Scary thought of the day: What if instead of mayoral control, the big New York City test score gains are due to George Bush’s No Child Left Behind, as studies seem to indicate?

Democratic candidate William Thompson can opt to pursue this line of argument as need be but maybe it’s safer at this point to rehabilitate Bush than it is to prop up Bloomberg’s juggernautical campaign . . .

[Eduwonk and Education Week links via.]

No, literally! And there is data:

Still, the prime time for murder is clear: summertime. Indeed, it is close to a constant, one hammered home painfully from June to September across the decades. And the breakdown of deadly brutality can get even more specific. September Saturdays around 10 p.m. were the most likely moments for a murder in the city.

The summer spike in killings is just one of several findings unearthed in an analysis by The New York Times of multiyear homicide trends. The information — detailing homicides during the years 2003 to 2008 — was compiled mainly from open-records requests with the New York Police Department, and a searchable database of details on homicides in the city during those years is available online for readers to explore at nytimes.com/nyregion.

. . .

Summer is when people get together. More specifically, casual drinkers and drug users are more likely to go to bars or parties on weekends and evenings, as opposed to a Tuesday morning. These people in the social mix, flooding the city’s streets and neighborhood bars, feed the peak times for murder, experts say.

And the trend occurs in other cities, in places like Chicago, Boston and Newark, according to criminologists.

Some of the same trends are on display around Christmastime and are believed to be behind the slight increases in murder that occur then, criminologists say.

Super-scary figure of the day:

New York City officials on Wednesday reported the deaths of three more people with swine flu, and estimated that more than half a million New Yorkers may have become sick from the virus.

. . . you can at least make him earn it, and spend every last cent of that $100 million in the process:

Despite generally broad approval for the job Michael R. Bloomberg has done as mayor, a majority of New Yorkers say that he does not deserve another term in office and that they would like to give someone else a chance, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Cornell University and NY1 News.

With anxiety rising over a difficult economy, few surveyed have a lot of confidence in Mr. Bloomberg’s ability to lead the city out of the recession, a troubling sign for a mayor who cited his financial acumen as the rationale for his undoing of the term limits law that otherwise would have forced him from office.

In addition, some 51 percent say that the city is on the wrong track, while 40 percent say it is going in the right direction.

And though Mr. Bloomberg has sought to elevate his image nationally and internationally as a bold-thinking mayor with a record of innovation and results, New Yorkers in the survey struggle when asked to identify any particular achievement of his tenure. More than a third of those polled could not offer any answer when asked what was the best thing Mr. Bloomberg has done since he became mayor almost eight years ago.

Give Council Member Bill de Blasio props for continuing to root for the Red Sox. I think most people would have pulled a Hillary Clinton and expediently changed his or her allegiances:

Beneath the civility and protocol that dictate life at City Hall lies a patchwork of baseball passions, resentments and rivalries that the public seldom sees. Forget fault lines of party or borough: The true divide is whether your team wears pinstripes, orange and blue, or even (horrors!) the dreaded crimson stockings.

And as is common with the Council, idiosyncrasies and oddities abound: Among all New Yorkers, for example, Yankees fans outnumber Met loyalists by nearly two to one, according to polls. But among the council members it is a different story: The number of Mets partisans exceeds Yankee supporters, 18 to 13, according to a survey of members by The New York Times.

. . .

Mr. de Blasio and Erik Martin Dilan of Bushwick, Brooklyn, have had a running bet for six years. If the Red Sox win the American League East division, Mr. Dilan buys Mr. de Blasio a steak at Peter Luger Steak-house. If the Yankees win, Mr. de Blasio buys the steak.

In 2004, when the Red Sox overcame a three-game deficit to the Yankees to earn a spot in the World Series, Mr. de Blasio took matters a step further: He required Mr. Dilan to wear a Red Sox cap at a Council meeting, rise and make a speech praising the Boston club.

Then there are those for whom support is contingent:

Councilwoman Helen D. Foster of the Bronx said that she used to root for the Yankees “before they destroyed my community,” referring to the construction of the team’s new $1.5 billion stadium, which replaced public tennis and basketball courts, baseball and soccer fields, and a running track with smaller parks.

