Two Terms You Wouldn’t Expect To Find In Proximity To One Another Are “Brooklyn” And “Wildlife Poachers” But There They Are

Poachers are stealing Brooklyn’s wild parrots:

Who is bird-napping Brooklyn’s wild monk parrots?

The many who dislike the colorful birds might not care — but Max Ovadia of Midwood does.

Ovadia believes parrot poachers have been loose in the Brooklyn wild late at night.

“We heard them squawking,” he said. “At night, that’s not normal.”

Around midnight one day last month, Ovadia said, he saw a man with a huge net on a 25-foot pole. Accompanied by two teenagers, the suspected poacher even had pole extensions to reach high nests, he said.

The trapping of wild animals, including monk parrots, is illegal without a license.

Ovadia said he scared off the poachers twice, but the nests the parrots called home are now empty. “Only sparrows are going in there,” he said.

. . .

The story of Brooklyn’s monk parrots has come full circle. Native to South America, the first birds were trapped to be brought north as pets.

But many of the original birds were either let loose by pet owners who no longer wanted them or, as legend has it, escaped from a broken container at Kennedy airport in the 1970s.

Large colonies of the birds now live on the walled Brooklyn College campus and Green-Wood Cemetery, where they are protected.

Not all borough residents are thrilled. Homeowners have complained the birds are loud and dirty.

You Saw The Concert, Now Buy The Tour Shirt

Take a stand on the issue of economically unsustainable benefits packages for the working man and, oh yeah, support Roger Toussaint’s TWU Local 100 reelection campaign by purchasing official Roger Toussaint transit strike merchandise:

Roger Toussaint’s reelection campaign is hawking $2 signed photos of the Transport Workers Union Local 100 president from the union’s big battle with the MTA.

One photo shows Toussaint at a rally and one shows him leading a march across the Brooklyn Bridge as he headed to jail for leading the three-day December walkout.

A third simply shows an empty bus shelter with a “TWU on Strike” sign.

The photos are going for $2 each, or three for $5. The campaign — through the Web site www.rogertoussaintvictory2006 — also is selling T-shirts. They bear the inscription, “It’s About Respect. NYC Transit Strike 2005.”

“There is a market out there for mementos or memorabilia from the strike,” Toussaint said. “After all, the strike was historic, there’s no doubt about it.”

That market goes beyond transit workers because, he said, the union took a stand to protect pension and health benefits, which resonates with all workers.

. . .

Token booth clerk Gloria Browne, however, said she just might buy a few T-shirts for family members, and a Toussaint photograph for herself. The T-shirts are selling for $17.50.

How could they not mention the Livestrong-esque Transit Strike bracelets which are also on sale? Sweet!

Not To Sound Too Skeptical, But Name The Last Nasal-Voiced, Short, Jewish Mayor Unaffiliated With Any Political Party To Become President . . .

Bloomberg ’08 passes an important, important first hurdle — apropos of nothing in particular, somehow convincing the Observer editorial board to print a fawning endorsement of a bizarre pipe dream to see Hizzoner in the White House*:

When Mike Bloomberg came into office in January 2002, downtown New York was in ruins, and the city’s financial and emotional health were precarious at best. Mr. Bloomberg, new to the business of governing, immediately grasped what needed to be done. He came to grips with the city’s finances, made public education his personal crusade, vowed to build on the anti-crime successes of his predecessor, and reached out to New Yorkers in all five boroughs.

. . .

He has presided over the transformation of the New York Police Department into a world-class counterintelligence agency. Amazingly, even as that transformation has taken place, the NYPD continues to win the battle against more conventional street crime.

That is a record that commands attention. That is the record of a Presidential contender.

. . .

As a businessman, Mr. Bloomberg simply went out and did what he had to do. And he succeeded.

As a Presidential candidate, he has a chance to do the same. He ought to think about it.

Here’s a wonderful possibility: Mr. Bloomberg runs as an independent, Mr. Giuliani wins the Republican nomination, and Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee. Can he beat those two in a three-way race? You bet he can.

No country in the world deserves that last part.

