Some protest and riot for democracy. Others mourn a fountain:

Huddled under umbrellas, a group of almost 30 activists opposed to the Washington Square Park renovation gathered for a candlelight vigil by the arch last Wednesday at 6 p.m. to mourn the loss of their park. They came from as near as a block away and as far as Brooklyn.

They would have preferred to have been standing near the park’s fountain — the planned moving of which slightly to the east they vehemently oppose — but it had been fenced off earlier just that afternoon.

“Some people think we’re going to forget about this, but we’re not going to forget,” said Keen Berger, Greenwich Village Democratic district leader, standing with her daughter Sarah.

The group formed a circle and, one by one, offered their thoughts on their battle to keep the park from being redesigned or their fondest park memories.

“I feel that the destruction of this park is the beginning of the destruction of Greenwich Village,” said Elizabeth Adam, a native Villager who lives on 12th St.

Location Scout: Washington Square Park.

Does Thor even need to keep buying off everyone? Apparently:

The annual New Year’s swim at Coney Island used to be only about jumping into the frigid ocean — but now, the Polar Bear Club is finding itself in uncomfortably hot water for accepting a donation from Thor Equities, the mega-bucks developer that wants to create a Vegas-style amusement and residential district along the Boardwalk.

The 104-year-old club was pilloried on a Coney Island Internet message board last week for letting the developer sponsor the famed New Year’s Day swim.

“Thor has proven nothing but being an opportunist when it suits them, and they are using [the Polar Bear Club] just like they tried to attach their name to the Mermaid Parade,” one poster ranted. “It’s transparent, and I’m sorry, but I’ve lost respect for the Polar Bear Club.”

Many people might be surprised by the partnership forged between Thor and the club, because last year, the Mermaid Parade — Coney Island’s other great tradition — became a politically charged event that featured Polar Bears growling in the anti-Thor procession.

But now, club President Lou Scarcella said he’s made peace with Thor Equities because the company has jettisoned the idea of having condos inside Coney’s historic amusement area.

“We are definitely not sellouts,” Scarcella told The Brooklyn Paper. “If Thor wants to help, I say fantastic.”

. . . but so is Astoria:

A growing number of college students are uniting online to rescue Astoria’s famous Greek culture from “guitar-playing hipsters” they charge are ruining the increasingly artsy neighborhood.

Formed a few weeks ago on the social networking site Facebook, the Save Astoria group urges members — about 150 as of late Thursday — to prevent the hipsters from turning churches and cafes into “wasteful art exhibits.”

Its five organizers, all former or current students at Fordham University, note Greeks’ history of banding together and becoming “a formidable force” during tough times. They ask followers to support only Greek businesses.

“Invite all your friends and bring public attention to this issue before it is too late!” plead the group leaders, who didn’t return e-mails and phone calls seeking comment.

“I guess they have a problem with people who go out and free ourselves with our music,” snarled David Guevara, 18, of Astoria, who sings and plays guitar in a rock band.

. . .

For Jared Koeppel, manager of the Guitar Center at Northern Blvd. and 48th St., the emergence of a hipster base in Astoria has been a godsend.

“I wish that there were more. I don’t think there are enough,” said Koeppel, 30. “We sell more classical guitars than pretty much any store in the world.”

Slow week? Recycle that exciting story about snorting lines* and stealing Christmas trees**:

We met the guys by the pinball machine. It was a couple of days into the New Year, and we were out at Barracuda in Chelsea, both of us bored and looking for trouble. I’d just gotten back from visiting my family for the holidays and the best way to wash all of that feel-goodness off seemed to dive right into the sluttiest bar on the West Side. For some reason Will and I always seemed to have more luck pulling a boy when we were cruising together, so I called him up and he was glad to join me for the sport. It all started out so innocently, though, that neither of us had imagined the coke-filled orgy that ensued.

. . .

“What’s up?” I was puzzled, but there was something about Paul that was so thrilling. His upbeat, slightly crazy attitude made everything seem like an adventure, so I was willing to wait and see what happened next.

“He’s getting coke,” Will whispered to me. Oh, we were in the middle of a drug run. Well, sure, whatever the boy needed to get the party going. In a few minutes Paul returned and jumped in the front seat of the cab.

“All right boys. Onward and upward we go,” he said, a big smile plastered across his face. Will and Max remained frisky in the backseat until Paul jumped out of the car again. This time we were stopped at a red light in the East Village, closed in on all sides by trash cans, half-melted mounds of gray snow and boys and girls hurrying between bars, bundled in thick scarves with creative knots. Paul pounced on a dark shape and rushed back to the car.

“Merry Christmas!” he yelled. He yanked open the back of the cab and began stuffing a discarded fir tree in our laps. The needles stung and poked.

*Ugh, please no more cocaine stories . . .

