Reid is looking for 10 couples with kids in the New York City area who would like to tie the knot next fall on the second Marry Your Baby Daddy Day. The first one, back in 2005, was a huge success, she said.

“All ten couples are still married. Many went on to buy houses, to change jobs, and one wife told me communication is much better,” said Reid, who lives in Brooklyn. “We want to keep replicating this.”

The author of the novel “Marry Your Baby Daddy,” Reid, 31, is single, but passionate about preserving marriage and strengthening two-parent homes.

. . .

Marry Your Baby Daddy Day promises free designer gowns, wedding cakes, limos and other perks to the couples selected for the Sept. 27 event.

Hundreds applied to be the 10 selected in 2005, Reid said. Some went on to wed even though they weren’t chosen for the event.

Interviews are conducted to select the participants.

Number one on their list is parking tickets.

At a meeting called on Jan. 9, over 40 store owners met with community leaders in hopes of building a unified front to tackle issues many in the area fear could lead to the commercial strip’s downfall.

“It’s totally supportive. They need it desperately,” said John Fratta, district manager for Community Board 11.

While the addition of sidewalk cafes, new clothing stores and diverse shops would be a boon, all merchants had one beef: Ticketing of their customers by parking agents.

“Morris Park is getting killed by traffic agents,” said Fratta. “They have those people out there issuing 120 tickets a day. A customer gets a ticket, that person no longer comes to Morris Park. That person will be going to the malls in Westchester, where there’s parking.”

Clothing stores, especially well-known vendors, could provide an anchor to draw shoppers to the area between Williamsbridge Road and Bronxdale Ave., Fratta said.

“Most people now come to eat or get their nails done.”

But traffic agents deter any newcomers, he said. “Cookies [a school uniform store] wanted to come here. They looked at the traffic agents and changed their minds.”

Marco Muccitelli, owner of Marco’s Salumeria Leone caterer and deli, called the ticketing “absolutely insane.”

Let us explain. The intertidal sediments in this region are home to micro-organisms that produce sulfur compounds. When these sediments interact with saltwater that contains low levels of oxygen, gases are released. These gases include hydrogen sulfide and a variety of thiols (like the gas additives thiophane and mercaptan) — all of which have an odor similar to rotten eggs.

While the release of these gases from marsh sediments occurs more or less continually, we suggest that something out of the ordinary occurred on Jan. 8.

First, there was a low tide in the coastal marshes from roughly 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. Second, we experienced winds from the south and an atmospheric inversion, which created something like a low-lying bubble of air.

Mootoo spent five long, cold days wandering Jamaica after he got lost during a walk and was too intimidated to ask strangers how to get home. Mootoo, 32, was rescued yesterday by a kindhearted churchgoer who spotted him shivering on a Queens street and gave him food and water.

“I want to go home,” Mootoo said last night after his stressful misadventure. “I’m thinking about going back to Guyana.”

Mootoo got lost Wednesday, less than 12 hours after arriving in New York for the first time, when he left his brother’s South Jamaica house to stretch his legs.

He was being treated last night at Jamaica Hospital for the dehydration and frostbite he suffered in the frigid air.

Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner announced his mega-deal with Barclays Bank on Thursday — but critics slammed the developer for plastering the controversial bank’s name atop the arena after having courted African-American support for his mega-development.

. . .

At a press conference at the Brooklyn Museum on Thursday, Mayor Bloomberg joined Ratner and Barclays CEO Bob Diamond to officially announce the deal.

When a Brooklyn Paper reporter asked Diamond about his company’s historic connection to the slave trade and apartheid, Bloomberg jumped in and, answering for Diamond, said: “Barclays is a great corporation. We could not have picked a better one. Barclays is as good as we could have found.”