As in, come for the bellinis, stay for the $18.95 bowl of minestrone*:

A Cipriani restaurant without a liquor license: aphorisms about dogs without bones spring to mind. How could it go on? And would it even be possible?

On Wednesday, the State Liquor Authority charged several affiliated Manhattan restaurants run by Giuseppe Cipriani and his father, Arrigo, with multiple violations of state laws, and threatened the maximum penalty: revocation of their liquor licenses.

Interviews with people in the restaurant business on Friday suggest that it would not be easy or even practical for the Ciprianis to continue to operate as a dry minichain, but that resourcefulness might go a long way. “They should look at it as an opportunity to get creative,” said Karine Bakhoum, a restaurant publicist.

The Ciprianis run the Rainbow Room, Harry Cipriani and several other restaurants and catering halls in Manhattan. The famous Harry’s Bar in Venice, opened in 1931 by Arrigo Cipriani’s father, is the flagship property of the empire. Ernest Hemingway was its best-known patron, and the bellini — Champagne with peach purée, juice or schnapps — its primary contribution to civilization.

Ms. Bakhoum said that in 2006, she represented Novo, a restaurant that had just opened on Hudson Street before being granted its liquor license. “It had a wonderful Latino menu, so we did a campaign with a water bar and fresh juices,” she said. “You could design your own water, with fruits and extracts. We made it a differentiation point rather than a detraction point. We found that many people weren’t interested in drinking alcohol because of the caloric content.”

Still, restaurateurs say that alcohol sales can account for more than half their revenue — with much higher profit margins than from food sales. The Cipriani chain’s logo depicts a bartender mixing drinks. Can you imagine a bellini built on fortified water?

Another point of inspiration might be called the Club Kalua strategy. Club Kalua is the nightspot in Queens where Sean Bell was shot to death by police officers in November 2006. The subsequent loss of the club’s liquor license became an opportunity to unburden the dancers of bikini tops, and it became a topless club (serving virgin passion-fruit mojitos and Red Bull cocktails).

“You lose a lot of business,” said Roger Duran, Club Kalua’s owner. Still, he said, “It’s working very well for me at the moment.” The patrons who stayed? “They go for the girls, basically.”

*Or the much vaunted $36.95 lasagna:

Over the years the Cipriani restaurant family and its employees have faced charges of sexual harassment, insurance fraud and tax evasion, the last leading to guilty pleas by two family members in July.

But the crime that comes to mind first when I think of the Ciprianis is highway robbery. Based on my recent experience, that’s what happens almost any time Harry Cipriani on Fifth Avenue serves lunch or dinner.

In case you thought it would be a good thing for the City to control transportation projects, there’s this — Hizzoner paying a little too much attention to the wrong parts of the Power Broker:

Bloomberg said Friday that a week or two ago, developer Jerry Speyer expressed concerns about whether the city would complete the 7 subway line extension critical to the $1 billion project.

“If I were you,” the mayor said he told Speyer, “I would make absolutely, positively sure that we are going to build that subway before I put one dime of my own money in.”

The MTA’s announcement Thursday night that it had canned the Tishman-Speyer deal came without warning to the mayor, City Hall insiders said.

. . .

Neither Bloomberg staffers nor Tishman-Speyer representatives would discuss the outcome of the hour-long talk at Bloomberg’s London apartment Friday.

“The plan isn’t dead by any means,” Bloomberg said before the sitdown. “All these things go though many cycles.

“The No. 7 line is going to get done,” the mayor added, “and it will be so far along before I leave office that nobody’s going to be able to stop it.”

Plans for the site include thousands of units of housing, commercial skyscrapers, a school and parkland.

Oh, well as long as there’s a park — and a school! — Robert Moses would smile, since he popularized the “get as far along as possible and make ‘em take it back down” philosophy of urban planning (recently embraced by Bruce Ratner, among others).

More NYC & Company overreach:

Tree-lined Henry Street was briefly turned into one long billboard, but Brooklyn Heights residents erupted after seeing commercial banners on the mostly residential street, so the city removed them.

On Monday, banners reading “Brooklyn loves to shop” were hung on lampposts from Clark to Montague streets — and locals slammed the commercialization of the strip.

“I absolutely detest them,” said Veronica Rylander, 48. “They’re so out of place here above all these houses. I feel like it cheapens the look of the neighborhood.”

For Liana Schwartz, 36, it wasn’t the aesthetics, but the practicality of the banners that provoked her disdain.

“I just don’t even get why they’re hanging here,” said Schwartz. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to put them Downtown or on streets where there are actually places to shop?”

After The Brooklyn Paper started asking local officials about the appropriateness of posting ads in a residential corridor, the banners were taken down and relocated to commercial Court Street on Wednesday morning.
Brooklyn Bridge Realty

The banners — which are sponsored by Greek natural skincare company Korres, which just opened on Montague Street, and NYC& Co., the city’s tourist board — also annoyed people who think tourism officials don’t get Brooklyn — or maybe get it too well.

