If you’re the type of person who might enjoy owning Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman’s ankle cast then either a) you’re way too obsessed with the minutiae of local news and you might want to seriously consider doing some other things with your time or b) you have way too big an apartment, in which case I have several boxes of books and records you might be able to store for me. Regardless of which it is, I feel sorry for you. From the eBay description:

Get the actual cast worn by legendary Brooklyn journalist Gersh Kuntzman after he broke his ankle in January! Not only is the cast signed by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, but all money raised in the sale will go towards Markowitz’s Camp Brooklyn charity. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a piece of journalistic, medical and political history — the very cast worn by an award-winning journalist, signed by a future mayor of New York City, and written about in countless Kuntzman columns! This cast’s authenticity is guaranteed and the winning bidder will also receive a high-resolution digital photo of Markowitz signing the historic cast. A priceless collectible.

At least someone here is asking tough questions about the congestion pricing plan that is apparently designed to clear out Midtown streets for New Jersey drivers:

Just 48 hours before a state commission is expected to recommend a proposal that would charge drivers an $8 daily fee to enter the area of Manhattan below 60th Street, the panel’s chairman, Marc V. Shaw, heard Democratic members of the Assembly speak out against it on Tuesday.

. . .

“I would say that the idea of congestion pricing and the commission’s proposals got hammered, and it was in a comprehensive way,” said Rory I. Lancman, a Queens assemblyman who attended the meeting. “Every aspect of the proposals were hashed out, were analyzed and were found to be wanting.”

Mr. Shaw has been making the rounds in Albany as he tries to drum up support for a traffic-busting plan in advance of the commission’s vote.

“Marc stood there for three hours and took his beating like a man,” Mr. Lancman said.

He said more than 30 legislators expressed objections, and only one spoke in favor of the plan.

The chorus of opposition from Assembly members, most of them from the city and its suburbs, is significant because the support of the State Legislature is needed to carry out congestion pricing. The Assembly is also far less likely to pass legislation opposed by members whose districts would be directly affected.

. . .

“There was considerable opposition” said Hakeem Jeffries, an assemblyman from Brooklyn who attended part of the meeting. “Not to the notion of doing something, to dealing with congestion or even to congestion pricing. But there’s opposition to the way it has been presented and developed so far.”

Mr. Jeffries said the plan unfairly favored drivers entering Manhattan from New Jersey because it would give them a credit for tolls paid on the tunnels or bridges across the Hudson River. With tolls during rush hours on those crossings set to rise to $8, that would mean that those drivers would not make any additional payments under the congestion plan and would not have an incentive to avoid driving into the city.

. . .

Mr. Shaw said that the issue of how to treat drivers entering from New Jersey needed to be addressed but that a solution to the problem was probably not going to be in the plan that the commission will vote on.

Michael Bloomberg is the greatest secessionist mayor since Fernando Wood there’s not a damn thing Kevin Sheekey can do to stop it:

Lending lighthearted support to a City Council proposal that the city secede from the state, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday the plan makes a point that is “well taken.”

The city sends the state about $11 billion more each year than it receives back in services, an imbalance that is prompting Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., a Democrat who represents parts of Queens, to introduce legislation to lay the groundwork for the city to break away from the state.

“I can’t believe he thinks it is going anyplace, but I think he’s right in joking about it,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday.

The mayor warned that if the state tries to squeeze too many tax dollars out of the city, it would no longer be a cash cow.

. . .

Mr. Vallone told The New York Sun that his idea is “most definitely not a joke,” but added that he is encouraged that the mayor “likes the fact that I am thinking about it.”

A sampling of what Rudy now avoids next week:

Jessica Matos, 25, a single mother from the South Bronx, sounded almost giddy as she talked about the results from Florida and the possibility that Mr. Giuliani would abandon his campaign.

“I was waiting for this moment — he stinks,” declared Ms. Matos as she finished off the last of her French fries at the Crown Donuts Diner on East 161st Street, not far from Yankee Stadium. “Giuliani was always for himself, never for the people. Where I live, a lot of people need help, and he made everything hard for people who needed help. Everything was always for the middle class or the high class. He just forgot about everyone else.”

