Next, You Should Pass A Resolution Condemning The Practice

Using its limited resources wisely, the City Council confirms what anyone who has ever rented an apartment quickly realizes — no-fee listings are a scam:

Beware online ads promising the perfect rental apartment with no broker fee – nearly one-third of them are lying, a City Council report revealed yesterday.

The Council’s Oversight and Investigations Committee recently contacted 223 real estate agents who advertised “no fee” apartments on two popular online Web sites: craigslist.org and backpage.com.

The investigators discovered that 31% of the so-called “no fee” apartments did, in fact, have broker fees.

“There’s no place in this city for deceptive and misleading sales practices,” said Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens), the committee’s chairman, during a news conference at City Hall.

“We need to make sure that — however it is that you’re searching for an apartment — the deal you’re getting is an honest one,” Gioia said.

Everything Sounds Classier With “De Lux” Tacked On

God willing, that cruddy old hipster flask can finally be retired:

As far as National Amusements sees it, Whitestone residents and moviegoers at College Point Multiplex Cinemas “have a love for entertainment and an excellent dining experience.”

With that thought in mind, the Massachusetts-based company applied to the New York State Liquor Authority in April for a liquor license at its 12-screen College Point movie theater.

The application, which is currently being evaluated by the SLA, is for the theater’s new Chatters Bar & Grill. Chatters is just one feature of National Amusements’ new signature theatre concept, Cinema de Lux.

. . .

Chatters is a full-service restaurant featuring American fare, and would include a full service bar with beer, wine and signature specialty drinks. “Anyone is welcome to dine at Chatters; it makes a great place for lunch, meeting friends for a snack or enjoying a meal before, during or after the movie,” the spokeswoman added.

According to the SLA, a movie theater alone cannot apply for a liquor license, but if a restaurant is present on the premises an application may be processed, whether or not the film is shown in the restaurant or separate rooms. National Amusements could not confirm the configuration of Chatters as of press time.

Quit Looking At Me That Way, You Perv!

When things are going really, really well, renting someone an apartment is better than sex*:

There was a long pause. Neither one of us said a word. I could tell she was seriously thinking about something, but at the same time, she was staring directly at me. There was little I could do but stare back. Another few moments passed before she finally snapped out of whatever she was lost in and walked over and leaned on the window sill next to me. I started to realize that it was on and that she was going to do it. All I had to do was sit back and let it happen. I love those moments more than the actual close. “Holy shit,” I thought, “She’s going to take this place.”

I took a deep breath. So did she. I smiled. She smiled back. She was nervous, and so was I. We both began to understand how bad she wanted it. It was only a matter of making sure she didn’t feel guilty afterward. They often do when it happens this quickly. But this is my favorite part. It can still go either way, and I’m not sure of what is going to happen next. I guess it’s the uncertainty that makes it so exciting. She finally nodded her head, “Yes.” I made my move, “Really? Great, let’s get ought of here. I’ll grab a cab, and we’ll head back to my . . . office.”

*If we didn’t enjoy Rental Dementia so much, this whole metaphor would be highly disturbing . . . damn these provocative sweeps-week sex issues!

Drain-Clogging Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

Not only do they start track fires but they cause floods as well:

From fires to floods, the MTA says the thousands of free newspapers distributed in the subways each day cause many of the problems that plague the system.

In February, officials blamed stray copies of amNewYork and Metro New York for a spike in track fires. Bundles of unread copies get blown onto tracks, they said.

Yesterday, flooding was added to the papers’ rap sheets.

The drain-clogging freebies were largely responsible for a massive flood in September 2004 that shut down much of the system, MTA board members said yesterday.

The MTA inspector general earlier this year cited the agency’s neglect of its plumbing. But MTA board member Barry Feinstein said the cause was a combination of near-biblical rainfall and litter clogging drains.

“We have bitterly complained for a long time about what we call the free newspapers,” Feinstein said after presenting a report to Chairman Peter Kalikow.

. . .

“The free newspapers are a problem to us,” Kalikow agreed. “We don’t mind them giving them out, we mind the way they are giving them out.”

In part because of the added trash from the papers, transit officials say they had to hire an additional 118 cleaners.

The free papers say the agency is making them a scapegoat for its own problems.

“I certainly hope it’s not us,” said Lori Rosen, a spokeswoman for Metro New York, noting that this has not been a problem at other transit systems around the world.

Each Metro now encourages its readers not to litter, she said.

Metro New York, for its part, reported the findings a little differently:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority yesterday blamed free newspapers for clogging subway drains, which contributed to the flooding of the city’s underground on Sept. 8, 2004, when three inches of rainfall shut down or delayed 18 train lines. Last February, the MTA attributed a surge in track fires to free papers.

But yesterday’s report contradicted the findings of the MTA inspector general’s office, which had faulted the transit authority for not reacting to the weather forecast. The inspector general also blamed “historical neglect” of system maintenance and a failure to keep drains clear.

. . .

Feinstein called the “25-year storm” an “act of God” but didn’t refute most of the previous report: “We did agree that debris on the track bed was a contributing factor to the level of flooding.”

That debris came from a variety of sources. “It was not simply newspapers, but that was the bulk of the problem,” Feinstein said. “There were also lots of MetroCards.”

Rider advocate Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said the subway’s real problem was a lack of cleaners.

The Price Of Salving New York’s Architectural Conscience Is An Uninspired Matchbox (And $1 Billion!)

It’s not clear whether Sheldon Silver’s intransigence is due to the removal of the original roof trusses, but the Times’ David Dunlap notes that plans for the proposed Moynihan Station have changed over the years:

To judge from architectural renderings, the design is much less imaginative than it was two years ago, and far more utilitarian.

It has been easy to lose track of the design in recent months. The political battle over Penn Station between the Republican governor and the Democratic speaker has demanded attention. So has the real estate intrigue over the future of Madison Square Garden, which may also move into the Farley building, permitting an expansive renovation of the station in its current location. All of this is complicated by the prospect of a new governor.

But design is critical in what would be one of the most important public spaces created in New York in a generation. Its name, Moynihan Station, would commemorate Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who cared deeply about civic architecture. And many New Yorkers probably don’t realize how much the plans have changed.

. . .

The best-known design for Moynihan Station, by David M. Childs and his colleagues at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (architects of the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site), was unveiled in 1999. It would have involved removing the sorting room floor and creating a multilevel concourse in which passengers waiting above could glimpse the train movements below. The original roof trusses would have been preserved under a new skylight.

Last year, that was supplanted by a design from James Carpenter Design Associates and Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum. Their plans showed a single-level hall under an undulating skylight supported on slender columns. This was intended to evoke the concourse of the original Penn Station by McKim, Mead & White.

This year, Skidmore returned with the sparest design yet: a single-level hall under a barrel-vaulted skylight. Absent any other bold architectural flourishes, it seems to defer to the original facades facing the inner court, which are historic but aesthetically undistinguished. After all, they were never really meant to be seen.

“I remain partial to the more ambitious (and expensive) scheme,” said Prof. Hilary Ballon of Columbia University, an architectural historian who devoted 45 pages to the original Skidmore project in her 2002 book, “New York’s Pennsylvania Stations.”

Eric Marcus, an author who was working on his own book about the reconstruction of Penn Station until the development project became hopelessly delayed, described the latest version of the train hall as an “uninspired matchbox covered with a glass roof.”