Well now isn’t that cute:

With all the peace, love and unity in the air at the Petrides school auditorium during yesterday’s “Day Out Against Hate” assembly, one couldn’t help but think of the feud between Borough President James P. Molinaro and District Attorney Daniel Donovan.

Both men attended yesterday’s event, the first time they have been together at a public event since Molinaro went nuclear on his former deputy in the final weeks of Donovan’s recent re-election campaign.

But unlike Martin and Lewis, or Yogi and Steinbrenner, there was no public rapprochement between the two yesterday. They did not speak.

. . .

Molinaro said he didn’t see any incongruity between the theme of yesterday’s event and the feud that he set in motion. “I don’t dislike the man,” he said afterward. “I don’t hate the man. I felt what I felt. It is what it is.”

When asked if he would make some overture to Donovan to mend the rift, Molinaro said, “There hasn’t been close contact for years, so why go there?”

Brooklyn nostalgia reaches even more absurd heights:

Customers at Sahadi’s, Brooklyn’s primary stop on the Near Eastern spice route, are still fuming that the grocer has replaced the classic glass jars with generic plastic containers in the nuts, dried fruits and candies section.

“Everyone is talking about it,” said Charlie Sahadi, the second-generation owner. “No one likes change less than me,” but “my concern is about my customers, not about my jars.”

The jars were a big part of the shopping experience at Sahadi’s. The store, open since 1948, contained dozens of large, circular glass jars, each containing a different kind of nut, dried fruit or candy. Customers would take a number and wait for an employee to scoop out their order.

The shapely glass jars made a distinctive clinking noise when lid made contact with base, but that repeated clinking led to chipping, with bits of glass ending up in the food.

In other stores, a change like this would be insignificant, but like other recent changes to the Atlantic Avenue grocery, famous for foods of the Levant, anything that tinkers with the old-time atmosphere is sure to draw fire.

“I don’t like them,” said one longtime shopper who didn’t want to give her name. “The new ones look like any deli. I prefer to see broken glass because it has more identity.”

Can Diane Cardwell be a little less subtle with today’s lede? No! Go, Diane, go:

As Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg again prepares to trot around the world with a gaggle of cameras behind him, a question is emerging: Is he traveling so much for the city? Or for much-denied presidential aspirations?

The mayor — whose official trips this year have taken him to Mexico, Paris and London as well as New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Seattle and St. Louis — will fly to China and Indonesia the week of Dec. 9.

He is taking along Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, who has been promoting Mr. Bloomberg’s presidential prospects almost since the mayor was re-elected in 2005. The mayor is also bringing his companion, Diana Taylor.

SUVs have been shamed into downsizing, as have strollers. Now it’s time to work on umbrellas:

During a recent downpour in New York, Josephine Noah, 25, a business analyst from Jersey City, complained: “Every single time it rains I get hit. And it is always the larger ones.”

The culprit is the golf umbrella, which was once seen only on the fairways but is now increasingly popular for everyday use, especially among men.

Time was that the regular-size umbrella, 40 inches to 48 inches in diameter, ruled the market. Now, “everybody’s moved up to a 60 and 68,” said John W. Aycock, owner of Golfumbrella.com.

. . .

Even street vendors see the shift. Modau, a Manhattan umbrella vendor who provided only his first name, said that until recently he sold only small black pop-up umbrellas, for $5 each. Then he started offering stick umbrellas for $10, and they have proved to be more popular, even at double the price.

According to stores, men are the best customers. “Men actually do come in asking, ‘What’s your biggest umbrella?’ Or, ‘Do you have anything bigger than that?’” said Rosa Rodriguez, a saleswoman at Rain or Shine, an umbrella store in Midtown Manhattan.

. . .

Although there is no public health emergency, doctors and hospitals have treated results of more than a few mash-ups between people and umbrella spokes. “Most of the time they say they were walking and minding their own business, trying to keep out of the rain, and all of a sudden — bang! — from nowhere they got poked,” said Dr. Sheldon Jacobson, chairman of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. Dr. Jacobson said he has seen facial lacerations and bruises and scratched corneas, all caused by carelessly brandished bumbershoots.

Staten Islanders question the federal percent-for-art program — because when a project costs billions of dollars, it adds up:

Even as the MTA is raising tolls and tempers on Staten Island, it plans to spend as much as $4 million on art installations for the Second Avenue Subway.

Some Islanders may not know art, but all know what they want: Funds to be spent on sorely needed mass transit improvements here.

. . .

The federal government requires that one-half to 5 percent of a project’s budget be dedicated to art, said MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin.

