You know a place is frou-frou when the Sunday Times refers to it like this:

Indeed, the feminized décor [of Cafe Lalo, the dessert place on West 83rd Street featured on You've Got Mail] may serve a purpose beyond aesthetics. After a man spends an hour surrounded by fluffy desserts and the lulling sound of Norah Jones on the stereo, his more carnal tendencies will probably be all but cowed on the walk home. If he musters the testosterone required for hand holding, he should consider it a victory.

Gentlemen, they’re calling you out! What are you gonna do about it?

The rising value of the pound against the plummeting value of the dollar means that New York is now the Tijuana of the Northeast, for the British, at least:

Sheila Riley came for Macy’s, evidenced by the pile of telltale red bags piled around her feet. Russell Whitehead and Robert Archibald made the trip for “Wicked.” Jeff Taylor wanted to propose.

Seb Sims’s goals were admittedly more prosaic and yet they pleased him. “I came to New York to go shopping and get drunk,” said Mr. Sims as he headed for a southbound No. 1 to “Greenwich.” (No, not Connecticut, but why embarrass him?)

I guess it’s not all that different from cashing in on cheap Canadian toothpaste in Montreal (at 30 percent off!), but still . . . shopping and getting drunk?

The Times, observer of all that curious in the world, notes several quirky things about our visitors from abroad:

Some random facts about British visitors, gleamed from several days of observing them:

¶They have an almost alarming interest in shoes, particularly sneakers (or, as they call them, trainers). “I got loads of Diesel trainers,” said Mr. Whitehead, an actor from London. “They are a quarter of the price here. I bought three pairs for $25 each.”

¶They drink such concoctions as dry vermouth with Sprite (called a martini and lemonade) and Stella Artois beer with a shot of Rose’s lime juice. “They also get really tickled about fancy cocktails,” said Sara Najjar, a bartender at the Hotel Metro, which is a veritable outpost of tourists from England and Scotland. “I guess because they can only get beers in their pubs over there. It’s just crazy!”

¶They flock to Macy’s as Americans might flock to Buckingham Palace, and at the department store they sate their appetite for hats, watches, handbags and coats. The store had more than 20,000 British shoppers last year, and company officials report they take advantage of the store’s 11 percent discount for international visitors more than those of any other nationality.

And Anglophiles beware — dry vermouth and Sprite aside, they may be cultured in an Old Europe kind of way, but they still understand and appreciate the occasional good old fashioned chain restaurant:

On Tuesday afternoon, Gerald and Moira McGinty, who live outside Glasgow, waited nervously for their son David and his friend, Liam Hanlon, to join them in the lobby for their car trip to the airport, which was arriving in minutes. Seems some last-minute (shoe) shopping was occurring on Eighth Street.

Among their bags was an electric guitar, bought for $1,400 rather than £2,000 in Scotland. They had their Tiffany key rings. They had their “Chicago” programs. And, sorry Jean-Georges, they had their memories of TGI Friday’s.

In the great community of nations, who among us does not love TGI Friday’s?

On behalf of all New York-area Bridge and Tunnel Club members, I proudly welcome the British to our fair city. Enjoy!

Not to minimize tragedy (believe me, this story is sad enough as it is), but am I the only one who senses a Law & Order episode coming on?

Mr. Softee on the hotseat:

He was the star witness, and had come before the City Council to speak on one of the Bloomberg administration’s more controversial proposals. With the news media closely watching, James Conway Jr., the scion of the family that founded Mister Softee, had an admission to make: the Mister Softee ditty, a staple of urban summer, could be so annoying that even he would not want it playing outside his house all day.

“Does it get stuck in your head occasionally?” he said. “We hope so. But the Mister Softee song as a threat to the health and welfare of New Yorkers? I don’t think so.”

The jingle, with its lyrics, “Listen for my store on wheels, ding-a-ling down the street,” has become a flashpoint in the debate over revising the city’s noise code. From dogs that bark too long to nightclubs that draw neighbors’ complaints, the administration wants new restrictions, but it found wide-ranging opposition at yesterday’s City Council hearing.

Joining Mr. Softee in its opposition to the City’s proposed new restrictions was the New York Nightlife Association (NYNA), which worried that the changes would be too broad. That group’s name paled in comparison to the group in support of the proposals:

While the four-hour hearing was packed with critics of the city’s plan, there were also many supporters, including frustrated residents and members of a group known as Noise, which is short for Neighbors Against Noxious Odors, Incessant Sounds and Emissions.

Noise. Got that? Continuing:

But it was Mister Softee that drew the most interest. Councilman Charles Barron of Brooklyn told Mr. Tweedy: “You and the mayor are very bold taking on Mister Softee. You’re going to traumatize a lot of children in this city.”

Mr. Conway said that the current plan would not only silence the 347 Mister Softee trucks that operate in the city but also disappoint more than 120,000 customers. Instead, Mr. Conway proposed a compromise: stop the music only when trucks are parked for a certain length of time.

