The one-stop shopping and railroading may be dead after all:

Six weeks after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority selected Tishman Speyer Properties to build a vast complex of office towers, apartment buildings and parks over the railyards on the West Side of Manhattan, the deal has fallen apart.

Gary Dellaverson, the authority’s chief financial officer, said the negotiations foundered Thursday afternoon after Tishman Speyer insisted on changing the terms of the $1 billion development, which both parties had agreed to on March 26.

. . .

. . . critics of the deal said that it should never have been made, especially since the financing for a key element for West Side development, the extension of the No. 7 subway line, had not been resolved. At the same time, plans for the expansion of the nearby Javits Convention Center had collapsed. And given the sour real estate market, critics said the developer was getting an inexpensive development option.

“This deal was unhealthy from the get-go,” said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky. “It never met the needs of the M.T.A.’s capital plan. The 7-line commitments were never sustainable. And in the end, every single West Side project is in various state of collapse.”

Seventy years after the Sixth Avenue el ceased operations, the elevated train is back. Sort of:

The people don’t always ride in a hole in the ground. Those aboard the No. 1 train in Lower Manhattan are now riding part of the way through the air.

There is no view to admire. The trains are still well below street level, on tracks running within a box-shaped concrete tunnel that bisects the World Trade Center site. But instead of soil, the south half of that 975-foot stretch of subway rests on a newly built network of brawny steel beams atop a forest of minipiles reaching down to bedrock.

And in recent weeks, workers have dug out so much soil from around those minipiles that they have created an underpass beneath the subway large enough for construction machinery to pass through. In the reconstruction of the trade center, it is a significant milestone of east meeting west.

Gradually, the entire volume under the subway box will be cleared of soil, until the section from Liberty to Vesey Streets is structurally more like a viaduct than a tunnel.

That will open up nearly 40 feet of vertical space under the tracks. And given how many purposes the site must serve, every cubic inch is precious.

The subway box will eventually be an integral part of the larger, multilevel subterranean structure at the trade center site. Meanwhile, it must be supported on a sturdy but temporary structure while everything is built around it.

(Perhaps) driving your taxpayer-funded car, you get pulled over for drunk driving, only to be bailed out by your Baby Mama, subsequently exposing a secret double life:

Rep. Vito Fossella today admitted he fathered a love child in a longtime secret affair with the woman who rescued him from the drunk tank.

Fossella, who is married and has three children in New York, did not say if he would step down or seek re-election.

“I have had a relationship with Laura Fay, with whom I have a 3-year-old daughter,” Fossella said in a four paragraph statement.

“My personal failings and imperfections have caused enormous pain to the people I love and I am truly sorry.

“While I understand that there will be many questions, including those about my political future, making any political decisions right now are furthest from my mind.

“Over the coming weeks and months, I will to continue to do my job and I will work hard to heal the deep wounds I have caused.”

His relationship with retired Col. Laura Fay came to light after cops busted him for drunken driving in Arlington, Va., just after midnight on Thursday May 1. He was released to Fay’s custody seven hours later.

Fossella, who smelled of alcohol and had wine-stained lips, told a cop that he was going to the home of his sick daughter on Grimm St. about three miles away, records show.

It’s not just your grubby friends and Maya Rudolph’s couches — they’re on the subway, too:

At a recent Department of Housing, Preservation and Development forum on the subject, a city bedbug educator admitted to seeing the pests on benches in subway stations — in one case, catching a ride on an unsuspecting straphanger’s caboose at Brooklyn’s Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, according to people at the meeting.

The official, identified as Edward Brownbear, also reported seeing the bugs on wooden benches at the Union Square and Fordham Road stations in Manhattan and The Bronx, respectively.

. . . but Yankees fans aren’t like other fans. Add to the annals of Yankee-hating lore:

The boozed-up Yankee fan from hell who ran over and killed a Red Sox supporter last week had a crush on Derek Jeter and a living room dominated by Pinstripe regalia.

A neighbor of Ivonne Hernandez, 43, who was charged with murder for allegedly running down Matthew Beaudoin in her Dodge Intrepid in Nashua, said the Bronx-bred fan loved the handsome shortstop.

“She thought he was hot and had beautiful eyes,” said the 28-year-old mom, who declined to be identified.

She was less excited by Alex Rodriguez, who she felt was a “wuss,” the Nashua neighbor recounted.

. . .

Hernandez, taunted by Red Sox fans outside a bar, bounced the 29-year-old off her windshield at up to 60 mph, witnesses said.

