Obama And Rick Warren . . . And Now This?

Mormons on the Upper East Side, now evangelicals in Midtown:

Out of the myriad and random tenants that fill the Empire State Building, there is one that seems both perfectly situated, yet jarringly out of place.

It is the King’s College, an evangelical Christian school that is all but hidden in plain sight, occupying three of the building’s floors — two of them subterranean — since 1999. On the one hand, it seems apt that a school claiming close adherence to God’s word would occupy New York’s tallest skyscraper.

On the other hand, most of the college’s 258 students are politically and economically conservative, opposed to abortion and generally against gay marriage, drunkenness and premarital sex. The polar opposites, in other words, of the kind of boozing, godless, kick-up-your-heels, bed-hopping liberals that Manhattan supposedly draws.

Which raises a question: What is an evangelical Christian college doing in the middle of New York?

Location Scout: Empire State Building.

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.”

The 21st Century Flaneur* . . .

. . . is a New Yorker writer with a bicycle:

The Greenway is especially well suited to bicyclists, who, if they are moderately fit and don’t blow a tire on a broken apricot-brandy bottle, can cover the entire distance in a single leisurely morning or afternoon. Biking the Manhattan shoreline turns the city inside out, and gives the cyclist firsthand answers to questions that often stump even lifelong residents, such as: are there any decent places in Manhattan to go rock climbing, and what the heck do they keep under the Henry Hudson Parkway? Perhaps you yourself rode the Greenway on a recent, spectacular Friday afternoon, beginning and ending at the Battery, where, when you started, a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat was baiting a fishhook with a half-dollar-size crab, which he had selected from a joint-compound bucket at his feet.

*Fuck the circumflex — pour it into my hand!

Wait Around Long Enough And Everything Becomes A Landmark

Wow, the much maligned “Superblock” of the 1960s gets landmark designation in Greenwich Village:

Three towers that have dominated the Greenwich Village skyline for 40 years were given historic landmark status yesterday — a move that will make it harder for the property owner, New York University, to expand on the site.