ID NAME: Nxxx,2006-07-09,CY,009,Bs-BW,E1 3 7 15 25 50 75 85 93 97

CY 9THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 9, 2006

MATTHEW GLASER, 12,and Zachary Fine, 13,have a lot in common — ifnot with seventh graders

around the country, at least witheach other, and certainly with thespirit of their neighborhood, ParkSlope, long the stamping ground ofthe spiritually curious, the upwardlymobile and the gastronomically ad-vanced.

So it is not surprising that on a re-cent Saturday afternoon, the twowere doing their share to keep up theneighborhood’s reputation. They hadset up shop on Third Street, a fewblocks from both the Park Slope Co-op and the bustle of hipper-than-thouboutiques and restaurants on FifthAvenue, to sell their homemade pani-ni to passers-by.

Matthew stood behind a table nextto a cardboard sign reading “Panini$3,” while Zachary stretched out onthe sidewalk, lazily plucking his si-tar.

“This is an up-and-coming neigh-borhood,” Matthew said by way ofexplaining why the pair were sellingpanini rather than a more mundaneitem like, say, lemonade. “And it’sonly getting fancier.”

Apparently there was a market, al-beit a modest one, for their offerings.

“You don’t see kids selling paninivery often,” said Karen Miller, own-er of Boing Boing, a maternity wearshop on Sixth Avenue at UnionStreet, who came upon the stand

when she was trolling local stoopsales.

“They were very businesslike,”she added. “It was very sweet.”

The panino stand was the latest ina long line of entrepreneurial activi-ties undertaken by the two boys inseeking to appeal to the demograph-ics of Park Slope. On another recentweekend, Matthew could be found ac-companying Zachary on his sitarwith a djembe — an African drum —for tips outside an ice cream shop onSeventh Avenue. That evening, thepair performed at the Cocoa Bar, anew wine and gourmet dessert baron the next block.

Matthew also regularly bakesmint chocolate brownies for the Co-coa Bar. “Sometimes I use mix,” heacknowledged, “but a few times Ihome-made them using fancy mintand chocolate bars from the Metmarket.”

By day’s end, the boys’ first at-tempt at a Park Slope panino standwas a culinary and popular success,though not a financial one. Duringthe two and a half hours the standwas in operation, the pair sold 17 to20 panini. After reimbursing Mat-thew’s father for supplies, the boysnetted approximately $1 apiece. Butthey have not given up on the idea.

“Of course we’ll do it again,” Mat-thew said, “when it’s nice weatherand it’s a Sunday, because, you know,Zach has sitar lessons on Satur-days.” JOANNA EBENSTEIN

P A R K S L O P E

La Dolce Vita, Never a Hard Sell

Joanna Ebenstein

Young capitalists, Matthew Glaser, left, and Zachary Fine, hawking panini in style near Seventh Avenue.

Mendel Mokotoff was born in Man-hattan in 1911. During the early1930’s, he owned a butter-and-eggbusiness in Coney Island, accordingto an old Brooklyn directory. ButGary Mokotoff, a distant relation,who is compiling a family tree,knows nothing else about the man—not the names of Mendel’s parents,nor how many siblings he had.

Some of that information is prob-ably on Mendel Mokotoff’s birth cer-tificate. But in New York City, thatdocument can be elusive. “I’ve beenwaiting 20 years for the records tofree up,” said Gary Mokotoff, 69, thepublisher of Avotaynu, a Jewish ge-nealogical magazine. “It’s frustrat-ing. It’s a missing piece of a puzzle.”

In most cities, birth certificatesbecome accessible to the public after75 years. But in New York, the lastcertificates turned over to the Mu-nicipal Archives by the Departmentof Health are now 97 years old, andthat transfer took place more than adecade ago.

Birth certificates created since1909 can be ordered from the De-partment of Health only by direct de-scendants of their subjects, and thenonly for a $15 fee. For some city resi-dents eager to unearth details abouttheir ancestors, the situation seemsperverse. “I think it’s absurd thatthere’s this arbitrary cutoff point,”said Jordan Ausländer, a New Yorkgenealogist. “It costs me work.”

Mr. Ausländer, whose businesscard reads “Heir Jordan; ExtremeGenealogy,” was sitting with twodozen of his colleagues in a livingroom on the Upper West Side, eatingcake and strawberries. Tomes withtitles like “Genealogical Gazettes ofthe Kingdom of Hungary” were scat-tered about the room. The occasionwas the monthly meeting of the localchapter of the Association of Profes-sional Genealogists.

Birth certificates provide informa-tion, such as parents’ maiden names,that can be crucial to genealogicalresearch. In New York, the citythrough which so many immigrantspassed, the certificates often pre-serve old versions of surnames thatwere subsequently changed. “By thetime they get to Ohio or Michigan orTennessee, they’re doing things dif-ferently,” said Patricia Hatcher, agenealogist visiting from Texas.“They’re anglicizing names to a dif-ferent extent.”

In May, Councilwoman Gale A.Brewer of Manhattan wrote to thehealth commissioner asking thatmore records be transferred to theMunicipal Archives, but got no an-swer, a Brewer aide said on Friday.

In response to inquiries about citypolicies, Jordan Barowitz, a spokes-man for Mayor Bloomberg, wouldsay only, “We are attempting tostrike a balance between genealogi-cal research and individuals’ pri-vacy and security.”

Back on West End Avenue, as thegroup settled down to discuss the ge-nealogical uses of Google, EileenPolakoff, the hostess, confessed to afriend that it was her birthday. “Oh, Iknew that anyway,” the friend re-plied. “I found it on birthdatabase-.com.” ALEX MINDLIN

N E W Y O R K U P C L O S E

Genealogists’Lament: YesteryearIs Gone