Leading Economic Indicators: Gutter Punks!

Is it Williamsburg or Big Rock Candy Mountain? Hahahahahahaha:

Heroin-addict hobos from around the country are overrunning hipster haven Williamsburg — living in stalled luxury condo projects in the trendy Brooklyn neighborhood.

The newcomers, who call themselves “gutter punks,” are stirring outrage among residents and shopkeepers who charge the bums brawl on the sidewalk, shoplift and shoot heroin in trendy cafe bathrooms.

“It’s like St. Marks in the ’70s,” said Williamsburg activist Philip DePaolo[*], referring to the notorious East Village hangout. “It’s the bad old days all over again. There’s crack and heroin all over the neighborhood.”

The squatters, from middle-class families, hop freight trains to the city, where they can earn up to $150 a day panhandling in Manhattan. At night, like plenty of other borough commuters, they return to their homes: grubby hideaways inside boarded-up lots that pock the once-booming neighborhood.

“I’ve got to sleep somewhere, and I might as well do it in Williamsburg,” said Stuart, 22, a Florida college dropout.

The admitted alcoholic and heroin user makes $15 an hour panhandling in Union Square, holding a sign that reads “Traveling Broke and Sexy.”

“The girls here like it that I’m dirty and I ride trains,” he added.

*He’s gotten a couple of mentions recently; Honey, is the BS detector still in the garage?

Leading Economic Indicators: Sexually Unfrustrated Jack Tripper

Is Norman Lear still alive? If so, he should start working on the pilot because it’s a sit-com waiting to happen:

It’s an impressive space they live in, and one that is decidedly “grown-up” for a neighborhood teeming with party-loving youths who share messy apartments four or five to a lease. They have two floors. High ceilings. Terrace off the master bedroom. Brand-new everything, including granite countertops in the kitchen. By any measure, their domestic life is one that any young couple living in New York City would envy, with the exception, perhaps, of one small detail: They have a roommate.

His name is Juan Carlos “J. C.” Villars, and he was sitting on an adjacent couch with his legs kicked up on an oak-colored coffee table, a stubbly faced fellow in a dark blue dress shirt and jeans fiddling alternately with a set of hex head wrenches and a controller for the Nintendo Wii.

Mr. Bronstein, 31, a marketing consultant in dark-rimmed glasses (you might also remember him as a former editor-at-large at FHM magazine, or from Road Rules season four), and Ms. Hoge, 27, a pretty event manager for Lincoln Center who wore her brown hair clipped up, said that they couldn’t imagine ever not living with Mr. Villars, 32, an engineering project manager — even if, one day in the not-so-immediate future, marriage and kids entered the picture.

“We talk about not moving, and we talk about not imagining J. C. leaving,” said Mr. [Jake] Bronstein, who’s been close friends with Mr. Villars for more than three years, longer than he and Ms. [Kristina] Hoge have been dating. “So I think, by transitive property, that all adds up to getting married and still staying with J. C.”

“We’ve joked about it, and none of those things seem like a reason why we’d wanna get rid of him,” Ms. Hoge said with a laugh.

“I can’t even imagine how I’ll ever get there, quite honestly,” Mr. Bronstein said. “How I’ll ever get beyond . . . this.”

What’s It Worth To You?

How about five dollars:

Loyalty apparently has no limits: Di Fara’s Pizza has raised the price of one slice to an astronomical $5, but devoted customers continue to gobble up the cheesy fare.

. . .

According to the pizza-centric Web site Slice, $5 for a plain slice is believed to be the highest pizza price outside of an airport or ballpark. Value seekers might want to invest in an entire Di Fara’s pie, priced at $25, or a round pie, at $30, the site notes.

Just last year, Di Fara’s raised its prices to $4 a slice. At the time, the shop said the increase was long overdue, and critical to cover the costly fresh ingredients.

Longtime customers remain unfazed. Some, like Park Slope resident Mitch Feldman, didn’t even notice the increase until queried by a reporter. “It’s certainly a lot of money, but then again, there’s pizza and then there’s pizza,” he said. “I’d rather pay more and get a better product.” He conceded his limit per slice would be $10.

Location Scout: Di Fara Pizza.

Independent! Disingenuous! Effective!

It’s not good enough to willingly give unions 4 percent raises and then come back with the argument that they were somehow forced to do the same for managers:

A little before 5 p.m. on Friday, when much of the City Hall press corps was headed home for the weekend, the Bloomberg administration disclosed the raises — 4 percent retroactive to March 3, 2008, and another 4 percent raise effective this past March 3.

Senior aides to the mayor stand to gain the most. Deputy mayors, for example, will receive raises of more than $15,000. The salary of Patricia E. Harris, the first deputy mayor, will rise to $245,760, up from $227,219. Edward Skyler, the deputy mayor for operations, will make $212,614, up from $196, 574. The mayor’s press secretary, Stu Loeser, will earn $200,096, up from $185,000. The mayor himself takes a $1-a-year salary.

Aides to the mayor said the increases were long overdue. Traditionally, City Hall staff members, ranging from lawyers to secretaries, have received the same raises as members of District Council 37, the city’s biggest municipal labor union. Last fall, the mayor gave the union workers back-to-back 4 percent raises, but withheld raises from managers because of the souring economy.

Thompson should have said something along the lines of anyone can placate the unions with 4 percent raises in an economic downturn — we really need Bloomberg for that?

It’s Alright (The Way That You Live)

Kickball, dodgeball and now cardboard tube fighting.

Location Scout: McCarren Park.