**No need to get the timing right but this would have worked a little better next week, no?

The downside of the mayor’s plan to install crappy public art around the city? It’s emboldening scofflaws:

The creators of the 8-foot-tall bench that captivated some New Yorkers when it mysteriously appeared on Houston Street last week don’t want their guerilla art installation back.

“All this work, once it’s installed, it’s kind of just left to the fates,” said Tod Seelie, who collaborated with street artist Brad Downey on the bench and photographed its stealth installation in the middle of the night. “The idea is to see how time changes it.”

The bench, which first appeared on a median strip on Houston and Suffolk streets last Monday, was taken down last week, and it’s now looking like it will be scrapped. City sanitation crews already have been contacted about hauling it away from the Department of Transportation warehouse in upper Manhattan, where it is waiting to be claimed.

. . .

Among those applauding the effort was Christina Ray, who hosts Conflux, an annual art fair in Brooklyn that celebrates artists like Downey and Seelie. “The bench is a bold statement,” she said. “It’s so public and unmistakable, it’s a kind of stop you in your tracks kind of intervention. A pedestrian clearly has to address it.”

The city’s transportation department took the sculpture down last week after it was unable to determine where the bench came from. Officials feared that since the bench was improperly affixed to the street, it could become a safety hazard.

“We do discourage renegade artwork, but we consider public art critical to vibrant street life and we are working to begin a program that allow for the temporary installation of art in some of the city’s public spaces,” an agency official said. “he bottom line, with this one especially, is safety.”

Will they be fined for littering?

Get ready for more Tilted Arcs . . .

Every executive knows that the cheapest way to keep employees happy is to give them exciting new job titles:

Five years into the tenure of Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, a major administrative restructuring of the city schools has brought the wacky culture of corporate job titles to the Tweed Courthouse.

There, among the ranks of top school officials working for Klein is a chief accountability officer making $196,000, a chief knowledge officer making $177,000, a chief talent officer making $172,000 and a chief portfolio officer making $162,000.

There’s also a chief equality officer, but he’s working for free this year.

Then there are all the corporate titles, in spades. Several divisions each have a chief executive officer, there’s a product manager for knowledge management, a demand research manager, a director of virtual enterprise and dozens of senior achievement facilitators.

There was someone called the director of restructuring and human capital, but he’s now the senior director of sustainability, at $123,000.

Parents say it’s enough to make them dizzy.

“It’s a whole mess,” said Anastatia Davis-John, the parent association president at Brooklyn’s Public School 135.

“It’s totally confusing. They switched from districts to regions and now they’ve switched back, and half the titles you don’t know what they mean. . . . It’s especially difficult for parents who can’t speak English. They don’t know who is representing what and who is doing what.”

Teachers are still called teachers, of course. And principals are still principals — though under a new system that gives principals more autonomy and Klein often calls them “school CEOs.”

All you all are cheap-asses:

The Christmas season was no bell-ringing bonanza for Salvation Army volunteers — who reported smaller donations and emptier kettles compared with previous years.

“This year is the worst year,” said Salvation Army bell-ringer Emma Quinones, 56, of Astoria, Queens. “I guess it’s because of cutbacks, rent going up, the economy.”

On Christmas Eve, Quinones took in just $40 in three hours at Rockefeller Plaza, down from the normal $100.

The Salvation Army doesn’t keep a national count of kettle donations. But “the overall sense is that people are more cautious about their giving this year,” said Melissa Temme, a national spokeswoman for the Salvation Army.

Those who depend on handouts and tips have also had a rough time of it.

“This is my worst year ever,” said panhandler Jack Mitchell, 67, who plies his trade in his wheelchair on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street with the help of his dog, Lucky.

Normally during the holidays, Mitchell said he takes in $150 to $200 a day, but he’s been averaging about $60 — more like an ordinary day the rest of the year.

I don’t know which is worse — that the Met is incorporating blogging into its exhibits or that the Post actually used the word “fugly” in a headline:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute is inviting the public to unleash its inner fashion critic, and blog about all 65 items found in a new exhibit.

The museum, which just kicked off its “blog.mode: addressing fashion” exhibit, will periodically post its objects on a special online site — and anyone can comment on them from the comfort of home or a computer station at the exhibit.

“While painting and sculpture can sometimes seem to be an intimidating conceptual remove, fashion is so familiar, so ubiquitous to our experience, that it is inherently and immediately accessible,” Harold Koda, curator in charge of the Costume Institute, said.

“Individuals who might shy away from commenting on the merits of a Juan Gris or Henry Moore will readily disclose their thoughts on a gown by John Galliano or a mule by Manolo Blahnik.”

That said, it actually may contribute a new thin slicing technique: intuitively avoiding pretentious exhibits that use periods and lower case in the title.

There’s no guarantee that your attorney isn’t quietly going home and turning your embarrassing custody battle into a song:

The skills of successful litigators with three decades in the law profession include the ability to craft an unfortunate situation into a lawsuit and arrange the evidence into a persuasive argument. But producing songs from those experiences and scoring them to electric guitar riffs is a more unusual skill, the domain of one lawyer, Lawrence Savell, who does his part to bring the insider world of high-power litigation to the masses.

