Given Brooklyn Brewery’s past labor strife, is its new bottle-conditioned “Local 1″ beer kind of like a big inside joke? Either way, it sounds like it will be good:

Brooklyn Brewery introduced their newest beer — Local 1 — last week at a breakout party at Rockefeller Center.

Their new beer is the first 100 percent bottled-conditioned Belgian inspired ale, crafted by Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garret Oliver. Oliver, a well known “beer connoisseur,” is very excited about his new beer, and gave reasons the new Local 1 is a classier and more distinguished beer than other brews.

“What people don’t realize is that aroma makes up 75 percent of a beer’s taste,” expalined Oliver. “I like to think that Local 1 is Belgian-inspired, but also very Brooklyn in spirit.”

Local 1 is Brooklyn Brewery’s 13th beer, and the public should be able to get their first taste within the next year.

Location Scout: Brooklyn Brewery.

The lure of the 7 train was too much for one tot as he escaped the clutches of his harried mother and jumped on a Manhattan-bound express train yesterday:

Stuart [Tito] is quite a handful — constantly curious, perpetually in motion and absolutely fearless. Trains are his passion; he points whenever one roars above his Queens neighborhood.

That’s why [Blanca] Amarilis held his hand tightly as she and husband Victor Tito, 32, waited at Junction Blvd. on their way to a doctor’s appointment for their 9-month-old, Derrick.

As an express pulled into the station, Amarilis noticed Derrick’s nose was running, and she leaned down over the stroller to wipe it — letting go of Stuart.

In that instant, the little imp scooted away as fast as his sneaker-clad feet would take him, darted through the closing doors of the train and was whisked away.

Fortunately for Lionel, they do not have blood on their hands . . . this time:

“I thought that someone would take him,” she said. “I prayed to God to protect my son and let me find him again.”

She didn’t know it, but her prayer was being answered. A woman who saw Stuart board the train, scooped him up, got off at 61st St. and took a train back to Junction Blvd.

When they arrived, she spotted the boy’s father looking frantic and asked, “Is this your son?”

“Yes!” the Ecuadoran-born cook answered, wrapping his errant explorer in a hug. The woman melted into the crowd.

A crime victim’s fantasy scenario:

A man who had his bike stolen six weeks ago thought he was seeing things when he spotted it yesterday attached to a pole around the corner from his Upper West Side apartment.

But there it was, chained up at the corner of West 98th Street and Broadway, said 26-year-old financial worker Michael Davis.

“Lo and behold, there’s my bike chained to a pole. It still had all the reflective stickers I had put on it,” he said.

“I never thought I’d see it ever again. The only difference is that someone added one of those milk cartons to make it into a delivery bike.”

Davis lost the bike six weeks earlier when he went to visit his in-laws and decided not to drive.

Davis, an observant Jew, said he chained the bike in front of their home at West End Avenue near 90th Street, but when he left it was gone. He reported it stolen, but was told it was unlikely it would ever be found.

“Fast forward six weeks, and right before the Sabbath I had to run down to the corner store to buy some groceries, and there it was,” he said.

He flagged down a passing cop car and the officers said they should wait for the deliveryman to return. When he didn’t, they figured he had bolted and cut Davis’ bike loose and returned it to him.

Fuckin’ A, beavers are back! And at $15 million, Representative José E. Serrano gets naming rights:

A crudely fashioned lodge perched along the snow-covered banks of the Bronx River — no more than a mound of twigs and mud strewn together in the shadow of the Bronx Zoo — sits steps away from an empty parking lot and a busy intersection.

Scientists say that the discovery of this cone-shaped dwelling signifies something remarkable: For the first time in two centuries, the North American beaver, forced out of town by agricultural development and overeager fur traders, has returned to New York City.

The discovery of a beaver setting up camp in the Bronx is a testament to both the animal’s versatility and to an increasingly healthy Bronx River.

A few years ago the river was a dumping ground for abandoned cars and rubber tires, but it has been brought back to life recently through a big cleanup effort.

The biologists who discovered the beaver say they have nicknamed it José, after United States Representative José E. Serrano of the Bronx, who has directed $15 million in federal funds toward the river’s rebirth.

In an interview, Mr. Serrano said he had always envisioned the river getting cleaner, “but I don’t know to what extent I imagined things living in it again.”

A number of people reported seeing the beaver last fall, but biologists figured that the sightings were much more likely to have been of muskrats, which are somewhat common in the area.

