By shifting the narrative toward the ameliorative effect of trees on the cityscape, the mayor has opened up a new line of argument for people throughout the five boroughs:

A Bronx strip club owner is under fire from Long Island City community leaders for his plans to open a gentleman’s club that could feature all-nude girls near the Queensboro Bridge.

Gus Drakopoulos, who operates Sin City in the Bronx, plans to open a club featuring full nudity if the local community board tries to block his liquor license. By law, a club that serves liquor can have only topless women.

“He’s a thoroughly disingenuous guy with a total disrespect for this community,” said attorney Pat O’Brien, a member of Community Board 2. “It’s totally polarized the community. We’ve been trying for decades to make this a better place.”

Drakopoulos said his Bronx club, next to the Major Deegan Expressway, has made the community a better place by illuminating the block and planting trees on the desolate street.

“We took a concrete, deserted neighborhood and brought life to it,” he said. “There were weeds 5 feet high, car parts and tires everywhere.”

“Another reason a particular fish will choose a particular cranny on a reef is not only the opportunities it offers for feeding, but the protection from predators”:

“My block is so quiet,” begins a joke that Moody McCarthy has added to his routine, “if there’s any yelling at night that means Ecuador scored a goal.”

. . .

In case you haven’t been to a comedy show in a while, comedians are still having little luck with the ladies. And living in Astoria isn’t necessarily helping.

The Queens Courier continues its series on gross shit:

When The Courier was at the store, one customer wanted four roosters from the same cage. So, when the man reached in to grab the four birds, one fell to the floor and started walking around the store.

“That happens sometimes,” Ustav said, and no one else in the store seemed to flinch. Then, the birds are tied up and dropped on a scale, which will determine how much it costs.

After that, the birds are brought back to the “slaughter room” — a room located in the back of the store on the first floor — where the killing and cleaning process begins.

First, the bird’s neck is cut and broken in order to drain the blood out of the animal. Then, the bird is thrown into a “plucking” machine that takes all of the feathers off the bird.

“Then we have to clean up the inside and take the guts out,” Ustav said. “Sometimes we cut off the head, but some people like it with the head.”

See also: Live Poultry Markets.

Top down trees, killer trees — maybe it’s simply a case of vigilante justice:

Dozens have been destroyed in the past few months — their roots torn up, branches snapped and trunks hacked.

First, set aside the inconvenient facts that owning a dog in a cramped city apartment is inherently cruel and that installing dog runs (i.e., red-light districts for dog defecation) constitutes a ludicrously generous surrender of precious public space. The big problem is that a vocal minority of dog owners are pushing public debate in favor of pets over humans, and we must give huge credit to the state parks department (and not the permissive city parks department, which was infiltrated by dog apologists when the agency’s animal policies were gutted) for putting an end to dog dominance; they are absolutely doing the right thing, and they absolutely deserve our support:

A grassy knoll is the latest territory causing friction between the state Parks Department and Long Island City dog owners after the agency barred canines from the area in Gantry Plaza State Park. Dogs were also banned from the old piers when the rest of the new, six-acre grass area opened up in July.

Rachel Gordon, a state Parks regional director, said the manager of Gantry Plaza saw the grass at the “knoll,” a small strip of grass with a picnic table next to an athletic field, had been turned brown by the effects of dogs relieving themselves there. The ban went into effect last week.

Dog owners can still walk their dogs on the cement areas or in the community garden.

But dog owners in the Queens West towers have not taken the situation lying down. After they said parks [employees] shooed them off the wooden piers in July, they formed DOG LIC to push for more pooch-friendly facilities in the rapidly evolving neighborhood.

. . .

There are three dog runs in the Hunters Point area of Long Island City: one near the now-defunct Tennisport on the site of what will become the Hunters Point South Development; one on Vernon Boulevard between 48th and 49th avenues; and one on 31st Street [actually, 21st Street].

The bottom line is that dog owners will let their animals shit on the grass you sit on, even if there is a dog run directly across the street — because dog owners don’t use the grass except to tear it up around a turd. Additionally, they think nothing of destroying trees, completely ignoring what “curbing your dog” actually means*. Instead of agitating for more permissive policies, they should really be teaching their fellow owners how to be less inconsiderate. As for the rest of us, we shouldn’t give up and we shouldn’t give in — these people’s animals are disgusting and we don’t deserve to have them in our faces . . .