. . .

Officials said Friday’s events turned deadly not long after Hernandez slapped a female bartender outside a bar. The bartender’s friends chased Hernandez to her car and, seeing the Yankee logo on her rear windshield, began chanting, “Yankees suck!”

Hernandez hurriedly drove away, then stopped.

“She turned her car around and gunned the engine toward Matthew,” a witness told The Post yesterday. “She hit him and he was on the windshield. He flew 40 feet in the air.”

The witness said he cradled Matthew’s body in his arms, as he gasped for air. Beaudoin was taken off life support the next day.

Officials said Hernandez claimed she only wanted to scare the hecklers and expected them to get out the way.

Hernandez is being held without bail on charges of murder and aggravated DWI.

It may be impossible to hop on an E train to safety:

The city’s plan to get people out of the path of a hurricane might make anyone uncomfortable who remembers Aug. 8, 2007.

That’s when three inches of rain came down in one hour and flooding shut down the subway.

“We would use our mass-transit system to evacuate the majority of people,” said Amy Schultz of the Office of Emergency Management at a City Council hearing yesterday.

An OEM brochure offers the same advice: “If the city issues an evacuation order . . . use public transportation if possible.”

That might not be possible. After last August’s meltdown, MTA chief Eliot Sander said the subway can handle only about an inch and a half of rain in an hour.

A major storm would “severely” affect the subway, Schultz acknowledged, but the evacuation would begin early, perhaps days before the storm.

“We’ve worked out the timing,” she said. “We have to ensure there’s enough time so the subway can be shut down.” Trains would not run during a hurricane.

August 8, 2007 . . . oh yeah, that sucked.

Sucking up philanthropic oxygen for not only the cult of trees but NYC-TV, too:

The superstar pop group — lead singer Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland — announced in Times Square Tuesday that they will wrap up their worldwide reunion tour with one last blowout gig in the city where they first performed 30 years ago.

The concert will be held this summer and raise money for New York public TV stations; more details will be released later.

The Police first played in New York in 1978 at CBGB, the legendary downtown club that closed in 2006. The group drifted apart in the 1980s, but reunited last year.

The band also is donating $1 million to Mayor Bloomberg’s effort to plant a million trees in the city by 2017.

“We wanted to leave a gift for our last performance that would keep on giving year after year, decade after decade,” Sting said.

And the group got a gift back. Bloomberg gave each band member the Key to the City.

The city will match the group’s donation, which will reforest 2,000 acres of parkland with 10,000 trees.

Note goalpost shifting — not new trees but reforesting current parkland.

The current style of pants is too tight anyway:

A pervert with a Metro-Card and a camera likes to zoom in on the groins of male subway riders and then post his videos on the Internet, The Post has learned.

“The bulge on him just brings so much to the imagination . . . and the fact that he was oblivious to my filming is so great,” the 27- year-old filmmaker — who calls himself househead7d5 — gleefully recounts.

On another of his dozen clips, titled “sexy guy on 5 train,” as the subway pulls into 86th Street, househead7d5 tilts up from the man’s crotch, briefly, to his face.

“See this guy, and he sees me back,” says the description.

Because nothing shown on these videos isn’t already on public display and houshead7d5 is not earning money from his voyeurism, there is technically nothing criminal or actionable about his work, say attorney Rosemarie Arnold and other legal experts.

Law firms forced to slum it in Brooklyn:

The Atlantic Yards project may be falling apart on Bruce Ratner, but the developer released some big news for his Metrotech office complex Downtown: the Manhattan law firm of Weil, Gotshal is moving to Brooklyn.

Forest City Ratner Vice President Mary Anne Gilmartin made the announcement at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable on Tuesday that the 500-lawyer white shoe firm would soon relocate to Metrotech.

“It’s a paragon shift from back-office to more-discerning tenants,” she said.

Update . . .

Highlighting the importance of keeping up appearances (as in, the economy actually grew 0.6 percent last quarter so we’re doing very well, thank you very much), the law firm denies the horrible accusation:

The Atlantic Yards project may be falling apart on Bruce Ratner, but the developer released some big news for his Metrotech office complex Downtown: the Manhattan law firm of Weil, Gotshal is moving part of its office to Brooklyn.

Forest City Ratner Vice President Mary Anne Gilmartin made the announcement at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable on Tuesday, but said that the 500-lawyer white shoe firm would soon relocate to Metrotech. That turned out to be untrue, as a press release from the company said only some back-office staffers would relocate to 15 Metrotech, which is on the office complex’s commons, between Myrtle Avenue and Tech Place.