But the biologists were intrigued enough to investigate, and after trudging the riverbanks, they spotted gnawed tree stumps and the 12-foot-wide lodge — evidence that pointed to beavers, which are rarely seen in the wild because they tend to work at night and avoid people.

Then on Wednesday, the biologists were able to videotape the animal on film, swimming up the river looking for more material to insulate its home. The animal is several feet long, two or three years old, and appeared to be a male in search of a mate, said one of the biologists, Patrick Thomas, the curator of mammals at the Bronx Zoo, which is run by the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Amazingly — considering the time, effort and heartache for L riders — the electronic thingamabobs that tell you how long it will take for a train to arrive actually work:

Subways future and subways past seemed to collide on a recent morning at the Jefferson Street station on the L line in Bushwick, Brooklyn. New electronic signs on the platforms showed how many minutes a person would have to wait until the next train: at this moment it was eight minutes for a Canarsie-bound train and four minutes for a Manhattan-bound train.

But the recorded female voice on the public address system that was supposed to work in tandem with the signs was showing signs of a breakdown: “Ladies and gentlemen, the next L, the next L —,” it said over and over, like a scratchy recording.

The signs and the recording are part of a new system being tested on the L line that will, for the first time, give riders accurate information about the arrival time of trains, coupled with clear announcements — both things that seem as foreign to the subway as a man offering a woman a seat on a crowded train.

On this day, however, the signs worked like a charm. A stopwatch revealed that the trains came and went as predicted. It was almost unnerving.

Vado Diomande shows that the danger from anthrax exposure is probably overstated:

The African dancer whose rare bout with anthrax spooked the city a year ago is on the mend — and planning a thank-you concert tomorrow to celebrate.

“I was very bad last year,” said Vado Diomande, who lost at least 45 pounds during his ordeal.

. . .

His was the first case of naturally occurring inhalation anthrax in the United States since 1976 — and the first since five people died from anthrax-tainted envelopes in 2001.

Officials quickly assured New Yorkers that they were not in any danger, and Mayor Bloomberg went on television asking New Yorkers to pray for Diomande.

Doctors told Diomande that if he lived, he might never be able to perform again, he said.

His doctors said the 45-year-old’s impressive physical fitness played a key role in his survival, but Diomande believes it was something else.

“I have Pelou with me,” he said.

Diamande’s tribe believes that Gue Pelou is a mediator between the land of the ancestors and the land of the living. The spirit expresses itself through the acrobatic feats he performs on stilts during shows like the one he will do tomorrow at the Helen Mills Theater in Chelsea.

Backstory: Terrorists Aren’t Drummers, Are They?

The New York City Panorama at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park has officially reopened after a $750,000 renovation:

The Panorama, commissioned by [Robert] Moses for the 1964 World’s Fair, was constructed by the architectural firm of Lester and Associates. A team of 200 architects worked for three years to complete the Panorama and place it on view in the room that was home to the General Assembly of the United Nations from 1946 to 1950 while the permanent headquarters of the United Nations was under construction in Manhattan. The 9,335- square-foot model shows all five boroughs of New York City on a scale of one inch to 100 feet. It was last updated in 1992 and includes the bridges, roadways, parks and 895,000 buildings that comprised the city at that time. The World Trade Center still stands where it did in 1992. Tom Finkelpearl, executive director of the Queens Museum of Art, envisions future updates to include many new structures and roadways as well as the new buildings to be constructed on the site of the World Trade Center. Raising funds for such a project would be daunting and such updates would be a monumental undertaking, requiring input from many architectural firms currently involved in designing actual buildings in the city.

The Panorama has been closed to the public since September while David Lackey and a team from Whirlwind Design worked on a massive lighting and media effect upgrade at a cost of $750,000. This upgrade was funded by the City Council, the Mayor’s Office, the Office of the Queens Borough President and the state Assembly. Every hour on the hour, a 12-minute tour of the model city that includes lighting effects and informational films projected on screens throughout the room where the Panorama is housed can be seen.

“The thing I love about the Panorama is that you don’t have to know anything about contemporary art. You don’t even have to speak English to enjoy the experience. One thing we all have in common is that we love the city,” Finkelpearl said.

The Panorama can also be used as a “memory map”. Visitors can look at the model and remember when they lived in a particular neighborhood or worked on a certain block. But while several visitors to the museum have expressed an urge to reach out and touch the model, touching it or walking on it is out of the question. For example, one misstep could wipe out The Bronx.

