Until recently, the ferries that run back and forth between St. George and the Battery did not have a women’s locker room, which, until recently, wasn’t a big concern:

Part navigator, part security guard, part enforcer and part salty sea dog, Felicia Rosario, a petite and pretty 23-year-old from Queens, tends to forget that some passengers might not be used to seeing a female mate aboard the Staten Island Ferry.

With a year and a half under her belt at the Ferry, the veteran captains, mates and deckhands she works with say she’s part of the family — one of the guys.

But it’s the frequent “you go, girl” comments from passengers or the men who “look at me like I have three heads” that remind her that, to some, finding a woman with her job description is still a novelty.

“I get so many ‘girl powers,’ like I’m doing some great thing for womanhood. I don’t really see it that way. It’s just work.”

A graduate of State University of New York Maritime College, she majored in marine environmental science.

After a turn as a crew member on dinner cruise boats in New York Harbor, she came to the Ferry. She is now one of four female ferry mates.

. . .

The afternoons are full of tourists, but even though they’re a “headache,” with constant questions of “can we stay on the boat?” upon docking when all passengers must disembark, and a surprising number who lose their children, she would gladly cope with that in favor of her last assignment — the overnight shift on the weekend boats.

That shift, she said, is famous for “a lot of vomit and obscenities,” and the occasional “man overboard” checks, especially around the holidays.

“Compared to that, everything is roses,” she said.

Ms. Rosario may be “one of the guys,” but it’s still nice to have her own digs.

Her favorite boats are the new Marchi-class vessels that contain a luxury not afforded on the others — a female locker room.

“You can’t beat that,” she said.

And even in her uniform, she still manages to keep one girly touch — under the black gloves she wears to pull the heavy hooks that secure the boats to the slip is an engagement ring from her fiance, who is currently at sea aboard a container ship.

Location Scout: Staten Island Ferry.

In other news, the Advance reports that mail service is still widely used on Staten Island:

Don’t disregard the extra pennies you find laying around the house or car — you might need them Monday.

That’s when the price of mailing a first-class letter increases 1 cent, to 42 cents, along with a number of other postal rate hikes that take effect.

But there is a way to avoid paying more to mail a letter.

Forever stamps, which can be used after the hike, can still be bought at the old 41-cent price. But the cost of the Forever stamp will also increase Monday, to 42 cents.

Those still having unused 41-cent stamps will be able to purchase a new 1-cent stamp — the Tiffany Lamp — to make up the difference. Several new 42-cent stamps are also available.

The passage of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act in 2006 allows the Postal Service to increase its rates every May in accordance with the rate of inflation as indicated in the Consumer Price Index.

It’s not the start of a joke. They swim:

Apparently, the deer population in Staten Island has been going up, and Friday, for the first time, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation will release its first ever count of deer in the borough.

And these clever creatures aren’t taking the ferry or Verrazano like the rest of us, they’re swimming over.

“We suspect that they they are swimming over from New Jersey, deer are strong swimmers and the Arthur Kill is a narrow body of water,” said Arturo Garcia-Costas, of the NYSDEC.

The MTA is installing a fare box at the Tompkinsville stop of the Staten Island Railway*:

The free ride is coming to an end at the Tompkinsville Station of the Staten Island Railway.

The borough’s train line will be adding a new fare collection system at Tompkinsville, where many riders get off and walk to the nearby St. George Ferry Terminal, to save $2 on the fare, which currently is charged only at St. George.

Railway President John Gaul announced yesterday that construction is expected to begin this summer. A small entrance will be built on a platform to be constructed from the pedestrian bridge where Bay Street meets Victory Boulevard. Inside the unstaffed station, low turnstiles will be monitored by closed-circuit television. MetroCard vending machines will flank the turnstiles, he said.

When they’re up and running late next year, the new turnstiles are expected to add $550,000 a year to Railway coffers — money that is now lost when folks make the hike to and from the boat.

The new entrance is part of a $6.4 million pilot project to explore bringing fare collection back to at least some other stations along the 14-mile line.

“There’s a lot of interest in expanding fare collection, but it’s easier said than done, because our stations weren’t designed with that in mind,” Gaul said.

The fare was eliminated — except for St. George — in 1997 as part of the “One City, One Fare” program, when MetroCards replaced conductors checking tickets.

Since then, Railway riders have complained that the clientele onboard has become more unsavory, with criminals using the trains as a convenient getaway, particularly at night.

*Staten Island Railway Pub Crawls imperiled.

Economy down, negativism up:

Waterfront projects — some real, some imagined — were the highlight of yesterday’s Staten Island Economic Development Corp. exhibition and conference at the Hilton Garden Inn, where there was talk about building 1,000 units of housing and an IMAX theater next to the St. George Ferry terminal and an outlet mall on the South Shore waterfront.

But what Staten Island is most likely to get by year’s end is a $35 million cement terminal next to the Bayonne Bridge in Elm Park and a small business park on Richmond Terrace in Port Richmond. Both are expected to break ground within the next few months.

