But apparently national Democrats have no backbone:

A Democrat is struggling to unseat the mayor of the nation’s largest city, but the national party and its top Democratic leaders have been silent.

The Democratic National Committee has said nothing about William Thompson Jr.’s uphill battle to unseat the popular billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

By this point in the last mayoral race in 2005, the DNC had dispatched its then-leader, Howard Dean, to campaign with Bloomberg’s Democratic challenger, Fernando Ferrer.

Well-known Democrats like John Kerry, John Edwards and Tom Daschle had also crossed state lines to help Ferrer.

That and Obama is being a big pussy, too. What did Bloomberg give these people?

Note that they wouldn’t need to sit down with merchants and “retrain” their agents if City Hall wasn’t trying to balance the budget on dubious double-parking tickets:

“New instructions have been given to our traffic agents. The way we issue summonses will be different and we ask our agents to be patient,” said Frank Sepulveda, the NYPD’s director of traffic enforcement for the city. “By the end of this month all our agents should have the new training. We will look at how we can handle difficult summons situations differently.”

. . .

On problems, businessman Dan Texeira led the complaint barrage. “I stopped my car to let off my son. Just then a traffic agent cut off in front of my car and gave me a ticket.

“That wasn’t right,” said Sepulveda.

The Post does the heavy lifting, getting inside of the Standard Hotel and uncovering the horrible truth about the Standard’s viral campaign:

“We don’t discourage it. In actual fact, we encourage it,” a friendly bellhop told a pair of reporters as they checked in yesterday at The Standard, where randy guests cavort with abandon to the dismay — or delight — of parkgoers below.

After the hotel opened late last year, the bellhop said, naked and semidressed staff members were encouraged to pose in front of the windows. The point, he said, was to create a buzz with the unexpected peep show.

“One of the managers even got naked in a room, and filmed it — they were considering a live feed for the Web site,” the staffer said. “She’s an exhibitionist, too.”

Because of course nothing delights a parkgoer more than catching a middle-aged European tourist jacking off in the window . . . so edgy!

Location Scout: High Line.

So not only did DC37 get a generous raise in the midst of a recession — then ungratefully backed Bloomberg’s main competition, making the bribe — er, quid pro quo — effectively moot (and then “forcing” both the Mayor’s office and City Council to give their staffs similar raises) but now the transit workers want the same type of raise. This when the MTA is squawking about bad finances. Everyone — everyone — is to blame here:

Transit workers appear poised to win a generous contract with healthy 4% annual raises and lower health care contributions that could blow a huge hole in the MTA’s finances, sources tell the Daily News.

Despite recent fare hikes and the punishing recession, transit union officials argued that they deserve a 12% hike over three years, partly because city employees have received similar increases.

A three-man arbitration panel is expected to announce the terms of the new contract for bus and subway workers as early as Monday or Tuesday. The expected annual raises of about 4%, 4% and 3.5% would increase Metropolitan Transportation Authority costs by more than $400 million.

Again, think about all this when you see the next fifty or sixty Bloomberg commercials about how he is “independent” and makes the “tough choices” or whatever, because basically any one of the candidates currently running for mayor can suck up to the unions — we didn’t need to get rid of term limits for that.

“We need just one brave Senate Democrat to come to the session so we can pass these and other important bills and move the session forward,” Senate President Pedro Espada said. “It is time for them to end their boycott of the session, come to work and get the people’s business done.” These important bills include but are not limited to:

• Senate Bill 3697, which would rename the Battery Park City Authority the “Hugh L. Carey Battery Park City Authority”
• Senate Bill 1764, which would designate August seventh as “Family Day, a day of commemoration”
• Senate Bill 2398, which would permit correction officers to be color blind
• Senate Bill 1036, which would designate as a day of commemoration, February 14th, to be known as “Congenital Heart Defects Awareness Day” (that’s got to be a joke, right?)

Scary thought of the day: What if instead of mayoral control, the big New York City test score gains are due to George Bush’s No Child Left Behind, as studies seem to indicate?

Democratic candidate William Thompson can opt to pursue this line of argument as need be but maybe it’s safer at this point to rehabilitate Bush than it is to prop up Bloomberg’s juggernautical campaign . . .

[Eduwonk and Education Week links via.]

But truth be told, he’s got a point:

A coney Island developer Wednesday panned the city’s bid to revive the faded seaside resort and all but shut down negotiations to sell property vital to the project.