Location Scout: Panorama of the City of New York.

Community Board 2, reacting to years of uniformly lame street fairs in Lower Manhattan especially, will institute a new permitting process that will hopefully discourage the vendor cabal responsible for heartburn across the city:

Citing a proliferation of fairs managed by professional promoters, Community Board 2 in Manhattan passed a resolution making those seeking to put on street fairs subject to public hearings.

According to the mayor’s office, the community board, which covers Greenwich Village, Little Italy, SoHo, NoHo, and Hudson Square, hosts the highest number of street fairs of any community board in the city. Last year, 52 of the city’s 357 street fairs were held in the neighborhoods.

The board is also creating a subcommittee to oversee the permit application process. This marks a change from the past procedure, whereby the district manager of the board would simply work out the schedule with individual street fair applicants.

Until the MTA implants chips in our bodies, there will likely be Metrogami:

Sitting in a token booth all day can be dull and draining, but station agent Luis Torres has found artistic inspiration on the job.

This MetroCard Michelangelo makes sculptures out of the used plastic cards straphangers toss on the ground near the turnstiles each day.

He bends, folds, cuts and assembles the yellow rectangles into mock city skyscrapers, dancing figurines and even religious icons.

“The possibilities are endless, and so is the supply of MetroCards to recycle,” Torres said. “A homeless guy brings me 50 to 100 cards a week. He says, ‘I know if I bring them to you, you’ll make more sculptures.’ ”

Although he insists he does not hone his craft on NYC Transit time, Torres has turned his booth at West 110th Street on the A, B and C lines into a gallery.

. . .

The MTA does not sanction Torres’ gallery. Last week, one of his supervisors came into the booth and said, “These are great, but you have to take them down.”

But at the insistence of his customers and fans, Torres later put the work back on display.

Torres, 36, has constructed the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Twin Towers and a Crucifixion. He cuts the magnetic stripe into narrow strips to make hair.

Not all MetroCards are well-suited to what Torres calls “Metrogami.”

“Most people don’t realize this, but there are actually four different types of cards, and the darker-yellow ones are much thicker — too thick to take the folds and bends as well,” he said.

The satisfying chunk-chunk of democracy is saved for at least one and probably a couple more elections:

New York officials have given up on replacing the state’s aging voting machines by the fall elections, and some would like to put off buying new electronic voting systems until after the 2008 presidential election, state officials said yesterday.

New York is the last state to update its machines, and the latest delay comes amid growing questions about the work of a laboratory that was hired to help test the machines being offered by five bidders.

Based in part on the problems with the testing lab, the New York State Board of Elections has pushed back its deadline for certifying which machines would be acceptable until at least May.

Given the months it would take for counties to acquire the machines and train poll workers, “that would make it impossible to replace anything more than a few isolated machines for the 2007 elections,” said Douglas A. Kellner, a board co-chairman.

Mr. Kellner said it might be possible to have the new system ready for the presidential primary in March 2008. An association of county election officials passed a resolution last week urging the state to wait until 2009, and Mr. Kellner said most board members agreed that it would be better if the state did not have to make such sweeping changes amid the high turnout of a presidential election.

But because the electronic systems are easier for the disabled to use than the old lever machines, the state was required by Congress and a federal court order to make the changes more quickly. Mr. Kellner said those orders would need to be amended to allow for further delays and to let New York hold on to at least $50 million in federal funds to help pay for the machines.

That was fast! Man of the year Wesley Autrey makes it into President Bush’s State of the Union address:

One thing everyone at the State of the Union address could agree on applauding was President Bush’s introduction of Wesley Autrey, the New Yorker who saved the life of a stranger in a Harlem subway station.

Autrey was commended in Bush’s speech yesterday for jumping onto the tracks when he saw the man fall into the path of a train, pulling him out of harm’s way and holding him until the train passed above their heads.

Bush said: There is something wonderful about a country that produces a brave and humble man like Wesley Autrey, who attended the speech with his daughters.

And speaking of which:

The chamber erupted most unanimously and loudly for Wesley Autrey, the man who leapt into the tracks of a New York subway to save a fellow passenger. (The only ones not clapping, it appeared, were Mr. Autrey’s two young daughters, who napped beside him in their bubblegum-colored dresses.)

Wesley Autrey, the man who proved once and for all just how chicken you actually are, was feted by the Mayor on Friday and celebrated on television:

Subway superman Wesley Autrey collected a medal from Mayor Bloomberg yesterday as the courageous construction worker rode an express train from hometown hero to national icon.