A partner at Chadbourne & Parke, Mr. Savell, who just turned 50, waxes poetic on the intricacies of seeing opposing counsel and of emotions running high on late nights. This year, he produced his fourth album, “The Lawtunes, Live at Blackacre,” while earlier albums have had holiday themes to their songs.

. . .

Slightly hokey but with earnest charm, the songs cover topics with which lawyers are all too familiar. The lyrics are filled with references that include emerging issues like electronic discovery, the joys of reviewing briefs in early morning hours with cold take-out, and imaging the life of Santa Claus’s general counsel.

“The inspiration is really just working as a lawyer and trying to find, especially at the holidays, a little bit of humor in what we do, and not to take ourselves so seriously,” Mr. Savell said.

There are love songs to law and inspirational ballads, like “Law Man,” which Mr. Savell describes as “a hard-pounding and blunt explanation of exactly what it is that lawyers do.” The title character offers his fighting services to any lawyer facing the wrong end of a lawsuit, or losing a promotion to nepotism.

The question is whether those who offer credit — who these days seem to have little problems extending it to virtually anyone — have a problem with your overdue library book:

Eleven years ago, the Queens Library system, the largest in the nation by circulation, hired a professional enforcer to collect the 25-cents-a-day late fines as well as missing library materials from books to DVDs to rare musical scores.

The gambit has paid off handsomely. The haul so far: $11.4 million, about half of that in fines. That’s a lot of quarters.

. . .

It works. About 70 percent of the people contacted by the company [Unique Management Services] (who, in Queens, have ignored or missed four notices from the library) return some of their overdue materials or pay part of their fines.

“Once reported, this adverse information can stay on your record for seven years!” declares one of the company’s standard letters, which goes on to warn that car dealers, department stores and banks may learn of the library users’ misdeeds. “Why allow this to happen?”

Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow of Far Rockaway said he was flabbergasted when it happened to him.

As a child in Forest Hills, Rabbi Sebrow said, he loved to visit his local branch, and he grew up to be an enthusiastic library patron. He is a teacher at a yeshiva, where instilling reverence for texts and scholarship is central to his calling. Sometimes, like many library patrons, he is late in returning a book, he admitted in a recent interview, but he said he always paid his fines.

In 2005, Rabbi Sebrow said, he was overwhelmed after the birth of twin daughters and found himself six months overdue on materials he had checked out from the North Forest Park branch in Forest Hills. He cannot remember exactly what was late, but he thinks that several CDs were involved. He received a letter from Unique Management, which also uses the name Unique National Collections, demanding $295.40 — the cost of replacing the materials, plus $66 in late fees.

“I figured, ‘I’ll take care of it eventually,’” Rabbi Sebrow said. He did not believe the section of the letter that threatened to report him to credit agencies. “I thought it was a complete empty threat,” he said.

But when he applied for a mortgage and a credit card, he discovered that the oversight had blemished his credit record.

But take away that cat and the subject of a well-worn axiom will take its place:

Across the city, delis and bodegas are a familiar and vital part of the streetscape, modest places where customers can pick up necessities, a container of milk, a can of soup, a loaf of bread.

Amid the goods found in the stores, there is one thing that many owners and employees say they cannot do without: their cats. And it goes beyond cuddly companionship. These cats are workers, tireless and enthusiastic hunters of unwanted vermin, and they typically do a far better job than exterminators and poisons.

When a bodega cat is on the prowl, workers say, rats and mice vanish.

. . .

But as efficient as the cats may be, their presence in stores can lead to legal trouble. The city’s health code and state law forbid animals in places where food or beverages are sold for human consumption. Fines range from $300 for a first offense to $2,000 or higher for subsequent offenses.

. . .

Still, many store owners keep cats despite the law, mainly because other options have failed and the fine for rodent feces is also $300. “It’s hard for bodega owners because they’re not supposed to have a cat, but they’re also not supposed to have rats,” said José Fernández, the president of the Bodega Association of the United States.

Luis Martinez, 42, has managed his brother’s grocery in East New York, Brooklyn, for two years. At first, despite weekly visits from an exterminator, the store’s inventory was ravaged constantly by nibbling vermin.

“Every night I had to put the bread in the freezer,” he said, pointing at shelves filled with bread and hamburger buns. “I was losing too much inventory. The chips and the Lipton soups all had holes in them.”

Then, last winter, a friend brought Mr. Martinez a marmalade kitten in need of a home. Mr. Martinez, who was skeptical of how one slinky kitten could fend off an army of hungry rats, set up a litter box in the back of the store, put down an old fleece jacket and named the kitten Junior.

Within two weeks, Mr. Martinez said, “a miracle.”

“Before you’d see giant rats running in off the streets into the store, but since Junior, no more,” he said.

