How About We Settle On A (32)BJ Instead?

We know tipping doormen is stressful enough without all this economic meltdown stuff:

“I know tenants have money—in the past some have given me $400,” says one doorman* who works at a historic building on Park Avenue at 62nd Street. “The lowest tip is usually $20. But we’re preparing for tips to be even lower this year.” In an effort to generate larger gifts, staffers say they’re scurrying to deliver packages with a smile. But they’re also employing intimidation tactics.

“I’ve seen the doormen taking notes,” says a nervous 28-year-old writer who lives with her boyfriend on the UWS. She’s been lucky to hold on to her job, but she reports that the value of her investment portfolio has plummeted. “When people give them the envelope, they mark it down. When I moved into the building in 2005, I was planning to give $80 to the doorman, but I talked to someone else who lived here, who said she was giving $200, so I felt guilted into giving $100. I’m sure I give a lot less than others in the building, so when the staff doesn’t come quickly if I call down for help with deliveries, I fear it’s because I didn’t tip enough.”

She’s probably right. At a luxury building at Fifth Avenue and 60th Street, the shop steward says, “Anything under $50 is considered a bad tip. Some tenants give $20, a few give $400 and some don’t give at all—and I can tell you the staff treats [the nongivers] differently. If a bad-tipping tenant calls down for help, the doormen make them wait a little longer. The biggest tippers get the best service.” The doorman of a chichi co-op at Park Avenue and 55th Street says that while even chintzy tippers get bare-bones service, he’s developed tactics for exacting revenge: “Let’s say you pull up in a cab with a bunch of packages. Maybe I’ll just happen to be on the phone.”

Dude, You’re Totally Not Helping . . .

If he’s shopping at the Queens Center Mall in Elmhurst to “be with the people” it’s not working because, duh, no one is shopping, and if he’s trying to encourage people to shop, the image of a billionaire skimping on his girlfriend’s Christmas present isn’t doing much for my confidence, I’ll tell you that much:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg went shopping on Saturday, and all he bought his girlfriend was a pair of fleece gloves for $29.99.

Oh, and he bought them at a Modell’s Sporting Goods — specifically the one at the Queens Center Mall in Elmhurst. It’s safe to say that most people who live in Mr. Bloomberg’s neighborhood, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, have probably never pulled their credit cards out at that particular mall.

Though there is a Modell’s on Third Avenue near 86th Street, a few blocks from Mr. Bloomberg’s town house, and another on Chambers Street, close to City Hall, Mr. Bloomberg chose to shop in Queens because “he is the mayor of all five boroughs,” said a spokesman, Jason Post.

. . .

Flanked by aides and police detectives, and with his companion, Diana Taylor, at his side, Mr. Bloomberg arrived at Modell’s around 10 a.m., wearing a stylish navy blue jacket over a baby blue sweater. A phalanx of reporters had come by to witness the occasion and figure out what (and how much) the billionaire mayor would buy.

“I’m going to look very carefully, but I know what I’m getting already,” Mr. Bloomberg told them.

. . .

Modell’s was nearly empty as the mayor shopped. Upstairs, Joann Rice-Daniels, 46, and Adebowal T. Kiladejo, 39, meter collectors for the city’s Transportation Department, were buying gloves. Downstairs, Boris Davydov, 38, and his 14-year-old son, David, were buying socks and dumbbells.

“The mayor is always with the people,” Mr. Davydov said gleefully as he snapped a picture of Mr. Bloomberg with his cellphone.

Mr. Bloomberg paid for his purchases in cash and outside, he joked about the gloves he bought for Ms. Taylor.

“I just got Diana’s gift,” he said.

“I have them,” Ms. Taylor said from behind a cluster of reporters, holding a shopping bag with the gloves in it.

“Look, she’s got them already,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “I’ve just got to get a card to go with it.”

Yeah, I Bet You Liked That Escalade . . . But How You Like It Now That You’re Sleeping In A Bathtub With Your Four Other Siblings, You Snotnose?

Looking on the bright side, we may be returning to some kind of Brokaw-approved work ethic in this country:

It is impossible to quantify how many affluent parents have trimmed allowances in recent months — or how many of their offspring, in turn, have sought either formal employment or odd jobs. But interviews with dozens of teenagers, parents, educators and employers suggest that many youngsters from well-to-do families seem to have found a new work ethic as the economic crisis that has pummeled their family stock portfolios and jeopardized their parents’ jobs has also led to less spending money for Saturday night movies or binges at Abercrombie & Fitch.

80s Redux

On the one hand you have a worldwide financial meltdown followed by perhaps the greatest structural changes to the economy since the 1930s. On the other hand you have a dirtier Bowery. And that’s something all of us understand:

Lizzy Goodman was one of the fortunate ones of the class of 2002; upon graduating from Penn, she had a job lined up as an assistant teacher at Buckley, the all-boys school on the Upper East Side. Six years later, she’s an editor at large at Blender. Like some of her peers, she seems hopeful that, instead of being a harbinger of utter doom, this crash will instead level the playing field just a little bit.

“I don’t think anyone is hoping for American financial collapse just so that the Bowery can be seedy again,” said Ms. Goodman, who lives in the West Village. “But on the other hand, if in the wake of this collective shuttering and fearing comes a return to old school ’80s boho New York, I would certainly be in favor of that.”

Fortunately for her, there are literally hundreds of us who consider our subscription to Blender to be utterly indispensible.

Eight Gold Medals, Seven World Records And You Can’t Ring A Stupid Bell?

Come on, “golden boy”:

The traders at the New York Stock Exchange went berserk on Tuesday over the hottest commodity at the Beijing Olympics, circling Michael Phelps like sharks.

There was barely room to breathe on the floor as people pushed to get close to Phelps, who won a record eight gold medals and set seven world records.

Phelps rang the opening bell, or at least that was the original plan. On the platform alongside his fellow United States Olympic swimming champions Ryan Lochte and Natalie Coughlin, Phelps was so tired that he was tottering, so Coughlin discreetly did the honors.

“Michael was just kind of jet-lagged,” Coughlin said.

On the floor, he was besieged by autograph seekers. One trader held up a magazine with Phelps on the cover for him to sign and said, “My wife wants to marry you.” When told that Phelps, who was in the middle of a television interview, would not be signing anything more, the trader said, indignantly, “Is his hand broken?”

Or was that Las Vegas trip a little draining?