It takes great balls of fire to reveal your kooky theories about Sept. 11 just before being sworn in as chaplain to New York’s Bravest:

An imam slated to be sworn in today as the second Muslim chaplain in Fire Department history, instead resigned after making controversial remarks on the Sept. 11 attacks in an interview with Newsday.

. . .

In a telephone interview Thursday, Habib, 30, a native of Guyana who studied Islam in Saudi Arabia, said he questioned whether 19 hijackers were responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and suggested a broader conspiracy may have brought down the Twin Towers and killed more than 2,700 people.

He said he doubted the United States government’s official story blaming 19 hijackers associated with al-Quaida and Osama bin Laden.

“I, as an individual, don’t know who did the attacks,” said Habib, 30, a soft-spoken man who immigrated to New York in July 2000 after spending six years in Saudi Arabia getting a degree in Islamic theology and law. “There are so many conflicting reports about it. I don’t believe it was 19 … hijackers who did those attacks.”

Asked to elaborate on his reasons for doubting that story, he talked about video and news reports widely disseminated in the Muslim community.

“I’ve heard professionals say that nowhere ever in history did a steel building come down with fire alone,” he said. “It takes two or three weeks to demolish a building like that. But it was pulled down in a couple of hours. Was it 19 hijackers who brought it down, or was it a conspiracy?”

Questioned about who he believed was responsible for the attacks, Habib said he didn’t know. He said, however, that he did not expect to raise his doubts with rank-and-file firefighters — nor did he share them two weeks ago when he participated in several Sept. 11 memorials on behalf of the Fire Department.

The Post, stating the obvious, pits self-centered brides-to-be against the Yankees as the big season-ending series versus the Red Sox begins:

They might be tying the knot this weekend, but thanks to the Yankee series, they’re fit to be tied.

Couples planning to say “I do” are anxiously waiting to see if their guests — and even their potential spouses — will play ball this weekend and focus on the nuptials rather than baseball.

“You know what, people? It’s my wedding,” said Kerry Kramer, 29, a graphic designer from Darien, Conn., who has already been asked by a few guests if televisions will be at her reception hall tomorrow.

“Your focus is in the wrong department. It’s all about me,” said Kramer, who will wed Artie Koellmer, of Greenwich.

Meanwhile, some brides are holding out hope — hope against hope! — that their grooms will be fully engaged during the big day:

Grace Lombardi’s husband, Keeth Fiocco, refused to have a late October wedding, she said.

“Not when it’s the playoffs,” Lombardi remembered him saying.

“Now we get married Oct. 1 — not knowing that this weekend would be the most important,” said Lombardi, a customer-service rep from Massapequa, L.I.

Lombardi, 26, will walk down the aisle tomorrow afternoon in a strapless, beaded, off-white gown purchased from Kleinfeld Bridal, and she’s confident Fiocco will be at the end of the aisle on time.

“The groom is a big part of the wedding,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll be into the wedding — but he’ll want his updates.”

After using Flushing Meadows-Corona Park as a negotiating ploy, the Jets’ and Giants’ joint announcement that they will build a new stadium in the Meadowlands that they will share has disappointed those who want to carve up the park:

John Puccio, co-founder of Bring Our Jets Home, a group that had worked with the Jets in recent months to build support for plans to build a $1.35 billion stadium in Queens, said he felt like “a pawn in a game to help the Jets gain leverage with New Jersey.”

“The Jets wasted our time and broke our hearts,” Mr. Puccio said.

So for now at least, the park has been spared . . .

Hipster know-it-alls geek out by competing in spelling bees:

Adult-only spelling bees, born of nostalgia and spiked with alcohol, have become increasingly popular social activities for brainy hipsters in their 20’s and 30’s at bars and community centers from Brooklyn to Spokane, Wash. Gone are the days when the sole opportunity to demonstrate one’s spelling aptitude was in school. A new kind of bee has emerged, one where participants tackle baffling words between flirty smiles and sips of Yuengling.

In a setting where skinny, pasty people flex intellectual muscle like a peacock flaunts its feathers or a housecat marks its territory, the Adult Spelling Bee provides psychological comfort and reassurance:

Some spellers, haunted by mistakes made during childhood bees, participate to settle old scores. Others, former spelling champions, wish to relive their glory days. Yet most people go for the cold drinks and the inevitable laughs derived from watching a person who is tipsy try to spell trichotillomania. (The compulsion to tear or pluck out the hair on one’s head and face.)

Karl Steel, 35, a graduate student in English and comparative literature at Columbia from the Gowanus area of Brooklyn, admitted to being a poor speller, yet he readily enters nearly all of the bees at Freddy’s. “There’s a lot of shared misery,” Mr. Steel said. “I’ve never won, and I’m never going to win. It’s taking claim of your inabilities.”