[Gersh, you're killing me, buddy -- here I am ready to sit down with a tall glass of scotch and then . . .]

Maybe we can finally get a legal definition of “luck”:

The New York Lottery’s impish “Little Bit of Luck” character is really a wolf in sheep’s clothing, according to a Staten Island woman who’s suing the state and shopkeepers, alleging fraud and racketeering.

The class-action lawsuit, filed on behalf of a woman identified only as M. McKee, accuses the New York State Division of Lottery and vendors of teaming up to dupe countless consumers into playing Take Five based on ads that exaggerate the odds of winning.

Players who plunk down hard-earned cash day after day actually believe in the slogans, “All you need is a little bit of luck” and “There’s a hundred thousand winners every day,” according to the suit, filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court.

The ads put the chances of winning at 1 in 9, but McKee’s lawyer Craig Lanza said consumers need only look at the state Lottery’s Web site to see this is “patently false.”

At least they didn’t eat it:

A box turtle that has for years crawled through backyards in Williamsburg was discovered last week painted a sickly orange, with neighbors blaming construction workers next door with ample time and spray paint on their hands.

Photos of the poor turtle, known as Myrtle, in her new Technicolor shell were first posted on the blog The Gowanus Lounge, and caused a cascade of vitriol on the site.

“Whoever did this should rot in hell,” wrote one commenter. “We live in a world of sociopaths,” commented another.

Myrtle the Turtle was discovered painted orange in a backyard next to a development that has long been an irritant to longtime residents. They have complained of demolition work, cracks appearing in the walls of their homes, and ripped out phone and cable lines.

The developer of the residential project at 5 Roebling Street, Shlomo Karpen, could not be reached for comment.

The owner of the building next to the development has for years been keeping turtles in her backyard. Meredith Chesney, who lives there, says the practice is something of a neighborhood folk custom.

She said she believed that the turtle escaped through a hole in the fence left by the construction work and wondered onto the site.

Many in the neighborhood said they thought that the appearance of a traffic cone-colored terrapin symbolized all that had gone wrong with their area.

The city should subsidize Fresh Direct deliveries to underserved neighborhoods*:

A continuing decline in the number of neighborhood supermarkets has made it harder for millions of New Yorkers to find fresh and affordable food within walking distance of their homes, according to a recent city study. The dearth of nearby supermarkets is most severe in minority and poor neighborhoods already beset by obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

According to the food workers union, only 550 decently sized supermarkets — each occupying at least 10,000 square feet — remain in the city.

In one corner of southeast Queens, four supermarkets have closed in the last two years. Over a similar period in East Harlem, six small supermarkets have closed, and two more are on the brink, local officials said. In some cases, the old storefronts have been converted to drug stores that stand to make money coming and going — first selling processed foods and sodas, then selling medicines for illnesses that could have been prevented by a better diet.

The supermarket closings — not confined to poor neighborhoods — result from rising rents and slim profit margins, among other causes. They have forced residents to take buses or cabs to the closest supermarkets in some areas. Those with cars can drive, but the price of gasoline is making some think twice about that option. In many places, residents said the lack of competition has led to rising prices in the remaining stores.

*Right after we figure out how to supply high-speed internet connections and computers to all.

You bastard! Which is to say, the kitchen staff has a hard time living this down when they move on:

When Christopher Russell, a captain at Gramercy Tavern for many years, went to work at Union Square Café, where he is now the general manager, he decided to import a few traditions. (Both restaurants are owned by Danny Meyer.) He banished wordy descriptions from the wine list and switched from a two-fork setting to a single fork; he was successful in encouraging employees to escort customers to the rest room rather than just pointing in its direction. The Gramercy custom of reading poetry before the “family meals” that precede each service, however, met with resistance. (The practice got its start in the late nineties, when a manager was inspired by the performance of Dante’s “Inferno” that the Cathedral of St. John the Divine puts on every Maundy Thursday.)

“The first two years, it fell flat, and I thought, Maybe this isn’t going to work here,” Russell said. But Russell is a man of enthusiasms, and, like Louis XIV with his court tennis, he eventually succeeded in spreading his mania for Shakespeare and Auden to the people. For the fifth season running, the wait-staff at U.S.C. began every day in April, which is National Poetry Month, by reading aloud limericks, haikus, villanelles, and quatrains of their choosing, and, sometimes, composition.