“They put those signs on Henry because they know there are lots of cars speeding through here,” said one man.

The one-stop shopping and railroading may be dead after all:

Six weeks after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority selected Tishman Speyer Properties to build a vast complex of office towers, apartment buildings and parks over the railyards on the West Side of Manhattan, the deal has fallen apart.

Gary Dellaverson, the authority’s chief financial officer, said the negotiations foundered Thursday afternoon after Tishman Speyer insisted on changing the terms of the $1 billion development, which both parties had agreed to on March 26.

. . .

. . . critics of the deal said that it should never have been made, especially since the financing for a key element for West Side development, the extension of the No. 7 subway line, had not been resolved. At the same time, plans for the expansion of the nearby Javits Convention Center had collapsed. And given the sour real estate market, critics said the developer was getting an inexpensive development option.

“This deal was unhealthy from the get-go,” said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky. “It never met the needs of the M.T.A.’s capital plan. The 7-line commitments were never sustainable. And in the end, every single West Side project is in various state of collapse.”

Law firms forced to slum it in Brooklyn:

The Atlantic Yards project may be falling apart on Bruce Ratner, but the developer released some big news for his Metrotech office complex Downtown: the Manhattan law firm of Weil, Gotshal is moving to Brooklyn.

Forest City Ratner Vice President Mary Anne Gilmartin made the announcement at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable on Tuesday that the 500-lawyer white shoe firm would soon relocate to Metrotech.

“It’s a paragon shift from back-office to more-discerning tenants,” she said.

Update . . .

Highlighting the importance of keeping up appearances (as in, the economy actually grew 0.6 percent last quarter so we’re doing very well, thank you very much), the law firm denies the horrible accusation:

The Atlantic Yards project may be falling apart on Bruce Ratner, but the developer released some big news for his Metrotech office complex Downtown: the Manhattan law firm of Weil, Gotshal is moving part of its office to Brooklyn.

Forest City Ratner Vice President Mary Anne Gilmartin made the announcement at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable on Tuesday, but said that the 500-lawyer white shoe firm would soon relocate to Metrotech. That turned out to be untrue, as a press release from the company said only some back-office staffers would relocate to 15 Metrotech, which is on the office complex’s commons, between Myrtle Avenue and Tech Place.

[Gersh, you're killing me, buddy -- here I am ready to sit down with a tall glass of scotch and then . . .]

A question? Kill it:

Nearly five dozen women now say they faced sex discrimination because they became pregnant while employees of the financial-news company Mayor Bloomberg founded — and the number of alleged victims is growing, a federal employee-rights lawyer said.

A class-action lawsuit against Bloomberg LP named three victims when it was filed in September. But that number has ballooned as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission continues to interview women at the company, said EEOC attorney Raechel Adams.

At a court conference yesterday, Adams told Manhattan federal Judge Loretta Preska that 58 women have joined the case as her office continues to interview some 475 employees who took maternity leave since 2002, all potential class-action members.

The suit, filed in September, claims supervisors at Bloomberg LP sidelined women after they revealed that they were pregnant and systematically denied them promotions and demoted them.

William Dealy, a lawyer for the original named plaintiffs, said, “They’re encouraged because in unity there’s strength.”

Mayor Bloomberg blew up at a reporter yesterday when asked about the lawsuit following a budget presentation.

“What does this got to do with the budget?” the mayor snapped angrily. “I have absolutely no idea. You’ll have to talk to the company.

“And next time don’t bother to ask us a question. You stick to topic. Everybody else plays by the rules. You’ll just have to as well. Thank you very much.”

OK, so about that budget. What’s the deal with continuing a $400 rebate if there are multi-billion dollar deficits expected until the next Olympic Games? We should kill that, too:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, warning that the boom in real estate and on Wall Street has come to an end, unveiled a $59.1 billion budget Thursday that would virtually halt the growth in city spending for the first time since the economic downturn following 9/11.

Despite the darkening economic picture, Mr. Bloomberg called for preserving a popular $400 property tax rebate and a 7 percent reduction in the property tax rate, although he said he expected that the city would have to raise property taxes by July 2009.

Let us have our raw milk:

Brooklyn raw milk enthusiasts are crying over the loss of their supplier — a horse and buggy-driving Amish farmer from Pennsylvania.

Mark Nolt of New Line, Pa., was arrested and shut down last Friday for selling the contraband.

“Oh God. My heart is pounding. I can’t believe what a God—- police state this is,” said one Brooklyn customer who made monthly pickups of raw dairy products from Nolt that the farmer had dropped off in Manhattan by workers.