Speaking publicly for the first time in more than two years, developer Joe Sitt bashed the city’s plan for Coney Island, saying construction on it won’t even start for more than a decade.

“According to their own mouths, they won’t start development on this site for 10 to 15 years,” said Sitt, president of Thor Equities. “So assuming the mayor doesn’t overturn term limits six more times, we’ll be dealing with three mayors from now that will inherit this property.”

The feisty comments came at a Daily News Editorial Board meeting and nearly a year after Sitt first began negotiating to sell 10.5 acres of property that stand in the way of the city’s vision for Coney Island.

With both parties at an impasse, Sitt yesterday suggested that all deals were off unless the city decides to pony up at least $165 million for the vaunted property.

“It’s certainly not for sale at a price where we’re going to lose a substantial amount of money,” said Sitt. “For the city to think that, we’ve never understood it, and we have no interest in selling.”

City officials yesterday said a longstanding offer of $105 million for the property remains final. City sources also insisted that construction on the site — once it is acquired — would begin as early as 2011, but could take a decade to complete.

With just weeks to go before the start of the next fiscal year, the city budget gets really interesting:

The Republican insurrection in Albany could have devastating consequences for city schools and the budget, which both need legislative action by the end of the month.

If lawmakers don’t pass a half-point hike in the city sales tax, Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council will have to plug an $887 million budget hole with deep cuts or a property tax hike.

And city schools would technically revert to control by a Board of Education that no longer exists.

“We would be in uncharted waters,” Bloomberg said last night. “We would have to consult with the lawyers. But the city’s going to go on.

“We will find a way to make sure that we can continue to keep essential services going.”

To be fair he was probably thinking, “It can’t possibly be that important if they’re contacting me . . .”:

On Monday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was fuming. On Tuesday, he was forgiving, characterizing the actions of a low-level manager who failed to notify him or his superiors of a planned flyover exercise in Lower Manhattan as merely a mistake.

Perhaps it was because the mayor had already punished the manager, Marc Mugnos, with a letter of reprimand (and, presumably, a tongue-lashing). Perhaps it was because of all the apologies the city had received — from Mr. Mugnos, most likely, and also from the White House. (President Obama has ordered a review of the matter.)

“The guy just didn’t do it. He read the thing and just didn’t do it,” Mayor Bloomberg told reporters during a news conference at City Hall, referring to Mr. Mugnos’ inaction after receiving an e-mail last Thursday from the Federal Aviation Administration, notifying him of the plans for a flyover by F-16s and a backup to Air Force One. (The New York Police Department also received the same e-mail.)

That might be all in the past for Mr. Bloomberg, but a lot of people out there are wondering who Mr. Mugnos is and why the F.A.A. would pick him to share information about what turned out to be a nerve-rattling event for those who live and work in Lower Manhattan, particularly those who were there on Sept. 11, 2001.

Additional point: There’s a big difference between a “flyover” and a 747 looping around New York Harbor trailed by F-16s.

Earlier: What Kind Of “Photo Shoot” Involves Air Force One Flying At A Low Altitude Over New York Harbor? Publicity For A Harrison Ford Sequel?

If you A) encourage it with park conservancies like the kind you see at Central, Bryant, Madison and Prospect Parks and then B) cut funding and cram more kids into classrooms then you may find that your local school looks more like a public-private partnership than an example of equality of opportunity:

Nearly 200 teaching assistants and other school staffers get their paychecks from the city’s wealthiest PTAs in violation of Department of Education rules.

The PTAs that do the most rogue hiring are on the Upper East and Upper West sides of Manhattan.

Parents at Lower Lab School on Third Avenue pay for 43 extra staff members, the DOE revealed.

The parent groups contend their schools need the extra hands, and some principals encourage staff padding.

Forgive me for saying so — because lord knows animals are so, so cute, cuddly and I just want to slurp them up through a straw — but when I see such crass grandstanding in advance of final budget votes it almost makes me want to root for the UFT to get another fat buyout . . . or for DEP to hire 2,500 more administrative staff . . . or for the Police Department to lower their retirement age to 38:

Layoffs in the city have spread from the piggy traders on Wall Street to the animals at the Bronx Zoo.

The institution is closing four exhibits and shipping hundreds of creatures to zoos and aquariums around the country, officials told the City Council Cultural Affairs Committee yesterday.

Deer, bats, porcupines, foxes, lemurs, caimans and antelopes will be pink-slipped as part of the 114-year-old zoo’s effort to cope with a $15 million budget shortfall.

