Don’t Dump On The Bronx!

The one-time official flower of the Bronx blooms in Brooklyn:

A bizarre, stomach-churning and, for some, unprecedented display is not the scene of a sensational crime, but far from it. The long, hot room at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, usually occupied by a stately bonsai museum, has been cleaned out for the macabre main event, a rare blooming of the Amorphophallus titanum.

The species last bloomed in New York in 1939 in the Bronx. The botanic garden has kept one behind closed doors for 10 years, until now, as the plant completes a remarkable growth spurt of seven inches a day and prepares to flower and unleash its pollen as early as tomorrow. And then the reason will become clear for its grim nickname: the corpse flower.

“People will say, ‘Do you have a dead animal in here?'” said Patrick J. Cullina, vice president of horticulture and facilities at the botanic garden, who has worked with similar plants of different species. The literature posted beside the harmless-looking plant describes what to expect, the “revolting smell of putrefying meat.”

There is no smell yet. A trickle of visitors gazed up yesterday at the cream-colored, rigid spathe, the fast-growing spike that has taken over the plant, resembling a giant squash and now bigger than a man’s leg. Days ago, it burst horror-movie style through the green leaves that wrapped it. More visitors are expected as the bloom approaches, and the flower’s progress, but not its smell, can be tracked from the garden’s Web site, www.bbg.org.

In 1937 and again in 1939, thousands turned out to watch bloomings in the Bronx. According to The New York Times, the odor “almost downed” newspaper reporters, and was described by an assistant curator at the botanical garden there as “a cross between ammonia fumes and hydrogen sulphide, suggestive of spoiled meat or rotting fish.” It became the official flower of the Bronx, until 2000, and it seems the bizarre specimen — why the heck does a flower smell like bad meat? — can still draw a crowd. More than 10,000 people visited a blooming corpse flower at the University of Connecticut in Storrs in 2004.

The flower was first discovered in Sumatra, its native terrain, in 1878 by Odoardo Beccari. It was an immediate sensation. An English artist assigned to illustrate the plant is said to have become ill from the odor, and governesses forbade young women from gazing upon its indelicate form. (Its formal name ends in “phallus” for good reason.)

Omerta Is Sicilian For “Courts 6 And 7 Are Ours, Motherfuckers”

The latest front in the war between old timers and hipster carpetbaggers is the McCarren Park tennis court:

Hipsters, beware: Brooklyn’s old-timers are protecting their turf. Or at least they are at the McCarren Park tennis courts, in Greenpoint, where a gang of 50 retirement-age ralliers — a de facto tennis mafia — calls the shots, swearing at those who try to uproot them from “their” two chosen courts.

“They seem to own the place,” complained one young player from Williamsburg, who said that in the past the men cursed at him when he asked them to move after their scheduled time was up.

Another irate — and intimidated — player corroborated those claims, saying that the men have hurled “more Polish at me than I know what to do with.”

Many of the McCarren racketeers are old friends, and have met at the park for tennis for more than two decades.

“Over the years, courts 6 and 7” — the two most-secluded courts, on the Berry Street side of the park — “kind of became the Polish courts,” explained Amleto Mazza, a rare Italian member of the group.

. . .

And although they might not be playing nice, technically these Greenpoint goodfellas aren’t breaking any rules. For instance, by rotating players on their own, no one violates the one-hour per player per court time limit.

But try explaining that to the players who end up stalled on the other side of the fence — a crowd that has doubled in the past five years.

A few spats over the years got so bad that police had to intervene and toss the guys out.

The group’s bad reputation has grown, and the threat of conflict seems to have effectively aced would-be interlopers. A handful of McCarren’s younger regulars hesitated when asked to comment on the gang.

“Trying to get them off is a big headache,” one tennis player finally said. “They don’t want anybody else playing on their courts.”

Another player said he sometimes gets to play with the geezers, “but it took me years to get to that point,” the player told The Brooklyn Papers — as long as we promised anonymity.

He refused to answer additional questions. “I’ve pretty much said all I can say,” he explained.

The Face Of Gentrification Is . . . Heath Ledger

Heath and Jennifer Connelly are driving up prices:

There’s a certain breed of New York celebrity who’s too cool for uptown, but craves a brownstone block. They seek leafy streets with the scale of the West Village, but shy away from the throngs and the spotlight.

Meet fame on the down-low — celebs who live in Brooklyn.

The roster of Hollywood A-listers, music-industry powerhouses, authors and artisans who reside in the Borough of Kings is top-notch.

