Answers to Questions About New York The P.O.W./M.I.A. flag was created during the Vietnam War out of a concern for soldiers held captive or listed as missing in action. Q. Why does the city's parks department fly P.O.W./M.I.A. flags in all its parks? All respect due, but isn't it a bit of an outdated Vietnam-era tribute? A. A 2003 municipal law requires that all city parks display the P.O.W./M.I.A. flag in addition to the American flag. F.Y.I. forwarded your question to Councilman James S. Oddo of Staten Island, who sponsored the 2003 bill. Mr. Oddo expressed surprise at the question. "Does honoring the memory of Americans lost in battle ever get stale?" he asked, adding that no one had ever contacted him about removing the flags. "The only folks who have reached out to me did so because they want to see the flags added to public schools," he said. There is legislation in the City Council that would mandate such. The flag was created during the Vietnam War by a group of military families to highlight their demand for an accounting of soldiers listed as missing in action or held captive. But the flag has long since become a symbol of Americans" concern for missing or imprisoned American soldiers from all wars. The family organization, now named the National League of P.O.W./M.I.A. Families, provides updates on efforts to recover remains from Southeast Asia, Korea and World War II sites. The Defense Department has a Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office to manage P.O.W./M.I.A. issues. Congress has established National P.O.W./M.I.A. Recognition Day on the third Friday in September, one of six days when the flag is ordered flown at military installations. Civilians may fly it whenever they wish. Fuzzy Borders Q. Where can I find the official borders of Chelsea, Riverdale, Park Slope and other neighborhoods in the five boroughs? A. They don't exist. Some neighborhoods may have acquired recognizable boundaries by geography (island communities like City Island and Roosevelt Island), highways (Co-op City, Woodlawn), isolation (Breezy Point) or private ownership (Fieldston). And many smaller sections of neighborhoods are now precisely marked as historic districts by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. But most New York's neighborhood boundaries are a matter of local opinion. Ask residents on a border block what neighborhood they live in and you're likely to get different answers. Much of yesterday's Little Italy is today's Chinatown. The Department of City Planning, the authority on the city's official maps and names, does not specify official neighborhood boundaries. What are official are the city's 59 community districts, established by the City Charter. Because New Yorkers strongly associate with their neighborhoods, the department identifies the most commonly used neighborhood names in each community district on the Community Data Portal of the department's Web page (www.nyc.gov/planning). But it does not mark neighborhood borders or claim that its neighborhood list is complete. Two books produced with the help of the Citizens Committee for New York City, "The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn," edited by Kenneth T. Jackson, and "The Neighborhoods of Queens," by Claudia Gryvatz Copquin (both Yale University Press), do give exact boundaries for those boroughs" neighborhoods, along with their descriptions and history. But the boundaries were determined by consulting with hundreds of neighborhood, civic and block associations; they are not fixed by government. The Citizens Committee plans similar books about the other boroughs. Admitted and Absconded Q. When Ellis Island was operating, what would happen if a foreigner married an American woman to get into this country and then jilted her? A. He could be arrested and deported, but the reality was usually different, according to an account from the 1930s by Alice M. Galvin, secretary to the island's chief inspector, which she related to August C. Bolino, the author of "The Ellis Island Source Book" (1985). At that time, the immigration station at Ellis Island had a Law Division that heard charges against immigrants living here illegally. There were so many complaints from wronged women, Ms. Galvin wrote, that the petitioners were known as the League of Abandoned Wives; their stories followed a consistent pattern. In some immigrant communities, an unmarried older daughter was an embarrassment requiring drastic remedies. "When all efforts failed, the naturalized immigrant parents would take their American citizen, unattached daughter on a trip to Europe back to their native village," Ms. Galvin wrote. It must be kept in mind that this was when the quota system prevailed, and in many central European countries getting a visa to emigrate to the United States involved long years of waiting. Formerly neglected women would suddenly find themselves very desirable. In no time, her hand would be won - not improbably by the village Romeo - and off the happy newlyweds would depart for America. Sadly, they did not always live happily ever after; after arriving here, the groom would take off looking for a more desirable mate. When the jilted bride could no longer avoid facing the truth, she would "join the League" and appear at Ellis Island demanding the scoundrel be deported. Usually, the errant husband would be arrested and taken to Ellis Island. "Almost simultaneously with this would be the appearance at Ellis Island of the tearful complainant wife protesting it was all a mistake," Ms. Galvin said, "and demanding that the matter be dropped at once with the release of her husband." It wasn't that easy. Instead, the wife would be told that the man would undergo a deportation hearing, that he could be released on bond and that she could testify on his behalf. She would also be referred to one of the 20 social service agencies represented on the island. "Usually, at the conclusion of the proceedings, final disposition was held in abeyance, and the alien would remain on bond," Ms. Galvin wrote. Rarely, if ever, was deportation effected.