. . . others push around a three-foot-tall crucifix in a granny cart:

She was depressed and needed Jesus, so she took Him home with her.

That was Dawn Piccolo’s explanation for her theft of a 3-foot wooden crucifix from St. Adalbert’s R.C. Church in Elm Park.

Ms. Piccolo, 37, of Elm Park was shipped off to jail yesterday following her guilty plea earlier this month to a count of fourth-degree grand larceny stemming from the theft of the crucifix.

Dressed in a black sweater and gray cargo pants, her blond hair piled atop her head, Ms. Piccolo did not speak when Justice Leonard P. Rienzi sentenced her to one year behind bars under the plea deal.

She’d been more forthcoming — and apologetic — following her arrest at her Morningstar Road home in March.

In a statement penned for police, Ms. Piccolo admitted suffering from anxiety and depression.

She denied “ever” using any illegal drugs, but said the medications prescribed to combat her depression “makes me turn into something I don’t want to be.”

“I am in need of help for my faults,” Ms. Piccolo wrote.

“I was in need of Christ. . . . Christ is the only thing that keeps me sane.”

The Rev. Eugene Carella of St. Adalbert’s noticed Ms. Piccolo when she showed up at the church on the morning of March 11. Discovering the theft of the crucifix, a staple at St. Adalbert’s for more than 40 years, he gave a description of the woman to police.

Cops canvassed the neighborhood, and three days later, a city Sanitation worker phoned Father Carella with word that a woman had been spotted with the crucifix in a pushcart.

The worker and Father Carella identified Ms. Piccolo through photos police took of the woman.

A detective returned the crucifix to the church in time for its Good Friday veneration, although the left arm was missing. It hasn’t been recovered.

As for Ms. Piccolo, “I hope one day to give Him my all,” she told cops.

And the church hopes that one day Ms. Piccolo will give all of Him back.

Let’s see — drag racing at a high rate of speed, being ejected from the back seat . . . so what were those concrete bollards doing there anyway? You tell me:

A drag race on a Charleston service road led to the crash that killed an Annadale teenager, prosecutors contend.

But the father of the victim, Michelle Arout, is seeking to spread the blame to the city and a number of its agencies.

John Arout maintains that two concrete-filled steel stanchions, or bollards, guarding a fire hydrant at the crash site negated the hydrant’s built-in “breakaway” design feature and figured in his daughter’s death.

The 2003 Honda in which Miss Arout was riding collided at a high rate of speed with a Ford Mustang, then slammed into one or both bollards and split in two.

The 17-year-old was ejected from the back seat and suffered fatal injuries in the July 23 crash on Veterans Road West near Bricktown Centre.

Arout, who is administrator of his daughter’s estate, seeks unspecified monetary damages in the civil action, recently filed in state Supreme Court, St. George.

Named as defendants are the city and its Environmental Protection, Transportation and Fire departments. . . .

The elusive Ninja Burglar turns out to be up to three Albanians:

The NYPD has quietly closed the book on Staten Island’s so-called Ninja Burglar case, after authorities started deportation proceedings against at least one Albanian man they believe to be connected to the string of break-ins, police sources told the Advance.

About a week and a half ago, the police department dismantled the investigative team hunting for the serial burglar, those sources said.

“The investigation is dormant, with no new leads,” Paul Browne, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for public information, confirmed to the Advance yesterday afternoon. “Investigators believe that an individual suspected [but with insufficient evidence to make an arrest] of being the burglar is among three Albanian nationals currently facing deportation because of their illegal status in the United States.”

Browne did not name the three Albanian nationals.

The Advance broke the story on its Web site, silive.com, yesterday afternoon.

Police had linked the “Ninja Burglar” — who received the nickname from the media after a Dongan Hills man reported fighting off a nunchuk-wielding intruder in a ninja costume last September — to 19 separate break-ins, mainly in the Todt Hill and Grymes Hill neighborhoods, between May 2007 and January of this year.

Multiple law-enforcement sources close to the investigation told the Advance that investigators were first clued into a possible Albanian connection to the burglary pattern last fall, when they learned that several Albanian men from the same area in neighboring Macedonia had formed a loosely knit crew to commit burglaries.

In some instances, they would wait for the other members of their Albanian community to go out to cultural events, then strike their vacant homes, the sources said.

. . .

. . . [S]ources said, two other members of the group were believed responsible for several of the break-ins in the Ninja Burglar case, but were never charged.

With their forensic and investigative leads exhausted, police contacted federal immigration officials, who started deportation proceedings against several members of the group last month, according to police sources.

As Health Department-mandated chain restaurant calorie counts seem to be surviving last-minute legal maneuvers, some customers yawn:

In an unused corner of a Burger King on Hylan Boulevard, an official-looking sign goes unremarked.

Its tiny print, disclosing the nutritional facts of the fast food on offer, resembles nothing so much as the legal mumbo-jumbo that no one really wants to acknowledge.