“We plan to close four exhibits, four areas of the zoo . . . and we will have to reduce our collections in order to handle the cuts that we already know about,” said Bob Cook, executive vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the zoo.

Councilman Domenic Recchia (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the committee, was incredulous when Cook told him the loss of “hundreds” of animals would be permanent — not a temporary fix during the recession.

“It’s much, much more serious than what I even thought it was going to be,” Recchia said.

But perhaps I’m just being surly.

The only difficult thing about rerunning a bunch of city council meetings is that there isn’t that much advertising revenue to skim from. But at least the production quality was raised.

First they came for the cafes and movie theaters, and everyone agreed that even though it’s annoying to hear cellphones during a movie or, god forbid, brunch, it’s probably kind of illegal to jam cellphones. Then the cops tried to argue that jamming cellphones might be useful during a terrorist attack, but people sort of hesitated because it sounds kind of drastic and possibly dangerous for the government to reserve the right to do this. So then they moved on to the cab drivers because, well, fuck those guys, they barely pay attention to you anyway, and it kind of feels good to go after them:

The city may finally silence chatty cabbies — with cell-phone blockers that make their mobile phones unusable, officials said Monday.

Cabbies talking on cell phones continue to be a safety concern for the Taxi and Limousine Commission — and a nuisance to passengers — despite enforcement efforts by the agency, TLC Commissioner Matthew Daus said.

Passengers would still be able to use cell phones, but the front seat would be blocked, Daus said.

The silencing-of-the-cabs concept is one of a slew of possibilities the TLC wants to investigate as it develops next the “Taxicab Passenger Enhancement Program,” Daus said.

Maybe all those cameras everywhere are good for something after all:

Surveillance cameras have captured the faces of criminal suspects in banks, in elevators and on street corners. But they have also surfaced in an unexpected law enforcement role: as evidence against police officers accused of misconduct or of lying on the witness stand.

Two things. One, don’t believe their lies:

A group lobbying against an expansion of the state’s bottle bill is going on the air with the ad below.

The group of bottlers — called New Yorkers for Real Recycling Reform — said in a press release that the ad will air in the Capital Region and around the state starting this week. The message is that an expansion of the bottle bill to include water and juice in addition to beer and soda would make those drinks more costly for consumers.

Jon Pierce, a spokesman for the group, said they will spend in the “mid-six figures” to put the air on cable and broadcast T.V. in Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany and maybe New York City.

Bottlers don’t want this because the unclaimed deposit money will go to the state instead of staying in their grubby mitts — the governor knows, just as the bottlers already know*, that all those cans you just throw into the recycling are a nice source of income.

But two, there is no need for a bottle deposit when the City forces you to recycle in the first place, and puts pressure on you via stiff fines handed out by sometimes rather overzealous garbage cops. So clearly the point of bottle deposits is to raise money, first by the bottling industry (huge scam) and now by the state (huger scam). Screw both of them.

*Dude, if Catsimatidis ran for mayor I would support him on this issue alone — and the mayor has nothing to do with recycling deposits!

Amid explanations of “NYS Base Broadeners”, the Administration for Children’s Services getting their message out, expected union reticence and media snipes at whoever else, a snappy pullout quote (”‘You can only get so much blood out of a stone’ with budget cuts and other measures, the mayor said”) and wildly optimistic revenue projections (”One . . . was the $100 million the city expects to rake in from charging people 5 cents for each plastic bag they use at stores . . . up from the $19 million they estimated it would bring in two month[s] ago . . . [a]n administration official said they simply looked deeper at the numbers, and discovered New York City residents use about 1 billion plastic bags annually”), the Mayor pulls out the threat of eliminating the proverbial school band (or cutting library hours — take your pick):

By law, Mayor Bloomberg was supposed to deliver a balanced budget Friday. What he submitted was a blueprint.

It matches the city’s spending and revenue to the penny, and is sprinkled with the sort of tough threats that grab headlines — like firing 14,000 teachers and hiking the sales tax.

. . .

The governor’s budget cuts $771 million from city school aid. Rather than spread that through different parts of the sprawling Education Department, Bloomberg said every dime of that loss will have to come out of a teacher’s hide, blamed on the governor.

That’s not budgeting — that’s bargaining.

Similarly, Bloomberg’s budget assumes that unions will give up $350 million in health benefits and $200 million in pension contributions.