At City Hall, the Harlem man was awarded the Bronze Medal, the city’s top honor for civic achievement, for diving onto the subway tracks to save a stranger.

Past medal recipients have included Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali and Willie Mays.

Autrey, 50, “is a great man — a man who makes us all proud to be New Yorkers,” the mayor said.

. . .

Elliot “Lee” Sander, the new executive director of the MTA, gave him a year’s worth of unlimited MetroCards, lauding his “death-defying act of bravery.”

And a Disney representative gave him and his family an all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World.

It was another whirlwind day for the newly minted celeb, who appeared on CBS’s “Early Show,” David Letterman’s “Late Show,” and accepted a $10,000 check from Donald Trump.

“I’m going to enjoy my little 15 minutes of fame,” he remarked after the “Late Show” taping.

Granted, there hasn’t been that much of a year yet, but still:

Who has ridden along New York’s 656 miles of subway lines and not wondered: “What if I fell to the tracks as a train came in? What would I do?”

And who has not thought: “What if someone else fell? Would I jump to the rescue?”

Wesley Autrey, a 50-year-old construction worker and Navy veteran, faced both those questions in a flashing instant yesterday, and got his answers almost as quickly.

Mr. Autrey was waiting for the downtown local at 137th Street and Broadway in Manhattan around 12:45 p.m. He was taking his two daughters, Syshe, 4, and Shuqui, 6, home before work.

Nearby, a man collapsed, his body convulsing. Mr. Autrey and two women rushed to help, he said. The man, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, managed to get up, but then stumbled to the platform edge and fell to the tracks, between the two rails.

The headlights of the No. 1 train appeared. “I had to make a split decision,” Mr. Autrey said.

So he made one, and leapt.

Mr. Autrey lay on Mr. Hollopeter, his heart pounding, pressing him down in a space roughly a foot deep. The train’s brakes screeched, but it could not stop in time.

Five cars rolled overhead before the train stopped, the cars passing inches from his head, smudging his blue knit cap with grease. Mr. Autrey heard onlookers’ screams. “We’re O.K. down here,” he yelled, “but I’ve got two daughters up there. Let them know their father’s O.K.” He heard cries of wonder, and applause.

After two students broke a non-Guinness approved record for speediest trip on the entire subway system back in August, another group enters the record book with an official time. Moral — taking express trains may not save much time after all:

With their chins held high and their bladders full, the high school buddies waltzed out of the No. 2 train at 241st St. in the Bronx and basked in the attention lavished on them by a group of nearly two dozen loved ones and reporters.

“It’s really hard to describe what it’s like to plan something for so long, and then not only to achieve it, but to break the record by such a solid margin,” gushed Bill Amarosa, 28, after his team swept through the station at 4:37 p.m.

The group of friends managed to stop at all of the system’s 468 stations in a time of 24 hours, 54 minutes and 3 seconds — beating the mark set in 1989 by nearly an hour and a half.

In August, two students blazed through the length of the subway system in slightly more than 24 hours, but their feat was not counted by Guinness because they failed to stop at every station.

. . .

Their journey began just after 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

Along the way, the six men were sustained by energy bars, McDonald’s hamburgers delivered to them by devoted friends and the unwavering support of MTA workers and fellow straphangers.

A conductor on a downtown B train announced yesterday morning: “Everybody, you should know you’re riding on the train with the guys who are trying to break the record.”

Devising excessive Christmas light displays may not sound like the wisest thing to if you’re prone to getting seizures, but some are truly touched with the holiday spirit:

The decorating starts on Halloween. The lights switch on the day after Thanksgiving. And come Jan. 1, the electric bill is $800 more than usual.

But Joseph DeGaetano and Robert Sibrizzi say putting up thousands of Christmas lights on their neighboring Bayside homes — and scores of other decorations in the front and back yards, garages and driveways — is well worth the time and money.

“When you just see the little kids coming around and the smiles on their faces, it gives you a nice, warm feeling,” said Sibrizzi, who lives with his partner, DeGaetano in a house next door to DeGaetano’s parents.

Sibrizzi is epileptic, but the condition hardly dampens his holiday spirit.

The 42-year-old loved decorating his parents’ Bronx house when he was growing up, and continued the tradition when he moved to 205th St. in Bayside about a decade ago.

