The Grand Experience Traveling 13 Feet In The Air Through The City Of New York

If you’ve ever wondered whether the tours in the red double-decker buses were informative rest assured that they are not:

“People are not looking for a history lesson,” said David Chien, Gray Line’s director of marketing. “They’re looking to be entertained and to have a grand experience traveling 13 feet in the air through the City of New York.”

Among the many fibs the Daily News uncovered:

• Rudy Giuliani is still mayor
• New York is called Gotham because of its abundance of gothic architecture
• Tenements on the Lower East Side still exist along with “beatniks” in Greenwich Village
• Flappers went wild for Frank Sinatra in the Paramount theater during the 1890s

Did Bloomberg Cause 9/11?

Hizzoner’s opponents are questioning whether an image of Mayor Bloomberg against a backdrop of the view of Brooklyn and Queens from the World Trade Center is ghoulishly capitalizing on Sept. 11:

The re-election campaign of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg decided yesterday to stop using a photo, featured on the cover of thousands of its political fliers, that appears to depict Mr. Bloomberg atop the World Trade Center and credits him with “securing the future of all New Yorkers.”

Stu Loeser, a spokesman for the Bloomberg campaign, said yesterday afternoon that the photo had been taken from atop the trade center before it was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001. He later called back to say he could not be certain, although a second, similar photo purchased by the campaign had definitely been taken from the towers.

. . .

Mr. Bloomberg’s Democratic opponent in the fall election campaign, Fernando Ferrer, declined to comment on the flier last night. Yet a spokeswoman for Mr. Ferrer, Christy Setzer, said about the flier: “We as a city came together on Sept. 11, and it’s wrong for anyone, Mike Bloomberg included, to use that day for political gain.”

In-Flight TV And The Perils Thereof

The best thing about Jet Blue is its in-flight live television . . . until your flight becomes the next big Fox News Alert. Then it seems like probably not such a good idea:

A New York- bound airliner with a crippled landing gear made a fiery emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport last night, as millions of TV viewers across the country held their breath. For three hours, as JetBlue Flight 292 circled the skies over Southern California to burn off fuel, frightened passengers also watched the drama unfold, on inflight TV screens — listening to commentators speculate on the outcome.

“It was surreal,” said Christiana Lund, 25, of Manhattan. “We were like, ‘That’s us. That’s crazy'”

Zachary Mastoon, 27, a Brooklyn musician, said, “I got a little scared when I saw the plane on TV.”

Some passengers, he said, were so terrified, they turned their screens off.

. . .

Passenger Diane Hamilton, 32, of Clifton, N.J., said, “Grown men were crying. Emotions were running high.”

She added that as the drama neared its climax, “it was the worst, because you didn’t know if it was going to work, if we would catch fire. It was very scary.”

But most passengers appeared calm and continued to watch the bizarre events until their screens went dark 10 minutes before the plane finally landed.

The plane eventually landed safely after skidding to a sparky halt. No serious injuries were reported.

Sweet Relief

Pay toilets are on the way:

The city announced yesterday that it was in exclusive negotiations with a Spain-based firm to build 3,300 bus stop shelters, 330 sidewalk newsstands – and, at long last, toilets.

“I think it’s a good idea,” said Lucien Perry, 40, a real estate broker from Harlem. “There’s no place to use the bathroom around here.”

It was unclear exactly where the 20 self-cleaning pay toilets Cemusa Inc. wants to build would be placed, how much it would cost to use them and how soon they would make it to the streets.

But the figure that’s caught the city’s eye is Cemusa CEO Toulla Constantinou’s pledge to pay $1 billion over 20 years for the right to plaster advertising on the toilets – as well as on the newsstands and bus shelters.

The precise toilet design has yet to be determined.

Similar Cemusa loos in places like Sevilla, Spain, come equipped with a tiny sink for washing up and timers that regulate how long users can tend to their business. Afterward, the toilets automatically clean up with disinfectant spray.

Until then, it’s catch as catch can.

Site-Specific Semi-Suburban Sex

The Times takes out its tweezers and monocle to investigate, with the delicacy of a butterfly collector, so-called on-site sex in Queens’ Cunningham Park:

Almost any time from noon till 9 p.m., when the lot is officially closed, the scene is the same. The narrow section has two long rows of parking spaces into which the men back their cars, forming two rows of cars facing each other with a thoroughfare between them.

Each newcomer trolls this thoroughfare with all eyes upon him and surveys the other men in cars, who may either perk up and look interested or shut the window and look away. Then with a dramatic swoop, the driver will back his car next to the car of the man he is pursuing.

It all has the deliberate positioning, shifting and movement of a chess game. The parking lot is a fishbowl and the action unfolds like a soap opera each day. Some longtime lot regulars who are openly gay enjoy gathering to observe and narrate the forays and entreaties as they occur. The lot serves the lonely as well as the lusty, they said, helping men seeking friendship and a place to socialize and bond.