“This is his starting point, and then there are negotiations,” said Gregory Floyd, head of Teamsters Local 237. Even the mayor’s plan to raise the sales tax by one-quarter point and remove the exemption for clothing is up for discussion.

“Bloomberg’s plan will be the basis for months of negotiations, all against a backdrop of an economy that continues to plummet.

For now, it’s balanced with phantom dollars. Those numbers need to be real by the end of June.

Everything but the kitchen sink, and then that, too:

Michael Bloomberg’s preliminary budget includes plans to lay off 13,930 teachers, and he’s putting the onus on state lawmakers to prevent it.

Here’s what he wants them to do.

The mayor said the state has taken away $770 million in education aid to the city. “What does $770 million translate to?” he asked. “Well, it translates to roughly 14,000 teachers.”

He went on, “I am sympathetic with the state. They don’t have any more extra money than we have.”

The solution, he said, is to have the state pass along the federal education aid they’re receiving from Washington.

The “state can send it to another county, or they can send it to our five counties. They are cutting us more than anybody else,” he said.

When asked what he’d say to parents and teachers worried about the cuts, the mayor said, “I’d call Albany, because that’s what I’m going to be doing.”

Smoke and mirrors, just without bothering with the smoke and mirror part:

Facing unexpected resistance in the City Council over his midyear budget changes, Mayor Bloomberg warned yesterday that he’ll order more drastic agency cuts in two weeks if a deal isn’t reached quickly.

“If we decide to — or have to — send out the [$400 property-tax] rebate or the City Council doesn’t act, the $1.4 billion cut is not adequate, and we will send out another letter next week,” the mayor said.

That letter would be directed at agency heads, who were told on Wednesday to come up with another $1.4 billion in savings starting July 1.

Sources said the chief sticking point in the negotiations is the 7 percent property tax increase that the mayor has asked the council to approve as of Jan. 1 to generate an extra $600 million.

The sources said Bloomberg is willing to accede to the council’s demand that he send out the $400 property-tax rebate to small-home owners this year — but only after it approves the property-tax hike.

On the contrary, this is the most effective remedy for traffic congestion — much cheaper than gadgetry and revenue producing, to boot:

You may have begun to notice more traffic tickets being written. And you may have guessed — correctly — that it has to do with getting New York City more money. Well, brace yourselves, the city is putting 200 more ticket-writing traffic agents to work.

The city’s latest move to close the budget gap is annoying New Yorkers to no end. Soon, you may not be able to avoid the police no matter what you do. Approximately 100 of the agents will be in Manhattan; the other 100 will be spread out across the other boroughs.

“You get stuck out there in the middle; not because you’re not paying attention,” driver Rob Frangavilla said. “People walk across; you’re stuck there. I just think it’s a crazy way to raise money.”

. . .

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly laid out the plan on Tuesday.

“[We will put them] in Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. We will not deploy them right now in Staten Island,” Kelly said.

The agents will be looking primarily for drivers who “block the box” at intersections. That ticket will cost $115.

“Assume the risk”:

A Red Sox fan who got pummeled for cheering on his team at Yankee Stadium should have known to keep his mouth shut, the Bombers said in court papers.

Charles Hillios, who is suing the Yanks for the beat-down, “assumed the risk of foreseeable injury based on his own conduct,” according to a federal court filing.

The team also contends that it’s “not liable for the alleged intentional conduct” of the two goons who battered the Bosox booster inside The House that Ruth Built in August.

On the heels of plastic bags, another plan that masquerades as an environmental initiative but is really a revenue-raising instrument:

Billed as an environmental measure, efforts to require a deposit for juice and water containers never got very far. Now, it’s being put forward, somewhat controversially, as an untapped revenue stream in a tight fiscal circumstance.

One nickel at a time.

Budget officials say those nickels would add up to $25 million this year, and $118 million in the next fiscal year. An expanded bottle bill is in David Paterson’s plan — granted, in the back — to bridge a $1.5 billion end-of-year budget deficit and cut spending for the next budget cycle.

“It may be that it takes an economic crisis to get the bigger better bottle bill passed,” said Laura Haight, senior environmental associate at the New York Public Interest Research Group, which has long advocated the bottle bill’s passage. She said it would bring in even more money than the budget office projected, and would reduce litter and increase recycling by giving consumers a financial incentive not to throw away their garbage.