And don’t trust anyone who doesn’t root for someone because people who don’t like baseball are scary:

Councilman Mathieu Eugene said that although he is not a fan, he respects anyone who plays sports “because it’s a healthy habit.”

And Councilman Simcha Felder of Brooklyn, the impish former tax auditor who heads the Council’s Committee for Government Operations, explained his lack of affinity for either team this way: “Do I look like a person who watches people play?”

A new X factor in political polling emerges in the wake of the Groundhog Day Uprising:

Staten Island Chuck was merely defending his turf when he chomped on Mayor Bloomberg’s finger, according to a poll out Wednesday.

A Quinnipiac poll shows that 61% of New Yorkers believe Chuck was protecting his home, while 15% say the feisty groundhog was making a political statement.

Probably as long as you keep asking, people will continue to have a difficult time seeing the subway as some sort of brownnosing “A” student:

Eight subway lines have gotten their report cards from riders — and they all scored in the C range.

The lines — the 2, 4, 5, 7, B, L, M and J/Z — were rated on a variety of criteria, including lack of graffiti and availability of seats. When all the categories were averaged out, the trains were rated “average.”

It sounds like a nonsequitur but I swear it’s not:

Chances are, if you have been counted as part of a moving crowd in Grand Central Terminal, the Time Warner Center or Times Square, the person who clicked the counter to note your presence was a Jewish, retirement-age refugee from Russia or Ukraine who lives in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and may or may not speak English. Before they worked as counters, many worked as accountants, computer programmers or engineers in their home countries.

Location Scout: Times Square.

. . . start driving again:

Sloshed straphangers made up nearly half of all accidental deaths underground during a 13- year Columbia University study.

“Now, if groups are going to a bar, then one should be a designated ’safe rider,’” warned health professor Robyn Gershon, the study’s author.

Between 1990 and 2003, 145 of 315 unintentional deaths came when boozy riders stumbled off the platform, fell suddenly ill or, in acts of liquid courage, jumped onto the tracks to retrieve a personal item.

Drunken riders died at higher rates than those who were killed or committed suicide. And today’s economy might not help the equation.

“With the changes to the financial picture in New York, there’s talk of an increase in alcohol intake,” Gershon said.

Since most Manhattanites don’t own cars, Gershon said people might think “it’s OK to drink to the point of intoxication because they’re not driving.”

A lot of condoms. A lot:

The Mayor’s Management Report, issued yesterday, showed that the Health Department gave away 39,070,000 male condoms to community groups in fiscal 2008, which ended on June 30.

That’s enough for every man, woman and child in the city six times over.

It was more than double the previous year’s 17,770,000.

The price tag of the rubbers was put at $1,054,228, which doesn’t include the bill for some 2 million female condoms.

Proponents argued that’s not much compared to the $350,000 lifetime cost for medicating a single person with AIDS.

. . . but I can’t believe someone is actually named “Jay Gooch”. I can’t believe he’s come this far since the days of terrorizing Gary Coleman:

Gotham took first for overall sweat production in a new study — although it came in only 68th among sweatiest cities per capita. The shining Apple produces an estimated 1.3 million gallons of sweat per hour — enough to fill the Central Park Reservoir in one summer month.

New Yorkers collectively outsweat Los Angeles, Chicago and even Houston.

For the fifth year in a row, Phoenix, Ariz., was named the sweatiest U.S. city with an average summer temperature of 95.1 degrees, according to sweat expert Dr. Jay Gooch.

And Gooch said New York’s humidity doesn’t make New Yorkers sweat more — it only increases the “misery factor.”

New Yorkers’ libidos hit hardest:

Only 11 percent of Big Apple residents reported having more than one sex partner in the previous 12 months, according to a report released yesterday.

That left 89 percent in the “faithful” or “not getting any” categories.

And only 5 percent of married couples or those in a relationship reported cheating during the last year. Seven percent of men said they had multiple sex partners, while 3 percent of women reported extra-marital activity.

Less quality than Boston, DC or Chicago but still far and away above Baghdad:

New York City is losing ground to other cities around the world according to a new annual ranking based on quality of living standards.

The city came in 49th place in the survey conducted by a global consulting and investment firm, Mercer, dropping from 48th in 2007 and 46th in 2006.

