Brooklyn Brewery founder Steve Hindy reminisces about his first time meeting local labor representatives:

[Williamsburg] was a very different place [in 1996, when the brewery opened]. One day during construction, a bunch of union guys right out of Good Fellas showed up. One said, “We want J-O-B-S.” Their head guy — later indicted for labor bribery — said, “We put a picket up and no one’s gonna unload your trucks.” I promised them jobs on my next project. They went off to talk. I was sitting there shitting in my pants. One comes back, puts his hand on my thigh next to my balls, and says, “We’re gonna have to hurt you.” Then he says, “Just kiddin’! We’re gonna leave you alone. Next time you do something, we have to be part of it.”

In case you somehow missed it, Daylight Savings Time ended at 2 a.m. Sunday, but the white-gloved workers at the Torneau store were on the case long before then:

Time is the enemy of the New Yorker. There is never enough of it. So there was something euphoric about the scene yesterday inside Tourneau TimeMachine in Manhattan, where white-gloved workers were busy setting the store’s 8,000 wristwatches back an hour. For once, people got a second chance.

Officially, the end of daylight saving time struck at 2 a.m. this morning. But, as Richard E. Gellman, a Tourneau vice president, explained, the world’s largest watch store needs a head start. It will take workers three days to turn all the little knobs on the sides of all the watches to the previous hour, a significant effort undertaken each October, in accordance with the Uniform Time Act of 1966, as a courtesy to the customer.

“It’s a very big deal,” Mr. Gellman said. “We’re all about time.”

. . .

Later in the afternoon, Mr. Gellman greeted a man dressed as a floppy-eared Dalmatian. He was not shopping for a new Rolex. He was Hot Dog, the Fire Department’s fire safety mascot, visiting the store to remind people to change the batteries of their smoke detectors when they reset their clocks. Three firefighters stood with him in the bucket of a fire truck’s mechanical ladder and pretended to change the hands of the giant clock outside the store.

The clock, controlled by a computer, was not budging for anyone before its automatic resetting at 2 a.m. The tinier ones in the display cases are not as self-sufficient.

Robert Marcomeni, 42, who works at the store, said he had reset about 250 watches since Friday. He took a pragmatic approach to the task, and to the whole notion of daylight saving time. “You don’t question it,” he said. “You just do it.”

Folks never quite figured out where that sweet smell came from:

The night air all over Manhattan was brisk, with a hint of winter and a dash of something sweetly out of the ordinary. Some thought it smelled like maple syrup. Some said caramel, or a freshly baked pie, or Bit-O-Honey candy bars.

From downtown Manhattan to the Upper East Side, Prospect Heights in Brooklyn and parts of Staten Island, the question was the same on Thursday night and into early yesterday: What was that smell?

The aroma not only revived memories of childhood, but in a city scared by terrorism, it raised vague worries about an attack deviously cloaked in the smell of grandma’s kitchen.

It was so seductive that many New Yorkers found themselves behaving strangely, succumbing to urges usually kept under wraps. One woman who never touches the stuff said she was inspired to eat ice cream.

The investigation — that they’re “investigating” it sounds freaky enough — was thorough, yet investigators picked up nothing . . . or so they say:

Late yesterday, nearly 24 hours after the smell had spread through the city, sparking hundreds of bewildered calls to the city’s 311 emergency hot line, officials said that they had determined that the smell had not been hazardous and that it had dissipated as quickly, and mysteriously, as it had appeared.

Even after chasing down anonymous tips and chasing up several blind alleys, however, they did not know where it had come from.

The odor was first detected around 8 p.m. on Thursday in Lower Manhattan. It seemed to spread quickly uptown and into parts of the other boroughs - so quickly that officials expressed concern. The city’s Office of Emergency Management sent out feelers to the Police and Fire Departments, state emergency response agencies in New York and New Jersey, and the United States Coast Guard, which communicated with tugboats and container ships at sea to determine whether the odor was being detected there.

Raymond W. Kelly, the New York City police commissioner, coolly told reporters yesterday that tests and air monitoring had revealed “nothing of a hazardous nature.”

“It’s believed to be some sort of food substance, but we can’t substantiate that at this time,” Mr. Kelly said. He confirmed that the source of the smell seemed to be in Lower Manhattan.

The chase led the city’s environmental bloodhounds to some interesting places. Investigators working on a tip checked the Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven in SoHo, but the owner insisted he had not been the culprit. His staff had spent the afternoon roasting almonds, he said. And anyway, chocolate, for those who really know, smells bitter, not sweet.

“Perhaps if it was a chocolate smell, people would be running here today,” Mr. Torres said from his shop, which he said was no busier than normal for a Friday in autumn. His chef, Susana Garcia, 31, who was on duty Thursday, said the mysterious odor was definitely more like maple syrup than like chocolate. It was, Mr. Torres said, a kind of warm-your-heart holiday smell appropriate for this time of year.

See also: “Smell hath no fury: Breakfast odor in city called nontoxic” (Daily News, October 29, 2005); “Sweet Smell of Mystery Wafting Along” (New York Post, October 29, 2005), which posits the passing ship and Canadian assault theories (”The theory that it came from a ship passing through New York Harbor makes sense, given the prevailing north-by-northwest breeze that night, but others abound — from antifreeze to ‘rebel’ trees to a Canadian assault. . . . The Canadian Foreign Ministry did not return a call seeking comment.”); “That Smell” (New Yorker, October 31, 2005), which suggests a real estate-related scheme (”It’s a well-known fact, among real-estate agents, that prospective buyers respond enthusiastically to the smells of cinnamon and baking dough. Brokers often instruct sellers to put an apple pie in the oven just before showing an apartment. This ploy came to mind last Thursday evening, when the smell of maple syrup unaccountably permeated the entire metropolitan area.”).

