Incoming . . . New Yorker Writer!

The Talk of the Town lifts the monocle to its jaundiced eye and takes a closer look at the Wyckoff Gardens Doughnut Incident, noting that it could have been worse:

A visit to Wyckoff Gardens, last Wednesday, revealed that the doughnut was merely the latest of many pantry items sent aloft. According to residents, the list includes ice, cans, bottles, diapers, batteries, eggs, condoms, and water balloons. “If they were truly aiming at him, they’d have got him,” one woman said, while sitting with several others on a row of benches that faced the offending tower. They were still marvelling at all the cosmetic improvements to the grounds — plastering, pruning, painting — that had quickly been made in the days before the Mayor’s photo op.

The consensus was that the doughnut attack had not been political. “Throw a rat — that’d send a message,” a man said. But one woman, who identified herself as a chef, did have a grievance: with the Mayor’s enthusiasm for gentrification. Along with the new wave of Manhattan transplants to the neighborhood had come restaurants and markets on Atlantic Avenue that were not to her taste. “Not everybody likes their food cold and raw,” she said, referring to sushi. “Not everybody likes their food unseasoned. Not everybody particularly likes organic food. I mean, I’ve done organic food. It’s not tasty.” She was under the impression that the Bloomberg doughnut had been adorned with sprinkles.

Leading Economic Indicators: Housing Starts And Brooklyn Sales

In Brooklyn, the Bubble still builds:

A new report, exclusively obtained by The Post yesterday, shows that townhouse and apartment prices in Brooklyn remain through the roof, despite a market slowdown nationwide.

And some of the borough’s hottest hoods are even outpacing parts of Manhattan.

The average sales price for one- and two-family Brooklyn homes for the first half of 2006 was $586,000 — a 15.6 percent jump from the $507,000 seen in the same period last year, according to the first-ever midyear sales report for the borough from the Real Estate Board of New York.

Prices for Brooklyn co-ops and condos also continued to surge.

The average apartment sold for $491,000 in the first six months of 2006 — up 4 percent from $472,000 for the same period last year.

But in a strange twist, the surging Brooklyn real estate market actually seems to be an indicator of the cooling housing market:

Interior designer Rony Sandoval recently paid $545,000 for a one-bedroom apartment in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, that was once part of a Catholic school.

He said he first looked in Manhattan but found it “outrageously expensive” before stumbling upon his bargain in Cobble Hill, where apartments sell for an average of $628,000.

Unsafe At Any Deed

That million-dollar luxury conversion you just bought in DUMBO is a dangerous firetrap:

In addition to a leaky roof and a substandard ventilation system, the luxury Bridge St. building owned by scandal-ridden developer Joshua Guttman would burn to ashes in no time because of a host of fire hazards — including a wooden parking garage and wooden staircases.

Exposed wires, virtually no fireproofing, and drywall that would burn twice as fast as the minimum standard required by the city fire code were attacked yesterday by condo owners who paid as much as $1 million to live there.

“I really believe that if there is a fire and people are not awake or don’t smell it, they aren’t getting out alive,” said attorney Adam Leitman Bailey, who filed a $36 million lawsuit on behalf of 38 condo owners.

Guttman is the owner of the Greenpoint Terminal Market — which burned down last spring under mysterious circumstances.

According to the report by Rand Engineering & Architecture, many of the walls are made of drywall and so flimsy it would take just one hour to turn them into ash.

. . .

Mark Shacket, a Broadway show manager who moved into the building in 2004, said that besides shoddy structural work, one of his biggest fears is escaping a fire.

“It’s sort of like you have to close your eyes and pray,” said Shacket, 34. “I’m at the end of a dead-end hallway so you just have to hope the sprinkler system is up to code.”

Guttman, who has owned five buildings that have caught on fire since 1992, did not return calls for comment.

See also: Greenpoint Terminal Market Fire.

Close Race

The primary in New York’s 11th Congressional District is a dead heat just days before the election:

The results of the poll, first reported by Daily News political columnist Ben Smith on his blog yesterday, show City Council members Yvette Clarke (D-Flatbush) and David Yassky (D-Brooklyn Heights) with 20% of the vote each.

State Sen. Carl Andrews (D-Crown Heights) and Chris Owens, son of retiring incumbent Major Owens, both got 19% of the vote in the survey conducted by pollster Tom Kiley and paid for by a private company.

That leaves 22% of voters undecided in the splintered race for the 11th Congressional District, which includes Crown Heights, Flatbush and parts of Park Slope.

Mastering the obvious:

“It means that nobody has yet cracked through, and they only have a few days to do it,” said political observer Hank Sheinkopf, adding, “The undecideds will decide this race.

Backstory: Score One For Opportunism; The Post Oppo Research Machine Chugs Along; See, The Thing Is Was, Senior Year Was Just Such A Blur For Me . . .; Excitement!; Well, That’s A Relief!; Pay To Campaign!; Recipe For Hitting The Front Page Of The Sunday Times: Just Add Sharpton; You Know You’ve Jumped The Shark When . . .; Unite To Stop White Individuals!; The Sad Thing Is That It Was Probably A Carefully Crafted Statement; How Do We Put This? Let’s Just Say Identity Politics Still Exists . . .; Barack Obama: Some Guy They Stuck In There; Nothing Against Your Policies, It’s Just The Color Of Your Skin.

NYPD Bedbug

Who knew police precincts had so many beds? The city’s bedbug problem rolls on:

Blood-sucking bedbugs have invaded a Brooklyn police precinct stationhouse — forcing cops to process arrests at a vermin-free NYPD building 15 blocks away, sources told the Daily News.

The nasty problem in the 60th Precinct stationhouse in Coney Island began about three weeks ago when a cop noticed bites on his ankles, the sources said.

Soon prisoners lodged in holding cells started to complain — marking one of the rare times cops and criminals were on the same side of an issue.

Cops know that sometimes they must bring their job home with them. But they draw the line at bedbugs.

“It’s bad enough to have to deal with these things at work, but how do we explain to our wives why we’re bringing home bugs?” an agitated cop complained.

Backstory: Don’t Let The . . .; It’s Endemic, Pandemic, This Epidemic; Bedbugs Don’t Wait For Midterms Now, Do They?; Don’t Let The Gasoline-Soaked Bedbugs Burst Into Flames In The Middle Of The Night, Setting Your Living Quarters On Fire.