Zurich was listed as the international city with the highest quality of living, followed by Vienna, Geneva, and Vancouver. The top-ranking American city is Honolulu, which came in at 28th place, followed by San Francisco, in 29th place. Boston is ranked 37th, and Chicago and Washington, D.C., tied for 44th place.

Baghdad was listed as the city with the lowest quality of living.

Then again, gentrifiers are used to recycling all sorts of things:

Tribeca beat out Park Slope in Brooklyn as the neighborhood that recycles the most garbage, according to Sanitation Department figures released Monday.

“I feel like people in Tribeca are more environmentally conscious. I see a lot of ‘Go Green’ here,” said Jessie Sung, 20, a receptionist at the Tribeca SoHo Animal Hospital. “We’ve been very adamant about it.”

Sung said she even asked her bosses to include more recycling bins at work.

“People here take it into consideration more,” she said. “When I worked in midtown, they ignored that idea.”

. . .

Tribeca and parts of lower Manhattan recycled 27.9% of their trash during fiscal year 2007, which ended last June 30.

Park Slope and parts of Carroll Gardens and Red Hook came in a close second place by recycling 27.1%.

. . .

The Mott Haven area of the Bronx got the lowest marks. Residents there recycled just 4.9% of their trash.

. . .

New Yorkers recycle about 400,000 tons of paper and about 275,000 tons of metal, glass and plastic each year, according to the Sanitation Department.

Paper, packaging and food waste make up the largest part of the city’s trash.

Half of the mixed paper collected by the Department of Sanitation goes to a number of private companies for processing. The rest goes to the Visy Paper Mill on Staten Island, where it is turned into linerboard for corrugated cardboard.

NYU no longer dream school for teens:

The dream is over.

New York University’s three-year run as the No. 1 “dream” school for college-bound students has been derailed, according to survey rankings released yesterday.

Harvard, Princeton and Stanford all vaulted ahead of NYU in the annual Princeton Review “College Hopes” list — relegating the downtown crown-wearer to fourth place.

Oh, so that’s what those people do all day at those coffee shops in Park Slope:

You’re creative? You’re self-employed? Brooklyn’s for you.

In the last six years, Brooklyn has outpaced the rest of the city in attracting creative entrepreneurs, according to statistics from the Center for the Urban Future.

“It really is quality of life. It’s not as expensive and it’s not as busy as Manhattan. Brooklyn is hip. It has reached that level,” said Scott Adkins, a playwright who opened two writer’s spaces in Park Slope. “You’re guaranteed to have a good coffee shop.”

. . .

About 375,000 workers in the city were self-employed as of 2006 — a 23% increase from 2000, the center found.

In Brooklyn, the number of freelance writers, artists, architects, producers and interior, industrial and graphic designers increased more than 33% in the same period, compared with 6.5% in Manhattan.

That means nearly 22,000 creative freelancers live in Brooklyn – mainly in Park Slope, Williamsburg and downtown, according to the Brooklyn Economic Development Corp.

. . .

“I moved to Brooklyn in 1990 to work for Spike (Lee),” said cinematographer/photographer Frederick V. Nielson II. “At first, I was reluctant to leave Manhattan. I was like, damn, they give you a 718 area code.”

He first settled in Fort Greene, but moved to Prospect Heights after the birth of his son.

“I like the pluralism of living here. I know the guy at the candy shop. People here really patronize the local artists,” he said. “Once they’ve seen me in the neighborhood, or the diner, they’ll come up and buy my work.”

Adkins said the borough has come a long way from only a decade ago.

“It has everything Manhattan has — good theater, good restaurants. People actually use the G train now. It used to be a terrible train,” he said. “The one thing I don’t like is the Mexican bakeries are closing down.”

Women in New York and other large cities are earning more than men:

Young women in New York and several of the nation’s other largest cities who work full time have forged ahead of men in wages, according to an analysis of recent census data.

The shift has occurred in New York since 2000 and even earlier in Los Angeles, Dallas and a few other cities.

Economists consider it striking because the wage gap between men and women nationally has narrowed more slowly and has even widened in recent years among one part of that group: college-educated women in their 20s. But in New York, young college-educated women’s wages as a percentage of men’s rose slightly between 2000 and 2005.