Perhaps you caught wind of the sweet smell permeating the air last night that officials assure us was in no way harmful and hopefully was not connected in some way to preparations for some sort of terror attack, albeit a not altogether unpleasant one:

An unseen, sweet-smelling cloud drifted through parts of Manhattan last night. Arturo Padilla walked through it and declared that it was awesome.

“It’s like maple syrup. With Eggos. Or pancakes,” he said. “It’s pleasant.”

The odor had followed Mr. Padilla and his friend along their walk in Lower Manhattan, from a dormitory on Fulton Street, to Pace University on Spruce Street, and back down again, to where they stood now, near a Dunkin’ Donuts. Maybe it was from there, he said. But it wasn’t.

Mr. Padilla was not alone. Reports of the syrupy cloud poured in from across Manhattan after 9 p.m. Some feared that it was something sinister.

There were so many calls that the city’s Office of Emergency Management coordinated efforts with the Police and Fire Departments, the Coast Guard and the City Department of Environmental Protection to look into it.

By 11 p. m., the search had turned up nothing harmful, according to tests of the air. Reports continued to come in from as far north as 112th Street shortly before midnight. In Lower Manhattan, where the smell had begun to fade, it was back, stronger than before, by 1 a.m.

“We are continuing to sample the air throughout the affected area to make sure there’s nothing hazardous,” said Jarrod Bernstein, an emergency management spokesman. “What the actual cause of the smell is, we really don’t know.”

Having smelled the smell firsthand, I can report that it was a very familiar (yet the exact name eludes me) smell. I want to say it was like a doughnut. Others came up with similar observations:

There were conflicting accounts as to its nature. A police officer who had thrown out her French vanilla coffee earlier compared it to that. Two diplomats from the Netherlands disagreed, politely. Rieneke Buisman said it smelled like roasted peanuts. Her friend Joris Geeven said it reminded him of a Dutch cake called peperkoek, though he could not describe that smell.

French Vanilla sounds about right, actually . . .

For mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer yesterday, things went from bad (”Even Among Democratic Voters, Poll Finds Ferrer Is Well Behind”) to worse:

Here’s the picture that’s going to send Fernando Ferrer reaching for the Tums.

One week after endorsing the Democratic mayoral candidate, former President Bill Clinton encountered Mayor Bloomberg at a Waldorf-Astoria luncheon yesterday and — from the looks of it — both had a mighty swell time chewing the fat for five minutes. The politically powerful picture was snapped by the mayor’s photographer and quickly released by City Hall.

“The mayor was happy to see President Clinton,” said mayoral spokesman Ed Skyler, without providing details of the chat. “They’ve known each other for a long time and he enjoyed their conversation.”

One Clinton aide wasn’t too happy, though.

When four City Hall reporters rushed to a foyer off the Waldorf’s Grand Ballroom, where Clinton and Bloomberg were spotted in conversation, the Clinton aide angrily demanded they leave.

“No! No!” the aide shouted.

When he started getting physical with the reporters, Skyler intervened. “Don’t push around my press corps,” he told the Clinton staffer, who then backed off.

Clinton left moments later for the United Nations, with the mayor heard saying, “All the best.”

The political damage to Ferrer had been done.

The photo of a smiling Republican mayor joined by one of the most recognizable Democratic leaders in the world is a boost for Bloomberg in a city where Clinton is enormously popular.

Of course this was all a chance encounter — an accident — just like last time.

The Daily News reports that the MTA is considering using a Kevlar-ceramic substance to strengthen the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge’s suspension cables. Shh . . . don’t tell the terrorists:

The MTA plans to shield the Verrazano Bridge’s suspension cables with a protective material to make it harder for terrorists to damage the span, the Daily News has learned.

Two sources said the huge cables that support the world’s second-largest suspension bridge would be encased in a strong, bomb-resistant material.

Another source said that Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials have examined a composite material that includes Kevlar and ceramics. The material, which is as strong as steel but lighter, is used to help protect Black Hawk helicopters.

“It offers a high degree of protection against an explosive blast,” one of the sources said.

The MTA is expected to award a contract for the work soon.

MTA spokesman Tom Kelly would say only, “I have no comment on security issues.”

But when you think about it, in some ways it may be more useful to leak the plans to do it than to actually do it, right?

The Daily News discovers that crosstown buses are good for the elderly and infirm but not much else:

Passengers on the M34 are living life in the slow lane.

The crosstown bus - the slowest in the city - inches along 34th St. at a pace so snail-like that a Daily News reporter yesterday gave it a run for the money during a river-to-river dash.

In a race that stretched just over 25 minutes, the mammoth machine needed a last-second burst of “speed” across Second Ave. to hold on for a dubious win - by all of 46 seconds.

“Sometimes this thing is so slow, that even I can beat the bus,” said Frank Fellippello, 46, who rides the bus daily.

And even fat-ass reporters can nearly outwalk a bus:

The contest began at 34th St. and 11th Ave., with a News intern boarding an 11:41 bus, and a reporter setting off on foot.

