New buyers are moving in, a trend welcome or unhappy depending on who you ask. Either way, the phenomenon has come to South Brooklyn. An article in the real estate section of today’s New York Times gives a comprehensive view of condo-buying. Though meant for those on the market, it offers insight for others simply looking for an explanation about the trend, as well as the pros, cons and state of the market in a city where price-per-square foot has proven as riveting as the cost of oil.

Interested in the shifting market closer to home? Check out this article on issues of affordable housing in Sunset Park.

Training will begin at one of two four-week training sessions, the first in February and another in April. Participants then enroll in an eight month cosmetology program. Applicants must be 17 or older, and hold a high school diploma, GED or demonstrate math and reading skills at an 8th grade level.

The program is completely free of charge. To find out more, you may visit the website or call 718-633-4823.

Morales hadn’t planned to get pregnant, but wasn’t willing to get the abortion Angel’s father suggested. “I had a choice,” she told the New York Times, “and I chose to be a parent.”

The 21-year-old Sunset Park native appeared today in the New York Times’ Neediest Cases series. The newspaper has for nearly 100 years published stories of those in need to encourage donations to local agencies. The Neediest Cases Fund has raised $244 million for struggling New Yorkers since it began the series in December 1912.

For Morales, help came in a $317 grant. She used the money to buy a professional wardrobe for her job at Americare, a home health service agency.

She puts on those clothes each morning before she kisses her son goodbye and begins her 1.5 hour commute to work in Mill Basin, Brooklyn. The $1,532 she nets each month just covers the bills, with a little extra to buy basketballs, baseballs and soccer-balls for 2 1/2-year-old Angel.

“Everything he has is because of me, because I did it for him,” she said.

Read more of Jocelyn Morales’ story here.

As part of the radio station’s “Main Street” series, WNYC’s Richard Yeh spoke with one business owner in Flushing. A recent study said eaters look to spend 20 percent less on meals these days, and that has showed at the tables of Ice Fire Land, a hot-pot restaurant in Flushing. But the restaurateur also owns a few herbal/traditional medicine shop in the area. He told Yeh that more sick people and less health care have kept business steady there. Many come in to buy vitamins and fish oil to send back to China, he said.

Hear the full story at WNYC.

Thanks to readers for the recommendations on popular spots to grab a bite in the neighborhood. Click map above or here to find favorite places to eat tacos, have a slice, grab a sweet treat for breakfast and slurp hot noodle soup. Have we missed any of your favorites? Leave a comment and I’ll add it to the map.

The Brian Lehrer show on WNYC has since the recession began asked readers to write in their stories for it’s “Uncommon Economic Indicators” series. One listener wrote to tell of the skaters who have settled in by the planters outside the glassy, under-occupied Richard Meier building by Grand Army Plaza. A few noted consumers pass around more rare joins these days, a sign that people have cracked open piggy banks to make ends meet.

Nostrand Park picked up the Lehrer show’s idea, with a twist. A recent post on the Crown Heights blog has “uncommon gentrification indicators”–a demographic shift measured in coffee shops, local blogs and affordable housing forums.

In Sunset Park, the recession has coincided with a neighborhood rezoning, the opening of a Duane Reade, an uptick in murders, a downslide in pizza sales and, recently, headlines touting the local fare. The New York Times, the Brooklyn Eagle, the Huffington Post and the Village Voice have all in recent months guided hungry New Yorkers to Sunset Park.

What do you think? Is it the recession, gentrification or just long overdue recognition that if you want tender, chewy hand-pulled noodles or melt-in-your-mouth pork tacos, Sunset Park is where it’s at?

Where do you go to get your bellyfull? Leave a comment. I’ll make a map.

The metal hit a new high of $1119 per ounce on Wednesday as wary investors ran to sink their savings into a stock even their grandmothers could love. Gold often becomes a hot commodity when confidence in the market thins, and while the dollar has fallen, the price of gold has risen 26 percent since last November.

In Sunset Park, however, it’s the dip in gold purchases that tells of tough times.

Customers buy “just for what they need” said Gus Guzman, the owner of Martha Jewelry Inc. on Fifth Avenue. “They buy for confirmations, baptisms, not for themselves.”

Sunset Park has many Latino residents who gift the traditional gold jewelry at communions and quinceañeras, the coming of age ceremony for 15-year-old girls. Families stretch for special occasions, but no longer buy the extras that once kept Guzman’s business swift.

Guzman said business is down by at least a quarter. Other jewelery shops along the Avenue site losses of up to 60 percent. Nearly everyone says it in October 2008–”right after Lehman Brothers,” said Guzman. The infamous investment bank collapsed on September 15 of last year.

The economic slump has hit New York City’s Latinos particularly hard. In a study by the Community Service Society, four in ten low-income Latinos had either lost their jobs or had their hours, tips or wages cut this year. Seventy percent had savings of less than $500.

With unexpected bills and less money coming in, some are taking up the offer advertised in the window of nearly every jewelry shop on 5th Avenue–”WE BUY GOLD.” The stores hope that by picking up pieces in the neighborhood they will make it through the slump.

On a recent afternoon, Guzman waited to the side while a couple lingered over a small gold crucifix, debating in Spanish whether to make the purchase. The doorbell chimed, and he buzzed a customer through the security door.

She greeted Guzman by name, handed over a gold ring, and asked “How much can I get for this?”

On August 12th of this year, Charlie’s Pizzeria celebrated 45 years in Sunset Park. Owner Joseph Vieni, who inherited the shop from his father, says it’s the worst year he’s ever had.

Joseph Vieni’s is one voice from the recession.