled with chronic mental illness or chemical dependence, making finding employment an almost impossible proposition.

“They are some of our best employees,” said Cook.

Cook, who worked for many community organizations before joining Housing Works a year ago, says that although some days the workload makes her want to scream, she believes that Housing Works has a clear mission and that their income-generating policies will never overpower the goals of the nonprofit.

When something is working a new word appears for it. Philanthrocapitalism is a new term coined by management guru Don Tapscott, for organizations such as Housing Works that are using business and management skills to make social programs more successful.

An increase in sales has created one problem for the nonprofit, though. Donations have decreased and people are using sites such as eBay to get better prices for their items. The organization is exploring ways to get corporations and individuals to increase its donations.

McMenamin however had an exciting day last week.

“One lady came in to drop six pair of designer shoes, nearly new. And I served Marisa Tomei, the actress, although I didn’t know who she was,” he said, with a chuckle.

Some people come in which just the clothes on their backs, commented McMenamin and go out clad as fashion models wearing designer clothing.

The Heart of Punjab stands out among the trendy boutiques of Ninth Avenue because of its cafeteria-like appearance and its simple food offerings. No white table clothes here or fancy, polished cement floors. The customers, too, are different.

Whether it’s the 7 a.m. rush to get a cup of tea or the end-of-shift set at four in the afternoon, 90 percent of the customers crowding the deli’s laminated counters are Indian and Pakistani taxi drivers.

A New York City cab driver in the early 1990s, Mohinder Gill opened the Heart of Punjab after an accident forced him to give up his cab. He conceived the idea while driving and realizing there were no places in Manhattan where cabbies could get cheap home-style Indian food or take a quick bathroom break.

He said he chose to open in Chelsea because the rent was reasonable, at $2,500 per month, and there was ample parking nearby, a must for customers who must park before they eat. From 1992 and until 2007, Gill’s nose for the needs of his fellow cab drivers proved to be right on target. The deli used to serve about 500 customers a day.

But in the last two years Gill has seen his profit fall by 70 percent, mainly because a bike lane, added to the avenue in front of his deli, has forced cab drivers to park elsewhere or not at all.

“Taxi drivers don’t like to park far from where they’re going” says Ranjit Singh, a cab driver, as he stands sipping his tea at Gill’s counter.

Most cab drivers work a nine-hour shift and take three, 30-minute breaks. Each break costs them around $30. If they park far away, they waste time walking to the cafe or the restaurant.

Three months ago, the city completed its goal of installing 420 miles of bike lanes in all five boroughs, doubling the number of bike lanes miles of three years ago.

While most bikers are happy with the additional lanes, the move has generated disapproval from merchants in areas where these lanes have sprung up. Their complaint is that they were not consulted about the process. Mayor Bloomberg, who has taken a very activist approach towards enforcing bike lanes all over the city, has said that every lane was approved by the relevant community board.

But Community Board 4 Chairman John Weiss has come under criticism from merchants and local businesses for unilaterally enforcing the bike lane on Ninth and Eighth avenues.

“I came to work one morning and heard the drill machines,” said Gill about the construction for the bike lane.

Few businesses in Manhattan, a city of walkers, are as dependant on drivers as The Heart of Punjab. According to a survey by the Taxi and Limousine Commission of New York in 2005, the last year in which numbers were compiled, South Asian immigrants make up about 38 percent of taxi drivers in the city (14 percent from Pakistan, 14 percent from Bangladesh and 10 percent from India).

When the deli opened in 1992, Gill’s wife would cook all the food, while Gill advertised the deli at airport pick up points. The first week his wife made a special corn bread available in most north Indian villages. She had made 60 loaves of the bread for one day, but Gill sold out in three hours. Encouraged, Gill started adding more items to the menu. Indian sweets and biscuits and most importantly, Indian tea or Chai, soon followed. A foamy, milky, cardamom infused preparation, the Indian chai is the fuel for most Indian workers everywhere in the world.

