As The Cost Of Crude Reaches Record Highs . . .

. . . 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?'”)

Not Pervert, But It’s A Start

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?

Makes You Want To Boot, To Boot

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.

I Guess This Also Means Plans For The Methadone Clinic Are On The Back Burner?

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.

Forget Sarasota — With Its Good Weather, Low Taxes And Leisurely Pace, New York City Is The Retirement Community Of The Future!

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.”