“Art is one critical element of our stations program that has a considerable impact . . . for a small fraction of a project’s budget,” Soffin said. “We are at the lower end of the recommended guidelines, well below 1 percent.”

So it isn’t possible to eliminate the art requirement without risking the loss of the entire $1.3 billion federal contribution.

Mary DiChiara of Pleasant Plains was in no mood for explanations, “We can’t get off this Island and they put aside $4 million for artwork for Manhattan? Take the $4 million and fix this bridge.

“They think we’re living on Fantasy Island, and nobody ever wants or needs to get off.”

“Just once, I’d like to see everybody on Staten Island who works in Manhattan just stay home,” she concluded. “Then they’ll see.”

. . . teenagers are hardest hit:

A new biker gang is roaming the streets of Richmond Hill, Queens. This crew of mostly teenagers can be seen riding along 103rd Avenue just west of the Van Wyck Expressway. The bikes roar, but the booming sound has nothing to do with engines — because there are no engines. They are ordinary bicycles, not motorcycles, although these contraptions look and sound more like rolling D.J. booths. They are outfitted with elaborate stereo systems installed by the youths.

“This one puts out 5,000 watts and cost about $4,000,” said Nick Ragbir, 18, tinkering with his two-wheeled sound system, with its powerful amplifier, two 15-inch bass woofers and four midrange speakers. It plays music from his iPod and is powered by car batteries mounted on a sturdy motocross bike.

The riders are of Guyanese and Trinidadian background. In those countries, turning bicycles into rolling outdoor sound systems is a popular hobby.

“It’s really big where I come from in Trinidad,” Mr. Ragbir said. “When I first came to New York, I started with two little speakers. People here thought I was crazy because no one here has really ever seen it, except maybe for some Spanish dudes with a radio strapped to their handlebars.”

He added: “People say, ‘It’s the next best thing to having a system in a car.’ But it’s better because you don’t even have to roll down the windows.”

. . .

Nick Ragbir showed off his new bike, equipped with a sleek 1,500-watt system with the stereo and speakers encased in clear plastic custom boxes. The car battery and the console are mounted on the handlebars, and the four midrange speakers are mounted in the center of the bike frame.

“It’s not as powerful but it’s easier to ride around,” Mr. Ragbir said.

Usually, the stereos crank out heavy Caribbean beats, but Mr. Ragbir cranked up the new system, which was playing a 1980s hit by the Outfield — “I Don’t Want to Lose Your Love Tonight” — and the near-deafening music had his friends bobbing their heads as they worked on their bikes.

The bikers said they have heard no complaints about the noise they make from residents or people they pass. And although there is a city law which says a summons may be issued if a person operates a personal audio device, like a radio, heard from up to 25 feet away, the bikers’ mobile stereos are less likely to attract attention because the noise does not persist in one place very long.

Mohan Samaroo, 19, has a system mounted on his sturdy Mongoose, with four 12-inch speakers that can handle the 5,000 watts. There are extra braces resting on training wheels, which can support the heavy system and also an extra rider standing on the back. When the bike cruises down the street with Mr. Samaroo standing, he said, he looks like a D.J. behind a sound system at a nightclub.

“We measured it at a car show,” he said. “It’s 150 decibels.”

(”I Don’t Want To Lose Your Love Tonight”?! Please, Hizzoner, do something!)

And if you think this is fabulism — like this story*, for example! — click the link to see pictures . . .

(Come on, really now: “Ms. Felicissimo has grand visions for her featured product. ‘Ever hear of a water wedding?’ she asked. ‘Every wedding has alcoholics who aren’t supposed to be around alcohol. Why not have a beautiful bottle of water on every table instead of Champagne, and then toast with that?’”)

The Bloomberg Administration has given its qualified support to Council Member Vallone’s proposed anti-Tom legislation. While it seems the telescope lobby is safe for now, staircase trolls, among the worst of the perverts, may finally face up to their transgressions:

City Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. got a promise of support from the Bloomberg mayoral administration last week for his first-ever legislation to punish Peeping Toms.

The promise came from Karen Agnifilio, general counsel to the Criminal Justice Coordinator, according to Vallone. Agnifilio said the administration supports the “private place” section of Vallone’s legislation and plans to work with the council to change some provisions of that section of the bill.

. . .

Vallone’s bill, the first in New York City against Peeping Toms, has been narrowly crafted to capture the worst perverts, those that stand under stairways or drill holes in apartment walls. It will not go after the “casual observer” on the street, Vallone added.

“There are people out there using their eyes to degrade others and invade their privacy,” Vallone stated. “We are trying to craft a law that stops the worst of these perverts without capturing innocent conduct.