Anything more, he said, would cause sales to plummet.

“To get a sense of what this would do to us, remember when you were a kid,” he said. “You heard the jingle, you grabbed your money and you ran to the truck. The way you knew Mister Softee was in the neighborhood was the song.”

Bonus Points: Mr. Softee Theme Sheet Music.

The City’s Health Department released a study showing that New Yorkers drink a lot:

It may not come as news to bartenders, waiters and sommeliers, but New Yorkers drink a lot, a new City Health Department study shows. But what may not be so obvious to those who pour for a living is that New Yorkers in some neighborhoods drink much more than those in others.

Care to guess which are the heaviest drinking neighborhoods? The results may or may not be surprising:

The study - based on information collected in 2003 as part of the city’s community health survey - suggests that the heaviest drinking neighborhoods are Greenwich Village and Chelsea, where 32 percent of adults report drinking amounts that the report defines as excessive, followed by the Upper East Side and Upper West Side and Gramercy Park in Manhattan, and Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope in Brooklyn.

Which goes to show that if you guessed that poorer neighborhoods drank more, you’d be wrong:

Residents of the South Bronx, the Northeast Bronx, Kingsbridge, Flatbush, Eastern Queens and Borough Park reported the least drinking.

Of course there were those who quibbled with the definition of “excessive” drinking. For the study’s purposes, “drinking excessively” constituted more than two drinks a day for a man and more than one drink a day for a woman:

In Park Slope yesterday, Jesse Howard, a bartender at the Gate, said that the definitions used by the Health Department classify just about everybody he knows as a problem drinker. “That sounds like a lot of Bloomberg” nonsense, Mr. Howard said, only he did not use the word nonsense. “New York’s that kind of town; it always has been. People go out.”

Mr. Howard, who wore a Slayer T-shirt and a red goatee, looked off into the distance. It was mid-afternoon, and the bluegrass harmonies of the Old Crow Medicine Show coming through the speakers sounded loud in the uncrowded room. Mr. Howard spoke up again, this time to clarify that his opinion was not colored by his professional experience.

“I’ve got friends who hate bars, and they still go home and have a cocktail,” Mr. Howard said. “People who have any social life in New York City go out and booze.”

Then there are those who argue that drinking to “excess” is part of the draw of New York:

At the White Horse Tavern in the West Village, most famous for serving the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas his last drink before he stumbled off and died on his way home, the study’s findings did not surprise Fran DeMastri, a bartender.

“I’d be shocked if it wasn’t true,” she said. “This area is a big tourist attraction. You have so many people coming from out of town. And there are so many bars in this neighborhood.”

Ms. DeMastri, who has been tending bar there for two and half years, said that people come into the bar to honor the fallen poet, not to practice temperance. “It’s a tavern atmosphere. There’s no reason that they would come here for one or two beers.”

Finally, from the department of “It took a study to tell you that?” there’s this shocking finding:

The study also found that men were more than twice as likely as women to drink to excess. And men who have never been married drink more than those with a spouse.

Uh, ya think?

See also: Scenes form City Bars.

Queens graffiti artist, er, vandal “Vamp” has been arrested and charged with six counts of criminal mischief following a six-month police investigation:

He may not rate up there with the legendary “Taki 183″ in fame, but a suspected Queens graffiti vandal learned what it’s like to have the city throw the book at his handiwork.

Miguel Camacho, 29, of Forest Hills — who uses the graffiti tag “VAMP” — was given 60 reasons why scribbling on public property is still categorized as vandalism.

Police accused him of that many acts of criminal mischief after a six-month investigation, although Camacho was charged with six counts.

When faced with the photographic evidence police compiled, the accused asked for copies for his portfolio, essentially defining “chutzpah”:

When detectives from the 112th Precinct arrested him at his Yellowstone Boulevard home Tuesday and showed him 100 photos of evidence, Camacho begged for copies.

“He was pretty impressed with his work,” said Lt. Thomas Comforti of the precinct’s special-ops unit. “He asked for copies. We respectfully declined the opportunity.”

If you ever wondered how guys like Vamp decide which places to hit, you might be surprised to learn that it is sometimes out of revenge for subpar meals, poor service and high prices:

The trio left their handiwork on everything from lampposts to mailboxes in an area south of the Long Island Expressway on Queens Boulevard, particularly in Corona and Forest Hills, police said.

But Camacho also had scores to settle with some victimized storefront businesses, police said.

Camacho left his mark on a pizza parlor because he was “upset with the quality of food there” and struck a Chinese restaurant because he was “upset with the prices they charged him,” Comforti said.

Even though it’s unsightly, I can think of a couple of places that might merit a revenge tag.