“He does what he wants and goes where he wants,” DeGaetano said. “[Epilepsy] doesn’t really hinder him. If he has a seizure, he just rests a while and goes right back at it.”

The transit strike comes to a merciful end as arbitrators award workers with substantively the same deal they rejected:

Ending a marathon contract dispute that included an illegal 60-hour transit strike, an arbitration panel ruled yesterday that the city’s subway and bus workers and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority must abide by essentially the same deal that the two sides approved almost a year ago.

The bitter and sometimes bizarre labor dispute went to arbitration earlier this year, after the transit workers first voted to reject the post-strike settlement, then voted to approve it, only to have the transportation authority repudiate the deal altogether.

Seeking to restore some amity and peace between the feuding parties, the arbitration panel wrote that the best way to resolve the impasse was to award a contract that was as close to identical as possible to what the two sides agreed to last December, just days after the first transit strike since 1980.

The arbitration ruling came the same day that Roger Toussaint, the president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union and the man who led last December’s strike, was declared the winner in a hotly contested election, giving him a third three-year term. With some votes still uncounted, union officials said that Mr. Toussaint would win with slightly less than 50 percent of the vote. His failure to secure a majority indicated the level of dissatisfaction among union members over the strike and its muddled aftermath. He had faced a tough challenge from Barry Roberts, a union vice president, and three other opponents.

The three-person arbitration panel called for a raise averaging 3.5 percent a year for three years. It also called for the reimbursement of $130 million to some 20,000 transit workers who had paid too much into the pension fund. That last provision in the original deal drew strong criticism from Gov. George E. Pataki.

The arbitration ruling, like the original deal, will also require the transit workers to pay 1.5 percent of their wages as premiums for health insurance. That was the provision that most angered the union’s members, causing them to vote down the settlement at first. It also helped fuel broader opposition in the union to Mr. Toussaint.

The arbitration decision is binding on the two sides, and in effect sets the terms for a new 37-month contract that runs retroactively from Dec. 16, 2005, until Jan. 15, 2009.

After an earlier aborted attempt, the Intrepid got unstuck:

“This old baby is moving,” a joyous Intrepid Foundation President Bill White said aboard the vessel. Some crew members cried and gave each other high fives and hugs. Onlookers ashore cheered.

“It’s like it used to be, only better. There’s no bloodshed,” said elated passenger Felix Novelli, who served on the Intrepid crew during World War II. “I’m 18 again. And I have my beautiful broad right here, my ship Intrepid.”

. . .

The trip began with considerable effort as the historic aircraft carrier-turned-museum inched haltingly away from its anchorage. Finally, it began moving at about 3 to 4 knots, its pier growing more and more distant.

“Move baby, move baby!” the crew and passengers yelled. Then, “We did it, we did it!”

“When she started to move, she got hung up. Several of the blades of the propeller dug in,” said tugboat Capt. Patrick Kinnier, who helped plan the mission and was a passenger on the Intrepid.

Mud was churned into a 35-foot-deep trench that had been dug below. When the ship finally moved, “It was the best Christmas present I ever had. I cried. But don’t tell anybody. I’m a tough tugboat guy,” said Kinnier. “This is nothing but joy.”

Pre-race clothes thoughtlessly cast off at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge approach on the day of the New York City Marathon go to charity thanks to a civic-minded Girl Scout troop:

The Girl Scouts of Troop 5140 spent the day of the New York City Marathon running — to and fro.

They ran with coats, they ran with scarves, they ran with hats and gloves and windbreakers.

They scurried around picking up athlete litter, and all told ended up with more than 75 bags of clothes for charity.

The articles had all been cast off at the start of the race on Staten Island by runners who didn’t want to be hampered by the weight.

The girls and their leader, Sue Tramm of Fort Wadsworth, collected all the leftovers and spent the next week sorting it, cleaning it, and folding it so it would be ready for donation.

“I folded 50 hundred blankets!” exclaimed 9-year-old Evelyn.

Now all the clothes are sitting inside an unused Coast Guard apartment in Fort Wadsworth, in clear plastic bags — a great improvement from being strewn on muddy grass and cold asphalt the day of the event.

It was the second year the Scouts has done this drive, the idea for which was born when one troop mother was lamenting the wasted clothes and wishing the girls could use the opportunity to earn their bronze badges.

. . .

[T]hey were not prepared for the opening shot, when jackets and sweatpants went flying over their heads like incoming bullets.