Here’s the money trail now: you buy a six pack of Rheingold, and pay an additional 30 cents in deposits (5 cents times 6 bottles). If you’re a responsible citizen, you enjoy the Rheingold responsibly, rinse the bottles and return them to the nearest grocery store, which gives you back your 30 cents. The grocery store keeps 12 cents (2 cents per bottle) as a handling fee, and the same distributors that brought you your Rheingold take away the bottles.

If, however, the bottles end up with the rest of the garbage, or lost, or smashed, the beer distributors keep your 30 cents, and use it to offset what it costs them to cart away the responsible citizen’s bottles.

The new proposal would send the thirty cents to the state coffers. Additionally, it would put deposits on everything from Snapple to orange juice containers, increasing the amount of things New Yorkers can return to stores.

Beverage distributors . . . I hate those guys.

No need for referendum, by the way:

Council Speaker Christine Quinn disclosed Thursday that the mayor’s bill will request a permanent extension of term limits instead of a one-time waiver.

The question of whether to extend term limits permanently to three four-year terms from two — rather than just once for Bloomberg and other incumbents — is one of the most contentious aspects of the controversial move.

“As I understand the mayor’s bill, it is a bill that would permanently change term limits from eight years to 12 years,” said Quinn in a seeming slip.

No, not this mayor. “The Mayor’s Dangerous Idea” was the title of a Times editorial in 2001 that argued against Giuliani’s idea to extend his term three months to deal with the aftermath of Sept. 11:

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani wants to extend his current term of office into 2002, postponing the inauguration of a new mayor for several months. This is a terrible idea. Neither New York City nor the nation has ever postponed the transfer of power because the public was convinced it could not get along without the current incumbent. The very concept goes against the most basic of American convictions, that we live in a nation governed by rule of law.

To suggest that the city would be incapable of getting along without Mr. Giuliani after the end of the year undermines New York’s sense of self-sufficiency and normality, which the mayor himself has worked so hard to restore. While Mr. Giuliani has been a great leader during this crisis, the truth is that no one is indispensable. George Washington understood that when he rejected repeated attempts to keep him in office indefinitely. Washington was followed in the presidency by a long line of successors, some of them distinctly mediocre. But the country went on, because people put their faith in the democratic process and not in the strength of any one individual.

Mr. Giuliani has asked his three possible successors to agree to postpone the next inauguration and let him stay on for a few more months to continue his work on the city’s recovery. He and his supporters are holding out the threat that if the mayor is not given his wish, they will mount an attempt to repeal the term limits law so he can run for re-election in November. They argue that he needs just a few extra months to finish the most critical work in the wake of an enormous disaster. But one critical task after another is going to crop up for the foreseeable future. And history suggests that the worst time to change the election rules is right before an election, in a time of crisis.

. . .

Mr. Giuliani already has the ability to make sure the transfer of power is smooth. The mayor should begin working immediately to bring his potential successors up to speed. When he leaves office Jan. 1, he should urge key members of his own administration to stay on to finish the work they are doing if his successor wishes them to stay. The best way for Mr. Giuliani to help New York City after Jan. 1 is not by retaining power but by giving it up in the most generous way possible.

All of which is interesting given the Times’ editorial this morning endorsing Bloomberg’s proposal to temporarily overturn term limits to allow himself and all members of the City Council a chance to run for a third term:

The bedrock of American democracy is the voters’ right to choose. Though well intentioned, New York City’s term limits law severely limits that right, which is why this page has opposed term limits from the outset. The law is particularly unappealing now because it is structured in a way that would deny New Yorkers — at a time when the city’s economy is under great stress — the right to decide for themselves whether an effective and popular mayor should stay in office.

Partly for this reason, and partly to extend their own political careers, a majority of City Council members are thinking about amending the city law to allow elected officials to serve three consecutive terms instead of two. That would permit Mayor Michael Bloomberg to run again in 2009 and could also prolong the service of council members and other senior elected officials. Mr. Bloomberg, who is expected to announce on Thursday that he will seek a third term if he can, likes the idea a lot.

We do, too. But we would go further and ask the Council to abolish term limits altogether — not to serve any individual’s political career but to serve the larger cause of democracy.

Which really is to say, we’re not serious about this at all. Think back to the large outpouring of support for Giuliani after Sept. 11 — “mayor for life” and all that. Does the Times editorial board really — no, seriously, really — think Bloomberg has more good will right now than Giuliani did after Sept. 11?

