Although its problems may have been extreme, Ken Reardon of the University of Illinois's EastSt Louis Action Research Project estimates that about two dozen Illinois cities are in similar straits.
There is an MBE for dinner lady Jeanette Orrey, who inspired celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's campaign for healthier school meals through her own work at St Peter's Primary School in East Bridgford near Nottingham.
Freeman's (Freeman Alley, off Rivington St), a perennially popular Lower East Side restaurant, and Brooklyn's pioneering Moto (394 Broadway, Williamsburg), were early adopters of the Old New York look, and the designers of each have kept up their patina-led practice.