A reminder that it’s generally considered bad form to start stealing seats before the end of May:

A Mets fan struck out in his attempt to take a piece of Shea Stadium home with him, cops said Tuesday.

Patrick Oriani, 18, of Jersey City, was caught stealing the bottom half of a red upper-deck seat after the Mets’ 10-4 loss to the Washington Nationals on Monday night, police said. He had the souvenir wrapped in a blanket.

Oriani was charged with possession of stolen property, criminal mischief and petty larceny, police said.

Location Scout: Shea Stadium.

The letter writer apparently doesn’t get into the city much:

Charles Ober — an openly gay candidate running for the City Council seat formerly held by Dennis Gallagher — said Wednesday he has been smeared by a nasty anti-gay screed.

But Ober, a Democrat, was not alone in denouncing the hateful anonymous missive.

He was joined at a news conference by a potential rival from the opposite side of the political spectrum: Republican hopeful Thomas Ognibene.

The letter — a typed page full of vile hate speech, with frequent spelling and grammatical errors — was sent to an unknown number of households in Ridgewood, Middle Village and Glendale, they said.

“You need to know that one of the candidates that is trying to get Dennis’ seat is a f—-t,” the letter began.

“If you do not want your kids to be exposed to this garbage, you need to make sure you vote — and not for Charlie . . . Ober,” the diatribe continues. “Our kids will be exposed to f—-ts holding hands, kissing and running up Myrtle Ave. in a dress.”

Fortunately, there is still a healthy level of cynicism in Middle Queens:

Multiple Democratic insiders inferred that Ober and Ognibene — who have been spurned by their respective political parties in the nonpartisan special election — may have concocted the hate mail scheme to boost their candidacies.

“It looks like they manufactured an issue and tried to get press on it,” said Michael Reich, executive secretary of the Queens Democratic Party.

Others blamed Ober for going along with the conservative Ognibene in a plan to divide the Democratic vote.

. . . but until then, please just give these people a stupid beer/wine license already:

Long Island City activists are opposing a popular restaurant’s application for a beer and wine license, fearing alcohol will only add to the troubles they say the eatery has brought to the neighborhood.

Residents said Blend LIC has been a bad neighbor, and accused its management of repeatedly lying to the community about its intentions.

Blend’s management “don’t want a restaurant that co-exists peacefully with the neighborhood,” said resident Tim Lee, a 48-year-old photographer.

“There’s a big difference between a restaurant that serves liquor and a place that’s positioning itself as a bar stop.”

Blend, which bills itself as a Latin fusion restaurant, had its initial application for a liquor license rejected by the State Liquor Authority in November 2006.

Now the restaurant’s owner, Cullen Partners, is preparing to ask Queens Community Board 2 for a beer and wine license.

“The opening of their rear garden would surround our building with noise,” said Tim Doocey, 38, another concerned neighbor.

. . .

“There’s a saturation of bars and restaurants” in Long Island City, said Community Board 2 Chairman Joe Conley. “People are saying enough is enough.”

In a 2006 letter to Cullen Partners, Conley wrote: “Please be advised we have already spoken in a loud and unambiguous voice on this issue and are unlikely to reconsider the decision” in regard to a new license.

Charles Linn, attorney for Cullen Partners, declined to comment and added that no one at Blend would be available for further comment.

The original disapproval states the “application information was misrepresented by the applicant” and that the applicant “submitted an application with misleading information.”

Doocey, a communications consultant, added, “We’re not anti-business. We’re not even anti-bar. But the next thing you know, Vernon Blvd. will become a mess like the lower East Side.”

If you found yourself without power for, I don’t know, like nine days during the summer, know that you will be compensated at a rate significantly below that of jury duty:

Customers in western Queens can expect to receive about $100 each from Consolidated Edison as compensation for having to sweat through nine days without power in July 2006, according to officials who have been briefed on the settlement.

The approval of the settlement, which the utility proposed several weeks ago and which will total $17 million, was to be announced at a news conference on Thursday.

Customers will receive a credit on their monthly bill, which will also include a brief apology from the company.

Club Kalua goes on, despite the odds:

The club where Sean Bell spent the final moments of his life celebrating at his bachelor party still occupies a narrow plot at 143-08 94th Avenue in Jamaica, Queens. Half-naked women still twirl on poles, trying to interest dollar-tossing patrons. The A.T.M. with the high surcharge still occupies a corner in the back.

