Forget The 1,500 Construction Jobs, This Is Sure To Provide Beat Reporters With Years Of Work

Sure to occupy the mental space of Brooklynites for years to come, the first in a series of high-profile, high-intensity meetings about the controversial Atlantic Yards project took place yesterday:

An overflow crowd vehemently laid out the pros and cons of the proposed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn for seven hours last night at a raucous public meeting. Their passions suggested that opinions had only hardened in the three years since development plans were announced.

“This project essentially separates the neighborhoods of Brooklyn rather than uniting them,” said Jonathan Barkey, a photographer, brandishing posters he had generated of proposed skyscrapers towering over existing brownstones and playgrounds. “I would call this development a Great Wall of Brooklyn.”

Bring it on, said Dan Jederlinic, an ironworker. “Bulldozers are coming,” he warned the project’s opponents to whooping applause, “and if you don’t get out of the way they’re going to bulldoze right over you!”

. . .

Umar Jordan, 51, a black resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant, said he had come to “speak for the underprivileged, the brothers who just got out of prison,” and he drew loud cheers when he mocked opponents who had moved to Brooklyn only recently. Mr. Jordan suggested that they “just go back up to Pleasantville.”

“People complaining about the size of a building, the height of this or that?” Mr. Jordan said. “Welcome to the hood; this is Brooklyn!”

. . .

Outside the auditorium, meanwhile, hundreds from the housing group Acorn, which supports the project, chanted, “This is our neighborhood, and we know what is good.”

The Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a civil rights activist whose church nearly abuts the project site, was talking to reporters about the need for lower-income housing when Mr. Barkey, the photographer, interrupted him.

“Like this?” Mr. Barkey said sarcastically, pointing to his posters of huge, blank building faces towering over a neighborhood. “This is rich folks’ housing. Look at these walls.”

Mr. Daughtry was not impressed. “Don’t you understand that all we’ve been around is walls all our lives?” he said. “You need to take that somewhere else.”

(Say what you want about the Ratners — they really built up a solid flank . . .)

Location scout: Atlantic Yards.

Pour A 40 Out For Our Fishy Friends

Not only will nature not win the game but we can force it to carry its weight around these parts:

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection says it is using bluegills to detect changes in the water quality at its reservoirs.

The fish are kept in holding tanks and the system detects tiny electrical signals the fish generate as they swim.

“It’s kind of like the old canary in the coal mine,” said DEP spokesman Ian Michaels.

“These are fish that are particularly sensitive to changes in water quality. You can monitor the fish for their level of agitation and for other changes in their behavior.”

Michaels said the fish have proven adept at detecting problems, including reacting to a diesel spill two hours sooner than any of the agency’s other early-detection devices.

Will Records Fall?

Guinness officials say that Matt Green and Don Badaczewski — the two subway aficionados who attempted to break subway navigation records — will not have a bona fide record because they did not stop at every station:

The next stop will not be the record books for the two MetroCard Magellans seeking to navigate the entire subway system in less than 25 hours and 11 minutes.

No matter what time Matthew Green, 26, and Donald Badaczewski, 24, finish this morning, Guinness World Records officials say the duo will have failed because “they did not follow the rules.”

According to Guinness, the “rules” require riders to stop at every station.

But this obviously needs further research, since, a) that’s not what the Amateur New York Subway Riding Committee rules say* and b) wouldn’t it be impossible to stop at every station?

*Then again, if you understand rules like “During the run, the contestants making the run must, for each platform group in the Transit Authority system, at least once either a) board a train from a platform in that platform group, or b) depart from a train at a platform in that platform group, or c)pass through that station on a train which stops to load or discharge passengers at a platform in that platform group” then maybe you deserve to hand out Guinness records.

But What If You’re The Sick Passenger?

If you’re the kind of person that obsessively figures out in advance the best car to board in order to make the most efficient connection, this might appeal to you:

Fueled by a mountain-climber’s determination to push oneself to the extremes of endurance — and by beef jerky — two New Yorkers plan to circumnavigate the subway system.

Matt Green, 26, and Don Badaczewski, 24, plan to set off tomorrow at 6 a.m. from the shuttle train stop at Rockaway Park in Queens and arrive at Pelham Bay Park on the 6 train in just under 24 hours. That’s what’s needed to beat the current record: 25 hours, 11 minutes, set in 1998 by Michael Falsetta and Salvatore Babones, both 28 at the time.

“We figured, [the subway] is there and someone should do this, so why not us,” said Badaczewski, a University of Michigan law student interning here this summer. “We’ve spent a lot of Saturday nights devoted to this project.”

For five months, they’ve poured over subway maps to find the route with the fewest transfers and they’ve fine-tuned their strategy with this week’s service advisories. (For instance, they’ll ride the L train during the day so they won’t take any shuttle buses.) They’ve visited the roughly 60 transfer stations to check which car is closest to the stairway for their next train.

“I’m not going to push any old ladies out of the way, but I’m going to run,” Badaczewski said. “When you’re doing something like this, you’re not worried about looking more stupid.”

What about bathroom breaks?

“This is an endurance test,” said Green, a transportation engineer from Bay Ridge. “We’ll be holding it in as long as possible and drinking as little as possible. I think we’ll only eat beef jerky in hopes it will be both meager and constipating.”

Let’s pray for a safe journey with no unavoidable delays . . .

The history: Amateur New York Subway Riding Committee.

The MySpace page.

“Plum Assignment” Handles 256 Riders A Day

The least-used subway station in the system is Beach 105th Street in the Rockaways:

Call it a tale of two turnstiles.

Each day, nearly 170,000 straphangers swipe their MetroCard at the city’s busiest subway station, Times Square.

Meanwhile, 26 stops away on the A line from that station is Beach 105th Street in the Rockaways, the city’s least-used stop.

To the mere 256 people who spin through its turnstiles each day, it’s like having their own private subway.

“Nothing really happens here,” Mike Lemonn, 25, said.

“I like that there are few people using these trains. The atmosphere gets me started on the right foot for work.”

. . .

In two years, it handles fewer customers than Times Square does in a single day.

“It’s so peaceful compared to the cattle-car stations in Midtown,” said Tina Schliss. “The only downside is that we’re the neglected stepchildren of the subway.”

One stairway has been closed for several years, passengers say, and the rotting wooden roof is riddled with holes and tends to stink after a rain. That’s not to mention the rumors that resurface every few years that the MTA plans to shut the station down.

The A train stops at the station only during rush hour, while the rest of the day, shuttle trains run back and forth to Broad Channel. “We do not shut stations down because of low ridership,” NYC Transit spokesman Charlie Seaton said.

. . .

With an ocean view from the station booth and little else to do but stare at the surf, transit workers say Beach 105th is among the subway’s most plum assignments, reserved for those only a few stops away from retirement.

“After 21 years, I earned this,” said station agent Charlie Hughes, 61, who is on a first-name basis with most of his customers. “It’s like a small town here. Most of the people live a block or two away, as do I.”

Hughes says he is spending the waning years of his transit career reading the newspapers cover to cover and listening to ballgames on his radio.

“About the only other excitement is watching the waves kick up when a storm front comes in,” he said.