It makes a lot of people uncomfortable to legislatively rewrite a law that voters have twice approved at the ballot box — in 1993 and 1996. It makes us uncomfortable, too, and we previously took the position that any change should be left to the voters. But we have concluded now that changing the law legislatively does not make us nearly as uncomfortable as keeping it. It is within the rights of the Council, itself an elected body, to do so.

Term limits are seductive, promising relief from mediocre, self-perpetuating incumbents and gridlocked legislatures. They are also profoundly undemocratic, arbitrarily denying voters the ability to choose between good politicians and bad, especially in a city like New York with a strong public campaign-financing system, while automatically removing public servants of proven ability who are at a productive point in their careers.

But again — who exactly — exactly who — is agitating for a change? Is this something families discuss over dinner, expressing fear that their elected representative who is right in the middle of a productive point in his career won’t have had enough time to fulfill his legacy? Or is this coming from the people who would truly be affected by term limits, which is to say, the mayor and the City Council?

The City Council members who want to change the law are not alone. A survey in The Times last month found that at least two dozen local governments are suffering buyer’s remorse about the term limits they adopted, mostly in the 1990s. One common complaint is that they force politicians to focus on small-bore projects that can be achieved quickly rather than visionary ideas. The constant churning also diminishes accountability in governmental institutions like the City Council.

See, elected officials in governments everywhere are unhappy that they only have a limited time in office! As much as I’m excited to let council members explore visionary ideas, I have a feeling New York City will somehow survive.

Then there’s the up-is-down argument that this is actually more democratic:

Most places that are trying to relax term limits are likely to do so via the ballot box, with several referendums due in November. There is a chance that a vote on the issue could be organized early next year in New York in conjunction with special elections to the City Council. But such elections do not attract many voters. In the end, a vote by the Council is probably the most democratic way to address the matter.

And if you don’t like it, vote the bums out:

It is worth repeating: This is a rule that needs to be abolished. If the voters don’t like the result, they can register their views at the polls.

Good idea. It almost makes you want to hope that Bloomberg, despite the millions he will spend, will go down horribly next November.

Ultimately, you have to wonder who is so excited about a third Bloomberg term? The Times’ report clarifies:

With his decision, Mr. Bloomberg is overruling the advice of his top three assistants at City Hall — Deputy Mayors Edward Skyler, Patricia E. Harris and Kevin Sheekey –who have expressed opposition to a third term.

Those aides have told the mayor — at times forcefully — that any campaign to challenge the term-limits law would look like an end run around voters, and could sully his legacy as a reform-minded outsider. Others have told the mayor that they may not remain for a full third term.

In the business community, however, the idea of a Bloomberg third term is popular. At charity balls and on golf courses, executives like the financier Steven Rattner, the developer Jerry I. Speyer and the media mogul Rupert Murdoch have encouraged him to seek a third term.

Got that? Wall Street, a developer and Rupert Murdoch. Given what has happened this past month, do you really want to trust those guys?

. . . decisive action is taken.

Pelosi, you’re killing me here . . .

Hey, pointy-headed technocrats — our economy depends on the right to double park:

As mass transit riders continue to enjoy a quicker commute with the Bx 12 Select Bus Service, business owners along the route are calling it quits.

Norman Ephron, longtime owner of Imperial Linoleum and Carpet Co. Inc., said within 30 days of the lane instillation, seven stores along E. Fordham Road were forced to close due to lack of business. He said the Select Bus Service is to blame.

“Why should customers come to Fordham Road if they can’t park,” the storeowner questioned, referencing the lane that eliminated 40 parking spaces from the heavily trafficked thoroughfare, including a handful in front of his 361 E. Fordham Road establishment.

. . .

After 40 years operating at the same site, he said he’s never once experienced the enormous decrease in business that’s occurred since the Bx12 express bus went into operation at the end of June.

“A lot of my business came from people picking up their carpet and taking it home. Now they can’t pick it up anymore.” His loading area now services the Bx 12.

Ephron said that also for the first time in four decades, nearly 90% of his 35-employee staff is working half days, down from their previous full-time hours.

“I don’t know who thought of the idea but they’re killing us,” he said. “I’ve been sitting her all day and haven’t seen a single customer.”

Believe me, the Mayor can hang with the best of them:

The city has urged the United Nations to stop all public tours of the East Side complex until fire dangers are dealt with — and is stopping public-school tours there, officials said yesterday.