“Everyone started throwing water bottles!” exclaimed Emilee, 10. “My mom was like, ‘Watch out!’” Shortly thereafter, a piece of bagel whizzed by her ear.

The clothes are intended to go to the New York Cares coat drive.

Oh my god, run Vivi, run:

Vivi may still be wandering the city.

The scent of the missing California show dog was picked up by a pet detective in Queens yesterday — renewing hope that the pampered pooch who bolted from her crate at Kennedy Airport nine months ago could be found.

. . .

The team of volunteers searching for the dog has been frustrated by a string of false leads. But they were encouraged yesterday after a team of tracking dogs from the Oklahoma-based Pet Detectives Inc. discovered Vivi’s scent at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Kew Gardens Hills.

“We had been getting discouraged that there’s been no sign of Vivi in a long time,” said Karin Goin, the pet detective. “The scent we found is no more than three months old, which is good.”

Goin’s two tracking dogs — Dodger and Cade — detected the whippet’s scent nearly 8 miles from Kennedy Airport and followed it south along the Van Wyck Expressway. Goin will resume the search today.

“Vivi is a nomadic breed who can survive a long time on the move without much food,” said Goin, who has a license to track lost cats and dogs. “As long as she’s not hit by a car, she could be okay.”

Goin has been using the scent from one of Vivi’s coats to track the dog, which had been rumored to be moving through Forest Park and around Cypress Hills Cemetery.

See also: Vivi The Whippet.

Everybody loves exposing pervs on the subway, but Police Commissioner Ray Kelly urges caution, noting that some pervs may not take kindly to the act:

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly recently issued a statement warning straphangers to use extreme caution when trying to catch subway flashers on cell phone cameras. Kelly acknowledged that such photos have assisted investigators in bringing the flashers to justice-but warned those snapping the sickos to consider they may be putting themselves in danger by doing so.

Kelly reminded the sharpshooters to think about how the flasher might react when he realizes he’s been caught in the act.

Kelly’s remarks on the particularly satisfying form of vigilante justice come after a particularly pervy perv was caught in the act on the 7 train*:

The same individual who exposed himself to a 15-year-old in March is alleged to have flashed a second woman on the same No. 7 line on May 5. Both times the pervert’s victims snapped cell phone pictures of him.

Cops released both images to the press, asking for the public’s help in catching the serial flasher.

Police said the latest victim, a 22-year-old Queens woman, was riding the No. 7 with a friend and her mother when she spotted the pervert-exposed and peering at her over his sunglasses.

When the woman snapped photos of him, the man tried to cover his face with an Archie comic book, police said. After she was certain she had a clear photo, the woman tried to embarrass the man by shouting to other straphangers that he was exposing himself, police said. The man quickly exited the train.

*Isn’t May 5 like six months ago? Who cares when you have Archie!

This is precisely why they hate our freedom:

New York’s most ubiquitous drugstore quietly got sexy two weeks ago by stocking erotic toys and passion oils, according to Crain’s New York Business magazine.

Among the items for sale from the upscale Kama Sutra line of sex aids are feather ticklers, edible honey dust, vibrators and flavored condoms.

A Kama Sutra executive said selling through Duane Reade was an easy choice, and predicted New Yorkers won’t blink at seeing “pleasure” products next to the pharmacy. “We figured the Manhattan customer was sophisticated enough for our products,” said Beverly Pollington Sirjani, senior VP of California-based Kama Sutra.

God willing, that cruddy old hipster flask can finally be retired:

As far as National Amusements sees it, Whitestone residents and moviegoers at College Point Multiplex Cinemas “have a love for entertainment and an excellent dining experience.”

With that thought in mind, the Massachusetts-based company applied to the New York State Liquor Authority in April for a liquor license at its 12-screen College Point movie theater.

The application, which is currently being evaluated by the SLA, is for the theater’s new Chatters Bar & Grill. Chatters is just one feature of National Amusements’ new signature theatre concept, Cinema de Lux.

. . .

Chatters is a full-service restaurant featuring American fare, and would include a full service bar with beer, wine and signature specialty drinks. “Anyone is welcome to dine at Chatters; it makes a great place for lunch, meeting friends for a snack or enjoying a meal before, during or after the movie,” the spokeswoman added.

According to the SLA, a movie theater alone cannot apply for a liquor license, but if a restaurant is present on the premises an application may be processed, whether or not the film is shown in the restaurant or separate rooms. National Amusements could not confirm the configuration of Chatters as of press time.

