Mind Your Children In And Around The Gap

If London is the New New York*, I hope they don’t start using that schoolmarmy “Mind the Gap” announcement:

Brittany Walker from Jackson, Miss., is small in stature but big on luck.

Less than an hour after she arrived in Manhattan with her family after a two-day bus trip from Mississippi, the shy 4-year-old fell into a gap between a train and a platform in Penn Station and landed on a track just inches from the deadly third rail.

The lucky part is she got out with just a few bruises and a single scratch on her right arm.

Brittany’s big scare on the Long Island Rail Road’s Track 18 played out yesterday before hundreds of rush-hour commuters, who froze with alarm as Brittany screamed “Mommy” from the dark below and her mother shrieked for help.

“My little girl was just laying down there and I couldn’t do anything,” said the mom, Terrian Walker, 28. “I was terrified. I was in total shock.”

. . .

Walker said two of her kids and six pieces of luggage already were on the 4:31 p.m. train to Long Island when she started toward the platform edge, lugging a suitcase with Brittany in front of her and her 7-year-old daughter behind.

Suddenly, the 3-foot-10, 25-pound Brittany disappeared into the gap between the train and the platform, which ranges from about 7 to 10 inches at that point.

Family friend Walter Casey, who was escorting the family to Huntington, said he immediately stretched out on the platform and stuck his arm into the gap.

“You could barely see her, but you could hear her. She was crying and yelling for her mother. I was reaching down and she was reaching up and then there was a spark.”

The 28-year-old sanitation worker from Huntington said a bolt of electricity “went through my left arm and it went numb so I had to pull back.”

He and Walker were still trying to get to the terrified tyke when police arrived, had the power cut, and, with the help of a bystander, got Brittany out about 15 minutes later.

*An odd evergreen, but a nice way to transition out of the Labor Day weekend:

It’s a city of nearly 8 million where Mayor Bloomberg owns a townhouse. Paul McCartney, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Madonna all own homes here, too. It competed to host the 2012 Olympic Games. Architects Daniel Libeskind, Norman Foster, and Richard Rogers are all working here or have recently completed buildings. Rupert Murdoch owns a big, conservative, tabloid newspaper here. The art scene is sizzling, real estate is super-pricey, and sushi-lovers can choose from at least two Nobu restaurants. The business world revolves around a big stock market and lots of new hedge funds.

The list of parallels between New York and London has always been long, but lately, with booming economies in both cities and trendy restaurants moving into old industrial neighborhoods, the two are looking more like mirror images.

Killed By Alternate-Side Parking Rules

If you were to set Six Feet Under within the five boroughs, this would become an opening sequence:

A newly married Queens woman was killed yesterday when she turned in front of an SUV as she moved her car to avoid an alternate-side parking ticket, police and friends said.

Other shows that same season include.

Dog Bites Man

You know what they say — “whoever smelt it . . .”:

A pungent smell wafted through Staten Island yesterday, alarming hundreds of residents and spurring a daylong but fruitless investigation into its source, fire officials said.

The city began receiving complaints about an odor, possibly of gas odor at 9:40 a.m., and the City Department of Environmental Protection dispatched a hazardous materials crew — 24 members in all — in search of the cause of the stench.

They combed the north and south shores of the island and the Staten Island Expressway, noses on full alert.

“There’s no machinery to detect odor — the only way to go about it is to go out there and smell it for yourself,” said Ian Michaels, a department spokesman who added jokingly that he was assigned to odor duty.

The origin of the odor, though, was an elusive one.

Health Violations Abound, Some Customers Undeterred

God willing, the lines at the Shake Shack may get a lot shorter now:

The Shake Shack in Madison Square Park — famed for stellar reviews and airport-length lines — has been hit by the city Heath Department with 15 violations that total an astounding 140 points, officials said.

A passing grade is 27 points or less.

The violations include vermin, evidence of flying insects, food-handling workers sneezing, coughing and failing to wash their hands after visiting the toilet, contamination of food and food kept too warm.

. . .

The news left diners a bit shaky.

“I don’t usually eat meat, but I decided to get a burger,” said a woman who asked not to be identified. “It’s really distressing because I know people that work for this organization, and they’re fabulous.”

“This is my third time,” said Jeemin Lee, 27, a student from Atlanta. “It’s in the park, they have good prices, and they don’t use frozen meat. But if it’s dirty, then I definitely won’t come back here.”

This, however, is just poking your finger in the 80% lean raw patty of fate:

Some customers aren’t bothered by the fuss.

“I’ll probably come back,” said frequent diner Stefanie Chinn from Manhattan. “I haven’t gotten sick yet.”

“Yet” . . .

Neighborhoods Working Hard To Outdo One Another

Which is more disturbing — a brazen hate crime in Flushing or a brazen hate crime in Gerritsen Beach which no one will talk about to the police? Perhaps the latter:

Just after 9 p.m. on June 26, four black teenagers from distant neighborhoods got lost and were biking through Gerritsen Beach’s streets, the police said, when a raucous band of white youths began chasing and threatening them, all the while shouting racist remarks. Two of the teenagers escaped, while one hid under a bush, sobbing, and a fourth, Winston Johnson, 16, was thrown off his bicycle and beaten, according to the police.

Detectives were deployed from the Hate Crimes Task Force. Neighbors were canvassed, a roadblock was set up and people were stopped and questioned. In the weeks since, eight people, ages 12 to 21, have been arrested, and most of them have been charged with hate crimes.

Parents and residents in Gerritsen Beach have been aghast and furious, insisting that their youths and young men were unjustly singled out.

But the police tell a different story. They say the people of Gerritsen Beach have turned inward and wrapped themselves in silence. Deputy Inspector Michael J. Osgood, commanding officer of the Hate Crimes Task Force, said residents of areas where other racially charged episodes occurred — in Howard Beach, Queens; Mill Basin, Brooklyn; and Great Kills, Staten Island — had readily provided the investigators with useful tips.

But the more people in Gerritsen Beach are pressed for information, Inspector Osgood said, the more they shut down.

“The people in the community are refusing to speak to the N.Y.P.D.,” Inspector Osgood said. “We’ve never had this happen before in the city of New York.”

When asked, many people in Gerritsen Beach insisted they did not hear or see anything on the night of June 26.