Peter Meehan provides a thumbnail sketch of everything that is wrong with Manhattan restaurants:

It was the whipped cream routine that tipped the scales.

Our perky waitress at Ditch Plains dropped off our desserts and enthusiastically told us that the chef would deliver whipped cream for our pie to the table. She made the pronouncement with the wide-eyed expression and excited tone you might use when springing an impromptu field trip on a group of schoolchildren. Fun was on the way, she was telling us.

Then a harried cook sneaked past her, plopped a canister of supermarket whipped cream on the table and scurried back to the kitchen. Ta-da!

. . .

It’s unfortunate that the restaurant pairs that burger with its cafeteria-quality French fries instead of the freshly made sweet potato chips that accompany its lobster roll. The mayonnaise-rich salad of chopped lobster meat tumbling out of a buttered and toasted hot dog roll (side-sliced, not top-sliced, for those keeping score in Maine) is not exactly a bargain at $23, but that is what the market will bear.

Whether the market will bear some of the other prices the restaurant charges remains to be seen. Want ice in your whiskey? That’ll be $2 extra. How about a slice of American cheese on your burger? That will take the simple sandwich from the realm of the expensive ($12) to the absurd ($15).

Florence Fabricant notes that European Union, the East Village “gastropub” that was denied a liquor license back in March, has closed.

Ganas, the Staten Island commune profiled by New York Magazine back in April, is in the news again after a former resident shot one of its founders on Monday:

A former New Brighton woman waged a campaign of stalking and harassment against activist Jeff Gross, the co-founder of the commune she once lived in, before finally shooting him three times on the steps of his Corson Avenue home Monday night, police said.

Now cops are hunting the woman, Rebekah Johnson — who police sources say has ambushed Gross before with a camera, and has made several baseless claims about him after she was twice kicked out of the Ganas commune years ago. And the commune’s members now fear that Ms. Johnson may come after them next.

“We truly believe that we’re being targeted,” said one of the group’s members, a 46-year-old man who asked that his name be withheld because he fears for his safety.

Gross — who was in critical but stable condition in St. Vincent’s Hospital in West Brighton yesterday — had described Ms. Johnson to detectives as “crazy, but not dangerously crazy” after the earlier incidents, according to one law enforcement source.

“Guess she proved him wrong,” the source said.

Police sources describe Ms. Johnson as white, heavyset, in her 40s, and “armed and extremely dangerous.”

. . .

On Sunday, Gross was on his way home from Manhattan, where he saw the Al Gore movie “An Inconvenient Truth” with a group of friends, said one Ganas member who asked not to be identified.

He said goodbye, and walked back to his house from farther up the road, the friend said.

“Next thing I know, I heard the gunshots,” he said.

Dont’ worry — the plot is already penciled in for next season’s Law & Order.

Parkgoers at Brooklyn’s Empire-Fulton Ferry Park are happy to be able to enjoy an open space were virtually everything is forbidden:

“They need to lighten up,” said John Soster, 39, a teacher and cyclist from Bushwick who was reprimanded for walking — not riding — his bike through the park last summer.

“I’ve been chastised,” he added. “What are they so uptight about?”

Another parkgoer told the Daily News she has seen rangers tell kids to stop playing ball - and teenagers complained they’ve been scolded for running around in the park.

“A couple of my friends and I were told to stop running and horsing around or we’d have to leave,” said Kenyon Harris, 17, who now avoids the state park because of the rules.

Empire-Fulton Ferry also has rules against commercial photography and filming, both of which require a permit. Parkgoers said hard-nosed park rangers can take this regulation too far.

Louis Benitez, 31, a Queens marketing manager, said a ranger made him put away his hand-held video camera - even though he was just filming his fiancée and passing boats.

“I was like, ‘Come on. It’s just for our leisure,’” said Benitez, who recently was forced out of the park because he was there with his friend’s dog. “They’re pretty strict.”

. . .

On Sunday, The News chronicled the widespread frustration that the Empire-Fulton Ferry closes its park at dusk — and even earlier. Parkgoers charged they are often abruptly kicked out at one of the nicest times of the day. At least one day last week, the park closed at 6:30 p.m.

Following an inquiry by The News, a state parks spokeswoman said they “were looking to expand” the hours to 11 p.m., at least on weekends.

Community Board 2 district manager Robert Perris said he has gotten complaints about the strict rules at Empire-Fulton Ferry — and the sometimes overly aggressive rangers.

“They sometimes treat people like they’re doing something really wrong for relatively minor things,” said Perris. “The response can seem much heavier than the ‘crime.’”