But there is something very different these days about this place, the Club Kalua: The alcohol is gone.

No more watered-down $20 glasses of Champagne for strippers to push on patrons. No more $16 Long Island iced teas to keep the bartenders busy. No more drink menu on the wall.

The state stripped the Club Kalua of its liquor license more than two weeks ago, reducing the club, essentially, to a juice bar with strippers.

But what surely would have been a death knell for many other bars is, for this gritty dive, merely the latest chapter in its remarkable, and in many ways inexplicable, longevity. It remains open 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Nothing, it seems, can bring down the Club Kalua.

. . .

At midnight Wednesday, there were nine men and four strippers around Kalua’s main bar. The atmosphere was turgid.

One dancer approached the bar, sighed and said, “I need some liquor.”

Not too long ago, a stripper could make more than $500 a night working at the Club Kalua. Now, one is lucky to walk away with more than $100, a dancer said.

Regulars like Andre, 36, a music producer who goes by the nickname Boogie, are among the dancers’ biggest supporters. Andre, who refused to give his last name, said that he felt it was his civic duty to be there, despite the absence of alcohol.

“It’s about supporting the community,” he said, sucking on an unlit Black and Mild cigar and twirling a small plastic cup of water with his hands. “These girls, they’re part of the community. Some of them got children. It’s about giving back.”

So I guess Viva New York is chopped liver to this asshat:

The Flamingo is famed in its Queens neighborhood as a place for lonely men to dance with scantily clad beauties for just $2 a song.

But several former dancers at the Jackson Heights night club allege they were treated like virtual slaves — forced to work hundreds of hours a week without pay and to endure abuse and humiliation by the owners.

In a multimillion-dollar lawsuit expected to be filed today, several former dancers, bartenders and waiters contend dance hall owners Edith D’Angelo and her husband, Luis Ruiz, violated labor laws and treated them inhumanely, according to Make the Road New York, a community organization representing the employees.

“[Ruiz] would insult the women by calling us ‘whore’ or ‘prostitute,’ and he would throw drinks and alcohol on our bodies,” a former dancer said in an affidavit obtained by the Daily News.

The dancers also say they were:

Not allowed to sit down, eat or drink water during shifts of 10 or more hours.

Made to change in rooms that were under video surveillance.

Ordered to have bar managers inspect their toilets after each use to make sure they didn’t use too much toilet paper.

Forced to repeat humiliating statements about themselves during meetings, such as, “I am fat and ugly. I am the reason that Flamingo is losing business.”

. . .

Dancers at the Roosevelt Ave. hot spot have to pay the house to work there — $11 each night. They are fined $10 for each half-hour they’re late and are forced to pay $70 if they call in sick, former dancers said.

Each night, the young women dress in different outfits - sometimes only in bikinis or lacy pajamas — and offer to dance salsa, bachata or cumbia with men for $2 a song or $40 an hour.

. . .

Outside the club yesterday, bar manager Aridio Herrera was unapologetic.

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Herrera, 29, said. “Our customers don’t speak any English, so we don’t care if it’s in the paper.”

All your venues belong to us now that “Downtown has moved to Queens”:

Robert Prichard hopes to illuminate Long Island City with some emphatic Times Square-style signage.

“I’d like it to be visible from the 59th Street Bridge,” he said. “First, it flashes ‘Queens,’ then ‘Bridge,’ then ‘Theater,’ and then ‘Queensbridge Theater.’ And then maybe an arrow that lights up and points down to our loading dock.”

Mr. Prichard, 52, has long had a flair for the dramatic. This is the same guy, after all, who nearly a decade ago led a conga line up Avenue A in protest of the city’s antiquated cabaret laws.

Nowadays, he’s participating in a perhaps farther-reaching kind of procession — the ongoing exodus of artists, musicians and other creative types abandoning Manhattan in droves.

Adopting the slogan “Downtown Has Moved to Queens,” the former Lower East Side stalwart is partnering with developer Michael Waldman to open what he called a “rock ‘n’ roll supper club, similar to a Bowery Ballroom or a Mercury Lounge with a restaurant — a first for Long Island City, a first for Queens.”

