Girls, Girls, Girls

So perhaps Fashion Week is an attempt to cook the books:

[O]n most weekdays, there are more women in the park than men. This is how . . . Dan Biederman, would like it to be. Biederman, the longtime president of the Bryant Park Corporation, was a protégé of the urban sociologist William (Holly) Whyte, whose theories about the dynamics of public space included the idea that the presence of women indicates civic health.

“Women pick up on visual cues of disorder better than men do,” Biederman said the other day. “They’re your purest customers. And, if women don’t see other women, they tend to leave.” Biederman visits the park several times a day and sometimes goes undercover. (Look out for a fit, middle-aged gentleman in a pin-striped suit, reading “The Red Badge of Courage.”) He has discerned that women notice homeless people more than men do, object more to crumbs on picnic tables, and are more sensitive to foul odors, such as that of urine, which signals that there are no clean, functional bathrooms nearby. Twenty years ago, Bryant Park was an infamous shambles. Few women — or men — would go near it. Now it’s a handsome place, with flower beds, pétanque games, a lending library, a carousel, thousands of portable chairs, theatrical performances, and many other inducements. And so the women come. Presumably, a female preponderance not only emboldens more women but also entices more men. “There’s great girl-watching,” Biederman acknowledged.

. . .

“Go to any public space in the world,” Biederman had said. “If it’s skewing overwhelmingly male, get out as soon as possible.”

Location Scout: Bryant Park.

Bass, How Low Can You Go?

Lance Bass has only been here like a matter of days but he’s complaining like he’s been here for years:

Lance Bass is here for a few months to star as Corny Collins in Hairspray. He’s not sure he likes New York so much.

. . .

He’s not hanging out at fellow ‘N Sync alum Justin Timberlake’s barbecue joint. “I’ve been a few times,” he says. “But it’s really up there. The Upper East Side? I’m not in college anymore.”

Kids, Remember To Wait Until Homecoming Week To Deface The Giant “N” On The Washington Square Park Mounds

Beats the heck out of State College, College Station, or College Park — that’s for sure:

Freshman orientation used to be about language placement exams and finding the way to the dining hall. But as thousands of freshmen at private colleges and universities in New York City begin orientation today, they are embarking on what may seem to outsiders like an extravagant eight-day vacation.

First-year students arriving at Barnard, Columbia, and New York University have many activities to choose from this week, including: yoga classes, exclusive tours of the new Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, chartered Circle Line cruises to the Statue of Liberty, mini-manicures and aromatherapy at on-campus spas, Coney Island beach parties, scavenger hunts in Times Square, walking tours of the East Village and Park Slope, shopping expeditions to SoHo, outings to popular local eateries such as Magnolia Bakery, and a chance to compete for free tickets and reservations to the city’s hottest shows and hard-to-get-into restaurants.

The emphasis at orientations in New York City is as much on introducing students to their new urban surroundings as it is on preparing them for class. School officials are billing the multimillion-dollar “welcome weeks” as one of the high points of the college experience.

. . .

While college freshmen enjoy all the culture, food, and sightseeing Manhattan has to offer this week, not all residents are entirely pleased with their arrival.

“My first thought this morning was — ‘oh my god, they’re back,” a Greenwich Village resident of 31 years, Michelle Calise, said. “It keeps the neighborhood youthful and contemporary, but they don’t know how to walk, they take up five abreast on the sidewalk, it’s nerve-racking. They should have a class on how to live in the city.”

(“You can only be young once. But you can always be immature,” is attributed to Dave Barry.)

Slumping Markets Portend Shift From Quaff To Sip

When the Dow drops, the ice plops — or, scotch as economic indicator:

Just as a storm of change has been rattling the New York Stock Exchange of late, so has there been a change in the weather at the New York Wine Exchange, a well-stocked shop on Broadway near Battery Place, just a few blocks from its namesake.

. . .

According to Paul Couto, the owner, sales of hard liquor have risen several percentage points since Aug. 16, the day the major stock indexes plunged to more than 10 percentage points below their July peaks.

Are the gods of finance smiling down on Mr. Couto even as they chuck lightning bolts at the financial companies that employ many of his customers?

More than a decade’s experience selling wine has taught him otherwise. He has found that when finance workers go for the hard stuff, it’s not because they want to drown their sorrows, but because liquor is a better bargain than wine.

“You open a bottle of Scotch,” he lamented, “it lasts you a week.”

. . .

Mr. Couto said that he wouldn’t be able to fully gauge the effects of the recent financial turbulence until next month, when many of his regular customers return from vacation. But even if they don’t all switch to hard liquor, he worries that some of them may soon exit the neighborhood.

Congestion Pricing . . . Potentially Deadly?

You’re a New Yorker — so you stand next to people . . . get real — it’s sink or swim here:

A crowded subway platform and hundreds of aggressive commuters “pushing and shoving” their way on and off trains was a deadly combination for a 63-year-old woman who fell to the tracks, hit her head and died from her injuries.

Earlier this month, the woman’s daughter filed a lawsuit against the city and the MTA, blaming them for not doing enough to protect her mother.

On May 22, 2006, Maria Navarro, who walked with the help of a cane, exited a train at the Roosevelt Avenue-74th Street subway station in Jackson Heights, Queens, and was overcome by the crush of people.

She fell to the tracks and died a month later.