That said, before you begin to think taggers are actualizing some form of consumer justice, remember that they’re only ne’er-do-wells who still live at home:

None of this surprised neighbors, who called the would-be Rembrandt “a lowlife” and a “little waste of a person.”

Camacho, they said, is jobless, and blasts the 80-unit apartment building with hip-hop and rap music into the wee hours.

“He doesn’t work, he hangs out on the street all day, he has no responsibility,” noted a resident, who said Camacho lived with a stepdad, mom and younger brother.

Bonus Point: UrbanDictionary.com’s “vamp” definition.

Not only is Mike Piazza not gay but, as the Post reports, he’s getting married, which should settle all that nonsense, so to speak:

Mike Piazza is getting hitched.

The Mets catcher is walking down the aisle with his longtime girl friend, “Baywatch” babe and former Playmate Alicia Rickter, in Miami during the last weekend in January, sources said yesterday.

. . .

The marriage should finally put an end to those unfounded rumors that Piazza is a switch hitter. During the 2002 season, the perennial All-Star called an unprecedented news conference to explicitly state he is not gay.

“The truth is that I’m heterosexual and date women,” he said.

[Another Playmate, Darlene] Bernaola, the former Playmate of the Millennium [one of a "bevy of babes" Piazza was "known to have homered with"], knew it all along.

“Our sex life was very, very healthy,” she said at the time.

More about the bride:

The beautiful brunette was a Killian’s beer spokesmodel at the time [the two met], while Piazza was often seen around town with beautiful women.

. . .

The two are self-described homebodies — and metalheads, who love hard rock — although Piazza sometimes hits the clubs as hard as he hits baseballs.

He used to be a regular at 14th Street hotspot Lotus until Mets players started boycotting it after one of the team’s second-stringers was refused entrance.

Best wishes to Piazza!

The culinary mavens at Time Out have picked Donovan’s, the pride of Woodside, as the city’s best burger. Even if they’re trying to be contrarian, we at the Bridge and Tunnel Club absolutely, totally 100 percent concur — it’s a very good burger, and probably the best:

The juicy and buttery burger is still made the same way it was when the pub opened nearly 40 years ago. Its loosely ground sirloin meat, topped with sautéed onions, makes it a mess to eat, earning it the nickname “the five-napkin burger.”

The price is also tough to beat. At $5.75 (including fries), it’s also the cheapest on Time Out’s top 10 list.

The magazine has been awarding a best hamburger title for years, but this was its first comprehensive ground-beef survey, said Time Out restaurant editor Maile Carpenter.

“Burgers are such a hot topic, and a subject of endless debate, so we figured we’d settle the score once and for all by eating an insane amount of burgers,” Carpenter said.

Greenwich Village’s Corner Bistro - the perennial winner until this year - didn’t even make the top 10 this time.

“It was time to crown a new winner,” explained Carpenter, who called the Donovan’s burger “ridiculously tasty.”

Go Queens!

Is there any reason not to computerize the L train? Why of course there is!:

Protesting a move to replace subway operators with computers, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum charged the high-tech trains put “riders at risk.”

“Good morning. Save the L train,” she said as commuters hurried through the Bedford Ave. stop in Williamsburg. “How is the train going to know when there is a worker in the tunnel?” Gotbaum said.

Does the Public Advocate actually do anything beyond just being a pain in the ass? Just asking.

Just when I was beginning to think that the Observer was only useful for its deliciously snarky engagement announcements, I find two treasures in the same issue. First, a study of women who tuck their trousers into their boots. Who knew this was such a compelling story? It’s told in quotes from such authorities as a 25 year old “performer,” a 29 year old “stylist,” a 27 year old “d.j.,” and a 25 year old “freelance art collector.” Would you believe that the stylist dates a 30 year old “Carroll Gardens poet”? Before you try to join the ranks of these trendy gals, take a bit of advice from, you guessed it, another stylist:

“The problem I see with it most of the time is that people tuck the wrong pant into the wrong boot,” counseled Kate Young, 29, another stylist, who lives in the West Village. “I hate a skinny-heeled boot like a Jimmy Choo or a Manolo-type heel with pants tucked in. It’s unacceptable—completely gross. Or they wear the wrong pant, tuck it in like some kind of weird, baggy pant that then does this strange M.C. Hammer harem look. And I think people who are fat should never do it. I know that’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s not flattering. You just shouldn’t do it if you don’t want people to look at your butt.”

Next up, we ponder the eternal question on the minds of single women in their thirties: “Would you rather have a baby or an eye job?” There’s a strong argument for the baby, believe it or not:

“I think the thing with me is that I have not had a huge maternal instinct, ever. And I’ve been waiting for it to kick in since I was 30. And it just hasn’t kicked in,” said Mary Purdy, who turns 35 in two weeks and lives on the Upper West Side. “And so I keep on thinking: Is it really realistic, that I would never have a child? It sounds kind of crazy to think that I would never have one, but it’s crazy to think that I would have one. I kept on telling myself, ‘I don’t have to make the decision now, I have time.’ But now that I’m going to be 35, maybe I don’t have that much time. I still don’t want a child right now, but I might want one in the future, and I’m worried about the fact that by the time I want one, it will be too late for my body to conceive something.”