The other Wednesday, an hour before lunch service commenced, eight waiters, a host, and two bartenders, Times Dining sections in hand, were ensconced in green leather banquettes for a buffet-style family meal of snow peas, penne with green peas, grilled steak, French fries, and huevos in stewed tomato sauce.

“A couple of quick notes,” Dina Millan, a dining-room manager, began. A regular, she said, had a table for one-forty-five — “three and the turkey,” meaning she was coming in with two friends and her recently born baby. “O.K., who wants to go first?”

Tessa Antolini, a waitress and sometime actress, cleared her throat. Clutching a yellow paperback, she stood up.

“I called a man today,” she read, in a near-whisper. Her selection was “Calling Him Back from Layoff,” a free-verse workingman’s lament by Bob Hicok, with a trace of terza rima. Her voice gained strength as she worked toward the poem’s climax . . .

SJP apologizes for single-handedly making parts of New York City unaffordable:

“I don’t know if you do this with your husband,” Parker says. “But say one of us is walking down the street, I’ll call him and say, ‘You know, the laundromat is closed!’ And he’ll say, ‘What?’ I’ll be like, ‘The laundromat at 11th and West 4th Street is closed!’”

Parker and Broderick keep a running count of these changes, a mutual mourning for the transformation of their neighborhood into a luxe, tree-lined shopping mall. She knows this sounds absurd coming from her, that people blame Sex and the City for the ruination of the West Village; even Broderick says, “That’s your fault!” when he sees a thong poking up from low-slung jeans, and her close friend John Benjamin Hickey, an actor, longs for the days before “those girls on buses.” Parker clarifies that she doesn’t want to sound like Madonna bemoaning what’s happened to New York: It’s not that there’s no “creative energy” in the air, it’s simply been priced out of this particular borough.

Still, she says, her New York, like that of many New Yorkers, is one that is no longer quite there. “You know, when I arrived in the city in 1976, New York was financially a wreck,” she remembers. “But to me it’s the New York that Matthew and I literally try to find every day of our lives. It was the best place in the world. It was literature. It promised everything. And for someone who loved food and smells and stimulation, who was rocked to sleep by the sound of taxis — well, there’s just so much money now, and the city is so affluent, and all the colors, all the shops, the look of a street from block to block is just terribly absent of distinguishing coffee shops, bodegas. All of that stuff that made it possible to live in New York is gone.” Even Brooklyn is “very chic” now, she adds. “I guess there are places in Queens that are affordable.”

. . . it’ll be a great place to watch people pick their noses:

he city is planning a new $30 million “super high-tech” NYPD command bunker in lower Manhattan to serve as the nerve center for crime fighting, as well as emergency response to terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

The technology-intensive, 22,000-square-foot Joint Operations Command Center will be a 24/7 hub housed in an eight-story building connected to Police Headquarters at 109 Park Row, according to a city document detailing negotiations between the NYPD and architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

The center will allow the NYPD to “coordinate with other agencies — local, state and federal — to identify, manage, and respond to crises throughout New York City,” according to the “notice of intent” document.

“The need for such a facility is imperative,” the document said.

Sources told The Post that the “state-of-the-art, sophisticated” center will have walls of high-definition video screens showing surveillance footage from a variety of places, including underneath bridges and underwater.

Cops will continuously monitor the screens to pinpoint suspicious activity or zero in on specific areas in the event of breaking crime. Criminal databases linked to the center will instantly provide responding cops with critical data.

The NYPD currently has an operations center on the eighth floor of Police Headquarters that doubles as an emergency-response center in crises, but one counterterrorism detective said, “It could certainly be more high-tech.”

Yeah, yeah — I get it:

Q. The other morning, a film crew was trying to block sidewalk traffic in a busy area of Union Square. Can anyone who is not a police officer lawfully impede my movement in a public area?

A. Yes. Just think of the construction worker who might be saving your life by telling you to please wait for the cement mixer that’s backing out of a driveway.

As for film crews, the permits issued by the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting give them the right to be at the location defined in the permit.

“During filming, the production must ensure that a safe public walkway for pedestrians and an emergency lane for traffic are available during the shoot,” the film office said in a statement.

“It is appropriate for a production which has received a film permit to request that passers-by not interfere with filming activities. This can be accomplished by asking passers-by to take an alternate route or wait for a short while, as the situation warrants.”

Just because you build a bike lane doesn’t mean people will respect it:

On streets clogged by pollution-emitting cars, buses and trucks, New York City’s quest to establish reasonably safe cycling paths by adding to its roughly 300 miles of bicycle lanes has been welcomed by cyclists. But the lanes are often battlegrounds between cyclists and drivers who seem undeterred by the clearly demarcated paths.