The M34 shot out of the starting blocks, leaving pedestrians in the dust with an unspectacular view - a rear-end bus ad featuring the scowling mug of actor Don Johnson.

Man and machine would trade the lead a few times as they approached busy Herald Square, where the bus finally got jammed up by a long red light and a traffic cop’s whistle.

Fighting urges to stop for a chocolate chip cookie and a cheesesteak at favorite spots along 34th St., the reporter held the lead even as the bus lurked dangerously close.

But the bus finally won out near the finish line, zooming into the winner’s circle as the hapless pedestrian staggered across Second Ave.

Meanwhile, the Post notes that the M34 often is too slow for even the elderly and infirm:

The M34 is so slow that in Herald Square last night, an 84-year-old woman with a cane said she’d be better off walking.

“I’m late for an appointment. I don’t think I can get there any faster with the bus,” said the woman, who didn’t give her name.

Other s l o w lines include the M66, the M23, the M14s, Brooklyn’s B63 (5.2 mph), the Bronx’s Bx19 (4.9 mph) and the Q58 International “Express” (6.9 mph).

You know mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer is grasping at straws when he criticizes Mayor Bloomberg’s position not on affordable housing, high taxes or crime but rather Iraq, because of course one of the most important things a mayor can do is lead the country into war:

Trying to keep hard-core Democrats in his camp, Fernando Ferrer, the Democratic mayoral nominee, yesterday criticized Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg over his statements about the Iraq war and the need for more low-cost housing.

Mr. Bloomberg, who had previously said that the war was not a local issue, amended that comment yesterday by calling Iraq “a national issue and a local issue - we’ve lost 30 or so young men and women from this city.”

Yet the mayor, a Republican, also sought some political cover from Mr. Ferrer’s attack by asserting that his view on withdrawing troops was the same as the two Democratic senators from New York, Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who support Mr. Ferrer.

“I think everybody would love to get our troops home as quickly as is practicable,” he said, before adding that he goes “along with our senators” who have said that the troops must be supported while stationed in Iraq.

Mr. Ferrer criticized the mayor’s statements and his past financial donations and political support for President Bush and other Republicans who have supported the Iraq war.

“I don’t know what the mayor was thinking,” Mr. Ferrer said. “I think this is a local issue, and I think we should withdraw our troops. I think you also need to ask the mayor why it is he continues to support the president, the party, the Congress and the policies that have prosecuted this war.”

And that’s not to say this isn’t a two-way street. For his part, Hizzoner has tackled important city issues like John Roberts’ position on Roe v. Wade.

New York City — people here are all about the big issues!

Southern Iraq or Brooklyn? It’s difficult to say [emphasis added in advance, for your comprehension and pleasure]:

A brawl broke out in a Brooklyn synagogue yesterday morning, forcing dozens of cops in riot gear to pull worshippers from their house of prayer, in the latest eruption of a Hasidic holy war.

Yesterday’s melee, which included punches, slaps and beard-pulling, broke out between clashing factions of the Satmar Hasidic sect in Williamsburg and ended with cops in helmets closing down streets to restore order on a Jewish holiday, Shmini Atzeret.

“There was chaos,” said worshipper Joel Klein, 29, who said he was pulled from the Yetev Lev Bikur Cholim synagogue on Rodney Street by cops. “It was like a war zone.”

Cops and witnesses said thousands were involved in the fight.

The bitter feud dates back to a longstanding dispute between two brothers who both claim to lead the Williamsburg Satmar congregation and its system of rabbinical yeshivas, religious schools and social services.

The grand rebbe of the ultra-conservative Satmars, Moshe Teitelbaum, picked Zalman in 1999 to lead the Brooklyn congregation, over his elder son, Aaron, who continues to lead another congregation in upstate Kiryas Joel.

The congregation fractured into rival boards that held separate elections and each side claimed victory. A law suit was filed for control of the congregation’s board, but a Brooklyn judge ruled last year that it was not the court’s job to interfere in the grand rebbe’s decision.

But an upstate judge’s decision last week — which some interpreted as leaving Aaron’s ally, Berl Friedman, to be the corporate leader of the Brooklyn congregation — sparked yesterday’s religious rumble.

When Friedman entered the synagogue at about 8:30 a.m., people began shouting and shoving matches ensued between the hundreds of worshippers, witnesses said. As the scrimmage elevated, fights spilled out into the streets.

By the time cops arrived, “there were a couple thousand people in the streets — just tons of people in the streets,” a police source said.

Cops were forced to shut down several blocks in the neighborhood.

The Post reports (in an “EXCLUSIVE”!) that Governor Pataki wants to put the kibosh on the MTA’s $50 million goodwill bribe:

Gov. Pataki is demanding the MTA put the brakes on its half-fare-for-the-holiday plan, saying the agency’s surplus would be better spent on security and building a new rail link to lower Manhattan, The Post has learned.

“Encouraging the use of mass transit and attracting more visitors to the city during the holiday season is always a good idea,” Pataki told The Post in a statement.

“However, the surplus should be prioritized to ensure the safety, reliability and future financial stability of our transportation infrastructure.”

Doesn’t this Good Cop/Bad Cop act work well for both sides? The MTA gets to say, “Look, Fellas — we tried!” while Pataki comes off as the sensible one. I like it!

