When he canceled school yesterday for the first time in five years, Mayor Bloomberg had to deal with two storms: one from Mother Nature, which dumped eight inches of snow on New York, and another from schoolkids’ moms, furious the last-minute decision forced them to scramble for child care.

. . .

For Bloomberg, it was a snow-win situation. Knowing that so many parents depend on the schools to take care of their kids, the city waited until the last possible moment, 5:39 a.m., to cancel classes for the first time since Jan. 28, 2004.

For that day, Bloomberg made his announcement the night before — and it caused outrage the next day, when the storm turned out not to be as severe as had been forecast and parents groused that they had taken off work for no reason.

This time, the city wanted to make sure that the storm was not overblown, Bloomberg said, adding the thought should have occurred to most parents.

“If you got up this morning, looked outside, and the question didn’t come to you right away, ‘Hmm, I wonder whether or not school is going to be open today,’ and you didn’t know enough to call 311, I would suggest another day in school’s probably a good idea,” the mayor said at a briefing.

“I mean, come on,”[*] he added. “Looking outside, it’s a legitimate question, and you know how to get an answer.”

*Remember, Bloomberg is at his most unbecoming when he reverts to the “Come on . . .” trope.

A plan to plant a million trees is being met with opposition from homeowners not in the loop on where they are planted.

Under the city initiative, a property owner’s consent is not a requirement for the city to plant a street tree in front of their property.

“To us it’s identity theft because anybody can request a tree to be planted in front of your house,” said Dyker Heights property owner Sonny Soave, who has been fighting with the city on the initiative ever since a neighbor requested a tree in front of his house.

Soave said he stopped the operation as planters readied to put the tree down in front of his house, but has little hope he will get more than a stay of execution.

Among his complaints is that the tree will take up too much sidewalk space in front of his house. He also says that the gas shut-off main and the sewer pipe are right below that.

Soave said he also complained the tree roots will eventually break or lift the sidewalk and the Parks Department told him he would be long dead by the time that happened.

“We were told the tree costs a thousand dollars each to buy and plant and if you times that by a million that’s a billion dollars,” said Soave. “To him (Bloomberg) trees are more important than anything else. He is cutting back on the Fire Department, Police Department and teachers. Now what do we do when we need help, call a tree?”

The Parks Department is actively courting residents to come forward encouraging them to suggest the planting of trees on their block, even in front of a neighbor’s house.

A section of the House version of the bill provides $1.7 billion to address “critical deferred maintenance needs” within the nation’s park system.

The bill doesn’t specifically mention the big-bucks rehab, but Castle Clinton is on a list of “top priority” projects the feds want to fund, according to a House Appropriations Committee aide who reviewed an agency list.

The aide put the price tag at $5.6 million to begin the renovation of the fort as an outdoor music venue, based on information the administration provided.

Location Scout: The Battery.

“Idiots, start your engines!”

That’s what hundreds of contestants heard Saturday at the start of New York’s sixth annual Idiotarod — a local take on Alaska’s Iditarod dog-sled race that replaces dogs with people, and sleds with shopping carts.

Teams of four runners and one driver navigate homemade carts from checkpoint to checkpoint along a mystery route only revealed as the race goes on via text messages. Organizers say the map is kept secret by design in order to keep police from intervening along the way.

An NYPD helicopter hovered above the starting line at E. 60th St. and York Ave. and it followed teams across the Queensboro Bridge to the first checkpoint at Queensbridge Park.

“We just crossed the Queensboro Bridge in a shopping cart!” yelled Floyd Olson, 19, a Tufts University student who came to to the city for the competition.

“I know tenants have money—in the past some have given me $400,” says one doorman* who works at a historic building on Park Avenue at 62nd Street. “The lowest tip is usually $20. But we’re preparing for tips to be even lower this year.” In an effort to generate larger gifts, staffers say they’re scurrying to deliver packages with a smile. But they’re also employing intimidation tactics.

“I’ve seen the doormen taking notes,” says a nervous 28-year-old writer who lives with her boyfriend on the UWS. She’s been lucky to hold on to her job, but she reports that the value of her investment portfolio has plummeted. “When people give them the envelope, they mark it down. When I moved into the building in 2005, I was planning to give $80 to the doorman, but I talked to someone else who lived here, who said she was giving $200, so I felt guilted into giving $100. I’m sure I give a lot less than others in the building, so when the staff doesn’t come quickly if I call down for help with deliveries, I fear it’s because I didn’t tip enough.”