Across the table, her friend Ivonne Rivera, 38, nodded enthusiastically. “He’s a hypocrite,” she said.

The diner’s owner, Peter Katsihtis, took a more analytical approach. A Republican who plans to vote for a Democrat in November because he wants the United States out of Iraq, Mr. Katsihtis said Mr. Giuliani had not managed to get his message and positions across. “When people decide to vote,” he said, “they want to know what a candidate stands for. He wasn’t effective in getting that across.”

Louis Duran, an elevator mechanic’s assistant seated at a booth by the window, spoke up for Mr. Giuliani.

“I used to be a criminal — I’ve spent time upstate — and I don’t hate Giuliani,” he said. “I thought he did a great job as mayor. I want my parents and family to be safe, and I would have voted for him.”

Every so often it’s good to be reminded how self-obsessed people in Manhattan are. For example, Borough President Scott Stringer drawing a comparison between NYU’s occupation of Greenwich Village and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank:

Eager to cool its often rancorous relations with its neighbors in Greenwich Village — and to pave the way for its next 25 years of expansion — New York University has agreed to try to push some of its expansion farther from its central core, to consult the community when it designs new space and to develop policies to relocate tenants when they must be moved because of university construction.

The agreements are part of an unusual accord that the university has hammered out over the past year with many of its fiercest critics, including public officials and community leaders. The planning principles, which are aimed at making the university’s growth smoother and less disruptive, are to be unveiled on Wednesday by university officials and other members of a task force that drew them up.

“The county and N.Y.U. have been in turmoil for well over 20 years,” said Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president who led the task force that shaped the accord. “This is the first joint announcement ever. Like the Israeli peace plan, I can’t guarantee that there will be peace. But this is definitely N.Y.U. changing direction.”

I was beginning to feel a little proud of the Giants until I saw this:

When it comes to celebrating their home team’s first shot at the NFL championship in seven years, many New Yorkers are lacking neither money nor creativity.

Among the decorations for one Sunday Giants celebration is a 4-foot tall ice sculpture crafted to look just like the Vince Lombardi Super Bowl Trophy.

“Sports audiences are very physical and get very excited,” said Shintaro Okamoto, the founder of Okamoto Studio in Long Island City, who is making the ice sculpture. “We want to make sure our Super Bowl sculptures are very strong and durable.”

Okamoto said he is also fielding inquires from New York “hedge fund people and bankers” looking to spend upwards of $750 on ice sculptures in the shape of a Giants helmet for their private loft parties.

New York City-State secessionist talk percolates again:

Emboldened by Mayor Bloomberg’s testimony in Albany this week that the city’s taxpayers pay the state $11 billion a year more than they get back, a City Council member is offering legislation that would begin the process of having New York City secede from New York State.

Peter Vallone Jr., a Democrat who represents Queens, is pushing the idea, and the Council plans to hold a hearing on the possibility of making New York City the 51st state.

“I think secession’s time has definitely come again,” Mr. Vallone, who spearheaded a similar push in 2003, told The New York Sun yesterday. “If not secession, somebody please tell me what other options we have if the state is going to continue to take billions from us and give us back pennies. Should we raise taxes some more? Should we cut services some more? Or should we consider seriously going out on our own?”

. . .

The director of government watchdog New York Civic, Henry Stern, said that leaving the state would be politically and logistically difficult.

“You can’t secede from a state. We wouldn’t even let Staten Island secede from New York City, so nobody’s going to let this happen.” Mr. Stern, who previously served in City Council and as Parks Commissioner, said.

He added that Albany and the rest of New York north of the Bronx border does have some redeeming qualities. “The city needs upstate — it’s where the city gets its water. It dumps its prisoners upstate,” Mr. Stern said.

And crop failures elsewhere and new emerging markets, but I’m still upset about that biofuel sham:

Paying more for flour and wheat has forced H&H Bagels to raise prices in five-cent increments over the past year. In October, a bagel (sans butter or cream cheese) hit $1.20.