But if the city Health Department gets its way, the information soon will be front and center.

Health Code 81.50 mandates that all New York restaurants that are part of a nationwide chain of 15 or more locations must post a calorie count on their menu.

The Restaurant Association, which claims that the proposed law goes against the First Amendment, has until Friday to seek a stay from an appellate court.

While some eateries, such as Starbucks, Quiznos, Jamba Juice and Chevy’s, have accepted the new regulations and posted nutritional information in restaurants, others, such as McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC and Taco Bell, have refused.

. . .

Freida Dibartolo, who admits to not being a regular customer of Burger King, agrees that information should be readily accessible, but doesn’t believe it will affect how people order.

“If you don’t eat it often, you don’t pay attention the few times you eat it. If you eat it everyday, you don’t give a (expletive),” said the Dongan Hills resident.

If you conveniently forget what your mama taught you about taking something for nothing, it’s easy enough to ride a bus for free:

For commuters outraged over never-ending fare hikes and double digit tolls on the Verrazano-Narrows bridge, a little known Metropolitan Transportation Authority rule — and the compassion of many bus drivers — lets you hop on any city bus and ride for free.

All it costs is your dignity.

The process is simple: Hop on a bus and try one of the following:

1. Tell the driver you forgot your wallet.

2. Tell the driver you have no change.

3. Just ignore the driver and sit down.

We tried the first two and saw the third happen often enough. It worked like a charm nearly every time.

If you’re worried that the other passengers will shoot a disapproving glance your way, don’t.

On almost every occasion, fellow commuters were too busy with their papers, iPods or just staring out the window to care.

And then there’s the old school uniform tactic:

A New Dorp teen and her mother have recently sued New York City Transit and bus driver Richard Benjamin for more than $22.1 million. They allege the burly Benjamin hit the girl with a metal garbage can on the street last year after they argued over her failure to produce a MetroCard moments earlier when she boarded an S78 bus.

The lawsuit, filed by Lisa Marie Thompson and her mother, Annette Nash, in state Supreme Court, St. George, seeks $20 million in punitive damages and more than $2.15 million in compensatory damages from Benjamin and Transit.

Miss Thompson alleges “serious, multiple and permanent” injuries to her hand and emotional and psychological harm.

A Transit spokesman declined comment on the suit; however, the agency previously contended the teen was the aggressor.

Miss Thompson, then 14, got on the bus on Hylan Boulevard at Ebbitts Street around 8:10 a.m. on June 5, according to an interview she gave the Advance later that day for an article on the incident. The freshman at St. John Villa Academy in Arrochar was headed to school.

Miss Thompson said she was wearing her school uniform — a white short-sleeve shirt with Villa’s initials and a tan skirt — and advised the driver she’d forgotten her MetroCard. She told the Advance that other operators had previously let her ride the bus “at least five or six” times without a MetroCard, and she walked toward some friends seated in the back.

Miss Thompson said school officials had told students that city bus drivers could not refuse them a ride on school days provided they wear their uniforms.

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.”

You had me until you got to the part about slapping a couple coats of cheap house paint on my beautiful stone wall:

The public war against ugly graffiti scrawled on borough walls and fences must be fought on a private front.

And to help battle the “tags” on homes and businesses, City Councilmen James Oddo and Vincent Ignizio want Staten Islanders to sign a waiver that grants cleanup crews permission to enter private property with paint, power washers and solvents in hand, to clean up the mess as soon as it’s seen — for free.

When it comes to tackling the graffiti scourge, “the sooner you get it down, the better,” Oddo said.

But until now, waiting for permission from property owners has been the biggest source of delay.

To solve that problem and make the anti-graffiti efforts as persistent as the graffiti vandals, the councilmen will distribute the waivers to local home- and business owners in areas where graffiti is an issue.

“It’s hard enough to own a home or business without having to worry about idiots defacing your property,” Ignizio said.

Once the paperwork is signed, graffiti removal teams can clean up any defaced property, but before signing, be warned: The waiver stipulates the paint may be done in blocks or patches, and the paint color may not match exactly and may cover natural stone.

So far, two homeowners and two businesses, including Planet Wings on Lincoln Avenue in Grant City have taken up the offer.

“Even if you don’t have it now, send it back so we can go on your property immediately and bring it down,” Oddo said of the graffiti, which he called “an Islandwide embarrassment.”

And she’ll be better able to deal when Gawker commenters trip over themselves to poke fun at her weight:

Think of someone you don’t like. Write the name down on a piece of paper and fold it in half.

That’s what 7-year-old Tiana Camacho and other students in her second-grade class at PS 18 in West Brighton were asked to do. Her parents were outraged — especially when several of Tiana’s young classmates wrote her name on their papers.

“My child is very sensitive,” said Ana Camacho, Tiana’s mother. “Something like that would not help her.”

The school’s principal did not return a message left with a secretary. Department of Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg, speaking on the principal’s behalf, did not have details on the assignment but said it was intended to improve students’ oral and written skills.

