We Can Work With That

Bloomberg gets Colin Powell — who hasn’t lived in New York since he was growing up in the Bronx — but even with that high-profile “endorsement,” Bill Thompson is now just ten points behind:

City Controller William Thompson has narrowed the gap between him and big-spending Mayor Bloomberg to 10 points in a new Quinnipiac University poll — down from a 22-point margin just a month ago.

Bloomberg would win 47% of the vote in a hypothetical matchup compared with 37% for Thompson, the poll found — versus the 54-to-32 lead he had in mid-June.

“Now there’s a little life in the mayoral race,” said Quinnipiac pollster Maurice Carroll. “Thompson is closer than Democrat Fernando Ferrer was at this point in 2005.”

Bloomberg’s campaign shrugged off the poll numbers, saying they seemed to be influenced by a wording change. Last month’s poll called the mayor an independent, but the new one noted he is running as an independent and a Republican.

And then there’s Tony:

Some colleagues question Mr. Avella’s temperament and world view. He often acts, they say, as if he is the smartest person in the room, and he has a temper. He also evinces little interest in national or international affairs.

They act like that’s a bad thing! A mayor isn’t supposed to be interested in international affairs. A mayor needs to be primarily interested in fixing potholes. Any port in a storm . . .

Tap Those Tracks, Then Tax Them

The $170 million High Line project is a great way to raise property values, so it makes sense to find new ways to pay for all those thin wooden planks that will surely have to be replaced sooner rather than later:

Facing crowds that are much larger than expected and with the recession putting a crimp in fund-raising, the High Line’s founders are proposing a business improvement district that would tax nearby property owners.

“We want to make sure we can keep maintaining the High Line to this level that has worked so well,” said Friends of the High Line co-founder Robert Hammond. “We’ve been talking about it for a while, but now it’s becoming more of a necessity.”

Hammond said that weekend crowds have averaged 20,000 visitors a day, while weekdays typically draw between 6,000 and 10,000 visitors — about four times as many as predicted before the park’s opening on June 9.

With the added crowds have come higher maintenance costs, Hammond said.

. . .

A business improvement district would raise about $1 million a year, leaving Friends of the High Line to come up with the balance from donations and fund-raisers.

The annual fee for the owner of a 1,000-square-foot apartment would range from $30 to $90, depending on where they live.

“When we were planning the park, we didn’t know we’d be in the middle of a recession when it opened,” Hammond said, adding that the group has raised enough money to be able to keep up with the costs for the next year.

Do you ever wonder why the city took such an interest in a 15-foot-wide $170 million project? I do, too.

Location Scout: High Line.

Leading Economic Indicators: Younger Interns

In this tough economy, a young person is forced to explore internship opportunities as early as he possibly can:

A subway rider says he got the shock of his life when he peered into the cab and saw a kid behind the controls alongside the driver.

“I saw him driving. He couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9,” said Jules Cattie, 41. “That has to be the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Cattie, a lawyer who lives on the East Side, said he spotted the child after he got into the front car of a Lexington Ave. express train Sunday.

“I was just in shock,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is really dangerous.'”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority yesterday said it has launched “a vigorous and thorough investigation” into the charge.

Everyone Has A Narsty Subway Story

And if the MTA has its way, there will be fewer outrageous subway stories to share with friends and family:

To dramatize the effects of budget cuts on subway cleanliness, the head of New York City Transit on Monday described a recent incident in which someone used an entrance to the Rector Street station in Lower Manhattan as a public bathroom.

“We are in a situation where, between 4:30 a.m. and noon, we are not staffed to deal” with that, the president of New York City Transit, Howard H. Roberts Jr., said at a meeting with the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. (Mr. Roberts’s exact choice of words, which included a relatively graphic description of the events, elicited grimaces from many of the spectators.)

The Daily News confirms it was “human feces,” obviously the best kind of feces.

I Know Why The Released Dove Clings

Seems like bad luck to release doves on your wedding day that end up stranded in the park, clinging to life:

More than two dozen helpless albino ringneck doves — presumably released into the wilds of Queens as part of a wedding celebration — were clinging to life yesterday in a stand of trees after surviving a weekend of storms, heat and predators.

“People are looking to celebrate something joyful, and here they have birds that have never flown released into the air. They have no knowledge of how to find food, and they will literally starve to death,” said Rita McMahon of the Wild Bird Fund.

The birds were found Saturday in a tree near the park and next to the New York Hall of Science, numbering as many as 45 at the start of the weekend.

Location Scout: Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.