“Last year at this time, the price per bushel [of wheat] was $5.31,” said Jorge Delgado, counsel for H & H. “[This week] it was $14.22.”

David Jaffe, a sales rep from Fodera Foods in Queens, sells to roughly 70 Manhattan bagel shop and bakeries. His company may have to allocate goods based on customers’ payment history. “There is no raw material,” he said. “It’s crazy [to talk about allocations], but we’re getting there.”

He blamed price increases on the crop failure in Australia, which forced the Asian market to buy from here, compounded by Argentina not exporting wheat. Plus, more American farmers are switching to biofuels because of ethanol subsidies.

“We’re not in a good situation,” Jaffe said. “China is becoming Westernized and they don’t want to eat rice anymore, they want wheat. Basically, the whole baking industry is under attack and the hardest hit are those who use the most flour — bagels and bread.”

Steve Ross, president of Coney Island Bialys & Bagels, who has kept prices at 70 cents for nearly a year, has seen fluctuations befire, but never a such a steady rise. “It’s always stayed around $18 to $20 a bag,” he said. Ross is now paying $35 for a 100-pound bag. He found out yesterday that’s set to jump $3.

David Wilpon, manager of Ess-a-Bagel, said prices rose 10 to 85 cents in October and they were considering another hike. At Daniel’s Bagels on Third Avenue, Arye Lewkowitz raised prices last month to 90 cents.

“It’s horrible. I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Lewkowitz said. “We’re going to have to sell a bagel for over $1.” He’s set to print new menus shortly, he said.

Maybe a bar will be better, so as to smooth out customers’ jitters:

The Freedom Tower will be topped by New York City’s highest restaurant, a 34,000-square-foot space on the 100th and 101st floors that the Port Authority, which owns the tower, yesterday offered up to entice interest among potential operators.

The Port Authority’s request for expression of interest for a restaurant and banquet space high in One World Trade Center is already eliciting commentary from New York’s top restaurateurs and real estate analysts.

A co-owner of Nobu, Drew Nieporent, said the attacks of September 11, 2001, had a lasting effect on the mentality of diners. About 150 restaurant employees and guests at Windows on the World were killed in the attack.

“I’m not advocating that it’s the best idea, I think it has to sink in a little,” he said. Of the terrorist enemy, he said: “You know, these people could do just about anything, they can be very creative and it doesn’t just have to be something in a tall building. If they want to wreak havoc, a public space is better where there’s a large congregation of people.”

. . .

But the proposition of renting such a unique space at such an extreme height on soil with such a history could pose a number of challenges.

“Every floor you go above sidewalk level makes it more difficult,” the owner of the River Café, Michael “Buzzy” O’Keeffe, said. “If you had only one floor like that — in a city like New York — it would probably be a big tourist attraction. But there are many floors like that here. There are many big tall buildings with tall views,” he said, adding that “it was not easy to make Windows on the World work.”

Spending $157 million for a brand new vacant lot. Which is probably the point of the MTA pitting Lower Manhattan against West Side redevelopment proponents (and who is that exactly now that Dan Doctoroff is gone?):

Soaring construction costs could force the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to scrap plans for an architecturally ambitious glass-domed subway station in Lower Manhattan and lead to more than $1 billion in cost overruns for the authority’s major expansion projects, officials said Monday.

The rising costs could slow progress on the three so-called mega-projects needed to expand the capacity of the public transportation system, including a Long Island Rail Road link to Grand Central Terminal, a westward extension of the No. 7 subway line and the first leg of the Second Avenue subway.

The news represents another setback for the subway station project, known as the Fulton Street Transit Center, which was envisioned as a central element in the recovery of Lower Manhattan after the terror attack of Sept. 11, 2001.

. . .

Several underground portions of the Fulton Street subway project have been completed or are close to being finished, including a renovation of the platform and mezzanine serving the Nos. 2 and 3 trains.

The authority planned to finish the project by letting out a contract to cover the construction of the entrance building and oculus and several remaining pieces of the underground work.

