Severe ramifications from the recent writers’ strike continue to wreak havoc on a fragile American culture:

Dreaming of showing it all on reality television? A new school has opened to show you the ropes.

The New York Reality TV School — brainchild of theater coach Robert Galinsky, who has trained reality-TV stars for years — began classes on 19th Street in Manhattan yesterday, offering lessons in jumping from real world to “reality.”

The school — which claims to give students a “competitive advantage” over other potential contestants — provides one-time workshops for $139 and five-week workshops for $299.

That would be a switch! Funny how that sometimes works out:

One of the biggest water bill deadbeats in New York City is the Economic Development Corporation, according to an audit released by the city comptroller’s office on Monday.

William C. Thompson Jr., the comptroller, said that the corporation had not paid any water or sewer bills for 22 years at the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a building of commercial and light industrial space controlled by the corporation.

The unpaid bills totaled $4.5 million.

In a press conference, Mr. Thompson said he was outraged that the agency was so delinquent, not only in failing to pay its bills but also in not contacting the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which runs the water system, since 1989.

Too bad this story didn’t come out yesterday:

Paul McCartney gal pal and Manhattan MTA honcho Nancy Shevell has a pass that lets her flout city parking rules, The Post has learned.

Shevell, the raven-haired MTA board member who has been dating Sir Paul for months, slid her shiny, black SUV into a commercial loading zone on a recent afternoon.

She then brashly headed off to a Manhattan salon, without the slightest fear of reprisal from a meter maid, photos taken at the scene show.

That’s because Shevell has a special MTA police placard plastered to her dashboard that allows her — and the rest of the agency’s board members — to park their vehicles in no-parking, loading, and metered zones.

An MTA spokesman said agency rules stipulate the pass can be used only for “official MTA business.”

He declined to say whether Shevell’s parlor pit stop qualified.

NIMBYers somehow invaded the bodies of the four preservationists devoted to the cause of the Gowanus Canal:

Activists admitted that there was some irony in trying to retain the current polluted state of the canal by seeking protection for the industrial buildings that hastened its demise during the 19th and 20th centuries. But they said it’s possible to separate the buildings themselves from the messy business that went on inside.

“They are perfect specimens of what industrial buildings looked like at the start of the Industrial Revolution,” said Betty Stoltz, a member of Friends and Residents of the Greater Gowanus. “Think of it this way: I don’t love everything the Church does, but I don’t want to see churches destroyed.”

Location Scout: Gowanus Canal.

The idea that this is somehow better only makes it seem worse:

Sifting for clues in the wreckage of Eliot Spitzer’s stunning, sordid prostitution scandal — and trying to make sense of what no doubt will always contain a large element of pure insanity — that old mob investigation offers a vivid glimpse into the suddenly ex-governor’s psyche. “I don’t think [the prostitutes] were so much about the sex,” says one man who worked closely with Spitzer for many years and thought he knew him well. “There’s definitely an element of self-destruction. There’s complete ‘the rules don’t apply to me’; it’s very arrogant. But Eliot loves covert ops. He always has. The most animated or excited he ever gets is when he talks about running the sting on the Gambino family.”

. . . “Like Romeo to Juliet/Time and time, I’m gonna make you mine.” His friend scratches his head, because he was (is) a big Ratt fan, and knows that the very next line is “I’ve had enough, we’ve had enough/It’s all the same,” but no matter, since most people only internalize snippets of lyrics, and besides, he came to the sad conclusion long, long ago that Ratt were probably a bunch of high-school dropout goons with little sense of internal logic, but that’s all beside the point on this particular day, he thinks, because he understands his friend’s sentiment, which is something along the lines of “what comes around goes around,” etc., etc. or whatever:

Cheers erupted on trading floors around the city yesterday as word spread of the stunning downfall of Gov. Spitzer — who spent most of his term as attorney general torturing Wall Street with his witch hunt for financial wrongdoing.

An employee of a major investment bank, who requested anonymity, said the company chef had been instructed to break out bottles of champagne so that the staff could party and swap jokes about “client No. 9.”

Meanwhile, at another giant firm, Merrill Lynch, “everyone broke into cheering on the trading floor,” an employee said. Merrill got socked for hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties, thanks to Spitzer.

Traders were on such a high that stocks rallied for about a half-hour. Then the laughs wore off and the gloom returned for a down day.

