Apparently the mayor’s ambitious GreeNYC plan — the initiative that, among other things, encourages office workers to be more environmentally aware by “re-purposing used sheets into scrap paper” or “shredding it to serve as packing material” — the initiative so efficient that it actually uses fewer “Ns”! — was just window dressing, as thousands of pounds of recycling is set to be discarded on Broadway:

For seven years, legal secretary Joanie Kissell has been collecting hole punchings at her job at Kenyon & Kenyon along the Canyon of Heroes.

The 58-year-old from Queens began gathering the little bits of paper even before she scored a job at a firm on the parade route.

Co-workers thought she was crazy. She says she was optimistic.

“They think I’m nuts,” Kissell said. “I’d say to them, ‘Wait! Don’t throw that out!’”

They’ll be grateful today when they can all look to her jar labeled “New York Yankees. 2009″ to join in showering paper onto the Yankees to celebrate their 27th world championship.

. . .

At the Downtown Alliance’s transportation division, sanitation workers were busy yesterday bagging up a half-ton of shredded paper donated by a Red Hook recycling facility.

They planned to drop off about 400 bags of the stuff at buildings along Broadway between 4a.m. and 5 a.m. on Friday.

A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips*:

As a billionaire in one of the dining capitals of the world, he can eat anything he wants. But he is obsessed with his weight — so much so that the sight of an unflattering photo of himself can trigger weeks of intense dieting and crankiness, according to friends and aides.

His food issues have become New York City’s. Although he has described his battle against unhealthy foods as common-sense public policy that will shed pounds (and save lives), many of his targets overlap with his own cravings.

“I like a Big Mac like everybody else,” he confessed the other day, explaining the city’s warts-and-all approach to fast food. “I just want to know how many calories are in it.”

Under his watch, the city has declared sodium an enemy, asking restaurants and food manufacturers to voluntarily cut the salt in their dishes by 20 percent or more, and encouraging diners to “shake the habit” by asking waiters for food without added salt.

But Mr. Bloomberg, 67, likes his popcorn so salty that it burns others’ lips. (At Gracie Mansion, the cooks deliver it to him with a salt shaker.) He sprinkles so much salt on his morning bagel “that it’s like a pretzel,” said the manager at Viand, a Greek diner near Mr. Bloomberg’s Upper East Side town house.

Not even pizza is spared a coat of sodium. When the mayor sat down to eat a slice at Denino’s Pizzeria Tavern on Staten Island recently, this reporter spotted him applying six dashes of salt to it.

And then there’s the concept of Asshole-In-Chief:

When he does not like the food, he rarely holds back. After dining at Blue Smoke, Mr. Meyer’s barbecue restaurant on East 27th Street, the mayor told Mr. Meyer, “I just don’t like it.”

Mr. Meyer tried inviting him back, but the mayor would not budge. “It never feels good when somebody tells you they don’t like your restaurant, but it’s nice when a politician does not pander,” he said, adding that the mayor has heaped praise on Union Square Cafe.

*In fact, Thompson should consider making this a slogan of sorts, e.g., you think it’s OK to suspend term limits just this once, but consider the deleterious long-term effects . . .

You let me drink hooch down on the corner, and I’ll think about voting for you. More, please:

“I never understood why we don’t let you drink in the park.”

The brown-bag phase of the mayor’s campaign . . . Avella, you sure you still want to ban foie gras?

Mayor Bloomberg’s full of ideas about shit he can’t control. In that sense he’s just like every other person striving for elected office. Wow, maybe that means he’s just a Regular Joe — you know, someone you could call “Mike” and have a beer with. Howard Wolfson is a genius:

It was billed as the first major proposal in Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s quest for a third term in office. But in the chronicles of city elections, Mr. Bloomberg’s choice of topic on Monday was an odd one because it involved a sweeping overhaul of mass transit, an area over which the mayor has very little say.