But the authority received only one bid, of $870 million, far exceeding the $370 million the authority had budgeted for the contract.

Mysore L. Nagaraja, the authority’s president of capital construction, said the authority rejected the bid and would now split the project into smaller pieces, in the hope of attracting more bidders and greater competition.

He said the underground portions of the work could be completed by late 2009, which will make the connections between subway lines fully functional for riders.

But officials said that it was unclear now what would go on top.

“I’m sad to say that we cannot build the transit center as currently envisioned in this market with the budget that we have,” Mr. Sander said.

As it is, even without a station building, the project will reach a total cost of about $930 million, which is nearly $30 million more than the authority has in its overall budget for the project.

It is not the first time the project has run into budget trouble. The cost of acquiring real estate to make way for the project rose to $157 million from an early estimate of $50 million.

The authority has already razed several buildings at Fulton and Broadway to make way for the project, and Monday’s developments raised the prospect of the site’s remaining virtually vacant above ground for an extended time, or of a much more modest entrance building.

Like the Six Million Dollar Man only times thirty:

As the economy falters, Bloomberg could position himself as the perfect combination of private-sector entrepreneur and experienced, responsible public-service fiscal steward. “Mike could be one of the most important philanthropists we’ve ever seen,” a Bloomberg friend says. “But one example Kevin reminds him about is the smoking ban. Bloomberg ran for office in 2001 and spent $75 million. If he had taken $75 million and paid for smoking-cessation programs in the city, he wouldn’t have made one-thousandth the difference he made by getting elected and pushing through the smoking ban. Maybe not one-millionth the difference. So the $10 billion or $20 billion he’ll give away over the next twenty years, he could still make a greater difference by becoming president.”

How stupid are New Yorkers? Not only can a cupcake store clear more than enough to pay its $30,000-plus rent but it can open a second Manhattan location, too:

There are few small businesses that can comfortably afford a $400,000-per-year lease in Manhattan.

There are even fewer ones that can do so selling cupcakes.

Magnolia Bakery, the West Village destination well-known for its butter cream-frosted baked goods, celeb appeal and its cameo in SNL’s “Lazy Sunday” digital short, has recently opened a second domain on 200 Columbus Ave. at West 69th Street. Owner Steve Abrams, who is a 20-year Upper West Side veteran, always believed the neighborhood could embrace the business, but didn’t quite anticipate the orders when it opened its doors on Jan. 19.

“It’s been beyond expectations. Opening day, we ran out of product,” Abrams said. “I think the volumes are going to be very similar [to downtown]. Just the way they manifest will be different. Downtown is touristy. . . . . They’re not buying a dozen cupcakes. Here it’s all families. People buy in bulk.”

Hizzoner swings for the fences — that elusive 19 percent of the popular vote :

The campaign strategist who masterminded Texas billionaire Ross Perot’s third-party presidential bid in 1992, Clay Mulford, discussed Mayor Bloomberg’s national viability with him at a recent meeting, Mr. Mulford told Time magazine this week.

“He wondered what I thought about whether or not he could do it and I think he can,” Mr. Mulford said of their discussions.

I guess this is what people use Nerf balls for these days:

Cops yesterday revealed the chilling arsenal of pipe bombs allegedly fashioned by a Bulgarian immigrant in Brooklyn Heights — including a Nerf football stuffed with nails and a device designed to hang from a ceiling and rain down deadly ball bearings when detonated.

Ivaylo Ivanov, 37, was indicted on more than 100 counts of weapons charges in that case and another involving hate crimes stemming from him allegedly scrawling swastikas and anti-Semitic statements on local synagogues.

Police said they do not yet know if Ivanov, who is Jewish, was planning an attack on area Jews with the weaponry. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said investigators are poring over “voluminous” material seized from Ivanov’s computer looking for clues as to what he planned to do with the weaponry.

Investigators have not found any bomb-making literature, but “Ivanov clearly knew what he was doing,” said NYPD bomb-squad commander Lt. Mark Torie.

