God Help The Tenants Who Depend On The MTA To Find Them An Apartment

The MTA joins countless other douchebags searching for “no fee UES” on Craig’s List:

If you’re looking for a cheap apartment on the Upper East Side, you’ll likely be competing against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Second Avenue Subway construction will claim 59 units in mostly rent-stabilized buildings around 72nd and 86th streets. As apartments in these buildings become vacant over the next two years, the MTA will attempt to stockpile as many units as possible, renting the empty residences on a month-to-month basis until the property is acquired through condemnation or negotiated purchase with the landlords. The landlords are not obligated to rent to the authority, explained MTA director of real estate Roco Krsulic yesterday, but the authority is reaching out to the landlords to avoid relocating tenants in rent-stabilized apartments.

That’s because under federal law the MTA must find replacement housing for all of the displaced tenants.

“The rules are rather specific,” Krsulic said. “We have to find them comparable housing and preferably in the same community board, which is Community Board 8 in this case. So we are trying to do all we can before the time comes about that we have to accommodate the housing needs.”

This means signing leases on rent-stabilized units now.

Just think — by 2013 the MTA will not only have delivered 33 whole blocks of subway but a tighter rental market too!

This, however, is brilliant:

The “T” train — which someday will run on the Second Avenue line — won’t begin service for years. In fact, the tunnel isn’t even dug.

But a prankster created a realistic T train “service announcement” and hung it in the Canal Street station yesterday. It reads: “No trains between 63 St. and 42 St., 9 AM to 5 PM, Until 1/22/17.”

What, You Don’t Get The Food Network?

If lately you have been perplexed by the concept of the “celebrity chef,” take heart — four out of five velvet ropes agree:

Mario Batali and Wylie Dufresne may be celebrities to the foodie set, but to the doorman at Downtown Cipriani, they don’t make the cut. On a recent snowy evening, Jean-Georges Vongerichten hosted an intimate dinner for his 50th birthday upstairs there. Phil Suarez, Daniel Boulud, and John McDonald were on hand to sip Cristal. But when Dufresne arrived, followed by Batali (in his trademark shorts and clogs), both were refused entry. When Vongerichten explained their credentials, the doorman merely shrugged. “I work for the Ciprianis. I do not know chefs.” Dufresne says, “It was brutal outside. Don’t underestimate my ability to dress inappropriately, so it’s no surprise I was left to stand out in the cold.

Dude, It Would Be Zone Uncool To Do That And Have The Astroland Site Sit Vacant For Years

As Astroland prepares for its final season, some city officials are worrying — without attribution — that developer Joe Sitt is simply in it to change the zoning and then flip the land for, as some might say, big buck$:

Several officials told The Post they’re concerned that Joseph Sitt’s next selling spree could involve the massive assemblage of beachfront land his Thor Equities has bought up in Coney Island — especially if City Hall doesn’t allow his planned $2 billion entertainment complex to include luxury housing.

“The guy has a track record of flipping land for big bucks,” said one source close to the project. “He’s done it already in Coney Island and other Brooklyn projects like [Downtown Brooklyn’s] Albee Square Mall, and who’s to say he won’t play the city again?”

Chuck Reichenthal, a member of the city’s Coney Island Development Corp., is worried Thor will hold up the plan either by selling out or by holding out to see if the next mayor is willing to allow the housing.

“I look out my [Surf Avenue] office window, and what I see now is very sad,” he said. “They’re beginning to create a ghost town.”

. . .

[Officials] note that when Sitt bought the Albee Square Mall on Fulton Street five years ago for $24 million, he talked about giving the gritty site the same type of Vegas-style makeover he’s now pitching for Coney Island.

Instead, Sitt spent $10 million rehabbing the mall — which he renamed The Gallery at Fulton Street — but never followed through on his grand plan.

Then after the city rezoned to allow for larger development there, Sitt sat on the mall before finally agreeing last January to sell it for $125 million.

“It’s a great deal for him and it’s going to bring larger-scale development there by the new buyer, but it’s not going to be the ‘Bellagio of malls’ that Sitt said he was going to turn it into,” a source said.

In Coney Island, Sitt last year sold one of the properties he bought for $90 million — a 168,000-square-foot tract known as the Washington Bath House site — after the city said it would allow residential development there.

A spokesman for Thor Equities, Lee Silberstein, insisted that the company isn’t planning to back out of Coney Island.

Location Scout: Coney Island Amusement Core, Albee Square.

The Eli Lily Mental Ward At Bellevue Hospital Presents: Your City-Run Health Care

But it won’t be a total sell-out until Atria begins advertising there:

The city’s public hospital system is considering putting the names of big-bucks donors on some of its facilities in exchange for cash — which means Bellevue could soon be home to the Bloomberg Trauma Center and Elmhurst the P&G Pampers Pavilion.

“We are exploring that,” said Frank Cirillo, vice president of operations at the Health and Hospital Corp., of the advertising scheme.

HHC — which oversees 11 hospitals, four nursing facilities and 80 clinics — also is looking at selling ad space on outdoor billboards and building and campus signs, as well as through digital media and TV flat panels.

Yes, It’s A Break From All The Relentless Naomi Coverage

New York Post readers find “rap wars” stories strangely satisfying:

The city’s rap wars are on the brink of exploding after a thug performer allegedly beat up a 14-year-old kid for wearing a rival’s shirt — and the boy turned out to be the foe’s son, officials said yesterday.

G-Unit artist Tony Yayo was released on a $5,000 cash bond after being arraigned on charges of assault and endangering the welfare of a child, both misdemeanors. Prosecutors said he roughed up the teenager on a Manhattan street for wearing a sweatshirt promoting a rival company.

Yayo, an associate of rap star 50 Cent, vented his rage on the son of Czar Entertainment chief Jimmy “Henchman” Rosemond, who represents rival rapper The Game, cops said.

. . .

The criminal complaint against Yayo, 29, who is nearly twice the teen’s size, said he hit the kid so hard with the back of his ring-studded hand that the boy’s head bounced off a wall.

The youngster told cops that two men with Yayo brandished guns during the assault, after 50 Cent allegedly sicced his crew on the kid.

A source close to Rosemond, 42, said the father, a former gang member, was fuming.

“If he wanted Yayo dead, he’d be dead already,” the source said.

Cops are not convinced the boy was attacked simply for wearing a Czar Entertainment sweatshirt. The source said cops believe Yayo might have known exactly whom he was hitting.

Rosemond’s son is a rap-star wannabe, and has made industry connections through his father.

. . .

[Family lawyer Jeffrey] Lichtman said the teen was on his way to an after-school internship at his father’s West 25th Street office last Tuesday when 50 Cent, whose Violator Records office is across the street, spotted the boy and signaled to some members of his entourage.

Yayo, whose real name is Marvin Bernard, allegedly pushed the youth up against the wall and hit him.

“F – – – Czar Entertainment!” Yayo reportedly yelled.

Lichtman said he had as much contempt for 50 Cent as the man who carried out the attack.

“He was the one that gave the hand signal that started the whole thing,” Lichtman said. “He wasn’t there during the hitting, but [he] . . . started it.”