After yesterday’s Wilma-related rainfall, New York came this close to breaking a record for rainfall in a single month, although there are still a couple of days left in October. Joy. The record, in case you’re interested, came in September 1882 when 16.85 inches rain fell.

The Boutiquification of the neighborhood north of Little Italy (snappy abbreviation: “Nolita” — rhymes with “Lolita”!) once threatened that neighborhood’s diversity — if you’ll permit me some chest-thumping wonkery, I believe Jane Jacobs called it the “Self-Destruction of Diversity” (The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Chapter 13). But it seems the neighborhood has, for now at least, withstood what once seemed inevitable:

The first of Manhattan’s microneighborhoods to emerge in the mid-nineties, Nolita saw retail rents double by 1998, from $50 to $100 a square foot, as Italian butchers and hardware gave way almost overnight to tiny, precious boutiques. The place is such shorthand for cool that the eatery on Fox’s Kitchen Confidential is called Nolita.

Then why do more than two dozen storefronts now stand empty in its nine blocks? It’s pretty much always been the case: Nolita turnover is unusually brutal.

Somehow the Williamsburg-ish crowd hanging out in front of Café Habana doesn’t translate into sales of the sort of arty luxury goods the shops are peddling. Theresa Ma, whose skin-care line, SCO, had a storefront on Mulberry Street before decamping to Broadway last year, notes, “People who live in Soho will happily pay $4 for a cup of coffee or buy an expensive face cream like mine.” Not in tenement-filled Nolita. “Most buildings are falling apart, with regular water and toilet leaks from the apartments above,” [onetime boutiquist Hugh] Duthie notes.

And then there’s the nabe’s previous claim to fame: September’s spumoni-and-beer-fueled San Gennaro Festival. “It’s crushing,” says Lindsay Cain of Femmegems, a do-it-yourself jewelry lab on Mulberry. “Those two weekends in September are really important — everyone is back from the Hamptons and women are excited to get shopping again. We tried to stay open during the festival our first year, in 2002, and there were horrid sausages and rats outside our door every morning, so now we just close.”

Charles Graeber writes in New York Magazine about the L-ification of Brooklyn and finds that it extends to . . . Jefferson Street:

I’ve been walking toward the gentrification line all day, and all day that line seems to have gotten no closer than the horizon.

Now, for instance, walking toward the Jefferson Street L station, I see on the horizon several more of those five-story factory buildings with Manhattan views — the sort of buildings that I watched go condo two years ago in Northside Williamsburg, the sort rented to youthful capacity today down the street at the Morgan L stop. I’m starting to hate these buildings. I’m starting to hate the people with their ironic bangs and ITHACA IS GORGE-OUS and VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS T-shirts, the shooter-producer husband and his video-artist wife and their baby, Fido. I’m not even halfway to Canarsie, but I’m done. I can no longer tell whether I’m in the middle of nowhere or on the edge of the next big somewhere. If there is a gentrification line, I’m giving up on finding it.

And then I run into Simon.

Simon is a big man, maybe six two, 250, dressed in thrift-shop clothes: blue jeans, a golf shirt nappy from overwashing, sneakers that are brand-new but not name-brand. His shaved head shows a star-shaped puncture wound; his arms are tweedy with scars. He stops just ahead to fish a hand-rolled smoke out of a box of Newports. When I stop next to him, he simply smiles and nods and exhales a thick cloud of blue smoke from a finger-size joint.

“You just checking out the neighborhood?” Simon says. He inhales, exhales, scratches.

“Yeah, that’s basically it,” I say.

“Checking it out,” Simon says.

“Just seeing what I see,” I say. I tell him about my walk, about following the L-train route away from Manhattan and looking for the line where things change.

. . .

Simon waves his joint toward Jefferson Street. “Look here,” he says. “You got them wide streets so the kids can play. And there’s no drugs—just a little weed, you know. And, I’m not paying rent right now so I don’t know, but most of the people around here, they Dominican, they work in the factories. Keep ‘em close, the owners like to keep ‘em close, word.” He laughs, getting excited. “And you know they ain’t getting paid much, so these places gotta be cheap!”

That’s when it hits me: I’m finally here. Simon’s gesture toward Jefferson takes in brownfields, industrial sprawl, derelict yards, and buildings that contain real working factories rather than raw loft space. There are no baby stores, soy products, or 24-hour delis. There is nothing to buy, no apartments not to afford. There are no Manhattan-bound commuters. There isn’t an ITHACA IS GORGE-OUS T-shirt in sight. Even Simon himself defines the line, which is exactly why the state has placed him right on top of it.

All day, I’ve been searching for the cliff edge of gentrification, and Simon has just casually pointed it out with a burning joint.

Bonus Points: Handy Craig’s List Shortcut.

The executive who (allegedly!) blew the equivalent of Moldova’s (legal) yearly exports at a Manhattan strip club has been placed on unpaid leave by his empolyer while they investigate the charges he incurred:

The St. Louis CEO who allegedly ran up a bill of nearly a quarter-million dollars at Scores may have some new trouble paying it off — his company put him on unpaid leave yesterday as it investigates.
Robert McCormick’s problems began in October 2003, when he took at least three business acquaintances to the East Side topless bar.

American Express says he charged a whopping $241,000 worth of wine, women and lap dances on his corporate credit card.

The big spender from the “Show Me State” insisted his bill was inflated. He claimed he spent a mere $20,000 — and refused to pay a penny more.