Over the years, the deli has become not only a rest stop in a grueling day for this class of immigrant workers, but also a place to meet old friends from the homeland.

The Heart of Punjab stands between an expensive pet store on its left and a charcuterie on its right. A stack of Indian newspapers lie in its store window and the entire space is dominated by a large steel display counter where steaming curries and snacks are kept warm. Two Indian men stand behind the counters, stirring the containers and expeditiously putting together the rice with curry combinations for customers. There is no seating area; customers mostly eat standing up at a long plank of wood on the wall opposite the steel counter. There are shelves above the plank which hold various video tapes of recent Indian movies.

Rajinder Kumar, a cab driver, has been eating at the Heart of Punjab for 15 years, virtually from the day Gill opened.

“It’s a beloved institution for me,” he said.

He said he senses Gill’s troubles and hopes that he won’t have to close the shop.

At 60 years of age with two daughters in college, Gill is a worried man.

“I don’t know how to do anything else” he said, as he rearranged the ketchup bottles on the long counter.

Because a meal is $5, Gill needs to sell at least 80 meals a day just to break even. He could raise prices but then he risks losing his most loyal clientele. Gill is not giving up just yet but his eyes look tired as his anxious face is reflected on the glass front of the counter that he wipes clean.

By Nathaniel Adams

Robert Hammond, the man behind Manhattan’s High Line Park, is partnering up with Jersey City’s Embankment Preservation Coalition to help them in their mission, hoping to use the success of the High Line to promote their project.

“They’re in a similar place to where we were in 2003,” said Hammond, “they need a real estate and political champion.”

The Embankment is an elevated freight train line that fell out of use many years ago and has been at the center of a 12-year-old fight to decide its fate. Unlike the High Line, a structure built in 1930, wide enough for two train tracks, and constructed as a steel frame raised on metal columns, the Embankment, built in 1902, carried seven tracks and is made of huge piles of earth surrounded by stone walls up to 30 feet high.

“We sort of think of the Embankment as a land art piece we want to preserve,” said Maureen Crowley, director of the Embankment Preservation Coalition.

The coalition and the Jersey City government have been trying for years to turn the structure, which is owned by private developer Steven Hyman, into a public park. Hyman has wanted to use the property to build luxury houses. The two sides have been involved in court battles for years.

The city and the coalition have worked to have the Embankment declared a historic landmark, have tried to acquire it through eminent domain, have blocked attempts by Hyman to demolish the structure, and have filed suit claiming that his purchase of the property was invalid. Hyman has appealed decisions, run campaigns against Jersey City Mayor Jerremiah Healy, and claimed economic hardship as a reason for wanting to replace the embankment with apartment buildings.

Currently, all sides are waiting for the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to decide in the latest of a long series of cases and appeals whether or not the original sale of the property to Hyman by the Consolidated Rail Corporation was legal and valid.

On October 25th, Mr. Hammond visited the Embankment for the first time, walking the length of it at street level and snapping photos of the vivid autumn trees lining the top and the tendrils of ivy spilling over the sides and clinging to the solid, heavy stone walls. That night he spoke at the coalition’s monthly meeting, expressing his enthusiasm for the project and inspiring the organization to keep fighting.

Since Hammond’s visit, he has publicized the project on the High Line blog, which refers to the Embankment as a “sister project.” On November 10th, he met with the Embankment Preservation Coalition in private to discuss strategies.

“It’s all in the very inchoate stage,” said Crowley. “I think he’s going to help with publicity and fundraising ideas at this point.”

The High Line endorsement comes at a time when parks and conservancy projects throughout Jersey City, Hudson County and the entire state are experiencing a surge of popularity and success. In the November 3rd elections, an item allocating 400 million dollars for, among other environmental projects, parks and open spaces, was up for public vote on ballots across New Jersey. It passed 52% to 48%, despite incumbent Governor Democrat John Corzine, the only candidate who supported the bill, losing his office to Republican Chris Christie.