The cab driver who delivered an infant to safety after becoming the unwitting participant in a nurse-and-dash scheme seems to have made up parts of the story as a cover up and has been arrested:

In a stunning turnaround, the cabby hailed as a hero for delivering an “abandoned” baby to a Queens firehouse Thursday was arrested yesterday for making up the heart-wrenching story.

In a dramatic jailhouse confession to The Post, livery cabdriver Klever Sailema, 45, said he was only trying to help the infant.

“I feel really bad. It wasn’t my intention to hurt anybody,” a shaken Sailema said from a holding cell in Kew Gardens yesterday. “We did it so that the girl would be well cared for. I just wanted to help.”

The cabby, a father of three from Elmhurst said that he kept up the ruse because “every time I lied I thought it would end there.

“I felt terrible. In my heart I knew it wasn’t right. It was a mistake.”

Sailema allegedly teamed up with the child’s dad, Carlos Rodas, 27, and paternal aunt, Maria Siavichay, to enact a bizarre plot to get rid of the kid, dubbed “Lourdes,” but whose real name is Daniella Perez, after the little girl’s 14-year-old mother said she could no longer handle being a mom, police sources said.

The plot unraveled late Friday night, when a neighbor who spotted the baby girl’s picture in the newspapers called cops.

. . .

Sailema told The Post that Siavichay, a waitress in his neighborhood, asked him for a ride to work Thursday, as she frequently does.

But when he arrived at her apartment at 7:30 a.m., she walked out carrying a baby in her arms along with Rodas, whom he had never met. All three got in the back of the cab.

Sailema initially thought that the baby, whom Siavichay had mentioned before, was sick and therefore Siavichay was taking the tot to work with her.

“The father said, ‘I know you don’t know me, but I need to ask you a favor. Can you take my girl to the fire station?’ ” Sailema told The Post.

Rodas wouldn’t take the child himself, because he “had a problem with the courts,” Sailema said.

“At that point I knew they were talking about bringing her to a safe place,” the cabby added.

Sailema dropped off the dad, a construction worker, a few blocks away and then headed to Queens.

A few blocks from the firehouse, Sailema said, Siavichay became worried because “she did not have [immigration] papers” and asked Sailema to drop her at work and take the baby to the firehouse — Engine 289 in Elmhurst — alone.

Just before 10 a.m., the cabby arrived at the firehouse. “That’s when I invented the story,” he told The Post.

. . .

“I don’t know how I committed a crime,” said an exasperated Sailema.

The Patriots get cocky . . . the Giants stay cockier:

If the Giants win the Super Bowl on Sunday, the city is prepared to throw them a party.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said plans are in the works for a victory parade and ceremony to take place on Tuesday following the big game.

The parade would start at 10 a.m. at the U.S. Custom House and travel uptown on Broadway to City Hall, where grandstands would seat 5,000 fans for a 1 p.m. celebration ceremony.

Well now isn’t that cute:

With all the peace, love and unity in the air at the Petrides school auditorium during yesterday’s “Day Out Against Hate” assembly, one couldn’t help but think of the feud between Borough President James P. Molinaro and District Attorney Daniel Donovan.

Both men attended yesterday’s event, the first time they have been together at a public event since Molinaro went nuclear on his former deputy in the final weeks of Donovan’s recent re-election campaign.

But unlike Martin and Lewis, or Yogi and Steinbrenner, there was no public rapprochement between the two yesterday. They did not speak.

. . .

Molinaro said he didn’t see any incongruity between the theme of yesterday’s event and the feud that he set in motion. “I don’t dislike the man,” he said afterward. “I don’t hate the man. I felt what I felt. It is what it is.”

When asked if he would make some overture to Donovan to mend the rift, Molinaro said, “There hasn’t been close contact for years, so why go there?”

It’s a Scorsese detail come to life:

The rat that was circling André Thomas’s feet was big and brazen, measuring more than a foot from the tip of its tail to a pointed snout that arched upward to the aroma of Mr. Thomas’s ham and cheese sandwich.

The encounter might not have seemed all that unusual to many New Yorkers, who have become wearily accustomed to rats bounding along subway tracks or lurking about garbage bins, usually after dark.

But this rat sighting came as a shock to Mr. Thomas because of when and, especially, where it took place — 2 p.m. on a brilliant fall afternoon while he sat on a bench in City Hall Park, a nine-acre jewel of the municipal park system that underwent a $30 million renovation in 1999. The park is a cornerstone of the city’s efforts to revive Lower Manhattan.