“I gave him $100 last week for a huge delivery of stuff, including raw cream that I planned on using to make cream puffs,” she said.

The Brooklyn outcry came after six Pennsylvania state troopers raided Nolt’s farm and confiscated his illegal dairy.

“They swooped in on Friday morning like a bunch of Vikings, handcuffed me and stole $30,000 worth of my milk, cheese and butter,” Nolt told the Daily News.

Nolt is a devout Mennonite who sells raw dairy products at his farm and has them transported by truck to customers in Delaware and across New York City, where the raw goods are illegal.

It is a violation of federal law to transport raw milk across state lines with the intent to sell it for consumption. Nolt was arrested for not having a permit to sell the goods in Pennsylvania, where they are allowed.

He said he was working on the farm with his wife and 10 children when the agents cuffed him on charges of selling the contraband to an undercover officer.

“The government doesn’t have the right to dictate what I eat, and never will,” said an unrepentant Nolt.

Around the city, more and more parents are signing up to find out where dropoff points are to pick up raw milk they have bought online.

To get around the law, no money changes hands. Milk pickup spots are posted in Williamsburg, Queens and neighborhoods in Manhattan — where a milk truck waits.

And who killed the raw milk trade? You did!

Blame NYC & Company, blame a weaker and weaker dollar for why Sex and the City is premiering in London:

Is Carrie Bradshaw fooling around on New York?

Absofrickinlutely not! say the makers of the “Sex and the City” movie after news broke Monday that the flick will debut first across the pond.

“Sex and the City: The Movie” will show in London’s Leicester Square on May 12 — two weeks before its much-anticipated debut in New York.

“London will be much smaller,” a New Line spokesman said. “The whole cast isn’t even going.”

Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis all will make the trip, but other big names, including Mr. Big himself, Chris Noth, and Jennifer Hudson, will not.

. . .

Overseas premieres are hardly a new concept when it comes to blockbuster movies with large casts and lots of planning. “Spider-Man 3,” “Lord of the Rings” and “Wedding Crashers” all had world premieres outside the U.S.

There’s also hope the British debut will stoke overseas obsession with all things Carrie - and all things New York.

“It creates additional buzz for our U.K. customers,” said Cathy Epstein, marketing directing of New York-based On Location Tours, which runs a daily “Sex and the City” Hotspots tour.

“Anything that brings more tourists to New York is good for our restaurants,” said Chuck Hunt, executive vice president of the New York State Restaurant Association.

And even though The News has learned that Mayor Bloomberg’s cameo has been cut, a City Hall spokesman said the film, which employed more than 1,750 cast and crew over the 50 days of shooting in the city, will “draw even more tourists to our city and pump more money into our economy.”

As a matter of fact, I do:

A Bronx City Councilwoman earmarked thousands of taxpayer dollars for a tenants association in her former apartment building — an association residents say doesn’t exist.

Councilwoman Maria Baez, a Democrat representing the Fordham and Kingsbridge sections, allocated $7,500 of her Fiscal Year 2008 discretionary funds to the 2401 Davidson Avenue Tenants Association, a group supposedly located in the six-story building she called home until 2005.

The building is also the registered headquarters for her campaign committee, “Friends of Maria Baez,” and home to her campaign treasurer, Nilda Velazquez, who lives in Baez’s former apartment.

But the building’s superintendent and more than a dozen residents interviewed at the 60-unit building said there is no tenants association.

“There’s no association here,” said Elias Guerra, the super.

The regular postal carrier said she couldn’t remember ever delivering a piece of mail to any tenants organization in the building.

Some residents remembered a now-disbanded organization — which last met four years ago.

“We don’t have one anymore,” said Vicky Reyes, listed as the treasurer of the defunct tenants group on an old flier. She said Baez was a member when she lived there.

Reyes said the association dissolved after the former president left several years ago, and hadn’t been active for about four years. She wasn’t aware of anyone trying to revive it.

Velazquez declined comment through family members.

Staffers at Baez’s Bronx district office told a Post reporter, “You’re not welcome here.”

Baez accused The Post of harassing her staff members, and said she only allowed constituent business to be conducted in her office.

She declined to answer specific questions about the tenants group.

“I will not allow anyone to assassinate my character as a Latina woman,” she said.

She added that the organizations she funds are “good organizations” that “provide important services for the community.”

Before the $7,500 could be paid to the tenants association, the council yanked the funding during the vetting process, council spokeswoman Maria Alvarado told the Post. She would not say when or why the funding was nixed.

Earlier: Budget Cuts Run Deep; Administration Even Asks City Council Members To Curtail Funding Of Phantom Community Groups.

$354 million, now safely on its way to Los Angeles, where I hear they actually have a pretty bad traffic problem:

Los Angeles snagged a $213 million federal grant to help speed traffic along its clogged highways — winning a big chunk of the $354 million New York had to give up when the Legislature killed congestion pricing.