His girlfriend, Alison Kinney, 30, has proven to be a better speller. An administrator at the New York University School of Law, she has won the bee at Freddy’s more than once. “A lot of recovered high school geek behavior is coming out,” she said. “It’s appealing because it’s a kind of structured way to be with your friends that isn’t just sitting around a bar and talking.”

(It’s not worth repeating the anecdote of the 23-year-old man who decided to settle in Brooklyn because of the Pete’s Candy Store spelling bees, but should you decide to read about it, it’s there.)

Everyone who understands that spelling aptitude directly correlates to sexual prowess knows that the Adult Spelling Bee is a perfect way to reach out to potential mates:

For those in search of romance, the bees are a welcome alternative to happy hours and online dating. Mr. Guiney, a former citywide spelling bee champion in Boston, dated two young women he met at the Williamsburg bee, one of whom is Ms. Dziura. “The whole place is really dark,” he said. “It’s mood lighting. It’s dim and warm, and having just gone through a spelling bee with someone, you have something to talk about. It provides people with an in.”

Difficult to unpack and probably not worth it: A “small but growing number of men” (read: three people the writer knows) who enjoy the look of three-day stubble but who hate scraggly neck hair and are unwilling or unable to sculpt three-day stubble are opting for “laser beard sculpturing”. I swear to fucking god I’m not making this up:

The two-day beard is a modern classic. Both virile and casual, it bespeaks a man who needn’t bother to shave every day.

And it’s also a lot of work.

The truth is, most men who sport sexy, two-day growths end up spending more, not less, time in front of the mirror. That’s because facial hair has a way of meandering in unruly patches down the neck or up too high on the cheeks. If the look you’re aiming for is George Clooney relaxing at his Italian villa - rather than, say, Jack Nicholson on a murderous rampage in “The Shining” - you end up needing to trim around the edges. And that means wielding a razor very, very carefully.

“I love the look of going a few days without shaving,” said Charles Christian, 26, a part-time hair stylist and fashion designer who is a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. “But my beard hair was growing into my chest hair, and I’m really not into that.”

Kevin Hillaire, 29, a case manager for the New York City Department of Correction, likes the stubbly look, too. But the scraggly patches on his neck, dotted with ingrown hairs, ruined the picture.

No longer. Mr. Christian, Mr. Hillaire and a small but growing rank of other men are sporting neatly trimmed two- and three-day growth without extra grooming. A technique called laser beard sculpturing has helped them do away with unwanted areas of facial hair for good.

(This, by the way, basically proves that the Fashion Week Hangover exists.)

Unwilling to let go of the Ferrer Fib, the New York Post interviews current Cardinal Spellman students about the candidate’s apparent lack of school spirit:

Fernando Ferrer’s school pride — or lack of it — was the talk of his alma mater yesterday, as students at Cardinal Spellman HS debated whether the mayoral candidate had dissed them by denying his roots.

“He’s grimy. He’s a shysty man,” said Madelene Sagun, 16. “He should say he went to Spellman. It’s a good school.”

But other students said Ferrer’s claim on his Web site’s blog that he went mainly to public schools was no big deal.

“I think it was a mistake,” said junior Rafael Bonilla, 16. “I made a mistake today. I forgot what class I was going to.”

Samantha Crespo, 17, said Ferrer’s fib was brought up by a student in her social-studies class. “It’s not a big deal to us,” she said.

But William Cantine, 16, wanted to make sure, so he looked up Ferrer’s photo in a yearbook.

“I wanted to see if it was true,” he said. “How could he deny Spellman? I love this school. I’m so pissed. It’s really not cool of him.”

Meanwhile, the Times covers Ferrer’s visit to a high school, which may have violated laws prohibiting campaigning in public schools:

For the second day in a row, Fernando Ferrer was on the defensive yesterday about his honesty in the mayoral contest, this time over whether he had campaigned at a public school in violation of Education Department rules.

Just a day after a dust-up with his opponent, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, over whether Mr. Ferrer had falsified his school history in a log entry on his Web site, Mr. Ferrer found himself in another school-related controversy at a time when he is increasingly trying to deflate the mayor’s record on education.

. . .

Mr. Ferrer’s latest difficulties began after he accepted an invitation from Martha Cruz, a social-studies teacher at Flushing High School in Queens, to speak to 12th graders about avoiding political apathy. The invitation came over the summer, but Mr. Ferrer spoke at the school yesterday, a violation of Education Department rules that bar candidates from visiting schools within 60 days of an election. (Public officials who are running for office are allowed to hold or attend events, but only as part of their official duties, the regulations say.)

The plans for Mr. Ferrer’s speech appeared on his public campaign schedule, although the news media were barred from attending because, Ferrer aides said, the principal did not want television cameras in the school. Asked afterward by reporters what he thought of the rule prohibiting campaigning in schools, Mr. Ferrer said, “I didn’t campaign, and I made it a point to talk to these kids about civic participation and my own experiences in it at a young age.” He added, “I talked about some of the things that inspired me.”