“Right now, if a person cuts a peephole in a dressing room and films a woman undressing, they can be charged with an E felony, but if they only use the naked eye, it’s not even a crime.”

And if you can figure out what this means, make sure all the pervs you know are put on notice:

The way Vallone’s legislation is written, to be found guilty, violators must repeatedly position themselves in a public place to view parts of another individual’s person that otherwise would not be visible to the public.

In other words, one cannot be in public looking at stuff that isn’t visible to the public . . . right? Repeatedly, that is.

The other part of the legislation takes aim at urban astronomers (i.e., pervs with telescopes):

If the peeping occurs in a private place, a violator must view these parts when the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as when they are undressing in the bedroom of their apartment.

Exit question: Does one have a reasonable expectation of privacy even when living in high-rise, glass-intensive ant farms? Or should Vallone stick to Council resolutions on the appropriate amount of homework for schoolchildren?

The obvious thought — look for the employee missing a foot — failed to find a match when it came to this gruesome discovery:

A Con Ed diver vacuuming out an electrical power bay at the utility’s Astoria plant on November 21 found a human foot inside a worker’s boot, police said.

An agency spokesperson said the diver was cleaning out the bottom of a bay at Shore Boulevard and 20th Avenue at about 10:30 a.m., when he was shocked to find the boot- with a foot in it.

“Something jammed the vacuum,” police sources said. “The diver picked up the item and put it in a salvage bag. When he surfaced and looked into the bag, he saw the boot. When he looked inside the boot he saw the foot. The guy was more than a little shaken up.”

. . .

Police sources said a check of accident and other incident reports at the Astoria plant over the past 10 years failed to provide any leads to investigators probing the incident.

Is Long Island City big for its britches? How about just big and it bitches? Battery Park City on the East River is starting to get picky about who it wants in the neighborhood:

A plan to build a six-story grad school dormitory and a 13-story residential tower across from the massive Queens West development in Hunters Point is meeting with stiff opposition from the local community board.

This month, the land use committee of Queens Community Board 2 unanimously voted to reject a Board of Standards and Appeals variance application for the dorm, which would house 220 CUNY Graduate School students, and the apartment tower, with a planned 169 units and ground floor retail.

“Dormitory housing in itself is transient housing at its best and offers no stability to the community. We believe that it is a detriment to the growth of Hunters Point,” said Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley in a letter to the BSA.

But Howard Goldman, attorney for O’Connor Capital, the developer, said it is the dorm that is driving the project, which is slated to be located on 47th Ave. at Fifth St.

“Like many other institutions in the city, they [CUNY Graduate School] have a need for affordable housing for their graduate students,” he said.

The site, said Goldman, “seems like a good candidate because it is just across the river [from the Manhattan-based grad school] and relatively accessible by subway.”

Saying that he understood the community board’s “concerns about the size and density of the project,” nevertheless, the attorney said, the project’s neighbors are much bigger.

“The project is basically across the street from Queens West, where you have 30- to 40-story towers, and is one block south of a proposed high-rise development, Anable Basin, that has been in discussion for a couple years now,” he said.

Lost in the discussion about the mysterious, still-unexplained one million new residents is that the number includes a previously overlooked army of 300,000 new seniors, making New York City the nation’s top retirement destination:

The city’s elderly population is projected to jump 44 percent by 2030, which means there will be roughly 1.35 million senior citizens comprising 20 percent of the city population. That includes roughly one-third of the projected additional 1 million New Yorkers the Bloomberg administration expects here then. That surge motivated the PlaNYC initiative to address issues such as the environment, energy and the city’s aging infrastructure — but not so much its aging population.

The City Council yesterday announced that the New York Academy of Medicine will receive $125,000 to develop a blueprint to prepare the city for its aging population. It’s expected by April.

“Our focus has been on the cost of care and biomedical research,” said academy president Jo Ivey Boufford. “This deals with prevention — how people can be as healthy as they can be, as long as they can. . . . We’re creating a blueprint for investment over a number of years and policy action over a number of years.”

The Advance makes the situation sound that much more dire:

With New York City’s population expected to boom, adding nearly 1 million more residents by 2030, demographers predict that the number of elderly dwellers will increase by 300,000.

. . .

“There’s been much discussion and planning, appropriately so, about what the future of New York City will look like in 2030,” Ms. Quinn said in respect of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s environmental agenda to combat global warming. “But one of the things we’ve not yet looked at is the reality that by 2030, there will be 300,000 additional senior citizens in New York City.”

City Council member speaks out on the important issues of the day:

Amid growing calls for higher education standards, a City Council member is urging the Department of Education to limit the amount of homework teachers assign students each night.

