Second Avenue Subway Work To Begin In March

Unbelievable:

Digging for the Second Avenue subway will start in March, Mysore Nagaraja, president of Metropolitan Transportation Authority Capital Construction, said yesterday.

Major work will occur between East 96th and East 92nd streets, where a hole will be dug to get the tunnel-boring machine underground. Some utility infrastructure will also be relocated.

The first phase of the $3.83 billion project to create a new Lexington Avenue line from 96th Street to 63rd Street will also come in under budget.

The MTA budgeted $350 million for initial tunneling, but the agency’s contractor said it can do it for $337 million.

The project is expected to be completed in 2013.

Honey, Please Drop The Scaffolding — Loudly, In Front Of Confused Construction Workers

No doubt coordinated with the Post to burnish his tough-guy image:

Never say Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is afraid to do the heavy lifting.

The gray-maned magazine mogul took matters into his own hands over the weekend when workers raised a racket as they erected a 22-foot scaffold outside his tony home and near an eatery he owns on Bank Street in lower Manhattan.

Annoyed by the noise, Carter rushed out of his three-story, $5 million townhouse in frigid, 36-degree temps wearing shorts, snatched a 5-foot rail and flung it to the ground in exasperation.

“Scaffold hurling . . . It’s a venerated Canadian sport, like curling,” the Canadian-born Carter joked to The Post yesterday.

“Everybody up there does it.”

Carter then explained, “Fact is, I’ve had construction across the street from me and next door to me for four years. On Saturday morning, a flatbed pulled up and began unloading scaffolding. It blocked the street off and on all day.

“At 7:30 that night, I was home with my family and the sound — and it was loud — just continued.”

To make matters even worse, he said, “cars were by now honking.”

So, he said, “I headed out into the street in my scaffold-hurling gear to see if I could get them to stop.

“I couldn’t get their attention, so I grabbed one of the pieces of scaffolding.

“Not the most appropriate response in such a situation, but there you have it.”

Sudoku: Dangerously Addictive

I really don’t know which is weirder — Camilla’s tenacious sudoku addiction or Charles asking children what NBA stars eat:

Prince Charles came to Harlem to shoot hoops yesterday, netting baskets while his wife sat down with her favorite game — Sudoku.

The royal couple showed their physical and mental prowess while touring the Harlem Children’s Zone, a kids’ project designed to help inner-city youngsters reach their potential.

While watching teams in the Zone’s basketball league, the prince was persuaded to try his hand — and got his second shot through the rim.

“It was perfect,” said Christopher Valazquez, 13, who congratulated the prince on his shot. “I would pick him for my team.

“He said he’d never played before. He asked, ‘Is it on TV?’ like he didn’t know about it. He asked how tall are NBA players, and what do they eat?

“That surprised me. I told him everybody plays it here. Everybody.”

Just before watching her husband’s basketball skills, his wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, helped with a Sudoku puzzle while meeting kids preparing for a math competition.

“She told me she was addicted to it,” said Zone staff member Heidi Lopez, 24. “She said she’d wished she’d brought her glasses so she could play more.

“She was showing me her strategies and everything. She had to be dragged away.”

The Ancient Art Of Metrogami

Until the MTA implants chips in our bodies, there will likely be Metrogami:

Sitting in a token booth all day can be dull and draining, but station agent Luis Torres has found artistic inspiration on the job.

This MetroCard Michelangelo makes sculptures out of the used plastic cards straphangers toss on the ground near the turnstiles each day.

He bends, folds, cuts and assembles the yellow rectangles into mock city skyscrapers, dancing figurines and even religious icons.

“The possibilities are endless, and so is the supply of MetroCards to recycle,” Torres said. “A homeless guy brings me 50 to 100 cards a week. He says, ‘I know if I bring them to you, you’ll make more sculptures.’ ”

Although he insists he does not hone his craft on NYC Transit time, Torres has turned his booth at West 110th Street on the A, B and C lines into a gallery.

. . .

The MTA does not sanction Torres’ gallery. Last week, one of his supervisors came into the booth and said, “These are great, but you have to take them down.”

But at the insistence of his customers and fans, Torres later put the work back on display.

Torres, 36, has constructed the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Twin Towers and a Crucifixion. He cuts the magnetic stripe into narrow strips to make hair.

Not all MetroCards are well-suited to what Torres calls “Metrogami.”

“Most people don’t realize this, but there are actually four different types of cards, and the darker-yellow ones are much thicker — too thick to take the folds and bends as well,” he said.

Gowanus Expy Vus

A new benchmark for overpriced undesirable apartments may have been reached:

Just $3,600-a-month will get a luxury Brooklyn apartment with jaw-dropping, scenic views — of the truck-filled, exhaust-choked Gowanus Expressway.

Developers Jack Basile and Nick Barone are building a brownstone-style 10-unit apartment building with ground-floor commercial space in Carroll Gardens — just a stone’s throw from the elevated expressway.

In fact, their five-story building at the corner of Court and Garnett streets is so close to the highway that future tenants heading into Manhattan won’t need to check traffic reports before battling the morning rush, they can just step onto their terrace or peek out a window.

While the fumes and noise from passing vehicles could be a deterrent, Basile and Barone expect a lot of interest.

“The apartments will do very well because they have a Court Street address, which is desirable, and it’s great for people who can’t afford Manhattan but want that Manhattan feel,” Basile said.

“That Manhattan feel” — read: bedrooms with value-added car exhaust smell.