Out: Jane Jacobs. In: An “unholy alliance” of Jane Jacobs and the newly rehabilitated Robert Moses. Get used to it:

The planning phrase on everyone’s lips is “eyes on the street,” the reductio ad absurdum of the argument of the late Jane Jacobs’s 1961 Death and Life of Great American Cities. Jacobs argued that the lifeblood of her then-threatened neighborhood, the Village, was the shopkeepers and homeowners and stoop-sitters who watched the sidewalks and parks for free. Under City Planning commissioner Amanda Burden, neighborhoods are being contextually zoned to preserve their “special character.”

Jacobs’s vision was lovely but limited, with little room for new buildings, new neighborhoods. Rereading her arguments, one develops a sneaking admiration for the size of Moses’s thoughts. For the city to grow, it needed major change. Under Bloomberg, big thinking is happening again. What we have is a — some would say unholy — alliance of Bob and Jane. Exaltation of the neighborhood, coupled with the idea of building new ones from scratch. The Bloomberg administration still lags in taste at times. Why does every economic-development initiative have to be as big as possible? (Note to gadflies: Many of these projects are not yet set in stone. If you hate it, you can still change it. Start your blog now. But also start imagining an alternative — preferably in PowerPoint.)

OK, smart alec, you asked for it: newyorkmagazineistryingtobeohsocontrarian.com. I think the URL is available!

Katrina evacuees use squatters-rights laws to stay in their hotel rooms “rent free”:

This winter, FEMA put up over 300 Hurricane Katrina evacuees in New York City hotels. Almost all of them have gone back to their lives, their jobs. But not Theon Johnson. He’s currently sprawled out watching Halloween 5 on one of the two full-size beds in his room at the JFK Airport Holiday Inn. He is one of four evacuees still living in a hotel in the city.

The others left in February and March, when, after spending more than $500 million, FEMA stopped paying for hotel rooms housing some 40,000 evacuees across the country. That left many scrambling for places to live. But thanks to the city’s squatters-rights law, evacuees here were safe. Their rooms weren’t paid for, but since they’d been in them for more than 30 days, the hotels couldn’t just kick them out. Only a judge’s order could evict them.

And Johnson, 49, isn’t that motivated to leave. For one thing, AMC’s in the middle of its “Thrill Me” marathon. Next up, Gothika. “Halle Berry,” he says with lazy lust. These days he’s usually up all night — it’s hard to sleep on an empty stomach. When he has to, he’ll go outside and beg for change, but he doesn’t really like that too much. Most days he just showers and gets back in bed, showers and gets back in bed. Once a week he and another evacuee, a diabetic named Larry, walk to a church off the Van Wyck and get canned goods. When Johnson’s caseworker, Sharon, comes around, she gives him some bus passes and maybe a few bucks, but she’s getting frustrated. “They sit around on their butts watching TV. There’s only but so much I can do if they’re not willing to help themselves.”

The Holiday Inn is working on a settlement that will pay Johnson to leave. On behalf of New York, you’re welcome!

A promising young American is poised to reclaim the competitive eating mantle in the world-famous Nathan’s hot dog-eating contest:

Joey Chestnut, a journeyman on the competitive-eating circuit, stunned the world — and maybe put a scare into five-time world hot dog–eating champion Takeru Kobayashi — by setting a new American record just two months before the annual July 4 contest at Nathan’s in Coney Island.

“This is the greatest thing to happen in the history of American sports,” said Richard Shea, president of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, the governing body of all stomach-centered sports.

“Chestnut’s accomplishment may change the course of a nation.”

. . .

As a result of nearly a decade of Japanese domination at our national pastime on our national holiday, many Americans believe that the Mustard Yellow International Belt will always be worn by a foreigner.

The Brooklyn Paper reports (.pdf) that the Army Recruiting office on Stillwell Avenue may become a sort of Coney Island StoryCorps:

A tin-roofed Coney Island war machine is on its way to becoming a time machine.

The family that built and operates the neighborhood’s biggest amusement empire wants to convert a battered U.S. Army Recruiting Center on Stillwell Avenue into recording studio for the oral history of one of Brooklyn’s most-historic, and certainly freakiest, areas.

“People have so many memories to share about the Cyclone, the Winder Wheel and well, everything that happened under the Boardwalk, too,” said Coney Island Voices founder Carol Albert, whose father-in-law took [sic] bought the legendary Cyclone coaster in the 1960s.