Peter Vallone Jr., who represents parts of Queens, said his two daughters are routinely swamped with homework and stuck at home, slogging through it.

“As a parent, I have been unable to have fun with my kids. We can’t go for bike rides. We can’t go to the park. We can’t go to the museum, and that’s not fair,” he said.

Mr. Vallone said he understands that the Department of Education is aiming to improve test scores, but he said an emphasis on homework is taking away students’ childhoods and contributing to child obesity by forcing children to stay at home with their books.

He plans to introduce a resolution next month calling for homework in public schools to be limited to 2 1/2 hours a night and said he wants the Department of Education to create a weekly homework-free night.

This way he will be better equipped to answer the tough questions at controversial ribbon cuttings or perhaps even in response to contentious City Council resolutions. Hizzoner’s presidential aspirations surge ahead:

A report that a foreign policy adviser in the Clinton administration who is a critic of the war in Iraq, Nancy Soderberg, is briefing Mayor Bloomberg about the war offers some indication of the foreign policy approach Mr. Bloomberg might take if he were to run for president.

Ms. Soderberg is considered a centrist who supports using international institutions to further American interests abroad. In television appearances, she has spoken out about the war in Iraq, saying it has been botched from the beginning.

I don’t recall reading certain details in the New York Magazine pushback piece on Anthony Marshall. Like, for example, this:

Brooke Astor’s only son and one of her former lawyers have been indicted on criminal charges stemming from the stewardship of her financial affairs and the handling of her will, according to people who were briefed on the situation.

Her son, Anthony D. Marshall, 83, and the lawyer, Francis X. Morrissey Jr., have been told to surrender to authorities today, those who were briefed said.

A Manhattan grand jury has been hearing evidence from witnesses since mid-September, following an investigation by the district attorney’s office into, among other issues, the management of Mrs. Astor’s fortune by Mr. Marshall as well as Mr. Morrissey’s role in the signing of a third amendment to her 2002 will.

The exact charges against the two men, who have been partners in a theater production company, were not known.

Prosecutors were believed to be investigating millions of dollars in cash, property and stocks that Mr. Marshall obtained over the years in his role as steward of his mother’s finances.

That included the sale of one of Mrs. Astor’s favorite paintings, “Flags, Fifth Avenue,” also known as “Up the Avenue from Thirty-Fourth Street, May 1917,” by Childe Hassam, for $10 million.

Mr. Marshall collected a $2 million fee from his mother for handling the transaction.

So not only do they explode and not only are they electrified but reports come out that they are in fact made with sweatshop labor:

Eight thousand miles from Manhattan, barefoot, shirtless, whip-thin men rippled with muscle were forging prosaic pieces of the urban jigsaw puzzle: manhole covers.

Seemingly impervious to the heat from the metal, the workers at one of West Bengal’s many foundries relied on strength and bare hands rather than machinery. Safety precautions were barely in evidence; just a few pairs of eye goggles were seen in use on a recent visit. The foundry, Shakti Industries in Haora, produces manhole covers for Con Edison and New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, as well as for departments in New Orleans and Syracuse.

The scene was as spectacular as it was anachronistic: flames, sweat and liquid iron mixing in the smoke like something from the Middle Ages. That’s what attracted the interest of a photographer who often works for The New York Times — images that practically radiate heat and illustrate where New York’s manhole covers are born.

When officials at Con Edison — which buys a quarter of its manhole covers, roughly 2,750 a year, from India — were shown the pictures by the photographer, they said they were surprised.

“We were disturbed by the photos,” said Michael S. Clendenin, director of media relations with Con Edison. “We take worker safety very seriously,” he said.

. . .

“We can’t maintain the luxury of Europe and the United States, with all the boots and all that,” said Sunil Modi, director of Shakti Industries. He said, however, that the foundry never had accidents. He was concerned about the attention, afraid that contracts would be pulled and jobs lost.

New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection gets most of its sewer manhole covers from India. When asked in an e-mail message about the department’s source of covers, Mark Daly, director of communications for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, said that state law requires the city to buy the lowest-priced products available that fit its specifications.

. . .

The men making New York City’s manhole covers seemed proud of their work and pleased to be photographed doing it. The production manager at the Shakti Industries factory, A. Ahmed, was enthusiastic about the photographer’s visit, and gave a full tour of the facilities, stopping to measure the temperature of the molten metal — some 1,400 degrees Centigrade, or more than 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Wait for it, wait for it . . . your Carrie Bradshaw moment is here:

Is something missing in our lives that we’re trying to replace with spa services?

