That’s Darn Near Ross Perot Numbers There

Kevin Sheekey should take heart in the numbers and the unqualified support in the highest reaches of the 10021 zip code for Hizzoner’s bid for higher office:

While nobody outright endorsed Mr. Bloomberg, the enthusiasm from the city’s heavy hitters offers an indication of just how seriously the mayor would be taken if he ran. Mr. Bloomberg is still insisting he is not running, but his decision to drop his Republican Party affiliation last week is being interpreted as a precursor to an independent bid.

Yesterday, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found Mr. Bloomberg would garner 17% of the vote in a matchup against Senator Clinton, who would get 41%, and Mayor Giuliani, who would get 38%.

The president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Leslie Gelb, a former New York Times correspondent, praised Mr. Bloomberg, saying the mayor has shown that he “masters issues” and adding that “he is at least as qualified as the hordes in the ring now.”

“None of them would do a better job,” Mr. Gelb told The New York Sun. “In terms of qualifications for the job, they don’t overmatch him at all.”

And if that’s not a resounding plug for the man — “I don’t see anyone better” — there’s the tried and true “tolerant parent” line, the likes of which you may remember from winter break of your sophomore year:

[Senior chairman and co-founder of the Blackstone Group, Pete] Peterson, the chairman of the board at the Council on Foreign Relations and the president of Concord Coalition, a bipartisan group that promotes fiscal responsibility, said, “I think Mike Bloomberg would do a great job at virtually anything he decided to do, including being president of the United States.”

I Don’t Think This Is What Kevin Sheekey Had In Mind When He Said That He Wanted To Burnish Bloomberg’s Image As The Law & Order Candidate

Michael Bloomberg’s not-yet-ready-for-prime-time campaign sews up the all-important Jack McCoy endorsement:

“Law & Order” star Sam Waterston praised a possible White House run by Mayor Bloomberg — but had little to say about co-star Fred Thompson’s presidential aspirations.

Bloomberg is “a very competent, very able, very successful mayor,” said Waterston, said plays ADA Jack McCoy.

Waterston is lobbying for the formation of a bipartisan ticket for the 2008 presidential race. By bolting the GOP last week, Bloomberg stirred speculation that he’s angling to hook up with a Democrat or Republican in an independent White House bid.

“Certainly, Bloomberg is a very likely one,” Waterston said of a “Unity ’08” ticket on CBS’s “Face the Nation” yesterday.

Asked about Thompson, Waterston said he had no inside information but thinks the actor will jump in the race soon. A Tennessee TV station reported yesterday that Thompson’s campaign will announce the opening of a Nashville headquarters this week.

And if you were wondering just how irrelevant “Face the Nation” has become, look no further than Ed Koch:

Also appearing on CBS with Waterston yesterday was former Mayor Ed Koch, who said he supports Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and believes she will capture the White House.

But he would consider switching his allegiance to Bloomberg, he said.

“I will choose at the time of choice that person who will be best for the country, irrespective of party,” Koch said.

Has The Mafia Gotten This Lame?

And this better not be like the drugs-support-terrorism scare tactic because David Chase isn’t buying it:

Looks like this “Beast” won’t be unleashed in Annadale this Fourth of July.

Police chasing after a man who launched fireworks off Woods of Arden Road late Saturday night say they ended up finding a pyrotechnics treasure trove inside the Lenzie Street garage of a reputed mobster.

The stash, which cops estimate at $8,000, looks like it could have come from the shelves of a toy store — dozens of brightly-colored boxes with names like “The Beast Unleashed,” “Fire King Returns,” “New Yorker,” “Midnight Monsoon,” “Screamin’ Meemie” and “Pyrotechnic Motherlode,” decorated with demented clowns, blue monsters and a robed wizard.

. . .

According to police, Frank Russo, 26, of the 100-block of Benton Avenue, was lighting “birthday cake” style fireworks at the corner of Woods of Arden Road and Lenzie Street at about 11 p.m. Saturday.

Three officers and a sergeant from the precinct’s Anti-Crime Squad — Officers Shaun Mortman, William Palmer Brian Laffey and Sgt. Andre Teterycz — saw one of the fireworks go off, and gave chase.

Russo ran down Lenzie Street, to the home of a cousin, 37-year-old Frank (Frankie Steel) Pontillo and led the cops right to the stash, according to police.

Russo and Pontillo ran into the house, through an open garage door, and when police showed up, they saw the fireworks boxes inside the garage.

Pontillo, a reputed associate of the Colombo crime family, is still on supervised release after a 1993 murder conspiracy and racketeering conviction, court records show.