What does it say about the state of affairs in this city when a yobbo tries to argue that $20,000 is a reasonable amount to spend in a strip club?

If it seemed there were more subway diversions than normal last weekend, it was not your imagination:

“I can’t get a break,” Robert Boone muttered angrily on Saturday as the announcement came over the loudspeaker and he learned he was on the wrong subway train. When Johnie Mae Simmons saw that her train, usually an express, was making local stops, she let out a loud sigh. And when Ellen P. Winn was asked to describe her weekend travel routine, she declared, “It’s a nightmare.”

Weekend service diversions - in which trains are rerouted, schedules altered and riders befuddled, all because of construction or repair work - have become a pervasive element of the subway-riding experience. Over the weekend, all 19 regular lines had at least one departure from their regular service pattern. (There are a total of 26 lines. The three shuttles had no diversions, and the B, V, W and Z trains do not run on weekends.)

But it’s because it’s a 24-hour-a-day system, blah, blah, blah:

In most other transit systems, track and signal maintenance occurs at night, but in New York City, where the system never fully shuts down, construction projects and repair work can be performed only on weekends, transit officials say. Hence the diversions.

But even those riders who profess to understand why the diversions are necessary gnash their teeth with impatience. To gauge how the weekend service changes affect riders, a reporter picked a simple route - from 135th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem to President Street and Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn - and had arrived at the point of origin at 10 a.m. on two consecutive days, Friday and Saturday.

On Friday, the trip took 54 minutes, on the No. 2 express train. On Saturday, the trip required another half-hour - and two additional trains.

< zagatreading>:

Weekends become a pain in the ass for everyone. “I’m late for class,” some say as their 5 train circles back up the east side of Manhattan. Others “go into Manhattan less because it’s such a pain,” which for those “with an active social life” presents a problem. In the end there is not much one can do beyond “leaving extra early” for these “out of control” diversions: “There’s no choice.” And, what’s more, in the end, “Nothing ever seems fixed.”

< /zagatreading>

(As a parenthetical — this is how we geek out — the indispensible Sewell Chan explains what’s going on when the 2 is running on the 5 and vice versa: “On weekends, the Nos. 2 and 5 trains in Manhattan essentially become circular lines. The No. 5 travels clockwise, down the East Side (its normal route) and up the West Side (acting as the No. 2). The No. 2 travels counterclockwise, down the West Side (as it usually does) and up the East Side (replacing the No. 5). Got it?” Got it, SC . . . thanks!)

But down to business — the Times does the math, and it’s not pretty:

An analysis by The New York Times shows that there have been about 760 service changes, including station closings, so far this year, and reveals that no weekend has been immune. The least troublesome weekend was March 12-13, which had two diversions scheduled. The most inconvenient was Oct. 8-9, when 33 diversions were scheduled. The N line had experienced the most diversions - at least 72, or nearly 10 percent of the total. It was followed by the D, with 63 diversions.

In nearly 100 instances, riders were instructed to take shuttle buses when their normal trains were canceled.

Sons a bitches!

The Census Bureau crunched the numbers and found that New York City’s population increases by 563,000 people each day:

The Big Apple swells by 563,000 people during the day — more than any other city in the country, according to the Census Bureau’s first-ever estimates on daytime population changes.

The report tracks how the nation’s cities are affected by commuter traffic.

Officials say the data, based on the 2000 Census, can be used for planning and disaster-relief efforts.

New York’s daytime growth, while huge, is only 7 percent of the city’s population of 8 million.

Other towns that would benefit from a commuter tax included Washington, D.C. (411,000 people, or 72 percent, commute into the district), Boston (41 percent), Atlanta (62 percent), Seattle (28 percent) and Denver (28 percent).

Not only is it possible to spend $250,000 at a strip club but the Daily News explains how:

A married business executive who dropped $241,000 during one wild night at Scores was an insatiable customer who hired a virtual harem of lap dancers, a strip club source told the Daily News yesterday.

Robert McCormick, 40, an Internet company CEO and Midwestern father of three girls, took over the exclusive President’s Club when he showed up with some cronies the night of Oct. 22, 2003, the source said.

In the mirrored room, popular with high rollers and celebrities, the stripper enthusiast demanded 10 dancers lavish him with attention at the eye-popping cost of $4,000 an hour.

When their time was up, McCormick insisted club managers bring more girls - and keep them coming.

“I need 10 more,” he would say after the hour’s entertainment was over, waving his arms like he was motioning a jumbo jet in for a landing, according to the source.

“This went on for numerous hours,” the insider said.

The gentleman is contesting the charges, a lawsuit and the whole works (what’s the statute of limitations on suing strip clubs?) but the club says it has its ass covered:

Scores said yesterday it has documents to prove that McCormick authorized the charges and knew exactly what he was doing.

“We have signed waivers,” said club spokesman Lonnie Hanover, who read the forms to The News, but declined to turn over copies with the signature.

The waiver reads: “I am at Scores of my own free will. At the time of this transaction I am not drunk nor in any way impaired. I have not been coerced nor am I currently under any duress. I agree to pay any and all charges I have incurred as a result of my purchase of diamond dollars and/or food or beverages.”

Hanover also said that once a customer charges $10,000, his right index finger is fingerprinted and hourly calls are made to the credit card company for authorization.

And that’s why they hate our freedom.