The black tin shack has stood in the middle of Stillwell Avenue for as long as anyone can remember. Although it was an active recruiting station until last year, it is mostly known as an obstruction to the annual hot dog-eating contest at Nathan’s across the street.

The recruiters’ relocation to a nearby storefront has paved the way for their old station to be, well, paved.

A source said the Coney Island Voices “studio” would be mobile so it could be tucked away to accommodate the overflow crowds at the annual July 4 frankfest.

“It’s safe if you know what you’re doing” doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence, but I’m listening:

Decades have passed since advocates began their push to rid the Hudson River of industrial waste, and the city has worked to beautify Manhattan’s once-desolate West Side with grassy parkland for joggers and bicyclists. So why not add a beach?

Some state officials and environmentalists want to develop one along the river just steps from the Meatpacking District when a city sanitation department depot relocates by 2012.

The plan faces technical and regulatory hurdles and could take years to complete, but perhaps the most daunting challenge will be persuading locals and tourists alike to take a dip in the river, with its reputation as a floating funeral home and garbage dump.

“Haven’t they found bodies out here?” asked Sephora Rosario, 32, staring out at the choppy water not too far from where she grew up. “Who would jump in there?”

Often, those quickest to dive in are the environmental advocates who say the Hudson River is far cleaner than it has been for most of the last few hundred years.

“I’ll swim in the Hudson now,” said Carter Craft, director of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, which works to increase funding for city water access and ecological protection. “It’s safe if you know what you’re doing.”

You can thank our lack of Long Island Sound lobster to the sealife-devouring sea squirt, known simply as a “blob”:

A blob-like creature is invading Long Island Sound and posing a threat to its lobsters and other shellfish, University of Connecticut scientists say.

The researchers say they have found colonies of invasive sea squirts, blob-shaped animals that reproduce easily, on the floor of the Sound.

The scientists believe this variety of sea squirt, known as didemnum, arrived on the hulls of ships from Asia. They have no known predators.

“This thing has the potential for causing significant economic impact when it attaches to the floor of the Sound, where it blankets and suffocates shellfish and lobsters,” said Ivar Babb, director of the university’s Undersea Research Center at Avery Point in Groton.

The animals range in color from a creamy translucent pearl to olive or tan. In Japan, there are some red species.

“This thing is ugly,” Babb said. “It has no socially redeeming virtues.”

The Daily News learns that the MTA is using a law firm whose partners charge up to $540 an hour for strike-related litigation:

The MTA has paid a white-shoe law firm more than $560,000 to help fight its contract clash with transit workers - even though the agency has hundreds of its own lawyers and the state attorney general’s office on its side.
The Proskauer Rose law firm has billed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority up to $540 an hour for its talent, documents obtained by the Daily News reveal.

And the tab is growing. The $560,000 covers legal battles and maneuvers from November through January, but not the past four months.

. . .

MTA spokesman Tom Kelly said Proskauer Rose provided crucial support throughout, preparing papers, doing research and making in-court arguments.

“They are considered, to my knowledge, to be one of the best in the country in what they do as far as labor law,” Kelly said.

The MTA and its Transit Authority both have labor relations and legal departments with a combined staff of more than 500, many of them lawyers. Kelly said strike-related litigation is not their expertise. He said the union is to blame for the legal bills.

“All of this money that was spent was spent as a result of the illegal actions and rhetoric that the union took part in,” he said. “Do we wish we didn’t have to spend it? Absolutely. But it was precipitated by the actions of the union.”

. . .

Proskauer Rose partners Neil Abramson and David Zurndorfer charged the highest rate, $540 an hour, according to documents provided by the MTA.

Others charged between $176 and $420 an hour, according to MTA documents, which say that the firm provided the authority a discount from its usual fees. [Emph. added for obvious in-text sarcastic commentary]

Despite the speculation (but of course we were all dying to know what Hizzoner thought about Intelligent Design anyway), Mayor Bloomberg is not running for President:

For a man who says he is not running for president, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been sounding a lot like a candidate for the White House lately.

He spent last week thrusting himself into national politics, making pointed comments on issues like illegal immigration, stem-cell research and global warming. But then on Friday, he denied any interest in higher office.

“I’m not running for president,” he said while discussing immigration that day on his weekly call-in radio show. “I’ve got a city with 500,000 undocumented, and I want to leave a better world for my kids, and your kids.”

Still, there is substance fueling the sense in some political circles that the mayor, nominally a Republican, could be persuaded to run. Kevin Sheekey, the deputy mayor for government affairs and Mr. Bloomberg’s lead political architect, continues to work behind the scenes, chatting up lobbyists and other operatives to promote the idea of Mr. Bloomberg running as an independent.