“They were understanding what it means to interview people,” Ms. Feinberg said. “It was a request to interview someone whom they don’t get along with.”

Parents said they might believe that if the teacher hadn’t read out the names of the students.

“[The teacher] went about it the wrong way,” said Mrs. Camacho. “Children shouldn’t be exposed to something like that at such a young age.”

Apparently, officials at the department didn’t think it was a very effective project, either. According to Feinberg, the teacher was given a verbal warning.

“Poor judgment was used,” Ms. Feinberg said. “There was a conference and a discussion with the teacher.”

Officials wouldn’t release the teacher’s name, but parents identified her as Linda Jacobellis.

The student, Tiana, was stunned and saddened by the incident. She said her teacher was fun to be around, which made this assignment unusually upsetting. Ms. Jacobellis supposedly explained to the class that they were given the assignment because many of the classmates don’t get along. But never did Tiana expect that she would be picked.

“She called my name a few times and I had to go to the front of the room,” Tiana said. “I was sad. I thought I was everybody’s friend.”

How will the mayor build support for congestion pricing? Pick a pet project — high-cost, low-impact, no matter — and “negotiate” away:

One Staten Island politician has separated himself from borough colleagues who either oppose congestion pricing or look at it with raised eyebrows.

Meanwhile, the state Assembly, regarded as the biggest legislative hurdle for a proposal that requires city and state approval, said it will introduce a congestion pricing bill today.

Insisting that the plan is the borough’s best hope of getting substantial money for mass transit, state Sen. Andrew Lanza, a Republican who left the City Council for Albany last year, told the Advance yesterday he is endorsing Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ambitious, controversial proposal.

Lanza stepped into the pro-congestion pricing camp after a private meeting Tuesday with Bloomberg and his staff in City Hall, at which the senator said he was promised the Island will not be shortchanged when the projected revenue is doled out.

. . .

Bloomberg did not offer Lanza any new transportation promises, nor did he guarantee the borough would be given a specific percentage of the money pot — a proposal Oddo and Ignizio have floated to the mayor’s office. But throughout negotiations, Lanza said he has secured several assurances from the mayor’s office, such as completing a long-awaited private ferry line into Midtown Manhattan from the South Shore.

. . .

Island gains from congestion pricing so far include the expenditures laid out in the MTA plan, as well as 33 new express buses and a study of the dormant North Shore rail line, and Bloomberg is assuring the politicians that more gifts would be unwrapped if his plan is approved.

For the assignment desk: Cost-benefit analysis of ferry service . . . start here, for example.

. . . or yeesh:

Staten Islanders are so reluctant to give up their cigarettes that one in five pregnant women still light up, alarmed city health officials said Tuesday.

. . .

The Staten Island smoking rate has held at about 27% since 2002, even as other New Yorkers have given up the deadly habit. Nearly 20% of Staten Island moms reported smoking in their third trimester of pregnancy, according to a fresh look at a 2004-05 survey.

The Post is less polite:

Even when they’re knocked up, Staten Island’s Marlboro moms refuse to put their cigarettes down, according to disturbing figures the city released yesterday.

Ignoring common sense — and the advice of doctors — 19 percent of expectant Staten Island mothers admitted to smoking through their third trimester, compared with the 5 percent of pregnant women who smoke in the other four boroughs, city health officials said.

. . .

City officials are trying to understand why Staten Island women are more willing to turn their babies’ umbilical cords into hookahs.

Although it perhaps violates the spirit of Lent, it does make for good press:

At Goodfella’s Brick Oven Pizza in Dongan Hills, there’s a tasty meal this Good Friday for Catholics abstaining from meat.

Their Lenten-specialty pizza features tender chunks of lobster, crabmeat and shrimp drizzled with a champagne and blackberry brandy cream sauce, tomatoes and scallions scattered above a layer of homemade fresh mozzarella cheese. Atop a cheese and coconut-infused 10-inch crust, it’s a veritable slice of heaven.

But some say the name the pie’s creators picked for the pizza, the “Passion of the Crust,” is as sinful as the cheesy seafood masterpiece is delicious.

The restaurant’s co-owner, Scot Cosentino, a Scientologist, and executive chef Sal Russo, a Catholic, insist they mean no disrespect.

“We wanted to give everybody a chance to have a special pizza,” Russo explained, adding that the pie has been popular since it was introduced at the start of Lent, and especially so on Fridays, when Catholics are enjoined to abstain from meat.

And the name, both said, derives from their passion for pizza, and the special coconut crust.

“We’re very passionate when we describe our pizza to our customers,” Russo said. “They start to drool.”

But though he said the pie “is nothing against the church,” he gestured to the old-fashioned brick oven where the Passion pizza was turning a gooey golden brown and joked that he sometimes sees a heavenly light shining from inside. “If you listen very closely, you can hear the voices of the archangels,” he said.

. . .