In a 33-point proposal spanning subways, buses, roads, ferries and other parts of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the mayor appeared to be trying to assert a greater role for the city in mass transit even though the authority is a state entity.

. . .

But the gap between Mr. Bloomberg’s ambitious plan and actually putting it in place is wide: Unlike the Police Department and the school system, the transportation authority is subject to scant influence by the mayor, who controls only 4 of 17 votes on the authority’s board.

Still, Mr. Bloomberg’s proposal quickly became fodder for widespread discussion, debate and criticism, especially his idea for dealing with Manhattan’s notoriously slow crosstown buses, like the M34, M42 and M50.

Those lines move at such a snail’s pace that the transit agency should stop collecting fares on them so that the buses can load riders and take off more quickly, Mr. Bloomberg said.

So much leadership, it hurts:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the governor should dispatch state troopers to haul state lawmakers back into session. He wants them to approve the bill giving him authority over city schools.

I hope the City Council cooperates during what will surely be a smooth third term . . .

It makes sense that the Mets and Yankees (especially the Yankees!) would have a bigger carbon footprint in their new stadia; no one would expect any less from two teams that are known for sucking up all available resources:

Yankee Stadium and Citi Field combined use enough electricity to power 20,000 homes, twice as much as the old ballparks, Con Ed says.

Citi Field, the smaller of the two, has the higher peak capacity — 11 megawatts, enough to power 11,000 homes. That’s 120 percent more than Shea’s maximum 5-megawatt draw.

The new Yankee Stadium has access to 9 megawatts, enough for 9,000 homes. That’s about twice the power draw of the old Stadium.

Blame the stadiums’ big potential power use on what makes them great — hi-def TV screens, huge scoreboards and extra elevators, escalators and lighting, said Con Ed spokesman Bob McGee.

The Yankees’ new main scoreboard, at nearly 6,000 square feet, is seven times bigger than the lower-tech scoreboard in the old Stadium.

And both new stadiums have plenty more elevators. Citi Field has 11; at Shea there were just four. The new Yankee Stadium has 16 elevators, compared to three in the old park.

. . .

The standard for green ballparks has been set by the Washington Nationals’ stadium, which opened last year and won a silver rating from the US Green Building Council — the first major pro stadium to earn such certification.

Nationals Park uses about 15 percent less power than the old RFK Stadium did, thanks in part to energy-saving lighting that reduced peak power usage from 1,293 kilowatts to just 1,011 — a savings worth about $440,000 over 25 years.

Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, Nationals Park.

Freedom’s just another word for nothing else to do:

A bill to be submitted this week in Albany seeks a permanent name change for the tower at Ground Zero, officially declaring it the Freedom Tower.

Brooklyn Sen. Marty Golden is submitting the legislation in defiance of the Port Authority, which owns the site.

Earlier: “Leading Economic Indicator: Delinking Financial Centers From The Concept Of ‘Freedom’”.

He’s like Howard Beale without the pipes, a nasally Howard Beale . . . unbecoming of a gazillionaire:

Subway and bus riders need to get “mad as hell” at state lawmakers stalling a plan that would prevent crippling fare hikes and debilitating service cuts, Mayor Bloomberg said today.

“When you see what’s going to happen to your commuting costs you should call your state legislators and say, ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more,’” Bloomberg suggested.

Then again, most of Manhattan may shutter before that happens:

Congress’ planned 90 percent tax on bonuses paid by bailed-out companies will snatch $12 billion at the very least from employees of firms that are based in New York City or have big operations here, experts said.

And that would have a dire effect on the city’s economy, impacting everyone from top luxury retailers to taxi drivers to tax collectors.

The crushing tax passed in the House yesterday would affect workers who make over a quarter-million dollars a year at companies that took more than $5 billion in rescue funds from the taxpayers.

Several executive-compensation experts said that under those standards, at least half of all of the windfalls granted by bailed-out firms would be affected.

“And that’s a conservative estimate,” said Chuck Collins, a compensation expert at the Institute for Policy Studies.