In addition, Mr. Bloomberg has been auditioning a new political persona in his public statements, casting himself as the kind of pragmatic, results-oriented problem-solver that Americans tell pollsters they are looking for.

As Democrats and Republicans argue over the future of their parties and the national debate remains polarized, there are signs that voters are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with President Bush and the Republican leaders of Congress, and that they aren’t necessarily energized by the Democrats, either.

“Most people are not satisfied with their politics and would very much like to see more politicians who just got things done,” said Al From, founder and chief executive officer of the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist policy group. “Most people really aren’t about ideology. Most people really are about, ‘Let’s get something done that’s going to make my life better.’”

Forget the “third way” — how about a “Nominal” ticket?

The clouds held off long enough for a spectacular Manhattanhenge:

Manhattan Memorial Day weekend revelers enjoyed a special finale to the glorious day yesterday as the sun washed crosstown streets with golden light before sinking below the horizon.

The cosmic effect occurs when the sun aligns precisely with the east-west grid of the streets, in what’s known as the rare “Manhattan-henge” phenomenon.

“We’re so bogged down in crass reality, we want to transcend this mundane existence,” mused Joseph Drexel, 54, a Chelsea artist, as he took in the view. “We have to love Mother Nature.”

“It was like a huge rubber ball making across the horizon of the street and then sinking immediately,” said Mark Harris, 55, who joined about 100 others at the Tudor City overpass at 42nd St. and First Ave.

The sun will swing back into the Manhattan Solstice on July 11 . . .

See also: Manhattanhenge.

Things you don’t want to hear include, bears and moose in urban areas constitute a “new definition” of “normal”:

And the great beasts came down from the mountains and crossed the seas and descended upon the cities — the hind and her fawn, leaping fences in the southeast Bronx; the black bear, stout but fleet of foot, stealing through the streets of Newark; the seals of the harbor sunning themselves by the score upon the hospital ruins of Staten Island.

And the coyote prowled the West Side and took up quarters in Central Park. And the dolphin beached itself on the Turuks’ sandy yard in Throgs Neck. And the she-moose, 21 hands high, strayed within 30 miles of the city gates.

And the wise men stroked their beards and scratched their heads, and they finally declared, “This is not normal.”

Bill Weber, a senior conservationist for the Wildlife Conservation Society, said that the other day. He was talking about the bears that have lately taken to wandering New Jersey’s urban core.

But bears are just the beginning. In recent weeks, the three largest land mammals native to the Eastern United States, along with numerous runners-up, have visited New York City and its environs. A fair degree of chaos has ensued.

Big-city police officers idled by falling crime rates spend their days pursuing four-legged fugitives. The pit bulls and tomcats in the city pound in East Harlem have been forced to make room for white-tailed deer. This spring, the New York metropolitan area depicted on the evening news has come to resemble an episode of “Animal Precinct” filmed at a big-game preserve.

What in the world is going on?

There is no simple answer, the wise men say.

“You have this really neat pulse of things happening within a relatively short period,” Dr. Weber said from his office at the Bronx Zoo, “and as humans we like to make some sense of that and give some justification. But they all have their anomalous reasons.”

The factors include both environmental triumphs and travesties. Once-threatened species continue to recover because of conservation measures. Waterways are cleaner. Greenways are being built in and around cities. At the same time, development in the farthest exurbs chews up land and flushes animals from their usual homes. Mild winters, possibly man-made, are easier for many species to survive.

All of it adds up to a new definition of normal. (Or perhaps an old one. After all, the animals were here long before the people were.) Just as the suburbs have spent years negotiating conflicts with wild animals, it is now the cities’ turn.

“I think we’re just seeing the growing trend of population sizes with some of these animals, and the adaptation to survive and, or at least, venture into more progressively more urban areas,” said Gerry Barnhart, the wildlife director at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Unsatisfied sailors? Some among us say, “Not on my watch”:

With thousands of sailors and Marines pulling into port for Fleet Week, it’s the best time of the year for gals — and guys — looking to salute wide-eyed mariners in from out of town.

From innocent tours of the Big Apple straight out of “On the Town” to steamy hookups right out of “Sex and the City,” our uniformed visitors are in for a wild ride.

“You just walk down the street and they’re everywhere,” said Anne W., 24, of Jersey City. “They’re looking to have a good time and so are you.”

. . .

For several years, Jeni Hyland and her friends have enjoyed meeting uniformed men and women during Fleet Week, praising them for their patriotic duty and showing them what she called “the real New York.”