Russo said pizzeria staff called St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan to try to arrange for an official blessing of the pie, in preparation for his journey to Las Vegas on April 1 to enter it in the International Pizza Challenge. But an archdiocesan official called back and said the name of the pizza was too controversial, he said.

“I think the owners probably intended to do a very good thing in providing a seafood pizza,” said Sister Lois Darold of St. John Villa Academy. “I think perhaps they didn’t realize the title of this new pizza might be considered a little in poor taste.

“I don’t think there was any intent to make fun of the Catholic religion and the Christian experience. I’m not personally offended, except that I would have preferred a pizza that probably tastes very delicious would have a name that is a little more respectful.”

Now that the seven-figure NCAA pool at Jody’s is gone, another bar takes up the slack:

It will be at least another year — if ever — before Jody’s Club Forest reinstates its legendary March Madness pool, which reached a $1.5 million pot and had hordes of bettors lined up outside the tavern until it got benched last year.

But that hasn’t stopped plenty of people from calling the Forest Avenue bar in hopes the NCAA basketball pool had somehow been resumed — and at least one other bar is trying to fill the void.

“We still have people coming in looking for it,” Mary Haggerty, wife of Jody’s owner Jody Haggerty, said by telephone from her home yesterday. “I’m sure we would love to see it [come back]. People have been asking for it to come back and they’re hoping, but it’s not going to be this year.”

Meanwhile, most bettors interviewed by the Advance yesterday agreed that the place to bet on the games is Dannyboy’s Tavern, an establishment located about 2 1/2 miles from Jody’s, on Victory Boulevard in Castleton Corners.

“The problem with Jody’s is, no one was paying taxes on it except the last guy who won. It just got too big, and it was blatant that it was getting so huge,” said one patron, picking up a Dannyboy’s betting pool form at Jimmy Max in Westerleigh yesterday. “Let me put it this way: Danny’s is legit, and I haven’t heard of anywhere else.”

The first round of NCAA tournament games begins tomorrow, but most pools focus on naming the Final Four, the ultimate champ and — the tiebreaker — the final game point total.

Dannyboy’s was keeping unusually tight-lipped about what is a legitimate and perfectly legal enterprise, but some estimates put the size of last year’s pool at $200,000. By comparison, Jody’s topped out at a $1.5 million payout at the end of its 29-year-run and was featured in national publications and network news shows.

. . .

On the paperwork for Dannyboy’s pool, clearly marked is a pledge that all of the money bet will be handed over to the winner, and a warning that any patron lucky enough to win “will be provided with a form 1099 and is responsible for applicable taxes.”

How to change a lightbulb on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge:

. . . Two carry up a 50-pound red beacon light fixture, while the third distracts a peregrine falcon with a mean streak, lest it rip them all to pieces with its sharp talons.

By the way, all this requires sidestepping piles of pigeon heads, as the predatory falcons seem to have a habit of eating everything but.

. . .

The electricians usually make about 20 bulb-changing trips a year among the beacon lights, red “obstruction lights” on the cables and the bridge’s 340-plus decorative white “necklace lights.”

But burned-out bulbs have been a less-frequent occurrence these days, with the Verrazano the first MTA bridge to break in new ultra-efficient LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs.

With a life span of between five and 11 years, the new bulbs, which so far have replaced those in only the required red lights, already have decreased energy consumption by 90 percent, according to Maintenance Superintendent Charles Passarella.

With any luck, the new bulbs will mean fewer emergency trips to the top, and fewer dangerous run-ins with the falcon, which is particularly aggressive during mating season.

“Once they lay eggs around June, we can’t go up,” [MTA senior bridge and tunnel maintainer Kenny] Dybing said. “We don’t want to interfere with the process.”

Before the eggs hatch around early July, the male falcon is usually fairly well-mannered, but “the mother gets very protective,” Dybing said.

If a critical red light goes out during that window of time, the men go up with Chris Nadareski, a biologist and falcon expert from the city Department of Environmental Protection. Nadareski, who wears protective clothing, and is well-versed in falcon behavior, is able to distract the mother while the lights are changed, Dybing said.

“The same pair returns every year to breed,” Passarella said. The birds are banded so biologists can track their movements. Babies hatched on the Verrazano have been found far up the Hudson River.

Location Scout: Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

Man sues City for lost manhood:

The builder who exactly three years ago spray-painted his Tottenville house in a fit of pique says in a federal lawsuit that the mayor and other city agencies forced him to spend several days in a hospital psychiatric ward, barred him from municipal buildings and even put him off sex with his wife after his house was designated a protected landmark.

John Grossi’s lawyers seek $10 million in damages for their client and charge, among other things, that the city violated the builder’s free speech and unlawfully detained him last spring, after he told police he would protest the landmarking by staging a mock crucifixion on his front lawn.

Grossi planned to hold a sign reading: “Mayor Bloomberg and the City of New York have Crucified me to this house,” according to the civil rights suit filed in Brooklyn federal court.