*And even that is a generous allowance — walk through any dog-friendly neighborhood on a hot summer day and the tell-tale scent of dog urine wafts through the streets . . . the smell is horrible, like a pungent chicken broth, and it makes our streets way more pedestrian unfriendly than most other quality-of-life obstacles that the city spends time worrying about.

Location Scout: Gantry Plaza State Park.

And we all become extras in campaign ads, and our homes turned into locations for shoots:

Hizzoner wanted a blue-collar house in Queens for his newest TV ad — and paid an eye-popping Manhattan rent to use it Thursday for just seven hours.

Bloomberg’s campaign shelled out $3,000 to a Forest Hills homeowner to shoot scenes in the garage, living room and bathroom of his 2-1/2-story, single-family residence on a tree-lined block.

. . .

[The homeowner] wouldn’t say how much he was paid. But location scout Robert Chemtob, who was hired by Epand Media to find a working-class home for the mayor’s ad, estimated the fee at $3,000.

. . .

[The homeowner] insisted he didn’t know the content of the ad.

Chemtob would only say it included a scene with a man singing in the shower. He said the spot is expected to hit airwaves in a few weeks.

Amid all the endorsements, the mayor’s real strategy to bring the city back revolves around sneaky-as-shit ticket agents:

Law enforcement sources told the Gazette the traffic agents hide behind the pillars to catch motorists who get trapped at red lights in the busy intersection.

“It’s crazy,” the sources said. “The agents curl up behind the pillars and wait until a car gets jammed up. Then they pounce, scan the registration and toss the summons at the motorist before they skulk back behind the pillars.”

Sources acknowledge that it is illegal to block the intersection, where signs clearly indicate, “Don’t Block The Box”. The signs also warn that motorists who get caught blocking the intersection face a fine and points on their driver’s license.

“It’s the way they’re doing it,” the sources said. “Instead of directing traffic at the intersection or standing as a deterrent, they’re jumping from behind the pillars and scaring everybody.”

. . .

High-ranking police sources said the NYPD is looking into the actions of traffic agents who “jump and scan” vehicles at Hoyt Avenue. “Drivers know they have to be careful when they see traffic agents at a location,” the sources said. “The agents on Hoyt aren’t concerned with traffic control or enforcing the law. It’s clear, by their actions, that they have only one thing in mind — to write as many summonses as possible.”

NB: I think they’ve started using unmarked cars, too . . .

New York has the entrepreneurial spirit:

After spraying disinfectant, Sosa poured a sandy material akin to kitty litter to soak up the scabbed-over puddles of blood. After scraping up and disposing of the material, he breaks out a mop, then a high pressure steamer to clean the smaller splashes of blood around the kitchen.

Gospodarski, who has been a paramedic for nearly three decades, said he started his career working the Queens District Attorney’s Office, founded Bio-Recovery when he noticed that there were no companies in New York City that provided cleanup services after nasty incidents and instead, made the victim’s family, or landowners, pick up the pieces. Bio-Recovery is one of only a few companies based in NYC that specializes in cleaning up the aftermath of crime scenes and death.

Gospodarski said the city takes the official position that they can’t refer anybody to a private company due to conflict of interest. “The city can hire a tow truck, but they can’t hire somebody to clean up your husband or your child and make you deal with it.”

Don’t miss the charming video at the link . . .

All this and you can piss with a view? That’s what dreams are made of:

At CityView Racquet Club, high above Long Island City, members can play a few games of tennis or squash, then relax in the sauna or grab a bite prepared by the in-house chef. They can bump into pros like Andy Roddick and have their racquet strung by the same master. And they can use the urinal — not just any urinal, but one that sports stunning eye-level views of that other borough beyond the East River.

Or is the horrible truth about the ice cream truck business that it resembles Amway? Too many trucks, too little territory:

Few sounds evoke the languorous innocence of childhood summers like the jingle of a roving ice cream truck, its melody drawing streams of children clutching crumpled dollar bills.