*Is this an example of New Yorkers being incredibly insular or just shamelessly, totally un-self-aware?

But No One Is Cooler Than That One-Man Tango Couple . . . No One

The Sun explains the pecking order for subway musicians:

While performing in subway stations and on train platforms is legal even without an MTA-issued pass, freelancers are often forced to surrender lucrative, high-traffic spots to musicians licensed by the [Music Under New York] program, part of the MTA Arts For Transit initiative.

Competition for the good spots can get heated.

“We used to have a problem with acrobats and dancers,” Mr. [Lester] Schultz said. “There’d be 10 of them, one of us, and they could do somersaults, and they didn’t care if we had a pass. They just wouldn’t leave.”

Spats between musicians also arise when freelancers do not speak English and fail to understand why they are being forced to move along, according to other MUNY musicians.

Among subway musicians, there exists a social hierarchy underground that is invisible to daily commuters and tourists. It could be compared with a high school cafeteria, where the cool clique can scare away outsiders from a designated table with a practiced eye roll (in this case, the flash of a MUNY pass).

Subway musician Natalia Paruz, who plays the musical saw, performed as a freelancer for years until she became fed up with countless tickets from the transit police and too much time and money lost while searching for a free spot. “Sometimes I’d get to my spot and someone would already be there. I’d lose an hour just trying to find another place to play,” Ms. Paruz said. Eight years ago, she joined MUNY.

Now, Ms. Paruz performs on the high-traffic mezzanine at the Times Square station. Her lips parted slightly, it is difficult to tell whether it is she or her saw producing the eerie sound (it is, in fact, the saw that is singing).

The Double Meaning Of “Building Momentum”

New building starts are up:

Fueled largely by a housing boom, construction across the city is hitting a record level this year, with $20.8 billion worth of new apartment buildings, office towers and public projects under way, a new study has found.

The building boom’s estimated value is $2 billion more than last year’s, which was a record in itself, according to projections released yesterday by the New York Building Congress. The industry group predicts construction spending will top $21 billion next year.

“Given that World Trade Center construction activity won’t begin to peak until 2009 and that major development projects such as Atlantic Yards are slated to commence in that time frame as well, it is quite possible that the building boom could continue well into the next decade,” said Building Congress President Richard Anderson.

The industry group calculates that 30,000 units of new housing will be built annually this year through 2008, averaging $5 billion in construction costs each year.

. . . just in time for housing prices to start slumping:

Third-quarter market reports released today by the city’s top four real-estate companies show that apartment prices have dropped, while two of the surveys say prices have sunk below last year’s third-quarter numbers.

Following a record run of year-over-year double-digit price increases, the second half of 2006 appears to be a turning point moving in sympathy with the negative national housing market.

“My phone has nearly stopped ringing,” said one high-end broker who requested anonymity. “It’s a scary time in this business.”

A chilling report by Brown Harris Stevens shows the average sale price for cooperative apartments slid by 4 percent in the past 12 months to $1,003,945, while condos fell 6 percent to $1,196,930, compared to the third quarter of 2005.

Halstead Property notes that the average apartment price is $1,087,982, which is 4 percent less than a year ago, and 10 percent lower than the second quarter 2006.

Weighing particularly hard on the market is the average sales price for a Manhattan co-op, which has dropped 16.1 percent in just the last quarter, from $1.296 million to $1.088 million, according to figures by Prudential Douglas Elliman.

So is this whistling past the graveyard, as they say? Need more data:

If you have been waiting to buy a Manhattan apartment until after prices come tumbling down, you may have to wait a little longer.

Manhattan co-op and condominium prices sagged a bit last quarter, in the usually slow summer selling season, but by most measures they remained healthily above prices reported a year ago, according to a number of competing market reports released yesterday.

The conclusion of many of the brokerage firms releasing reports was that after a large advance in prices over the last few years, followed by several quarters of uncertainty, the market was essentially stable during the last quarter, despite the fact that apartments from a wave of new construction are coming on the market and there was continuing uncertainty about the direction of interest rates and the economy.

The Times then goes on to repeat the same numbers as the Post . . .