The Long Arm Of The Lionel-Industrial Complex Returns To Wrap Its Filthy Fingers Around Our Fair City

The entity responsible for this nation’s infatuation with trains is coming home:

After almost four decades working out of a sleepy Detroit suburb, Lionel, the toy train and model railroad manufacturer, is back on Madison Avenue, and trying to bring model trains out of the hobbyist’s basement and into the realm of popular culture.

Founded in 1900 by Joshua Lionel Cowen in Midtown Manhattan, Lionel grew to mainstream popularity through the 1950s, when trains were icons of Americana and lifelines of cross-country travel. But when cars and planes began to replace train transportation, Lionel’s sales dwindled, with only hardcore hobbyists buying.

The move to Madison Avenue is part of Lionel’s CEO Jerry Calabrese’s aim to “re-establish what Lionel’s tradition was for its first 65 years and stake our flag back in the world of pop culture,” he said in an interview yesterday.

The Madison Avenue showroom, complete with oak floors and three operating train layouts, marks a nostalgic homecoming for the company. “There are old men who weep that we’re back with a showroom on Madison Avenue,” Mr. Calabrese said. The showroom is now seven blocks north of the company’s original Madison Avenue showroom at 27th Street. “It’s great to be back in the city because the roots of the company are in New York,” Mr. Calabrese said.

If the Lionel-Industrial Complex has its way, a grim future of light rail awaits:

Under Mr. Calabrese’s leadership, Lionel has signed licensing deals with the movies “The Polar Express” and “Harry Potter,” with Nascar, and an exclusive deal with the MTA to manufacture replica subway cars.

Last year’s Lionel train display at Grand Central Terminal drew more than 200,000 visitors to the station Mr. Calabrese refers to as “the St. Patrick’s Cathedral of trains,”during the holiday season when train sets suddenly enter the mainstream zeitgeist. “At the end of the day we’re a pop cultural iconic American brand,” Mr. Calabrese said. “Now we have to catch up with our destiny.”

The Devil squints his black eyes, strokes his fiery goatee and breathes heavily, “Choo, Choo.”

Oh My God, An Old Rock!

Fort Greene residents are protective of their rocks:

Residents of Fort Greene don’t want a 400-million-year-old boulder that was dug up during a sewer upgrade project 10 days ago to be lost to their neighborhood.

Even so, the city yesterday used a flatbed truck to move the 10-ton stone to a new Queens park.

“It belongs to us,” said Nicco Beretta, 32, who lives on the Vanderbilt block where the stone was discovered. “They pulled it out of our street.”

The unusual rock was the first, and biggest, of four giant boulders uncovered on the block between Myrtle and Park Aves.

Its removal has turned into a stone of contention in Fort Greene.

“The big one, the first one, should stay here where they found it,” said an emphatic Joseph Vollaro, 55, a 16-year resident of the block.

The other rocks were discovered this week and pulled out of the ground by contractors working for the Department of Environmental Protection.

One is destined for Fort Greene Park. The two smallest ones are going to Pugsley Creek Park in the Bronx, Parks Department officials said.

One woman said all the rocks should stay in Brooklyn.

“What are we, chopped liver?” asked Louise Barlow, 75, who lives five blocks from where the rocks were unearthed. “They should stay in their own hometown.”

(Just so we’re clear, the oldest known rock dates back about four billion years.)

That Secret Herb That Makes Meatballs Taste Better

A police detective is fighting for his job after testing positive for marijuana, allegedly from his wife’s cooking:

A veteran NYPD detective accused of using marijuana is offering a novel defense: He says his wife spiked his meatballs with pot in a misguided attempt to force him to retire, the Daily News has learned.

Detective Anthony Chiofalo, a 22-year veteran who is facing possible dismissal from the force and loss of his pension, convinced a department trial commissioner this week he was innocent.

But the final word will come from Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who will decide whether he believes Chiofalo was a victim of marijuana meatballs.

“If this story is true, then he really shouldn’t be fired,” said a high-ranking police official yesterday.

Last year, Chiofalo tested positive for marijuana after he submitted a hair sample as part of random drug testing which cops of all ranks are subject to, sources said.

Chiofalo initially suspected that he had inhaled second-hand smoke from his wife, who smokes weed to deal with back pain, sources said. But when she was questioned by his lawyer, she admitted her pot plot, the sources said.

So I Guess That’s Not Really Funny After All

The high school student who attended school dressed as Hitler on Tuesday returned to class, jackboots in tow. I think “chutzpah” is the proper term here:

Flouting a possible suspension and the scorn of Jewish groups, a Brooklyn high-school student ejected from class for dressing as Adolf Hitler on Halloween donned the controversial getup again yesterday on campus.

A spokesman for the city Education Department said that Leon M. Goldstein HS will pursue disciplinary charges against 16-year-old Walter Petryk for insubordination, which could result in a 10-day suspension.

. . .

The junior honors student dressed again as the fascist butcher outside the Sheepshead Bay school yesterday for a gaggle of reporters, and dismissed the prospect of suspension — as well as the ridicule of onlookers.

“I’m not worried about it that much,” said Petryk, whose mother delivered the costume to him yesterday and stood by his side.

“I’m not a Nazi. It’s a Halloween costume,” he declared. “People have taken it too seriously . . . I’m not going to go around and kill Jews or anything.”

At one point, the gathering was interrupted by area resident Michael Loweth, 50, who shouted at Petryk, “You’re pathetic!”

“This is ridiculous, kid. Grow up!” he yelled. “Millions of people died for a schmuck like you.”

And I guess “schmuck” is an equally appropriate term.

Carolyn Maloney: Queens Plaza Already “Wonderful”

There’s spin and there’s spin:

“When the Queens Plaza project is finished,” [Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney] promised, “and it should be finished by 2009, the change will be dramatic. This place will look and feel like the exciting, dynamic, wonderful place that it already is.”