“It’s safe to say they’re loving New York in L.A. today,” U.S. Department of Transportation spokesman Brian Turmail said Friday after announcing the award.

New York had been guaranteed the pot of cash to set up a congestion pricing system but lost it when Albany killed the plan behind closed doors without voting this month.

Turmail said DOT has not yet decided what cities will split the remaining $141 million.

Chicago is one of them, Mayor Bloomberg said.

“Like Los Angeles, Chicago has also benefitted from New York’s loss and last week Mayor [Richard] Daley thanked Mayor Bloomberg,” said spokesman John Gallagher.

Oh well . . . at least we’ll always have those 18,000 trees . . .

So at this rate, it will only take $545 million more to reach the lofty goal of 1 million new trees:

David Rockefeller and Mayor Michael Bloomberg — two of the city’s biggest philanthropists — spent yesterday afternoon in front of East Harlem’s Thomas Jefferson public housing complex, where they planted a rosebud tree. They hope it is just one of many.

Rockefeller gave $5 million to help fund the mayor’s initiative to plant 1 million trees as part of PlaNYC, his sustainability agenda for the city. Bloomberg matched Rockefeller’s gift with his own $5 million.

“We’re all in this together,” Bloomberg said. “We shouldn’t wait for others to do it.” Not only do the trees provide shade and clean the air, he said, they “also improve property values.”

The $10 million announced yesterday will cover the cost of 18,000 new trees, “nearly three-quarters of all the trees in Central Park,” Bloomberg said.

. . .

He expects to have 250,000 of the 1 million trees in the ground before he leaves office. But then what? The initiative is funded by charitable donations and has no legal mandate.

“They should plant jobs,” added Olga Bernabi, who works at the Jefferson Houses library. “I know a lot of people getting pink slips.”

Central Park has 26,000 trees in 840 acres (31 trees an acre). New York City (at 322 square miles) has 206,080 total acres — 1 million new trees means adding 4.8 trees to each acre of land in the city. A city block is 2.5 acres. That’s 12 new trees on each city block . . . in addition to the 592,130 street trees, which have stocked city streets to 73% capacity, with room for 220,000 more trees. So then there are 780,000 left to be accounted for . . . um, has anyone figured out where all the new trees will go? And don’t tell us that this will simply replace old trees because that’s just cooking the books . . .

A “spur of the moment, kind of a humorous kind of thing”:

An ambitious Queens councilman is raising eyebrows by appearing in paid ads for an auto dealership while sponsoring legislation urging New Yorkers to buy new cars.

“Are you going to buy a Paragon Honda hybrid?” WABC radio host Curtis Sliwa asked Councilman Hiram Monserrate in one of two ads on the station last month.

“Well, Curtis, the answer to that is absolutely yes,” Monserrate responded in the live spot. “My next car will be a hybrid, and I’ll be shopping at Paragon.”

. . .

The move is especially unusual because Monserrate is pushing a law that would benefit Paragon, lifting fees at parking meters and municipal lots for a year after drivers buy a hybrid vehicle. Monserrate announced the legislation at Paragon’s Woodside location in March.

Monserrate is also backing two Council resolutions asking the state for tax breaks for owners of hybrid vehicles.

. . .

Monserrate, a Democrat, said he was not paid to be in the ads. Campaign finance records showed no contributions to him from Paragon or its employees.

“I had the opportunity for 15 seconds to talk about a very important bill,” he said. He didn’t expect Sliwa to put him on the spot about shopping at Paragon, said Monserrate, who owns a traditional Honda Civic he did not buy at the dealership.

“It was spur of the moment,” he said. “It was kind of a humorous kind of thing.”

Earler: You Know What Else Protects The Environment? Taking The Bus, Subway Or — Wow, Just Think Of It! — Even Walking.

You could look at it this way, as in “Thanks, Shelly”:

With the death of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan, a host of mass transit projects promised to skeptical lawmakers to garner their votes is in danger. For instance, Staten Island will not get 33 new express buses that would have been purchased with a federal grant attached to the mayor’s proposal.

The borough also may not benefit from the North Shore Alternatives Study that would have examined solutions to ease the commutes between the Island and Manhattan and the Island and Jersey City. The long-talked-about study also would have explored the restoration of rail service on the former North Shore Rail right of way.

The study, which would cost at least $3 million, was included in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $29.5 billion, five-year capital plan. Transportation sources say the long-term items in the under-funded plan would be among the first casualties as the agency scrambles to find a source of funding to compensate for the $354 million from the federal government that would have attended congestion pricing.

Or you could realize that the $200-plus million the city was going to spend on implementing congestion pricing or the $767 million the MTA was going to supposedly spend to accommodate new riders would buy a whole lot of of express buses . . .