In this part of Queens, however, ice cream trucks have become a symbol of sharp elbows, more reminiscent of “Goodfellas” than Good Humor. Martin Price has taken his white and aquamarine Kool Man truck through Maspeth, Glendale and Middle Village for 25 years, but he has complained to the police that a franchisee for Mr. Softee has warned him a dozen times over the past two seasons to stay out Maspeth and Middle Village.

The most recent threats came on July 22, Mr. Price said, when three Mr. Softee trucks and a green Ford Econovan carrying the franchisee converged on his Kool Man truck at 56th Road and 60th Street in Maspeth. The franchisee, who Mr. Price said did not identify himself, was carrying a baseball bat and, according to Mr. Price, warned him: “I bought the area.”

“You don’t own the street,” Mr. Price responded.

But he has been so scared by the possibility of violence that he has been staying away from Maspeth and parts of Middle Village at a cost of 40 percent of his business, he said.

Earlier: This Is No Softee.

Seems like bad luck to release doves on your wedding day that end up stranded in the park, clinging to life:

More than two dozen helpless albino ringneck doves — presumably released into the wilds of Queens as part of a wedding celebration — were clinging to life yesterday in a stand of trees after surviving a weekend of storms, heat and predators.

“People are looking to celebrate something joyful, and here they have birds that have never flown released into the air. They have no knowledge of how to find food, and they will literally starve to death,” said Rita McMahon of the Wild Bird Fund.

The birds were found Saturday in a tree near the park and next to the New York Hall of Science, numbering as many as 45 at the start of the weekend.

Location Scout: Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

First birds, now turtles:

Port Authority workers rushed to the shell-covered runway about 8:30 a.m. and scooped up 78 diamondback terrapins that had left the waters of Jamaica Bay scouting a spot to breed, said Port Authority spokesman John Kelly.

Pilots from various airlines shared the news with stuck passengers who had to wait up to 90 minutes for their flights to take off so the turtles could land in a safe place.

Location Scout: JFK.

Seems like help is on the way.

Until you request an area code 718 Queens number to put in the newspaper so Little League execs and coaches can call to volunteer.

Then a Parks spokesperson tells you to have them call 311, so that your request to help the department can be screened by the Big Brother of the Mayor’s Office and then ground through the bureaucracy while the outfield grass grows another 6 inches.

This is a runaround and not helpful.

Therein lies the problem.

It’s not just Staten Island — everyone seems to dislike the “Triboro” label:

For decades, stamps on letters mailed in New York City have generally been canceled with squiggly lines of ink and the name of the sender’s home borough. But this tradition may itself soon be canceled, at least in Brooklyn and Queens and on Staten Island.

Under the Postal Service’s plan, most mail from the three boroughs would be sent to a central processing center in East New York, Brooklyn, where it would be branded with a new emblem:

“TRIBORO, NY

BKLYN-QNS-STATEN ISL.”

The plan was spawned because of a 29 percent decline in the volume of first-class mail over the past decade. Officials say the change would save $6.7 million annually.

This is where a bureaucratic transaction gets personal.

“There are certain things you don’t mess with,” said Audrey Hecht-Stewart, 54, a teacher from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, who was standing in line last week at the Cadman Plaza Post Office in Downtown Brooklyn. “The postmark on your letter should represent where you live, like caller ID on your phone.

“You can’t throw Brooklyn in the same pot with Queens and Staten Island,” Ms. Hecht-Stewart added. “When you go and lump us in with those other two boroughs, you take away our individuality.”

A host of elected officials, from the relevant borough presidents to New York’s two United States senators, has decried the proposal, along with postal union officials who translate a consolidated postmark into lost jobs. And dismay is rippling across this proposed new land called “Triboro,” where many who know about the plan resent the prospect of being stripped of their envelope identifier.

*Think about it — it could look cool on a T-shirt!

Rather, it’s just the police department using up some of that extra cash lying around:

The city’s Police Department and the F.B.I. will collaborate tonight in a joint counterterrorism exercise in Queens, testing New York’s ability to intercept a so-called dirty bomb.

Around 300 city police officers and 400 employees from the F.B.I. will work together in the exercise. The main events are scheduled to take place between 9 p.m. tonight and 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning on the Clearview Expressway.