Pontillo was part of a five-man hit crew led by John Pate who rented Hasidic costumes as part of an aborted plan to gun down William (Wild Bill) Cutolo as he entered a restaurant in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Police arrested both men and charged them with multiple counts of unlawful dealing with fireworks, and a felony charge of criminal possession of a weapon.

An Apple Martini For The Teacher

If you strike out in Chelsea with inebriated underage suburban girls you can always troll Moe’s in Fort Greene for inebriated 30-something schoolteachers:

Just after 4:30 p.m. on a sunny Friday, Matt Barnes and his friends were impatiently waiting for someone to let them into Moe’s, a neighborhood bar at Lafayette and Portland Avenues in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Mr. Barnes and his companions, however, were hardly the shiftless types some might associate with afternoon drinking. They are public school teachers, and in late afternoons, especially on Fridays, Moe’s is a place where pedagogues go to party.

“Female teachers are the wildest girls,” said Mr. Barnes, a 35-year-old with a shaved head and thick arms covered with tattoos that surely impress the young delinquents that he teaches at Passages Academy, a public school program that operates in detention centers.

Among those who spend their days at the chalkboard, Moe’s is known as a teacher bar, one of many spots around the city where instructors drink, flirt and gossip about their students after school lets out.

Veronica York, a bartender at Moe’s, takes this distinction seriously. She has marked the last day of school, which this year is Wednesday, on her calendar, to remind her to tell the bar staff to come in early. “We love teachers,” she said the other day, filling a pint glass with beer. “We get them ripped.”

. . .

Among the earliest arrivals at Moe’s this Friday was a clique of young women from the Community Partnership Charter School, a few blocks from the bar. They sat around a low table drinking pints of Hoegaarden, a Belgian white beer, and grumbling about colleagues who brag about their students’ standardized test scores.

Mr. Barnes ambled over, and within a few minutes, he sidled up to Nicole Gunther, a 30-year-old kindergarten teacher wearing a zebra-print top and a chili pepper pendant on a gold chain around her neck. Taking out a digital camera, Ms. Gunther showed off a photograph of some of her kindergartners gathered around a handsome, broad-shouldered man.

“That’s one of the dads,” she said as Mr. Barnes leaned in for a better look. “Hot dad,” she added dryly.

If Only The City Health Department Got Them To Start Selling Apples Then Maybe Yellow M&Ms Would Cease To Exist

Lingering questions are answered regarding the ubiquitous Yellow M&M vendors on the subway (sometimes they’re stolen, but not always, and no, they don’t get them from Costco, though they probably should), but not the most important one, which is whether New Yorkers are really that enamored with Peanut M&Ms:

Last week, Derrick Cruz, a 17-year-old with thick dreadlocks and a droopy backpack, walked into Delma’s Tobacco Company, a cramped candy-and-cigarette wholesaler on Burnside Avenue in the Tremont section of the Bronx. Across the front room, Francisco Ferrer looked up behind a bulletproof window.

“Yellow M&Ms,” Mr. Cruz said in Spanish, and Mr. Ferrer directed him to a stack of yellow boxes, each containing 48 packages of peanut M&Ms. “That’s the one lots of people want,” Mr. Cruz explained. “I don’t have the money to get a lot of different kinds.”

Few sights are more familiar to New York subway riders than those teenage boys who peddle candy on the train, materializing just as the car lurches into motion and delivering a spiel about a basketball team or an after-school program. But behind every such vendor is a wholesaler like Delma’s, one of a handful of stores around the city that provide the teenagers with their stock in trade. Mr. Cruz now sells his candy on the street, but he was a subway vendor when he started buying candy at Delma’s, which has been in the business for about 15 years. He still encounters former subway competitors at the store. “I see a lot of people here,” he said.

But for the store’s employees, this clientele is a mixed blessing. “Those kids come in pairs, and they’re a pain,” Mr. Ferrer said. “Many times, they come to steal. You’ve got to watch them. One’s talking to you, and the other’s putting it all into his pants.”

. . .

There are certain constants in the subway candy-vending business. One is that the peanut M&M is the staple of subway candy. “Yellow M&Ms are No. 1,” Mr. Ferrer said. “I sell 10 boxes of yellow M&Ms before I can sell one of brown.”

Another is the use of a spiel, which can vary from the shopworn (“I’m selling for my basketball team”) to the ostentatiously candid (“I’m not selling for any basketball team”).

During his subway days, which lasted about a year and ended just recently, Mr. Cruz preferred a third variant: “I’d say, ‘I’m selling candy so I can get some money in my pocket. I’m not selling drugs or robbing anyone.'”

Why did he stop selling in the subway? He paused. “It’s embarrassing, you know?”