Order your American Museum of Natural History fraternity paddle:

The American Museum of Natural History, which plays host to about 400,000 schoolchildren each year, is about to become a graduate school.

The New York State Board of Regents yesterday authorized the museum, on the West Side of Manhattan, to grant master’s degrees and Ph.D.’s in comparative biology, making it the first American museum with its own doctoral degree.

It expects to recruit students next year and enroll its first class in 2008.

. . .

Johanna Duncan-Poitier, deputy commissioner for higher education in New York State, said the museum was already “one of the world’s foremost centers of research and training in the natural sciences, the physical sciences and anthropology,” and clearly met state standards for doctoral-granting institutions.

About 30 students a year already conduct doctoral research at the museum through partnerships with Columbia, Cornell, New York University and the City University of New York. Its staff includes more than 200 scientists, some of whom will become the school’s faculty.

The program plans to accept four or five students a year — reaching a total enrollment of about 20 — who will receive tuition and a stipend. It has raised more than $50 million for the program, from the Gilder Foundation, the Hess Foundation, an anonymous museum trustee and New York City. It will be named the Richard Gilder Graduate School, for Richard Gilder, an investment manager and museum trustee who is one of the school’s major donors.

Location Scout: American Museum of Natural History.

A gay-bashing sting operation nabs surly dickhead in Union Square:

A Brooklyn man chose the wrong targets to gay-bash when he picked on two undercover cops pretending to be snuggling paramours in Union Square Park, authorities said yesterday.

Tyrone George, 20, was arrested on hate-crime charges at around 1:15 p.m. Monday after he threatened and spat at the officers, who were in the park on the lookout for gang activity, police said.

The cops, a sergeant and a police officer assigned to the Transit Borough Manhattan Task Force, were perched on a bench like lovebirds, with the sergeant’s arm wrapped around his subordinate’s shoulder, authorities said.

George approached them, screamed that he hated “homos,” told them to get out of his park, called them “faggots” and gave the sergeant the middle finger, according to a Criminal Court complaint.

Minutes later, George circled back and continued his anti-gay rant, threatened to assault them and spat on the sergeant’s foot, authorities said.

With that, the cops arrested George, who struggled and said he didn’t want “faggots touching him,” court papers state.

Choose your own snark:

• Sure they were “pretending” . . . sure.
• Posing as a drug buyer is one thing, but snuggling with your partner — now there’s an assignment.
• When this is ripped from the headlines, perhaps Jesse L. Martin will reprise his role in Rent?

While in Midtown the United Nations debated sanctions on North Korea, in the Village NYU students participated in the largest Connect Four game ever (or at least we hope the largest ever):

Each decision was crucial. Nerves were high and the pressure was on. But it wasn’t the Superbowl or the World Series — no, this was far bigger. This was Weinstein’s version of Connect Four on Saturday in which event planners taped yellow paper to the windows of Weinstein residence hall facing University Place to replicate the board.

“It was definitely not good that they came and woke me up just to hang up things in my window,” CAS freshman Michael Bliss said of the RAs preparation for the event.

The windows in between represented the empty spaces the competitors chose where to place their “pieces” — or in this case, large sheets of red or black paper. Via cell phone, the two players chose where they wanted their pieces to fall by contacting RAs on each floor who then taped the appropriate team’s square on whoever’s window it happened to be.

“In terms of doing a good job, this is the kind of stuff we should be doing more of — using our buildings in creative ways,” Weinstein’s Community Development Educator Ryan Sylvester said. “Plus, it would be cool to say we had the largest game of Connect Four ever.”

The game started last week with the elimination of 43 players. During those rounds, games were played on traditional tabletop boards. Stern freshman Tommy Wong and CAS freshman Catherine Kelso emerged as Connect Four champions, and were then given the opportunity to rake in five million points for Weinstein’s Floor Wars, should they win the building-sized version of the game.

. . .

Trying to withstand the bitter wind across the street, Wong and Kelso battled it out with intense strategy as fellow residents cheered them on.

“This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me this morning,” CAS freshman Gabriel Leinwand said.

The buzz in Queens is about the new electrified subway trusses that are keeping pigeons away:

Pigeons have long plagued a stretch of Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside, making a home among the trusses and girders under the rumble and roar of the No. 7 train and leaving their mark on the sidewalk, stairs and lampposts.

After a decade of requests, New York City Transit is providing some relief in the form of low-voltage wires that give the birds a little shock.