It’s rather simple: for the same price as many common cosmetic surgeries, a woman can now freeze her eggs for a chance at future baby making. It’s only a 30% chance that it’ll work, but never mind that pesky detail since your equally neurotic mom will foot the bill anyway. Now we can safely spend our twenties and thirties tucking/styling/freelance art collecting all over town without fear of missing out on the opportunity to add a mini-me to our lives at some distant point in the future. God bless America.

As someone who — in a fit of frustration after part of a sidewalk was closed — actually used the words “you guys are a pain in the ass” to some hapless movie set intern, I wholeheartedly agree with the New York Press here:

In one of his first acts of 2005, Mayor Bloomberg signed into law a five percent tax break for television and movie productions that film in New York City. This is in addition to the 10 percent tax break the governor began offering last summer, all in an effort to lure the film industry back to town.

Over the past several years, the cost of location shooting in NYC has become so prohibitive that most production companies had taken their business elsewhere—often filming in Toronto, which has acted as New York’s body double in countless movies and tv shows. That exodus also took with it millions of dollars in easy revenue.

“New York City is the greatest film set in the world,” the mayor said as he announced the offer, and we have absolutely no argument with that. We love seeing footage of old New York from different eras in films like The Naked City, Sweet Smell of Success and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Likewise, we understand that future generations of filmgoers will have a similar nostalgic interest in seeing what the NYC of the early 21st century actually looked and sounded like.

We also appreciate the filmmakers’ desire to capture that authentic New York vibe, which is something that can’t be reproduced anywhere else. Plus there’s no denying that over time, the film industry would bring more money into the city than those goddamned Olympics ever could.

We understand all those things, and they’re all valid reasons for making location shooting in the city much cheaper and easier.

But you know what? We still find location shoots an enormous pain in the ass, and we wish they’d stay up in Toronto.

Work is set to begin next month on a new cruise ship passenger terminal at Piers 11 and 12 in Red Hook. First IKEA — now cruise ships. It boggles the mind.

The “9″ part of the 1/9 Subway will be discontinued in May, the 9 being the quasi-express “skip-stop” version of the 1 as it travels uptown:

The number of trains running will not change, and riders at the seven skip-stop stations will see more service, TA President Lawrence Reuter said in a statement. Those stations are 145th, 157th, Dyckman, 207th and 215th Sts. in Manhattan, and 225th and 238th Sts. in the Bronx.

Having rarely taken the 1/9 up there during rush hour, I have to admit that I never understood how the skip-stop thing worked. I suppose there’s still time . . .

Of course, in case you ever wondered, the 1/9 Subway Schedule (.pdf) (you knew that subways had schedules, right?) explains it:

As an added benefit to customers, during the morning and evening rush hours, skip-stop service (1/9) operates on the line between the 242 St and 137 St Stations. 1 trains skip 145 St, 207 St and 225 St; 9 trains skip 157 St, Dyckman St, 215 St and 238 St.

So it is, in fact, never too late to know!

Randy Johnson, the newest Yankee, is otherwise known as the Big Unit. Double entendres aside, New York may be understanding that the overpowering left hander can also be quite a big dick. “Big Unit does get physical”:

The Big Unit already has had his first Big Meltdown in the Big Apple.

On his way to the physical that finally cemented his long-awaited trade to the Yankees, Randy Johnson and his bodyguard got physical in a heated argument with a local television cameraman - and later with a Daily News photographer - yesterday morning in separate incidents on Madison Ave. between 58th and 60th Sts.

. . .

Johnson and Yankees head of security Jerry Laveroni were captured on video yelling at Ch. 2 cameraman Vinny Everett while he attempted to cover Johnson’s walk from the Four Seasons hotel to his appointment with Yankee team physicians at an annex of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital on 60th St.

Johnson and Laveroni yelled at the cameraman several times to stop shooting them and Johnson is seen pushing the camera lens toward the sidewalk with his right (non-pitching) hand. Everett, who chased Johnson and his guards down 58th St. after they sneaked out of a side entrance of the hotel, appeared to attempt to politely engage Johnson in conversation before the encounter became physical.

“I don’t care who you are, don’t get in my face!” the 6-10 Johnson snapped at one point as they brushed past the cameraman. “Don’t get in my face, and don’t talk back to me, all right?”

Ch. 2 reporter Duke Castiglione said he watched the altercation unfold from about a half block away, but declined comment, and Daily News photographer Michael Schwartz also was among those who witnessed it. That exchange ended with Everett shouting back at Johnson, “Welcome to New York!” as the pitcher continued down the street. Johnson is slated to appear tonight on CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman.”