Although city regulations forbid cars from blocking bike lanes — a violation that carries a $115 fine — those rules are routinely ignored by drivers who use the lanes as parking spots, loading zones and places to pick up passengers. Such maneuvers have enraged cyclists who say they are unlawful, rude and dangerous.

. . .

And what might the nighttime campaign to give some bike paths greater prominence yield? A visit the next day to some bike lanes in Lower Manhattan found several cars and trucks standing or parked on the paths. On Second Avenue, Lynn Roman, a 42-year-old construction company employee, sat behind the wheel of a gray Toyota Land Cruiser just north of St. Mark’s Place.

Ms. Roman said she planned to be there only briefly while a passenger ran an errand but added that she rarely paid attention to bike lanes.

“I have other things on my mind,” she said. “This is the city. Bike lanes belong in parks.”

Film set P.A. + construction site debris:

A production assistant working on a film set in Manhattan was injured when a piece of plywood from a building renovation hit him on the head Thursday.

Remarkably, Walter Wilkerson, 56, was not seriously hurt by the debris that plunged 12 stories from a Gramercy Park office tower about 7:30 a.m., officials said.

. . .

Witnesses said Wilkerson, who was arranging parking along Park Ave. South and E.18th St. for the filming of a commercial, was struck by the plywood after a gust of wind wrenched it loose from a suspended scaffolding.

Horrified co-workers watched as the large slab hurtled toward the sidewalk and tried in vain to warn Wilkerson, who was carrying a cup of coffee.

“It was like a Frisbee,” said Jaz Reyes, 28, a fellow production assistant.

City Buildings Department officials said workers were repairing the 19-story office building’s facade when the debris fell.

City inspectors issued a violation to the contractor, Yates Restoration Group, for failing to protect the public and property, officials said.

Wilkerson remained in good humor after the near disaster.

“I’m still mad about my coffee,” he said, noting he spilled the java after he was struck. “My legs are still a little rubbery, and my balance is off.”

. . . and wherein the PTA picks up the slack:

The auctioneer came on with a bold pitch, trying to get the bidders to open their wallets as wide as possible.

“I want you to prove to the world that we’re not in a slowdown economy,” he pleaded with his audience, the parents of Public School 41 in Greenwich Village.

The first item was a large canvas painted with bright flowers, made by the kindergarten class. The opening bid was set at $500.

“Come on parents, prove that you love your children,” he said, his laughter not stopping a few winces in the audience.

Sold, for $1,100.

New York schools have withstood budget cuts of $180 million this year, and are facing more, giving a renewed urgency to the school auction season, in full swing across the city. Although many parent associations hold fund-raising events, auctions are largely a phenomenon of schools in affluent areas, where parents have the connections to garner desirable donations — like a meal at AquaGrill, a Botox “house call” or a behind-the-scenes tour of a television show — and the money to bid on them.

At P.S. 41’s auction, held at the Puck Building in SoHo, Michele Farinet, the parent coordinator for the school, stepped up at the request of the auctioneer. She exhorted parents to put up their paddles for a special “fund a cause,” which she said could be anything from books to tables and chairs.

“There are budget cuts this year, but we are going to make sure that we give the kids what they need before the mayor and the chancellor take it away from them,” she said, trying to fire up the bidders.

Her voice rose with her pleas: “When the mayor comes knocking at 11 o’clock on a Friday night and says, ‘Guess what, principals, you are going to lose 10 percent,’ at least our principal will know that our parents have done this!”

Modeled after events at private schools, public school auctions have become increasingly elaborate in recent years, in settings that have moved from school cafeterias and local pizza shops to deluxe locations like the Puck Building and Guastavino’s on the Upper East Side. The events raise crucial dollars for computers and foreign language classes, art supplies and teaching assistants, dance instruction, counting blocks for math, white boards — anything that parents might consider essential but that the standard allocation from the city’s Department of Education does not cover.

Here we were led to believe that people in London loved congestion pricing. Or not:

At the polling station in St Peter’s Church, Eaton Square, Belgravia, central London, the congestion charge appeared to be the key factor in deciding which box voters will choose for their cross.

Louise Petano, 29, a mother of one, said she wanted Conservative Boris Johnson to win but thought the result would be too close to call.

“Congestion charge is the main factor that I am voting on today. This is going to affect young families like mine.

