It's 4 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon and Lucky Checkley is happy. He should be tired, as he just finished his 10th public performance with the New York Mandolin Orchestra, but Mr. Checkley is a man who never stops moving.

Now, after the theater empties out, Checkley scurries about, putting things away. He pushes a small, upright piano offstage as he describes hearing the mandolin as a child in his native Trinidad.

Across the room, Judith Fallat smiles at her father, George. They have been coming to 345 East 15th St. to hone their mandolin skills for years.

Every week, she leaves her suburban law office, picks up her father, and makes the one-hour drive into the city. For a while, he used to just sit in the audience and listen to his daughter play. But it didn't take much persuasion from orchestra members to get him to transfer his guitar skills to the mandolin.

At this concert in early June, the orchestra's 80th anniversary performance, these musicians are joined by, among others, a plumber from the Bronx, a newspaper editor from Midtown, and college students from Washington Square.

The ensemble is composed of 30 players whose love of the mandolin - often called "the poor man's violin" - reminds them of their heritage.

Like similar orchestras in Seattle, Baltimore, and Milwaukee, the New York Mandolin Orchestra is devoted to preserving an instrument that was a fixture of urban working-class neighborhoods during the immigration wave of the early 1900s.

"The mandolin has a fundamental relationship to America," says Dan Barrett, conductor of the New York group. "It is this infusion of cultures, people, immigrants, and ideas that keeps America from dying, and the mandolin is very reflective of that fact."

Contemporary performers, especially those who play bluegrass, are also rediscovering the mandolin.

A century ago in New York, small, community-based mandolin orchestras popped up all over the city. These included the Workmen's Circle Mandolin Orchestra, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union Orchestra, and the Jewish Peoples Fraternal Order Orchestra. These groups began to consolidate, eventually evolving into the New York Mandolin Orchestra in 1924.

"There is a very strong community base surrounding the mandolin," says Irene Roberts, the orchestra's second chair. Ms. Roberts started playing the mandolin 70 years ago, at the age of 5.

"It was the Depression," she recalls, "My mother wanted me to have some culture, and mandolin lessons were the cheapest thing around - only 25 cents."

Miriam Abrams, a longtime orchestra member, had a similar experience. At the behest of her parents, she began taking lessons with other children in the Bronx. "The mandolin was inexpensive enough that working-class people, people who grew up in my neighborhood and who worked in local factories, could afford it," she says.

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