Glendale, Queens 90210:

Residents of the western Queens neighborhood, which shares the 11385 zip code with nearby Ridgewood, have been longing for five digits to call their own. But postal officials insist the move would be too costly and confusing.

The U.S. Postal Service district manager, who approves new Queens zips, said ina statement that adding more codes canadversely affect mail service and addconsiderable administrative and operational costs.

The official, Lily Jung Burton, also shot down the Glendale code because the Postal Service assigns zips only when there would be an improvement in service and not solely to provide community identity.

Still, Glendale activists vow to continue their push. They argue that the area, which has its own library and community groups, merits unique numbers on letters and packages, too.

Every other area has its own zip code, said Dorie Figliola, a longtime resident who belongs to the Glendale Civic Association. “It’s very unfair. . . . We’re asking for what should be rightly ours,” Figliola said.

Earlier on the subject of zip code envy: Sound Smart And Start Talking Up Right Now The “Rising Political Influence Of 10065″.

Location Scout: Glendale.

The West Village is so tame that arborcide qualifies as a major story:

With its cozy bakeries and candlelit restaurants, tree-lined Bedford St. is a picture-perfect piece of the West Village. But upon second glance, there is something missing. In front of 12 Bedford St. sits an empty tree pit. Home to a male gingko for nearly 20 years, all that remains is a dirt-covered stump and a yellow, laminated sign that reads:

R.I.P. Gingko Biloba 1985-2007

Shade Giver, Oxygen Provider, Friend to Humans and Even Dogs, A Good Tree

Died November 15, 2007

Victim of NYC Parks Department Arborcide

. . .

On Nov. 15, Stu Waldman and Livvie Mann were on their way out to an event at the Javits Center when Waldman noticed through their front window two people pruning their beloved tree. He and his wife had paid for it to be planted when they first moved to Bedford St. Having received no call ahead of time from the Parks Department, Waldman and Mann rushed out to find out who the pruners were and what exactly they were up to. Waldman said there was no indication on their uniforms that the man and woman worked for the Parks Department. But the pair of pruners said they were hired by the city to cut down the tree because it was cracked and posed a danger to local residents.

After a few minutes of arguing, the couple — hoping they had convinced the pruners to consult with their supervisor before going through with the job — left for their evening event. When they returned later that night, the tree was gone.

As they retold the story recently, they sat perched on their side-by-side sofa chairs, finishing each other’s sentences. When they came to the moment when they found the tree gone, they gazed wistfully out at the empty space where it once stood.

“We were upset, felt violated and lied to,” Mann said. “Everything about that tree represented years of work. It’s not easy to keep up a tree around here.”

. . .

The pair plan to take the issue to Community Board 2 or the City Council if they don’t get a response from 311 soon. Bob Gormley, C.B. 2 district manager, said the board is working on a number of initiatives to plant trees in empty tree pits in the neighborhood, but he was surprised to hear about this particular case.

The geographic quirkiness of Marble Hill has its advantages:

Vitalina Montesano lives in Manhattan, even though her Marble Hill neighborhood lies on the land mass everyone calls The Bronx.

But when she toppled down the stairs of her housing project in 2005, her lawyer decided to challenge that jurisdictional anomaly by filing her suit against the city Housing Authority in The Bronx — where juries are notoriously more sympathetic to plaintiffs and prone to award big settlements.

The Housing Authority then filed for a change-of-venue motion, saying that the case should be heard in Manhattan with its stingier jury pool.

Her lawyer argued that since Montesano has a 718 area code, a Bronx ZIP code and her children went to public schools in The Bronx, her place of residence is — for all intents and purposes — The Bronx.

“If you send a letter to my client, it goes to Bronx, NY. If you call her, it is a 718 number,” lawyer Ben Robinson told The Post. “It’s a very unique situation.”

Originally, Marble Hill was part of the island of Manhattan — cut off from The Bronx by the Spuyten Duyvil Creek.

But in 1895, the city dredged out marshland to the south of the neighborhood to connect the Harlem River with the Hudson. Later, the creek was filled in, and Marble Hill was made contiguous with The Bronx. When a lower court decided to allow the case to be heard in The Bronx, the Housing Authority appealed. On Tuesday, the state Appellate Division apologetically overturned the decision.

Location Scout: Marble Hill.

Real estate brokers love the weak dollar:

The sidewalks of Manhattan are crammed this month with European tourists on shopping sprees, picking up gifts that cost far less in the United States than they do at home because of the weak dollar. But they are not just crowding into boutiques and department stores. Some are also shopping for condominiums.

“There’s bargains to be had,” said Kerry Miller, a public relations executive who with her husband, Marty, a disc jockey, was working through her Christmas gift list by buying sweaters at Abercrombie & Fitch and makeup at MAC, as well as touring 32 apartments. The Millers, from Malahide, Ireland, a suburb of Dublin, searched for a one-bedroom condo. They made an offer for $700,000 on one apartment in the meatpacking district and are waiting to hear back from the seller.