“People didn’t care as much about it at the last election, but the bureaucracy and political changes the mayor has brought into place since then has been far greater than before. All the people I know who can vote, are all coming out this time.”

. . .

At Walnut Tree Walk primary school in Kennington, south London, shop assistant Mary Hickey, 58, had just voted Conservative.

She said: “Last time I voted for Ken Livingstone but I can’t do it again. I think Boris is going to win. Mine wasn’t a vote for the Conservatives; I genuinely think Boris is a better man for the job. I don’t like the congestion charge and I don’t like the people he associated with abroad.”

Sonia Calheiros, 31, an administrator said she also voted for Johnson because the situation in London was “getting worse.” She said: “It’s getting harder to lead a decent life in London. Everything is so expensive, housing, public transport, congestion charge, and Ken Livingstone does nothing to help.”

Adnan Yildiz, 58, a hotel caterer, said: “I voted for Ken twice before, I have been in the unions for 40 years but I have just voted for Boris Johnson. It felt very strange ticking the Conservative box.

“I feel like Ken has taken away my freedom with the congestion charge. It hasn’t solved the traffic problem and is only hurting the poor because the rich can afford to pay no matter what it is.

“He is wasting so much money, there was the American transport commissioner who did nothing, and there’s all the foreign trips that he makes to India and South America.”

Not the last word? Hmm . . .

If you see something, say something. Except for monkeys . . . and perhaps pythons, too:

That monkey on the subway? Illegal in New York City, but not if the owner has a disability. The guy with the snake on the bus? Leave him alone. He needs it for emotional support.

The New York Police Department Patrol Guide, a thick and getting thicker collection of rules and regulations, has been amended to let officers know that guide dogs for the blind are not the only creatures considered service animals — and to give them a better understanding of which straphangers and bus riders are allowed to have members of the animal kingdom as riding partners.

Now, according to the Patrol Guide, it is not just the blind who can have service animals, but those afflicted with epilepsy, heart disease, lung disease and other medical conditions, namely those who say they need an animal to provide them psychological reassurance.

. . .

The NYPD would not elaborate on the Patrol Guide revision, a spokesman said, adding only that the guide is routinely updated. But Becky Barnes, a manager with Guiding Eyes For The Blind, a Westchester dog school that trains canines to work with the blind and visually impaired, said it is not uncommon for people to try to pass off exotic animals, such as pythons, as service animals.

It’s not the start of a joke. They swim:

Apparently, the deer population in Staten Island has been going up, and Friday, for the first time, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation will release its first ever count of deer in the borough.

And these clever creatures aren’t taking the ferry or Verrazano like the rest of us, they’re swimming over.

“We suspect that they they are swimming over from New Jersey, deer are strong swimmers and the Arthur Kill is a narrow body of water,” said Arturo Garcia-Costas, of the NYSDEC.

The MTA is installing a fare box at the Tompkinsville stop of the Staten Island Railway*:

The free ride is coming to an end at the Tompkinsville Station of the Staten Island Railway.

The borough’s train line will be adding a new fare collection system at Tompkinsville, where many riders get off and walk to the nearby St. George Ferry Terminal, to save $2 on the fare, which currently is charged only at St. George.

Railway President John Gaul announced yesterday that construction is expected to begin this summer. A small entrance will be built on a platform to be constructed from the pedestrian bridge where Bay Street meets Victory Boulevard. Inside the unstaffed station, low turnstiles will be monitored by closed-circuit television. MetroCard vending machines will flank the turnstiles, he said.

When they’re up and running late next year, the new turnstiles are expected to add $550,000 a year to Railway coffers — money that is now lost when folks make the hike to and from the boat.

The new entrance is part of a $6.4 million pilot project to explore bringing fare collection back to at least some other stations along the 14-mile line.

“There’s a lot of interest in expanding fare collection, but it’s easier said than done, because our stations weren’t designed with that in mind,” Gaul said.

The fare was eliminated — except for St. George — in 1997 as part of the “One City, One Fare” program, when MetroCards replaced conductors checking tickets.

Since then, Railway riders have complained that the clientele onboard has become more unsavory, with criminals using the trains as a convenient getaway, particularly at night.

*Staten Island Railway Pub Crawls imperiled.

A question? Kill it:

Nearly five dozen women now say they faced sex discrimination because they became pregnant while employees of the financial-news company Mayor Bloomberg founded — and the number of alleged victims is growing, a federal employee-rights lawyer said.

A class-action lawsuit against Bloomberg LP named three victims when it was filed in September. But that number has ballooned as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission continues to interview women at the company, said EEOC attorney Raechel Adams.

