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.”

Now It Begins

The New York Press may have jumped the gun back in 2005 by saying that “by summer 2006 much of Coney Island will be gone, and gone forever”, but it looks like that prognosis finally will come to pass:

Close the Zipper and shoo the Spider.

Those amusement rides — along with go-carts, batting cages and carny games — have been ordered out of a Coney Island site as redevelopment begins.

“Everybody’s heartbroken,” said Eddie Miranda, who has owned the W. 12th St. rides, including the Zipper and the Spider, for eight years. “We were all hoping for one more season.”

Eight renters received notice last week from their properties’ new owner, developer Thor Equities, telling them to be out when their leases expire Dec. 31.

Six tenants are in the Henderson Building on Stillwell Ave., a turn-of-the century structure that once housed a dance hall and hotel. The other two are are along W. 12th St. and Stillwell Ave. Combined, they operate more than a dozen businesses.

. . .

The redevelopment plan calls for a new promenade on Stillwell Ave. along with residential, entertainment and amusement components, Thor Equities spokesman Lee Silberstein said.

“The effort to transform Coney Island and recapture its past glory involves the demolition of a number of existing structures,” Silberstein said. “Therefore, to allow the new development to proceed in a timely manner, occupancy agreements with some of the tenants are not being renewed.”

Then again, it could just be a matter of perspective:

Some beloved Coney Island boardwalk mainstays — facing the bulldozer because of a proposed $1.5 billion renovation project — are getting a reprieve, The Post has learned.

Thor Equities — which purchased 10 acres of waterfront land hoping to create a glitzy amusement complex — said yesterday that 11 boardwalk businesses would be allowed to remain open at least one more summer.

Thor spokesman Lee Silberstein said the attractions — including Ruby’s Bar and Grill, Cha-Cha’s and Shoot the Freak paintball — will be given the opportunity to move into the proposed complex.

Location Scout: Coney Island.

I’d Use The Words “Meta” And “Ironic” If I Could Only Remember What They Meant

And we’d watch but the infinity mirror started to hurt our head too much:

The Burg is a single-camera scripted series filmed mostly inside this apartment and on a few street corners around the block. The episodes, ranging from one to 15 minutes in length, can be viewed at www.theburg.tv or downloaded through iTunes. Or observed in real time at any number of stops along the L train.

“The thing about Williamsburg,” said Kelli Giddish, a blond aspiring actress who plays a blond aspiring actress on the show, “is all the ugly people are trying to look pretty and all the pretty people are trying to look ugly.” She paused to let the observation sink in, then pulled a faded white satin nightshirt over her starlet-thin frame, belted it up tight with an oversized tan suede sash, topped it off with a white crocheted shawl and pronounced the new look “Granny Chic.” Several of her co-stars applauded.

The Burg is about the precious scenesters of Metropolitan Avenue and the silly things they do to be cool. Ms. Giddish has another soap job, on actual television, playing a onetime stripper named Di Kirby on ABC’s All My Children. On the Web, she plays Courtney, a sporadically anti-capitalist ditz.

Courtney’s friends in the Burg are more of the same: Spring, played by Lindsey Broad, is a youthful brunette who cares about the environment and wants to break her generation’s credit cycle. Jed, played by Bob McClure, wears thick black plastic glasses and forcibly prevents his friends from drinking anything other than Pabst. Xander, played by Matt Yeager, is a starving artist with a huge inheritance.

In place of holding steady jobs or contributing to the local economy, Spring, Xander and the gang spend their days coordinating their American Apparel leggings and their thrift-store cowboy boots with 18 plastic bracelets and two vinyl headbands from junior high. Their days are occupied with chemical boycotts, bike trips to Astoria, auditions for independent films and hours spent cursing gentrification and analyzing the complicated etiquette of modern bohemia.

It’s like Rent, only instead of AIDS, some of them have trust funds.