But according to students who attended the meeting, Mr. Ferrer also talked about what he would do if elected.

“He was talking about how he was going to get better jobs and stuff out to the Latino community, how he was going to just do much better with the public school system, and that’s basically it,” said Mishelle Severe, 17. She added that he had also talked about lowering the cost of housing, and that she felt he was looking for votes. “But in a good way,” she said, adding, “but then again it’s politics.”

Kids — they say the darnedest things!

Neighborhood groups on the West Village’s Christopher Street are tired of gay teens from the outside causing trouble. They argue that in this day and age, society basically accepts them, so they should feel free to take it somewhere else — “Gay youth gone wild: Something has got to change”:

What have been the Village’s greatest assets — its acceptance and diversity — have become its greatest liabilities. Villagers have witnessed and tolerated questionable behaviors by disruptive youths on their streets. Over time, questionable behaviors escalated to unacceptable behaviors; unacceptable behaviors spiraled out of control to dangerous behaviors, leaving residents scared and appalled. Our tolerance has been abused and taken for granted; our community has been taken advantage of.

. . .

Meanwhile, these youths continue to frequent the streets 24/7 with an “anything goes” behavior that has escalated to dangerous proportions. The recent incident at Malatesta restaurant on Christopher Street is a good example of what these groups of disruptive youths can and will do. In this case, they started fighting in front of Malatesta restaurant and ended up picking up anything and everything from the outside tables while diners were eating. With the knives and forks and smashed bottles of wine and oil, etc., they picked up from the tables, these youths continued their fight while terrified patrons ran inside, covered in food and wine, and watched in disbelief. How long will such behaviors be ignored by our public officials? These unruly youths must be made accountable for their actions. Neither they nor anyone else should be above the law. Being a minority or gay cannot be used as an excuse for an “anything goes” behavior. This attitude of “let them be” by our public officials is the ultimate prejudice, for life on the street 24/7 is a dead-end life.

Verna Eggleston, New York City commissioner of Human Resources, publicly stated that the Christopher Street Pier is the only place where these youths can feel safe. According to Tim Gay’s article, “Goodbye gay ghetto; We’re everywhere in the city” (The Villager, June 15, 2005), Christopher Street and the West Village are not the only places where gay youth can feel safe. “Unlike the ’70s and ’80s, there doesn’t seem to be a few insular neighborhoods (i.e., the West Village) with a predominately gay influence . . . . If anything, in New York City, gays and lesbians can live in a number of neighborhoods safely and securely.” Staten Island’s L.G.B.T. community recently had its first gay pride parade. “Times,” Gay states “have changed, and we don’t need the ghetto anymore.”

Late last Friday night, someone resembling Mick Jagger (yeesh!) scored a free bottle of Grey Goose (yow!) at a Chelsea nightclub, partied for an hour and a half (yeehaw!) and pulled it off without anyone the wiser:

A randy Mick Jagger impersonator got plenty of satisfaction at a Chelsea nightclub when the hoodwinked hot spot lavished him with VIP treatment — including free liquor, a personal security guard and lots of female attention.

The freeloading phony turned up at Spirit in the wee hours of Saturday morning with a lovely young lass at his side, and was quickly ushered into the VIP room by the doorman.

The faux Mick enjoyed a complimentary bottle of Grey Goose vodka, and beckoned over a bevy of beauties with the help of a bodyguard provided by the club.

In an impeccable British accent, he informed his awestruck admirers that he had just flown in by private jet from Columbus, Ohio, where the Rolling Stones had performed earlier that night.

“After about an hour and a half of partying with what became a large crowd, the fake Mick told the security guard that he was becoming overwhelmed by the crowd and the cameras . . . and needed to leave,” Spirit spokeswoman Claire O’Connor said.

“The security guard called for additional backup, and the clone was whisked, with three girls, down a back staircase. He asked to stop at the ladies’ room on the way out, and spent 10 minutes in the ladies’ room with the three girls.” When they came out, the impish imposter and his date bid farewell to the groupies and hailed a taxi outside.

Club officials realized they had been conned after examining a photograph of the phony Mick — who was, in fact, younger and heavier than the real Jagger.

The Post takes much pleasure in reporting that mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer seems to have fibbed again regarding his personal experience with the city’s public school system — this after fibbing about it in a debate during the primary:

Fernando Ferrer yesterday got caught red-handed falsely claiming in a first-person account on his campaign Web site that he attended mostly city public schools.

“I was born in the South Bronx and educated in pubic schools for most of my education,” Ferrer wrote in a Sept. 6 personal blog entry posted on www.ferrer2005.com.

But the Democratic nominee for mayor was forced to remove the posting yesterday less than an hour Mayor Bloomberg’s re-election campaign blew the whistle on the tall tale — flunking Ferrer for rewriting his childhood history into fiction.