While natives remain wary about real estate and worry about bonuses and the economic climate, foreign tourists are keeping brokers busy with their eagerness to buy up Manhattan apartments, which many see as investments.

“The exchange rate is like a gift from God for Europeans,” said Danielle Grossenbacher, the broker for Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy who showed the Millers around. “Everybody is feeling they have an opportunity to purchase a piece of Manhattan.”

These buyers are transforming a traditionally slow month for Manhattan real estate brokers at a time when brokers nationwide are struggling to sell homes. This year, Manhattan brokers are waking before dawn to talk by phone with European buyers about amenities and closing costs and working late advising foreign buyers in town on the best places to shop for gadgets and clothes.

. . .

Jonathan Fletcher, who works in information technology, and Aine Marshall, a dentist, came to Manhattan from London to buy a $1 million investment property. Mr. Fletcher, who is considering buying in the financial district, where he believes there is opportunity for appreciation, plans to put down his deposit money first and wait for the dollar to weaken more before paying for the entire apartment. Even if he does not buy an apartment, the savings from shopping in the United States covered the cost of the trip, he said. They spent a total of $8,000 on clothes, a camera and a $5,000 drum set that would have cost about double back home.

It’s suspicious, is all:

Police closed most of Union Square Park for more than an hour yesterday while they investigated several small piles of what a park security guard said was later identified as bleached flour.

At 9:30 a.m., park security officers discovered nine piles of a white powder scattered around the park and called police to investigate, the security officer said. Police cordoned off three-quarters of the park and ordered a quarter of the stalls that are part of the park’s holiday craft market to close during the course of their investigation.

Once the substance was identified, police officials sprayed a mixture of soap, water, and bleach on the crushed piles. One official said the powder piles may have been a prank, but they are investigating further.

Location Scout: Union Square Holiday Market.

Now that an ambitious expansion of the Javits Center is all but dead, maybe we should reconsider that subway stop:

Two years after the Far West Side was rezoned for large-scale development, a growing number of elected officials, environmentalists and community groups are questioning the city’s and state’s plans for the area.

The city has set aside $2.1 billion for the extension of the No. 7 line from Times Square to the Javits Convention Center and the West Side railyards, the rights to which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to auction off for high-rise residential and commercial development. But in an effort to stay within the budget, the city recently eliminated one of two stops along the 1.1-mile extension from the current tunneling contract.

Representative Jerrold Nadler; the city comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr.; and other officials said in a Dec. 19 letter to Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff that it was “imperative” that the city build that subway station, at 10th Avenue and 41st Street, as part of the extension, work on which began last month. Not doing so, they said, would “represent a failure to the area’s growing residential population” and “puts at risk several million square feet of potential commercial and residential development.”

Those officials suggested financing the station by diverting money from projects that could be put on hold temporarily, like building a tree-lined boulevard between 10 and 11th Avenues, from 34th to 39th Streets. Those projects are part of the city’s larger vision for rebuilding the Far West Side.

A tree-lined boulevard? Where did that come from?

The MTA takes a page from the decrepit bottler/distributor industry by cleaning up on riders who can’t be bothered to use up every last cent on their MetroCards:

Beginning in March, many subway and bus riders will have to learn a new math — and it could leave them scratching their heads. Or gnashing their teeth.

On Wednesday, the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to reduce the bonus that riders receive on pay-per-ride MetroCards, from 20 to 15 percent. The board also decided to increase some other fares.

The change in the bonus means many riders will see odd amounts of spare change — as little as a nickel or a dime — left over on their MetroCards. And if large numbers of exasperated riders throw away cards with balances of just 5 or 10 cents, the result could add up to a windfall to the authority in unclaimed fares.

The current 20 percent bonus system makes for simple math: Buy five rides and you get one ride free. In other words, if you feed $10 into a MetroCard vending machine, the card will come out showing a balance of $12.

Under the new plan, the minimum that riders must spend to qualify for a bonus will be reduced to $7, from $10, in an effort to put a fare discount within the reach of more people with lower incomes. But in that case, when someone puts $7 on a card, an additional $1.05 will appear on the card, for a total of $8.05.

If they take four subway trips, at $2 each, that will leave a balance on the card of five cents. If they refill the card with another $7, it will then show a total value of $8.10, enough for four rides, with a dime left over. The real challenge is figuring out how much to put on the card to bring it up to a round sum.

War veteran undercuts Big Hot Dog. In other news, Tony Avella threatens to unseat John Liu and Eric Gioia as biggest grandstander on the City Council*:

Out in front of the crowded entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the more lucrative spots in Manhattan to sell hot dogs. It is so good, in fact, that one of the largest pushcart vending companies in New York City pays $574,000 a year to the city for the right to place two hot dog carts there.