Unfortunately, there are lies, damn lies, and elitists:

The Sunnyside Arch, on Queens Boulevard at 46th/Bliss Street, below the No. 7 elevated station, is perhaps an object only Sunnyside could love; therefore, Sunnyside might be forced to defend it against the Municipal Art Commission of the City of New York, which evidently wishes it would fall apart or be torn down.

At the November luncheon meeting of the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce, Joseph Conley, chairman of Community Board 2, told the chamber members he had recently attended a commission hearing that looked into the case of the arch. Those who would preserve it have money in abeyance for needed repairs, but the Art Commission, which has existed since the consolidation of the city in 1898, must approve of such repairs. Conley said that the Art Commission had nothing but disdain for the arch, and suggested that those interested in preserving it should get an artist to redesign it. Somebody from the commission told him the arch should be more “kitschy” — a term he said he could not understand. And though the arch may be shabby at the moment, it is not dilapidated; the Department of Transportation inspected it, Conley said, and declared it “overbuilt”, so its basic structure is sound.

(They want more kitsch?)

Location Scout: Sunnyside Arch.

Poor guy just can’t catch a break:

The cost of a MetroCard swipe could rise in January for almost 85% of subway and bus riders, even though Governor Spitzer yesterday ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to hold the base fare at $2 at least until 2009.

Mr. Spitzer’s proposal, which allows for a hike in ticket prices on all discounted MetroCards, is drawing fire from MTA board members and elected officials who say his plan would benefit tourists and force commuting New Yorkers to shoulder the load of the transit authority’s looming financial deficits.

“This is not good enough for me,” an MTA board member who opposes a fare hike, Mitchell Pally, said in an interview. “Why is the $2 fare so sacrosanct? The impact on the seven-day fare and the 30-day fare, those to me are more important.”

Weekly, monthly, and discounted MetroCards account for 84.9% of subway and bus ride swipes. Mr. Spitzer’s plan also allows for a fare hike aboard the commuter railroads.

Mr. Spitzer’s plan “might come at the unfortunate expense to average New York City commuters who depend on unlimited passes for their daily commute,” Council Member Simcha Felder, a Democrat of Brooklyn, said in a statement.

For further research: we need more data on exactly how many low-income riders depend on swipes — and whether there are really more tourists who will benefit . . .

Think of it as a perverse sort of carbon offset:

Adding a new dimension to the traditional Christmas colors of green and red, the tree at Rockefeller Center this year will use the greenest energy available — solar power.

The electricity for the lights will be generated by 363 solar panels recently installed on the roof of 45 Rockefeller Plaza on West 50th Street, just across from the massive tree.

“We have here the largest private solar roof in Manhattan,” said Jerry I. Speyer, chairman of Tishman Speyer, co-owner of Rockefeller Center, in a statement yesterday. “[The solar roof] will help conserve energy, eliminate carbon dioxide, and power the 30,000 LED lights on our iconic Christmas tree.”

By using solar power for the 42 days they are lit, those lights and their five miles of wire will use only 1,297 kilowatt hours per day of electricity, instead of the usual 3,510 kilowatt hours. The savings are enough to power a large home for a full month.

HPD renders the Village Voice just that much more irrelevant:

In a crackdown on some of the worst landlords in New York City, housing officials have identified 200 of the most poorly maintained apartment buildings and are renewing efforts to force owners to repair hazardous conditions.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development compiled a list of 200 buildings that have 27 or more of the most serious housing code violations and an average of five or more such violations per unit. The citations — for problems like minor leaks and hazardous conditions like lack of heat or hot water — were issued in the past two years, and the owners have either failed to correct the problems or failed to notify the city that they have.

The 200 properties are the first to be identified in the agency’s Alternative Enforcement Program, which was created this year under the new Safe Housing Law and is designed to put increased pressure on landlords to bring thousands of run-down buildings into compliance with the housing maintenance code.

The majority of the listed buildings — 132 — are in Brooklyn. The Bronx had the second most, 52. Many of the buildings are small residential properties, with fewer than 15 units. Visits to a handful of the buildings yesterday illustrated the bleak conditions facing many low-income families. Some tenants had broken stoves and could cook only on electric hot plates. Others lived with gaping holes in bathroom ceilings, mold on the walls, water leaks, faulty electrical connections and rats.

Perplexing standing conviction has been overturned:

The Court of Appeals, New York State’s highest court, threw out the conviction yesterday of a man who was arrested for standing and not moving on a Times Square corner in 2004.

The man, Matthew Jones, was on the corner of 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue in the early morning of June 12, 2004, chatting with friends as other pedestrians tried to get by.

As a result of Mr. Jones’s behavior, “numerous pedestrians in the area had to walk around” him and his friends, the arresting officer, Momen Attia, wrote. Mr. Jones refused to move when asked, Officer Attia later wrote, then tried to run away. Mr. Jones was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

. . .