The analysis was prepared by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College, who first reported his findings in Gotham Gazette, published online by the Citizens Union Foundation. It shows that women of all educational levels from 21 to 30 living in New York City and working full time made 117 percent of men’s wages, and even more in Dallas, 120 percent. Nationwide, that group of women made much less: 89 percent of the average full-time pay for men.

Just why young women at all educational levels in New York and other big cities have fared better than their peers elsewhere is a matter of some debate. But a major reason, experts say, is that women have been graduating from college in larger numbers than men, and that many of those women seem to be gravitating toward major urban areas.

In 2005, 53 percent of women in their 20s working in New York were college graduates, compared with only 38 percent of men of that age. And many of those women are not marrying right after college, leaving them freer to focus on building careers, experts said.

“Citified college-women are more likely to be nonmarried and childless, compared with their suburban sisters, so they can and do devote themselves to their careers,” said Andrew Hacker, a Queens College sociologist and the author of “Mismatch: The Growing Gulf Between Men and Women.”

You know you want to pluck that bad boy:

It’s official! No one in the world has a longer nipple hair than Doug Williams.

Last Saturday, Williams had his celebrated chest hair measured at a barbeque in his Wil­liamsburg backyard, complete with a grill, a keg, and even a DJ. A group of photographers and a videographer were also on hand, clustered around Williams to get the best shot of the astonishing strand.

The barbeque was the culmination of Williams’s quest to get the hair into the Guinness Book of World Records. He says he didn’t set out to break the coveted record, it just happened.

One morning, Williams was “taking stock” of his nipple hair and noticed one was “really long.” Curious to see what the record was, he looked it up and found out it was only four and a half inches, considerably shorter than the hair sprouting from his own vestigal mammary gland.

Those close to Williams thought it was, well, a little odd.

“Initially, I was a little bit surprised,” said girlfriend Malika Crutchfield. “But after checking out the hair, I realized he had a shot at the record. I’m thrilled.”

. . .

Measuring duties fell to Dr. Sagat Verma, who bent over Williams and carefully extended the strand, holding it against a tape measure. Appraising nipple growths isn’t Verma’s specialty; by day, he’s an internal medicine specialist at Wyckoff Medical Center in Bushwick.

It might seem excessive to bring in a medical doctor for a single hair, but the Guinness Book requires that the measurer is a licensed doctor with “standing in the community.” And that’s just one of many complex regulations imposed on the record-breaking event. Williams filled out pages of paperwork, the hair had to be measured three times and photographed, and it had to be wet during the process.

To meet this last requirement, Crutchfield squirted bottled water on Williams’s bare chest from a couple feet away.

“That’s good,” he said, but she gave it a couple extra squirts, just to be sure.

Then Dr. Verma measured the hair while the DJ stopped the music for dramatic effect, announcing “the world’s largest nipple hair!”

“How many inches?” somebody asked before a hush came over the crowd.

The official length came out to 129 millimeters — the Guinness Book uses the Euro-centric metric system — or a little longer than five inches, demolishing the previous record of 115 millimeters.

If you felt like being cruel by sending someone on an errand in Manhattan, we suggest doing it on what might be the single most crowded hour of the year:

Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance business improvement district, has a convincing answer. He puts the most crowded time at 5 to 6 p.m. on the Wednesday after Christmas, which will be Dec. 26 this year.

“You have, on the one hand, all the tourists who are here,” he said in an e-mail message. “Then you have people who have left the matinee and people who are coming to evening shows and eating dinner before or after the shows.” Add the commuters who are still pouring out of offices, along with people returning gifts or using their gift cards.

Finally, Times Square attracts onlookers curious to see where the New Year’s Eve ball will be dropped — if not the heartiest of revelers intent on camping out there for five days.

Research confirms just how annoying it is to stay stuck behind a Malawian while being trailed by a Singaporean:

Move out of the way! New Yorkers are a step ahead, walking at a pace 10 percent faster than a decade ago, a new study has shown.

But the pace of walkers in the Big Apple trails behind seven other big cities, including Singapore and Copenhagen.