Scheduled to open this summer, the 5,000-square-foot Queensbridge Theater, located at 37-31 10th Street, may be somewhat unique in concept. (After the nighttime entertainment ends at 4 a.m., the proprietors intend to open back up just three hours later for breakfast, with homemade bread baked fresh on the premises.)

Bwahahahaha!

Better to decamp to Jackson, Prospect or even Morris Heights than whoring every detail of your life for clicks, according to the person who started it all (by portraying someone who started it all):

Budding Carrie Bradshaws better think about moving to Queens, says “Sex and the City” icon Sarah Jessica Parker.

Manhattan is bracing for another influx of Blahnik-wearing career girls after the film is released May 30. But New York is “a really hard city, and it’s very expensive and it’s not what it used to be,” Parker told me at the Cinema Society and Linda Wells’ screening of her new film, “Smart People.”

“That’s why the outer boroughs are so desirable,” she said. “The outer boroughs are pretty sexy. It’s just a matter of time before they have their own shows.”

On the list of red light-districted activities in city parks — dog runs, for one — now add skate parks:

Work on a $1.25 million skateboard park that a local Councilman has been trying to have built in Astoria Park for years is finally scheduled to get underway soon.

“This project will give kids a place to skate that is far away from the busy sidewalks and parks where they sometimes inconvenience other people, especially seniors,” said Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who provided most of the funding.

. . .

Currently, skateboarders use Athens Square Park at 30th Ave. and 30th St., among other areas.

“I have been working to bring this project to Astoria for a long time. It is fulfilling to see something go from an idea to a completion during my term as a Council member,” Vallone said. “Before, all we had here was trucks and equipment. Now, we will have a great park for kids to come and have fun.”

Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski said the new park will offer the obstacles skateboarders crave while at the same time limiting the city’s liability.

“What we are creating in Astoria Park replicates in many ways a lot of the municipal street furniture that kids skate on already. But this gives them a destination location where they can meet in a safe, secure environment,” Lewandowski said.

The new skate plaza “will have ramps that have a maximum height of three feet, which for the city meets our criteria for limiting liabilities,” she added. “Anything over three feet requires that Parks have supervision and that it be gated and closed when we don’t have park staff on duty.”

Contractors are scheduled to break ground on the project in early May and expect to finish in nine months, Vallone said.

Located under the bridge and near Shore Blvd., the skate park site, he said, is situated far enough away so as not to disturb Astoria residents.

Hmm . . . can a city-sponsored graffiti park be far behind? Mr. Ecko?

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.

Good thing there are a lot of cops in this city:

Nate Banton — New York City’s only bagpipe maker — opened his business in a Neponsit bungalow four months ago. The 30-year-old craftsman specializes in two types of bagpipes: border pipes and small pipes.

“I’m interested in making hand-crafted pipes with an attention to detail,” said Banton, who grew up in Maine. “It’s a good business to be in. I make a product that people can make art with.”

Banton, who apprenticed for three years under noted pipe maker Seth Gallagher in upstate Cold Spring, N.Y., said he had a hard time breaking into the industry.

. . .

Banton uses dozens of handmade tools and relies on his 1940s South Bend lathe, a hardsaw and a drill press for the bulkwork.

A set will take roughly three weeks to complete. Banton now has a three-month waiting list for his pipes.

“I think he’s well on his way to be successful,” said Brian Bigley, 23, who shares the workspace with Banton and is working on his own design for a uilleann pipe — a traditional Irish bagpipe. “The Celtic music industry is doing really well.”

Picking up trash is one thing. Obsessively counting each item is quite another:

Most people don’t look forward to walking barefoot along a Queens beach because they know that hidden in the warm sand are various discarded items, like straws and stirrers that poke their soles or shards of glass that cut their toes.

They probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that during the 2007 New York Beach Cleanup, 1,018 volunteers collected 21,000 pounds of debris from 24 Queens beaches.

As part of the annual International Coastal Cleanup, people set out to their local beaches to pick up and sort through trash, documenting along the way each item they found.

“It’s mainly a consciousness raising effort,” said Barbara Toborg of Broad Channel, a member of the American Littoral Society’s Northeast Chapter. “If you just stuff garbage in a bag, you’re not really paying too much attention, but categorizing specific items leaves an impression, especially on kids, who are great at that kind of thing.”

