We Are All Triboro Now*

It’s not just Staten Island — everyone seems to dislike the “Triboro” label:

For decades, stamps on letters mailed in New York City have generally been canceled with squiggly lines of ink and the name of the sender’s home borough. But this tradition may itself soon be canceled, at least in Brooklyn and Queens and on Staten Island.

Under the Postal Service’s plan, most mail from the three boroughs would be sent to a central processing center in East New York, Brooklyn, where it would be branded with a new emblem:

“TRIBORO, NY

BKLYN-QNS-STATEN ISL.”

The plan was spawned because of a 29 percent decline in the volume of first-class mail over the past decade. Officials say the change would save $6.7 million annually.

This is where a bureaucratic transaction gets personal.

“There are certain things you don’t mess with,” said Audrey Hecht-Stewart, 54, a teacher from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, who was standing in line last week at the Cadman Plaza Post Office in Downtown Brooklyn. “The postmark on your letter should represent where you live, like caller ID on your phone.

“You can’t throw Brooklyn in the same pot with Queens and Staten Island,” Ms. Hecht-Stewart added. “When you go and lump us in with those other two boroughs, you take away our individuality.”

A host of elected officials, from the relevant borough presidents to New York’s two United States senators, has decried the proposal, along with postal union officials who translate a consolidated postmark into lost jobs. And dismay is rippling across this proposed new land called “Triboro,” where many who know about the plan resent the prospect of being stripped of their envelope identifier.

*Think about it — it could look cool on a T-shirt!

This Is No Softee

Lest you assume Mister Softee trucks are only about small-time drug deals or that they’re merely a convenient spot from which pedophiles can operate, know that there is also a dark side to the business:

An ice-cream truck driver and two cohorts gave a Good Humor operator in Queens more than just a cold shoulder when they threatened to put his business on ice, authorities said yesterday.

George Peralta, 27, and his accomplices penned in Ernesto Valverde, 50, by parking an ice-cream truck in front of and another behind Valverde’s vehicle in Elmhurst Tuesday, police sources said.

Peralta, along with Andy Arevalo, 23, and an unidentified man, then took Valverde’s keys and gave a chilling threat, “Stay off [our] route. We know where you live. We know where you parked the truck,” according to a criminal complaint.

Update: Mister Softee Vice President Jim Conway writes in to set the record straight:

The article you referenced in the NY Post is factually incorrect. Ronald Baretela is not a Mister Softee franchisee and the trucks in question are not Mister Softee trucks.

Additionally, we are troubled by your disparaging remarks in regards to our franchisees. In the twelve years I have been in the management of Mister Softee no franchisee has been accused of either selling drugs or improper conduct towards children. Your comments are both false and offensive.

The overwhelming majority of our franchisees are married men and women with families. These people are classic small business people who work hard to provide for their families.

Spending up to 10 or 12 hours a day selling ice cream on the streets of NYC is a difficult and often trying job. To belittle these good people with unsubstantiated myths is irresponsible.

Fair enough! Satirical glibness aside, of course I didn’t mean to say that I necessarily assumed that Mister Softee trucks sold drugs of any kind or that ice cream truck drivers in general are anything less than model citizens, just that, you know, some may have that perception is all . . .

See Also: Mister Softee.

Are Brooklyn Women Too Ugly Or Something?

Last year the excuse was that there weren’t enough entrants. And residency requirements are an issue again this year:

Keelie Sheridan, an Irish step dancer who moved here in 2005, is the new Miss Brooklyn — but not without a schmear of controversy.

The 22-year-old student says she’s been in love with Brooklyn ever since she moved into a Sheepshead Bay apartment that’s only seven minutes from the beach.

Sheridan is certainly more familiar with borough life than Leigh-Taylor Smith, last year’s winner, who lived in Manhattan.

Still, some Brooklynites are griping Sheridan hasn’t been here long enough to represent the borough’s 2.5 million people from 150 nations — people who speak 136 different languages.

Seven of the pageant’s nine contestants were born and raised in the borough.

“One of them should have won,” said Makada Lemont, 18, a student at Pacific High School and a lifelong Crown Heights resident.

Lemont’s friend Tiffany Cook, 20, also of Crown Heights, agreed: “She doesn’t know what Brooklyn is all about, like what we go through or anything about our lifestyle, like the clothing we wear, the way we talk, our swag.”

New Yankees Slogan?

“Assume the risk”:

A Red Sox fan who got pummeled for cheering on his team at Yankee Stadium should have known to keep his mouth shut, the Bombers said in court papers.

Charles Hillios, who is suing the Yanks for the beat-down, “assumed the risk of foreseeable injury based on his own conduct,” according to a federal court filing.

The team also contends that it’s “not liable for the alleged intentional conduct” of the two goons who battered the Bosox booster inside The House that Ruth Built in August.

Ugh . . . Please Don’t Give Them Something Else To Be Snooty About

The city of hot air actually has a fairly small carbon footprint, making Christmas back home that much more unbearable for the families of smug, self-righteous transplants:

Despite New York’s reputation as a city of avid consumption, the carbon footprint of its residents is among the smallest in America, a new report shows.

In 2005, the average New Yorker emitted 0.67 tons of carbon from residential energy consumption, the 18th-lowest amount of 100 metro areas surveyed, according to yesterday’s Brookings Institution and Regional Plan Association report, which examined carbon emissions from transportation and residential sources. The average American emitted 1.16 tons.

The New York area also had the fourth-lowest carbon emissions per capita among the 100 other metropolitan areas.