An array of artillery, including a sniper rifle, machine gun, silencers and pistols, were taken from the fourth-floor apartment on Remsen Street — a historic brownstone-lined block in one of Brooklyn’s wealthiest neighborhoods.

. . .

Ivanov has told cops that the guns were for protection and that he wanted to bring the bombs on a fishing trip and explode them under water.

. . .

Cops said Ivanov also distributed anti-Semitic pamphlets while making his rounds as a dogwalker.

Earlier: Neil Simon Meets Steven Seagal.

The Post is doing what it can to keep the city’s cads at bay:

It’s a case of paradise lost and found for lucky lovers Mike Goldstein and Anne Huynh.

The Post played matchmaker for the two New Yorkers who shared a soul-stirring kiss New Year’s Eve, and then lost track of each other.

The two were reunited at the Midtown lounge Kanvas.

“We’re engaged!” joked Goldstein, who locked lips with Huynh at an Upper West Side party on Dec. 31.

. . .

On a whim, Huynh posted an ad on Craigslist: “Mike - you kissed me at the house party on 96th and 3rd on New Years. From the moment I saw you . . . I wanted you.”

Goldstein didn’t respond, but The Post did, and profiled her in a story on New Year’s missed connections. Goldstein’s buddy saw the article and called his friend.

On their first official date last week, Goldstein walked Huynh to her Midtown apartment, and she finally received her long-awaited second kiss.

“It was the first kiss again. The same butterflies, except maybe even more now,” she said.

Earlier: Craig’s Dissed.

Say it ain’t so:

Passengers looking to grab a cold one aboard the Guy V. Molinari and the Spirit of America ferry boats have been out of luck lately.

Instead of Budweiser tall boys, brew-seekers have found “no beer” signs since Thursday, said a cashier for the Liberty Cafe, the onboard snack shop which usually sells the beer. The problem may be a liquor license issue, according to the cashier who declined to give his name.

Beer has not been banned from the Staten Island Ferry, said city Department of Transportation spokesman Seth Solomonow. Each class of boats obtains its own liquor license from the State Liquor Authority (SLA), he said.

If the problem is with the liquor license, it would only affect the Molinari-class of boats, not the entire fleet. Only the Molinari and the Spirit of America would be affected because the John J. Marchi is out of service.

The SLA and the Liberty Cafe could not be reached for comment last night.

In the zero-sum ecosystem of economics, there are winners and losers:

The welcome mat is out for rats, as numerous homes sit vacant for lengthy periods due to the recent spike in foreclosures and the sagging real estate market on Staten Island.

The rodents find safe haven in the often unkempt properties.

Neighbors of homes that have been on the market for months or even years are frustrated by the rodent infestation and are powerless to keep the critters away.

. . .

“Many times, if there’s a foreclosure, people just walk away,” said Mark Loffredo, president of Post Exterminating Co. in Tompkinsville. “The yards get overgrown and rodents find it conducive to habitation. If they recognize that there’s nothing to stop them getting in, they will nest in the house. They do search for habitat and they’re always searching for food.”

Though there are no official counts of rats in the city, unofficial guesses range from about 8 million (or one rat per person, an old rule of thumb) to perhaps 10 times that many. That would indicate that there could be anywhere from 500,000 to almost 5 million rats on Staten Island.

The neighborhood gets less divey:

On a recent Friday at Sophie’s bar in the East Village, owner Bob Corton sat on a corner barstool like any other of the wizened patrons he’s served for more than two decades. He reminisced about 21 years spent inside his decidedly unrefined dive with the customers that became his closest confidants.

Corton, 54, who opened Sophie’s in 1986, and later the nearby Mona’s in 1989, can trace the evolution of the neighborhood as it played out in his rough-hewn saloon: from the early days when the art community thrived in the low-rent district shared with indigent drug users, to the present day where a predominance of swanky lounges has reduced his unmarked hole in the wall to another blip on the grid of nightlife destinations.