The statement to reporters from the Bloomberg campaign highlighted Ferrer’s public-school claim on his Web site — then listed the Catholic schools that he had attended beginning in the first grade and ending with his graduation from Cardinal Spellman HS in 1968.

. . .

Some observers speculated that Ferrer may be trying to downplay his parochial schooling to court the city’s teachers union or to bolster his assertion that he understands the struggles of working-class New Yorkers.

Uh, you think?

After rock-star restauranteur Charlie Trotter abandoned plans to open in the Time Warner Center, the Times looks at how the development is going. And despite raised eyebrows, New Yorkers don’t seem to mind that it’s one big mall:

It began as a concept with, at best, a checkered history: a mall in the city. This one was to look different, with quartz and granite and an irregular shape, and be different, with very expensive restaurants instead of a food court.

A year and a half later, the public pullout of the big-name chef who was to fill one of the few remaining vacancies has some people wondering about the Time Warner Center, the silver-skinned complex at 10 Columbus Circle. It brought together the restaurants, a hotel, a condominium and stores, along with the workings of Time Warner - from offices for its magazines to studios for CNN - and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

For Manhattan, it was something of a gamble. Malls in Manhattan have not had the best track record. Malls, almost by definition, are about cars and huge parking lots. Also, while Manhattan may not have room for big-box stores, the vast majority of its stores are boxes: discrete squares or rectangles, each with its own door facing a street, not an indoor corridor.

The problem is, except for Charlie Trotter, the Time Warner Center appears to be very successful, leading some to wonder whether New York City is rapidly on its way to full red-state status.

But don’t let that fool you — the Times assures us that malls will never — never! — survive here:

Manhattan has never fervently embraced the mall concept. While Trump Tower’s 22-year-old shopping atrium on Fifth Avenue draws some tourists (thanks to its supporting role in “The Apprentice”), Herald Center, the 10-story mall inside the former Gimbel’s department store on Herald Square, has had a troubled history. Originally bankrolled by Ferdinand E. Marcos, the Philippine dictator, it opened in 1985 with tenants that included Ann Taylor, Brookstone and Caswell-Massey. After a mortgage default and an auction, it was reinvented as a discount mall, with stores like Payless Shoes.

That’s OK — I very much like the idea of a Payless Shoes at the Time Warner Center!

The Times reports that “No Snitching” t-shirts are selling like hot cakes on 125th Street:

It started with a dozen T-shirts, emblazoned with bright red stop signs. Now the shirts come in eight colors and three styles, all with the same basic message: Stop snitching.

In Harlem, where the shirts are made, the slogan seems to resonate with some residents. “A lot of people tell the police something, it just creates more problems,” said Andrew Gonzalez, 17, explaining his oversize “No Snitching Anytime” shirt one recent afternoon.

Keashia Williams, 15, who was wearing a black baby-T and had just bought another in white, added, “Black people shouldn’t snitch on black people.”

Her younger sister, Teneshia, interpreted the message more bluntly: “You snitch, you die.”

That credo gained popularity late last year, when a “Stop Snitching” DVD hit the streets of Baltimore, with images of young men brandishing guns and threatening suspected police informants by name. The grainy video made the news thanks to a brief cameo by a young National Basketball Association star, Carmelo Anthony, who later apologized, and the arrest of three participants on drug charges. The Baltimore police were quick to denounce it, and countered with a DVD of their own, called “Keep Talking.”

Meanwhile, exact sales data is not yet available for “Thank You For Not Snitching” shirts, which head shops in suburban Tri-State communities have begun selling.

In cities like New York, renting is more cost efficient than owning. The Times explains why:

After five years in which rents have barely budged while house prices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and elsewhere have doubled, renting has become a surprisingly smart option for many people who never would have considered it before.

Owning a home often ties up hundreds of thousands of dollars that might be invested more safely and more lucratively elsewhere over the next decade. And while real estate brokers may hate to acknowledge it, home ownership involves its own versions of throwing money away, like property taxes and the costs of borrowing.

Add it all up - which The New York Times did, in an analysis of the major costs and benefits of owning and renting, including tax breaks - and owning a home today is more expensive than renting in much of the Northeast, Florida and California. Only if prices rise well above their already lofty levels will home ownership turn out to be the good deal that it is widely assumed to be.

Rootless renters unite! Home ownership is overrated!

The Times profiles one of the Department of Finance’s parking ticket adjudicators, whose job is to help you avoid your day — er, a day in court:

Mr. [William] Beaman works for the city’s Department of Finance as part of its parking settlement program, which was started this year in all five boroughs as a service to parking ticket recipients waiting to contest their summonses. Mr. Beaman offers a driver the option of pleading guilty immediately and paying a reduced fine - avoiding the wait for a hearing and the risk of a guilty ruling from the judge followed by the full fine.

Mr. Beaman offers a deal prescribed by the city for each violation. For example, the $115 penalty for double-parking or parking at a bus stop would be reduced to $95, he said, and the $35 for an expired parking meter would become $26. Some offenses, such as parking in front of a fire hydrant, in a crosswalk or on a pedestrian ramp, are not eligible for a deal.