“At first I thought it was a squirrel,” Mr. Thomas said as he strode away. “Isn’t this where the mayor works?”

Mr. Thomas’s rodent experience was hardly unusual. If he had looked under the park’s benches and around its meticulously cropped foliage, he would have spotted at least six other rats scurrying around, unconcerned about the humans all around.

The infestation of rats in City Hall Park, clearly an embarrassment to the city, was acknowledged in interviews by senior officials of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the city’s lead agency for rodent control, and the Department of Parks and Recreation.

“It’s just a big issue down there and we all recognize it,” said Jessica Leighton, the health department’s deputy commissioner for environmental health. Adrian Benepe, the commissioner of parks and recreation, said that City Hall Park provided “a perfect set of circumstances for rats.”

Indeed, the park’s extensive makeover not only produced a verdant oasis, but inadvertently also created a haven for rats: leafy ground cover in abundance, garbage cans that proved rodent-friendly and droves of lunchtime visitors carrying brown bags with deli sandwiches. Adding to that are large construction projects in the neighborhood, including the World Trade Center site, that have forced rats from their underground homes.

Something that only seems to occur in the sticks with psychotic underemployed part-timers is happening here:

Two firefighters were arraigned yesterday on arson and reckless endangerment charges for allegedly torching a Hell’s Kitchen firehouse over the weekend.

Michael Izzo, 30, of Staten Island, and Richard Capece, 31, of Brooklyn, were arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on felony charges of second- and third-degree arson and reckless endangerment. Judge Abraham Clott set bail for both men at $20,000 cash or $30,000 bond and ordered them to return to court on Friday.

According to a criminal complaint, a surveillance camera captured Izzo and Capece buying a gallon of gasoline and a cigarette lighter at a gas station on 38th Street and Tenth Avenue, about two blocks from Engine 34/Ladder 21. Capece allegedly paid for the merchandise with his MasterCard debit card and then accompanied Izzo in a 2001 black Chevrolet Suburban to the firehouse at 440 W. 38th St., where its main door was doused with gasoline and set ablaze at 2:30 a.m. Saturday. No one was injured in the fire, which was quickly extinguished by five firefighters at the firehouse.

Because you know the (not $1 billion but $500 million) World Trade Center Sept. 11 memorial costs way to much money when the foundation funding it becomes one of the nation’s top nonprofits:

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has joined the annual honor roll of American nonprofits that received the most private support last year.

The organization, which raised $115 million in 2006, ranked no. 158 on a list of 400 entities compiled by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The list is published in the Chronicle’s November 1 issue.

At the top of the list was United Way of America in Alexandria, Va., with $4.1 billion raised. No. 400 was the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., in the midst of a $200 million capital campaign, with $42 million raised.

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which began operations in May 2005, in 2006 reported donations totaling $115 million. By June 1 of this year, it had raised $300 million of its $350 million goal for the building of a memorial and museum at the World Trade Center site. The fund-raising feat is impressive, as the foundation’s president quit in May 2006 after criticism for rising costs and delays. Mayor Bloomberg then stepped in as chairman of the foundation.

“It is a big deal that it raised enough money to get on the list,” the editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Stacy Palmer, said of the new entrant from New York. “They put a lot of effort into bringing in a lot of very big gifts and saying, ‘We need to go ahead and move forward on this.’”

By way of contrast, the Staten Island Postcards memorial, a very nice memorial, only cost $2 million.

How about health care for every uninsured New Yorker? Just asking! Because now you have a lame duck mayor spending his waning political capital on a subway stop:

Over the next nine months the Bloomberg administration will likely press the state for an additional $450 million in funding for the no. 7 subway line extension, as cost overruns have left the 1.5-mile project with only one planned station stop.

The city has put up the full $2 billion required for the project. Though with the major tunneling contract slated for approval tomorrow, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has dropped plans for constructing the shell of a station at Tenth Avenue and 41st Street.

The extension has been billed as an essential driver of development for the area west of Midtown, which is one of the Bloomberg administration’s key initiatives.

“The city is coming up with a couple of billion out of the taxpayer’s money — I would argue that it’s the MTA’s responsibility” to fund the station, Mayor Bloomberg told reporters yesterday.

While the city is anxious to have the MTA come up with the money, the state agency has said it is facing major budget deficits and is prioritizing other projects such as the Second Avenue Subway.

Again, that’s a $2 billion investment for a) a convention center that is fully booked to begin with and b) infrastructure for waterfront housing for rich people that doesn’t even exist yet. Oh, and probably an artificial-turf ballfield named for Dan Doctoroff forty years down the line. That would be worth it.