Wander over to the Grand Army Plaza subway station in Park Slope and you might catch Jennifer Connelly looking “beautiful and fragile, with no makeup on and dressed in jeans, a brown sweater, and sleeveless green vest,” as one fellow Brooklynite described her, as she takes her eldest son to school weekday mornings.

Over on Atlantic, see Heath Ledger — who, with Michelle Williams, is raising a daughter, Matilda, in Boerum Hill — ducking into a deli Sunday morning for bottled water.

Later in the week, Williams may pop by Smith Street lingerie store Andie Wee while actors Emily Mortimer — spotted having trouble finding her wallet in Cobble Hill’s Pacific Green grocery — and Alessandro Nivola push a stroller along the sidewalk outside.

. . .

While hardly a new phenomenon — there’s always been a diaspora of celebrities eking out low-profile lives in nearly every part of New York — Brooklyn has outgrown its edgy, destitute-art-student reputation of years gone by. It has come into its own as a magnet for some of the most sought-after talents in the entertainment industry.

Yes, can’t wait for “A Beautiful Mind II: The Really Senile Years.”

Only In East New York, Kids, Only In East New York

They act as if this is somehow strange:

Brooklyn’s housing market is so through the roof that families are forking over $625,000 to live next door to one of the city’s most dangerous housing projects, The Post has learned.

A new community called Spring Creek Estates, which will feature 40 two-family luxury homes, is in the process of being built along weed-strewn lots in East New York near the infamous, crime-laden Louis H. Pink Houses.

The first five houses are already up on Pine Street and recently sold for between $479,000 and $579,000, brokers said. And with marketing for the next 10 homes under way, two families have already signed contracts to pay $625,000 without a shovel hitting the dirt.

“Everybody knows about the reputation of the Pink Houses, but we’ve had no problem marketing the new development,” said Cecilia Calcagnile, a Centruy 21 broker arranging the sales. “We’ve had phone calls off the hook and are selling houses right off the blueprints before we even break ground.”

The 4-acre Spring Creek Estates is expected to be complete by 2008. It will run along parts of Stanley, Worthman and Euclid avenues and Crescent and Pine streets in one of the city’s highest crime areas.

Despite seeing a 57 percent drop in crime the past decade, the 75th Precinct last year led all police precincts in the number of murders (29) and ranked third out of 76 in the number of reported crimes (3,479).

Pay To Campaign!

The 11th Congressional District is just a big ball of laffs:

Days after standing on the steps of City Hall and endorsing City Council Member David Yassky in his bid for Congress, the mother and brother of a slain council member, James Davis, returned to those steps to withdraw that endorsement and to call on Mr. Yassky to drop out of the race.

Thelma Davis and her other son, Geoffrey, said Mr. Yassky left about 200 senior citizens stranded in the rain July 21, when he failed to get enough buses to transport them to City Hall for a memorial service in honor of her son, James, who was killed by a gunman in the council chambers July 23, 2003.

“This is not only a horrible act against the seniors, but against society,” Ms. Davis said yesterday, holding a picture of her late son. Ms. Davis said she wants Mr. Yassky to apologize publicly and pay $20,000 to four senior centers left without transportation that day.

By that time, campaign fliers touting the endorsement — showing Ms. Davis solemnly looking at a sepia-colored photograph of her slain son — had already been mailed to voters.

But it doesn’t end there:

In response to the withdrawn endorsement, an invoice Geoffrey Davis submitted to Mr. Yassky’s campaign — showing Mr. Davis hoped to be paid $50,000 for campaign work — was released to reporters.

Mr. Davis said he has been helping the campaign since last July, with the expectation of getting paid at some point.

“When he reneged with the bus company, and made my mother that upset, I sat with him,” Mr. Davis said, recalling a meeting he and an associate had with Mr. Yassky and his campaign manager at a famed Brooklyn eatery, Junior’s. The meeting took place the Monday after the memorial service, he said.

“From this point on, it is totally, strictly business,” Mr. Davis said.

Mr. Davis, who is unemployed, said he discussed the year’s worth of campaign work he did, and the field operation he planned to do in the crucial final weeks of the campaign.

“I said, ‘You got an hour to think about it,'” Mr. Davis told The New York Sun.

The following day, Mr. Davis submitted his invoice, which included $10,000 in administrative charges that Mr. Davis told the Sun he said was “my fee.” An additional $2,000 for a campaign office and petty cash were also listed.

And revealing all this is supposed to make you look better how?