Police say traffic delays on the expressway are anticipated until 1 a.m. Wednesday.

. . .

During tonight’s exercise authorities intend to use a detection device to intercept a mock bomb in a vehicle on the expressway.

Once the mock bomb is located, the aim is to transfer it to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn and practice the procedures required to make it safe.

. . .

In 2007 the federal government created the Securing the Cities initiative, and pioneered the program in New York.

The aim of Securing the Cities was to establish a cordon of radiation sensors 50 miles outside New York to detect an inbound dirty bomb, and since 2007 the police have already received more than $53 million in Homeland Security Department grants to implement the project.

However, this year’s federal budget proposed to eliminate Securing the Cities funding in 2010.

On Tuesday, Mr. Kelly suggested that the timing of the exercise, demonstrating the potential to intercept a dirty bomb, is no co-incidence.

“The thing we are concerned about is the zeroing out of the Securing the Cities budget,” he said. “It is very germane to the exercise tonight.”

Lest you assume Mister Softee trucks are only about small-time drug deals or that they’re merely a convenient spot from which pedophiles can operate, know that there is also a dark side to the business:

An ice-cream truck driver and two cohorts gave a Good Humor operator in Queens more than just a cold shoulder when they threatened to put his business on ice, authorities said yesterday.

George Peralta, 27, and his accomplices penned in Ernesto Valverde, 50, by parking an ice-cream truck in front of and another behind Valverde’s vehicle in Elmhurst Tuesday, police sources said.

Peralta, along with Andy Arevalo, 23, and an unidentified man, then took Valverde’s keys and gave a chilling threat, “Stay off [our] route. We know where you live. We know where you parked the truck,” according to a criminal complaint.

Update: Mister Softee Vice President Jim Conway writes in to set the record straight:

The article you referenced in the NY Post is factually incorrect. Ronald Baretela is not a Mister Softee franchisee and the trucks in question are not Mister Softee trucks.

Additionally, we are troubled by your disparaging remarks in regards to our franchisees. In the twelve years I have been in the management of Mister Softee no franchisee has been accused of either selling drugs or improper conduct towards children. Your comments are both false and offensive.

The overwhelming majority of our franchisees are married men and women with families. These people are classic small business people who work hard to provide for their families.

Spending up to 10 or 12 hours a day selling ice cream on the streets of NYC is a difficult and often trying job. To belittle these good people with unsubstantiated myths is irresponsible.

Fair enough! Satirical glibness aside, of course I didn’t mean to say that I necessarily assumed that Mister Softee trucks sold drugs of any kind or that ice cream truck drivers in general are anything less than model citizens, just that, you know, some may have that perception is all . . .

See Also: Mister Softee.

The other day it was “a battle”. Today, it’s “mopping up”:

Bloomberg noted that planning for redeveloping Willets Point had begun with the advent of the 1964 World’s Fair and is now becoming reality some 45 years later. With more than 65 percent of the land area now owned by the city, “Willets Point is a mopping up operation that’s up to the private sector now,” Bloomberg added.

Interesting metaphor. More mopping:

The city will formally kick off plans to seize control of the remaining privately owned land at Willets Point this month, an announcement that left shocked property owners scrambling for legal help and prompted questions as well as criticism from borough elected officials.

The city Economic Development Corp. said a public hearing on eminent domain would be held at Flushing Town Hall June 22, a procedural first step in the legal process through which the city plans to take the remaining 22 acres of land at Willets Point.

Property owners at Willets Point said representatives from Cornerstone Realty Group, a firm hired by the city to assist in business relocation in the area, canvassed the Iron Triangle last week informing people that the city intended to begin eminent domain proceedings and a letter would arrive Thursday detailing the process.

Jerry Antonacci, co-owner of Crown Container Co. and president of Willets Point United Against Eminent Domain, said he was miffed that city officials did not show up to tell property owners themselves.

“I said to the guy, ‘Why are you here? Why are you telling me this? The city should be the ones telling me this,’” he said. “They’re pretty quick to pull the trigger on eminent domain. But I guess they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do and we’re gonna do what we have to do to stop them.”

