This week, Pittsburgh is playing host to dignitaries from the world over, but what good does it do us to be good hosts if we are bad neighbors? Just in time, Monday is Good Neighbor Day.

Ryan Poliakoff, co-author of "New Neighborhoods: The Consumer's Guide to Condominium, Co-Op and HOA (high occupancy apartment) Living," and vice president of The Ocean Palms Association Inc., has outlined five essentials to being neighborly and avoiding disputes in close quarters.

1. Work out your problems face to face. Skip the Twitter and e-mail.

2. Respect your neighbor's heritage.

"You may hate the smell of curry," Mr. Poliakoff says, "but the Indian family next door grew up with that smell, and they probably hate the smell of your sauerkraut equally."

3. Get involved in your Community.

"... Accept that it takes a village to run a community, and ... pitch in however you can," the author says.

4. Hug a board member. ... This one needs no elaboration, except to point out that Mr. Poliakoff is, himself, a board member.

5. Be the neighbor they can count on.

"In truth," Mr. Poliakoff says, "the vast majority of people want to avoid conflict, not create it. The old adage that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar is doubly true when those flies might only be separated from you by six inches of drywall."

Or an ocean.

Julia Kaluzny, of Cranberry, is helping to ring in National Down Syndrome Awareness Month with nothing less than an appearance on the Great White Way.

Ms. Kaluzny will be pictured among 226 photographs in a video to be shown on the MTV plasma screen in the heart of Times Square Saturday.

She'll be seen in a pretty pink dress, in a shot with her date, Ricky Richardson, from the PACC Connecting Communities annual prom held in Pittsburgh.