Keep It Up And I’ll Headbutt You, Or, Crank Up The Lou Monte!

Some local color during the World Cup:

On West Broadway, in Manhattan, the restaurant Le Streghe (Italian for witches), hung a French effigy, a blow-up doll with a bull’s-eye in French tricolors, within clear sight of Felix, the French restaurant across the street.

But a Frenchwoman complained, and the owners quickly took it down.

They later put it up again, down the street.

Michela Graglia, 27, sneered inside Le Streghe and said, “We threw garlic around and we scored.”

At Felix, Scott Lacan, 28, a Web site owner and a fan of Italy, was there among the enemy for a reason, he said: “I want to see all the French people cry.”

In Bensonhurst, at Cafe Italia on 18th Avenue, Joe Sciarrino, 25, of Edison, N.J., said he was just a youngster the last time he watched the World Cup in 1994, when Italy lost to Brazil on penalty kicks.

“I cried for about a week,” he said. “Italy all the way — if they don’t win, I’ll cry for another week, maybe two.”

City residents claiming Italian heritage far outnumber those of French ancestry: by some 693,000 to 53,000, or 13 to 1, according to the 2000 census. Italian restaurants are as New York as Chinese takeout. There is no Little France.

Wittle Ibby Bibby Diowamas!

There’s something creepy and infantilizing about full-grown adults reverting to elementary school activities:

THEIR glue guns were cocked, their scissors sharpened, their beer glasses full. Nellie Kurtzman announced that the evening’s theme would be “horsepower.” In a blustery tempest of shoeboxes, pipe cleaners and multicolored felt, they were off.

So began the third installment of Diorama Lodge, an occasional event held in the dingy back room of Freddy’s Bar in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Two dozen men and women in their 20’s and 30’s had come armed with empty cardboard boxes, ready to use them to create miniature scenes that would be their entries in the competition for the title of best diorama.

“Some crafty things are really popular now, like knitting,” explained Ms. Kurtzman, a marketer of children’s books who lives in Park Slope and who started the event in February. “But we didn’t want to join a knitting club. We wanted to make dioramas. When do you ever get a chance to make dioramas after elementary school?”

Thinking that others would be interested in reviving their childhood diorama-making skills, Ms. Kurtzman spread the word through Craigslist and local e-mail lists. She proposed the idea to the owner of Freddy’s, a favorite neighborhood dive bar known for holding quirky activities its back room. Diorama Lodge was quickly added to the bar’s schedule of events.

A keen observer might speculate that the presence of such behavior is accompanied by other disturbing societal trends — receiving financial support from one’s parents in apparent perpetuity, for example.

And That’s How The Annual Celebration Of “Stabilization Day” Came To Pass

The Rent Guidelines Board’s annual hearing to decide whether and/or how much to raise rent on rent-stabilized apartments functions as a benign ritual for tenants to take out their frustrations about rising housing costs:

Amid total pandemonium, the Rent Guidelines Board last night voted to hike rent-stabilized rents by 4.25 percent for one-year leases and 7.25 percent for two-year renewals — infuriating tenants who said they no longer want to participate in the annual process.

The 5-4 vote came after more than four hours of mayhem, with more than 300 angry tenants, armed with noisemakers, drowning out virtually every word uttered by RGB Chairman Marvin Markus.

. . .

While protesting tenants were unhappy with last night’s outcome, they were pleased with their disruption. “We did a fantastic job,” exulted Jumaane Williams, executive director of the Tenants & Neighbors coalition. “We shut it down longer than it’s ever been shut down before.”

Tenant leaders said they decided months ago to disrupt the annual rent-setting meeting because they considered the deliberations “a sham” that always produced a pre-ordained result.

. . .

The meeting at Cooper Union was chaotic even by RGB standards, where screams and chants from the audience are routine.

Markus, branded a sellout by tenant leaders, was interrupted so loudly and so often that he called an unprecedented 2 1/2-hour recess at 6:30 p.m.