When a Brooklyn man eats only what he farms in his own backyard, we discover that “eating locally,” ironically, can go too far:

In three weeks of eating nothing but Farm-fresh food, I lost 29 pounds, down from my pre-Farm weight of 234. Abs: That’s the upside of only two meals a day. The downside is the expense. Not counting my own labor, which was unending, I spent about $11,000 to produce what, all told, is barely enough to feed one grown man for a month. But I did learn something about food: Unless you really know what you’re doing, raising it is miserable, soul-crushing work. Eating food fresh from the farm, on the other hand, is delightful.

(Hey, no need to punish yourself!)

In a strange twist, being a total jerk driver actually may help you in the long run:

Pedicab drivers busted by police for running red lights and hitting pedestrians may have better odds of winning coveted licenses to “pedal” their wares in the city than drivers who bother to obey the law.

Tickets for moving violations will be accepted as proof a pedicab business was in operation prior to the new regulations passed by the city this spring.

This proof, which can also come in the form of insurance or incorporation documents, gives operators of bicycle rickshaws first dibs in the lottery to distribute 325 licenses later this year.

Lady, please put down the cosmo:

The Bordeaux was flowing, the foie gras abundant and the well-heeled epicures at Daniel were having a refined old time when suddenly all eyes turned toward a table against one wall and all conversation ceased.

Jean-Luc Le Dû, a sommelier in the restaurant, looked in that direction, too. And he saw her: the woman making like a dancer on a pole at Scores.

She stood facing the rest of the dining room. First she took off a vest or a jacket, as best Mr. Le Dû remembers. Then she went to work on her blouse.

Just as she was getting to her bra, the maître d’hôtel got to her. Thus her drunken, wobbly stint as a stripper ended, and so did her dinner. She and her date, a smiling, sloshed man who had seemingly egged her on, were escorted to the door.

“She was not necessarily attractive or young, so it was disruptive,” complained Mr. Le Dû, who left Daniel several years ago and now owns a wine shop in Greenwich Village. “If she were beautiful, it might have been different. People might have been cheering her on.”

At Daniel? Hard to believe. But then Mr. Le Dû’s story provides a reminder that a 1985 Burgundy casts the same dark spell as a 2007 peppermint schnapps. That in a four-star temple as surely as a starless dive, some diners drink too much: way, way too much.

. . .

“If anything, a large bank account enables one to forgo normal levels of decorum, because you don’t have consequences,” said Rocky Cirino, a manager at the restaurant Cru, who previously worked at Daniel. “I’m thinking of several people whose station in life has enabled them to bypass normal civility and caution.”

. . .

Sometimes drunken diners don’t even bother to seek a private sanctuary for their libidos.

“People are often doing things underneath the table,” said a veteran server who has worked in many of Manhattan’s premier restaurants, including Gotham Bar & Grill and Fleur de Sel. The server asked not to be named for fear of angering past or future employers.

“The darker the restaurant, the more romantic the restaurant — there’s going to be some activity,” she said.

Manhattan real estate is irresistible — even to the most die-hard commies:

As the price of Gotham real estate climbs ever higher, the socialists who embrace the ideas of common ownership espoused by Marx and Lenin decided to stop mothballing their precious office space across the street from the Chelsea Hotel and turn it into hand-over-fist cash.

“This is Manhattan. It’s the biggest rental market in North America,” said Libero Della Piana, state chair of the state Communist Party. “We live in a capitalist society, and in order for us to play our role, we have to make money.”

Two months ago, the local hammer-and-sickle crowd opened the doors of its swanky, eight-story headquarters to yet another new tenant, Dumann Realty.

“We believe the market is great. We believe Chelsea is coming up,” said Richard Du, president of Dumann, which leases commercial and retail space in Manhattan.

And if that’s not ironic enough, know that this story can only get, uh, richer:

[Richard Du] laughed at the idea that the capitalist forces of Manhattan have forged a financial partnership with his realty company and the commies.

“I come from Vietnam,” said Du, who grew up with landmines outside his front door before leaving his homeland at age 13, unable to read or write.

“This is a free country,” Du said, “and everyone has to work together for financial freedom.”

. . .

The party, which bought the building 30 years ago, wouldn’t say how much it is raking in from tenants. But based on the latest local real-estate prices, rent for each 5,000-square-foot floor in the building could command well over $135,000 a month, considering the space is in the heart of Chelsea.