“They make me proud to be a taxpaying American,” said Hyland, 27, of Hoboken. “I only wish that we had more time to spend with them in our great city because I love seeing their faces when they see it for the first time.”

Last year, while living in Manhattan, Anne W. met a group of sailors from the South on her walk home. They ended up hanging out together for several days, with the sailors following Anne to Central Park and the Empire State Building.

A brief romance with a sailor grew out of the visit, Anne said, but fizzled because “he was so far away.” But the warm memories from last year persuaded her to get wrapped up in Fleet Week again this year.

I’m sure glad that big terror plot sting operation went so well now that New York’s law-abiding Muslim community has become suddenly distrustful of the NYPD:

It is no secret to the Muslim immigrants of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, that spies live among them.

Almost anyone can rattle off what they regard as the telltale signs of police informers: They like to talk politics. They have plenty of free time. They live in the neighborhood, but have no local relatives.

“They think we don’t know, but we know who they are,” said Linda Sarsour, 26, a community activist.

It is another thing for them to be officially revealed. Over the last several weeks, during the trial of a Pakistani immigrant who was convicted on Wednesday of plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station, Muslims in Bay Ridge learned that two agents of the police had been planted in the neighborhood and were instrumental to the case.

They absorbed the testimony of an Egyptian-born police informer who had recorded the license plate numbers of worshipers at a mosque. They heard that an undercover detective, originally from Bangladesh, had been sent to Bay Ridge as a “walking camera.”

The trial’s revelations, and its outcome for the defendant, Shahawar Matin Siraj, have brought a bitter reckoning among Muslims in the city. Many see the police tactics unveiled in the case as proof that the authorities — both in New York and around the nation — have been aggressive, even underhanded in their approach to Muslims.

And despite the conviction of Mr. Siraj, who was found guilty on all four of the counts he faced, some Muslim leaders remain convinced that he was entrapped, including an imam who knew the informer and had found him to be suspicious.

. . .

“It’s like a police state here,” said Omar Maged, 34, an assistant teacher at a public high school. “We do not feel that we are living in the most free country in the world.”

They’ve overstocked gaudy sequined high heels, every one. When will they ever learn? They will never learn:

As anyone who has recently walked down Eighth St. between Fifth and Sixth Aves. can’t help but notice, the block resembles a retail ghost town, as if the Great Depression had hit all over again. Virtually every other store is vacant, with For Rent signs prominently posted. In all, about 20 stores were empty when a reporter walked the street two weekends ago. On Sixth Ave., the former Sam Goody space, also in the BID’s district, is vacant.

. . .

Carol Wilson, W. Eighth St. Block Association co-chairperson, is still waiting to return home after her apartment was literally pulled apart after the recent unsettling incident where mercury was mysteriously found in it. But she’s also disturbed about the retail situation on W. Eighth St., where she says the stores don’t offer anything anybody living on the block wants.

“Most of it’s now club clothing, tattoo stuff, smoking apparatus, belt buckles,” she said. “We don’t shop there. I don’t think N.Y.U. students even shop there. People are shopping at discount shoe stores on 14th St., and look at the shoes they sell here — high-heeled, with sequins. Who wears those?”

This bank robber is working from a distinct disadvantage:

A beefy bank robber who made off with $3,800 from heists in Tottenville a week ago and Westerleigh on Tuesday is still being sought by police.

The bandit — described as 6 feet tall and weighing more than 300 pounds and 26 to 31 years old — hit the SI Bank & Trust branch at 6975 Amboy Rd. on May 19 and the Richmond County Savings Bank branch at 832 Jewett Ave. on Tuesday afternoon.

In Tottenville, he handed the teller a note and walked out with $1,300.

On Tuesday, the thief entered the Richmond County Savings Bank dressed in jeans cut off at the knee, white sneakers, a gray hooded sweatshirt and a black and white baseball cap.

If he really wanted to be provocative, he would have come out against, say, tort reform limiting medical malpractice damages (whoops — wrong speech!):

By warning a graduating class of doctors to reject “faith-based science,” Mr. Bloomberg yesterday signaled yet again that he plans to use his second term to take the national stage.

The mayor railed against letting “ideology get in the way of truth,” and singled out creationism, global warming, and stem cell research as topics where science is under attack.

Mr. Bloomberg’s views on these issues — and on other topics he’s taken on over the last few months — barely register outside the five boroughs. But after winning re-election by a record margin, Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire, is becoming increasingly vocal and eager to address controversial topics.