And since mid-July, Dan Rossi has also had a hot dog cart there, on Fifth Avenue near 82nd Street, and has been paying absolutely nothing for the spot. The carts belonging to the big company, New York One, formerly named M & T Pretzel, are off to each side of the museum steps, but Mr. Rossi’s cart is smack in front, and because he charges less for some items, he often has a line of customers when the other carts do not.

“I’m not really doing it for the money, I’m doing it for the veterans,” Mr. Rossi said while selling hot dogs briskly one recent Sunday afternoon. Mr. Rossi said he is a Vietnam veteran and claims that the city, about a decade ago, wrongly began limiting the number of pushcart permits given to war veterans.

“I’ve been summonsed, fined, threatened with arrest and shut down by the police, but I keep coming back,” said Mr. Rossi, 58, of the Bronx.

City Councilman Tony Avella of Queens, who also criticizes the city over permits for veterans, held a news conference on Tuesday morning at City Hall to call attention to what he said was a “disgrace by the city, to forget its veterans.”

“The right of veterans to get permits has a long history in this city, and for the past few years, when veterans try to apply for one, they can’t get one,” he said. New York State has allowed veterans free vending permits since the Civil War, he said.

*Avella vs. John Liu vs. Queens Councilmember Eric Gioia.

Location Scout: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A helpful reminder that when robbing banks, it’s sometimes good to think outside the box:

For Orlando Taylor, a 26-year-old Brooklyn man who apparently had a strange attraction to a couple of bank branches at the bustling Fulton Mall, three times was a charm. So was the fourth time. But according to the police, when he returned on Tuesday to commit a fifth robbery in five days, his luck ran out.

The police said Mr. Taylor first struck at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, robbing an HSBC branch at 342 Fulton Street of $450. On Saturday, the police said, he showed up two doors down at a Bank of America branch, and robbed that one too, making off with nearly $3,500.

On Monday, growing more brazen, the police said, Mr. Taylor showed up twice more at the same Bank of America branch, at 350 Fulton Street — first at 10 a.m. and then at 2:20 p.m. Each time, they said, he demanded that tellers turn over cash. He fled with more than $3,800 from the two robberies into the teeming crowds of holiday shoppers.

The police have rarely experienced a string of bank robberies in such quick succession and proximity. So when the two branches opened on Tuesday, dozens of officers in uniform and in plainclothes were on the lookout inside and positioned outside along the Fulton Mall’s sidewalks.

They would have little trouble recognizing Mr. Taylor if he showed up again, investigators said, because his image had been captured by bank surveillance cameras.

Despite the long odds against another successful holdup, the police said, Mr. Taylor was spotted shortly after 9 a.m. by plainclothes officers on the sidewalk outside his original target, the HSBC branch. Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said Mr. Taylor was seen looking from the sidewalk through the branch’s windows, where he apparently spotted uniformed officers, and turned to walk away.

New signs that the economy may be on track to correct itself in 2008:

The Dog Run, the city’s only water therapy for old and infirm canines will be closing next week to stave off a 50 percent rent hike, even though a dozen or so devoted human companions of the dogs staged an impromptu rally over the weekend.

“You can call us crazy dog owners but all the dogs have benefited so much from this place,” said Mona Mansour, a freelance copyeditor, who organized the protest and has been taking her dog to the pool for more three years for physical therapy. “We hoped it would be like the Grinch and the landlord would have a change of heart and see what he’s taking away.”

The Dog Run has been at its Chelsea location for four years providing an innovative form of “hydrotherapy” and massage for dogs and holding “open swims” for neighborhood dogs in its 12-by-15 foot pool.

For a would-be Presidential candidate, coming home can be a drag:

Fresh from a trip to China and Indonesia, Mayor Bloomberg is turning his attention away from issues of international importance and toward one that is decidedly local: potholes.

At his first public event since returning to New York from his week-long travels abroad, Mr. Bloomberg kicked off the start of pothole season by urging New Yorkers to call the city’s help hotline, 311, to report any craters in the road.

The city fills the equivalent of 22 potholes every hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In the past five months, more than 70,000 potholes have been filled. Mr. Bloomberg said that since 2002, the city has filled 1.25 million potholes.

Although potholes may not be the most glamorous item on Mr. Bloomberg’s to-do list, he tried to draw a connection yesterday between filling holes in the ground and the essence of government. He said the city’s efforts to keep streets in good repair is making a vital difference when it comes to traffic fatalities, which are down more than 20% since 2001.

It’s kind of like looking for “a white van” — there are thousands of white vans out on the roads:

While other New Yorkers have been holding their heads in their hands over the steroid scandal enveloping past and present Bronx Bombers, [Benjamin] Soto wrongly spent a week in prison on Rikers Island — just for proudly wearing a Yankee jacket.

. . .

The Staten Island man’s odyssey began Nov. 10, when cops approached him with guns drawn as he walked home from his girlfriend’s house in Port Richmond.