Other tenants in the building include two record companies, an art-supply store and the Sheila Kelley S Factor Striptease dance school, which features pole dancing.

Capitalism looks pretty good at the socialist headquarters, as they have been able to renovate their cramped 1970s-style office into a sleek, open-air space with environmentally friendly furniture.

Rather than perpetuate this pro bono ruse Skadden should have just donated $1 million to Legal Aid — I’m pretty sure their attorneys are cheaper:

Chinatown restaurant workers who claimed their bosses stole their tips and cheated them out of overtime thought they’d scored a major payday when a judge awarded them $700,000 in February.

But their lawyers ended up the bigger winners — tallying $1 million in legal fees, even though they took on the case pro bono.

A judge this week awarded attorneys’ fees of as much as $450-an-hour to Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, who argued the case on behalf of waiters, busboys and captains at the 88 Palace Restaurant.

“The case was unusually difficult and complex, the resources required to prosecute it immense,” Manhattan Federal Judge Gerard Lynch wrote.

Skadden Arps attorney Mark Cheffo said his firm will donate most of the money “to the support of Asian-American legal endeavors.”

It’s not just immigrants who fake being religious to get their kids an education. Now we’ve got “come for the pre-K, stay for the chocolate-covered matzo”:

In the frenzy to land a preschool spot, some parents have found God. Area churches and synagogues that offer early-childhood programs are swelling with new families that have joined to help gain priority school admission for their kids. Brooklyn Heights’ Plymouth Church, for instance, has had “a surge of growth in young families,” reports the Reverend David Fisher. “We’re not sure if there is a direct relationship between the school and our congregation’s growth — though we strongly suspect there is.”

. . .

Some institutions are growing wise to self-interested joiners. “I laugh when people tell me, ‘I joined Temple Emanu-El in June and I’m applying to the preschool in September,’ says Amanda Uhry, owner of Manhattan Private School Advisors. “I say, ‘Do you think Emanu-El isn’t hip to what’s going on?’” Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church Day School prefers two years of membership and participation to be eligible for an admissions advantage, while the East Side’s Christ Church United Methodist limits preschool priority to congregants who actively worship and give money. “The Day School office sends to the church office the list of people seeking admission, and we go over it to make sure that the criteria are being met,” says Christ Church’s the Reverend Javier Viera.

Other religious leaders, though, are happy to see new faces — no matter what the reason. Andy Bachman, rabbi of Park Slope’s Congregation Beth Elohim, sees a membership bump in early November, when preschool applications are given out, and another in January, during tour season. That’s okay by him. “People approach affiliation from a variety of motivations,” he says. “The same people who say they joined just because of the preschool are the ones who can’t stop eating the chocolate-covered matzo at the children’s Seder.”

The museum dedicated to helping visitors understand the trials and tribulations of the overworked, underpaid and unappreciated turn-of-the-century tenement dweller is playing hardball with its own employees:

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum’s tour guides, educators and costumed interpreters — those who don early 20th century garb to tell the stories of the immigrants who lived at 97 Orchard St. — demanded yesterday their employer recognize their union, Local 2110 UAW.

Workers said that the museum’s operations and budget have increased in recent years, but most of them have received little or no pay increases, according to the union’s recording secretary Eden Schulz. Most workers are hired on a per diem basis, receiving no benefits or guaranteed schedule of hours. More than a majority of the 40 workers signed membership cards, Schulz said, and a group of them met with the museum’s executive vice president Barry Roseman, handing him a letter asking the museum to agree to a membership card count — which is when a neutral third party certifies the majority status.

Yup, I think it’s an example of real irony! And the Post eats up this kind of story like cancer:

One of the city’s biggest homeless-advocacy groups is on the verge of kicking a sickly woman out of the Manhattan apartment where she has lived for more than 20 years, court papers charge.

Under any other circumstances, Luz Bonano, a cancer survivor, could appeal to the nonprofit, Manhattan-based Coalition for the Homeless for help if she ended up on the street.

But it’s the coalition itself that owns her building on West 77th Street — and it’s gone to court to try to get her out.

“They’re supposed to be housing the homeless,” said Bonano, who has lived in her apartment for 22 years. “So what are they doing evicting people?”

. . .

The coalition claims Bonano owes more than $30,000 in back rent — money it says could help other people in need.

Bonano has been battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for nearly five years and lives off a $710 monthly disability stipend.