Christopher Gray has blood on his hands! After much legal wrangling, the Lollipop Building at Columbus Circle has been sold by the city to the Museum of Arts & Design. Renovation work to start “immediately.” The Post gloats:

Columbus Circle’s “Lollipop” has sucked its last.

The Museum of Arts & Design bought the empty, Moorish-ornamented folly from the city yesterday, allowing the museum to start work immediately on a long-awaited but controversial redesign.

The purchase climaxed a two-year struggle against preservationists who had sued to prevent the city from selling the building.

The museum, now scrunched into a small gallery in Midtown, is paying $17 million for the 10-story, white marble structure designed by Edward Durell Stone in the 1960s. It is nicknamed the “Lollipop” for its quirky, Venetian-style pillars.

. . . Stone’s mostly windowless facade facing Central Park will be replaced with a new exterior of terra cotta and glass designed by Brad Clopefil.

. . .

After years of city indecision, Mayor Bloomberg turned down offers by Donald Trump and others, and designated the museum to buy the former Huntington Hartford Gallery of Art in 2003.

The sale became a flashpoint issue between those who regarded it as a useless eyesore of no value to the public and those who felt it should be preserved as-is at all costs.

Although the sale was overwhelmingly approved by community board members and the City Council, preservationist groups argued that the building marked an important turning point in Stone’s career and should not be altered.

They sued the city’s Economic Development Corp. for “fraud,” the Landmarks Preservation Commission for not granting 2 Columbus Circle protected status, and museum officials for alleged “collusion.”

All the suits and subsequent appeals were thrown out of court.

It’s actually a tough week for architect Stone; on Wednesday night, the St. Louis Cardinals played their final game at Busch Stadium, which Stone collaborated on. Demolition of the stadium is set to begin like right away.

Bonus Points: Recent Past Preservation Network’s Edward Durell Stone Page.

Democratic mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer cannot get a break; even the Clintons only barely are supporting him. Case in point — Bill Clinton appeared at a rally yesterday to support Ferrer but not before unplugging the sound system so no one could hear what the former President actually said:

For New York Democrats seeking to take back City Hall, it was supposed to be a picture-perfect moment: Bill Clinton in the Bronx yesterday to rally voters behind Fernando Ferrer, the party’s beleaguered candidate against Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

But a run-of-the-mill campaign stop turned into a bizarre frenzy after the Clinton team removed the entire sound system during a dispute with low-level Ferrer supporters, who were trying to make the event more dramatic. As a result, a crowd of 1,000 people could barely hear Mr. Clinton praise “this good man.”

Real classy!

About that “nice treat”, you do realize there is a big MTA bond issue coming up this November, don’t you? “Fare Cuts for Holidays Are Called Into Question”:

It may seem like a benevolent year-end gift, but fiscal analysts and watchdog groups from both ends of the political spectrum yesterday criticized as irresponsible the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s plan to give subway, bus and commuter-rail riders fare discounts during the holiday season.

The discounts, which would be unprecedented in scope and cost an estimated $50 million this year in lost revenue, may secure some sorely needed good will for the authority, which is urging voters to approve a $2.9 billion state transportation bond act on Election Day.

But the authority faces a grim fiscal situation in the near future, as rising debt payments threaten to devour its operating budget. The authority hopes to balance its books next year, but anticipates a net budget deficit of $128 million in 2007, rising to $880 million in 2009.

Liberal and conservative analysts alike questioned the prudence of the temporary discounts.

The Zagat version of this article would go something like:

The MTA, already under fire for its murky bookkeeping, appears to be engaged in “feel-good, short-term gimmicks” and a “a yo-yo fare policy” to “secure some sorely needed good will” as voters will be asked to approve its $2.9 billion state transportation bond act. “Merely a Christmas present,” an “empty election-year gift” to the Mayor or “a nice gesture” that they can afford? The question of “Whom does this actually benefit?” is on everyone’s minds.

< /zagatreading>

A Manhattan judge overturns David Lemus’ conviction in the murder case of a Palladium bouncer killed in 1990 and the Times marvels about the specimen as he is released from captivity — “Free After 14 Years, and Learning to Use a Cell”:

In some ways, Mr. Lemus seemed like Rip Van Winkle. It was as if Mr. Lemus had been asleep for 14 years while the world moved on.

As he and his lawyers walked away from the courthouse, the lawyers handed him cellphones to talk to friends, and Mr. Lemus seemed to not know how to use them.

Upper East Siders (Yorkvillians?) are upset about 7-Eleven opening up on their block:

Residents of one Upper East Side block worry their peaceful existence is about to drown in the icy waters of the Slurpee.

The convenience-store chain 7-Eleven is opening an outlet Nov. 7 at the corner of East 84th Street and York Avenue.

And some neighbors are predicting nothing less than catastrophe.

A flier posted yesterday on the Web site curbed.com foretells the demise of the neighborhood via “rowdiness, serious beer drinkers, taxis on breaks and other undesirable” elements.

The 24-hour store will cause litter, attract rats, and attract drunks looking for beer, neighbors worry.

“I’ve never had a Slurpee, but I can see those Slurpee containers in the street,” fumed Judith Cutler, who lives on York Avenue. “I’m concerned about the transients . . . [in] the neighborhood.”

People, my god! We’re not talking about a Wal-Mart here! And who among us has not sampled Slurpee? Shame on you . . .

Bonus: That Curbed post.