“It boggles the mind that nearly two centuries after Darwin, and 80 years after John Scopes was put on trial, this country is still debating the validity of evolution,” Mr. Bloomberg told graduating medical students at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he earned his bachelor’s degree.

Mr. Bloomberg combined two of his favorite topics, science and education, when he criticized school districts in Kansas and Mississippi that want to teach “intelligent design,” the theory that human life cannot be explained solely by evolution. He said schools would be “condemning these students to an inferior education” by promoting faith over settled science.

And forget local issues like, say, garbage collection and Sunday parking — this time it’s about a “national conversation”:

The interim dean at Baruch College’s school of public affairs, David Birdsell, said Mr. Bloomberg was clearly using his office as a bully pulpit on a national scale.

“If you look at what Bloomberg is calling attention to in this speech, it is clear that he is attacking national issues,” Mr. Birdsell said.

“He certainly sounds like a person who at least during these remaining three years wants to use the mayoralty to shape a national conversation, if not a national candidacy,” he said.

Forget $1 billion — can the Sept. 11 memorial at Ground Zero really cost $500 million? You don’t even know the three-fifths of it:

The goal is a $500 million memorial. But some expenses are irreducible. A rough calculation suggests that it might cost $300 a square foot to build the simplest structure to fill the 70-foot-deep hole: four 250,000-square-foot floors with no memorial, no museum, no voids, no pools and no landscaping.

“It’s going to cost you about $300 million,” [design committee co-chair] Mr. [Roland W.] Betts said, “just to get up there and build your windswept plaza.”

At least a parking garage would recoup some money . . . and that would really show the evildoers!

Just imagine how this article would sound if they hadn’t convincted the kid:

The NYPD may wind up getting only one investigation and trial out of its $100,000 terror informant.

Egyptian-born mole Osama El Dawoody, who infiltrated Muslim communities in Brooklyn and Staten Island, may have to find another job now that Shahawar Matin Siraj has been convicted of scheming to blow up Manhattan’s 34th Street subway station, sources said.

“They can’t use him again,” a law-enforcement source, referring to El Dawoody’s NYPD handlers. “They don’t want to take the chance that somebody would recognize him.

“He’s not going to remain on the NYPD’s payroll forever,” the source added of El Dawoody, 50, who started working for the cops in 2003 and earned a weekly salary for his services — about $100,000, according to his testimony.

Backstory.

We’re learning very quickly how the City views opponents of eminent domain abuse:

The Greater Jamaica Development Corporation held its annual membership meeting Tuesday afternoon and the event was anchored by a panel discussion on eminent domain that featured a lawyer for New York City and a planning director from Raleigh, N.C., who both lauded the practice as an essential tool that, when used judiciously, can invigorate urban economies.

. . .

Lisa Bova-Hiatt, deputy chief of the New York City Law Department, said Tuesday the public’s response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision last June that upheld a city’s right to seize private property for economic development was “nothing short of hysterical.”

Bova-Hiatt said the case simply confirmed that economic development constitutes a “public benefit.” Bova-Hiatt said she is extremely concerned about a bill, currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate, that would prohibit city’s [sic] from using eminent domain for economic development. [Emph. added because I don't think most property owners are acting in a "hysterical" manner]

Easy for her to say!

The wildly successful Wilmer Valderrama-hosted “Yo Mamma” MTV show is scouting Queens talent:

When 18-year-old Ozone Park native Travis Moyer told his friend Brandon Jacobson that his mother was so dumb “she thought a quarterback was a refund,” he took a step back, glared at Moyer and ran his fingers across the brim of his hat. He processed the insult and planned his next move. To an onlooker the atmosphere would seem tense, but instead he cracked a smile and simply said “nice.”

Moyer and Jacobson aren’t trading barbs, they’re practicing. Outside of the South Queens Boys and Girls Club in Richmond Hill, 19-year-old Jacobson, also from Ozone Park, and Moyer are practicing before they audition for the open casting call for the popular MTV show “Yo Mamma.”

. . .

On Sunday, MTV staked out the club in what was the second New York casting call for the show, which pits trash-talkers from different neighborhoods against one another. MTV plans on holding several more casting calls around the five boroughs before shooting its New York area shows on June 20.

. . .

Though occasional laughter could be heard coming from outside as Moyer and Jacobson continued to practice, the atmosphere inside the club’s gym was a bit more tense. In the trash can outside of the gym, lists of jokes were visible on discarded computer printouts. As some potential contestants filled out their application forms, others could be seen mouthing one-liners to themselves as they waited their turn.