$354 million isn’t as much as you think, and $1 billion is significantly harder to just slip in unnoticed:

Critics of Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan are charging that the revised legislation under consideration in Albany rests on an accounting trick that makes it appear as if the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey would share in the costs by contributing $1 billion toward the program.

In fact, as critics of congestion pricing are pointing out, the $1 billion is not a new source of money but would be taken out of capital funds that the authority has already set aside for the state under its 10-year capital projects plan, which was approved in December 2006.

“The use of Port Authority funds is a sleight of hand to disguise flaws in the plans,” a Democratic assemblyman of Queens, Michael Gianaris, said.

. . .

Under the revised legislation, if the Port Authority didn’t contribute $1 billion toward the MTA capital plan, New Jersey motorists using the Hudson River crossings would be forced to pay up to $3 more in congestion fees.

“This amended bill also now includes provisions that will make it certain that commuters who use Hudson River Port Authority crossings are contributing their share of revenue to the MTA capital plan, which will result in more funds for mass transit improvements throughout our region,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement.

After the amended bill was announced, critics of congestion pricing in the Legislature wondered where the Port Authority money would come from.

A high-level Assembly aide said yesterday that critics were “suspicious” of the source of the funds but hadn’t determined what part of the Port Authority budget would be used.

As it turns out, according to public officials, the authority money exists as unallocated funds for regional transportation projects essentially under the control of New York’s governor.

“Practically, all it would do would be to shift money from other New York projects, and that is a three-card Monte game,” a Democratic assemblyman of Westchester, Richard Brodsky, said.

Budget problems fixed . . . that was painless:

The New York City Council has appropriated millions in taxpayer dollars in recent years to organizations that did not exist, Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn disclosed on Thursday.

The maneuver, in which funds were set aside for fictitious groups like the Coalition of Informed Individuals and Senior Citizens for Equality, allowed Council members to spend the money later on community programs they supported without obtaining the mayor’s approval.

The practice dates to at least 2001 and encompasses the tenures of the previous two speakers, Peter F. Vallone Sr., and Gifford Miller, according to Ms. Quinn.

Since 2001, about $17.4 million has been budgeted for dozens of fake community groups, according to documents provided by Ms. Quinn’s office.

“I was obviously deeply troubled when I found out about this information,” Ms. Quinn said at a news conference on Thursday, after The New York Post reported on the practice. “I had no knowledge of it; I did not know this was the practice. It’s something I believe is completely inappropriate and should not have gone on, and will no longer go on.”

The fact is, there are many ways to fritter away $354 million:

Champions of congestion pricing wonder why any politician would turn down $354 million. The feds have offered just that to implement Mayor Bloomberg’s traffic fee.

But the city and the state already spend that kind of dough on projects that don’t seem as vital as mass transit.

They’ve committed $403 million to the Yankee Stadium project, for example, and just one city program granted $409 million in property tax breaks last year to Midtown office towers like the MetLife Building and such fast-food outlets as McDonald’s.

City workers have staged protests against a $410 million payroll system that uses biometric devices, including palm scanners. “They say it will reduce ‘buddy punching,’” said a union spokesman, “but we’ve not had one case of that in ten years.”

“While $354 million sounds like a huge amount of money, it will be almost gone before you start congestion pricing,” said Brooklyn Councilman Lewis Fidler.

The MTA puts its necessary upgrades at $767 million. The tolling system would take $73 million, and the operating cost is $62 annually.

Is it horse trading or something worse? Some council members aren’t sure:

The City Council may have approved congestion pricing Monday, but Council foes were still fighting Mayor Bloom­berg’s traffic fee yesterday, hoping their complaints will be heard in Albany.

The 30-20 vote, they said, was actually a squeaker, sending a message of division to the state Legislature, which must now pass the plan by April 7. To hear them tell it, the days leading up to the vote were filled with arm-twisting and backroom deals.

Last Friday, Brooklyn Council member Lewis Fidler believed the plan couldn’t pass — he counted 29 votes against it.

Horse-trading is expected, he said.

“The ‘we’ll do a project in your district,’ that’s politics,” Fidler said. “But without these deals, there were not 26 votes in favor of this plan. Albany understands that, too.”

Fidler claimed Bloom­berg had offered to hold a fund-raiser for one Council member in exchange for switching sides.

“If other people did that, the U.S. attorney would be called,” he said. “I’m not suggesting it’s criminal, but it’s hypocrisy that can’t be waved off with a Bloomberg-esque wave of the hand.”

. . .

“This isn’t going away,” insisted Queens Council member Tony Avella, another opponent of congestion pricing. “The use of taxpayer dollars to lobby Council members is clearly inappropriate.”

Avella vowed to file Freedom of Information requests for phone records, e-mails and other correspondence from Bloomberg’s office and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who backed the mayor’s plan. “It’s bad government,” he said.