For example, he said, at least 50 percent of the $2.6 billion that Goldman Sachs gave its employees in bonuses would likely be hit with the tax.

Oh sorry, I guess the real headline was “No. 7 shutdown cost city commuters $25M: Gioia”:

New Yorkers lost more than $25 million because of service cuts to the No. 7 subway line during an eight-week period in January and February, according to the preliminary results of a study City Councilman Eric Gioia’s (D−Sunnyside) office conducted.

Gioia said the shutdown of the No. 7 line on weekends from Times Square and Queensborough Plaza from January to early March cost commuters $25.9 million and at least 950,000 hours because of extra travel time over eight weeks.

“New Yorkers not only lose their time, but their hard-earned money when they have their commutes interrupted by service delays,” Gioia said. “The subway lines are the lifeline for most New Yorkers — when the trains don’t run, New Yorkers suffer. The MTA needs to take tangible steps towards making sure that when there are service interruptions, they have a minimal effect on New Yorkers.”

Using a formula developed by Princeton University economist Alan Krueger, the study analyzed how much money detours, additional trip segments and increased wait times were costing the average rider of the No. 7 subway line, which runs from Manhattan to Flushing through northern Queens.

Look, shutting down the 7 between Times Square and Queensboro Plaza on the weekend certainly sucks, and I’m sure there is a “cost” to making the commute longer, though it’s obviously minimized on the weekend, but the other thing that sucks is neglecting infrastructure, and, you know, getting delayed at more inopportune times. But Councilmember Gioia got a lot of mileage out of this eminently grandstandable issue (MTA bad! Beleaguered outer-borough residents!) and there’s no reason to stop even after the delays are over . . .

It almost makes up for his shameful sucking up to Scientologists . . . a firm stand to finally take care of our geese problem:

Geese have a new enemy: embattled state Sen. Hiram Monserrate.

The Queens Democrat and Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) called on the Port Authority Monday to completely eradicate the threat of geese at area airports. The birds were blamed for last week’s US Airways crash.

The lawmakers said they would introduce legislation to force the PA to act if it doesn’t do so voluntarily.

. . . quipping about taxpayer bailouts:

In 2006, Citigroup signed a 20-year, $400 million contract to name the Mets’ new stadium in Queens Citi Field. As recently as last week, the troubled financial-services conglomerate said it had no intention of backing out of the deal for the new stadium — the replacement for Shea Stadium, which is being demolished.

Well now, with Citigroup getting a second multi-billion-dollar rescue from the federal government, two City Council members would like to see Uncle Sam get some credit.

The two councilman, Vincent M. Ignizio and James S. Oddo, both of Staten Island, called on Tuesday for the stadium to be renamed Citi/Taxpayer Field. The two men will soon be the only Republicans on the 51-member Council; the only other Republican, Anthony Como of Queens, was recently defeated in a special election.

“Perhaps a name change is in order, since it will be the taxpayers of the country who will foot the bill for not only part of stadium, but for the company itself,” Mr. Ignizio said. “The taxpayers are spending billions for this company to maintain its operations and deserve the recognition for their largess.”

Mr. Oddo quipped: “Not naming the field after Jackie Robinson in the first place: mindless. Tom Seaver stepping onto the new mound for the first time: timeless. Actually acknowledging the contributions of the hardworking taxpayer: priceless.”

Cute.

Location Scout: Citi Field.

As in bold, public relations-scamming cost-cutting measures amounting to precisely 0.52 percent of a $1.3 billion deficit:

The MTA’s doomsday budget may take a huge toll not only on drivers’ wallets but also on their time.

The agency is weighing a plan to close some cash lanes at the nine bridges and tunnels it operates.

And as if that won’t create enough congestion, it may also begin stopping drivers without enough money on their E-ZPasses instead of letting them through and billing them later – saving $3.4 million in mailings.

The possible changes are part of the agency’s plan to close a $1.3 billion budget gap unless city and state lawmakers step in with a crucial bailout package.