The international study, which clocked the time it took for men and women to walk along a 60-foot stretch of pavement, revealed males generally walk 25 percent faster than their high-heeled female counterparts.

. . .

The average walking time in New York was 12 seconds per 60 feet, or about 3.4 mph.

Retirement sales worker Nichole Dougherty, 28, from TriBeCa, stepped up the pace, cutting through the crowds to reach a meeting on time yesterday afternoon.

“I walk in heels and I walk fast. I’ve traveled to Europe and we definitely walk much faster in New York,” she said.

Despite being famous for its bustling pace, the city that never sleeps ranked only eighth in the world.

The survey of 32 countries found New Yorkers were speedier walkers than people in London, Paris and Tokyo. Singaporeans were the fastest walkers, at 3.9 mph while residents in Blantre, Malawi, were the slowest surveyed, at 1.3 mph.

Researchers conducted the experiment by secretly timing thousands of pedestrians’ speeds in city centers around the world.

In each city, the survey was carried out on the same day, at the same local time on a busy street which was flat and wide enough for people to walk at their maximum speed. The survey monitored adults walking on their own and did not include people on mobile phones or struggling with shopping bags.

Identical research methods were used to compare the new study to the results of a survey in 1994, revealing the pace of life is now about 10 percent faster.

New federal census figures show that New York has a lot of work to do if it is to fulfill Mayor Bloomberg’s shocking 1 million-more-people figure. City officials are not happy about the disappointing fourth quarter growth:

New federal Census figures assert that New York City’s population grew by a total of 587 people between 2005 and 2006, a number the Bloomberg administration says substantially underestimates the city’s tremendous growth.

Before the numbers were even public — they were slated for release today — the city vowed to contest the figures, claiming that the methods the Census used aren’t the best way to get an accurate count in a city as dynamic as New York.

At stake are tens of millions of dollars in federal and state funding each year, as population in part determines the apportionment of aid for various programs. After the city successfully contested the 2005 figures last October, adding 70,000 to the initial estimate, Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement that an additional $23.1 million for affordable housing would come to the city.

Challenging the Census’s estimates has become something of an annual tradition for the Bloomberg administration, as this will mark the fourth year straight the city has contested the federal numbers as failing to capture thousands of New Yorkers. The Census Bureau put the city’s population in mid-2006 at 8.21 million, up 2.6% from 2000.

Late last year, the city released a report projecting that its population would grow by more than 1 million by 2030, bringing the city’s total population to 9.1 million, with an increase of nearly 400,000 people expected between 2000 and 2010.

Mr. Bloomberg routinely cites the figures as justification for various large projects and infrastructure improvements, as the city needs to make room for an extra million people.

It’s that time of year (again) when allegedly overlooked outer borough restauranteurs attempt to stuff their way into Zagat:

The Myrtle Avenue Business Improvement District is offering local caterer Jive Turkey assistance in the three-and-a-half-year-old business’s bid to get listed in a new Zagat guide.

On March 1, the BID’s Web site urged residents to “vote for Jive Turkey.”

“We encourage you to submit your vote and rank your other favorites in the coming week,” the entry continued.

Jive Turkey, on Myrtle Avenue between Clinton and Waverly avenues, serves up a wattle-dropping 15 flavors of deep-fried bird and is a candidate for entry into the new Zagat’s “Marketplace” guide, which will feature caterers, florists, and other stores “ranked” thanks to snarky reviews from actual patrons.

But in order to make the cut, Jive must accrue a minimum number of reviews. Zagat, whose highly unscientific ratings are based on votes by consumers, never reveals exactly how many are required.

“If you have a low vote count, unless you’re considered a really superlative place, you won’t be included,” said a former Zagat employee who would only speak anonymously. “[Encouraging people to vote is] frowned upon, but a lot of people do it. There’s no way to stop it.”

A new folksy-sounding quip is born:

New York City taxi drivers hail from more than 130 countries, and America is one of the five most common countries of origin, according to records for 2006 obtained from the Taxi & Limousine Commission.

Just two drivers indicated on their applications that they were originally from Switzerland, making them as rare a breed on the city streets as the new hybrid Lexus taxis. More than 5,200 drivers were originally from Bangladesh, making the South Asian country the most common country of origin among cabbies, followed by Pakistan, India, and Haiti.