As the City Council decides that the national and local economy can chug along nicely no matter how much you gouge truckers, drivers on the other side of the Hudson — that cartoon-like expanse of the country that lay just beyond the New Yorker’s view of the world — suggest a different sort of congestion pricing may be ahead:

Truckers protesting high fuel prices are clogging the New Jersey Turnpike.

Turnpike Authority spokesman Joe Orlando says trucks “as far as the eye can see” are driving about 20 mph and heading south near Exit 14 in Newark.

He says truckers are also chanting and protesting at the Vince Lombardi Service Area in Bergen County.

Orlando says the protest is backing up Turnpike traffic.

Truckers have been staging other protests throughout the country.

It’s even easier to vote on something which you have no confidence will ever pass:

Under intense pressure from the mayor, Ms. Quinn and their allies that continued almost until the voting began, council members approved the plan to charge most drivers $8 to enter a zone below 60th Street by a vote of 30 to 20, with no abstentions and one absence.

At a news conference after the vote, where Mr. Bloomberg made a rare appearance on the speaker’s side of City Hall, officials sought to play down the narrowness of their hard-won victory, among the closest of this administration in a body that typically votes in near unanimity.

Approving the proposal, Ms. Quinn said, would send a message to the Legislature that the “people who were elected to represent the New Yorkers who live in our five boroughs are sick and tired of our streets being clogged with traffic, we’re sick and tired of the children who live in our city literally having to fight to be able to breathe, and that we see congestion pricing as a solution to this problem.”

But the ultimate fate of the proposal now resides in Albany, where the intentions of lawmakers whose approval is needed remained unclear. Gov. David A. Paterson and the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, have expressed their support. But Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has derailed Mr. Bloomberg’s ambitions in the past, remained noncommittal, telling members of the Democratic conference on Sunday night that he would not take the issue up until the state budget was completed.

If the Assembly waits to act until after the budget, it could threaten the bill’s chances in the Senate, because it would come before the Legislature as a stand-alone item, making approval more elusive. Several council members complained as they voted that the mayor had reneged on a promise that they would not be asked to take up the measure until the State Legislature had agreed to support the proposal.

But other council members took the vote as a sign that Mr. Silver would ultimately back the plan, since Ms. Quinn had said privately that she would not call for a vote until she had an indication that it would gain approval from the state.

But Mr. Silver said that he had made no such assurance.

“I told her it’s not before us until they vote on it,” he said. “And we will deal with the issue after we pass a budget.”

Now that the seven-figure NCAA pool at Jody’s is gone, another bar takes up the slack:

It will be at least another year — if ever — before Jody’s Club Forest reinstates its legendary March Madness pool, which reached a $1.5 million pot and had hordes of bettors lined up outside the tavern until it got benched last year.

But that hasn’t stopped plenty of people from calling the Forest Avenue bar in hopes the NCAA basketball pool had somehow been resumed — and at least one other bar is trying to fill the void.

“We still have people coming in looking for it,” Mary Haggerty, wife of Jody’s owner Jody Haggerty, said by telephone from her home yesterday. “I’m sure we would love to see it [come back]. People have been asking for it to come back and they’re hoping, but it’s not going to be this year.”

Meanwhile, most bettors interviewed by the Advance yesterday agreed that the place to bet on the games is Dannyboy’s Tavern, an establishment located about 2 1/2 miles from Jody’s, on Victory Boulevard in Castleton Corners.

“The problem with Jody’s is, no one was paying taxes on it except the last guy who won. It just got too big, and it was blatant that it was getting so huge,” said one patron, picking up a Dannyboy’s betting pool form at Jimmy Max in Westerleigh yesterday. “Let me put it this way: Danny’s is legit, and I haven’t heard of anywhere else.”

The first round of NCAA tournament games begins tomorrow, but most pools focus on naming the Final Four, the ultimate champ and — the tiebreaker — the final game point total.

Dannyboy’s was keeping unusually tight-lipped about what is a legitimate and perfectly legal enterprise, but some estimates put the size of last year’s pool at $200,000. By comparison, Jody’s topped out at a $1.5 million payout at the end of its 29-year-run and was featured in national publications and network news shows.

. . .

On the paperwork for Dannyboy’s pool, clearly marked is a pledge that all of the money bet will be handed over to the winner, and a warning that any patron lucky enough to win “will be provided with a form 1099 and is responsible for applicable taxes.”

After targeting the coathanger industry in an attempt to get people to free up more closet space, Manhattan Mini Storage sets its sights on horse-drawn carriages:

Manhattan Mini Storage, the company that has gained notoriety for its politically themed billboards, will launch a new advertising campaign next month targeting horse-drawn carriages in Central Park.