But to anyone who spent time at either of the well-worn watering holes — which Corton announced last month would likely shutter due to his ailing health — the bars posses a mythical quality wrought by waves of well-lubricated patrons who found solace inside the shabby spaces. The regulars spin tales of mirth no doubt emboldened by the heavy flow of whiskey and beer, but no less poignant given the setting. Now, for these two muses of the Downtown drinking class, the stories might be the only thing Sophie’s and Mona’s have left to save.

. . .

Jeff, a holdover from the neighborhood’s heyday who still sported long, gray hair from beneath his woolen cap, struck an even more plaintive note about the new East Village.

“We won’t be able to go anywhere. . . . It’s just the last peg of a dying neighborhood,” said the Sophie’s fixture, who’s been coming for “a couple of years, or a couple of hundred” but declined to give his last name. “This place is like a church for drunks.”

The pints still pour amid gossip over the bars’ future, giving regulars a chance to eulogize their hangout with the imminent sale. It’s where barflies named Jimmy Tokens, Johnny Red, Caveman and Degenerate John took up years of residency on the tattered barstools, earning renown for their eccentric character traits.

Caveman, described as a large, brutish man with full beard, famously slugged pitchers of beer at a time — drinking directly from the source instead of a glass. Degenerate John, a postman who had a history of back injuries, regularly extended his own brand of chivalry by greeting all women patrons with the offer to “sit on my face.”

Name of group redacted because they’re total douchebags who don’t deserve any more press than they already get:

A fundamentalist group known for its virulent anti-gay stance is planning to picket the upcoming funeral of actor Heath Ledger, who played a gay cowboy in the 2005 film “Brokeback Mountain.”

Members of the [media-whoring Kansas church] said they would protest the funeral at the Frank F. Campbell Funeral Home in Manhattan. A date has not yet been set.

In a message posted on the group’s Web log, members promised to bring signs reading “Brokeback in Hell.” The message said Ledger was in hell because of his role in a film that taught the world “it’s OK to be gay.”

. . .

The ADL, which monitors anti-Semitism as well as the activities of hate groups, said the church gained notoriety when followers picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard with signs reading “No Fags in Heaven.”

Since 2005, church members have picketed funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan to demonstrate their opposition to America’s tolerance of homosexuality.

The City Council is back to caring about the big issues — education, overdevelopment and . . . President Clinton’s failed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy:

The resolution urges President Bush to allow openly gay men and women to serve in the armed forces.

“There are plenty of people who are LGBT in the military right now, so I don’t even understand why it’s such a fuss,” one of the resolution’s co-sponsors, Council Member Gale Brewer, said yesterday. “They are extremely good officers like anyone else.”

The “don’t ask don’t tell” policy, enacted under President Clinton in 1993, allows gay men and women to serve in the military, as long as they do not disclose their orientation. Since the policy was put into place, thousands of gays and lesbians have been expelled from the military for violating it. In May, 79% of Americans surveyed in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll supported allowing openly gay people to serve in the military, while 18% opposed it.

When the only people who can afford to live in Manhattan are those in the financial sector* and students, you’re of course going to get more dorms:

Columbia’s brand-new 17-acre campus in Harlem. Six million square feet of additional space for NYU dorms and classrooms, stretching from Washington Square to the outer boroughs. A Fordham “fortress” springing up on the Upper West Side.

Colleges and universities are forecasting unprecedented growth in the coming years, adding as much as 17 million square feet of space — or more than either the World Trade Center or the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn — and may begin to exert an even greater influence on the ebb and flow of life in the city.

“Our fear is that the neighborhood could be overwhelmed by these institutions that they have played host to for 150 years,” said Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation.

Berman and other neighborhood advocates fear that the low-rise character of the neighborhood could become overrun by packs of college students and tall dorms to house them.

“It becomes a stage set instead of a real urban neighborhood, or company town where everything around you is run by a single entity,” Berman said.

*Whoops — sorry about that recession, guys . . .

The Parks Department plans to sell naming rights:

Officials have not said which particular locations are ready to be sold yet, but almost any major attraction in the city’s parks and recreation system could be up for grabs.

That group includes the zoos that draw in thousands of visitors annually, the amphitheaters that pack in summer revelers, the gigantic swimming pools or scores of tennis-court clusters.