“They were screaming, ‘Where’s the weapon? Where’s the stuff you stole? Where are the credit cards?’” he said.

“They threw me up against a fence, and I was asking, ‘What’s going on? What did I do? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’”

Turns out Soto, 35, loosely matched the description of one of three young men who had robbed a teen at knifepoint nearby. The victim told cops one of the men was wearing a Yankee jacket.

Two other men, Terence Ascensio, 17, Andre Glover, 18, were arrested separately.

Before Soto knew what was going on, he was handcuffed in front of his neighbors, hauled off to jail, arraigned on robbery charges and held in lieu of $25,000 bail — which as a YMCA custodian, he could not raise.

Representative Yvette Clarke sure knows how to pick her battles:

Rep. Yvette Clarke voted against Christmas!

The first-term Park Slope Democrat was one of just nine members of Congress who last week voted against House resolution 847, a symbolic bill that, among other things, acknowledged “the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith.”

The resolution also “recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world.”

The bill — one of dozens of purely symbolic resolutions that recognize everything from the James River as “America’s founding river” to the passing of Gerald Ford — passed last Tuesday by a vote of 372–9.

But the landslide vote masked the bill’s divisive language, including a pointed reminder that “there are approximately 225,000,000 Christians in the United States, making Christianity the religion of over three-fourths of the American population.”

“In this season of giving, love, peace and joy, I am mindful not to allow Christmas to be narrowly defined by an act of Congress or to consent to the pronouncements of others that are not reflective of my Christian experience,” she said in a statement. “I firmly believe that it is the spirit of the holiday season . . . has taught me to accept the values expressed by a diverse civil society. It is the love for our collective humanity; the desire to live in a world filled with peace and joy that truly defines and unites us as Americans.”

. . .

It’s not the first time Clarke has taken an unpopular stand against her congressional colleagues. Earlier this year, she was the only “no” vote on a proposal to name the library on Ellis Island after the British-born comedian Bob Hope. The bill was approved 420–1.

A Christmas gift idea for the representative?

All for the public good:

Moshe Zenwirth has been waiting since June for a bus that hasn’t come — and likely never will.

The Borough Park yeshiva administrator was slapped with a $115 ticket after he parked at a “bus stop” on 51st St. - even though the closest bus route is one block north.

Since the June 13 fine was issued, Zenwirth, 34, has appealed the decision, but has been stymied by two city administrative law judges, most recently in October.

“It upset me more the unfairness, the negligence, the stupidity than the money itself,” said Zenwirth.

“How did it go through two separate judges and nobody even bothered to look to see that there wasn’t even a bus that went by.”

Voo-da-la:

Sometimes after a long day off-island, you just want to catch the boat back to the Rock and head for Town, maybe do a little train crawl along the way.

Translation: Upon returning to Staten Island by ferry from a long day elsewhere, a person might want to stop at a few of the bars that flank the stations of the Staten Island Railway, en route to an evening in downtown Great Kills.

As befits a place that can take pride in its otherness and even in its relative isolation, Staten Island has evolved, if not exactly its own language, then certainly a lexicon of words and phrases that require explanation to off-islanders.

And a linguistic journey into the heart of Staten Island leads inexorably to the Talk of the Town Tavern, a train-station bar on Great Kills’s very smalltowny main street, where Statenisms flow nearly as freely as the $2 draft mugs.

. . .

Eugene Machules, a locksmith who was feeding dollars into the Talk of the Town’s jukebox, offered one more local neologism: “Voo-da-la.”

“You say that like when you make a great shot in basketball,” Mr. Machules said. “When you hit the home run, the best shot — the top of the pinnacle, that’s it. Or if you toast someone who’s passed away, you say ‘Voo-da-la.’”

Voo-da-la, Mr. Machules said, was the signature phrase of Monte Vandenburg, a longtime bartender at another Great Kills watering hole, the Swiss Chalet.

“He’d just turn and say ‘Voo-da-la,’ and nobody knew what the hell it meant,” Mr. Machules said.

Mr. Vandenburg died suddenly in September at the age of 46. It is not clear how long Voo-da-la will survive him.

Location Scout: Talk of the Town.

The MTA’s lost-and-found procedures focuses on the former at the expense of the latter:

Misplacing valuables like a diamond earring or wallet stuffed with money in the city transit system may mean losing them forever, according to MTA Inspector General reports released Thursday, which found that less than one in five commuters are reunited with their lost item.

As part of a year-long probe, auditors tested New York City Transit’s lost and found procedures by handing over 26 items — including cell phones and cameras — that they claimed commuters left behind. Only three of those items made it to the Lost Property Unit.

In another probe, auditors tracked 10,000 lost articles received by the unit and found less than half got there within 10 days of being turned in to transit employees. About 13 percent took more than a month to reach the unit.

Huh. You don’t say:

Although Mr. Bloomberg has ordered an overall hiring freeze and has yet to agree to raises for the city’s largest municipal labor union, he has doled out generous pay increases to those who work directly for him, a review of payroll records shows.