But that had no impact.

Tenant activists ordered pizza and bottled water and were waiting in full force when Markus returned just before 9 p.m.

As a phalanx of cops stood guard, Markus tried four times to restart the meeting — only to give up as one uproar after another drowned out his words.

The fifth time, Markus simply read a resolution into the microphone. Virtually no one off the stage could hear him.

We’ll keep you posted about next June’s Stabilization Day, which will be marked by a boisterous pot-clanged march down Fifth Avenue, a peaceful protest in front of Bed, Bath & Beyond and an after-party at an establishment to be determined.

A Stubbly Riddle Wrapped In A Mystery Inside An Enigma And Stuffed Into A Fendi Shoulder Bag

An appellate panel has ruled that a transgendered person’s appearance — suspiciously looking unlike a woman — is probable cause for police to stop him . . . or her, as the case may be:

A Chelsea transsexual is simply too masculine-looking to sashay his way out of charges of possessing a stolen purse, four state appellate judges ruled yesterday.

Cops had busted manly tranny Stephen Lomiller — an admitted homeless crack addict — three years ago, after noticing him sitting on a doorstep on Second Avenue and 28th Street.

He was “rifling” through a Fendi shoulder bag while looking nervously up and down the street, cops said.

On his face was what one arresting officer has described in court as “like, a three-days’ growth of beard.”

Still, Lomiller claims that cops never should have stopped and questioned him, because “transgendered” guys like himself often carry a purse, so there’s nothing suspicious about it.

The argument worked — for a while.

A lower-court judge, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice James Yates, actually agreed with Lomiller, and dismissed the purse-possession case.

“While he might not have been fully dressed as a woman, he unquestionably is a person of transgender appearance,” Yates said at the time.

. . .

But in overturning Yates’ decision yesterday, the appellate panel unanimously agreed that Lomiller was obviously no lady to the arresting officers, who, therefore, had good reason to stop and question him.

“The defendant looked like a man when he was arrested,” the panel ruled, noting that in his mug shot, Lomiller displayed “what seems to be two to three days’ growth of beard.”

Homeless Polish Of Greenpoint

News that a homeless man was arrested for allegedly starting the Greenpoint Terminal Market fire has turned attention to the plight of Greenpoint’s homeless Polish population:

For decades, Greenpoint has been home to a substantial number of Polish men who live on the streets. The man charged with arson, Leszek Kuczera, a heavy drinker who the police say started the fire while trying to burn the insulation off copper wires that he planned to sell to a scrap yard, was in many ways a typical member of the group, according to his family and friends.

Most of the men are in their 40’s or older, and many are alcoholic. Their drinking choices tend toward beer, $2 pints of fortified wine and vodka, the cheaper the better. Some speak only Polish, and many others have only a limited command of English. Because they are just a small part of Greenpoint’s thriving Polish-American population and they tend to avoid outsiders, they are often overlooked.

Yesterday afternoon, groups of the men dotted a stretch of Manhattan Avenue, blocks from the fire. About 20 of the men could be seen gathering on street corners, beneath shop awnings, and passing the time as the rain fell.

“I’m homeless,” said John Novak, who stood among three other men, one in a wheelchair, at the corner of Manhattan Avenue and Nassau Avenue. “I sleep in the park.” Mr. Novak said he once held a construction job in New Jersey but had to give it up after hurting his leg. He has been on the streets of Greenpoint for 11 years.

It is a hard life, some of the men said, but they make the most of it, living free and sleeping where they please. Some of them sleep in the subway tunnels, like Mr. Kuczera, who was also known to spend the night in an alleyway off Milton Avenue, near the site of the fire. Others, like Mr. Novak, sleep in graveyards or on the benches in McCarren Park.

Money comes from collecting cans or selling scrap metal or just standing on the corner and holding out a hand. There is almost always somebody sympathetic enough to donate a dollar. When one of the men has money, food or drink, they all do.