. . .

Under this program — which would raise an estimated $3 million a year — entire parks wouldn’t be renamed, so Central and Prospect parks would keep their monikers but attractions within them could be renamed for a price.

How about the Mark Ecko Graffiti Hall of Fame?

Oh wait . . . I get it now:

A top executive with the construction firm managing the problem-plagued demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building said yesterday that the so-called “toxic tower” may not be as contaminated as the public has been led to believe.

“It is our belief there are not nearly [that] level of contaminants and the fear that is out there may or may not be justified,” said Mark Melson, vice president of Bovis Lend Lease, which is in charge of dismantling the eyesore overlooking Ground Zero.

Consumers seem to be wildly unimpressed by sushi-mercury scares:

Sara Barokas, a substitute teacher, noticed the yellow-and-red signs above the sushi case at the Gourmet Garage market on Broadway: “Protect yourself and your family!!! Mercury in sushi.”

By the time the sliding doors parted and she walked in at noontime on Wednesday, she had also heard about laboratory tests that found high levels of mercury in tuna bought at 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants, including the Gourmet Garage. Its tuna had the second-highest mercury level in the study, 1.25 parts per million.

She bought 12 pieces of tuna sushi anyway.

“It’s something I enjoy,” she said. “I don’t eat sushi every day, so in moderation is it really a problem? It sounds like one of those everyday things they tell us could be harmful. Last week, what was it, caffeine for pregnant women is harmful? That’s common sense.”

Because of course Mary Kate Olsen (in California!) is the first person to think of when someone is unconscious:

“I think he might be dead. I’m calling 911!” masseuse Diane Lee Wolozin finally shouted at the celebrity twin as the hard-partying Ledger’s corpse lay motionless.

“I already have people coming over,” Olsen replied, according to police sources.

. . .

Twenty-four hours after the sudden and stunning death of the 2006 Oscar nominee, police detailed a bizarre sequence of events that included Wolozin setting up a massage table near Ledger’s body.

1 p.m.: Housekeeper Teresa Solomon, on her regularly scheduled Tuesday stop at Ledger’s home, hears him snoring while she’s changing a bathroom light bulb. She looks into the room.

2:45 p.m.: Wolozin arrives at the $24,000-a-month Broome St. apartment 15 minutes early for a 3 p.m. appointment.

3 p.m.: Concerned when Ledger doesn’t appear, Wolozin dials his cell-phone number — and when he doesn’t answer, she walks into his bedroom several minutes later. He’s lying facedown, with the covers pulled up to his shoulders.

3:11 p.m.: Thinking the actor is asleep, Wolozin calls his name while pulling the massage table from a closet. Wolozin then grabs Ledger to shake him awake, but his body is cold to the touch.

3:12 p.m.: The frightened masseuse — who knew Olsen and Ledger — takes Ledger’s cell phone and hits the speed dial for Olsen in California. Olsen instructs the masseuse to hold on, promising to send her security guards.

3:26 p.m.: When Ledger doesn’t respond to a second round of shaking, Wolozin calls back to tell Olsen she is calling paramedics. She dials 911, and the operator instructs her to perform CPR.

3:33 p.m.: Emergency workers and the Olsen security arrive simultaneously. The medical workers move Ledger’s body to the floor for another round of CPR and a shot from a defibrillator.

Because you’re never assured that the amphibians you also get have been raised organically:

A health-conscious Brooklyn mom says she nearly jumped out of her skin when she found a little green frog napping between the leaves of a head of organic lettuce she brought home.

“I jumped away” said 39-year-old Yvonne Brechbuhler, fearing she’d uncovered a dead bug or worse, a slug.

“I didn’t know what it was. But once I realized it was a frog, I was okay.”

The Prospect Heights mom, who doubles as a stage actress, described the tiny visitor no bigger than the tip of her pinky finger as “one tough frog.”

She said first the frog survived a journey from South Florida to the Park Slope Food Coop, then another three days in her refrigerator.

Finally it narrowly escaped being part of a pesticide-free salad she was making last week.