. . .

The Queens volunteers noted their most unusual findings, which included a fire hydrant cover, tires, sewer pipes, car axle and bowling pins. The more common findings, although less exciting to document, reminded volunteers how important it is to respect the environment, Toborg said. One group found dead fish and crabs entangled in plastic bags — something Toborg often sees during local beach cleanups.

“A lot of people you see just throw things down on the street without any regard. They don’t even realize what they’re doing,” she said. But this changes if they see the consequences of their actions, like a bird trapped in a six-pack ring holder, or a sea mammal entwined with a fishing line.

Making up the majority of debris in Queens’ beaches were household items: volunteers collected nearly 4,000 paper or plastic bags, more than 4,700 food wrappers and containers, and about 5,500 caps and lids. Topping the list at 8,677 were beverage cans and bottles, plastic and glass.

Meanwhile, a purpose appears to rise to the top:

Across the entire state, volunteers collected 56,756 beverage containers, two-thirds of which are not included in the state’s bottle deposit law. To reduce the number of discarded bottles and cans, Toborg and the Northeast Chapter are advocating for legislation that would expand the five-cent deposit to containers that hold non-carbonated beverages.

The “Bigger Better Bottle Bill” has been stalled in the state Senate, Toborg said, but the annual beach cleanup is helping to spread awareness and garner support for the legislation. Earlier this week, the Northeast Chapter was joined by local surfers and other supporters in Albany, where they rallied for the bill.

Ah, the beverage company lobby. I hate those guys.

Brooklyn gets greyer (”The war between childless bar-goers and the so-called stroller Mafia has ended at one restaurant: the eatery is offering on-site babysitters to watch children in a separate room while their parents — and everyone else — dine and drink in peace”), while Queens gets funnier:

The Astoria Comedy Club is set to open Friday at Mezzo Mezzo restaurant on Ditmars Blvd. — the only venue in the borough for regular comic relief.

The 75-seat club, located in a performance space on the second floor of the eatery, will be open four days a week for now and feature comedians from across the country.

“About 10 years ago, all the comics moved to Astoria because it’s cheap,” said Matt Taylor, the club’s host. “There’s more talent here per square foot than anywhere, period.”

Connecting with the people is about making promises and sticking to them:

No nationally known political figures graced the ninth annual St. Patrick’s Parade in Sunnyside and Woodside, and even Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave notice he wouldn’t be around this year, though once he had said he’d attend each parade faithfully, even after he had left office.

City kids are smart enough to know that when you see an unattended suitcase, nine times out of ten it contains money of some dubious provenance. But on that tenth time:

Four children playing in a Queens park Tuesday stumbled upon a suitcase filled with human bones, a police source said.

A skull, a spine and several other bones packed in a blue rolling suitcase were found about 4:30 p.m. in Forest Park in Woodhaven, cops said.

“They dragged it out . . . and opened it up and took the skull out,” a source said. “They thought maybe there was some money in [the suitcase]. What a surprise.”

. . . meanwhile, this guy collected the crap-ass burnt bits from the bottom of the oven and made a bagel out of it:

As is often the case (Post-its, the microwave), the genesis of the everything bagel was a “fluky-type thing,” [David] Gussin said the other day. When Gussin was fifteen, he took a part-time job at a takeout place in Howard Beach run by a guy named Charlie. It was a simpler time for bagels: you had plain, poppy, sesame, onion, salt, garlic, and — on the exotic end — cinnamon raisin. One of Gussin’s duties at closing time was to sweep up the burnt seeds that had fallen off in the oven during the day. Gussin developed a taste for them, and one afternoon — he guesses around 1980 — “instead of throwing them out, like I always did, I swept them into a bin and said, ‘Charlie, let’s make some with these!’ ”

Charlie, who was mildly enthusiastic about the idea, agreed to sell the newfangled bagels for a nickel extra. According to Gussin, the name “everything” came instantaneously. “There was no marketing meeting or anything like that,” he said. “It was a one-second thought process. Boom.” The flavor became popular “the next day,” and pretty soon Gussin’s brainchild — minus the burnt-seed concept — had spread to a bagel place over in Lindenwood. Within a year, Gussin said, “the everything bagel was everywhere.”

