Class Warfare Activate! Form Of: Rottweiler-Pit Bull Revolt

From the first doggie spa story you read to the forty-first doggie spa story you read, it never ceases to amaze me how decadent this culture is:

Virgil lives the good life.

He likes to begin his weekdays with breakfast in bed. Then it’s on to lounging with friends and watching daytime talk shows; Maury Povich is his favorite. Later, he jogs a few laps at the indoor gym, followed by a warm bath and strawberry hair conditioning at the spa. While he’s at it, he may opt for a pedicure. Then he naps.

It sounds like the diary of a hotel heir, but it’s all in a pampered pooch’s day at WoofSpa and Resort, a 3-year-old doggie day care center appropriately located on a trendy strip of Hudson Street bordering Chelsea and the West Village.

“Pets have become more like family members,” said WoofSpa owner Keith Acker, a proud parent of two Wheaten Terriers. “Pet owners, more than anything, want an environment for them that offers good quality and care.”

Price is not an issue. A single day at WoofSpa costs $43.50. Unlimited monthly visits run $500. The business also offers dog walking, overnight care, grooming and a personal driver who can take dogs to and from home.

“The dog’s happiness comes first,” WoofSpa manager Greg Forte said.

But now there’s a twist — dog spa client lists are getting more selective:

About half a dozen similar pet centers sit within a 10-block radius of Woofspa.

To keep up, Acker plans to remodel the 7,000-square-foot space this summer to make it more “luxurious and interactive.” The walls, for example, will be replaced with glass.

The competition has WoofSpa shifting the way it does business by choosing its clients more carefully.

“We’re fine-tuning our client base,” Acker said. “There’ll be much more scrutiny of a dog’s personality.”

People, We’re Talking About Dough

Meet the $22 bagel:

Considering what goes into making bagels the old-fashioned way, it seems they should cost more than the average range of $.60 to $.75 for an untopped bagel.

Crafting a bagel that’s crunchy on the outside and soft and chewy inside first takes ingredients that are sometimes costlier. Flour, water, salt and yeast aren’t too expensive, but the traditional malt syrup or molasses can add up.

Some shops will use cheaper ingredients like sugar to cut corners on the thick syrupy stuff. But bagel makers often say it’s not worth the sacrifice in taste.

The process of making the bagel correctly also takes more effort and cost. Hand rolling the dough, letting the bagels sit for 24 hours, hand boiling them and then baking the circular delights arguably produce tastier treats.

And of course, selling a fresh product is the best product, so the toiling away is a daily experience.

. . .

The price of the bagel reflects the quality of the ingredients, said Atelier spokeswoman Rebecca Rand.

“We want to make sure we have the best grade of salmon and the freshest bagels available,” she said. “We want people to have an amazing dish.”

But the restaurant’s quiet ambience and the attentive service at the restaurant also comes with the $22 price tag.

“It all ties in together,” she said of the Central Park South restaurant. “It’s the food and the experience and even the location.”

Memo From John Sexton To File: Enroll More Tisch Students, Consider Cutting Back On Stern Candidates

Tuition at NYU will go up 5.3 percent for the 2006-07 school year, well beyond the rate of inflation (reported variously as about 3.3 or 3.4 percent):

NYU is projecting a 5.3 percent undergraduate tuition hike for the 2006-2007 academic year, a figure that mirrors last year’s hike and brings the annual total cost of tuition, housing and fees to approximately $46,800.

Tuition will rise $1,680 from last year’s figure to $33,370, and the average cost of full-time housing will be $11,730, up nearly $300. Last year, housing only cost $50 more than the year before.

The latest cost of attendance figures were posted yesterday on the financial aid office’s website and were also included in letters sent to recently admitted freshmen, according to one such letter that was obtained yesterday by WSN.

The figures will not be finalized until the university completes its final budget later this month, university spokesman John Beckman said.

“The figure that we sent out in the letter to acceptees is at this point an estimate,” Beckman said.

This year’s figures mark the fifth year that tuition has increased by at least 5 percent. The largest increase within the last 10 years was for the 2003-2004 academic year, in which tuition rose 6.8 percent to $30,095.