Wading into a local debate fueled by animal rights activists about whether horse-drawn carriages should be allowed to operate in the city, the company will allow its customers to support a ban on the carriages by offering to donate $25 to the Coalition to Ban Horse Drawn Carriages for every storage space rented.

The horse-drawn carriage industry is arguing that the advertising and fund-raising campaign is part of a plan to outlaw the carriages that ferry tourists through Central Park and on Midtown streets so the storage company can buy the land currently occupied by two carriage stables. The stables are situated near real estate owned by Edison Properties, the company that controls Manhattan Mini Storage.

“Two of our stables are right next to a Manhattan Mini Storage,” a public relations representative for the Horse and Carriage Association of New York, Carolyn Daly, said. “We believe this is about a real estate interest” and that Manhattan Mini Storage “does not have a horse or animal interest whatsoever.”

The complaints about Water Taxi Beach, the Hipster Guantanamo temporary-ish waterfront attraction that was established a couple of summers ago in a desolate corner of Long Island City, seem to be coming from the restaurant across the street. You don’t say:

Despite the official and popular support it has gained, at the request of the owner of Water Taxi Beach, a special meeting was held in early March to air and answer charges that the ferry terminal and summer resort on the shore of the East River in Long Island City is a public nuisance. The charges, dealing mainly with drunken and disorderly behavior, are so strong they threaten the continued life of Water Taxi Beach during the summer months.

. . .

. . . detractors said, when the sun goes down on summer weekends, trouble begins, particularly toward and into the early morning. An alleged source of disruption is P.S. 1, the Museum for Contemporary Art, which holds weekend events in its yard on Jackson Avenue. When they are concluded, according to this version of events, many of the celebrants go looking for further alcoholic consumption down at Water Taxi Beach and other places in Hunters Point. WTB gets the main share of attention because it can handle hundreds of persons at a time.

The complaints came mainly from workers at the Waterfront Crabhouse, at 51st Avenue and 2nd Street. They said that many persons, several of them barely qualified to drink legally, come up from the beach and into the restaurant to use the restrooms or to continue drinking. If refused service or told the restrooms are for patrons only, they often become obstreperous and present a problem for Crabhouse security personnel, the restaurant’s workers, mainly women, told the meeting. One of them said she has endured incidents where young drinkers have come toward the restaurant “in droves” and yelled insults she described as “extremely vile” at her. She related being on a smoke break one night when one inebriated man tried to relieve himself in her ashtray.

. . .

[Water Taxi Beach owner Tom] Fox had a few things to say, both in his defense and about changing the situation. He admitted it was bad, though not as dire as his critics believed it was. He said he would move up last call on Saturday and Sunday mornings from 4 a.m. to 2 a.m. and have the place closed and dark by 3 a.m.

Location Scout: Water Taxi Beach.

I certainly don’t need my name inscribed on the facade of a landmarked building, you know, right at waist level, but since you asked:

The New York Public Library’s venerable lion-guarded building on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street is to be renamed for the Wall Street financier Stephen A. Schwarzman, who has agreed to jump-start a $1 billion expansion of the library system with a guaranteed $100 million of his own.

The project, to be announced on Tuesday, aims to transform the Central Library into a destination for book borrowing as well as research. The Mid-Manhattan branch, on the east side of Fifth Avenue at 40th Street, will be sold and its circulating collection absorbed into the new space.

The gift from Mr. Schwarzman, a library trustee and buyout guru who made fortunes as the chief executive of the Blackstone Group, is among the largest to any cultural institution in the city’s history. The 1911 Beaux Arts structure on Fifth Avenue will be called the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building after construction is completed around 2014. The building is protected by landmark status, and the library expects the name to be etched on the building should approval be granted by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.

“We hope to incise the name of the building in stone in a subtle, discreet way on either side of the main entrance about three feet off the ground,” said Paul LeClerc, president of the library’s board of trustees. “It’s in keeping with the dignity of the building.”

. . .

Mr. Schwarzman said it was the library that proposed renaming the landmark building. “They said, ‘We’d like you to be the lead gift and give us $100 million and we’d like to rename the main branch after you,’ ” he said. “I said, ‘That sounds pretty good.’”

Sheldon Silver’s MSG opposition, put into perspective:

The Garden has hired some of the state’s highest-paid lobbyists: Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, Patricia Lynch Associates, Greenberg Traurig and Kasirer Consulting.

Lynch, a former top aide to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, reported $633,000 in fees from the arena from 2004 to last year. Silver’s opposition killed the Jets Stadium, which would have competed with the Garden.

But really, doesn’t the concept of a dedicated funding stream take the state off the hook for transit improvments? That’s a good thing when New York City is trying to recoup more of the money it sends to Albany? And then there’s the question of how much of an impact 15% would even have:

Supporters of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to charge people who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan have promoted it as a way to provide a steady flow of money to pay for improvements to public transportation for decades to come.