A short time later, the suit alleges, Grossi was arrested and taken to Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze. The lawsuit also alleges that the city’s “continuous and systematic harassment and depravation” of Grossi’s rights affected him so adversely that he couldn’t be intimate with his wife and prevented the couple from “procreating their first child through a natural means (sexual intercourse).”

Lori Grossi, John Grossi’s wife, seeks another $2 million in damages for loss of companionship in a suit that also names the Police and Fire departments and the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

. . .

Grossi told the Advance in 2005 that he planned to build four “upscale” townhouses at the site and five in place of another 19th-century Amboy Road home, which he did demolish.

When the mayor became aware of community concern about the other home and the spray-painting incident, he sided with the community and “publicly” vowed at a town hall meeting to landmark the house — ensuring its designation at the next meeting of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, according to court papers.

Time was, you could rub hot peppers on your child’s genitals. That’s apparently not true anymore:

A 10-year-old boy from Charleston did not want to sit at his desk at a Staten Island elementary school last week, his teacher noticed.

She soon discovered why: His rear end was sore and bruised from a belt lashing he received from his stepfather the night before.

If this had happened 25 years ago, it may have been met with an ambivalent shrug.

But today, stricter reporting requirements, more aggressive prosecution and growing public awareness means “traditional” childhood discipline can lead to criminal charges much more frequently.

The man who allegedly doled out the corporal punishment, 30-year-old Ukraine native Alexandr Privler, was charged with a felony, assault with intent to cause physical injury with a weapon, and a misdemeanor, acting in a manner injurious to a child.

. . .

Over the past five years, arrests and convictions of cases in Staten Island in which endangering the welfare of a child — the most common charge in child-abuse cases — have gradually risen, according to the state Department of Criminal Justice statistics.

. . .

The unusual case of Clifton resident Ganganue Gonseh last April is a glaring example. A native of Liberia, Gonseh punished his then 8-year-old and 11-year-old boys by making them strip naked, then rubbing a hot yellow pepper on their faces — including their eyes — and on their genitals. The boys were brought home by police for skipping school and allegedly shoplifting video games at a Hylan Boulevard store earlier that day.

The two kids were treated at Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton for itching and skin irritation, and Gonseh was charged with third-degree assault and endangering the welfare of child.

The father argued that the disciplinary practice — called “Hot Peppering” –is common practice in many African countries and in parts of this country. He eventually pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and a disorderly conduct violation, with the provision that the endangering charges would be dropped once he completed a parenting course.

Brokers find Papal Mass to be a weak draw:

Tight security at Pope Benedict XVI’s April 20 mass at Yankee Stadium is keeping some Staten Islanders from seeking the limited number of tickets available, and providing another reminder of how life in New York City has changed since the terror attacks of 2001.

Those hoping to attend the 2:30 p.m. mass have to commit to at least a 10-hour day and arrive at their parishes before 8:30 a.m. to board buses. No private cars will be allowed into the Stadium parking lot. Even the priests who will celebrate mass with the pope and serve communion in the stands will travel by bus.

. . .

The lower-than-anticipated demand for tickets made it easier on pastors, who weren’t looking forward to disappointing their parishioners.

St. Adalbert’s Church in Elm Park planned to hold a lottery drawing last Wednesday night to distribute its 22 tickets. Each name pulled from the pot would receive two tickets. But with only 10 parishioners showing up, no one went home empty-handed.

“I was hoping it would work out this way,” said the Rev. Eugene Carella, pastor. “This way people who really, really, really wanted it were here tonight and they got them. And there were no hard feelings, so that’s good.”

. . .

Some parishes, like St. Christopher’s in Grant City, with 41 tickets, found the demand equaled the supply, and, as of Wednesday, Our Lady Star of the Sea in Huguenot still had 57 tickets available from its allotment of 143. Monsignor Jeffrey Conway, pastor of Star of the Sea, said any unclaimed tickets would be returned to the archdiocese and reapportioned to other parishes.

Older parishioners and those without the proper documentation have decided not to pursue tickets “after we explained what they’ll be getting into,” said the Rev. Michael Flynn, pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Port Richmond and Our Lady of Mount Carmel-St. Benedicta in West Brighton.

Uh, I don’t think even Peter “All-You-Can-Eat Buffet” Braunstein would do something this dumb. Still, it’s funny:

Has the Ninja Burglar branched out into fashion consulting?

Probably not, but someone calling himself the “Ninja Thief” has popped up on Amazon.com to post a product review for a ninja-style “China Silk Black Balaclava.”

“It prevents sweat and hairs from being left at the scene so the police are unlikely to get a DNA print, and makes it impossible for anyone to ID you,” the rave review reads. “The perfect accessory for the professional thief. I’ve used it on over 20 thefts and haven’t got caught yet.”

The Ninja Burglar, who has 19 notches on his black belt dating to last May, mostly in Todt Hill and Grymes Hill, has been lying low since the first week of January, when cops say he made off with $225,000 in diamonds and jewelry from a house on Melhorn Road.