MTA officials expect to save $3.4 million by closing cash booths at times when fewer cars use the crossings. Still, it would likely slow traffic to a crawl as cars pile up behind the remaining tollbooths.

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?

Oh, he’s that guy:

Popcorn, pistachios, Tic Tacs, and Skittles are the latest threat to local children that the City Council is moving to neutralize.

Council Member Domenic Recchia, who represents parts of Brooklyn, has introduced a bill that would require store owners across the city to put up signs or labels warning that certain bite-size foods could endanger the lives of children under the age of 5.

While the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene would determine the list of foods requiring labels, Mr. Recchia said the bill would likely include grapes, peanuts, chewing gum, small hard candies, and candy necklaces, among other products. The American Academy of Pediatrics also lists hot dogs, apple chunks, raw vegetables, and cheese as choking hazards for children under 4.

If the bill passes, vendors who fail to alert customers to food that has been designated as a choking hazard will be fined up to $250 a violation.

. . .

Mr. Recchia said yesterday that he was moved to take up choking prevention after a 2-year-old boy in his district, Brandon Martinez, died in 2007 from suffocating on a grape, a fruit that health experts consider dangerous for children under 4 years old if it is not skinned and cut in pieces.

According to Mr. Recchia, the bill could help prevent similar tragedies by raising awareness of dangerous foods among parents.

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.

And once that happens, we’ll finally be able to realize white asphalt:

Black rubber mats designed to break a child’s fall turn blistering hot in the summer, soaring to higher than 165 degrees, a Daily News investigation found.

Doctors at two city hospital burn units reported seeing 16 to 18 young children with playground burns a year, mostly from the mats under junglegyms and sliding boards.

“I have nightmares,” said Anne Casson, whose toddler son, Will, ditched his shoes at Carl Schurz Park on the upper East Side one day last May.

“He stepped onto the black mats and was screaming hysterically,” Casson said. “When I picked him up, the skin was just hanging off his feet.”

The baby spent four days in New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell, where doctors administered morphine for intense pain.

The News, accompanied by NYC Park Advocates, took the temperature of mats under junglegyms at playgrounds in all five boroughs last Friday.

“It is unconscionable that the city continues to install products in playgrounds that hurt the most vulnerable park users — small children,” said Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates, who took a 166.9-degree reading on the mats at Carl Schurz. “How many more have to get hurt until someone is held accountable?”

. . .

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe said signs were posted in playgrounds warning against going barefoot.

“We’re not going to remove [the mats],” Benepe told The News. “Our playgrounds are the safest in the world.”

Reyhan Mehran, a marine scientist from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, said her son Kian Mehran-Lodge was 14 months old in July 2004 when he was burned at Van Voorhees Park.

“We cannot understand why the city wouldn’t immediately remove material that is known to severely burn children,” she said.

Fearful of the loss of business opportunities at Queens Plaza, Councilmember Eric Gioia turns the attention of his bully pulpit towards Craigslist:

New York City law enforcement officials need to crack down on the new “Wild West” of prostitution, the Internet — and specifically the popular Web site Craigslist, City Council Member Eric Gioia said yesterday.

“What used to happen on seedy street corners and brothels has now moved to the Internet,” Mr. Gioia, who is a likely candidate for public advocate in 2009, said at a news conference.

He drew particular attention to Craigslist, where he said the majority of ads for “erotic services” in New York are thinly disguised solicitations for sex.

A bad week for the MTA means a good time to pull this one out of your back pocket:

A city lawmaker yesterday blasted the MTA for rerouting two bus lines to serve a Queens shopping mall developed by the agency chairman’s son.

Councilman John Liu said the MTA should formulate a new procedure for public input to determine bus routes, citing the controversial effort to extend lines to The Shops at Atlas Park.

“In the case of expanding bus service to Atlas Park, people have every reason to suspect favoritism and nepotism,” Liu said after a City Council hearing.

The Shops at Atlas Park is owned by Damon Hemmerdinger, son of MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger.