On a positive note, an increasing number of Tisch students seem not to realize the current rate of inflation:

Although tuition has increased, Tisch junior Tom Schecter said he believes that it is in line with the general trend of inflation.

“It’s going to get worse next year,” he said, adding that students respond to the hikes with “just the general bitching and moaning.”

Never Forget . . . It Goes On The Expense Account

We could invest $6 billion to build a rail link between Lower Manhattan and JFK* but I’m fairly sure people would still be willing to spend more to get to JFK on a helicopter than on an actual airplane to, say, California, and that probably says something about either the importance of a rail link or the willingness of executives to fritter away stockholders’ earnings, I’m not sure which. Oh, and did we mention that the TSA is providing security for the helicopterists? Because you might have missed that detail:

At 7 a.m., U.S. Helicopter, a start-up company, whisked its first passengers from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, over Brooklyn, Queens and the security lines at Kennedy, to the American Airlines terminal. The hourly flights, which last less than 10 minutes, cost $139 each way.

Included in that price is the luxury of avoiding the long security screening lines at the airport. At the request of U.S. Helicopter’s executives, the federal Transportation Security Administration set up a checkpoint, with X-ray and bomb-detection machines, to screen passengers and their luggage at the heliport.

The security agency is spending $560,000 this year to operate the checkpoint with a staff of eight screeners and is considering adding a checkpoint at the heliport at the east end of 34th Street. The agency’s involvement has drawn criticism from some elected officials.

[Chuck Schumer quote deleted to avoid having to provide him an outlet in which to grandstand]

But Charles A. Gargano, vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the Wall Street heliport, on Pier 6 in the East River, called the resumption of the service a boon for the downtown economy.

“This is much more than just to have something nice,” Mr. Gargano said. “It is an essential element to rebuilding Lower Manhattan.”

Spare us . . .

But who actually uses this service?

Most of those passengers are expected to be investment bankers and other business travelers who want to save time and avoid the hassles of the normal trek to the airport.

. . .

Bobby Weiss, a self-employed stock trader and real estate broker who was U.S. Helicopter’s first paying customer yesterday, said he would pay $300 for a round trip to Kennedy, and he expected most corporate executives would, too.

“It’s $300, but so what? It goes on the expense account,” said Mr. Weiss, adding that he had no qualms about the diversion of federal resources to smooth the path of highfliers. “Maybe a richer guy may save a little time at the expense of a poorer guy who spends a little more time in line.”

Which companies did it say I have in my mutual fund?

*And if you ask me, the $6 billion project is of course the perfect way to honor the memory of those who perished on Sept. 11. Because nothing says, “Never Forget” like “One-seat ride between Manhattan and JFK.”

And You Thought New York Was Different Than The Rest Of The Country

Happily, teens in New York are just as weird about prom as those kids profiled on MTV:

Jenna Cossuto spent $2,400 on her custom-made dress. She’ll rent a 22-seat stretch Hummer to transport her closest friends to privately booked Gotham Hall.

And then it’s off to the swanky South Street Seaport at Bridgewater and afterward, a party in Crobar’s VIP section before a long weekend in a Hamptons beach house.

But this once-in-a-lifetime weekend isn’t for Cossuto’s wedding.

It’s for this 17-year-old’s senior prom.

“You only do prom once, and I’ve been planning this for over a year,” said Cossuto, who will graduate from Leon Goldstein HS in upscale Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn.

She’s part of a growing generation of teens who think of prom as the end all, be all of their young lives.

“Teens think of prom as their Oscar night. They want to look and feel like celebrities,” says Gina Kelly, fashion director at Seventeen magazine.

. . .

“I’m not sure exactly how much I’ll spend, but probably thousands and thousands,” said Cossuto. If she gets all she wants, the total will exceed $10,000.

“My parents are just happy that I saved up myself for the dress, and they’ll obviously help me pay for everything else I need.”

Her mom, Susan, rolls her eyes, but says she and her lawyer husband are happy to give their only daughter all the things they never had while growing up.

Beyond the designer Jovani dress, which includes multi-carat Chopard diamonds, Cossuto got $550 Gucci shoes, a matching handbag, tanning sessions, eyebrow shaping and professional hair and makeup for the big day, June 7.