Would You Kiss This Man?

If this were today, we’d have a YouTube video to confirm:

Edith Shain, long thought to be the woman in the famous V-J day photograph of a nurse and a sailor kissing to celebrate the end of World War II, reasserted Tuesday that it was in fact her in the picture.

Monday, Glenn McDuffie, an 80-year-old Houston retiree, cast doubts on the true identity of the woman, telling amNewYork, “I know the woman I kissed, and she ain’t it.”

Nonsense, she insisted. “This latest man, no way. I ask all of the men who claim it was them what was going on around us, what they said to me, and this one didn’t know.”

. . .

Reached Tuesday at her home in Santa Monica, Shain said she doubted McDuffie’s claim that he’s the sailor.

“There is no way of knowing who it actually was,” she said. “A lot of men over the years have claimed to be the sailor and there is now way to negate them — I bet they all kissed a lot of women that day.”

Whoever locked lips that day was no matter to the estimated 300 people who showed up at Times Square yesterday to re-enact the iconic photograph. Veterans from World War II and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were on hand along with couples from around the country for the annual Times Square Kiss-In.

“I was here when it happened,” said Abner Greenberg, 83, of Manhattan, who remembered kissing more girls that day 62 years ago than he ever had in his life. “People were hugging each other, men, women, it didn’t matter. I’d never seen anything like it.”

An estimated 2 million people, said to be the largest crowd ever assembled in human history, rushed to the square to celebrate the end of the war.

No wonder Shain denies it — the sailor sounds like a cad:

McDuffie, 80, of Houston, was identified last week by a forensic artist as the man in the famous Life Magazine photo — taken 62 years ago Tuesday — of a soldier and a nurse smooching in Times Square to celebrate victory over Japan in World War II.

McDuffie says he wants nothing to do with the annual “Kiss-In” celebration Tuesday or with Edith Shain, 87, who has long been believed to be the woman in the photo, until she submits to the battery of polygraph tests that he has undergone over the years to prove his identity.

. . .

In fact, McDuffie said he had tried to reach out to Shain through the years, but that she was far less receptive than she may have been on Broadway that day.

“She’s been a smart ass about it all the time so I hung up on her,” he said.

. . .

McDuffie said he was in the city that day to see his girlfriend, Ardith Bloomfield, who lived in Brooklyn, when word came that the war was over.

“I went over there and kissed her and saw a man running at us,” McDuffie recalled. “I thought it was a jealous husband or boyfriend coming to poke me in the eyes. I looked up and saw he was taking the picture and I kissed her as long as it took for him to take it.”

It’d Be A Long Walk To The Subway . . .

. . . but there’s something about those views:

Meanwhile, rumors are circulating that [Richard] Goldring and his associates might be looking to unload the sprawling 10,000-square-foot stripper-plex on West 28th Street, which last sold for $10 million in 2004 and now could go for four times that sum.

“At the right price, it’s available,” said Manhattan nightclub broker Alex Picken of Picken Real Estate, who’s been marketing several other nightclub properties in a rapidly changing West Chelsea.

A converted parking garage, the Scores West building on West 28th Street sits along a former industrial strip that was recently rezoned to allow for new residential development.

Could condos soon replace the beleaguered pole-dancing palace? Would each condo come equipped with its own stripper pole?

A Tale Of Two Tacos

Will somebody please tell the Department of Health that all is forgiven regarding that nasty Taco Bell business? Eager to appear rigorous, they first went after Di Fara Pizza and now the Red Hook Ballfields may be regulated to death:

Every summer for more than 30 years, Yolando Ceron has pitched a tent by the Red Hook ball fields and sold authentic Colombian dishes, from smoked sausages to deep fried stuffed potatoes.

“They’re unbelievable. Nature’s perfect food,” said Steven Goodman, 56, a stuffed-potato fan who has been coming to eat at the soccer fields for about eight years.