America was fifth, with about 2,300 drivers, and New York natives made up more than half of the American-born drivers, according to the Taxi & Limousine Commission documents.

. . .

Many New Yorkers interviewed about their perceptions of cab drivers harbor stereotypes that do not necessarily reflect the diversity of taxi drivers. Tasheem Jones, who lives in Midtown and estimates that she rides in a taxi at least three times a week, describes her typical cab driver as a “rude Arab guy.” Kheeny Khan, a Pakistani who lives in Queens, said he has the impression that most cabbies hail from the same Punjabi districts of Pakistan he still calls home.

Even though it took years and years to fill up all that office space, the Empire State Building is the most popular architectural landmark in the country:

The Empire State Building, the famed marvel of steel and stone at Fifth Ave. and 34th St., was named America’s favorite work of architecture in a public poll released yesterday by Harris Interactive and the American Institute of Architects.

“It’s one of those places you have to go see,” Ian Molyneux, 26, of Manchester, England, said yesterday as he took in the sweeping view atop the 1,454-foot-tall skyscraper.

“When you go back home, everyone’s going to ask if you went to the Empire State Building.”

The fallen World Trade Center and 31 other city landmarks were also listed among the nation’s 150 favorite structures, making the city the top architectural destination in the U.S.

. . .

The Empire State Building, which was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates, beat out the White House and the Washington National Cathedral, which ranked No.2 and No.3 respectively, in the poll of 1,804 people.

Location Scout: Empire State Building.

The Queens Chronicle crunches the numbers and deems Councilmember John Liu grandstander of the month for December:

One of the modern personalities that accompanied the invention of e mail was the electronic chatterbox. Friends who forward every chain letter, relatives who send a new digital photo every time their child eats a new type of food, and dates of little consequence who keep sending text messages long after the initial spark is gone are all prime examples of this.

In the world of Queens politics, the leading electronic chatterbox is City Councilman John Liu (D Flushing). Over the past month, the Queens Chronicle has collected every e mail and fax sent by Queens representatives at all levels of government: city, state and federal. The paper tabulated the total number of communications and Liu came out ahead by a large margin.

Between Nov. 21 and Dec. 21, he sent 37 separate e mails and three faxes about his work on the council. He sent out advisories about his intentions to take part in rallies after the police shooting of Sean Bell, releases about his opposition to Rosie O’Donnell’s impersonation of Asians and announcements about his appearances on television. He also chronicled his participation as the council’s Transportation Commitee chairman and outlined his opposition to the expansion of a gas station in Flushing. On one day in particular — Dec. 1 — Liu sent five individual e mails on topics ranging from the announcement of new free Chinese language courses to the dedication of a new mobile computer lab in a local school.

If I hear “Shoomy shoomy pwetty Princess” one more time, I swear I don’t know what I’ll do:

Max, Lucky, Princess, Rocky and Buddy were the five most-popular dog names in 2005, according to a Health Department review of dog licenses that was released yesterday. The same names took thetop five spots the previous year.

Mixed breeds came out on top of the list of popular breeds, followed by Labrador retrievers, pit bulls and Shih Tzus.

Although the Health Department issued 101,274 dog licenses last year, that figure represents only a small portion of city dogs. Many owners never bother to get their dogs licensed, even though that’s required by state law.

In other dog-related news, Councilmember Peter Vallone, who is good at proposing excessive and/or unconstitutional legislation, is now looking to crack down on one of those top breeds:

Pit bulls will be an endangered species in the city if one lawmaker gets his way.

Calling them potentially lethal weapons, City Councilman Peter Vallone renewed his call yesterday to ban pit bulls from the five boroughs.

“I am an animal lover,” said Vallone (D-Queens). “But I have always thought they should not be allowed on our streets. They have been bred to be violent.”

. . .

Vallone, whose two daughters own a Bichon Frise, pointed to several incidents in which children suffered serious injuries after being attacked and bitten by pit bulls.

He wants the state Legislature to change the law so cities like New York can ban specific breeds. Although he wants to bar people from owning or breeding pit bulls in the five boroughs, current owners would be exempted.