And so it begins:

In the days leading up to Thursday, Jan. 10, the offices of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft were wracked with anxiety. Something was about to go down at the white-shoe law firm with a knack for attracting both celebrities and bedbugs. But nobody knew what.

The availability of conference rooms at Cadwalader is visible on the firm’s intranet, and observant associates noticed that Mitch Walsh, Cadwalader’s executive director, had reserved an entire floor of conference rooms on that Thursday. Patti Ellis, the firm’s head of Associate Development and Recruitment, had reserved another half-dozen conference rooms for the day.

Some speculated that associates were going to be called up to conference rooms and notified individually of their year-end bonuses. Others wondered if a merger was afoot. But the biggest fear was that Cadwalader was about to announce layoffs, and the conference rooms would be used to process the victims. It was a widespread theory, and turned out to be correct. Still, not everyone was prepared.

“I thought I was being called in for my year-end review,” one unlucky associate said. “I totally wasn’t expecting it.”

The associate, who asked to remain unnamed, was among 35 lawyers Cadwalader laid off that morning — the firm called them “targeted personnel reductions” — in its U.S. offices. The laid-off lawyers were in the capital markets and global finance departments, two areas of the practice hit especially hard by the credit crunch.

Can anyone explain how Sewell Chan worked up a coherent news story about Heath Ledger’s death just 71 minutes after the masseuse found the actor unconscious? Get investigators over to Eighth Avenue — now:

At 3:31 p.m., according to the police, a masseuse arrived at the fourth-floor apartment of the building, at 421 Broome Street, between Crosby and Lafayette Streets in SoHo, for an appointment with Mr. Ledger. The masseuse was let in to the home by a housekeeper, who then knocked on the door of the bedroom Mr. Ledger was in. When no one answered, the housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Mr. Ledger naked and unconscious on a bed, with sleeping pills — both prescription medication and nonprescription — on a night table. They attempted to revive him, but he did not respond. They immediately called the authorities.

Manhattan’s Beacon School gets the full Michael Moore treatment from the Treasury Department:

The Beacon School’s field trips to Cuba have generated the interest of the Treasury Department, which is investigating a community group that may have organized the trips.

An official at the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, Dale Thompson, wrote to Pastors for Peace/Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization last year to request records and notify it that his office was “currently conducting a civil investigation of this matter.”

The group supports travel to Cuba, and participants in the Beacon School field trips say the group organized their travel to the communist country. The trips, at least some of which violated federal law, do not appear to have received authorization from top officials at the city’s Department of Education. They did, however, receive the written endorsement of at least two politicians, Lieutenant Governor David Patterson and Rep. Jerrold Nadler. Both later said they were unaware the trip was being undertaken in violation of the federal travel ban.

The city’s Department of Investigation is also looking into the field trips.

More importantly, do parents understand that the school recently performed “Urinetown”?

The question is what was Kevin Sheekey working on in March 2007 that was so hush-hush:

Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey — who’s laying the groundwork for a possible presidential run by Mayor Bloomberg — released 18 months of his private schedules yesterday containing more than 600 passages that were blacked out.

Records of every meeting Sheekey had on nine days in March 2007 were redacted.

City lawyers took markers to virtually every page of Sheekey’s schedules covering Jan. 16, 2006 to June 29, 2007, a period when the Bloomberg presidential rumors were gaining traction.

In all, The Post counted 626 redactions.

Stu Loeser, the mayor’s spokesman, said the schedules released under a Freedom of Information Act request filed last year conformed to the law by withholding information that was personal or security-related.

“Entries are redacted for personal or security reasons,” said Loeser. “If a lunch or an afternoon cup of coffee is personal and not city business, it gets redacted.”

. . .

City workers can’t engage in politics on government time, but are free to do what they want on their own time.

Doug Muzzio of Baruch College said the redactions raised an obvious question: “What is he doing during those hours?”

Some other possibilities: Census shenanigans/PlaNYC coverup, high-stakes pedicab negotiations, containing the powerful Jerry Orbach lobby.