Among New York Magazine’s Reasons to Love New York (in 2006, at least), the hot waitstaff:

If New York is the flame to which scores of the world’s most beautiful, multiracial, multiethnic youth are drawn, then the city’s waiter and waitress ranks are its red-hot center. Where else in the world can you look up from your fatty-toro sashimi or cheeseburger and find yourself staring into the eyes of a ruby-lipped Botticelli Venus? Or a porcelain-skinned John Currin? Or a Mapplethorpe subject? Brunch and a gallery crawl? Why bother. It’s redundant.

And one reason we can’t stand dining out is because of the totally incompetent waitstaff who, although sometimes “hot,” are dumb as shit . . .

He won by a landslide, so what more can he want? Why not immortalize the campaign in a photo exhibition for posterity:

Eliot Spitzer will take over Grand Central Terminal next month with a photo exhibition of images from his campaign.

“The Making of a Governor” will chronicle the stump speeches, handshakes, autographs and exhaustion of running for office — in a series of large black-and-white photos intended to evoke the iconic images of the Kennedy years.

The exhibit is to run Jan. 7-23 at Vanderbilt Hall and may then tour the state.

Photographer Marius Muresanu said he approached Spitzer with the idea after seeing one of Jacques Lowe’s famous images of President Kennedy campaigning.

. . .

He said he spent eight months on the campaign trail and was granted full access — even though the governor-elect has been “known not to love photographers.”

Muresanu is still scouring through thousands of negatives to decide which prints make the cut.

MTA officials said the Spitzer campaign paid $37,500 to rent the space.

Sometimes it seems like the world needs electroshock therapy. First the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, now Son of Sam as a religious figure:

At first, MaryAnn explains, David was not a person for her but a number. “The Lord had given me, shot into my spirit and I could never shake it, the number 44,” she explains. Years before she met David, she’d even named her dog 44. “Periodically I would get the number 444, which was like the perfection of the number.” MaryAnn didn’t understand at first, but later the meaning became crystal clear. She says, “It was the identification of David Berkowitz.” Initially, the press called him the “.44-Caliber Killer,” because his six murders were committed with a .44-caliber pistol. Then two years ago, she ran into a guy she knew at the local Shop Rite, a Christian like her. They started talking, and soon he invited her to visit David in prison.

“When David walked in [to the visitors' room], I knew,” she tells me. . . . “There’s nobody bigger than this guy. Oh, my God, this guy is an apostle of the Lord.”

. . .

Son of Sam was sentenced to 365 years in prison, which should have kept him out of the public consciousness for several lifetimes. But in prison, an amazing thing happened. The infamous serial killer became a holy man, holier because of his evil past. He’s now at the center of a growing Christian mission. His humility, his piety, his charitable, Christlike heart inspire Christians around the world — one African is even named after Son of Sam. (He’s Kwaku Berkowitz.) Fellow Christians overwhelm him with letters. They pray for him and crave his advice, his spiritual insight, his fatherly guidance. He produces videotapes and journals, gives interviews to Christian radio shows. David — he hates the words “Son of Sam” — works as a pastor, walking the prison halls with a Gideons Bible and a calling from God. He’s battling Satan, he says, his old friend. And David is sure Satan’s afraid of him, because David knows all his tricks. The monster who terrorized New York is now apparently on the road to redemption. “I’m heaven-bound and shouting victory,” he tells Christian audiences.

*And the soundtrack plays “Hold On, I’m Comin’”. Ba-dum dum.

A deal that looks better and better with each passing day:

Now that the old-growth trees have been felled and the earth-moving machines have started to dig up Macombs Dam Park, what will the residents surrounding the $1.3 billion new Yankee Stadium project be left with for replacement parks?

Polluted land, according to city and federal documents.

Under the current stadium are two 15,000-gallon oil tanks, which were found to be leaking, and soil in all of the replacement parkland contains “semi-volatile compounds and/or metals at concentrations exceeding [New York State Department of Environmental Conservation] Cleanup Objectives,” noted National Park Service executive Jack Howard when he signed off on the city’s park-swap plan.

Though the contaminated land is cited in this NPS go-ahead as well as the city’s Final Environmental Impact Statement, it’s not mentioned in any of the appraisals performed to comply with federal and state laws.

Renegade signage causes havoc in DUMBO; DOT flummoxed:

A “No Parking” sign mysteriously appeared on a stretch of Front St. in Brooklyn this week, prompting the police to ticket and tow cars left there.

