Drain-Clogging Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

Not only do they start track fires but they cause floods as well:

From fires to floods, the MTA says the thousands of free newspapers distributed in the subways each day cause many of the problems that plague the system.

In February, officials blamed stray copies of amNewYork and Metro New York for a spike in track fires. Bundles of unread copies get blown onto tracks, they said.

Yesterday, flooding was added to the papers’ rap sheets.

The drain-clogging freebies were largely responsible for a massive flood in September 2004 that shut down much of the system, MTA board members said yesterday.

The MTA inspector general earlier this year cited the agency’s neglect of its plumbing. But MTA board member Barry Feinstein said the cause was a combination of near-biblical rainfall and litter clogging drains.

“We have bitterly complained for a long time about what we call the free newspapers,” Feinstein said after presenting a report to Chairman Peter Kalikow.

. . .

“The free newspapers are a problem to us,” Kalikow agreed. “We don’t mind them giving them out, we mind the way they are giving them out.”

In part because of the added trash from the papers, transit officials say they had to hire an additional 118 cleaners.

The free papers say the agency is making them a scapegoat for its own problems.

“I certainly hope it’s not us,” said Lori Rosen, a spokeswoman for Metro New York, noting that this has not been a problem at other transit systems around the world.

Each Metro now encourages its readers not to litter, she said.

Metro New York, for its part, reported the findings a little differently:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority yesterday blamed free newspapers for clogging subway drains, which contributed to the flooding of the city’s underground on Sept. 8, 2004, when three inches of rainfall shut down or delayed 18 train lines. Last February, the MTA attributed a surge in track fires to free papers.

But yesterday’s report contradicted the findings of the MTA inspector general’s office, which had faulted the transit authority for not reacting to the weather forecast. The inspector general also blamed “historical neglect” of system maintenance and a failure to keep drains clear.

. . .

Feinstein called the “25-year storm” an “act of God” but didn’t refute most of the previous report: “We did agree that debris on the track bed was a contributing factor to the level of flooding.”

That debris came from a variety of sources. “It was not simply newspapers, but that was the bulk of the problem,” Feinstein said. “There were also lots of MetroCards.”

Rider advocate Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said the subway’s real problem was a lack of cleaners.

The Sarajevo Or Beijing Of America

You may think it’s cute to spend a weekend buying counterfeit shit but the truth of the matter is you’re sapping billions from city coffers:

The police call it Counterfeit Alley, and say it is the city’s top haven for knockoff, no-name, and flat-out phony goods. In the last two years, the city has seized close to $50 million in counterfeit goods in the area and shut down, under the same nuisance abatement laws used to clean up Times Square, 15 buildings in the area that they said were once occupied almost entirely by counterfeiters.

But thousands of people still pack the area on weekends. Many are New Yorkers, but some travel hundreds of miles via tour bus, dragging suitcases and rolling duffels full of clothes back home to North Carolina or Pennsylvania. To them, it is a poor man’s shopping mall, an admittedly seedy — and therefore affordable — alternative to the gleaming, teeming Herald Square stores a few blocks away.

“It’s the prices you can get, with what little money you have,” said Ellen Counts, 41, of Belleville, Mich. She comes several times a year for socks, underwear and other clothing for her family, and also buys silver jewelry from the nearby wholesalers for her store back home. “We do our Christmas shopping here.”

Though sidewalk vendors abound in the area, most of the shopping in Counterfeit Alley takes place in a handful of old office buildings along Broadway and the side streets. Most have been divided and subdivided into warrens of dingy boutiques and record stores, run more or less like speakeasies. There are no signs or billboards advertising their presence, only clusters of men at the building entrances muttering questions — “CD’s? Sneakers? What you want, man?”

Answer in the affirmative, and you will be led through the maze to your chosen destination. It is not quite the Galleria. The illicit thrill of entering a room full of $40 faux North Face jackets, for example, is easily sapped by the sound of the door being locked behind a shopper’s back.

. . .

A 2004 report from the city comptroller’s office estimated that New York loses about $1 billion in tax revenue a year from the trade in counterfeit goods, though some analysts say the figure is inflated. The police say they are just as concerned with public safety as lost sales taxes and ripped-off tourists.

A Step Below The Tobacco Lobby

Banning food may be stupid, but national ad campaigns aimed at defending trans fats may be stupider:

A national group opposed to the city’s proposed ban on trans fats responded yesterday with a vivid commercial that takes aim at the “food police.”

In the opening scene, an ice cream is snatched from a child’s hand. In another, a man getting ready to enjoy a hot dog is crestfallen when an unseen person grabs it and takes it away.

“Everywhere you turn, someone’s telling us what we can’t eat,” the narrator says.

The Washington-based Center for Consumer Freedom is spending $125,000 to put the commercial in heavy rotation this week on CNN and the Fox News Channel.

Sarah Longwell from the center said the spot shows food being snapped from consumers’ hands because “that is exactly what the New York City Board of Health proposes to do.”

Defending the right of people to consume trans fats somehow seems worse than defending smoking . . . dying from Twinkies is so much lamer!

Falling Apples And Trees: The Perverse Warping Of The Manhattan Child

Like the Manhattan Cat — having spent its entire life indoors — exists in a peculiar alternate universe, the Manhattan Child is raised under similarly perverse conditions:

Adults are not the only ones who engage in real estate envy and suffer from lust when they see a well-proportioned classic six or a penthouse with wraparound terraces and an elevator that opens directly into the apartment. Children, once assumed to be oblivious to the nuances of real estate, now know what is prized and what is not, and often feel free to comment on what they observe.

. . .

Julie Friedman, a senior associate broker at Bellmarc, described clients who are the parents of three private-school children. They occupy “the very inner circle of the social life on the Upper West Side and live in a beautiful prewar condo that’s probably worth about $3 million,” Ms. Friedman said. But the couple, professionals whose apartment lacks a separate dining room, stopped arranging play dates several years ago after holding a birthday party for one of their children in their apartment.

“The kids must have been 7,” Ms. Friedman said. “One of the children said, ‘Why are you eating in the living room?’ So from that day on, rather than put their children in a position where perhaps they were being judged, there were no play dates at their home. Now she is looking for a splendid apartment on Central Park West so that her children will be comfortable entertaining.”

He’s Depraved Because He’s Deprived!

An interesting defense — we allow underage girls into our clubs because you expect us to:

The club scene in New York City revolves around young, hot girls who, whether or not they’re 21, are invited into parties to line the pockets of club owners and promoters bringing in six-figure salaries, those in the scene say.

“The key demographic is a young, stylish, hip person,” said promoter Eric Soler, 34, who works all over downtown Manhattan.

He and dozens of other promoters create lists of potential patrons and steer them into clubs with promises of discounted cover charges and bottle service or free-drink tickets.

“For the most part, you go after women, because women are going to bring men who are going to spend money,” he said.

. . .

A Post reporter who responded to an online ad recruiting club promoters was met by a college-aged entrepreneur who told her to target underage girls for upcoming events.

“If they’re hot, we’ll get them in,” he said.

. . .

A 19-year-old clubgoer said promoters sometimes go further by gathering underagers at a meeting point and escorting them into a club to help them bypass security.

On Friday, the Post watched just such an arrangement in action, as a promoter swept two young girls past ID scanners and into BED.

“These promoters are my best of friends now, but it’s not like they’re naive about underagers,” the 19-year-old said. “They know it and they like that we’re young.”