The conviction was upheld by an appellate court, but yesterday, the Court of Appeals unanimously reversed that decision. Writing for the court, Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick concluded that the allegations in the document used to charge Mr. Jones did not meet the burden of factual proof required.

“Nothing in the information indicates how the defendant, when he stood in the middle of a sidewalk at 2:01 a.m., had the intent to or recklessly created a risk of causing ‘public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm,’” Judge Ciparick wrote.

She later added: “Something more than a mere inconvenience of pedestrians is required to support the charge.

“Otherwise, any person who happens to stop on a sidewalk — whether to greet another, to seek directions or simply to regain one’s bearings — would be subject to prosecution under this statute.”

It’s convenient to view the Meadowlands as a giant red-light district for boorish New York sports fans:

At halftime of the Jets’ home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, several hundred men lined one of Giants Stadium’s two pedestrian ramps at Gate D. Three deep in some areas, they whistled and jumped up and down. Then they began an obscenity-laced chant, demanding that the few women in the gathering expose their breasts.

When one woman appeared to be on the verge of obliging, the hooting and hollering intensified. But then she walked away, and plastic beer bottles and spit went flying. Boos swept through the crowd of unsatisfied men.

Marco Hoffner, an 18-year-old from Lacey Township, N.J., was expecting to see more. Not from the Jets — they pulled off a big upset over the Steelers. He wanted more from the alternative halftime show that, according to many fans, has been a staple at Jets home games for years.

“Very disappointed, because we’re used to seeing a lot,” Hoffner said.

The mood of previous Gate D crowds — captured on video clips posted on YouTube — sometimes bordered on hostile, not unlike the spirit of infamously aggressive European soccer hooligans. One clip online shows a woman being groped by a man standing next to her.

Sunday’s scene played out for about 20 minutes, and at least one woman granted the men’s request, setting off a roar as if the former star running back Curtis Martin had just scored a touchdown. Martin was actually nearby, being honored on the field in the official halftime show, which had a far less intense audience.

And who thought the West Side Stadium would be a good thing? Oh yeah. May the (2-8!) Jets never, ever return from New Jersey.

Can’t you have at least one home-cooked meal this year? No need to:

Thankfully, New Yorkers will be able to stuff themselves silly Thursday — without touching a stove.

The city’s takeout culture extends to Turkey Day, with plenty of outlets working 24/7 to offer ready-to-eat or easy-to-prepare feasts for the culinary inept or serial procrastinator.

“This is what you do: You take a big, deep breath and say, ‘I’m in New York, and this isn’t a big deal,’” said Joyce Weinberg, founder of City Food Tours.

“Don’t stress about having a table with 99 side dishes.”

Government offices may be closed, but plenty of gourmet grocers will be bustling.

“You can get fresh-killed turkeys anytime, and all the sides in the deli department — stuffing, sweet potatoes, string beans almondine, cranberry sauce, roasted potatoes, wild rice . . . There should be no problem for last-minute Thanksgiving shoppers,” said Fairway Vice President Dan Glickberg.

Upper West Side mainstay Zabar’s also serves on Thanksgiving Day.

“We’re open 365 days a year,” said owner Saul Zabar. “You can absolutely come on Thursday morning and get everything you need for Thanksgiving dinner. We have turkeys. We’re making 400 of them this year.”

Other last-minute markets include Zabar’s, Citarella, Gourmet Garage, Eli’s and Whole Foods.

Notably absent from that list is Fresh Direct, which somehow had problems delivering thanksgiving dinner on time last year (this from a company that does only one thing — deliver food).

It’s kind of a problem when the people who would benefit the most have turned against the proposal:

Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing is facing growing opposition, with more Manhattan voters opposing the plan than supporting it, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

The proportion of Manhattan voters opposing congestion pricing rose to 47% from 36% in August, while those supporting the plan fell to 46% from 54%. Overall, the poll found that 61% of New York City voters now oppose the plan.

“Is traffic congestion a big problem? Almost all New Yorkers say yes,” the director of Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, Maurice Carroll, said in a statement. “Is congestion pricing the answer? Almost two-thirds say no.”

The outer boroughs, many of whose residents commute into the city center, have been generally opposed to congestion pricing from the beginning, making Manhattan’s support crucial to the plan’s success. The poll found that 65% of Queens residents, 63% of Brooklyn residents, 70% of Bronx residents, and 63% of Staten Island residents oppose congestion pricing.

