Beneath the surface peace, though, in the storefronts, diners and offices around the square, there is unease as Tuesday's primaries approach.
Hopper's approach, which appealed to his colleagues from all factions, explored natural and artificial light on surfaces, particularly on the vernacular architecture of American cities: motels, gas stations, storefronts, diners, apartments.
His South Williamsburg restaurants and storefront shops — Diner, Marlow & Sons and Marlow & Daughters — all push the idea that food and clothing should come from sustainably minded noble folk.
In addition to recognizable storefronts and diners are reconfigured landmarks, sombrero-wearing cactuses, a bullfight ring, cowboys and Indians, weird cat people and gangs of gun-toting thrill seekers fighting and holding up liquor stores for cash.
As part of the way-out-there Month of Performance Art — Berlin festival, Brooklyn-based Panoply Performance Laboratory had set up a makeshift diner in a storefront performance space called grüntaler9.
Now, two doors farther north on the same block of Tenth Avenue, Emerman has opened Chop Shop, a 25-seat cafe serving pan-Asian cuisine out of a storefront formerly occupied by a Latin diner.
Mr. Frank, a professional pianist and former New York City police officer, has even decorated his elevated lines with miniature automobiles (a pistachio-green 1952 Buick convertible) and old storefronts (a Horn & Hardart Automat diner -- for the sake of verisimilitude.
Their subjects were diners and storefronts, gum-ball machines, neon lights, pickup trucks, and other trappings of 1970s American life.
The staff at this three-year-old restaurant, in a spacious storefront, goes out of its way to make diners feel comfortable.
But the smiling staff and cordial owners of the spotless storefront at 540 Westbury Avenue (516-333-3434) simply askedinersrs to please return at another time to pay their bills if they didn't have enough money on hand.