Long one of Brooklyn’s best-kept secrets, the tacos, ceviche and empanadas sold by a dozen Latin American vendors on Bay Street today draw food lovers from across the city.

. . .

Now, that secret has managed to get to the Department of Health, which for the first time is regulating the stands and is making demands that some vendors feel could seal their demise as early as this weekend.

. . .

Vendors must supply hot and cold running water, make pre-prepared food in commercial kitchens, and refrigerate foods, among other requirements, by Saturday, according to the department.

The city has been cooperative with the taco makers, and has offered to help them apply for mobile vending licenses and complete food safety training, said Cesar Fuentes, director of the Food Vendors Committee of Red Hook Park.

Already three portable water units have been set up on opposite sides of the field. About 40 percent of the 13 vendors currently have a food license, Fuentes said.

“We’re doing the best we can to be compliant in the shortest amount of time possible,” Fuentes said. “But right now we’re not even sure if people will be able to sell next week.”

Meeting all the Health Department’s regulations would require “a substantial investment,” Fuentes said. And vendors are worried if they will be able to implement the changes.

“It’s impossible to have a refrigerator in every tent,” said Reina Carrillo, 35, a vendor who invests $700 a week to sell tacos and homemade fruit drinks.

Location Scout: Red Hook Ballfields.

Be Thankful — You Will Pay A Quarter Of A Billion Dollars So That They Can Charge You Even More Money In Tolls

So if New York City spends $223 million on a congestion-pricing pilot project, the federal government will provide money for bus lanes and bus depots:

The federal government said on Tuesday that it would provide $354 million for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s broad plan to reduce traffic, but left it to the city to come up with more than $200 million needed for the most controversial part of the plan: a system to charge people who drive into Manhattan.

In addition, under the agreement outlined by the United States secretary of transportation, Mary E. Peters, the release of the funds is contingent upon the City Council’s and the State Legislature’s approving the plan, including the new fee on drivers, by next March.

The announcement was mixed news for Mr. Bloomberg, who is trying to establish the first broad-based congestion pricing program in the country, and to raise his national profile on environmental issues. While the federal support helps to advance his initiative, it is now up to the mayor to find the money — through borrowing, appropriation, or perhaps from a private corporation — for what has been seen as the centerpiece of the plan, the new charge on drivers.

In its federal application, the city estimated that it would cost $223 million to install a computerized system to monitor traffic and impose the fee on cars entering the busiest parts of Manhattan, and asked the United States to cover $179 million of that. But the Department of Transportation said it would contribute only $10 million to that initiative. Most of what the department agreed to provide on Tuesday is designated for the construction of bus depots and other mass transit improvements.

Mr. Bloomberg, at a press conference in the Bronx shortly after the announcement, played down the lack of federal money for congestion pricing.

“I think that rather than look at the money we didn’t get, we should look at the money we did get,” he said. “It’s a unique opportunity for New York, and we should really say, thank you.”

New Queens Bullet Points: Number One In Diversity, Number One In Interments*, Number One In Books

Boosters, add this to your list of Queens facts:

The Queens Library is the no. 1 library system in the country, with 20.2 million items in circulation in fiscal year 2006, according to a report released by the Public Library Association yesterday. The library saw an increase to 21 million circulated items in fiscal year 2007, which ended on June 30.

. . .

The library sees 55,000 visitors daily across its 63 branches and provides 6.6 million items for loan to its 2.2 million residents. Popular titles are offered in 30 languages. It also offers nearly 22,000 programs on topics ranging from traditional storytelling and literacy classes to programs about public health, yoga, and cultural arts.

. . .

The Multnomah County Public Library in Portland, Ore., had the country’s second highest circulation, with 19.6 million items for its 693,000 residents. With its 17 branches, the Portland system had the highest circulation for the previous four years, a spokeswoman said.

The Brooklyn and New York public libraries each circulated nearly 15.9 million items and were ranked fifth and seventh on the list, respectively.

*Did you know?