Unintended consequences: Carnegie Deli sandwiches proved excessive by a team of sumo wrestlers — some over 600 pounds:

At only 245 pounds, Levan Altunashvilli was the lightest of the 14 men who clambered off a minivan at the Carnegie Deli in Midtown yesterday and was served a Woody Allen.

For the record, a Woody Allen is an enormous pastrami and corned beef sandwich on rye bread that was named for someone who weighs a little more than half of what Mr. Altunashvilli weighs and who is pretty much the physical opposite of what Mr. Altunashvilli is: a sumo wrestler.

But the Woody Allen, with two pounds of meat, was too much lunch for Mr. Altunashvilli. “I eat like everybody,” he said between bites, “only I eat four or five times a day.”

With 14 sumo wrestlers together at lunch, there were biceps that jiggled and stomachs that flopped over waistbands. There was even shirt removal - Oni pa’a Imua Pa’a'aina, who is from Hawaii and weighs 450 pounds, stripped to the waist. Anything to keep from spilling ketchup on a white sweatshirt.

Yes, Virginia! Not all sumo wrestlers indulge in two pounds of cold cuts at one time:

The wrestlers said they did not mind being the center of a spectacle as they signed napkins for autograph-seekers who had never heard of them. “It’s marketing,” said Hans Borg, 324 pounds, from Norway. “It’s good for the sport.”

This was after he had pushed himself away from the table, saying, “Can’t finish. An athlete can’t eat this much pork meat.”

. . .

Ronny Allman, who weighs 286 pounds and is from Norway, had a more varied lunch in mind: “A couple of eggs, three or four slices of bread, a little meat.” He said he puts away 10,000 calories a day, in installments.

“We like food,” he said. But putting down his knife and fork and leaving about half of his Woody Allen behind, he said, “This is too much to eat at one time. You’d get sick.”

Instead of rolling back fares during the holiday season why doesn’t the MTA use their nearly $1 billion surplus to put off inevitable fare hikes? Well what’s this about? The Daily News explains:

Happy Holidays, New York - from the MTA.

The agency wants to use part of its huge expected surplus to hand out unprecedented holiday season discounts to riders - including $1 weekend fares on city buses and subways from Thanksgiving through December, the Daily News has learned.

The goodies, detailed in a memo sent yesterday by MTA Executive Director Katherine Lapp to Chairman Peter Kalikow, drew cheers from straphangers, who have been whacked with two fare hikes since 2003.

“This would definitely help me out,” said Adriana Kowaliw, 22, of Manhattan, a recent college graduate who works in banking. “It would be a nice treat for New Yorkers.”

A nice treat? A nice treat?! Can’t you think of other things that would be nicer treats? Like, say, no more weekend service disruptions? Or twenty feet of a Second Avenue line? Or what about a fully functional G train? Just asking!

Gentlemen, it’s not a freakin’ Scruples question (”Your security clearance allows you access to intelligence detailing a terrorist attack on the city in which your son lives . . .”)! The federal employees who E-mailed everyone they knew in the New York metropolitan area warning them not to ride the subways last week have been stripped of their security clearance:

Two federal employees have been stripped of their security clearance for allegedly tipping friends and family to the New York City subway terror threat, sources said yesterday.

William Ross, a retired U.S. Coast Guard captain now working for the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Safety Administration, was being questioned for allegedly alerting his son of a possible terror attack - three days before Mayor Bloomberg and the FBI went public with the warning, sources said yesterday.

“As some of you know my father works for Homeland Security, at a very high position and receives security briefings on a daily basis,” his son, Nick Seligson-Ross, who runs a dance troupe, wrote in an Oct. 3 E-mail - one of two electronic messages sent out to big shots in the city’s arts and business communities.

“The only information that I can pass on is that everyone should at all costs not ride the subways for the next two weeks,” the E-mail warned some New Yorkers before Bloomberg was fully briefed on the threat.

. . .

The second tipster, who has high-level security access, has been transferred to a division that does not deal with sensitive information as the investigation continues, sources said.

The tipster’s information allegedly found its way into an E-mail sent out by production company owner Tony Micocci Oct. 5.

“I have just received a most disturbing call from one of my oldest friends … who, by dint of his position, has access to the highest level of intelligence traffic,” Micocci wrote. “He called with a very specific caution to not enter the New York City subway system from Oct. 7-Oct. 10.”

That E-mail circulated in the New York arts and business community a day before the public was notified of the threat.

Needing to acclimate to high elevations for a South American mountain trek but don’t have one minute to spare? Simply obtain an altitude chamber and train from the office:

The chamber came equipped with a mask, which [Richard] Wiese could strap over his mouth and nose. The air coming through the mask was even more hypoxic, like the air at twenty-one thousand feet. After issuing a few disclaimers, Wiese had the visitor strap on the mask. “It’s going to be a horrible experience, and at some point you’ll say, ‘Take this off!’” he said. The mask went on, and within a minute the world grew heavy, the light pre-surgical. The pulse sped, as the blood’s oxygen level dropped. “More of your cells are being killed than are being rejuvenated,” Wiese explained. To mimic conditions inside a snowbound tent, Wiese and the visitor played a few hands of blackjack. “Look at you bobbing around,” Wiese said. “Your eyes are looking a little buggy. Try standing up.” This experiment did not go well. Nor did a brief one involving a step machine inside the chamber. Finally, the revelation that the visitor was feeling an unfamiliar tingling in the vicinity of his left femoral artery prompted an immediate removal of the mask.