But his legend is rife on the Internet.

“Maybe it’s just somebody playing a game,” said a police source about the Jan. 21 post.

Still, the cops will check it out, the source said.

Midland Beach resident Gloria Barral, who spotted the review while she was shopping for vitamins for her dog and looking at silk garments, is a little more optimistic.

“I don’t know. Sometimes they get cocky,” Mrs. Barral said. “It’s very strange. I look for the review, and then this just hits me in the eye.

“You never know,” she added. “This is how crimes get solved, when you least expect it.”

The “bemusement” they “engendered”? What, is this Tokio Hotel or something? No matter:

Happy birthday, Stapleton natives and identical twin brothers Randy and Ronnie Zavattieri, and enjoy it — the next one is four years away.

The Zavattieris are either going to be 48 years old or 12 today, depending on whether you count non-leap years. The brothers are the only twins in the country born on Feb. 29, 1960, and have been soaking up the attention as this year’s leap year approached — Randy Zavattieri got to read the seventh item on David Letterman’s “Top 10″ list the last leap year, and was invited with other “leaplings” to attend Martha Stewart’s show, which will air today (1 p.m., Ch. 4).

The bemusement the young twins engendered in strangers at the Stapleton Houses seems to have subsided.

“It was different then, people didn’t pay much attention to it (leap years),” said Randy, who now lives in South Brunswick, N.J., in a phone interview this week. “People didn’t understand why me and my brother were so happy to see our birthday on the calendar, but I’m not going to see my birthday again for another four years!”

By some estimates there are 4 million leaplings in the world, about 200,000 of them in the United States. The leap year occurs to correct a drift between the astronomical start of the seasons, or equinox, and regular calendar years, called common years, by inserting an extra day into the month of February once every four years.

For most of his life, Randy Zavattieri celebrated his birthday during common years on March 1, but he changed to Feb. 28 after appearing on David Letterman’s show, when he realized that much of the country’s other leaplings celebrated on that day.

*Hey, assignment desk, run down to the City Clerk’s Office to see if this is happening today . . .

. . . the City Council sees a need to limit the size of for sale signs:

The slumping housing market is presenting a new wrinkle in the city — oversized “for sale” lawn signs that one Staten Island city councilman has made his latest quality-of-life target.

Michael McMahon (D-North Shore) yesterday introduced a bill that would limit the size of such signs throughout the city.

Claiming the signs have a “detrimental effect on the aesthetic value of New York City’s residential neighborhoods,” the proposed legislation limits “for sale” signs on residential properties to a maximum size of 4 square feet.

“While traveling in my district, I have noticed what seems to be an explosion in the size of real estate signs on front lawns to a degree that is practically obnoxious,” McMahon said in a prepared statement. “Real estate companies have the right to advertise, but let’s keep it tasteful.”

. . .

The measure is also catching flak from one Realtor, who said his signs must be large enough to attract buyers.

“If you have a property, you have to bring it to the public’s eye,” said George Wonica Sr., president of Wonica Realtors. He said the 2-by-2 foot signs McMahon is proposing are not large enough to lure business. “You might as well not have anything there. I agree with bringing it down, but I don’t think 2-by-2 is the proper dimension.”

The question remains how you get trains off an island:

They were a vision in disco-era orange and yellow when they debuted in the 1970s, subway cars to put a smile on the face of the most jaded New York straphanger.

A bunch were delivered in 1973 to Staten Island, where they became the workhorses of the railway.

They’re still reliable and mechanically sound. But all this time later, the cars are as dowdy as leisure suits and as passe as The Hustle.

To buy more time before new cars are purchased some five to eight years from now, the 64-car Staten Island Railway fleet is scheduled for an upgrade.

An $11 million mini-overhaul is planned to spruce up the floors and seats, repair leaky ceiling panels to prevent soaked bottoms, and beef up the climate-control system.

Later this year, the cars will taken two at a time to New York City Transit’s Coney Island maintenance shop in Brooklyn. Each pair will stay in the shop for about a week, and the entire fleet should be rehabbed over 12 months.

. . . but you can’t make Staten Islanders stop wanting to dump. They just can’t seem to get away from their past:

It’s been seven years since the Fresh Kills landfill closed, but it’s being replaced by miniature dumps that are springing up in neighborhoods across the borough — and the Sanitation Department is being slammed for not doing enough to stop it.

Despite the Island comprising nearly 20 percent of the city’s acreage — and more open spaces and wetlands than any other borough — only 7 percent of the fines issued by the Sanitation Department for illegal dumping in the last five years were given out here, according to an Advance analysis of Sanitation statistics.

. . .

As an Advance reporter and photographer sought out hotspots for dumping across the borough recently, neighbors marveled in disgust over people who don’t think twice before throwing garbage on remote dead-end streets, into wetlands, or along highway ditches.