New York City Transit, a division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, began installation of the pigeon deterrent at the 52nd Street stop of the No. 7 train in August as part of a pilot program to rid the area of the birds, and the work continues, a New York City Transit spokesman said.

. . .

The preventive measure is comprised of a flexible wire and plastic molding carrying a low voltage that gives a mild and non-lethal shock to the birds, according to the manufacturer’s Web site. The system, called Shock Track, is manufactured by Bird-B-Gone Inc. of Mission Viejo, Calif.

City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) also lobbied on behalf of the deterrent system, writing his first letter about the pigeons to the president of New York City Transit only weeks after taking office in 2002.

The Woodside location is the first site where New York City Transit has installed this system, which is considered a pilot program, Transit spokesman James Anyansi said.

. . .

Jose Sanchez, a newspapers salesman who has been working just outside the station for the past eight months, said the bird droppings still coating parts of the sidewalk had been a problem for commuters.

“It would fall on many people. It was a problem, but not so much for me,” he said.

He said the system appeared to be working: “There are fewer pigeons in the past five weeks.”

State Assemblywomen Catherine Nolan (D-Ridgewood) and Margaret Markey (D-Maspeth) lobbied the agency for a cleanup.

“I am pleased that the MTA has started to address this serious health and sanitation issue. It is a relief to know that this unsightly and unsanitary situation will soon be fixed,” Nolan said.

Believe it — work is set to begin on the Second Avenue Subway in 2008:

Phase 1 of the project calls for the construction of stations at East 96th, 86th, and 72nd streets, and a connection to existing tracks at 63rd Street.

A giant hole will be dug between 92nd and 95th streets to allow the tunnel-boring machine to launch under ground, said Mysore Nagaraja, president of MTA Capital Construction.

The Post warns, however, that if they find too many arrowheads, work will stop:

. . . [A]rchaeologists will be on hand to halt the massive tunnel-boring machine at the first sign of artifacts dating back hundreds of years . . . officials said.

A consultant hired by the MTA told the agency that there is the potential for Native American and Colonial artifacts along the route, which was once closer to the shoreline than it is today, said Amanda Sutphin of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

“You don’t know what is there until you start digging and it can actually be tested,” Sutphin said. “The topography of Manhattan was very different back then. Hills were leveled and valleys filled in.”

Mafia wannabes and paralegals breathe a sigh of relief. The Linclon Town Car will live on . . . for now, at least:

There has been speculation that the Michigan plant where the Town Car is built will be one of 14 North American factories Ford plans to close. But the automaker said production of the Town Car will continue in St. Thomas, Ontario — the same factory that builds Ford’s Crown Victoria police car.

“It is such good news,” said Stanley Smith, 73, of Manhattan’s upper East Side, whose 2003 Town Car has 55,000 miles on the odometer.

“I was shattered when I heard about the possibility of the car’s discontinuation,” he said.

“I would rather drive the Town Car with three wheels on it than switch to most other options,” said cabbie Mike Ali, 44, of Staten Island. “This car is a tool of the trade. I am glad to find out it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

Ford said the vehicle’s cult appeal was part of its decision to continue production.

“The Town Car has a definite following,” said spokeswoman Anne Marie Gattari. “We ultimately decided that it is a sustainable product, as long as we move it to a smaller plant.”

“Taking her .357 handgun to the shooting range” = “packing heat on a routine trip to the cornerstore”:

Margaret Johnson, 56, was taking her .357 handgun to the shooting range at 3 p.m. while riding in her electric wheelchair when she was approached by a thief on Lenox Avenue near 133rd Street, police said.

“There’s not much to it. Somebody tried to mug me and I shot him,” said Johnson. “It was very scary.”

The attacker, Deron Johnson, 45, apparently thought the older, handicapped retiree was an easy mark, police said.

Instead, she was a marksman.

When Deron grabbed Margaret’s chain and tried to make a dash, she pulled out her gun and shot him, nailing him in the left elbow, police said.

He dropped the loot and ran, but cops caught up with Deron by following his trail of blood about half a block.

. . .

Cops said Margaret has a license for the pistol, which allows her to keep it in her home and take it to the shooting range.

The story doesn’t follow up to check the hours and/or location of the firing range . . .

The lede of the day, in the Queens Tribune:

Even though his performance art is based on letting audience members run a vacuum cleaner up and down his body, Eugene Calamari said that charges against him claiming he made hundreds of harassing phone calls to a hotel employee are what really suck.