Next, An MFA In Dioramas And A Certificate Of Fake Fur

Order your American Museum of Natural History fraternity paddle:

The American Museum of Natural History, which plays host to about 400,000 schoolchildren each year, is about to become a graduate school.

The New York State Board of Regents yesterday authorized the museum, on the West Side of Manhattan, to grant master’s degrees and Ph.D.’s in comparative biology, making it the first American museum with its own doctoral degree.

It expects to recruit students next year and enroll its first class in 2008.

. . .

Johanna Duncan-Poitier, deputy commissioner for higher education in New York State, said the museum was already “one of the world’s foremost centers of research and training in the natural sciences, the physical sciences and anthropology,” and clearly met state standards for doctoral-granting institutions.

About 30 students a year already conduct doctoral research at the museum through partnerships with Columbia, Cornell, New York University and the City University of New York. Its staff includes more than 200 scientists, some of whom will become the school’s faculty.

The program plans to accept four or five students a year — reaching a total enrollment of about 20 — who will receive tuition and a stipend. It has raised more than $50 million for the program, from the Gilder Foundation, the Hess Foundation, an anonymous museum trustee and New York City. It will be named the Richard Gilder Graduate School, for Richard Gilder, an investment manager and museum trustee who is one of the school’s major donors.

Location Scout: American Museum of Natural History.

And His Community Service Should Be Picking Up Trash At Christopher Street Pier . . . Around Midnight

A gay-bashing sting operation nabs surly dickhead in Union Square:

A Brooklyn man chose the wrong targets to gay-bash when he picked on two undercover cops pretending to be snuggling paramours in Union Square Park, authorities said yesterday.

Tyrone George, 20, was arrested on hate-crime charges at around 1:15 p.m. Monday after he threatened and spat at the officers, who were in the park on the lookout for gang activity, police said.

The cops, a sergeant and a police officer assigned to the Transit Borough Manhattan Task Force, were perched on a bench like lovebirds, with the sergeant’s arm wrapped around his subordinate’s shoulder, authorities said.

George approached them, screamed that he hated “homos,” told them to get out of his park, called them “faggots” and gave the sergeant the middle finger, according to a Criminal Court complaint.

Minutes later, George circled back and continued his anti-gay rant, threatened to assault them and spat on the sergeant’s foot, authorities said.

With that, the cops arrested George, who struggled and said he didn’t want “faggots touching him,” court papers state.

Choose your own snark:

• Sure they were “pretending” . . . sure.
• Posing as a drug buyer is one thing, but snuggling with your partner — now there’s an assignment.
• When this is ripped from the headlines, perhaps Jesse L. Martin will reprise his role in Rent?

Largest Connect Four Game Ever!

While in Midtown the United Nations debated sanctions on North Korea, in the Village NYU students participated in the largest Connect Four game ever (or at least we hope the largest ever):

Each decision was crucial. Nerves were high and the pressure was on. But it wasn’t the Superbowl or the World Series — no, this was far bigger. This was Weinstein’s version of Connect Four on Saturday in which event planners taped yellow paper to the windows of Weinstein residence hall facing University Place to replicate the board.

“It was definitely not good that they came and woke me up just to hang up things in my window,” CAS freshman Michael Bliss said of the RAs preparation for the event.

The windows in between represented the empty spaces the competitors chose where to place their “pieces” — or in this case, large sheets of red or black paper. Via cell phone, the two players chose where they wanted their pieces to fall by contacting RAs on each floor who then taped the appropriate team’s square on whoever’s window it happened to be.

“In terms of doing a good job, this is the kind of stuff we should be doing more of — using our buildings in creative ways,” Weinstein’s Community Development Educator Ryan Sylvester said. “Plus, it would be cool to say we had the largest game of Connect Four ever.”

The game started last week with the elimination of 43 players. During those rounds, games were played on traditional tabletop boards. Stern freshman Tommy Wong and CAS freshman Catherine Kelso emerged as Connect Four champions, and were then given the opportunity to rake in five million points for Weinstein’s Floor Wars, should they win the building-sized version of the game.

. . .

Trying to withstand the bitter wind across the street, Wong and Kelso battled it out with intense strategy as fellow residents cheered them on.

“This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me this morning,” CAS freshman Gabriel Leinwand said.

Shh, Don’t Tell PETA . . . But It Works!

The buzz in Queens is about the new electrified subway trusses that are keeping pigeons away:

Pigeons have long plagued a stretch of Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside, making a home among the trusses and girders under the rumble and roar of the No. 7 train and leaving their mark on the sidewalk, stairs and lampposts.

After a decade of requests, New York City Transit is providing some relief in the form of low-voltage wires that give the birds a little shock.

New York City Transit, a division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, began installation of the pigeon deterrent at the 52nd Street stop of the No. 7 train in August as part of a pilot program to rid the area of the birds, and the work continues, a New York City Transit spokesman said.

. . .

The preventive measure is comprised of a flexible wire and plastic molding carrying a low voltage that gives a mild and non-lethal shock to the birds, according to the manufacturer’s Web site. The system, called Shock Track, is manufactured by Bird-B-Gone Inc. of Mission Viejo, Calif.

City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) also lobbied on behalf of the deterrent system, writing his first letter about the pigeons to the president of New York City Transit only weeks after taking office in 2002.

The Woodside location is the first site where New York City Transit has installed this system, which is considered a pilot program, Transit spokesman James Anyansi said.

. . .

Jose Sanchez, a newspapers salesman who has been working just outside the station for the past eight months, said the bird droppings still coating parts of the sidewalk had been a problem for commuters.

“It would fall on many people. It was a problem, but not so much for me,” he said.

He said the system appeared to be working: “There are fewer pigeons in the past five weeks.”

State Assemblywomen Catherine Nolan (D-Ridgewood) and Margaret Markey (D-Maspeth) lobbied the agency for a cleanup.

“I am pleased that the MTA has started to address this serious health and sanitation issue. It is a relief to know that this unsightly and unsanitary situation will soon be fixed,” Nolan said.

Second Avenue Subway Work To Begin

Believe it — work is set to begin on the Second Avenue Subway in 2008:

Phase 1 of the project calls for the construction of stations at East 96th, 86th, and 72nd streets, and a connection to existing tracks at 63rd Street.

A giant hole will be dug between 92nd and 95th streets to allow the tunnel-boring machine to launch under ground, said Mysore Nagaraja, president of MTA Capital Construction.

The Post warns, however, that if they find too many arrowheads, work will stop:

. . . [A]rchaeologists will be on hand to halt the massive tunnel-boring machine at the first sign of artifacts dating back hundreds of years . . . officials said.

A consultant hired by the MTA told the agency that there is the potential for Native American and Colonial artifacts along the route, which was once closer to the shoreline than it is today, said Amanda Sutphin of the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

“You don’t know what is there until you start digging and it can actually be tested,” Sutphin said. “The topography of Manhattan was very different back then. Hills were leveled and valleys filled in.”