She’s probably right. At a luxury building at Fifth Avenue and 60th Street, the shop steward says, “Anything under $50 is considered a bad tip. Some tenants give $20, a few give $400 and some don’t give at all—and I can tell you the staff treats [the nongivers] differently. If a bad-tipping tenant calls down for help, the doormen make them wait a little longer. The biggest tippers get the best service.” The doorman of a chichi co-op at Park Avenue and 55th Street says that while even chintzy tippers get bare-bones service, he’s developed tactics for exacting revenge: “Let’s say you pull up in a cab with a bunch of packages. Maybe I’ll just happen to be on the phone.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg went shopping on Saturday, and all he bought his girlfriend was a pair of fleece gloves for $29.99.

Oh, and he bought them at a Modell’s Sporting Goods — specifically the one at the Queens Center Mall in Elmhurst. It’s safe to say that most people who live in Mr. Bloomberg’s neighborhood, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, have probably never pulled their credit cards out at that particular mall.

Though there is a Modell’s on Third Avenue near 86th Street, a few blocks from Mr. Bloomberg’s town house, and another on Chambers Street, close to City Hall, Mr. Bloomberg chose to shop in Queens because “he is the mayor of all five boroughs,” said a spokesman, Jason Post.

. . .

Flanked by aides and police detectives, and with his companion, Diana Taylor, at his side, Mr. Bloomberg arrived at Modell’s around 10 a.m., wearing a stylish navy blue jacket over a baby blue sweater. A phalanx of reporters had come by to witness the occasion and figure out what (and how much) the billionaire mayor would buy.

“I’m going to look very carefully, but I know what I’m getting already,” Mr. Bloomberg told them.

. . .

Modell’s was nearly empty as the mayor shopped. Upstairs, Joann Rice-Daniels, 46, and Adebowal T. Kiladejo, 39, meter collectors for the city’s Transportation Department, were buying gloves. Downstairs, Boris Davydov, 38, and his 14-year-old son, David, were buying socks and dumbbells.

“The mayor is always with the people,” Mr. Davydov said gleefully as he snapped a picture of Mr. Bloomberg with his cellphone.

Mr. Bloomberg paid for his purchases in cash and outside, he joked about the gloves he bought for Ms. Taylor.

“I just got Diana’s gift,” he said.

“I have them,” Ms. Taylor said from behind a cluster of reporters, holding a shopping bag with the gloves in it.

“Look, she’s got them already,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “I’ve just got to get a card to go with it.”

It is impossible to quantify how many affluent parents have trimmed allowances in recent months — or how many of their offspring, in turn, have sought either formal employment or odd jobs. But interviews with dozens of teenagers, parents, educators and employers suggest that many youngsters from well-to-do families seem to have found a new work ethic as the economic crisis that has pummeled their family stock portfolios and jeopardized their parents’ jobs has also led to less spending money for Saturday night movies or binges at Abercrombie & Fitch.

Lizzy Goodman was one of the fortunate ones of the class of 2002; upon graduating from Penn, she had a job lined up as an assistant teacher at Buckley, the all-boys school on the Upper East Side. Six years later, she’s an editor at large at Blender. Like some of her peers, she seems hopeful that, instead of being a harbinger of utter doom, this crash will instead level the playing field just a little bit.

“I don’t think anyone is hoping for American financial collapse just so that the Bowery can be seedy again,” said Ms. Goodman, who lives in the West Village. “But on the other hand, if in the wake of this collective shuttering and fearing comes a return to old school ’80s boho New York, I would certainly be in favor of that.”

Fortunately for her, there are literally hundreds of us who consider our subscription to Blender to be utterly indispensible.

The traders at the New York Stock Exchange went berserk on Tuesday over the hottest commodity at the Beijing Olympics, circling Michael Phelps like sharks.

There was barely room to breathe on the floor as people pushed to get close to Phelps, who won a record eight gold medals and set seven world records.

Phelps rang the opening bell, or at least that was the original plan. On the platform alongside his fellow United States Olympic swimming champions Ryan Lochte and Natalie Coughlin, Phelps was so tired that he was tottering, so Coughlin discreetly did the honors.

“Michael was just kind of jet-lagged,” Coughlin said.

On the floor, he was besieged by autograph seekers. One trader held up a magazine with Phelps on the cover for him to sign and said, “My wife wants to marry you.” When told that Phelps, who was in the middle of a television interview, would not be signing anything more, the trader said, indignantly, “Is his hand broken?”

Or was that Las Vegas trip a little draining?