Johnson (oh, the double entendres again) later apologized. Yankee fans, enjoy it while it lasts. And before Mets fans get all schadenfreude-y, remember that you just got Pay-dro. Some exciting baseball ahead!

A Chelsea co-op successfully evicted a so-called “neighbor from hell” whose transgressions included boning a homeless dude in the building’s gym:

The complaints started just four months after Davis moved into the elegant apartment complex, which occupies a city block from W. 23rd to 24th Sts., between Ninth and 10th Aves. Home to some famous names over the years, including photographer Annie Leibovitz and Debbie Harry of the rock group Blondie, the 75-year-old complex has a roof garden and an indoor swimming pool. And it has at least one very unpopular resident. “He’s a little nuts,” said an eighth-floor resident who has lived in the building 12 years. “He’d always be scavenging in the stairwell. … He had this big dog that just stinks up the elevator.”

Davis also was accused, according to court records, of sneaking a “foul-smelling” homeless man into the complex’s health club shower and having sex with him there.

He denied stealing people’s clothes, insisting he took a raincoat on the laundry room floor and planned to mail it to Cuba. He denied having sex with the homeless man, and said he was simply picking something off his back.

Bonus Point: bartelby.com’s New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy “Good fences make good neighbors” explainer.

It goes without saying that Joe Queenan’s newest self-deprecating/myth-puncturing piece on New York is boss — bitchen’ in fact. Last time we caught him it was about the Eight Vermeers — Eight Reasons New York is Better — something we still laugh about.

This time, the message is simple — try as you might, there’s always someone more pretentious than you in New York:

New York City has long been a magnet for pretentious individuals from the heartland. Reared in stolid communities whose bedrock values discourage intellectual flamboyance, not to mention preciousness, the incipiently affected find that their witty aperçus regarding Couperin’s keyboard filigree and Henri de Montherlant’s curiously anachronistic Iberian imagery are not well received.

This is particularly true in regions where a rigorously proletarian ethos prevails, where the mere mention of Bossuet, Tacitus, Poulenc, Unamuno or Hildegard von Bingen can result in social ostracism, physical violence, even death. It is hardly surprising, then, that New York, home to some of the most pretentious human beings this side of ancien régime Versailles, can ceaselessly replenish its stock of home-grown show-offs with fresh recruits from the provinces.

As a child growing up in a plangently blue-collar neighborhood in Philadelphia, I aspired to being hailed one day as the most pretentious person in the entire Delaware Valley. Alas, I quickly realized that I had set my sights too low. The first time I borrowed “The Child’s Suetonius” from the local bookmobile, it became clear that I had not only outstripped my peers for pure affectation, but was already one of the most highfalutin individuals in the City of Brotherly Love.

The first on my block to own Deryck Cooke’s controversial “performance version” of Mahler’s unfinished 10th Symphony, I soon became aware that I was brandishing my rapier in an arena where no one else could spell épée. I knew I must eventually make my way to New York, where a veritable army of the precociously snooty would be in a position to give me a run for my money.

Alas, like a Division III football star who learns to his chagrin that years of dominance in a subpar competitive environment have not prepared him for the National Football League, I recognized upon my arrival in New York that I was but a very small fish in a very big pond. This was driven home to me one night in the early 1970’s when I made the acquaintance of a young music aficionado who actually turned down tickets to see Vladimir Horowitz at Carnegie Hall because he had attended a recital given by the magnificent soprano Janet Baker the night before. “My ears are tuned for voice,” he explained. “I simply wouldn’t be able to enjoy a piano recital.”

This Buxtehudian rebuff thrust me into the deepest throes of depression. Though I had once read Gide’s “Immoraliste” in the cab of a 18-wheeler while hitchhiking to Dallas, I now recognized that there was something crudely one-dimensional about my brand of pretentiousness. The ostentatious preciosity I encountered in Gotham was deployed in a cunning attempt to astound the literati and awe the recondite. With my generic bons mots regarding Proust’s madeleines and Céline’s punctuational innovations, I felt like a mere piker.

In the 28 years I have lived in the New York area, I have labored diligently to heighten my level of pretentiousness. As much as humanly possible, I have endeavored to introduce the subject of Blaise Cendrar’s influence on Henry Miller’s “Colossus of Maroussi” into as many conversations as possible, and have been no slacker when it comes to deploring the unfair critical slighting of Octave Mirbeau’s “Jardin des Supplices.” But whenever I feel that I am really getting somewhere, I am brought crashing back to earth.

One night, I was attending a guitar recital by Sharon Isbin when a man sitting next to me asked another member of the audience if he could stop breathing so hard, as the whistling sound emanating from his capacious nostrils was “terribly distracting.”