“It’s a set price,” Mr. Beaman said. “If I could negotiate, I’d be here all day.” He estimates he sees about 100 tickets an hour. “It gets crazy out here and I’m sort of the triage,” he said.

The pitch is simple — you won’t win and you should quit wasting everyone’s time, including your own:

“Here’s the deal,” he told a woman wearing a “I Met My Sweetie in Tahiti” T-shirt and holding a double-parking summons. “You see the judge and win? You walk away owing nothing. You lose? You owe $115. I’m offering you $95 right here, right now. You with it? You feeling me?”

She paused and Mr. Beaman said, “Think about it, you got till 5 p.m.” She wound up accepting.

Often, people are geared up for a showdown with the judge and scoff at first at Mr. Beaman’s offer. He might nod and say something innocuous: “Well, if you think you can convince the judge . . .,” his voice trailing off. A woman walked up armed with a packet of photos and documents atop a thick law book. She sniffed at Mr. Beaman’s offer and strode into the hearing area. “Some people have stronger cases than others, but whether you are a contender or a pretender, I have to offer you a deal whether you want it or not,” he said.

New York is great — great! — but the worst thing about it is that everyone has the same great idea. Friday evenings are free at MOMA! Just be prepared to wait in a line snaking around the block. Shakespeare in the Park is so cultural! And those lunchtime lines are so excruciating. Nathan’s at Coney Island is sublime! Dude, it’s a freakin’ hot dog . . .

So New York Magazine helps by waiting in some lines at some notable establishments. They cut to the chase: Yes for Shake Shack (”An emphatic yes for the best burger in town, extra-creamy custard, and half-bottles of highly drinkable wines.”) and DiPalo’s (”. . . the Parmigiano-Reggiano is top-notch, the ricotta divine . . .”); Tomoe (”. . . not even Masa would be worth a wait this long.”), Sarabeth’s (”For flapjacks with unripe strawberries and sliced bananas? We think not.”) and Magnolia (”Not if it were the last cupcake on Earth.”) are all no.

See also: Wait.

Quick role-playing exercise: You’re the editor of the Sunday Styles Section — what cutting-edge phenomenon do you run with just after Fashion Week ends? How about a feature on the Spin Doctors? Why yes, of course! Of course:

“It sounds corny,” ["rubbery, cheerful frontman"] Mr. [Chris] Barron said. “But the music was calling out, saying, ‘Where have you been?’”

If you’ve ever wondered whether the tours in the red double-decker buses were informative rest assured that they are not:

“People are not looking for a history lesson,” said David Chien, Gray Line’s director of marketing. “They’re looking to be entertained and to have a grand experience traveling 13 feet in the air through the City of New York.”

Among the many fibs the Daily News uncovered:

• Rudy Giuliani is still mayor
• New York is called Gotham because of its abundance of gothic architecture
• Tenements on the Lower East Side still exist along with “beatniks” in Greenwich Village
• Flappers went wild for Frank Sinatra in the Paramount theater during the 1890s

Hizzoner’s opponents are questioning whether an image of Mayor Bloomberg against a backdrop of the view of Brooklyn and Queens from the World Trade Center is ghoulishly capitalizing on Sept. 11:

The re-election campaign of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg decided yesterday to stop using a photo, featured on the cover of thousands of its political fliers, that appears to depict Mr. Bloomberg atop the World Trade Center and credits him with “securing the future of all New Yorkers.”

Stu Loeser, a spokesman for the Bloomberg campaign, said yesterday afternoon that the photo had been taken from atop the trade center before it was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001. He later called back to say he could not be certain, although a second, similar photo purchased by the campaign had definitely been taken from the towers.

. . .

Mr. Bloomberg’s Democratic opponent in the fall election campaign, Fernando Ferrer, declined to comment on the flier last night. Yet a spokeswoman for Mr. Ferrer, Christy Setzer, said about the flier: “We as a city came together on Sept. 11, and it’s wrong for anyone, Mike Bloomberg included, to use that day for political gain.”

The best thing about Jet Blue is its in-flight live television . . . until your flight becomes the next big Fox News Alert. Then it seems like probably not such a good idea:

A New York- bound airliner with a crippled landing gear made a fiery emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport last night, as millions of TV viewers across the country held their breath. For three hours, as JetBlue Flight 292 circled the skies over Southern California to burn off fuel, frightened passengers also watched the drama unfold, on inflight TV screens — listening to commentators speculate on the outcome.

“It was surreal,” said Christiana Lund, 25, of Manhattan. “We were like, ‘That’s us. That’s crazy’”

Zachary Mastoon, 27, a Brooklyn musician, said, “I got a little scared when I saw the plane on TV.”

Some passengers, he said, were so terrified, they turned their screens off.

. . .