Gypsy cab as impromptu safe haven:

A man carrying a 6-month-old girl flagged down a black car for hire in Queens on Thursday and left the baby behind after asking the driver to stop, the police said.

The driver immediately took the infant to a firehouse in Corona, the police arrived and the baby was taken to St. John’s Queens Hospital, where she was in good condition.

. . .

About 10 a.m., the driver, whose name the police did not release, was flagged down at Northern Boulevard and 106th Street by a man holding the infant. When the driver and his passengers reached Northern Boulevard and 83rd Street, the man asked the driver to stop so he could make a phone call.

The man then walked across the street to a pay phone and fled, the police said. The driver took the child to Engine Company 289 at 97-28 43rd Avenue.

The driver is an independent contractor affiliated with Tel-a-Car of New York, said the company’s manager, Rocco Sacramone.

“It was a great thing he did,” said Mr. Sacramone, who would not disclose the driver’s name. “He went out, he went to work, he did a great thing, and then he went home and went to sleep.”

Generally, only taxis are allowed to pick up passengers in the street; Mr. Sacramone said he did not know why the driver had picked up the man.

The problem with instituting congestion pricing is that to make it fair, you have to start charging everyone $8 to go anywhere:

The New York State Department of Transportation brought its second round of PlaNYC neighborhood parking workshops to Long Island City on Tuesday, where community members had a chance to weigh in on several parking options.

The DOT conducted its first round of meetings in November to assess the needs of several communities in the city and continue discussion about possible parking options to offset the potential effects of congestion pricing.

The second round of meetings explored four options in depth. Consultants from Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc. — the firm representing the DOT — also provided data from a recent parking study conducted in Long Island City.

Many western Queens residents said parking is already severely limited in their communities. Others fear congestion pricing would cause an influx of even more commuters who park their cars in the neighborhood and take the subway or the bus into Manhattan.

The recent study surveyed 343 residential parking spaces in Long Island City at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on the same day and at 5:30 a.m. the following morning.

According to the data, 60 percent of the vehicles seen at 6 p.m. were still in the same spots at 5:30 a.m. Out of the vehicles parked overnight, 47 percent were registered in the neighborhood, 55 percent were registered within Queens, 66 percent were registered within New York City and 82 percent were registered within New York State. Eighteen percent of the cars observed were registered out of state.

All four of the plans proposed on Tuesday focused discussion on the possible issuance of residential parking permits. The first would require a permit during designated hours (between 8 and 24). The second would require a permit only during a one- to two-hour period, which would mean non-permit holders would be forced to move their vehicles during that time.

The third option, a variation on the first, would have the same stipulations, but also allow commuters to purchase a permit for $8 a day. The fourth option, similarly a variation on the second, would also allow commuters to purchase a daily permit for $8.

“None of this has been decided,” noted consultant Scott Gierig, who emphasized that the purpose of the workshop was to gauge community response to each of the proposals.

Not mine. Yours? Nope, not mine, either:

Despite what the popular colloquialism may have led Sunnyside residents to believe, some rocks just won’t roll. Quite the opposite, in fact, as many neighbors have been perplexed by the neighborhood’s recently acquired inconvenient landmark: an enormous boulder that on 44 St at the intersection of Greeenpoint Ave and 47 Ave. Though it was intrusive and graffiti covered, the boulder quickly became an accepted part of the Sunnyside landscape and city and neighborhood agencies received few if no call on the matter. Its removal this weekend was as quiet and unnoticed as its arrival.

. . .

Although neighbors and city officials are unsure of exactly when the boulder first appeared on 44 St, it has been there since before the first of the year. Jutting out length-wise from the Easter curb of 44 St just north of the intersection, the boulder blocked traffic only slightly more than a typical parked car.

According to the Mayor’s office, the boulder was excavated during emergency sewer work by Maspeth Construction. A number of boulders were excavated during the work, but this particular one was simply too big to be removed, and was left at the intersection.

. . .

Another more minor problem that the boulder has created is that it has been marked with graffiti. One side of the boulder said in green writing, “paddy rock,” while another side was covered in an illegible white scrawl. A large orange road barrier was place in front of the rock to increase its visibility and prevent cars from slamming into it at night.