Teams of the Mets’ supposed stature (not to mention payroll — $116 million in 2007!) shouldn’t be selling bricks like they’re raising cash for a church rec room, but then there are the Mets, selling bricks like they’re the Minnesota Twins or something:

Diehard fans of the New York Mets will get the chance to get in on the ground floor of the billion-dollar Citi Field stadium — literally. Last week the baseball club unveiled plans for the Citi Field Fanwalk, a plaza outside the planned Jackie Robinson Rotunda paved entirely with custom-engraved bricks purchased by baseball fans.

Three brick types are available: a $395 8-by-8-inch brick engraved with the Mets’ interlocking “NY” and four lines of text; a $340 8-by-8-inch brick with six lines of text; and a $195 4-by-8-inch brick with three lines of text. Each line of text can hold up to 15 characters, including spaces and punctuation.

In other news, HBO seems a little overprotective of three seemingly common words used in a particular order:

She’s sexy and calls her business “Health and the City,” but a martial-arts trainer who works to turn stressed-out New Yorkers into urban warriors is ready to take on Goliath to prove she’s no Carrie Bradshaw wan nabe.

When Jennifer Cassetta found her calling coaching urbanites on fitness and nutrition — and came up with a catchy Web domain to match last year — she had no idea she’d be facing more agita than her average client in the form a trademark battle with HBO.

Cassetta, 31, said she was shocked to learn the entertainment giant had thrown down the gauntlet in June, accusing her of trying to ride the coattails of the wildly popular show “Sex and the City.”

“I’m not selling whatever they sell. I’m not doing a movie about sex and Carrie Bradshaw,” Cassetta told The Post yesterday as she braces for HBO’s Nov. 18 deadline to file its formal opposition to her trademark application.

“I thought it was a catchy phrase, with the main theme of what I’m trying to do. My clients know that. They have a hard time staying healthy in the city,” Cassetta said.

. . .

In an effort to avoid an expensive legal battle, Cassetta said she entered discussions with an HBO lawyer who gave her two options — change the name to “Health in the City” or withdraw her application for the trademark altogether.

“I asked, ‘Why would I do that?’ I’m supposed to roll over and die because I’m afraid of HBO?” said Cassetta, who has already paid $484 for the trademark-application fee and explained that the alternate name already is owned and could cost her more than $10,000.

. . .

HBO routinely challenges trademark applications that contain the words “and the city.”

Thus began a new game along the lines of adding “in bed” to fortune cookies (see, for example) where “and the city” is added to the end of everything; the new name for this post — “For That Much You’d Think They’d Want To Capitalize It . . . And The City”

Elliot Spitzer learns the hard way that executive experience is not at all like the “rollicking discussions” he once enjoyed as a youth around his parents’ dinner table. Less than a day — or if you believe the Sun, just hours — after details emerge about the governor’s proposed Amazon tax, he clumsily retreats:

In a second major policy reversal in less than a day, Governor Spitzer is backing down from a plan to require Amazon.com and other online retailers to charge state and local sales taxes on all purchases from New York.

Yesterday, just hours after The New York Sun reported on the new revenue collection scheme, the Spitzer administration announced that it was burying it for the time being — at least until after the Christmas shopping season. The move saved New York City shoppers from having to pay an additional 8.375% on many Amazon.com goods.

“Governor Spitzer believes that now is not the right time to be increasing sales taxes on New Yorkers,” Mr. Spitzer’s budget director, Paul Francis, said in a statement. “He has directed the Department of Tax and Finance to pull back its interpretation that would require some Internet retailers that do not collect sales tax to do so.”

The turnabout came just hours after Mr. Spitzer said he was dropping his plan to allow illegal immigrants in New York to obtain driver’s licenses.

In this latest instance, Mr. Spitzer wasted little time before pulling the plug on another controversial policy, aborting it before it threatened to snowball into a distraction for his administration.

And do you really believe this part?

Mr. Francis, in an interview, said the governor was unaware of the new tax policy, which the tax department quietly issued with a memorandum on Friday. It was supposed to go into effect next month, in time for the holiday shopping rush.

“The governor really wasn’t aware of this. My focus is to raise revenue, and the governor has a broader perspective,” Mr. Francis said. “It’s a big government, and in hindsight, we probably should have made sure he focused on it. It’s one of those things, so you live and learn.”

And a new political axiom is born: if there’s one thing the netroots hate, it’s taxing crap they buy on Amazon (and all for a lousy $100 million . . . that’s somehow using political capital wisely?).

Poor Britney . . . “pop tard” always seemed a little harsh:

One broker could single-handedly lower New York’s collective IQ, after parading two of California’s better-known bottle blondes through Manhattan apartments.