Passenger Diane Hamilton, 32, of Clifton, N.J., said, “Grown men were crying. Emotions were running high.”

She added that as the drama neared its climax, “it was the worst, because you didn’t know if it was going to work, if we would catch fire. It was very scary.”

But most passengers appeared calm and continued to watch the bizarre events until their screens went dark 10 minutes before the plane finally landed.

The plane eventually landed safely after skidding to a sparky halt. No serious injuries were reported.

Pay toilets are on the way:

The city announced yesterday that it was in exclusive negotiations with a Spain-based firm to build 3,300 bus stop shelters, 330 sidewalk newsstands - and, at long last, toilets.

“I think it’s a good idea,” said Lucien Perry, 40, a real estate broker from Harlem. “There’s no place to use the bathroom around here.”

It was unclear exactly where the 20 self-cleaning pay toilets Cemusa Inc. wants to build would be placed, how much it would cost to use them and how soon they would make it to the streets.

But the figure that’s caught the city’s eye is Cemusa CEO Toulla Constantinou’s pledge to pay $1 billion over 20 years for the right to plaster advertising on the toilets - as well as on the newsstands and bus shelters.

The precise toilet design has yet to be determined.

Similar Cemusa loos in places like Sevilla, Spain, come equipped with a tiny sink for washing up and timers that regulate how long users can tend to their business. Afterward, the toilets automatically clean up with disinfectant spray.

Until then, it’s catch as catch can.

The Times takes out its tweezers and monocle to investigate, with the delicacy of a butterfly collector, so-called on-site sex in Queens’ Cunningham Park:

Almost any time from noon till 9 p.m., when the lot is officially closed, the scene is the same. The narrow section has two long rows of parking spaces into which the men back their cars, forming two rows of cars facing each other with a thoroughfare between them.

Each newcomer trolls this thoroughfare with all eyes upon him and surveys the other men in cars, who may either perk up and look interested or shut the window and look away. Then with a dramatic swoop, the driver will back his car next to the car of the man he is pursuing.

It all has the deliberate positioning, shifting and movement of a chess game. The parking lot is a fishbowl and the action unfolds like a soap opera each day. Some longtime lot regulars who are openly gay enjoy gathering to observe and narrate the forays and entreaties as they occur. The lot serves the lonely as well as the lusty, they said, helping men seeking friendship and a place to socialize and bond.

The best thing about Jennifer 8. Lee’s story about what may be the hottest September on record is the retro-sounding headline, “Just Try to Remember So Warm a September,” which sounds like a freakin’ Jimmy Walker song. Still, it’s important to stay focused on the fact that it has been hot this month:

Air-conditioners are still blasting. Rooftop bars are still bustling well into the night. Women are still wearing flip-flops and tank tops. Coco Helado street vendors are still scooping with gusto.

The symbolic end-of-the-summer Labor Day weekend passed more than two weeks ago, but as of Monday, the average temperature for September was 75.4 degrees, about 6 degrees above average, according to the National Weather Service. The warmest September on record was in 1961, with an average of 73.6 degrees for the entire month. In particular, the evenings have been about 10 to 15 degrees hotter than normal, said Alan Reppert, a meteorologist with AccuWeather, a private forecasting company. If this trend continues, this September could end up being the record holder, he said.

Ice cream sales are up . . . folks are still getting tanked in garden bars . . . women in flip-flops are still getting their toes stomped on . . . and that all-important summer-economic indicator: Coco Helado vendors are still scooping with gusto! (Go, Jennifer 8. Lee, go!)

That said, seditious talk like this should be stopped. Like now. Idiots:

Brooklyn Industries has introduced down coats and vests in its stores, anticipating an eventual change of seasons.

“It’s the eternal Indian summer,” said Lexy Funk, one of the co-owners. “Right now we are waiting for cool weather. We want to sell our down coats. We’re dreaming of snow.”

Speak for yourself, Jackson!

Bird apologists have convinced some building owners — including the Chrysler Building! — to turn off their lights late at night so as not to lure wayward birds into a tragic, sudden and rather gruesome death:

City officials and NYC Audubon want all lights decorating the outside of buildings above the 40th floor to be turned off by midnight from now until the end of October.

The initiative, called Lights Out New York, is to be announced today and is designed to help hundreds of thousands of migrating birds navigate safely through the Big Apple on their annual route south.

Every year, 10,000 birds, among them red-tailed hawks, kestrels and white-throated sparrows, flap their way through the city after dark, get thrown off by the high-perched lights and crash into the skyscrapers — most often fatally.

“We find hundreds of birds every year injured or dead in the city,” said NYC Audubon Executive Director E.J. McAdams.

“We’re not asking building owners to turn out the lights all year round,” he said, pointing out that the migrating season is only a few months long in the spring and fall.

. . .

The Empire State Building — which experienced a lot of problems with birds in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s — already turns off its famed lights by midnight, McAdams noted.