The Daily News profiles the guy whose job it is to fish coins out of city fountains:

Here’s what happens to all those coins that get tossed into city fountains by wish-makers: If the homeless don’t get to them first, they go into city coffers - courtesy of Joe McBain.
McBain, 53, is an unsung hero of New York whose job is making sure city park fountains in Manhattan are kept clean of debris.

In addition to coins, he’s found everything from MetroCards to cell phones to watches during his watery rounds.

“It’s New York City,” McBain said with a wide smile. “Anything goes.”

The homeless, he said, usually snatch up quarters, dimes and nickels under the cover of darkness, when the fountains are off for the night.

By day, McBain fishes out all the pennies - as well as leaves, discarded food and other trash.

No word on how much money is generated this way but if Mr. McBain sees it, he’ll fish it out:

Sometimes, when wish-makers see McBain pulling their coins out, they fear their dreams won’t come true.

He’s quick to assuage their worries.

“I tell them it’s like a prayer,” McBain said. “Once the money hits the water, their wish is answered.”

Once the money hits the water, the wish is answered . . . sure, sure . . .

Christopher Gray, trying to create a stir, notes that some may soon consider Penn Station-killer Madison Square Garden an architectural landmark — a preposterous idea! — but that it wouldn’t be much different than the way people once perceived the idea of landmarking the “Lollipop” building in Columbus Circle, setting up a moral equivalency that’s hard to deny:

Are you exhausted by the drawn-out battle to preserve the architect Edward Durell Stone’s 1965 art museum at Columbus Circle? Well, if you couldn’t get your head around landmark protection for that Venetian-marble fantasy, you may gulp at the next threatened work of mid-20th-century architecture to be considered important.

. . .

. . . a decade or two ago, the idea of landmark designation for the Edward Durell Stone building would have been greeted by many with hoots - and now it is a preservation cause célèbre in New York, with another round of lawsuits under way.

Diane Jackier, a spokeswoman for the Landmarks Preservation Commission, said by e-mail that the commission has “not made any determination” about the Garden, a statement that may cause old-line preservationists to cringe. But the case for landmark designation is, on the face of it, rather strong: it is a unique building, designed by an important architect, with unusual engineering and a complex history.

Kate Wood, executive director of Landmark West!, said in an e-mail that the group has to mull the building’s significance but that “I’m all for a public hearing for Madison Square Garden.”

“It would tell us a lot about where we are in our ability to evaluate the architectural and historical significance of the recent past,” she said. “The Landmarks Preservation Commission needs to embrace, not shy away from, this kind of discussion.”

So Madison Square Garden — the very building responsible for landmarking laws after Penn Station was torn down — may actually be landmarked. The irony . . . so thick!

The Times’ Dan Barry asks where those ubiquitous black umbrellas come from, and finds out:

Down in yesterday morning’s wetness to West 28th Street, where pumpkins adorned a flower shop window display, and where Oscar Rodriguez stood outside another wholesale store, chanting the season’s theme song to the rain. “Umbrella, umbrella, umbrella.”

He said that when he arrives at the store at 7:30 on rainy mornings, the peddlers are lined up, waiting to buy a dozen for $10 - which they then sell piecemeal for whatever they can get. “Depends on the area,” he confided. “White people pay more.”

Finally, to a dreary storefront with a sign saying wholesale trade only: Imperial Umbrellas. You have to be buzzed into its drab showroom, where the multicolored umbrella display somehow added no color, and where the fluorescent light’s buzz provided the only music.

Several peddlers in wet clothes stood before a worn desk, behind which sat a small man with white hair and hound-dog eyes: Solomon Korn, for 30 years a Man To See in wholesale umbrellas.

As the peddlers placed their orders, Mr. Korn and an employee in the back engaged in an umbrella-model duet.

Employee: “Mr. Korn, Mr. Korn. One dozen W, two dozen 58-58, one dozen 22S?”

Mr. Korn: “One dozen W, two dozen 58-58, one dozen 22S. Give him the black, with the cover.”

The peddlers counted out their wet dollar bills and handed them to Mr. Korn. He smoothed away the crumpled dampness as best he could, and laid the bills neatly in a side drawer. Then the peddlers grabbed their cardboard boxes and left to make some more wet bucks.

Mr. Korn sells high-end and low-end umbrellas. He sells those cheap ones that end up like dead crows in the garbage for $9 a dozen, which means the peddlers pay 75 cents an umbrella. “They sell them for $3 if it’s raining,” he said with a shrug. “Two dollars if it’s not.”

His profit on each dozen of the cheap ones, he said: 50 cents.

The Times finally runs a human interest piece about this crazy rain (after all, Times readers are interested in the weather, too!), and somehow manages not to Tom Wolfe it up too much. Or perhaps not — let’s run the special New York Times Tom Wolfinating Check:

• Tourists from California? Check.
• Stockbroker? Check.
• Woman in Queens hair salon? Check.
• The guard at Downtown Brooklyn’s Fulton Mall? Check.
• Administrative Assistant living in Bed-Stuy? Check.
• Woman in calf-high suede boots (idiot!)? Check.
• Mother? Check. (Does she live in Brownsville? Yes!)
• Poodle? Check, check, check!

The Tom Wolfinator Machine gives this Times story high marks for vapid “cross-section” of the city (”high marks” but not “highest marks” — need more homeless).