The city had no choice but to make the move for this school year, after the UN spent over 12 months promising heavy-duty renovations to make the complex safe — only to drop many of them, citing the high cost, according to a letter from Marjorie Tiven, the city’s commissioner to the UN.

“The city has no choice but to suspend public schools’ visits to the United Nations,” Tiven, Mayor Bloomberg’s sister, wrote in the letter dated Monday.

The complex lacks a full complement of fire doors that could seal off each building, officials said. Fires could spread quickly in the many open corridors, officials said.

When the United Nations abandoned its promise to install such major fire doors last May, Tiven wrote, the FDNY came up with a suggestion — stop all public tours.

FDNY Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta told The Post, “Until certain things happen [by way of safety measures] . . . we suggested that there not be visitors allowed into the United Nations.

“And so far the UN has not abided by that recommendation,” he said. “And we have no authority over them to order that, but we do have authority to keep our children from the public schools going on tours.”

Location Scout: United Nations.

So bascially Thomas Friedman is holding Peter Vallone, Sr. responsible for the United States’ alarming lack of transportation infrastructure:

As I sat in my seat at the Bird’s Nest, watching thousands of Chinese dancers, drummers, singers and acrobats on stilts perform their magic at the closing ceremony, I couldn’t help but reflect on how China and America have spent the last seven years: China has been preparing for the Olympics; we’ve been preparing for Al Qaeda. They’ve been building better stadiums, subways, airports, roads and parks. And we’ve been building better metal detectors, armored Humvees and pilotless drones.

The difference is starting to show. Just compare arriving at La Guardia’s dumpy terminal in New York City and driving through the crumbling infrastructure into Manhattan with arriving at Shanghai’s sleek airport and taking the 220-mile-per-hour magnetic levitation train, which uses electromagnetic propulsion instead of steel wheels and tracks, to get to town in a blink.

Then ask yourself: Who is living in the third world country?

Buried Lede: Authoritarian regimes can do a lot of cool shit, can’t they?

I don’t know if this makes Red Sox fans seem like huge wusses or Yankees fans seem more fearsome than they actually are:

A Boston Red Sox fan is suing the New York Yankees, saying the team failed to protect him while he attended a game between the two rivals.

Charles Hillios, 40, of Chicopee, Mass., filed a suit yesterday in Manhattan Federal Court, claiming that two Yankee fans assaulted him during a baseball game at Yankee Stadium in 2007.

According to the complaint, Mr. Hillios was cheering for the Red Sox on August 29, when two New York residents began to verbally harass and insult him. An employee of the contracted security unit of Yankee Stadium, Burns International Services Corporation, allegedly noticed the men and warned them to stop or risk being ejected from the stadium.

But when Mr. Hillios left his seat to visit a refreshment stand, he says in the suit, the men “viciously” attacked him, leaving him with serious injuries for which he later required restorative surgeries.

Mr. Hillios faults the Yankees, Burns Security, and the two Yankees fans in the suit, and is asking for more than $75,000 in damages.

Until then, you’re basically an idiot:

Support for a fast food ban in New York is growing among city lawmakers after the Los Angeles City Council passed an unprecedented bill Tuesday that would make the addition of new fast food restaurants in certain areas of the city illegal for at least one year.

“People are literally being poisoned by their diets — LA’s idea deserves serious consideration as we look for holistic solutions to a serious problem. A moratorium may help stem the problem,” Council Member Eric Gioia, who represents Queens, said in a statement yesterday.

*I’m guessing the Pistachio Crusted Duck Foie Gras Terrine (menu) is just as “bad” for you as a Big Mac.

**Three words for you: Foie Gras Napoleon.

. . . keep in mind the demographic you’re falling into:

Where can New York’s nightlife kingpins turn after they’ve conquered West Chelsea and the Hamptons? The Middle East, of course. “Dubai is right now what Las Vegas was ten years ago,” says Josh Kaiser, an owner of Pink Elephant, the 27th Street megaclub. He recently returned from Dubai, where he learned that a chic sheikh might drop up to a quarter-million dollars in a night; he and his partners are planning a branch in a hotel to open there next year.

Earlier: A Freckle On The Face Of The World.

And we’re not talking no fun-and-games “big rock candy mountain” version, either:

Be they surreptitiously sipped from brown paper bags or openly downed from plastic tumblers at movie nights or concerts in an array of parks, drinks of all stripes and potencies surface in force, rather brazenly. And thus the hazy morning of the next summer day is often contemplated through the secondary haze of a hangover.