On That Strange And Isolated Island, The Natives Have Developed A Language All Their Own, Little Understood By Outsiders

Voo-da-la:

Sometimes after a long day off-island, you just want to catch the boat back to the Rock and head for Town, maybe do a little train crawl along the way.

Translation: Upon returning to Staten Island by ferry from a long day elsewhere, a person might want to stop at a few of the bars that flank the stations of the Staten Island Railway, en route to an evening in downtown Great Kills.

As befits a place that can take pride in its otherness and even in its relative isolation, Staten Island has evolved, if not exactly its own language, then certainly a lexicon of words and phrases that require explanation to off-islanders.

And a linguistic journey into the heart of Staten Island leads inexorably to the Talk of the Town Tavern, a train-station bar on Great Kills’s very smalltowny main street, where Statenisms flow nearly as freely as the $2 draft mugs.

. . .

Eugene Machules, a locksmith who was feeding dollars into the Talk of the Town’s jukebox, offered one more local neologism: “Voo-da-la.”

“You say that like when you make a great shot in basketball,” Mr. Machules said. “When you hit the home run, the best shot — the top of the pinnacle, that’s it. Or if you toast someone who’s passed away, you say ‘Voo-da-la.'”

Voo-da-la, Mr. Machules said, was the signature phrase of Monte Vandenburg, a longtime bartender at another Great Kills watering hole, the Swiss Chalet.

“He’d just turn and say ‘Voo-da-la,’ and nobody knew what the hell it meant,” Mr. Machules said.

Mr. Vandenburg died suddenly in September at the age of 46. It is not clear how long Voo-da-la will survive him.

Location Scout: Talk of the Town.

Don’t Lose Stuff On The Subway Because You Might Not See It Again

The MTA’s lost-and-found procedures focuses on the former at the expense of the latter:

Misplacing valuables like a diamond earring or wallet stuffed with money in the city transit system may mean losing them forever, according to MTA Inspector General reports released Thursday, which found that less than one in five commuters are reunited with their lost item.

As part of a year-long probe, auditors tested New York City Transit’s lost and found procedures by handing over 26 items — including cell phones and cameras — that they claimed commuters left behind. Only three of those items made it to the Lost Property Unit.

In another probe, auditors tracked 10,000 lost articles received by the unit and found less than half got there within 10 days of being turned in to transit employees. About 13 percent took more than a month to reach the unit.

Fiscal Restraint And Moderation

Huh. You don’t say:

Although Mr. Bloomberg has ordered an overall hiring freeze and has yet to agree to raises for the city’s largest municipal labor union, he has doled out generous pay increases to those who work directly for him, a review of payroll records shows.

The mayor, while holding raises for other city employees to about 4 percent per year, has given more than 200 members of his staff increases ranging from 10 percent to more than 100 percent, the records show. And 57 staffers have received a raise of at least 10 percent more than once.

In addition, the number of employees earning $100,000 or more has risen by 59 percent, to 105 from 66 in 2002, with the bulk of that increase coming in 2006, after the mayor won re-election.

It is not unusual for mayors to reward their loyal aides, especially as they near the twilight of their tenure. Mr. Bloomberg’s predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, gave generous raises throughout his term to his deputies. During his final summer in office, Mr. Giuliani handed out 8 percent raises to his deputy mayors, increasing their salaries to $168,700.

For Mr. Bloomberg, who founded the media and financial services giant Bloomberg L.P., the swelling salaries echo the pattern he established in the private sector of pulling together a loyal coterie of advisers and assistants and paying them handsomely.

. . .

Shea Fink, who worked on Mr. Bloomberg’s 2001 campaign, started at a $93,000 annual salary as assistant to the mayor, overseeing his schedule. She now earns $170,368, an 83 percent increase, though John Gallagher, a mayoral spokesman, said her responsibilities have significantly increased and she now serves as a senior adviser to the mayor.

Mr. Bloomberg also provided six-figure bonuses from his campaign account to his closest lieutenants after his mayoral runs in 2001 and 2005, generally distributing them just before the aides joined or returned to city government to avoid running afoul of conflict-of-interest regulations.

For example, Patricia E. Harris, who has been Mr. Bloomberg’s most trusted aide since his days running Bloomberg L.P., is the highest-paid employee in the mayor’s office, with an annual salary of $227,219. She received a 19 percent raise when she was promoted to first deputy mayor in 2005.

That increase came after she received a $350,000 bonus for less than three months’ work on his campaign.

Two of the mayor’s other deputies who followed Mr. Bloomberg from his private company, Kevin Sheekey and Edward Skyler, have also received large bumps in salary since joining the administration in 2002, of 31 percent and 21 percent respectively, to $196,574. In addition, Mr. Sheekey was given a $400,000 bonus after taking a hiatus from the administration to manage the 2005 campaign.

Francis Barry, who worked on the 2005 campaign, joined the administration in the legislative affairs division in 2002 at $45,000. After big increases in 2004 and 2006, Mr. Barry now earns $122,452 as a communications adviser and speechwriter, a 172 percent increase from his starting salary

And Gerardo Russo and Christopher Coffey, who took positions in the 2001 campaign, have doubled their city salaries since 2002. Mr. Russo, who began as a press aide earning $55,000, now earns $122,452 as an assistant to Mr. Skyler.

Are People In Brooklyn Really That Lazy?

Sure, I’d walk all the way to Smith Street but why bother when Fifth Avenue is just as close:

Yes, you are seeing double.

Smith Street and Fifth Avenue are becoming mirror images of one another — thanks to at least half a dozen entrepreneurs opening shops on both streets.

Call it “Smifth Avenue.” Lucia, Something Else, Soula and Flirt, plus chains like Brooklyn Industries and Area Kids, have staked a claim on both streets.

Owners say they’re making life easier for shoppers, not trying to erase Brooklyn’s long-standing neighborhood distinctions.

“We noticed that we had significant numbers of customers who shop on Smith Street, but live in Park Slope and Prospect Heights,” said Soula owner Rick Lee.

In almost all cases, shop owners opened their first outlet on Smith Street before expanding to Fifth Avenue.

“There was an attitude of ‘If we were able to do it on Smith, now we’re able to do it on Fifth,'” said Samantha Delman Caserta, the owner of 3Rliving, a Fifth Avenue shop, and head of the Fifth Avenue Merchants Association.

So . . . Tourists And Convicts . . . Anyone Else?

Who benefits most from keeping subway and bus fares at $2? Besides tourists, I mean. Inmates:

Jailbirds are among those thanking the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for maintaining the $2 pay-per-ride MetroCard — part of a restructured fare-hike proposal supported by Gov. Spitzer and Mayor Bloomberg that will save the base fare while raising the price of unlimited cards used by 86 percent of riders.

Recently released convicts must buy a two-ride, $4 MetroCard with money in their inmate accounts when they’re sprung from Rikers Island.

. . .

“I’m glad they didn’t raise it,” said 59-year-old Roberto Gonzalez of Bushwick, Brooklyn, who has been locked up since Dec. 8 for burglary and menacing.

But he admits he had other things on his mind while in the city’s infamous lockup.

“I wasn’t thinking about the fare hikes,” he said. “[Rikers] is full of Crips, Bloods, MS-13s . . . And they’re full of attitude.”

The Correction Department buys about $160,000 worth of MetroCards a year for inmates to use upon their release, a spokesman said.

“We issue them to inmates who do not have sufficient money in their accounts as they’re being discharged from jail,” said a spokesman.