Another time, a dinner guest asked my wife (an Englishwoman whose culturally incongruous name “Francesca” pronounced in the espagnola, not the italianata, style, first attracted me to her) if the garlic cloves in the coq au vin were mountain grown or cultivated on the lower summits of the precipice, as it was widely known that the medicinal qualities of the former vastly exceeded those of the latter. In each instance, I was compelled to admit that in the presence of such Ciceronian bloviating, I was but a rank amateur.

As I grow older, I must reluctantly admit that my prepubescent dreams of attaining the Olympian heights of mannered pedantry will never be realized. Insufficiently schooled in the arts of condescension, a failing I blame on my fatally plebian Schuylkill Valley upbringing, I accept that I while I may occasionally be deemed the most pretentious person in the room, I will never be anointed the most pretentious person in the ZIP code. In the realm of the Yankees, I am but a lowly Astro.

This truth was driven home to me not long ago when I was standing in line at a Duane Reade pharmacy near Lincoln Center. I was on my way to hear Alicia de Larrocha’s farewell performance with the New York Philharmonic when my companion emitted a slight cough. A middle-aged woman standing directly in front of her immediately jumped out of line and covered her face as if she had been spat upon She stood glaring at us for several minutes while I made my purchase, then softened and apologized. “I’m sorry for reacting like that,” the stranger explained, “but you coughed on me, and I am a singer.”

This was not Cecilia Bartoli who addressed us. From the looks of it, the weather-beaten chanteuse may have been the lead singer in a Blondie tribute band. But I felt my heart soar as I once again realized that I was in the presence of a pretension so manicured, so recherché, that my feeble prattling about the late works of Shusaku Endo seemed jejune by comparison.

As a youth, I had dreamed of one day being acclaimed the most pretentious man in Manhattan. Ruefully, I now realized that I should have stayed in the Quaker City, where the great unwashed would still be impressed by my ability to hum Fauré’s “Berceuse.” Despite years of adventitious allusions to Marguerite Yourcenar, Cyril Tourneur and, of course, Alessandro Stradella, I had never gotten much further than being a coy smarty-pants. My dreams of morphing into a full-blown gasbag would never come to fruition.

It was a heartbreak, il va sans dire, that I would carry to the grave.

Bonus Points: “Eight Reasons New York is Better” (reprint)

The New York Times is “considering” charging people to view its website. The nerve of them:

N.Y. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. was quoted in the article as saying: “It gets to the issue of how comfortable are we training a generation of readers to get quality information for free. That is troubling.”

No! How would we be able to poke fun at the Sunday Styles section? Give them grief over that saccharine Metropolitan Diary feature? First the MTA bans photography, now the Times wants to charge us. The golden era of the internet may be over!

Then again, if, say, the New York Post wants to pick up the slack (permalinks, please!), I wouldn’t be opposed. Guaranteed web traffic — not to mention a great way to justify all those goddamn pop-ups!

Of course, the Daily News already offers free access with permanently linked stories. They may be the one to look towards.

The 45-day comment period the MTA set for public comment on its proposed ban on taking photographs in the subway ends tomorrow. The Times takes the long view and notes how it may affect legitimate documentary photography.

Like I’ve said before, as qualified subway enthusiasts, we are disappointed. It will be interesting to see how this actually works.

Now that the holiday season has passed, please note that there is a right way and a wrong way to discard one’s Christmas tree. Incorrect options include but are not limited to, for example, throwing it out on the beach in the hopes that it will be dragged out to sea:

Perhaps this person was unaware of Mulchfest 2005? Perhaps.

See also: The Discarded Christmas Tree, a Bridge and Tunnel Club photo essay; “The Ghosts of Christmas Past” (Guardian Unlimited, January 10, 2005).

Or, The (Jerry) Orbachization of law enforcement. Or the Briscotion Elocution. I digresss. Point being, these guys are getting good. Almost to the point where the Post headline just writes itself — “Cops Stop Drug Spread of Mayo”:

An extended family with the name “Mayo” — including six siblings and their kids — have been nabbed for spreading tens of millions of dollars in crack across the city over the last 20 years in an operation dubbed “Hold the Mayo,” law-enforcement sources said.

And that’s exactly what Magistrate Judge Marilyn Go did yesterday in Brooklyn federal court when she denied bail for accused ringleader Ronald Mayo and his 10 relatives at an arraignment on conspiracy charges that could land them life sentences.

The Mayos are also under investigation for numerous shootings and robberies dating back to the early 1980s, according to sources.

“Hopefully the moral of this story will be the family that does crime together does time together,” said Anthony Placido of the DEA. [Emphasis added]

That last quote is straight out of Law & Order — Detective Lennie Briscoe lives!