“I’m astounded,” said Rossville resident Frank Lettiere, who said he often sees people driving to the corner of Woodrow Road and Veterans Road East and kicking trash and household items into the wooded hill that leads to a drainage ditch. “You can’t give people a conscience who don’t have a conscience.”

. . .

Other dumping hot spots the Advance visited include Wild Avenue by East Service Road in Travis, along Chelsea Road in Chelsea and the Graniteville Quarry off Forest Avenue.

Joanne Redhead, who lives across the street from the Elm Park site, said she’s disgusted by the frequent dumping into the lot covered by high weeds and trees.

“They come with their trucks and their cars and they dump their trash there,” Ms. Redhead said, pointing to the lot which harbors tires, several bags of trash and an old boat. “If I knew this was a dumping site, I wouldn’t have bought this house (four years ago). It’s just very nasty people. That’s really messing up the environment.”

Plans to bring Italian varietals to Staten Island are progressing:

The 2-acre Tuscan Garden Vineyard Project will be planted on a Snug Harbor hilltop by spring 2009, officials said yesterday.

“We’ll be creating, I’m sure, a serious wine,” declared winemaker Piergiorgio Castellani Jr., co-owner of Italy’s Castellani Wines.

The Italian winery, near Pisa — as in leaning tower of — produces 18 million bottles of wine annually.

Castellani estimated the 2,000-vine organic plot planned for the Staten Island Botanical Garden will produce as much as 7,000 bottles a year. The vineyard is to complement the Tuscan Garden Villa at the botanic garden.

. . .

Because the three types of grapes — merlot, cabernet sauvignon and sangiovese — he intends to plant will be the same as those used in his “Super Tuscan” wines, Castellani offered up a name for the Staten Island label.

“We will produce not a Tuscan wine,” Castellani said, “but a Super Staten Island Red.”

At the risk of sounding hypocritical, this absolutely beats the pants off tropical fish tanks:

Borough President James Molinaro, who has committed $2 million in taxpayer money to the project, said the vineyard will draw visitors.

“This is part of branding Staten Island,” Molinaro said, adding that 38% of Staten Islanders are Italian-American.

Bad news:

The wine — a name has not yet been chosen — will not be sold commercially but will go to tourists and could be served at government functions.

Which is to say, start contributing to the Borough President’s reelection campaign now. (And it’s never too early to pitch Talk of the Town.)

Fish tanks, full of tropical fish:

Tanks packed with 20 tons of water — holding 400 tropical fish and costing $750,000 — were unveiled by Mayor Bloomberg at the Staten Island ferry terminal Tuesday.

And the mayor also showcased a very fishy sense of humor.

“I just have to say, ‘holy mackerel,’” he said as his audience groaned. “What’s the porpoise, you might ask? These are beautiful tanks that are destined to become a great new attraction on Staten Island.”

The 8-foot-high tanks hold fish usually found on colorful coral reefs — including powder blue tang, Pakistani butterfly and scribbled angel.

The tanks are so heavy, steel beams have had to be used to reinforce the terminal floor.

“The tanks will exert a calming influence on harried commuters,” said Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, who was inspired after seeing similar aquariums at an airport in Sarasota, Fla.

Bloomberg is known to be a fish fan and installed tanks in his offices decades ago.

“I’ve been hooked ever since,” he said.

And Gene Russianoff is being ironic, right?

The cash for the project, which will be maintained by staff at the Staten Island Zoo, came from the borough’s capital fund.

“I really don’t think people have a reason to carp about this,” Bloomberg quipped.

Gene Russianoff, spokesman for the Straphangers Campaign, said his group had no problem with the money’s use.

Location Scout: St. George Ferry Terminal.

Potential thieves, take note — clubs are out on account of being just too loud:

Nicholas Williams, 31, who told cops he was from North Carolina, pulled out a gun inside the club and tried to hold up two men, but he had trouble getting their attention because the music was so loud, a law enforcement source said.

Williams yanked some gold chains and medallions off one victim, but as he was trying to stuff the gun and jewelry into his jacket pocket, accidentally squeezed the trigger and shot himself, the source said.

Then “panic ensued in the club,” the source said.

One thing you don’t expect after robbing a bank is getting cockblocked by a garbage truck:

Frank Russo and Patrick Crocitto were emptying baskets along Clove Road in Sunnyside just before 12:30 p.m. when they spotted a man running out of Clove Lakes Wines & Liquors at 1300 Clove, chasing a bandit and waving his arms, yelling “Robbery! Robbery!”

The Sanitation workers followed the two men in their garbage truck along Genesee Street to Seneca Avenue, where they used the truck to block the robber’s path.

Police identified the stickup man as Richard DiToro, 24, who lives with his parents on Mada Avenue in West Brighton.

Then, Russo and Crocitto, who was wielding a shovel, chased DiToro, who fell at one point during the pursuit, and threw the bag of money he had stolen, which was recovered by the store owner, Chung Lee.

Russo, a nine-year veteran of the department, caught DiToro and pinned him against a car.