City officials are unsure of how long it had been there, having only been notified about the problem at this month’s meeting of Community Board 2, but reports indicate that it first appeared shortly after Christmas. Once the issue was brought up at the meeting, the City quickly responded to complaints and dispatched Maspeth Construction to remove it, which was done on Saturday. Today, all that remains of Sunnyside’s own natural oddity are small patches of rubble and scratches on the ground from its removal. Just as its sudden appearance went unnoticed by the neighborhood, so has its removal, and as of Monday afternoon, few neighbors have even noticed its absence.

Show your patriotism, earn some extra cash:

Despite vociferous objections from residents and community board members, telecommunications giant T-Mobile is forging ahead with plans to install a wireless signal tower on top of a Maspeth home.

But with city officials still weighing whether to approve the project, outraged residents and community leaders are doing everything in their power to stop it.

On Tuesday, nearly three dozen opponents crammed into a Board of Standards and Appeals hearing room in Manhattan to protest T-Mobile’s plan, which would place a 27-foot-tall wireless transmitter disguised as a flagpole atop a two-story home.

Rising more than 50 feet above ground level, the American flag-topped tower would “close a gap” in wireless service, according to T-Mobile spokesman Wayne Leuck. The tower would measure 36 inches in diameter — far wider than a typical flagpole, critics noted — and would be illuminated by at least two spotlights installed on the roof.

Critics say the tower will look “absolutely hideous” amid the neighborhood’s low-rise residential landscape. “It’s a matter of aesthetics,” said Assemblywoman Marge Markey, who has repeatedly urged T-Mobile to relocate the planned tower to one of Maspeth’s more remote industrial corners.

. . .

The telecommunication company first presented its idea to Community Board 5 in October, after gaining permission from the building’s owner to install the 27-foot-tall device (part pole, part equipment box) on his property for an undisclosed fee.

A) Who steals a nativity scene? B) Would they really then hold it for ransom? Many questions, few answers:

The Bayside Business Association’s Bell Boulevard Nativity display was stolen Dec. 28, marking the first theft of the organization’s creche in the five years it has been available for public viewing.

BBA President Judy Limpert said she noticed it had disappeared Saturday after seeing it at 41-16 Bell Blvd. just the day before. The small building sits across from a small Northfork Bank office and alongside the Bayside Long Island Railroad station

. . .

Limpert said the all-white resin figures were not particularly heavy, but had cost about $250.

Although she said the association would buy another display if necessary, the BBA head said she still held out hope the perpetrators would simply return the item.

“If the reason for taking it was some kind of political statement, then we’re willing to talk,” she said.

Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside) renewed efforts last month to convince the DOE to permit nativity displays alongside the menorah and star and crescent in schools for holiday displays; current DOE policy bars the appearance of deities in schools.

Limpert also said that if the theft was a matter of need, accommodation could be reached. “If they took it for their own use, we will donate one to them.”

If so, this is cause for concern:

A Flushing Army veteran was arrested last Wednesday night after police found a staggering weapons cache in his apartment that included body armor, rifles and more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition.

According to published reports, Suwei Chuang, 36, of 135-11 40th Rd., Apt. 7A, was taken into custody in Manhattan’s 7th Precinct around 8:45 p.m. following a tip cops received from his girlfriend. Officers observed an AR-15 assault rifle fitted with a scope in plain sight in Chuang’s vehicle. After obtaining a search warrant for the vehicle, cops determined the weapon was fully loaded and that Chuang was also carrying 18 loaded 30-round magazines in the car.

. . . but so is Astoria:

A growing number of college students are uniting online to rescue Astoria’s famous Greek culture from “guitar-playing hipsters” they charge are ruining the increasingly artsy neighborhood.

Formed a few weeks ago on the social networking site Facebook, the Save Astoria group urges members — about 150 as of late Thursday — to prevent the hipsters from turning churches and cafes into “wasteful art exhibits.”

Its five organizers, all former or current students at Fordham University, note Greeks’ history of banding together and becoming “a formidable force” during tough times. They ask followers to support only Greek businesses.

“Invite all your friends and bring public attention to this issue before it is too late!” plead the group leaders, who didn’t return e-mails and phone calls seeking comment.

