With This Drop I Thee Wed

Apparently the Wonder Wheel was already booked:

Two Brooklyn lovebirds are getting hitched today at the summit of the Cyclone, the historic Coney Island coaster with as many twists and turns as a modern-day marriage.

Robert Meyer, 39 and Teri Muroff, 38, will be married on the coaster’s 85-foot-high peak by the Rev. Cliff Herring, a card-carrying member of the American Coaster Enthusiasts.

“Going up the first ascent, Cliff is going to say the vows, and then we’re going to hit the first drop and scream ‘I do!'” said Muroff, a painters’ union employee who planned the wild ride with Meyer when they got engaged in 2004.

Nearly 100 friends and family members will join the thrill-seeking couple on the platform of the 80-year-old wooden coaster before actually riding it to the top.

Meyer and Muroff plan to read individualized vows during the one-minute, 50-second ride, but said they would take as many rides as it takes to accommodate each of their guests.

“We were concerned that we wanted to have something that wasn’t too tacky,” admitted Meyer, a welder who said he and Muroff initially investigated a wedding on the beach. “But to us, tacky is chandeliers and mirrors in wedding halls.”

Just save the ring exchange for afterwards . . .

Location Scout: The Cyclone.

I Know — That Inner Circle Song Has Been Haunting Me Since The Early ’90s, Too

If you see something, beat it senseless until it gives up the goods, then beat it some more:

Silva Natividad, 54, yesterday credited the TV show “COPS” for spurring her to tackle Jonathan Burkes on First Avenue near 38th Street at noon Monday.

“He grabbed my money and pushed me,” she said. “But I didn’t fall. I got a grip on myself.”

Natividad said Burkes tried to take off with the cash, but “you know how in ‘COPS,’ when they jump on the person before they run away? That’s what I did.”

. . .

“My money was . . . in his hand. I started banging his fist against the concrete until he let it go.”

Natividad said she put the money in her purse, then “kept hitting him and hitting him. I must have lost my mind.”

Burkes finally broke free and ran across the street, but his incensed victim was hot on his tail, and she caught and tackled him again.

She called 911 and told the dispatcher, “If you don’t come and get this guy I’m going to kill him.”

Don’t Limit My Leaving Brooklyn Signs To Just One Group Of People!

Maybe he’ll change the “Oy Vey You’re Leaving Brooklyn” and “Fuhgeddaboudit” signs to include some snappy Sonny Carson quotes once he becomes Borough President:

The race for the presidency of Brooklyn is off to an early start with City Council Member Charles Barron, a former Black Panther, officially announcing his candidacy yesterday by promising to represent all Brooklyn residents, but “take care of black folk.”

Mr. Barron said he is unapologetic about his plan to address the needs of black residents in Brooklyn. Speaking in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall surrounded by supporters, he said Brooklyn needs more affordable housing and jobs, as well as someone to stand up to developers trying to use eminent domain to secure land. He also called for an end to mayoral control of the city’s schools.

He argued that his platform would benefit white residents as well, because “when I take care of black folk, that’s going to impact you,” he said.

Mr. Barron, currently embroiled in a fight with Speaker Christine Quinn over the firing of his chief of staff, Viola Plummer, is famous at City Hall for utilizing racial rhetoric in his political battles.

. . .

While announcing his candidacy yesterday, he responded — without prompting — to critics who say he focuses too much on race.

“You ain’t heard enough yet,” he said. “Because I’m going to keep talking about it.”

The Reverend Al Sharpton spoke at the rally, saying he will work churches, subway stops, streets, and housing projects to ensure Mr. Barron is the first black president of Brooklyn. He also praised the candidate for defending Plummer.

I Won’t Tell No One Your Name!

At least one community board is cutting back on one of its most important duties:

Brooklyn Heights’ community board, citing a rash of requests, is poised to make it tougher to co-name streets after everyday people.

At a meeting last month, Community Board 2’s transportation committee voted unanimously in favor of new application criteria: Co-naming requests will only be accepted three years after the person’s death and the board will review name changes every five years.

Committee Chairman John Dew said that in recent years, the board has received too many demands to co-name streets for people whose impact on the community seemed limited.

“There is a sense that it has gotten out of hand,” said Dew, during the June 19 meeting at St. Francis College on Remsen (and, for now, only Remsen) Street. “We get so many names (of people) that people don’t know.”

The board gets around 10 applications a year, up from just one or two a year, according to Dew.

Last year, 127 streets were co-named in the five boroughs and 29 of them were in Brooklyn, according to the City Council.

District Manager Rob Perris called the proposed three-year waiting time a “cooling period for the emotions” that could allow applicants to really think their decision through.

. . .

Relatives of the deceased can be taken aback by refusals, added Perris. “Co-naming is a very emotional issue,” he said.

It’s also expensive and time-consuming. The signs themselves cost $58 to make, according to a DOT spokesperson. But there’s thousands of dollars in hidden labor costs on the day of the street co-naming ceremony.

Thank God For Pizza Slices And Chinese Takeout

The ironic thing about the Amazing Technology That Is The Internet is that the basis for it is remarkably low-tech:

Daniel Rayas moved to New York in January from El Paso, Texas, to care for his newborn granddaughter, Eva Lucia. But he needed a job to pay his room and board, one flexible enough to allow for daily diaper-changing duty.

The unlikely solution: collecting take-out menus.

Allmenus.com, an online yellow pages for restaurants, sent him on a quest to reel in menus from eateries across the New York metropolitan area. Four months and one worn out pair of boots later, Rayas has snapped up 10,000 take-out menus.

“My motto is ‘No menu left behind,'” said Rayas, 55, who gets paid $2 for each menu.

It all began one March morning when baby Eva was taking a nap. Rayas — an accountant by trade who worked demolition in El Paso before his move east — was crunching numbers part time for a law firm to pay his rent. But it wasn’t enough. He answered a Craigslist ad: “Earn Money by Collecting Menus.” He sent an e-mail and thought it would go unanswered.

“But the same day I got a response that said, ‘Get started.'”

So Rayas set out from his Washington Heights home in his brand new rust-colored High Sierra boots.

He walked down Broadway. Then he walked up and down Amsterdam Avenue, St. Nicholas Avenue, Audubon Avenue and Fort Washington Avenue. “All the numbered streets, too,” Rayas said.

By the end of the day, blisters covered his toes and he limped into a Rite Aid on 125th Street to buy a box of Band-Aids. “I leaned against the wall, took off my socks, popped the blisters and taped up my toes,” Rayas said. “Man, it felt good.”

Months later, he knows to tape up his feet, tighten his shoelaces and check Google Maps before setting out on his evening and weekend menu hunts, which at his current pace would net him about $60,000 a year. His subway and bus maps are covered with yellow and pink highlighter markings, his legs no longer get sore, and he’s lost 20 pounds. Meanwhile, his boss started calling him “the vacuum” for his astounding proficiency in bringing in menus.

. . .

“Chinese people believe in menus,” he said. “Jamaicans don’t. I ask, ‘Do you have a menu?’ They point to the wall.”

Rayas is grateful he’s no longer knocking down walls and hauling bricks. And he’s grateful to the pizza parlors and Chinese restaurants that have given him menus. “Whenever you don’t think there’s a restaurant around the corner, there’s always a pizza parlor and always a Chinese restaurant,” he said.