He said the property owners group expects to hire a legal firm to fight the city plan within the next week. Private property owners will have 90 days to file a lawsuit after the city files a formal report on its plans, which the EDC expects to occur by early next year.

Location Scout: Iron Triangle.

It’s tough these days to be a pig in this town:

There they stood, Tabitha and Sabrina, the loneliest animals at the Queens Zoo in Flushing.

Despite the name “swine flu,” it’s extremely rare for humans to be infected by being near a pig.

But most people don’t know that, so Tabitha and Sabrina, two female hogs, were left all but ostracized yesterday, along with their Vietnamese pot-bellied pal, Barbie.

It’s changing how we see the world:

Erick Pulido, 29, who lives in a condominium three buildings down, said he measured his shock over the killing with the realities of city life. “Things happen all the time, it’s a big city,” Mr. Pulido said.

Mr. Pulido said that while on his way to work on Monday morning he noticed the police swarming around Ms. Lee’s building.

“I thought they might have been filming a movie so I just left,” he said.

You would think that two adults could stop or at least disrupt a sexual assault. And you have to assume that those odds get even better if you have three adults at the scene:

A third MTA employee failed to come to the side of a woman being raped on a Queens subway platform, an internal memo revealed.

Location Scout: 21st Street/Van Alst Station.

No, it’s not just a coincidence, it’s probably actually swine flu:

A group of Queens high school students likely brought Mexico’s deadly swine flu epidemic to the city after they went on a wild spring-break party to Cancun earlier this month.

Some seniors from St. Francis Prep in Fresh Meadows took the trip over Easter hiatus two weeks ago. Days later, an outbreak of flu-like symptoms erupted at the school, leaving about 200 kids complaining of being ill.

Yesterday, city health officials confirmed that eight students “have probable human swine influenza” after testing positive for Influenza A, which officials say causes the swine strain of disease.

CBS2 is wondering whether a big flu outbreak at a school in Queens is swine-like:

As many as 75 students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens got sick on Thursday. More got sick on Friday. What health officials want to know is was it swine flu or something more benign.

There are mounting fears about a deadly swine flu virus that is reported to have killed as many as 60 people in Mexico, one that health officials fear has already seeped into the United States.

St. Francis Prep was ordered to cancel an evening program Friday night because the New York City Department of Health isn’t sure what made students sick Thursday and Friday with flu-like symptoms.

“I just saw lot a lot of kids lined up along the wall near the nurse’s office,” sophomore Kelsey Dittmeir said.

If it’s the flu, the question is what kind of flu? And could it be the unique strain suspected in 20 recent deaths?

Tests are underway.

“Dentistry Duo Delivers Quality Care On Astoria’s Broadway”:

It used to be you would go to visit your dentist with some trepidation about the pain you would have to endure. You would sit in the waiting room bored, staring into space, dozing, or reading last year’s magazines.

The status quo may exist for some dentists who haven’t kept pace with all the technological advances of recent years, but that’s not the case when you keep an appointment with Dr. Clifford Degel and/or Dr. Carmen Every-Degel, the husband and-wife dental team that operates the Astoria Dental Group office at 32-17 Broadway in Astoria.

For starters, you can while away the time until your turn comes to see either Dr. Degel by watching an old movie on a video cassette player in the waiting room.

“We show lots of old comedy classics like the ‘Honeymooners’ or Abbott and Costello to get the patients in a good frame of mind,” Dr. Clifford Degel told us during a recent interview.

If you’re not in the mood for a comedy or other movie, you can play one of several tapes that explain one of the newer treatments or techniques that are available in this new age of dental wizardry where the Drs. Degel are among the practitioners.

*

Mets Disappoint!:

For a night, Queens was the hot spot in town and New York glowed orange and blue. The Mets, not the Yankees, opened their gleaming new ballpark first, and Citi Field was primped and primed for the occasion, as if it were preparing for a date. Monday was Citi Field’s night to shine, and the Mets, after two rehearsals and a week on the road, were eager to show it off.

Reality soon intruded, however, and the Mets bumbled their way to a 6-5 loss to San Diego, the game turning for the second straight day on an outfield mishap. Long after Mike Pelfrey got his cleat stuck in the dirt, falling off the mound, and Jose Reyes slid past second base, Ryan Church misplayed Luis Rodriguez’s sixth-inning fly ball into a three-base error.