“I guess they have a problem with people who go out and free ourselves with our music,” snarled David Guevara, 18, of Astoria, who sings and plays guitar in a rock band.

. . .

For Jared Koeppel, manager of the Guitar Center at Northern Blvd. and 48th St., the emergence of a hipster base in Astoria has been a godsend.

“I wish that there were more. I don’t think there are enough,” said Koeppel, 30. “We sell more classical guitars than pretty much any store in the world.”

The question is whether those who offer credit — who these days seem to have little problems extending it to virtually anyone — have a problem with your overdue library book:

Eleven years ago, the Queens Library system, the largest in the nation by circulation, hired a professional enforcer to collect the 25-cents-a-day late fines as well as missing library materials from books to DVDs to rare musical scores.

The gambit has paid off handsomely. The haul so far: $11.4 million, about half of that in fines. That’s a lot of quarters.

. . .

It works. About 70 percent of the people contacted by the company [Unique Management Services] (who, in Queens, have ignored or missed four notices from the library) return some of their overdue materials or pay part of their fines.

“Once reported, this adverse information can stay on your record for seven years!” declares one of the company’s standard letters, which goes on to warn that car dealers, department stores and banks may learn of the library users’ misdeeds. “Why allow this to happen?”

Rabbi Avrohom Sebrow of Far Rockaway said he was flabbergasted when it happened to him.

As a child in Forest Hills, Rabbi Sebrow said, he loved to visit his local branch, and he grew up to be an enthusiastic library patron. He is a teacher at a yeshiva, where instilling reverence for texts and scholarship is central to his calling. Sometimes, like many library patrons, he is late in returning a book, he admitted in a recent interview, but he said he always paid his fines.

In 2005, Rabbi Sebrow said, he was overwhelmed after the birth of twin daughters and found himself six months overdue on materials he had checked out from the North Forest Park branch in Forest Hills. He cannot remember exactly what was late, but he thinks that several CDs were involved. He received a letter from Unique Management, which also uses the name Unique National Collections, demanding $295.40 — the cost of replacing the materials, plus $66 in late fees.

“I figured, ‘I’ll take care of it eventually,’” Rabbi Sebrow said. He did not believe the section of the letter that threatened to report him to credit agencies. “I thought it was a complete empty threat,” he said.

But when he applied for a mortgage and a credit card, he discovered that the oversight had blemished his credit record.

Glendale, Queens 90210:

Residents of the western Queens neighborhood, which shares the 11385 zip code with nearby Ridgewood, have been longing for five digits to call their own. But postal officials insist the move would be too costly and confusing.

The U.S. Postal Service district manager, who approves new Queens zips, said ina statement that adding more codes canadversely affect mail service and addconsiderable administrative and operational costs.

The official, Lily Jung Burton, also shot down the Glendale code because the Postal Service assigns zips only when there would be an improvement in service and not solely to provide community identity.

Still, Glendale activists vow to continue their push. They argue that the area, which has its own library and community groups, merits unique numbers on letters and packages, too.

Every other area has its own zip code, said Dorie Figliola, a longtime resident who belongs to the Glendale Civic Association. “It’s very unfair. . . . We’re asking for what should be rightly ours,” Figliola said.

Earlier on the subject of zip code envy: Sound Smart And Start Talking Up Right Now The “Rising Political Influence Of 10065″.

Location Scout: Glendale.

May Queens never lose its charm. A maligned rehab earns top honors from the Chamber of Commerce:

Some people looked at an unused former Eagle Electric Company factory at 19-19 24th Ave., Astoria as nothing more than a derelict shell. Joseph Pistilli, president of Pistilli Realty, saw the building’s potential. Where there was once an empty shell of a factory now stands a residence boasting 186 spacious co-operative apartments, served by a 24-hour concierge and offering spectacular views of the East River, Astoria Park and the Manhattan skyline, with prices starting in the mid- $200,000 range.

The Queens Chamber of Commerce honors Pistilli’s perspicacity and drive at its 95th annual Building Awards dinner this year. Pistilli Riverview East is one of seven buildings deemed winners in the Rehab category, sharing the honor with a single-family residence, a bank branch office, a senior adult center, a branch of the Queens Borough Public Library, an MTA subway maintenance shop and car washing facility and the Visitor and Administration Center at the Queens Botanical Garden.