Trains would be less crowded. Stations would be spruced up. A new subway line would be built.

But under a new spending plan released Wednesday by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, so-called congestion pricing would cover a relatively small portion — 15 percent — of money needed for transit improvements. That would leave the authority still scrambling for money.

The authority said that it would need $29.5 billion from 2008 through 2013 for system improvements (like thousands of new buses and modernized subway signals) and expansion (like work on the Second Avenue subway).

It tentatively identified $20 billion in potential sources of funds, including $4.5 billion that could be raised by borrowing against congestion pricing revenue. But officials were unable to say where the remaining $9.5 billion would come from at a time of city and state budget tightening. They planned to ask the governor’s office and the State Legislature to come up with a financing formula to make up the shortfall.

Elliot G. Sander, the authority’s chief executive, said that unless its plan is financed in full, the transit system risked sliding back into the disrepair of the 1970s and 1980s.

. . .

Under the plan, the $4.5 billion in borrowing that would be made possible by congestion pricing accounts for just 15 percent of the authority’s infrastructure needs through 2013.

. . .

Mr. Bloomberg, who first proposed congestion pricing in April, said in a statement that it provided “one of the only reliable sources of funding” for the authority’s capital program “and without it, the projects in this plan will not happen.”

But the spending plan also exposed lines of tension between the authority and City Hall over how congestion revenues would be used.

Aides to Mr. Bloomberg said revenue from the system should allow for a total of $6 billion in borrowing — $1.5 billion more than the authority proposed.

The authority said it came up with a lower number because some congestion revenue should be set aside to cover operating costs, which would rise as it adds service to accommodate people who switch from cars to public transit once the system goes into effect.

The mayor has said that all congestion revenue should go to support capital spending.

The majority of money under the plan would go for the upkeep and modernization of the current system. It calls for the purchase of 590 subway cars, 2,976 buses and 440 commuter rail cars. It includes rehabilitation plans for 44 subway stations and the modernization of signals in parts of the subway system.

*As per PlaNYC 2030 Transportation Report (.pdf)

The MTA buttresses the penny lobby with its latest fare hike:

The MTA is rolling out a 10-trip, pay-per-ride MetroCard — with a peculiar price: $17.39

And the agency will soon start selling a 30-trip pay-per-ride with a $52.17 price tag.

The move is intended to provide an easy-math option for riders wanting to buy cash-based bonus MetroCards with a specific amount of trips — and no spare change in value.

Another reason: MetroCard vending machines can provide only limited types of change.

But one transit worker dubbed the options “wacko.They just look odd.”

Another worker quipped, “This is going to put the Board of Education to the ultimate test.”

Under the scheme, the $2 fare remains the same but the easy-math 20% bonus — buy five trips and get a sixth free — is being reduced to 15%.

That means a rider who gives a token booth clerk $8 will get a card with four trips — and $1.20 remaining toward the future purchase of another ride. MetroCards can be refilled at vending machines and booths.

The 10-trip oddball card — providing 10 subway or local bus rides, and free transfers — equates to $20 in value for $17.39.

The 30-trip oddball amounts to $60 in value — for $52.17.

If it’s such a good idea then of course you’ll need a $500,000 ad campaign to get the word out:

Supporters of the plan to charge drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street launched a $500,000 ad blitz yesterday.

Congestion-pricing backers are posting 15,000 advertisements in subways and launching print and television campaigns, all promoting a pledge that the revenues raised will be used for mass transit.

Some City Council members are suspicious of a plan to allow more vegetable pushcart permits because of the competition it may create with bodegas that don’t even sell vegetables to begin with:

Under a bill introduced in December at the mayor’s request — with the backing of Council Speaker Christine Quinn — the city would issue 1,500 new permits for street pushcarts to sell just fruits and vegetables in “underserved communities.”

The carts would be confined to specific areas — identified by police precincts — and would be monitored by health inspectors and the police. Violations could lead to the seizure of carts and fines.

If approved by the Council, the measure will call for phasing in 750 permits per year for two years, with 500 earmarked for the Bronx, 500 for Brooklyn, 250 for Queens, 200 for Manhattan and 50 for Staten Island.

While commending the health goal, participants in a hearing by the Consumer Affairs Committee questioned whether the green carts would hurt neighborhood supermarkets, bodegas and greengrocers.

The skeptics suggested other alternatives, such as allowing stores to set up their own fresh fruit and vegetable stands outside their premises, or providing tax incentives.

“It is going to cause harm,” said Councilman Miguel Martinez (D-Manhattan).

Councilman John Liu (D-Queens) questioned whether “this green cart proposal actually makes sense.”

“Maybe we should be licensing vendors to sell suits outside, and lingerie,” scoffed Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn).

And Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) cited the warring interests of merchants and street peddlers.

“Welcome to the politics of food,” he 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.

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.