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.”

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?”

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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.

“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.

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.”

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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.

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.

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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.