Preparations on Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Gates project in Central Park began yesterday:

Under the watchful gaze of the creators, a crew of roughly 100 workers began lowering thousands of steel bases onto the walkways of Central Park yesterday in preparation for the biggest public art project the city has ever seen, at least since the park itself was designed in 1857: “The Gates,” by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

The workers, who ranged from musicians to out-of-work actors to forklift operators, gathered at 7 a.m. at the Central Park Boathouse for a briefing by, among others, the artists. A little while later, at the staging area at 102nd Street just beneath the Harlem Meer, where the steel bases were stacked, men and women in yellow vests waved orange caution flags at pedestrians while others, wielding measuring tapes and string, began carefully placing the bases in areas designated with a stenciled maple leaf, about 12 feet apart. Eventually, the bases will support 7,500 gates festooned with saffron-colored fabric panels along 23 miles of the park’s pedestrian walkways - from 59th Street to 110th Street, east and west.

The $20 million project, a quarter-century in the making and financed by the artists, will go on full view on Feb. 12 and remain until Feb. 27. It is expected to attract thousands of art lovers from around the world. The artists are trying to create “a visual golden river appearing and disappearing through the bare branches of the trees, highlighting the shapes of the footpaths,” according to a brochure explaining the project. The color was chosen to cast a warm glow over the park at a gray time of year.

Yes, “Immigrant Street Poetry.” Ugh. The Times details “The Grate Amrican Dreem”:

This may be the age of Internet pop-ups and text-message marketing, but lots of businesses - especially small businesses - still do most of their advertising with old-fashioned low-tech signs. And just as the eyes are said to be windows to the soul, these storefront signs - which often come with fractured grammar and mysterious spelling - can be portals on a great city that is regenerating itself with a flood of new immigrants.

The signs are there to lure customers, of course, but they can do much more. Four out of 10 current New Yorkers were born in a foreign country, more than at any other time since the 1920’s, and many have gone immediately into business. Their signs can form a style all their own, and style, as E. B. White, a passionate New Yorker at heart, once observed, is sometimes nothing but “sheer luck, like getting across the street.”

With such luck, the errors in usage add unintended meaning, like the East Side pizzeria that for a long time listed “1 litter” bottles of soda on its menu. So many one-liter bottles end up as litter that such a change might be appropriate.

Which is a long-winded way of saying, all you all can’t spell for shit but you’re loveable just the same!

But as usual, our hard-working, slightly less literate bretheren have the last laugh:

One pizzeria on 41st Street has spaguetti with clam sause, and a lunch cart on Lexington Avenue and 46th Street helps out-of-towners by spelling knish “kanish.”

“People tell me it’s wrong and I told my brother-in-law, who is the owner, but he doesn’t want to change it,” said Wael Ahmed, 39, an Egyptian immigrant who works at the stand with kanish and chees steak on the menu. “Sometimes people on the street also tell me it’s wrong, but I tell them it doesn’t matter because we don’t sell knish anymore.”

To crudely paraphrase New York City uber-Historian Ken Jackson, history is for losers — step off, Times!

Even after A.O. Scott called it the most overrated film of the year (one of the most perceptive pieces about criticism I’ve read — I think it shows just how many great layers the movie has; a film for critics, destined to be critically praised — a triple-meta treat!), The City section reports how Alexander Payne’s Sideways has affected sales of Pinot Noir in Manhattan — affected them big time:

For a holiday dinner, a young salesman at Union Square Wine and Spirits named Kenneth Posner had his eye on Cristom Vineyards’s pinot noir, an Oregon wine that reminded him of the French Burgundies he adores. But after stepping out for a short break, he was dismayed to return and discover that the shop had just sold out of it. “I had to lower my sights and settle for something else,” Mr. Posner recalled the other day, still sounding a little stung. “A non-pinot, even.”

Imagine.

In recent weeks, the store’s employees have come to expect such brisk pinot action. Since the decidedly pro-pinot movie “Sideways” opened in October, the grape has ruled wine-soaked regions of Manhattan. By the end of the year, with “Sideways” popping up on many critics’ Top Ten lists, retailers and restaurateurs began to suspect they were experiencing a trend with legs. Suddenly, pinot, a fragile and difficult-to-harvest grape, was selling in unusually high quantities as the “Sideways” effect rippled through the city.

The Union Square store, for example, sold 100 cases of pinot in one week before Christmas. During the same period a year ago, it sold 50 cases. “People who’ve seen ‘Sideways’ can’t help but be curious about pinot,” said Jesse Salazar, the store’s wine director. “The way they talk about it in the movie, it’s like this mystical thing in a bottle.”

And never — never! — let it be said that New Yorkers aren’t shallow:

In an industry dominated by small companies that are tight-lipped about disclosing financial information, it is hard to determine exactly how much pinot has been sold citywide of late. But at Martin Scott Wines, a major local distributor, pinot noir sales were up an estimated 20 percent in 2004 over 2003, with some customers requesting the exact Santa Barbara-area wine - the Hitching Post’s Highliner - that was featured in the movie.

