What a world: In your youth you risk your life fighting overseas for Uncle Sam, and when you finally reach retirement age, you have to spend your days fighting for the right to socialize in the lobby of your condo. After a bitter court battle, five elderly members of the Greatest Generation have won the right to congregate in the lobby of a condo in New Springville, Staten Island. They're only permitted to meet there for ninety minutes at a time, on just two days per week, but that's better than the alternative proposed by the condo board, which sought to banish the men completely. The trouble all started, according to the Advance, when the New Springville Five reprimanded a condo board member for extinguishing her cigarette butts on the building floor. Then things went all Del Boca Vista. more ›

Patrick Swayze once memorably declared to Jerry Orbach, "No one puts Baby in the corner." But now a group of older men in Staten Island are declaring to their condo's board that "no one puts Poppy in the corner" either. The group of New Springville seniors call themselves "The Fined Five" after receiving $25 fines last winter when the board decided that their usual kibitzing in the lobby was loitering. The property manager said that "it's not a 55-and-older building," but compromised by finding them an unoccupied studio to hang out in. But now the men complain that they're being confined, with one saying, "I can't stay inside my sheetrock walls all day; I'll go crazy." So the Fined Five is suing the board, saying that their banishment is illegal and unnecessary. A neighbor whose apartment is adjoined to the lobby tells the SI Advance, "It's a bunch of old guys sitting around and talking about their wartime remembrances and fixing the motors in their cars. They're a lovely bunch of gentlemen." When asked what they do there, one of the Five told the Post, "We don't play Johnny on the pony in the lobby." more ›