Even My Psychic Is Beaten Down By This Godforsaken Place

Welcome to New York Fuckin’ City*, where even our psychics are crotchety old coots who should have decamped to the interior years ago:

Will New York be prosperous in 2007? Will it be a year of unrest? Metro asked some of the city’s astrologers and psychics for their predictions . . .

. . .

“I think New York City in 2007 is going to be a repeat of the ’70s,” said psychic Jackie Barrett. “Fortunately for us in the working-class, [the real estate market] is going to come to a crashing halt, and I believe there will be more developments where landlords thought they would profit that will crash in on them.”

She predicted many New Yorkers will move away and those who stay will find themselves in a class clash.

“There will be a fight for all those beautiful buildings going up in places like Williamsburg,” Barrett said, “where lower-income people will be fighting for space. If millionaires want to stay, they’ll have to share with the common folk.”

*And I believe that appellation has been trademarked by certain novelty T-shirt makers.

Well, I Suppose If Staten Islanders Repeatedly Tapped Into That Pipeline To Steal Jet Fuel And It Then Exploded, Killing Hundreds, Then It Might Evoke Something Along The Lines Of The Recent Accident In Lagos . . .

Actually, on second thought it’s not really at all like Nigeria*:

It evoked what-might-have-been comparisons to a 1985 accident on Staten Island.

The explosion of a gasoline pipeline in Nigeria on Monday killed 265 people.

On Sept. 23, 1985, a backhoe operator working on the Buckeye Pipeline accidentally severed a valve, which caused high-octane jet fuel to geyser 60 feet above Victory Boulevard near North Gannon Avenue in Willowbrook.

Miraculously, nobody was killed. And there was only one injury.

The jet fuel, which travels underneath Staten Island from New Jersey to LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports, never ignited.

In the 15 minutes it took firefighters to respond and shut down the pipeline, 75,000 gallons of jet fuel had gushed out of the line.

. . .

The Buckeye pipeline system — comprising two 12-inch lines — carries more than 8 million gallons of fuel to the city every day with few problems, Haase said

“I don’t think people should be concerned,” said Haase, explaining that the 14-mile pipeline is constantly patrolled by vehicle and by foot, and “leak detection and location systems” automatically shut down both pipes when a leak is detected.

. . .

The twin Buckeye pipelines — and another major pipeline, the Transcontinental Pipeline — enter Staten Island from Carteret and Linden, N.J., at points along the West and South Shores and run underground near the Staten Island Expressway before exiting in Rosebank by the Alice Austen House.

Besides transporting jet fuel, the Buckeye pipeline system carries gasoline and home-heating fuel oil to storage yards in Brooklyn.

The Transcontinental Pipeline, meanwhile, carries natural gas from the Gulf Coast, by way of the borough and New York Harbor, to facilities in New York City.

Calls to Tulsa, Okla.-based Williams Companies, owner of the Transcontinental Pipeline, were not returned.

A spider web of pipes carries natural gas and fuel across the borough, including about 15 minor pipelines that touch Staten Island as they carry products from Linden and Carteret to Bayonne. Also, the Colonial Pipeline, which runs to the Northeast from Gulf Coast oil refineries, ends at Kinder Morgan Staten Island, formerly Port Mobil.

*See, for example.

Here’s A Tip . . .

Then again, if you’re reading newspaper articles on December 29 to figure out how much to tip your doorman, it’s probably hopeless:

End-of-season tipping can be fraught with anxiety at large Manhattan buildings. This year, there was out-and-out conflict at one Upper West Side building, where resident manager Efrain Lopez confirmed last week that staff members had been suspended after changing locks on the lockboxes where they receive holiday gratuities.

Management at the Columbia Condominium, at 275 W. 96th St., last year set up individual boxes for staff to receive gratuities, with each employee receiving a key. In prior years, envelopes from residents to employees were dropped into a common box that lay behind the front desk, under video supervision.

This year, three employees, concerned that the same keys were being used as last year, decided to have the locks changed on their boxes. They were dissatisfied with security precautions to protect their tips from theft or loss.

On December 11, the management company disciplined them, suspending two and giving one a warning. All three are now back at work, the director of communications for SEIU Local 32BJ, which represents building service employees, Matt Nerzig, said. The union is looking into the matter and has filed a grievance, he said.

. . .

A doorman at a building with about 100 apartments in the West 90s told The New York Sun most tips he receives are in the $50 to $150 range. He said often the most demanding residents tip least. “That’s a true statement,” he added, “You can ask any doorman.”

(Last year I think we got the tipping thing straightened out a little earlier . . . thanks for nothing!)

Road Trip . . . With Al Sharpton!

If you happened to see a Ford Club Wagon van speeding up I-95 sometime in the last couple of days, that could have been James Brown:

William Murrell, who had shuttled the music legend around for the past 15 years, drove Brown’s body on an 800-mile pilgrimage from Augusta, Ga., to Harlem — a trip that took him from 10 p.m. Wednesday to 10 a.m. yesterday.

“I drove him in life, and I drove him in death,” said Murrell, 47. “I can’t say no to Mr. Brown.”

The coffin had arrived too late at the funeral home for staff there to make a scheduled flight out of Atlanta. And the remaining flights that could carry the remains were all booked as well.

Without a second thought, Murrell yanked the backseats out of his Ford van and loaded up. He and a co-worker piloted the Ford Club Wagon van up I-95 with the Rev. Al Sharpton, the funeral home director and Brown’s 24-karat gold-plated coffin in back.

. . .

The incredible journey started with a frantic phone call from the C.A. Reid Sr. funeral home around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday telling Murrell there was trouble.

The custom-designed coffin — which needed its blue lining replaced with a special one of white satin — was running late.

There was no time to make the 2-1/2-hour trip from Augusta to Atlanta in time for the 7:45 p.m. scheduled Delta flight — or any other flights that night — they said.

All charter flights were booked, including Murrell’s two planes. And eager crowds were already massing in Harlem to say goodbye.

“They had to get him to the Apollo. They tried everything,” said Murrell, “It was my last chance to give him a ride of a lifetime.”

. . .

So Murrell didn’t hesitate in taking out the back three seats of the van, snagging a co-worker and racing to the funeral home to pick up the coffin, Sharpton and the funeral director.

And as if Brown himself were clearing their way, they zipped along the darkened roads at high speed.

“I didn’t go over 90,” Murrell chuckled yesterday, hours before he was set to drive Brown’s coffin on the return trip to Georgia.

A Man, A Plan, A Fax Machine And An Email Inbox

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.