But the younger Hemmerdinger and MTA officials countered that they began working on one of the proposed routes years before the father was appointed board chairman in 2007.

“Discussions about rerouting the bus began about five years ago,” Damon Hemmerdinger said.

Atlas Park was served by the Q29, but officials moved the Q54 from a lightly used terminus to the mall.

And he has a wicked sense of humor to boot:

The MTA should sell its plush Madison Avenue office building and use the proceeds to offset another fare hike, a city official said yesterday.

City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens) said the building, located on Madison Avenue between 44th and 45th Streets, is worth at least $200 million. That money, he said, could fill in a significant portion of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget shortfall.

“It’s a little too easy to pass on costs to taxpayers and riders rather than looking at their own operations and cutting the fat,” Gioia said of the MTA.

The agency is expecting a 2009 deficit of $216 million and faces a $15 million to $20 million hole in its five-year capital-improvement plan.

Mayor Bloomberg figures out the art of promising big, untenable proposals and quietly dumping them when it’s obvious that they are unaffordable:

Mayor Bloomberg dropped a financial bombshell yesterday by saying he’s “not sure” the city can still afford the 7 percent property-tax cut that he had included just six weeks ago in his 2009 executive budget.

The mayor’s startling assessment came as he and the City Council were within days of wrapping up negotiations on the new $60 billion budget for fiscal 2009, which starts July 1.

Officials said a repeal of the tax cut — which would sap $1.2 billion from property owners — had never come up in those talks.

“This is the first I’m hearing of that,” said surprised Councilman David Weprin (D-Queens), chairman of the Finance Committee.

Sounding gloomier than ever, Bloomberg warned that Wall Street profits are falling off the cliff with $20 billion in losses recorded in the first three months of this year.

And he must be enjoying watching the City Council twist in the wind about it:

Judging from the initial reaction of legislators, the mayor faces an uphill fight.

“It’s a nonstarter,” said Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens).

“The Wall Street numbers are definitely problematic,” said Weprin. “At this point, I don’t think there’s any need to panic. We can always do a mod [budget modification] later.”

Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) said retaining the property-tax cut remains a “priority” for the council, as does restoration of budget cuts that impact classrooms.

Gioia, Weprin and Quinn: all term limited.

Annotation: For Queens in ‘09, Candidates in Spades (City Hall News, June 11, 2007)

That would be a switch! Funny how that sometimes works out:

One of the biggest water bill deadbeats in New York City is the Economic Development Corporation, according to an audit released by the city comptroller’s office on Monday.

William C. Thompson Jr., the comptroller, said that the corporation had not paid any water or sewer bills for 22 years at the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a building of commercial and light industrial space controlled by the corporation.

The unpaid bills totaled $4.5 million.

In a press conference, Mr. Thompson said he was outraged that the agency was so delinquent, not only in failing to pay its bills but also in not contacting the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which runs the water system, since 1989.

Councilmember Tony Avella, the City Council’s true master of grandstanding (beating out both John Liu and Eric Gioia), has staked out many positions in his run up to a mayoral campaign, from the principled (refusing a pay raise, vowing to investigate the quid pro quo-like lobbying during the congestion pricing debate) to the useful (a do not call list for advertising circulars) to the loopy (section 809 of New York’s Education Law), but this just takes the cake:

The fight over foie gras is coming to City Hall, with a City Council member who is running for mayor, Tony Avella, set to urge his colleagues to support a proposed ban on the force-feeding of ducks and geese.

Mr. Avella, who also has introduced a bill to ban horse-drawn carriages in the city, said he thinks it is inhumane to force-feed birds to fatten their livers for foie gras.

Tomorrow Mr. Avella is scheduled to introduce a council resolution in support of a state bill proposed by Senator Frank Padavan that would ban the force-feeding of birds by hand or machine to enlarge their livers.