The 77-story Chrysler Building now keeps its decorative lights shining until sunrise — but it will soon join the Lights Out program, a source said.

See also: New York City Audubon Society’s Project Safe Flight: Compassion in Action program (”Windows kill millions of birds each year . . . and New York has a lot of windows”).

The MTA has backed down from a proposed ban on drinking any kind of beverage in the subway, saying “it ain’t worth the fight”:

Sip away, straphangers

A proposal to ban drinking nonalcoholic beverages on subways and buses will not be adopted by the MTA, sources said.

“It ain’t worth the fight,” one source said.

For years there had been a rule, rarely enforced, against open beverage containers on subways and buses. Transit officials seeking to ban people from drinking said they just wanted to close a loophole.

But the spectre of police hitting riders with tickets for sipping cups of coffee or drinking water sparked outrage.

What will be enforced is the ban on walking between cars, which will carry a $75 fine.

New York Magazine investigates what we all make, with data. Included, a hedge fund dude pulling in over a billion dollars (no wonder there’s such income disparity!) and a panhandler making more than most editorial assistants.

My own subjective view: Channel 7 weatherman Sam Champion is well worth his $1.5 million salary, while Anderson Cooper is overpaid at $2 million. The guy selling knock-off accessories on the corner gets over $30,000 while New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz makes $90,000? Hmmm . . .

Although “Michael” and “Emily” are still the top two names for babies in New York, the list is becoming more diverse:

In the last several years, New York City has had more baby girls named Fatoumata than Lisa, more Aaliyahs than Melissas, more Chayas than Christinas. There have been more baby boys named Moshe than Peter, more Miguels than Jeffreys, more Ahmeds than Stanleys.

Yesterday, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene released the name breakdown for the 124,099 babies born in New York City in 2004. That, together with data stretching back to 1920, shows that in a city that is fashion-conscious and full of immigrants, some foreign-sounding names have become arguably more New York than American classics like Carol, Susan, Stephen and Harry.

As reported last May, “Brooklyn” has become quite the popular name around the country, a trend apparently not replicated in the five boroughs:

There is one popular name on which New Yorkers differ sharply from the rest of the country: Brooklyn. The name, a combination of two girls’ names, Brooke and Lynn, has soared up the list of the nation’s top 1,000 female baby names since 1990, landing at No. 101 in 2004. But in New York City, Brooklyn has barely registered, appearing nowhere in any of the Health Department rankings.

“New Yorkers hear Brooklyn, and they have an image of a place, despite its many charms, that doesn’t seem very delicate and feminine,” Ms. Wattenberg said.

The Post interviews a bunch of Weiner backers who go there:

Voters in Anthony Weiner’s congressional district yesterday roasted the dropout Democrat over his decision to quit the mayoral race rather than take on Fernando Ferrer in a runoff.

“Get back in there,” fumed Johanna Cassidy, a bartender at the Austin Ale House in Kew Gardens. “He can’t just sit down and give up. Stop acting like a wiener!”

Of course Weiner’s supporters were just being principled:

Cassidy of Rego Park said she backed Weiner because he looked like a “regular guy” and because she wanted somebody who would take on Mayor Bloomberg “so I could smoke and have a drink at the same time.”

And let us not forget what’s most fun about this story, the Post-friendly adolescent humor:

The outrage prompted a stream of not-so-good-natured wisecracks that played off the 41-year-old congressman’s name.

“It was wrong! His name should be Oscar Meyer,” said Lou Valentine, 67, a Democrat.

Weiner maintained that it would be unwise and wasteful to go through with the runoff:

Weiner defended his decision to withdraw even though city elections officials say they are legally obligated to stage a runoff in two weeks, costing taxpayers as much as $12 million.

“It’s preposterous,” Weiner said of a runoff. “If the Board of Elections has to go through the kabuki dance on an election that cost us all $10 million that would be a shame.”

Weiner said his lawyers are busy trying to help avoid “a wasteful expenditure of money.”

“It’s not going to happen. Even my mother is not going to vote for me if there is a runoff,” quipped Weiner, who insisted he made the decision to quit on his own.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in town for that big UN shindig, took time out to attend the groundbreaking for another big Sept. 11 memorial. This one, in Bayonne, NJ, features a 100-foot-tall bronze slab with a dripping teardrop in the middle.

Once championed by Jersey City, the controversial project was abandoned by the municipality after its main booster died in office.

One thing is for sure — Russians love, love, love stuff that more than a little resembles female genitalia:

“This monument will always give vivid embodiment to our unity,” Mr. Putin said through an interpreter. “Certainly, this is going to be a splendid memorial.”

How splendid remains a matter of debate.

Zurab Tsereteli, 71, the artist who designed the memorial, a massive 106-foot bronze-plated slab featuring a cracked fissure and a 40-foot tall nickel teardrop, called it “To the Struggle Against World Terrorism,” and intended it as a gift to the United States.