And oops, Britney Spears is looking to buy in New York again! Our sources say that the singer mom/pop tard is searching for a West Village loft in the $9 million price range. She had previously owned an apartment in the Silk Building on East Fourth Street that she sold for $4 million last year. “Britney and her manager recently looked at a couple of places a few weeks ago,” says a source. “She apparently wants to start over in NYC.”

Meanwhile, sources says Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Darren Sukenik, the broker who’s taken Britney shopping, has also brought Jessica Simpson through one of his listings on West 17th Street with a $3.99 million price tag.

The loft-like, six-room duplex penthouse condo in Chelsea, with three bedrooms and two baths, has 2,400 square feet of space with a wood-burning fireplace and a terrace with views in three directions.

Get rid of one problem and take on another that will surely boost those sagging numbers:

New Yorkers going Christmas shopping online at Amazon.com will find an 8.375% surprise at the virtual cash register, courtesy of Governor Spitzer, who is moving aggressively to collect Internet sales taxes that have gone widely unenforced.

Under a new policy, major electronic retailers, such as Amazon.com, will be required to collect sales tax on all purchases from New York. The policy, based on a novel legal theory, could hasten the end of the Internet’s era as a duty-free marketplace if other states follow New York’s lead. With the policy, New York immediately took the lead among states that are seeking to tax online commerce.

“I’d say this puts us at the front,” one state tax official, who requested anonymity, told The New York Sun.

Having pledged not to raise taxes, Mr. Spitzer is increasingly scrounging for ways to close a projected $4.3 billion deficit next year. State officials estimate that this latest initiative, which goes into effect in December, will bring in about $100 million more each year, split between state and local government tax revenue. Statewide, the sales tax averages about 8%, although in New York City it is 8.375%.

. . .

When it comes to charging sales tax, e-retailers have been held to the same old standard that the U.S. Supreme Court set for mail-order vendors: The seller only needs to collect the tax on purchases in states where the vendor has a physical presence, such as a storefront or salesman. New York is saying that it has found a way around that obstacle to tax collection. Many e-retailers may have unwittingly lost their exemption because of the way they direct traffic to their Web sites, according to a tax memo recently released by the state’s tax department.

At issue is the “affiliate program” used by many e-retailers. Web site operators can provide a link to an e-retailer in return for a commission on any sale resulting from customers using the link. While the affiliate program may consist of little more than a non-descript advertisement on the computer screen, the tax consequences may be huge: New York state says it is the equivalent of having an instate salesperson.

“It’s just treating the affiliate the same way we would treat any other type of sales representative,” Mr. Spitzer’s budget director, Paul Francis, said in an interview.

Hizzoner, proving his diplomatic bona fides, insists that nothing is off the table:

New York City’s mayor says the United Nations building is such a hazard that he’s threatening to suspend school visits unless conditions inside are fixed by early next year, according to a media report.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned that field trips will stop if sprinklers, smoke detectors, exit signs, emergency lighting and other safety features aren’t put in place by January and March of 2008, The Washington Times reported Monday.

The 1950s-era complex is reportedly missing many basic fire protection systems, including smoke detectors and sprinklers on several floors. The Times reported that the U.N. had been flagged for 866 violations, and the mayor estimated that fewer than 20 percent had been taken care of so far.

Now at least someone around here has vision:

The visit to this picturesque corner of Tuscany probably will not spawn a best-selling sequel with a title like “Under the Staten Island Sun.” But in the not-too-distant future, Staten Island will bring a little bit of Tuscany to New York, in the form of a vineyard being developed at the Staten Island Botanical Garden.

A group of businessmen from the borough spent a few days this month rambling through lush vineyards, Renaissance villas and an Etruscan tomb, seeking the essence of the Tuscan experience to transplant back home. They hope the vineyard, which they said would be the first large-scale venture of its kind in the city, will entice more visitors to the oft-forgotten borough.

. . .

Work on the vineyard should start in the spring on about two acres of botanical garden land next to the Tuscan Villa and the Tuscan Garden exhibitions under construction. (The Tuscan Garden is based on the Villa Gamberaia, at Settignano, near Florence.)

Experts in viticulture and enology at Cornell University are helping determine which Italian grape varieties will have the best chance of thriving on Staten Island, “which can get pretty damp,” Mr. Salmon said. Because it is illegal to import vine cuttings into the United States, the plants will most likely come from vineyards in upstate New York or, perhaps, California.

Eventually, the idea is to make red wine — and someday maybe white — from the 2,000 vines that organizers of the vineyard figure will be planted at the botanical garden. It will be years, however, before anyone can get a tasting of Staten Island red.

(Word of advice — when you’re naming it, don’t get cute.)