Maybe Congestion Pricing Will Help

The psychological principle of hating in others what you most see in yourself, writ Sunday Styles:

For status-conscious New Yorkers, Saturday has become synonymous with hordes of pleasure dilettantes wearing gelled hairstyles and quaffing Red Bull, creating hourlong lines at clubs that city dwellers may line up for on Thursday or even Monday, but will not get within five stretch-Hummer lengths from on Saturday. Instead, Netflix and Vietnamese takeout sounds good, or maybe that new Bond movie. It’s a night that people accustomed to quoting Andy Warhol or Diddy may summarize by invoking another New York luminary: Yogi Berra, who said, “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”

. . .

Of course, the Saturday-shy New Yorkers who do go out on the town that night often do so with reservation — and reservations.

Last Saturday, four Manhattanites in their early 30s were huddling over a low table downstairs at Buddakan, the cavernous pan-Asian restaurant in the meatpacking district. “During the weekends, you get a lot of clutter, if you will,” said Brian Kirimdar, 30, an investment banker. He and his wife, Ashley, tend to hide out in restaurants on Saturdays, avoiding all but a few of the Chelsea clubs. “You don’t find too many bridge-and-tunnel people at Cielo or Marquee,” he said. “You really have to pick and choose.”

Indeed, it is no accident that clubs like Marquee, its upstairs V.I.P. room packed with models even on Saturdays, and Stereo, known for its Nikes-only sneaker policy, are more outsider proof.

“No cologne, earrings or hair gel,” said Michael Satsky, an owner of Stereo, standing outside the velvet rope of his club on West 29th Street around 1 a.m., explaining his weekend door policy.

What, “Gairville” Doesn’t Just Trip Off The Tongue?

The problem with calling a historical district “DUMBO” is that it’s, uh, ahistorical:

City officials are moving ahead with plans to create a historic district in DUMBO — whose acronymic name was created by developer David Walentas when he started buying up buildings in the 1980s to evoke an earlier uber-hip neighborhood, Soho.

“What to name the district is an ironic question,” said Rob Parris, district manager of Community Board 2.

“We know it as ‘DUMBO,’ but certainly in history there have been names more associated with [it].”

The area between Fulton Ferry Landing (the old name for where the River Cafe now is) and Wallabout Bay (the Navy Yard) has changed names pretty much every 50 years since it first appeared on European maps in the 16th century.

The first name was Rapailie, after the family who owned most of the land. But in the centuries to follow, the area would be called “Olympia,” “Fulton Landing” and finally “Gairville,” after the early-20th century industrialist Robert Gair, who manufactured paper bags and corrugated cardboard boxes at 45 Washington St.

Gairville has the best claim, historians say, but the name is unlikely to even be suggested. Why? Because Landmarks designation is about marketability, just as much as history.

“Can you imagine saying ‘let’s go out for dinner in ‘Gairville’?” said Simeon Bankoff of the Historic District Council.

Location Scout: DUMBO.

She’s Got The Ledes That Kill

Understatement of the day:

To the average person, 50 may seem like an excessive number of bullets fired by police officer.

A Great Circle

Interesting idea — what for, I don’t know, but it sounds good:

Aside from taking a nice long swim, the only way to get from Manhattan to Staten Island without paying a toll or the Staten Island Ferry requires a route incorporating two states, three counties, five modes of transportation, three hours and a three-mile walk.

About 30 brave travelers from as far afield as Ireland, California and Pennsylvania, made such a trip yesterday as part of “Terra Incognita: The Great Circle Tour,” hosted by the Municipal Art Society (MAS).

. . .

Beginning at the World Trade Center PATH station in lower Manhattan, the group took the train to the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail. They then continued by foot with a walking tour of Bayonne, before a lunch stop and the strenuous mile-long walk across the Bayonne Bridge.

Jonathan Peters, a College of Staten Island finance professor and transportation analyst, pointed out the potential for future light rail service to connect Staten Island and Bayonne through the rail easements on either side of the bridge, built into the design by the forward-thinking architect, Othmar Ammann.

. . .

Descending the slope of the bridge on the Staten Island side, Peters reminded the group of the significance of their accomplishment.

“We did something that is actually difficult to do — we got to Staten Island without driving.”

The tour wrapped up with the final two modes of transportation as the group boarded an S44 bus to the St. George Ferry Terminal to complete the circle with a sail back to Manhattan.

Only Ivy League And Similar Need Apply

The Daily News is shocked to discover that between shutting down the Minutemen and figuring out how to get Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit, Columbia University students are engaged in their own sort of horny jerk-off situation:

Famed as a hotbed of debate over academic freedom, New York’s most elite school is also a playpen for sexual hijinks, sophomoric antics and the wacky indulgences of the children of the rich.

While their parents shell out $33,246 a year in tuition, Columbia University students doff their clothes at naked parties, flock to sex toys workshops, broadcast porn on campus TV, bake anatomically correct pies for the “Erotic Cake-Baking Contest” and heat up the steps of the Low Library in a mass makeout session called the “Big Kiss.”