The mayor, while holding raises for other city employees to about 4 percent per year, has given more than 200 members of his staff increases ranging from 10 percent to more than 100 percent, the records show. And 57 staffers have received a raise of at least 10 percent more than once.

In addition, the number of employees earning $100,000 or more has risen by 59 percent, to 105 from 66 in 2002, with the bulk of that increase coming in 2006, after the mayor won re-election.

It is not unusual for mayors to reward their loyal aides, especially as they near the twilight of their tenure. Mr. Bloomberg’s predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, gave generous raises throughout his term to his deputies. During his final summer in office, Mr. Giuliani handed out 8 percent raises to his deputy mayors, increasing their salaries to $168,700.

For Mr. Bloomberg, who founded the media and financial services giant Bloomberg L.P., the swelling salaries echo the pattern he established in the private sector of pulling together a loyal coterie of advisers and assistants and paying them handsomely.

. . .

Shea Fink, who worked on Mr. Bloomberg’s 2001 campaign, started at a $93,000 annual salary as assistant to the mayor, overseeing his schedule. She now earns $170,368, an 83 percent increase, though John Gallagher, a mayoral spokesman, said her responsibilities have significantly increased and she now serves as a senior adviser to the mayor.

Mr. Bloomberg also provided six-figure bonuses from his campaign account to his closest lieutenants after his mayoral runs in 2001 and 2005, generally distributing them just before the aides joined or returned to city government to avoid running afoul of conflict-of-interest regulations.

For example, Patricia E. Harris, who has been Mr. Bloomberg’s most trusted aide since his days running Bloomberg L.P., is the highest-paid employee in the mayor’s office, with an annual salary of $227,219. She received a 19 percent raise when she was promoted to first deputy mayor in 2005.

That increase came after she received a $350,000 bonus for less than three months’ work on his campaign.

Two of the mayor’s other deputies who followed Mr. Bloomberg from his private company, Kevin Sheekey and Edward Skyler, have also received large bumps in salary since joining the administration in 2002, of 31 percent and 21 percent respectively, to $196,574. In addition, Mr. Sheekey was given a $400,000 bonus after taking a hiatus from the administration to manage the 2005 campaign.

Francis Barry, who worked on the 2005 campaign, joined the administration in the legislative affairs division in 2002 at $45,000. After big increases in 2004 and 2006, Mr. Barry now earns $122,452 as a communications adviser and speechwriter, a 172 percent increase from his starting salary

And Gerardo Russo and Christopher Coffey, who took positions in the 2001 campaign, have doubled their city salaries since 2002. Mr. Russo, who began as a press aide earning $55,000, now earns $122,452 as an assistant to Mr. Skyler.

Sure, I’d walk all the way to Smith Street but why bother when Fifth Avenue is just as close:

Yes, you are seeing double.

Smith Street and Fifth Avenue are becoming mirror images of one another — thanks to at least half a dozen entrepreneurs opening shops on both streets.

Call it “Smifth Avenue.” Lucia, Something Else, Soula and Flirt, plus chains like Brooklyn Industries and Area Kids, have staked a claim on both streets.

Owners say they’re making life easier for shoppers, not trying to erase Brooklyn’s long-standing neighborhood distinctions.

“We noticed that we had significant numbers of customers who shop on Smith Street, but live in Park Slope and Prospect Heights,” said Soula owner Rick Lee.

In almost all cases, shop owners opened their first outlet on Smith Street before expanding to Fifth Avenue.

“There was an attitude of ‘If we were able to do it on Smith, now we’re able to do it on Fifth,’” said Samantha Delman Caserta, the owner of 3Rliving, a Fifth Avenue shop, and head of the Fifth Avenue Merchants Association.

Who benefits most from keeping subway and bus fares at $2? Besides tourists, I mean. Inmates:

Jailbirds are among those thanking the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for maintaining the $2 pay-per-ride MetroCard — part of a restructured fare-hike proposal supported by Gov. Spitzer and Mayor Bloomberg that will save the base fare while raising the price of unlimited cards used by 86 percent of riders.

Recently released convicts must buy a two-ride, $4 MetroCard with money in their inmate accounts when they’re sprung from Rikers Island.

. . .

“I’m glad they didn’t raise it,” said 59-year-old Roberto Gonzalez of Bushwick, Brooklyn, who has been locked up since Dec. 8 for burglary and menacing.

But he admits he had other things on his mind while in the city’s infamous lockup.

“I wasn’t thinking about the fare hikes,” he said. “[Rikers] is full of Crips, Bloods, MS-13s . . . And they’re full of attitude.”

The Correction Department buys about $160,000 worth of MetroCards a year for inmates to use upon their release, a spokesman said.

“We issue them to inmates who do not have sufficient money in their accounts as they’re being discharged from jail,” said a spokesman.