Vallone said it’s too early to say how a ban would affect thousands of homeless pit bull mixes that end up in city animal shelters every year.

The Health Department reveals the fattest, skinniest and drinkiest neighborhooods in a new study:

If you live in Sunset Park, it might be time to get off the couch.

A new city report found people who live in the Brooklyn neighborhood are least likely to exercise of all New Yorkers. In fact, 57% admitted they are sedentary, while residents of Greenwich Village and SoHo hit the gym on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, Staten Island is still the smoking capital of the city, especially the South Shore and Mid Island sections, where 33% of residents smoke,

The updated Community Health Profiles released by the Department of Health use yearly phone surveys and other data to measure health indicators such as depression, asthma, diabetes and smoking in 42 neighborhoods.

Some conclusions:

East Harlem residents may exercise a bit more than those in Sunset Park, but they should lay off the fried foods — 31% say they are obese.

Binge drinking — defined as having five or more drinks in a night — is highest in Chelsea.

This year features borough-specific haunted houses:

Last Halloween, [Timothy] Haskell, a theatre director, staged a public haunted house on the Lower East Side, and so many people showed up that hundreds never made it inside. “We realized that we had to turn away a lot of local people,” Haskell said. So this year he put up haunted houses in all five boroughs, tailored to prey on the fears peculiar to each one.

For months, Haskell and his crew polled residents of the five boroughs to find out their worst nightmares. . . . People from the Bronx and Queens, they said, tend to fear things that might actually happen, like being mugged (harpaxophobia), while Manhattanites are frightened of fantastical and unlikely occurrences (flying sharks, riding in an elevator that rockets through the roof of a building). “In Manhattan and Brooklyn, we heard ‘fear of the homeless,’” [chief designer Paul] Smithyman said. “Then, in the Bronx, we heard ‘fear of becoming homeless.’” Staten Island residents apparently dread chemical spills and gas leaks.

. . .

The challenge of creating a tableau representing acrophobia, the fear of heights (and the seventh most common fear of Manhattan residents), almost stumped the designers. “One idea was that we’d have people walk up a staircase and onto a Plexiglas floor and see teeny-tiny furniture beneath them,” Haskell said. “But there were liability issues.” Instead, they paired a video of someone falling off a ledge with an evocative sound effect: vroooooom, splat. For illyngophobia (fear of dizziness, No. 11 among Manhattanites), the team installed a giant spinning tunnel; for entomophobia (insects, No. 3), they glued a thousand dead cockroaches onto a wall; and for musophobia (mice, No. 6), they ordered an essence of dead rat from an outfit in Chicago called Sinister Scents.

The New York Press’ Best of Manhattan for 2006 is out (it seems like every year they have to make some sort of half-assed apology for why it’s still called “Best of Manhattan”). This year includes “Best Worst Smelling Subway Station” (in City Life):

If you need a good reason to vomit, transfer from the V or the E train to an uptown 6 train at 53rd Street. The underground passageway between these two tracks either hosts a nightly pissing competition that gives bonus points for projectile sharting, or it captures the scent of a nearby chef who boils soiled toilet water. In any case, when you reach the top of the escalator off the E/V line, begin breathing deeply in preparation. Nevermind the salty taste of group body odor trailing from your fellow commuters; it pales in comparison to the soggy air trapped between the semen-coated walls that awaits you. At the top of the steps, hold your breath and run. Don’t walk. Don’t even walk fast. Run. And don’t be afraid to take out any hobbling meanderers up ahead. The smell is ruthless and so must you be.

Concur.

Most stations have a particular terroir — personally, I find the Lexington Avenue Express tracks at 59th Street a lovely musty odor evocative of an ice skating rink — but the stank-ass mop water miasma of the passage between the downtown and uptown 6 lines (If I’m understanding them, I think that’s what they’re referring to — meaning the passage commuters move through between downtown 6 trains and the E/V — of course, you probably only know this if you’re heading out to or coming from Queens . . . ha!) is one of the worst.

A new CBS/New York Times poll finds that New Yorkers are less self-involved than previously believed:

Nearly a third of New Yorkers said they thought about Sept. 11 every day. Nearly a third said that they had not gone back to pre-Sept. 11 routines and that they were still dealing with changes caused by the attacks.