The only problem, the city Transportation Department said yesterday, is that there are no parking restrictions on the south side of Front St., between Washington and Main Sts. — and they have no idea who put up the official sign.

“This is crazy,” cried towing victim David Bourgeois, a 38-year-old freelance writer who lives in the neighborhood.

It was the latest twist in a Twilight Zone-like week for Bourgeois, who parked his Mini Cooper on Front St. Sunday night when the sign — barring parking from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays — wasn’t there.

When he went to check on his wheels Wednesday morning, the sign was there — and his car was gone.

He found his Mini in a police tow pound in Brooklyn Wednesday night. He paid $205 to drive it to freedom. Adding insult to injury, a $60 parking ticket was on the windshield.

“It’s just outrageous,” he said. “I’m definitely going to fight this.”

DOT spokeswoman Kay Sarlin said the agency would work with the city Finance Department to dismiss the ticket. An NYPD spokesman said officials were looking into waiving the towing fee.

A priest gets a ticket for double parking while trying to administer last rites:

A Brooklyn priest got slapped with a $115 parking ticket after he rushed into a hospital to administer last rites to a dying woman, the Daily News has learned.

But even after the Rev. Cletus Forson pleaded his case to a traffic judge, the city refused to throw the summons out.

“If the sanctity of the law won’t bend for the needs of a dying person, I feel really sad,” Forson said yesterday.

“It disturbs me as a priest and as a human being,” added the priest, who has served at St. Andrew the Apostle Church on Ridge Blvd. in Bay Ridge for nearly three years.

Forson got hit with the ticket July 26 about 9:30 p.m. for parking in a No Standing Anytime zone in front of Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park.

The 42-year-old Catholic priest, who is originally from Ghana, said he knew the spot was technically illegal but felt he couldn’t risk wasting time continuing to look for a better spot.

He had just received a call from a panicked parishioner desperate to find a priest to administer last rites to her elderly mother. Forson, who was sick in bed with the flu at the time, said he even checked in with a nurse before leaving and was told there was no time to spare.

“I couldn’t get any parking,” said Forson. “It is my obligation to get there and administer to the needs of the sick.”

Forson placed his official clergy parking permit on the dashboard — which reads “Clergy on Call” — and said he was inside for less than 20 minutes.

“It’s not about the money,” said Forson. “It creates the feeling that if somebody is sick, nobody should go. I don’t think that’s right.”

Forson appealed the ticket, but Administrative Law Judge Michael Ciaravino refused to back down.

“Respondent’s claim that vehicle was parked while he, as a pastor, was attending to a patient at a hospital is not a valid defense to the violation,” wrote Ciaravino in the July 28 decision. “Guilty.”

The only thing better would have been if an ambulance pulled up and got a ticket for being double parked.

There is way too much disposable income out there:

Thousands of New York men are resorting to offering cash and prizes in return for noncommittal relationships.

The men are advertising their offers on sites like suggardaddie.com, under handles like “nice guy, bad boy.” The site describes itself as “the foundations of a great relationship.” It claims the sugar-daddy relationship “can eradicate the issues of financial stress that modern living can bring.”

Single, divorced, married — they’re all trawling for young women to shower with their millions. In return, most want their girl to be at their beck and call.

Logging onto the site using the name Maria Benson, I had some upping their bids within minutes.

Donny (all names have been changed) was looking for a “sexy woman who can go from jeans to stilettos in a flash.”

The self-employed, attached 35-year-old said he would give me $2,000 a month for dates in his first e-mail.

John, a divorced 43-year-old looking for love and claiming his yearly income is “more than you can spend!” said, “I’m tall, rich and enjoy the role of sugar dad. You have to be willing, attentive, and appreciative of me . . . I get off on being generous.”

Jay, whose picture revealed six-pack abs, said his yearly income was more than $1 million but moaned, “I am stuck in a boring, lifeless, and otherwise unrewarding marriage.”

Within 24 hours, I was sitting at an outdoor cafe on the Upper West Side meeting Scott, a boyish-looking 47-year-old who owns his own financial-consulting firm in Manhattan.

He said he was “in search of a discreet relationship with the right woman.” And he was ready to pay to make it happen.

Dressed in a suit and tie on what must have been his lunch hour, he said: “I’ve never done this before. I’ve been married 23 years, and we’re just going through a rough patch right now. I’ve gotten close but never went through with it. I’m ready to now.”