Other New Yorkers go even further. “Some customers walked in and asked for a soft tannin, like it was a new term,” said Chuck Simeone, the corporate beverage director for Jean-Georges Enterprises, describing a recent scene at V Steakhouse, a restaurant in the Time Warner Center that his company manages. When the sommelier directed them to the merlot section, the customers said: “Not a merlot! Not a merlot!” But when he pointed them toward the pinots, their reaction was: “Ah, yes, pinot! That’s it.’”

The Times’ Following Up column reported on Roosevelt Island’s Octagon Tower in yesterday’s paper, noting that work has finally begun to incorporate it into a new residential building:

In the 1830’s and 40’s, when Roosevelt Island in the East River was Blackwell’s Island, the New York City Lunatic Asylum was built there. It included a five-story, eight-sided stone structure called the Octagon Tower, which was rich with architectural features like a gracefully spiraling cast-iron interior staircase.

Metropolitan Hospital occupied the site in the 1890’s, remaining until the 1950’s, by which time the island was Welfare Island. The former asylum was later razed except for the Octagon Tower. The tower was to be preserved as part of the new residential community whose construction began in the 1970’s, on what had become Roosevelt Island.

But financing problems stalled the plan for the Octagon Tower, and it decayed perilously. It was finally stabilized in 2002. Last month, the biggest step to preserve it was taken: construction began on a new apartment development that is to incorporate a fully rehabilitated Octagon Tower.

The print version of the Times had a nice picture of the Tower with more of its former features intact. Here’s a picture of it from June:

See also: Roosevelt Island Big Map Pages

Sounds like the 100th New Year’s Eve in Times Square went well — at least according to the Times, which was on hand to sketch a scene full of sawhorses, dropped balls, flashed abdomens and the occasional transvestite:

Last night, 100 years after the first organized New Year’s celebration in Times Square, close to 1 million people crowded Times Square to welcome 2005.

The weather was unusual. The temperature at midnight was 50 degrees, and there was no rain, sleet or snow, just showers of confetti.

At midnight, with blizzards of plastic rainbow confetti erupting from the tops of skyscrapers, police officers lit cigars and flipped open their cellphones to call loved ones. Couples kissed, and on the main stage, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who pressed a button that dropped the ball, locked arms and swayed awkwardly to Frank Sinatra’s version of “New York, New York.”

The lines of police barriers overtook car lanes, becoming a maze that corralled an unexpectedly large number of revelers - one officer said there appeared to be more than 750,000 there to watch the ball drop.

Old-timers grumbled, recalling the years when sawhorses were fewer and when onlookers were allowed to flood Times Square without having to leave lanes open for satellite trucks and V.I.P.’s whom nobody recognized.

Or years when it was so cold that only the truly courageous proved themselves by enduring five hours crushed between barriers like ice cubes in a metal tray.

Cue hapless tourists:

Among those on hand was David Pepsny, a carpenter, who found himself crushed into a crowd that had mushroomed suddenly at Eighth Avenue and 49th Street about 5 p.m.

After an 11-hour drive from his hometown, Ashland, Ohio, Mr. Pepsny and two friends had arrived in what they thought was New York City. Actually, they were in Jersey City, but just a short while later, they reached their destination, the Ramada Inn at Kennedy Airport.

“Our hotel lady was kind of laughing at us,” Mr. Pepsny said.

. . .

Another Ohioan, Nate Thobaben, a West Point cadet, lifted his shirt and flashed his abdomen at young women nearby.

Mr. Thobaben, 19, said he was only trying to cool off.

“It’s really warm, but then again I’m from Ohio and we already got 10 inches of snow in one night,” he said.

Of course, it’s not a Times article without noting how the other half lives:

Ringing in the year in Times Square was not for everyone.

Miss Trixie, a transsexual who said she was an actress between jobs, was on Avenue of the Americas in Greenwich Village talking about how she had been sober for 49 days and was determined to make it 50. She said she was returning to Brooklyn as soon as she finished hustling for small change.

“Old people and old places,” she said about Times Square, a veneer of 5 o’clock shadow showing through her made-up face. “People and places you want to stay away from.

“My goal in 2005 is to be a productive citizen in society working for some establishment in New York City.”

She rattled the coins in her Taco Bell cup as people walked by.

On an E train to Parsons Boulevard, in Queens, with a few hours left in 2004, Gerardo Rivas, 29, pulled off his royal blue jacket and settled onto a bench seat.

Mr. Rivas, who moved to New York from Mexico four years ago, was going home to his apartment to spend New Year’s Eve with his wife and two children.

His youngest, a boy, was born in 2004. Mr. Rivas, who said he was grateful for his new life in the city, gave him an American name: Steve.

Mr. Rivas said he was also staying home to get a good night’s sleep before going to work in the morning. His goal in 2005 was to provide more for his family.

Then the train pulled away from 50th Street, pulling him toward the new year.

And with that, we give thanks for what we have and look forward to a happy, healthy and productive new year.