At a court conference yesterday, Adams told Manhattan federal Judge Loretta Preska that 58 women have joined the case as her office continues to interview some 475 employees who took maternity leave since 2002, all potential class-action members.

The suit, filed in September, claims supervisors at Bloomberg LP sidelined women after they revealed that they were pregnant and systematically denied them promotions and demoted them.

William Dealy, a lawyer for the original named plaintiffs, said, “They’re encouraged because in unity there’s strength.”

Mayor Bloomberg blew up at a reporter yesterday when asked about the lawsuit following a budget presentation.

“What does this got to do with the budget?” the mayor snapped angrily. “I have absolutely no idea. You’ll have to talk to the company.

“And next time don’t bother to ask us a question. You stick to topic. Everybody else plays by the rules. You’ll just have to as well. Thank you very much.”

OK, so about that budget. What’s the deal with continuing a $400 rebate if there are multi-billion dollar deficits expected until the next Olympic Games? We should kill that, too:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, warning that the boom in real estate and on Wall Street has come to an end, unveiled a $59.1 billion budget Thursday that would virtually halt the growth in city spending for the first time since the economic downturn following 9/11.

Despite the darkening economic picture, Mr. Bloomberg called for preserving a popular $400 property tax rebate and a 7 percent reduction in the property tax rate, although he said he expected that the city would have to raise property taxes by July 2009.

I don’t get it:

Disturbing, gang-like graffiti is cropping up all over a Brooklyn elementary school, marring a playground, classrooms and two teachers’ cars, authorities said.

The troubling words “Jump White People” and abbreviation “JWP” have appeared at Public School 224 in East New York about a dozen times in the past three weeks, and some teachers are concerned that it’s not being taken seriously.

“It just quietly gets erased,” one teacher said. “Nothing gets done.”

The words were also scrawled in marker on a Snapple machine, desks and several walls, prompting four students ranging in age from 8 to 11 to be disciplined, cops said.

But the graffiti has continued to surface since the in-school suspensions. As recently as Wednesday, a staff member found JWP in a closet, a source said.

And teachers worry that the markings are not just a prank, but instead show that the kids are mimicking gang culture at a young age.

Let us have our raw milk:

Brooklyn raw milk enthusiasts are crying over the loss of their supplier — a horse and buggy-driving Amish farmer from Pennsylvania.

Mark Nolt of New Line, Pa., was arrested and shut down last Friday for selling the contraband.

“Oh God. My heart is pounding. I can’t believe what a God—- police state this is,” said one Brooklyn customer who made monthly pickups of raw dairy products from Nolt that the farmer had dropped off in Manhattan by workers.

“I gave him $100 last week for a huge delivery of stuff, including raw cream that I planned on using to make cream puffs,” she said.

The Brooklyn outcry came after six Pennsylvania state troopers raided Nolt’s farm and confiscated his illegal dairy.

“They swooped in on Friday morning like a bunch of Vikings, handcuffed me and stole $30,000 worth of my milk, cheese and butter,” Nolt told the Daily News.

Nolt is a devout Mennonite who sells raw dairy products at his farm and has them transported by truck to customers in Delaware and across New York City, where the raw goods are illegal.

It is a violation of federal law to transport raw milk across state lines with the intent to sell it for consumption. Nolt was arrested for not having a permit to sell the goods in Pennsylvania, where they are allowed.

He said he was working on the farm with his wife and 10 children when the agents cuffed him on charges of selling the contraband to an undercover officer.

“The government doesn’t have the right to dictate what I eat, and never will,” said an unrepentant Nolt.

Around the city, more and more parents are signing up to find out where dropoff points are to pick up raw milk they have bought online.

To get around the law, no money changes hands. Milk pickup spots are posted in Williamsburg, Queens and neighborhoods in Manhattan — where a milk truck waits.

And who killed the raw milk trade? You did!

The letter writer apparently doesn’t get into the city much:

Charles Ober — an openly gay candidate running for the City Council seat formerly held by Dennis Gallagher — said Wednesday he has been smeared by a nasty anti-gay screed.

But Ober, a Democrat, was not alone in denouncing the hateful anonymous missive.

He was joined at a news conference by a potential rival from the opposite side of the political spectrum: Republican hopeful Thomas Ognibene.

The letter — a typed page full of vile hate speech, with frequent spelling and grammatical errors — was sent to an unknown number of households in Ridgewood, Middle Village and Glendale, they said.

