“An Instant Hit” (Like A Mack Truck)

Broadway Boulevard has been “an instant hit” for thrill seekers:

As if New York wasn’t stimulating enough already, the city has provided a new kind of thrill right in the heart of Midtown: an esplanade carved into Broadway where people can sit and relax as cars and trucks whiz by.

And while the esplanade seems to have become an instant hit with office workers and tourists — the metal benches, tables and chairs (some under red umbrellas) were rarely empty on Monday morning, even though they have been out for only a few days — many eyed the traffic warily.

“I think it’s dangerous,” said Vicki Lee, who nonetheless sat with two friends eating lunch at a cafe table on the esplanade just south of 38th Street. Ms. Lee, a clothing designer at a Midtown fashion company, was careful to sit so that she could keep an eye on the traffic heading downtown.

Her concern, she said, centered on the gray plastic planters arrayed every few feet along the edge of the esplanade as a buffer for the passing traffic. The planters were filled with soil, flowers and other plants and were too heavy for one person alone to budge. Yet they did not make Ms. Lee feel safe.

“You hear so many accidents of the cars going out of control and all they have here is plastic pots,” she said. But she dug into her salad and added, “We’re going to roll the dice and eat lunch here today.”

Not far away, Eric Sachinis and Grace Ong sat on two metal chairs pulled up to the edge of the esplanade closest to the traffic. They ate sandwiches and gazed at the passing cars.

“It’s a death trap,” Mr. Sachinis, a network administrator for a garment company, said with a laugh. “It’ll be up for a month and then somebody’ll get hit and they’ll take it down.”

“I like it, though,” said Ms. Ong, an administrative assistant, who observed that a pedestrian would be no safer on the sidewalk than on the esplanade if a car lost control. Besides, she said, the esplanade was a good spot for people watching. “That’s why you live in New York,” she said, “to watch everything go by.”

Creating Axioms: “New Yorkers Sit Anywhere”

And Averaging 93.6 Inches Of Snow Annually!

Adam “Jersey City” Sternbergh out-Sternberghs himself:

Until last May, Cloyd and Herbeck were living in Sunset Park, in Brooklyn, and they were barely making it. They ate mac ‘n’ cheese for dinner. They couldn’t afford to go out with their friends. They wanted a family, but “there was no room in our Brooklyn equation to have kids unless we put them in a closet,” Herbeck says.

Then one night, Herbeck, who’s 30, found herself browsing online listings in Buffalo. (Why Buffalo? She comes from Buffalo. And like many young Buffalonians, she got out as soon as she could.) “We were like, ‘Okay, the prices are great,'” she says. So they looked at some photos. “And we were like, ‘Okay, they’re really nice apartments. They’re really big. And right by the park.'”

And all of a sudden, they found they were staring at a very different what-could-be life: the one they’d be able to have if they were willing to leave New York.

What You Don’t Know Is That These Days Marconi Is Just A Mean Old Drunk Who Panhandles Down On The Seedy Stretch Of Market

Two things are wrong with this. One, “city proclamations” officially have lost all meaning and two, well, two is quite obvious.

Admit It: Outdoor Cinema Sucks

For reasons including but not limited to large vermin:

If you’re coming to this outside cinema, bring a blanket, but leave the popcorn, wine and cheese at home.

That’s because a roving army of hungry rats has been prowling Bay Ridge’s Narrows Botanical Gardens, threatening to shut down the annual movies in the park.

“These rats are so brazen, it can be a nightmare,” said Joan Regan, who first organized the Outdoor Cinema eight years ago.

“The sun goes down and the rats get hungry for food and come bother our show,” said Regan.

It wouldn’t be the first time the four-legged fiends stole the show.

Two years ago, the vermin problem was so bad, organizers had to cancel a sundown showing of “War of the Worlds” after the raging rats launched their own invasion.

“As soon as the movie started, droves of rats poured on to the field. You could see them on the screen and one of them even ran over the foot of the woman sitting next to me,” said Regan, who said she made the unfortunate mistake of spreading out some cheese and wine on her picnic blanket.

Mayor Bloomberg Has Nonprofit Capital, And He Intends To Use It

Sucking up philanthropic oxygen for not only the cult of trees but NYC-TV, too:

The superstar pop group — lead singer Sting, guitarist Andy Summers and drummer Stewart Copeland — announced in Times Square Tuesday that they will wrap up their worldwide reunion tour with one last blowout gig in the city where they first performed 30 years ago.

The concert will be held this summer and raise money for New York public TV stations; more details will be released later.

The Police first played in New York in 1978 at CBGB, the legendary downtown club that closed in 2006. The group drifted apart in the 1980s, but reunited last year.

The band also is donating $1 million to Mayor Bloomberg’s effort to plant a million trees in the city by 2017.

“We wanted to leave a gift for our last performance that would keep on giving year after year, decade after decade,” Sting said.

And the group got a gift back. Bloomberg gave each band member the Key to the City.

The city will match the group’s donation, which will reforest 2,000 acres of parkland with 10,000 trees.

Note goalpost shifting — not new trees but reforesting current parkland.