“If they can produce foie gras by feeding the animals in a normal process, well, that’s up to them,” Mr. Avella, who represents parts of Queens, said. The resolution will not call for a ban on the sale of foie gras.

And, dude, New York City is just not that kind of town.

. . . might include “Al Sharpton” and “bicycle,” but then there you have it, Al Sharpton at Critical Mass, moving from that sad Sean Bell thing to the most important civil rights issue of our era — ticketing cyclists:

For a little while, it seemed like a Critical Mass from the “old” days. Cyclists filled the south end of Union Square for the first time in more than a year, gathering on the last weekday of Bike Month for a pre-ride rally while police stood by on the sidelines.

The rally, organized by Freewheels, the bicycle defense fund, featured a special guest: Reverend Al Sharpton and members of Sean Bell’s family joined riders to speak out against the mass ticketing of cyclists and the fatal police shooting of Bell.

Sharpton began by telling the hundreds of listeners that, whether in Union Square or Harlem, the police should be there to serve the people, not the other way around.

“The same privatization that they’re doing in the north end of this park is the same gentrified privatization they’re doing in Harlem,” Sharpton declared.

“If we can come together as Critical Mass, if we can ride together, if we can protest together, we can make this city livable for everybody together,” he stated

As he spoke, Sharpton was flanked by Bell’s fiancée, Nicole Paultre Bell, Bell’s father and other friends and family of Bell. All were wearing white T-shirts with “SEAN BELL” emblazoned on them. Also wearing that shirt and addressing the crowd was Yetta Kurland, a civil rights attorney who is a candidate for Christine Quinn’s City Council seat.

“We are going to work together to have a Critical Mass in this city where we can ride in justice,” Sharpton said.

The plan was to have Sharpton speak and then join the bicycle ride in a pedicab provided by Time’s Up!, the West Village environmental advocacy group. However, minutes before Sharpton began talking, while attorney Wylie Stecklow was still addressing the rally, a yell of “Critical Mass, Yeah!” rose from the back of the crowd, followed by the traditional tinkling of bike bells. A majority of cyclists then poured onto 14th St., heading west.

When Sharpton did start speaking several minutes later, there was still a sizeable crowd of bystanders and cyclists listening.

“There’s something wicked when we think it’s more important to deal with getting on line to watch ‘Sex and the City’ than to stand up for justice in the city,” he said to cheers.

“We are all Sean Bell, we are all Critical Mass,” Sharpton concluded.

Bell’s father, William Bell, took a briefer, more conciliatory tone.

“Justice is nice,” he said, “but I just want to see Reverend Al ride a bike.”

Sharpton and the family then stood at the edge of the square and looked around for a minute until someone walked up and offered him a bike. Without hesitation, Sharpton climbed onto a Fuji Crosstown 3.0, a 21-gear hybrid considered well suited for bike commuting. After straddling the aluminum-frame bicycle for a minute, Sharpton took a few tentative pedals, then got his balance and started riding west on 14th St., surrounded by a dozen other cyclists. Doing a short route, the entourage rode to Fifth Ave., down to 12th St., east to University Place and back to Union Square.

. . .

One incontrovertible fact is that everyone in New York has a cell phone camera, as was demonstrated by virtually every person recognizing Sharpton asking him to pose for a picture. Sharpton obliged all requests. After several minutes, Sharpton and the Bell family climbed into two cars and left.

. . . New York’s milk price gouging law has been a huge success*:

A whopping 86 percent of supermarkets, delis and bodegas throughout the five boroughs are charging above the state-mandated price ceiling for milk, according to a City Council survey released yesterday.

The survey found that 43 out of 50 stores checked last November were charging an average of 40 cents above the state limit, which is set each month by the Department of Agriculture and Markets.

“It is no secret and it has been widely reported that the price of food has been consistently increasing in New York and across the country,” said council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan).

“While food prices are rising, it’s incredibly important that we make sure important staples, critical things to families like milk, are as affordable as possible.”