Fifteen minutes later, he agreed to pay the $1,500-a-month rent on my apartment, fund shopping sprees and take me on world-class vacations. The apartment, he said, would be for trysts.

“I just don’t want to deal with the checking in and out of hotels,” he said. “But I’d also give you the money that I would have spent on a room.”

“I don’t want to drag a hooker around town,” he told me. “I like that you seem normal, what are you looking for?”

Then he interrupted, “Just so we’re clear, I’m not leaving my wife, and I don’t plan to . . . I have to be home at night and on the weekends. I have to coach my son’s Little League games.”

The so-called last “Hetero outpost in Chelsea will fall to the wrecking ball”:

Phil Alotta pulled down the heavy metal gate outside his restaurant Chelsea Grill last Sunday afternoon. Then he and his wife, Carolyn, attached several heavy padlocks to secure it. They would only close up one more time. An auction of the place’s contents was scheduled for Monday, after which Chelsea Grill’s 15 years at the location would come to an end.

A new six-story, residential building with upscale retail on the ground floor is slated for most of the block on the west side of Eighth Ave. between 16th St. and 17th Sts., extending back through the block to Dr. Gertrude B. Kelly Playground. Several one-story buildings, as well as three early 19th-century, four-story houses will be razed to make way for the new building.

. . .

Tim Gay, a former Democratic district leader who lives in the corner building at 17th St. that isn’t being torn down, said the strip of restaurants was one of the places straights congregated in Chelsea.

“Chelsea Grill was a major hangout for the heterosexuals,” he said.

But in an odd twist, the forces of gentrification mean that a new hetero outpost may be needed sooner than expected:

But Alotta said his customer base in Chelsea was a 50/50 mix of gays and straights. Priced out of Chelsea, gays have already been leaving for a while already, Alotta said. He said he hears that, after Hell’s Kitchen, the next gay exodus will be to Washington Heights.

. . .

Passersby who were reading the farewell sign on the door of Chelsea Grill last Friday evening said they just hope the new building won’t resemble the high-rise across the street — the Grand Chelsea — the design of which most consider an abomination. The neighborhood keeps upscaling and affordable stores that sell things people who live in the neighborhood need are disappearing, said Lee Fergusson, who lives around the corner.

“It’s not good because the whole neighborhood is becoming generic,” said Fergusson. “The deli on the corner just had its rent raised from $10,000 to $30,000. So the neighborhood loses its deli and what goes in there? Gay T-shirts . . . .”

Three other old buildings on 18th St. were also recently demolished. State Senator Tom Duane said the hope was that the Chelsea Plan, which was passed in 1998, would preserve low-rise buildings on Eighth Ave. by downzoning Eighth Ave. and allowing taller buildings on Sixth Ave. and 23rd St. But, clearly, the downzoning isn’t stopping the wrecking ball.

“The Grand Chelsea was the one that spurred everyone into action,” Duane said. “That’s when people realized, ‘My God, Eighth Ave. could turn into the Upper East Side with towers.’ These new buildings will be low-rise — but they’re still destroying buildings.”

Portions of Queens are heading into a fifth day without power — ironic when the neighborhoods affected are within walking distance of several major power plants:

Some residents of the affected areas complained that the city has ignored a prolonged blackout that affected several neighborhoods in western Queens, which happens to be where most of the city’s power plants are located.

. . .

Nowhere was the “so close, yet so far” sentiment more pronounced as at the Yellowbird Repair Shop, directly across 20th Avenue from the Charles Poletti Power Plant in Astoria. Despite its proximity to the plant’s electric turbines, the repair shop, like thousands of homes and businesses in western Queens, remained largely without power yesterday.

“All they have to do is run an extension cord out to us and we’re open for business,” said Chris Kalatzis, the shop manager, adding that his house in Astoria was also without power, ruining $200 worth of food in his refrigerator.

. . .

In Queens, the system began to fail on Monday, the third day of a severe heat wave, and the failures were probably worsened by thunderstorms on Tuesday night.

In parts of Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside and other areas, there was substantial loss of food, loss of business and loss of cool. “Even third-world countries do not have this kind of problem,” said Jimmy Istavrof, 57, who owns the J & T Greek and Italian Deli on Ditmars Boulevard. “All this from a couple of 90-degree days.”

He showed how his Greek desserts and other foods sat spoiling in his freezers.

“You see? Like soup,” he said, squeezing a soft carton of ice cream. “It’s all going to shame.”

Dude, throw that stuff away!