An Upper East Side all-girls prep school is accusing two elderly women in rent-controlled apartments of stalling its plan to expand to the building next door.

The Nightingale-Bamford School on East 92nd Street said it has done everything by the book since it purchased the adjacent space in 2007 for $9 million, and should be allowed to take over the four-story building.

But two women who have lived at 28 E. 92nd St. for nearly 40 years aren’t so enamored of the eviction and expansion effort.

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“They are harassing two elderly women and trying to drive them out of their homes,” said lawyer David Rozenholc. “I really believe they’re heartless. They knew these elderly people lived there when they bought the building. I think it’s terrible.”

Broadway will remain permanently closed through Times Square after an eight-month tryout that infuriated cabbies but delighted tourists.

Mayor Bloomberg is set to announce the decision Thursday morning after weighing the complaints of area businesses against City Hall’s statistics.

One person familiar with the conclusions said traffic speeds increased slightly on Seventh Ave., but less than the 17% improvement DOT engineers predicted.

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“If lives are being saved, it’s really hard to argue with,” said Transportation Alternatives spokesman Wiley Norvell.

Location Scout: Times Square Pedestrian Mall.

So far, the hospital, which is $700 million in debt and in danger of bankruptcy, has not found a partner. Continuum Health Partners, a consortium of hospitals in Brooklyn and Manhattan, had offered to take over its outpatient facilities, but then withdrew that offer, in part because of community opposition to Continuum’s plan to shut down most emergency room functions and to send 911 ambulance calls to other hospitals.

Where to get more money was a major topic of Friday’s meeting, which was attended by the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn; Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried; and representatives of the hospital workers’ union, Local 1199 of the S.E.I.U.; the city comptroller’s office; the nurses’ association; and others, according to attendees.

Mr. Gottfried said that representatives of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development talked about providing mortgage insurance to refinance loans. One person at the table reportedly wondered whether the Department of Homeland Security might extend money to St. Vincent’s, which played a major role in treating survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

“There is no getting around it — the situation for St. Vincent’s Hospital is critical, and we are all extremely concerned,” Mr. Nadler said in a statement afterward. “At the moment, we are actively engaging federal agencies to provide resources.”

Location Scout: St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan.

The Times Square inn — voted the nation’s sixth-filthiest hotel and worst in the Big Apple last week by travelers on Tripadvisor.com — is a throwback to the dirty old days of the 1970s, when hotels like this one rented rooms by the hour, not the week.

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In Room 307, The Post found orange mold in the shower, a chipped toilet seat, ill-fitting ceiling tiles stained with water and piles of dust behind the headboard.

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The front-desk clerk told The Post the that Tripadvisor is always asking the New York Inn for money for better placement on its site — which the hotel has refused to pay.

[Lower Manhattan's Verizon] building is actually one-third larger than allowed, a city agency claims — but no one noticed for 31 years.

The city’s Educational Construction Fund filed a suit alleging it sold Verizon construction rights for a 771,003-square-foot building in 1972.

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The fund is suing Verizon and the developers for fraud, breach of contract and unjust enrichment, seeking $53 million plus interest and a court declaration that the proposed renovation would be illegal.

Zaarath and Christopher Prokop — and their two cats — live in the smallest apartment in the city, a 175-square-foot “microstudio” in Morningside Heights the couple bought three months ago for $150,000.

At 14.9 feet long and 10 feet wide, it’s about as narrow as a subway car and as claustrophobic as a jail cell. But to the Prokops, it’s a castle.

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The couple wakes up every morning in their queen-size bed, which takes up one-third of the living space.

They then walk five feet toward the tiny kitchen, where they pull out their workout clothes, which are folded neatly in two cabinets above the sink. A third cabinet holds several containers of espresso for their only kitchen appliance, a cappuccino maker.

They turn off their hotplate, and use the space on the counter as a feeding area for their cats, Esmeralda and Beauregard.

“We don’t cook,” Zaarath said, adding that their fridge never has any food in it. “So when you don’t cook, you don’t need plates or pots or pans. So we use that space for our clothes.”

Once in their running attire, the two change the cat litter box (stored under the sink) and start their small Rumba vacuum — which operates automatically while they’re out, picking up cat hair.

They then jog to their jobs in Midtown, picking up along the way their work clothes, which are “strategically stashed at various dry cleaners.”

In 2001, both state and federal courts ruled that New York City could not require permits for artists in parks under the First Amendment under a case brought by Mr. [Robert A.] Lederman. In addition, Mr. Lederman was also a plaintiff in an earlier case which established artists’ rights to sell on the streets in 1997, under the argument that the artists deserved the same protections as booksellers and others selling printed materials, who had long been exempt from licensing.

On Saturday, Mr. Lederman said, representatives of Friends of the High Line, including security and supervisors, had approached him all day, threatening him. Finally they brought a parks enforcement officer. “I showed them a New York Times article and a New York Post article about the artist permit being overturned and that artists don’t need a permit,” said Mr. Lederman, who said it appeared that the enforcement officer believed him. However, Mr. Lederman said that the officer was pressured to issue summonses and arrest him.

When asked about the situation, Katie Lorah, a spokeswoman for Friends of the High Line, said, “We’re actually not commenting right now” and referred all questions to the Department of Parks and Recreation.

The DPR spokesperson claimed the High Line was somehow different. The artist in question fleshes out that argument for them:

“The parks department and the High Line people have their own agenda for commercializing this park, and they’re hoping to nip street artists in the bud by arresting me,” he said. “Frankly I think they made a tremendous mistake. I’m not looking to make a big commotion on the High Line. I would prefer not to have to do that. I certainly don’t need to go back there to make the point. They made the point already. They gave me five different summonses. I’m not going to have to prove anything to the judge about what they’re intentions were and continue to be. I plan to go back there to sell my art if not to protest, and I have a right to. I intend to exercise that right.”

Location Scout: High Line.

Garage managers in the swanky 10021 ZIP code say the recession has driven away customers, and it’s little wonder with monthly fees hitting $800 or more. An extra $100 is often tacked on for exotic cars.

Rolls-Royce owner Jonathan Martin said he’s fed up with paying about $500 a month for the privilege of parking and recently started searching for free spaces with the masses.

“The garage rates keep going up around here,” he said.

If you can’t get to the mountains or the shore on this last big weekend of the summer, a Central Park getaway can provide city habitués with nearly everything they might want for a weekend away at a fraction of the cost.

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

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

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

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

Location Scout: High Line.