Juicy! Nuclear!

When rich rogues aren’t stealing from us and each other to support their conspicuous Manhattan lifestyle, roguish governments are using Manhattan real estate as a front for their unneighborly activities:

The Fifth Avenue building that houses Juicy Couture’s flagship store is secretly owned in part by an Iranian bank that helps fund Tehran’s nuclear program, the feds charged yesterday in a bid for an ownership stake.

The Manhattan federal court case targets a 40 percent interest in 650 Fifth Ave. held by the Assa Corp., an alleged front company for Iran’s state-owned Bank Melli.

The bank has “facilitated the purchase of sensitive materials utilized by Iran’s nuclear and missile industries,” according to the Treasury Department.

Forget It, Jake — It’s Avalon

There are amateurs:

A Manhattan woman has been arrested for allegedly trying to scam thousands of dollars in fees by placing a bogus ad in a newspaper offering cheap rents in fancy apartments, authorities said yesterday. Raadiya James, 22, is accused of buying an ad in AM New York on Dec. 2 that mimicked an official announcement from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development offering cheap apartments on West 57th Street.

In exchange for a $5 application fee, the home-seekers were offered a shot at studios for $538 and two-bedrooms for $823.

Over the next few days, more than 1,000 money orders poured into a post-office box.

But authorities picked up on the alleged scam and when James came to pick up the loot, she was arrested.

And then there are professionals:

“Of course, honey, we’re in a recession,” replied Jackie Sim, the building’s [Avalon Morningside Park, a new 20-story monolith capping Columbus Avenue at 110th Street] leasing agent, when asked whether units had been going more slowly than anticipated. “People are shopping around more.”

. . .

Ms. Sim would call the Avalon a “luxury” building rather than “full-service” — in fact, she did slip up a couple of times — if 20 percent of it didn’t fall under the city’s 80-20 affordable housing guidelines. Developer AvalonBay secured $100 million in tax-exempt bonds to keep 59 units rent-stabilized at “affordable” rates (studios for about $620, $922 for a three-bedroom). Though the apartments aren’t quite as swank — Corian countertops instead of granite, for example — AvalonBay won’t have problems filling them up: HPD was still inundated with applications for the lottery.

“Everyone applied,” said Kelly Garcia, owner of the overstuffed Hardware and Houseware store on 109th and Columbus-including him. “Nobody has said they got in. What I think is they keep it for their own people.”

In Retrospect . . .

$530 million for a full platform doesn’t seem like such a hot idea. Think about it — the auto companies are looking for $14 billion. And you just spent a half a billion on four cars’ worth of platform. Would Lower Manhattan have been any less “rebuilt” without it?

Not that a full platform isn’t cool — It’s great! I’m excited! — but the cost almost makes one seat to JFK seem sensible.

And Here I Thought You Took Me Off The List For Your Annual Holiday Party . . .

The yearly doormen tipping quandary story! I thought it’d never come! But of course, it’s just the economy’s fault:

New York apartment dwellers who are suddenly cash-conscious are thinking twice about how much they can afford to give this year. They worry that reducing the tips they give will lead to a certain unspoken tension, a take-a-number attitude in their dealings with people who, in the boom years, could not jump fast enough to open a door or fix a leaky radiator. Will their packages be signed for when they are not home? Will their guests be dropped off at the right floor? Will they have to wait while someone else’s toilet is unclogged before theirs is?

Some see holiday tipping as little more than blackmail, but they pay anyway because they do not want hostility on the home front, or worse.

2005: December 3.

2006: Late! (Does this count?)

2007: Labor strife . . .

Soon I’ll Be Ready To Scuttle Recycling, Too*

Draconian cuts and or initiatives you read about on a Monday and shrug include but are not limited to: Shuttering the City Hall N Train stop between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. (fine — walk to Brooklyn Bridge or Chambers Street — there are a lot of train lines really close to each other downtown) and taxing Coke (there are no Libertarians in a financial meltdown and $404 million a year looks pretty good right now — and why stop there — let’s do it for a lot more stuff, like cupcakes at Magnolia, gelato at Grom, chopped liver at Fairway . . .).

*Do you remember the time before he co-opted green causes for political purposes? That was craaaazy!