Almost fittingly, Pedro Feliciano balked in the eventual winning run, and the Mets’ final 10 hitters went down in order. In a somewhat comical twist, two of their bullpen castoffs — Duaner Sanchez and Heath Bell — closed out San Diego’s win.

. . .

After throwing out the final pitch at Shea on Sept. 28, Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza left through the center-field gate. They entered Citi Field with their arms locked, chatting and waving on the long, slow walk toward the mound.

Nervous he would bounce the pitch, Seaver threw a strike. A few minutes later, at 7:11 p.m., Pelfrey threw a first-pitch strike to Jody Gerut. The next strike he threw landed in the right-field stands, Gerut hooking a 1-1 pitch inside the foul pole for the first regular-season homer at Citi Field.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Gerut is the first player to lead off a game with a homer in the first game at a new stadium.

Location Scout: Citi Field.

. . . facilitating extra web exclusive in advance of tonight’s Citi Field opener:

Mets fans waited all winter to rid themselves of last season’s bitter collapse and catch a glimpse of their team’s new home at Citi Field, so one would expect crowds to get to the ballpark early for Monday night’s home opener.

But, 10 hours before the first pitch?

. . .

The father and son made the trip from Yorktown Heights, NY, early Monday morning, April 13 and arrived at the stadium at 9:30 a.m.

“We’re excited,” said Chet, shortly before noon while sitting on a bench outside Citi Field.

Buried Lede: In 2009, traffic congestion is much less severe than Bloomberg officials have led us to believe . . .

Location Scout: Citi Field.

And what’s more, it leaves open the issue of where exactly we are supposed to relieve ourselves:

Astoria Walk, an alleyway connecting the neighborhood’s busy commercial strip on 31st Street to a Key Food parking lot, was recently given a $300,000 makeover by city-based Jenel Management. The company cleaned up the site and now rents space to six vendors, who sell sunglasses, flowers and other products at their kiosks, City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D−Astoria) said.

The walk is located between an AT&T store and a Subway chain restaurant on 31st Street.

“It’s been an eyesore and a nose-sore for as long as I can remember,” Vallone said of the alleyway. “People used it as a bathroom. It was graffiti-strewn and people dumped garbage there.”

But Jenel Management white-washed the walls of the strip, added a newly paved brick road and provided space for the colorful kiosks which now reside there. The management company is currently seeking more vendors for the site, Vallone said.

There was always something about “one eight-hundred M-A-T-T-R-E-S” that made you ponder what exactly the last “S” stood for and which also made you sort of forget to actually call in the end:

Once a major borough success story, Long Island City’s 1-800 Mattress has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, according to papers filed with the federal bankruptcy court.

Dial-a-Mattress Operating Corporation, which operates 1-800 Mattress, filed for bankruptcy on March 17. The company, which has its headquarters in Long Island City, was founded more than 30 years ago in Jamaica by Ecuadorian native Napoleon Barragan. On March 23, Dial-a-Mattress International Ltd. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to papers filed with the federal bankruptcy court.

At least we now know that the company wasn’t also behind the bed bug problem, too, like people have speculated in the past about other businesses.

The question is whether the arrow shooter is still on the loose:

Cops were searching Tuesday night for the archer who shot an arrow that nearly hit a Queens father as he carried out the trash.

Though I’m always upset when I see anthropomorphized food demanding that they be drenched in condiments and eaten, this is hometown talent we’re talking about:

A talented artist at P.S. 20 The Bowne School in Flushing has made it past roughly 45,000 budding Rembrandts to be one of only 36 finalists in a national design contest for food giant H.J. Heinz Company, featuring cash and other prizes for the winners and their schools.

The company had a saucy idea — the “Heinz Ketchup Creativity Contest” for school kids from first grade to high school seniors to design new artwork for single-serving packets of Heinz Ketchup.

Of the multitude of entries just from New York, Melissa Rueda, a student at the school located at 142-30 Barclay Avenue in Flushing, is one of three fifth-grade finalists.

Her proposed product art shows a smiling bottle of the name-brand ketchup, being held aloft by a crowd of happy french fries.

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

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

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

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

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

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