For MTV’s New York shows, the network plans on pitting the five boroughs against each other to compete for the crown of best trash-talker in the city. Terrell Davis, 21, of Richmond Hill, was confident that even if he didn’t get on the show, someone from Queens would bring the trash-talking crown back to the borough.

“In Queens, you grow up trash-talking, everyone else got nothing on us,” he said. “We got the sharpest tongues. Brooklyn? More like Brokelyn. Manhattan? Please. Queens is the most rugged, we’re taking this thing.”

(Remember “Hizzoner The Hall Monitor”?)

Unfortunately, sometimes you get what you pay for with those cut-rate outerborough circuses:

With big smiles on faces young and old, Queens families have been flocking to the Big Apple Circus, which is currently being held in Cunningham Park. A circus may be the type of entertainment that likes to bring the audience into the action, but at their opening show, Big Apple brought the action into the audience.

At the circus’ Saturday, May 13 show, one of the acrobats in the Garamov Troupe fell into the crowd while performing an aerial stunt.

Nikita Pavlov (like the dog guy), fell into the seats in Section 6 when he missed his trapeze partner’s hands.

However, Pavlov only suffered a few scratches and a bruised elbow. Though he was taken to the hospital for precautionary measures, he waved to the audience to show everyone that he was all right as he was taken out on a stretcher. No one in the audience was hurt either.

There’s no such thing as friendly foot licking on the subway:

Joseph Weir, 23, was arraigned last Thursday before Queens Criminal Court Judge Suzanne Melendez on four separate complaints, each one charging Weir with one count of first degree sexual abuse, one count of forcible touching, one count of third degree sexual abuse and one count of second degree harassment. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison with respect to each complaint.

According to the complaints filed in the case, the first incident took place on the W train near 31st Street and Astoria Boulevard on the evening of May 27, 2004, when a 44 year old woman was allegedly approached by the defendant, who requested that she go out with him. When she declined his offer, the defendant allegedly knelt in front of her and, grabbing her left foot, licked it before fleeing the scene.

Five months later, Weir was riding a Queens bound R train when he allegedly lay on the floor in front of a sleeping 27 year old woman. When the victim stood to exit the train in the vicinity of Queens and Woodhaven Boulevards, she observed him lying on the floor and attempted to step over him. At this point, Weir allegedly grabbed her left foot and began kissing it. When the victim resisted by kicking the defendant, he stood up and forcibly grabbed her rear end before fleeing when another female passenger came to her aid.

I blame this guy.

Sobering economic analysis from the New York Press:

The Consumer Price Index, which tracks the effect of inflation on urban living expenses, jumped nearly one percent for NYC in the month of April alone according to various sources. The CPI for New York had risen less than three percent the entire previous year. This means everything here is costing more money. The rise in the CPI is fueled by the unstoppable escalation of oil prices and a parallel increase in the cost of rent. With gas and interest rates up, more people are renting, and fewer new homes are being built.

But it’s not all bad news:

This squeeze leaves Manhattan with another fun statistic, reported in The Daily News: a 0.67 percent vacancy rate for rentals. Landlords find themselves charging 9 percent more for a one-bedroom than they did last year, and they’re still turning hordes of people away; the sort of people who are scrambling for the chance to live in a city that promises only to bleed them dry once they move in.

Attention potential suicides — the Verrazano is not the bridge for you:

A male jumped from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge early this morning — and survived. He jumped just before 6 a.m. from the upper level of the Brooklyn-bound side of the span. The man was brought to Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn in critical condition, a police spokesman said.

This comes after a jump back in November failed to kill a 19-year-old Brooklyn man.

Later — the Advance reports that the man actually only fell off a seawall:

A man reported to have jumped from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge yesterday morning actually fell into the water from a seawall in Brooklyn, police have determined.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday that the man who was pulled alive from the harbor shortly before 6 a.m. was a bicyclist in Bay Ridge who fell after climbing onto rocks at the water’s edge.

What’s more — this bridge definitely should not be fucked with:

On Wednesday, police recovered the body of a New Dorp man from New York Harbor. He had been missing since the car he was driving was found abandoned on the bridge on May 9.

Verrazano skeptics stand corrected!

There’s a peculiar circular logic in the notion that you “stopped the worst from happening” when “the worst” was your idea in the first place . . . unless I’m missing something here:

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly ruffled feathers in federal law enforcement when he decided to make the NYPD Intelligence Division a force in counterterrorism.

