PCP, Two Priests . . . Wolfson Pumps Fist As He Gulps Down Two Tums With His Morning Orange Juice

Tony, we’re trying here but you have to come up with something better than this:

Mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner — in his zest to champion middle class issues — chose a convicted felon who killed two priests to highlight child support issues.

Lisa Bongiorno appeared with Weiner at a Jan. 25 news conference where he announced his opposition to a new $25 state fee to help parents collect child support.

She was the perfect poster mom, except for one thing.

Bongiorno had been convicted of vehicular manslaughter in the deaths of two Greek Orthodox priests, the Revs. Germanos Stavropoulos, 51, and Dimitrios Frangos, 81.

She was high on angel dust and behind the wheel in March 1994 when she lost control of her Chevrolet Caprice and plowed into the priests’ car.

The men, who were stopped at a Queens traffic light, were killed on impact. Bongiorno, a legal secretary at the time, was sentenced to two to six years in prison. She was released in 1999.

The Howard Beach single mom told the Daily News she didn’t tell Weiner’s staff about her past.

Son Of Leonard

You know you need to get off the island when the subways start talking to you:

Just when the train is starting, as if the cars were screeching, “There’s a place.”

. . .

Once heard, it is unmistakable: an echo of “Somewhere” that rises from the ceaseless tide of shrieks and moans in the subways.

A revival of “West Side Story” begins previews next week, but this little piece of it has been playing nonstop beneath Broadway since 2000, when new cars began rolling with an innovative propulsion system. Most of them are on the 2, 4 and 5 lines, and fresh audiences arrive daily.

. . .

The sound is a fluke. Newer trains run on alternating current, but the third rail delivers direct current; inverters chop it into frequencies that can be used by the alternating current motors, said Jeff Hakner, a professor of electrical engineering at Cooper Union. The frequencies excite the steel, he said, which — in the case of the R142 subway cars — responds by singing “Somewhere.” Inverters on other trains run at different frequencies and thus are not gifted with such a recognizable song.

The playwright Tony Kushner told New York magazine last year that it was his favorite New York noise. Riders often ask transit officials about it, and readers still write to the City section of The Times to report their discovery.

Yanks The Shaft

Nice:

The Yankees are getting a new stadium, but some of their most loyal fans are getting the shaft.

Hundreds of full- and partial-season ticket holders got word Friday they aren’t getting the seats — or packages — they requested in the Bombers’ new digs.

. . .

“I wanted to have seats comparable to what I had before, near the first base line. They told me I was high on the list. Then they put me in these horrible seats by the foul pole line and told me I should be grateful.”

A Brooklyn fan, who asked to remain anonymous because he’s still trying to snag season tickets, said he, too, didn’t get the seats he asked for.

“These are the real Yankee fans,” he said. “They’ll bend over backward for the big corporations, but not for regular guys like me.”

Another disappointed fan — a partial-season ticket holder — said he was prepared to shell out more dough for worse seats because he loves the Yankees and he knows a new stadium means higher prices.

“I specifically requested a weekend package because that’s what I had before and that’s when I can see the games,” he said. “They offered me a weekday package and basically said take it or leave it.”

Less Confident Than Crazy*

Mayor Bloomberg wants $45 million to retrain employees who are probably the least likely to trust government job training programs:

Just as Michigan is scrambling to retrain laid-off auto workers, New York City officials have come up with a plan to find new work for the unemployed from one of its core industries: financial services.

Under a program unveiled on Wednesday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the city wants to invest $45 million in government money to retrain investment bankers, traders and others who have lost jobs on Wall Street, as well as provide seed capital and office space for new businesses those laid-off bankers might create.

The plan is intended to stem a potential exodus of banking professionals from the city during the restructuring of the financial services industry, which has been the city’s economic engine for decades, and to speed the industry’s recovery, which will take at least several years, officials said.

. . .

The mayor announced the 11-part program at a building at 160 Varick Street that will house an incubator for start-up companies that might employ laid-off professionals. Trinity Real Estate donated the space for three years and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University will select the entrepreneurs who will occupy the space, beginning in April. A second business incubator is scheduled to open in Lower Manhattan later in the year, said Seth W. Pinsky, the president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation.

The agency plans to put $3 million into funds to make small investments in start-up companies, Mr. Pinsky said. He said that he hoped to attract twice as much money from private investors and that $9 million would be enough to help start hundreds of new businesses.

All told, city officials plan to spend about $15 million on the program, in addition to the $30 million of federal money. They estimate that over 10 years, it could stimulate the creation of at least 25,000 jobs and contribute $750 million to the local economy, but Mr. Bloomberg referred to those projections as a “guess.”

*And think of how many housing project roofs or elevators that could be fixed with $45 million . . .

“If You Times That By A Million That’s A Billion Dollars”

The wicked cult of trees will stop at nothing to get its way:

A plan to plant a million trees is being met with opposition from homeowners not in the loop on where they are planted.

Under the city initiative, a property owner’s consent is not a requirement for the city to plant a street tree in front of their property.

“To us it’s identity theft because anybody can request a tree to be planted in front of your house,” said Dyker Heights property owner Sonny Soave, who has been fighting with the city on the initiative ever since a neighbor requested a tree in front of his house.

Soave said he stopped the operation as planters readied to put the tree down in front of his house, but has little hope he will get more than a stay of execution.

Among his complaints is that the tree will take up too much sidewalk space in front of his house. He also says that the gas shut-off main and the sewer pipe are right below that.

Soave said he also complained the tree roots will eventually break or lift the sidewalk and the Parks Department told him he would be long dead by the time that happened.

“We were told the tree costs a thousand dollars each to buy and plant and if you times that by a million that’s a billion dollars,” said Soave. “To him (Bloomberg) trees are more important than anything else. He is cutting back on the Fire Department, Police Department and teachers. Now what do we do when we need help, call a tree?”

The Parks Department is actively courting residents to come forward encouraging them to suggest the planting of trees on their block, even in front of a neighbor’s house.