His earlier works of art, though, have often been met with scorn in Russia. An architecture critic there once derided Mr. Tsereteli as a “genius of kitsch.”

His 150-foot statue depicting Peter the Great at the helm of a ship was removed from St. Petersburg following protests.

His 9/11 memorial will circulate cooled water that will condense and then drip, as if the tear itself is weeping. The names of everyone killed in the attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11 will be inscribed at the base, along with the names of those who died in the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. Officials said they planned to dedicate it next Sept. 11.

A Rockland County resident had his car stolen, set on fire and dumped in the Bronx River only to have the Department of Sanitation issue him a ticket for abandoning a vehicle. He’d be laughing — ha ha, very funny — if only it wasn’t his misfortune:

Gerard O’Connor’s car was stolen, dumped near the Bronx River and set ablaze.
But then insult was added to injury: The Sanitation Police sent O’Connor a $250 ticket for abandoning a wrecked car on the street - and a judge upheld the fine.

“It would be funny if it wasn’t happening to me. I didn’t laugh,” said O’Connor, 39, a former NYPD sergeant who lives in Rockland County. “I thought it was a mistake, and I though they were going to correct it.”

Real nice!

All of which brings up a larger issue — you can abandon an entire vehicle in the Bronx River for only $250? That’s a bargain!

If you subscribe to the idea that Anthony Weiner ran for mayor in order to raise his profile for a future run, then his ostensibly noble decision to concede defeat to Fernando Ferrer and avoid a runoff (which is unclear will happen under state law) may seem smart. If you buy the notion that Bloomberg is unbeatable, then it is doubly smart. If you even think that it’s a brilliant move to say you want to avoid a runoff and then just have to participate in a runoff, then it’s triply smart. But at least for now, it appears that Ferrer is the Democratic candidate who will face Michael Bloomberg in the general election:

Representative Anthony D. Weiner conceded the 2005 Democratic mayoral nomination yesterday to Fernando Ferrer, the top vote-getter in the race, in hopes of averting a potentially destructive runoff election and strengthening Mr. Ferrer’s hand as he begins the final eight-week campaign against Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Mr. Weiner’s decision, made after a long night of strategizing with aides and his mentor, Senator Charles E. Schumer, came as a surprise to New York Democrats, not least Mr. Ferrer, who was said to be ecstatic. Mr. Ferrer lost a bruising mayoral runoff to Mark Green in 2001, and faced an uncertain bout against the scrappy Mr. Weiner; yesterday, he embraced a nomination that had eluded him in two previous runs for mayor.

In a surprising development, however, city elections officials announced that they were required under state law to hold a runoff despite Mr. Weiner’s withdrawal - at a cost to taxpayers of at least $10 million to pay for sending 6,030 voting machines to 1,409 polling stations and running the special election on Sept. 27. Mr. Ferrer will also stand to collect more than $421,000 in public campaign funds if a runoff is held.

Campaign lawyers for Mr. Ferrer and Mr. Weiner began looking for loopholes yesterday to avert a runoff, which is required when no mayoral primary candidate wins 40 percent of the vote. According to unofficial results, Mr. Ferrer won 39.949 percent of the vote, about 250 shy of 40 percent, in an election that drew just 15 percent of registered Democrats. Some 8,000 absentee ballots remain to be counted, but it is unclear if those votes will help or hurt him.

Mr. Weiner said he would not participate in a runoff even if one were held, calling it “a waste,” and Mr. Ferrer’s camp said they hoped to have the problem solved quickly so he could turn his sights on Mr. Bloomberg, beginning with a unity rally with Mr. Weiner and dozens of other Democrats on the steps of City Hall this afternoon.

. . .

Mr. Weiner explained his decision yesterday by saying that, his competitive spirit aside, Democrats needed to unite quickly if they were to overcome the unlimited campaign spending of “billionaire Republican Mike Bloomberg.”

“It was a difficult decision - it’s in my DNA to keep fighting,” said Mr. Weiner, standing on the bottom step of his childhood home in Park Slope, where he was known as a sports fanatic. “But I believe it is the right thing to do.”

Redesigned double-decker New Jersey Transit trains will eliminate the dreaded middle seat, leaving only rows of two on either side of the aisle:

New Jersey Transit officials offered commuters a glimpse of their train-riding future here on Wednesday and it was not drab, rigid or strictly horizontal. But what clearly was most appealing to all who beheld it was that it would eliminate the chance of spending more than an hour a day pressed between two strangers.

“The middle seat is gone,” cheered Maxine Marshall, who commutes from Plainfield, N.J., to work for a trust company in Jersey City.

. . .

“That dreaded middle seat is the bane of commuters’ existence,” said [New Jersey state commissioner of transportation and New Jersey Transit chairman] Mr. [Jack] Lettiere, who was on hand for the unveiling. “It becomes a place where people pile things to keep others from sitting there. It’s not what the customer wants.”

The new trains, set to debut in late 2006 will have 225 more seats.