“You need to know that one of the candidates that is trying to get Dennis’ seat is a f—-t,” the letter began.

“If you do not want your kids to be exposed to this garbage, you need to make sure you vote — and not for Charlie . . . Ober,” the diatribe continues. “Our kids will be exposed to f—-ts holding hands, kissing and running up Myrtle Ave. in a dress.”

Fortunately, there is still a healthy level of cynicism in Middle Queens:

Multiple Democratic insiders inferred that Ober and Ognibene — who have been spurned by their respective political parties in the nonpartisan special election — may have concocted the hate mail scheme to boost their candidacies.

“It looks like they manufactured an issue and tried to get press on it,” said Michael Reich, executive secretary of the Queens Democratic Party.

Others blamed Ober for going along with the conservative Ognibene in a plan to divide the Democratic vote.

Ed Skyler has internalized it:

The free ride is finally over for thousands of privileged parkers, with the city yanking more than 25,000 permits in a sweeping overhaul yesterday of a gilded system that for years has infuriated regular motorists.

Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler said 32 percent of the 80,770 official parking placards used by 68 different agencies had been withdrawn.

. . .

Skyler insisted that vehicles with expired permits and those bearing placards issued without authority by uniformed unions — the bane of many irate motorists trying to find a parking spot — would now be ticketed. “You might as well have Time magazine on your windshield [as an expired permit],” he said. “It’ll be just as effective.”

Because speaking of Time Magazine:

Mayor Bloomberg went out on a limb — and it got him named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.

The magazine posed him on a tree outside City Hall on April 18 to illustrate his commitment to environmental issues.

Happily, the mayor — who rode to his perch on a cherry picker — was safe from any dive-bombing birds. His security guard was planted firmly in a flower bed below him.

And that’s a commitment to environmental issues, not constitutional issues:

In a blow to Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign to get guns off the streets, a federal appeals court shot down a suit by the city that sought to make firearm makers responsible for the illegal sale of weapons.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan tossed out the lawsuit in light of a 2005 law that Congress crafted in direct response to the city’s claims. The 2-to-1 split opinion overturned an earlier ruling by Brooklyn federal Judge Jack Weinstein, who was poised to start a trial in the case when Congress approved the law.

Bloomberg said he is “disappointed,” but vowed to continue his fight against illegal guns through another lawsuit targeting crooked dealers and pawnshops.

. . . but until then, please just give these people a stupid beer/wine license already:

Long Island City activists are opposing a popular restaurant’s application for a beer and wine license, fearing alcohol will only add to the troubles they say the eatery has brought to the neighborhood.

Residents said Blend LIC has been a bad neighbor, and accused its management of repeatedly lying to the community about its intentions.

Blend’s management “don’t want a restaurant that co-exists peacefully with the neighborhood,” said resident Tim Lee, a 48-year-old photographer.

“There’s a big difference between a restaurant that serves liquor and a place that’s positioning itself as a bar stop.”

Blend, which bills itself as a Latin fusion restaurant, had its initial application for a liquor license rejected by the State Liquor Authority in November 2006.

Now the restaurant’s owner, Cullen Partners, is preparing to ask Queens Community Board 2 for a beer and wine license.

“The opening of their rear garden would surround our building with noise,” said Tim Doocey, 38, another concerned neighbor.

. . .

“There’s a saturation of bars and restaurants” in Long Island City, said Community Board 2 Chairman Joe Conley. “People are saying enough is enough.”

In a 2006 letter to Cullen Partners, Conley wrote: “Please be advised we have already spoken in a loud and unambiguous voice on this issue and are unlikely to reconsider the decision” in regard to a new license.

Charles Linn, attorney for Cullen Partners, declined to comment and added that no one at Blend would be available for further comment.

The original disapproval states the “application information was misrepresented by the applicant” and that the applicant “submitted an application with misleading information.”

Doocey, a communications consultant, added, “We’re not anti-business. We’re not even anti-bar. But the next thing you know, Vernon Blvd. will become a mess like the lower East Side.”

Economy down, negativism up:

Waterfront projects — some real, some imagined — were the highlight of yesterday’s Staten Island Economic Development Corp. exhibition and conference at the Hilton Garden Inn, where there was talk about building 1,000 units of housing and an IMAX theater next to the St. George Ferry terminal and an outlet mall on the South Shore waterfront.

But what Staten Island is most likely to get by year’s end is a $35 million cement terminal next to the Bayonne Bridge in Elm Park and a small business park on Richmond Terrace in Port Richmond. Both are expected to break ground within the next few months.