(Laminate flooring.)

The obvious thought — look for the employee missing a foot — failed to find a match when it came to this gruesome discovery:

A Con Ed diver vacuuming out an electrical power bay at the utility’s Astoria plant on November 21 found a human foot inside a worker’s boot, police said.

An agency spokesperson said the diver was cleaning out the bottom of a bay at Shore Boulevard and 20th Avenue at about 10:30 a.m., when he was shocked to find the boot- with a foot in it.

“Something jammed the vacuum,” police sources said. “The diver picked up the item and put it in a salvage bag. When he surfaced and looked into the bag, he saw the boot. When he looked inside the boot he saw the foot. The guy was more than a little shaken up.”

. . .

Police sources said a check of accident and other incident reports at the Astoria plant over the past 10 years failed to provide any leads to investigators probing the incident.

Is Long Island City big for its britches? How about just big and it bitches? Battery Park City on the East River is starting to get picky about who it wants in the neighborhood:

A plan to build a six-story grad school dormitory and a 13-story residential tower across from the massive Queens West development in Hunters Point is meeting with stiff opposition from the local community board.

This month, the land use committee of Queens Community Board 2 unanimously voted to reject a Board of Standards and Appeals variance application for the dorm, which would house 220 CUNY Graduate School students, and the apartment tower, with a planned 169 units and ground floor retail.

“Dormitory housing in itself is transient housing at its best and offers no stability to the community. We believe that it is a detriment to the growth of Hunters Point,” said Board 2 Chairman Joseph Conley in a letter to the BSA.

But Howard Goldman, attorney for O’Connor Capital, the developer, said it is the dorm that is driving the project, which is slated to be located on 47th Ave. at Fifth St.

“Like many other institutions in the city, they [CUNY Graduate School] have a need for affordable housing for their graduate students,” he said.

The site, said Goldman, “seems like a good candidate because it is just across the river [from the Manhattan-based grad school] and relatively accessible by subway.”

Saying that he understood the community board’s “concerns about the size and density of the project,” nevertheless, the attorney said, the project’s neighbors are much bigger.

“The project is basically across the street from Queens West, where you have 30- to 40-story towers, and is one block south of a proposed high-rise development, Anable Basin, that has been in discussion for a couple years now,” he said.

Unfortunately, there are lies, damn lies, and elitists:

The Sunnyside Arch, on Queens Boulevard at 46th/Bliss Street, below the No. 7 elevated station, is perhaps an object only Sunnyside could love; therefore, Sunnyside might be forced to defend it against the Municipal Art Commission of the City of New York, which evidently wishes it would fall apart or be torn down.

At the November luncheon meeting of the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce, Joseph Conley, chairman of Community Board 2, told the chamber members he had recently attended a commission hearing that looked into the case of the arch. Those who would preserve it have money in abeyance for needed repairs, but the Art Commission, which has existed since the consolidation of the city in 1898, must approve of such repairs. Conley said that the Art Commission had nothing but disdain for the arch, and suggested that those interested in preserving it should get an artist to redesign it. Somebody from the commission told him the arch should be more “kitschy” — a term he said he could not understand. And though the arch may be shabby at the moment, it is not dilapidated; the Department of Transportation inspected it, Conley said, and declared it “overbuilt”, so its basic structure is sound.

(They want more kitsch?)

Location Scout: Sunnyside Arch.

Teams of the Mets’ supposed stature (not to mention payroll — $116 million in 2007!) shouldn’t be selling bricks like they’re raising cash for a church rec room, but then there are the Mets, selling bricks like they’re the Minnesota Twins or something:

Diehard fans of the New York Mets will get the chance to get in on the ground floor of the billion-dollar Citi Field stadium — literally. Last week the baseball club unveiled plans for the Citi Field Fanwalk, a plaza outside the planned Jackie Robinson Rotunda paved entirely with custom-engraved bricks purchased by baseball fans.

Three brick types are available: a $395 8-by-8-inch brick engraved with the Mets’ interlocking “NY” and four lines of text; a $340 8-by-8-inch brick with six lines of text; and a $195 4-by-8-inch brick with three lines of text. Each line of text can hold up to 15 characters, including spaces and punctuation.