On November 10th, the Jersey City Council approved a resolution to purchase a former landfill next to the Hackensack River, to be turned into a park. The land, sitting beneath the steel skeleton of the Pulaski Skyway, will be connected to a larger planned public development along the Hackensack River which will run through all of Hudson County, from Bayonne to North Bergen.

On October 15th, environmental advocacy group Hackensack Riverkeeper honored Mayor Healy with its annual Friend of Hackensack Riverkeeper award for efforts in historic preservation, creating open spaces, and promoting green policies. The group cited the above projects and the city’s work to revitalize Reservoir 3.

The reservoir is a 14-acre site in the heart of the Heights, an urban residential area of the city. Built in the 1870s to provide clean water to a city susceptible to diseases such as typhoid, the reservoir was closed in 1990. When people started venturing back onto the site in 2001, they found a vibrant mini-ecosystem behind the reservoir’s 20-foot high stone walls.

The Jersey City Reservoir Preservation Alliance, started in 2002, has been working with the city to preserve, protect, and promote the site, offering kayaking programs, ample fishing in a lake populated with Sunnys and Largemouth Bass, and painting classes with natural subjects as diverse as lakeside cat-tails, old brick gatehouses, ducks, islands, falcons, and great blue herons.

This summer the city council passed a resolution allowing the alliance to hire an architecture firm specializing in historic preservation to first study and assess the site to create what alliance president Steven Latham calls “a place for nature to thrive.”

The Fair, a home goods store in Western Queens, has been around since 1938. But only in recent years, since it moved from Ridgewood to Glendale, have customers had trouble finding it.

“People who use GPS sometimes have trouble finding the mall,” Jake Gerson, an employee at The Fair, said of The Shops at Atlas Park.

There are at least 10 Glendales in the United States. That, plus the lack of its own ZIP code – it shares 11385 with neighboring Ridgewood – has always been a problem for Glendale, but in recent years, the proliferation of GPS technology has caused new headaches. People no longer ask their neighbors and friends how to get somewhere. They ask their cars. And the answers, when it comes to Glendale, are often unclear.

“They may be minor challenges to some, but they are consistent, annoying things that hurt small businesses in the area,” Lydon Sleeper, chief of staff for City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley, said in a phone interview.

Ashley Zanzonico, who works at the boutique Stella Gialla, also in Atlas Park, said people still have trouble finding the store, even though it has been at this location since 2006.

In an op-ed in The Times Newsweekly, a newspaper in Ridgewood, Councilwoman Crowley also noted incidents of emergency services from outside the area who were unable to find houses in the neighborhood, as well as online transactions complicated by confusion over whether neighborhood residents live in Glendale, Ridgewood or Flushing, which is the city the U.S. Postal Service uses for the 11385 ZIP code.

“Glendale is like a forgotten area,” Zanzonico, who lives near in Glendale near Atlas Park, said. “People have no idea where you’re talking about.”

The 11385 ZIP code covers a much larger area than those around it. There were 97,524 residents in the 11385 ZIP code, according to the 2000 Census, the most recent data available. Neighboring Middle Village (ZIP code 11379) and Maspeth (11378), had about 30,000 and about 34,000 residents, respectively.

Despite residents’ concerns and the size of the 11385 ZIP code, there are no plans to add a new ZIP code for Glendale, according to Darlene Reid-De Meo, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service.

“I understand some of the Queens residents want their own ZIP code, [but] unless the Postal Service determines it would be more efficient for us to deliver the mail with a new ZIP code, we would not create one,” she said.

Additionally, the total volume of mail nationally has fallen 30 percent, Reid-De Meo said. In July the Postal Service moved the processing of all mail for Queens to Brooklyn, she said.

“It’s not time to expand, it’s time to consolidate,” she said.

Ultimately, though, the issue of separate ZIP codes seems to come down to residents’ belief that Glendale has its own identity and that a real separation from Ridgewood should be solidified with a new ZIP code.

