Media And Advocacy Groups Agreed That He Was Dead

Meanwhile, somewhere a lowly factchecker pleads for his job:

There’s a plaque on Shore Road where bicyclist Ivan Morales was struck by an SUV nearly a year ago. After being hurled more than 30 feet in the air, his helmet split in half. So did his skull. The NYPD and news reports said he was dead.

This weekend, Time’s Up!, a bike advocacy group, organized a tour of sites throughout the city where cyclists were killed by motor vehicles. When News 12 broadcast a segment from the spot where Morales was killed, his fellow churchgoers were shocked.

Ivan Morales is alive and well and living in the Bronx.

“I was actually dead at one point,” the 62-year-old retired Metro-North computer analyst said yesterday. “In the ambulance, they said, there’s nothing we can do for this guy. What happened, by the grace of God, I came back.” He was in a coma for four days and didn’t remember anything about the Jan. 9, 2006, incident after waking.

No word on whether the plaque was returned.

Another Mystery Smell . . .

Did someone leave the burner on over the weekend? Because I’m starting to feel a little lightheaded:

Con Edison, the fire department and multiple city agencies are investigating the source of a gas odor throughout Manhattan this morning.

Widespread reports of the smell have been coming in since around 9 a.m.

The city’s Office of Emergency Management says it is aware of the situation and at this point they are investigating.

Reports indicate the odor is concentrated on the West Side, as far north as the 80s. The odor has also been reported to be particularly strong around Herald Square and in NY1’s neighborhood in Chelsea.

Previously on mysterious, unexplained smells: The Sweet Smell Of Maple Doughnuts, Or Perhaps Eggos, Smell Returns? Mysterious Smell Comes, Goes And Leaves No Clues In Its Wake, Sweet Syrupy Smell, I Wish I Knew How To Quit You!

Towel-Snapping Brutes

Critics charge that the city’s chronic lifeguard shortage is its own doing:

Bullies conduct the testing for lifeguard positions at city beaches and pools, said parents of kids who claim they were humiliated by City Department of Parks and Recreation workers.

An ad hoc committee has been formed to get the City Council to investigate the allegations. Committee members say abuses include grown men cursing at young girls, testers purposely failing swimmers who met qualifications and closed-door trials out of public view.

. . .

The committee report recommends that training and testing be expanded beyond the department’s 59th St. pool in Manhattan. It also suggests open testing and improvements in recruitment efforts.

The committee additionally called for the ouster of Peter Stein, president of Local 508, the lifeguards’ union. The committee charged that Stein has run the lifeguard program for decades as his own “little fiefdom.”

A Bottle Of White, A Bottle Of Red, Perhaps A Bottle Of Rose Instead

Do you wonder if recipients of the Billy Joel scholarship will ever feel a little lame? NYU announces the first year’s winners:

Several graduate students in the department of music and performing arts professions were awarded a total of $500,000 from the Billy Joel Scholarship fund this summer.

In its first year, the fund will cover part of the tuiton for three Steinhardt School of Education students: Yuval Cohen of Jerusalem; Peter Cruz of Perth Amboy, N.J.; and Michael Eckroth of Las Vegas. All of these students started at NYU this September.

. . .

A multi-Grammy winner and 2002 Musicares Person of the Year, Billy Joel — whose daughter, Alexa Ray, attended NYU’s musical theater program — is a supporter of musical education.

“Billy Joel’s extraordinary talents as a composer and a performer, and the impact of his work on the musical scene and industry resonate perfectly with NYU Steinhardt’s numerous bridges to the music profession,” said Lawrence Ferrara, chair of the music and performing arts department, in a statement.

That seems a little effusive.

Two Terms You Wouldn’t Expect To Find In Proximity To One Another Are “Brooklyn” And “Wildlife Poachers” But There They Are

Poachers are stealing Brooklyn’s wild parrots:

Who is bird-napping Brooklyn’s wild monk parrots?

The many who dislike the colorful birds might not care — but Max Ovadia of Midwood does.

Ovadia believes parrot poachers have been loose in the Brooklyn wild late at night.

“We heard them squawking,” he said. “At night, that’s not normal.”

Around midnight one day last month, Ovadia said, he saw a man with a huge net on a 25-foot pole. Accompanied by two teenagers, the suspected poacher even had pole extensions to reach high nests, he said.

The trapping of wild animals, including monk parrots, is illegal without a license.

Ovadia said he scared off the poachers twice, but the nests the parrots called home are now empty. “Only sparrows are going in there,” he said.

. . .

The story of Brooklyn’s monk parrots has come full circle. Native to South America, the first birds were trapped to be brought north as pets.

But many of the original birds were either let loose by pet owners who no longer wanted them or, as legend has it, escaped from a broken container at Kennedy airport in the 1970s.

Large colonies of the birds now live on the walled Brooklyn College campus and Green-Wood Cemetery, where they are protected.

Not all borough residents are thrilled. Homeowners have complained the birds are loud and dirty.