Kelly put former CIA official David Cohen in charge and poured detectives and resources into the division with a mandate to protect the city from another terror attack.

Now the conviction of Shahawar Matin Siraj on charges of plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station stands as the showcase example of how the NYPD, using its own informants and investigative powers, could, in Kelly’s words, “stop the worst from happening.”

“The police operate proactively rather than reactively,” said Thomas Reppetto, the author of “NYPD: A City and its Police.”

“They stopped the bomb from being planted rather than wait to investigate afterward.”

But is this guy such a big catch? You decide:

A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted a Pakistani immigrant yesterday in the plot to blow up the Herald Square subway station in 2004. The jurors rejected his defense that a paid police informer had entrapped him by stoking his rage with images of Muslims abused at the hands of Americans.

The man, Shahawar Matin Siraj, who will turn 24 tomorrow, appeared pallid and downcast as the jury forewoman delivered the verdict. . . .

The most serious charge, plotting to bomb a public transportation system, can carry a life sentence, although lawyers and prosecutors said Mr. Siraj would most likely face a term of 20 to 30 years under federal guidelines. He turned down a plea deal that would have given him a 10-year sentence.

. . .

The United States attorney in Brooklyn, Roslynn R. Mauskopf, whose office prosecuted the case, said: “Siraj conspired to plant a bomb in one of the most active transportation hubs in America. Thanks to the diligent work of law enforcement, the plot never developed beyond the planning stage, and the public was never at risk.”

The defense in the case argued that Mr. Siraj had been entrapped by the paid informer, Osama Eldawoody, a 50-year-old Egyptian-born nuclear engineer who, Mr. Siraj’s lawyers contended, sought to draw their client into the plot for the money. Evidence showed he was paid about $100,000 over two years and nine months — $25,000 during the 13 months he worked as an informer and the rest in relocation and living expenses over the 20 months between the arrests and the trial. [Emph. added to underscore a deliciously backhanded compliment]

At some point someone will figure out that the NYPD might not be the best place to look to for counter-terrorism operations.

I don’t know how you forget about an entire golf course, but whatever:

It’s tee time on Governors Island, where a long-forgotten golf course will be revived for a celebrity competition this fall.

The Manhattan Golf Classic on Governors Island, announced yesterday for Oct. 22, will pit female champs Annika Sorenstam and Natalie Gulbis in an 18-hole battle of the sexes against actor Dennis Quaid, rated Hollywood’s best player by Golf Digest, and another star yet to be named.

Actors Craig T. Nelson and Bruce McGill, who was the rowdy D-Day in “Animal House,” will be among those squaring off in a four-man celebrity contest also being planned.

. . .

ArenaCorp Holdings, which is paying $75,000 plus expenses for use of the island, will restore the nine-hole course last used by Coast Guard officers before the service left in 1996.

The nine holes, spanning a relatively compact 10 acres or so, will do double duty by rearranging the tee approaches and placement of the pins.

“We’ve been able to embrace the historic character of the property . . . with meandering holes around Fort Jay, the skyline and the Statue of Liberty,” said Robert McNeil, president of The Northeast Golf Co., which is helping to restore the course.

Refreshing candor from New York’s junior senator:

One crowd Hillary Clinton will never be accused of pandering to? The one at Shea Stadium.

Clinton, appearing at the National Press Club Tuesday, made it clear that her hometown loyalty extends to only one of New York’s baseball franchises — and it’s not the one next to the body shops of Flushing.

“I cannot let stand that I have ever, ever been a Mets fan: Let’s set the record straight,” said Clinton. “The Cubs and the Yankees — those were my teams and remained my teams growing up and now in my mature years.”

After all, this is a team that last night took eight innings to score off of Phillies reliever Ryan Madson. Not very impressive:

The game, of course, did not have to last as long as it did. It could have ended much earlier — when folks remembered that Steve Trachsel started and David Bell knocked in five runs — if . . .

If Paul Lo Duca had held onto that throw in the fifth inning, then the Phillies couldn’t have scored four runs.

If Ryan Howard had fielded that grounder cleanly in the eighth, the Mets couldn’t have scored three.

If Beltrán would not have slid past second base in the 10th, then David Wright’s single probably would have scored him with the winning run.

If José Reyes were not so athletic, he couldn’t have jumped high enough to spear Bobby Abreu’s liner in the 13th, doubling Chase Utley off second and thwarting the go-ahead run.

Then again, such a resolution would have been unsuitable last night. Too simple. So they kept playing.

The five hour, 22 minute game was the longest of the season. A pox on both your houses, I say!