Because the two neighborhoods are in the same ZIP code and community district, government demographic data encompasses both neighborhoods. Yet the differences between the two are clear. Ridgewood has more of a city feel, with more people walking on the street and signs in languages besides English. Glendale, by contrast, is more suburban, with well-maintained single family homes and duplexes that neatly decorated for Christmas; there is little foot traffic.

In her op-ed, Crowley noted Glendale has its own parks, schools, church parishes and community centers.

“Our sense of pride and belonging, coupled with the lack of an official identity creates daily issues for the Glendale resident that could be solved with an additional ZIP code.”

“Go, go, go!” Sree Xaiver screamed as she watched A-Rod’s ball ricochet off the left-field fence and Johnny Damon raced home. “Yes! Yes! Go, score!”

He did score.

And the Yankees won moments later, sending the crowd at Yankee Stadium into a frenzy and the Philadelphia Phillies’ park into a dead zone as the boys in pinstripes won Game 4 108 miles down the New Jersey Turnpike in Philadelphia.

Seated along row 14 in section 111, Xavier, 30, and several thousand fans watched as the New York Yankees took one step closer to becoming world champions for the 27th time after a 7-4 comeback win over the Phillies. Game 4 of the World Series was played in Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on Sunday night, but fans in New York were invited to come, free of charge, and watch the game at Yankee Stadium on the 6,000-square-foot Jumbotron behind the center-field fence.

“This is great, we never could have afforded to come up here if they hadn’t done this,” said Xavier, who brought her 9-year-old daughter to the game after walking in Sunday’s NYC marathon.

A Brooklyn native, Xavier said it was her first time in the “House that George Built,” which opened its doors earlier this season. A group of four behind her also said it was their first time inside the new stadium. All claimed it was due to the skyrocket ticket prices for not just the playoffs, but most of the regular season. As of Monday evening, the cheapest ticket price on StubHub for Game 6 at the stadium was $420.50 to sit in the upper deck levels. The most expensive were $20,000 to sit right by the dugout. The same seats occupied by Xavier and others in section 110 (field-level down the right field foul line) are listed at $1,100 for Wednesday night’s game.

The high price of tickets to Yankee Stadium has been an issue since the stadium opened in April. Single-game ticket prices for seats directly behind home plate were listed at $2,500. By early May, the Yankees cut those tickets in half to $1,250 due to widespread outrage from fans, but the team continued to suffer a public relations hit when nationally televised games showed still-empty seats despite the “discount.” It resulted in a boycott by many season-ticket holders, which gave way to more Kate Hudsons and Jay-Z’s filling the stadium’s best seats.

In 1970, principal owner George Steinbrenner bought the team and took out an $800,000 loan to cover all operating expenses when outfield tickets cost only $1. He wanted to brand a globally recognized team.

It worked.

Fast forward 40 years to 2010, when purchasing season tickets for a family of four behind the dugout will end up costing $405,000, slightly half of what Steinbrenner paid for the entire organization in 1970.

On Sunday night, Bronx Bomber fans who might not earn $820,000 in a lifetime had a chance to enjoy a game and enjoy seats that will probably elude them the rest of their lives.

“We are the real fans in here tonight,” Teede Williams, 32, said while drinking a $10 Bud Light on the concourse behind section 111. “Most people in here probably can’t afford the prices to get into actual games. But these are the real fans. You can tell they’re the ones who really care.”

Only the field-level sections of the stadium were open to the public — foul pole to foul pole on the lower level. Each seat in the different sections are generously padded, a feature of only the first level.

Jim Ross, senior vice president of business development for the Yankees, said management decided to open the stadium to foment some “camaraderie among the fans and let them watch the game on our spectacular screen.” He declined to speak on why the prices were so high, but said that $1,250 and $1,500 tickets have sold well.

Other Yankee officials in the ticket office could not give an exact head count on Monday since no tickets were electronically swiped when people walked though the gates.