Current metropolitan-area limits for June are set at $3.93 per gallon, $2.01 per half-gallon and $1.04 per quart, with lower prices upstate.

Shoppers cutting every corner to make ends meet — many of whom did not know there were legal price limits — were appalled to learn they were getting gouged.

“I have two children. We buy a lot of milk. If it’s overpriced, it’s unfair for mothers and their children,” said Gloria Williams, 36, who was shopping in Murray Hill.

. . .

The complex state law does allow stores to make a case for above-the-limit prices before they are considered in violation.

Most of the major supermarket chains have done so, but many smaller shops do not.

In fact, a manager at one small store — the Food Market at Second Avenue and 41st Street, where a half-gallon was selling for $3.29 — was clearly unaware of the regulation, saying, “This is a free country. I’m allowed to charge whatever I want.”

*So was ditching the resolution worth it? Probably not.

The city of hot air actually has a fairly small carbon footprint, making Christmas back home that much more unbearable for the families of smug, self-righteous transplants:

Despite New York’s reputation as a city of avid consumption, the carbon footprint of its residents is among the smallest in America, a new report shows.

In 2005, the average New Yorker emitted 0.67 tons of carbon from residential energy consumption, the 18th-lowest amount of 100 metro areas surveyed, according to yesterday’s Brookings Institution and Regional Plan Association report, which examined carbon emissions from transportation and residential sources. The average American emitted 1.16 tons.

The New York area also had the fourth-lowest carbon emissions per capita among the 100 other metropolitan areas.

. . . and gets to the bottom of that gruesome Bodies exhibition, which, even though he liked and all, just felt funny in the end:

The company behind “Bodies . . . The Exhibition” has agreed to document the origin of the cadavers in its show at the South Street Seaport and give past patrons a full ticket refund, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said yesterday.

“People have a right to know what they’re viewing,” Cuomo said at a news conference.

“The grim reality is that [show producer] Premier Exhibitions has profited from displaying the remains of individuals who may have been tortured and executed in China.”

There have long been rumors that the bodies are those of political prisoners.

Under the agreement, customers who can establish they would not have attended the exhibition had they known of the questions about the origins of the bodies are eligible for refunds.

Perhaps when more than the ten people who read the Metro section start caring about him then he can feel smart about hiring loyal people, but until then, I don’t think there’s much of a market for a gripping tell-all about the Mayor of New York:

Mayor Bloomberg has no use for aides who write tell-alls like the one former White House press secretary Scott McClellan published.

“I just hopefully hire people who are a little more responsible, that’s the first thing I worry about,” Bloomberg said yesterday. “I’ve always thought that when you work for somebody, you have an obligation to not write a tell-all book afterwards.”

With all this China-Tibet-Darfur business, boycotting Coke seems a little quaint:

The University Senate will vote Thursday on whether to repeal NYU’s ban on Coca-Cola products, potentially ending a 28-month ban on the soft drink and angering students who continue to accuse the company of labor and human rights violations.

In December 2005, the Senate passed a resolution banning the sale of Coca-Cola products on campus until the company agreed to an investigation of allegations that it sponsored the murder of union leaders at its Colombian bottling factory. But while supporters of the ban say little has changed, the Senate is nonetheless voting on whether to approve the resolution rescinding the ban later this week.

Late last month, a coalition of student groups from NYU’s School of Law submitted a report to the Public Affairs Committee objecting to the resolution.

The report — undersigned by groups including the Latino Law Students Association, Law Students for Economic Justice, Law Students for Human Rights, Law Students for Reproductive Justice, Coalition for Legal Recruiting, National Lawyers Guild and OUTLaw — pleaded to uphold the Coke ban.

“The bottom line is that Coke’s purported willingness to allow an investigation is a pretext to justify lifting the ban,” the law students’ report said. “Coke has not agreed to an independent investigation. More importantly, they have not changed their policies in Colombia. At the very least, NYU should await unequivocal evidence that Coke has met the terms of NYU’s 2005 resolution before considering lifting the ban.”