. . . Each Soul Is Part And Parcel Of The Quality Of Godhead, Emphasis On Parcel

How contentious is Manhattan real estate? Just look what it does to even Hare Krishnas:

It was supposed to be a spiritual place free from anxiety, but the Hare Krishnas’ East Village Sanctuary has become the target of an ugly legal battle between two groups of devotees.

Last month, one group of Hare Krishnas who claim they make up the legal board of directors in charge of the building served eviction notices to other Hare Krishnas who say their building has been “hijacked” by outsiders who never worked for the place or belonged to their organization.

“It’s like you invite guests into your home and they start taking over your kitchen and locking you out of your bedroom,” said Sachit Hariyogam, 41, who faces eviction along with his two brothers, two cousins and his sister-in-law.

A splinter sect of the Hare Krishnas called the Interfaith League of Devotees founded the Sanctuary in 1998. Led by their guru Kirtanananda Swami, Interfaith devotees raised funds to purchase a six-floor warehouse building at 25 First Ave. for $500,000 and turn it into a temple and living space with a vegetarian restaurant on the ground floor.

Hariyogam and his family have been Interfaith members for most of their lives. They say they joined an Interfaith Hare Krishna temple in Malaysia as teenagers, and after raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to help establish Sanctuary, they were invited to America to work in the Sanctuary restaurant in exchange for free room and board and $50 per week.

Four out of the five alleged Interfaith board of directors, in contrast, became involved with Sanctuary only about two years ago. They belong to another Hare Krishna sect, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON.

ISKCON excommunicated Kirtan­an­anda Swami in 1986 after the guru was charged with child molestation, conspiracy to murder and racketeering. But after serving eight years in federal prison for racketeering, the guru let bygones be bygones and invited ISKCON devotees into his building as paying guests.

. . .

Now the so-called “Interfaith League of Devotees Landlord” has served a 30-day notice demanding that Hariyogam and his family move out by July 31. And Interfaith’s lawyers filed a complaint in State Supreme Court in early June charging that commercial and residential leases signed by Hariyogam’s cousin, Nark Palliandy, are not valid.

Pleasure Principal

I know I’ve started to think about leaving tonight although nothing seems right:

A rental car drought in Manhattan could leave many New Yorkers stranded in the city or forced to rely on mass transit to travel to the Hamptons and the New Jersey shore this summer.

With car-less New Yorkers relying on rentals for weekend escapes in record numbers, demand for rental cars in Manhattan is expected to reach an all-time high this summer, industry insiders said.

That demand, coupled with a static supply of vehicles, is driving up the cost of renting a car. Prices are up more than 10% versus last summer and are expected to rise higher.

. . .

Industry experts say the cost of buying a new car for a rental company is about 40% higher than it was three years ago. The increased cost is creating a de facto cap on the number of available cars, and trickling down into the bills customers pay when they plunk down their credit cards at parking garages.

Some sedans in Manhattan cost $255 a day to rent on weekends. That includes a hefty 13% tax levied on rental cars in New York. For drivers under the age of 25, who are charged extra to rent, rates can jump to almost $320 a day for some vehicles. Dropping a car off in a different city can add another $50 to the price tag.

You Are All Travis Bickle Now

Thirty-something born-and-raised Manhattanites wear subway molestation like a badge of honor:

The rest of the country thought we were goners, collapsed in a sputter of crime, crack and fiscal disaster. There were landlords burning down their buildings — you couldn’t give ’em away! Hookers hanging out on 83rd and Broadway — right near Zabar’s!

But you know what? We liked it.

The dog shit was piled so high in the streets you needed a mountain ax just to traverse the sidewalk — but we liked it. The buildings were so blackened by grime you could barely see them in the dark — but we liked it. The subways were so dangerous you felt you were descending into Hell — and we liked it, we loved it, hallelujah!

For a certain generation of New Yorker — a generation that came of age at the city’s economic nadir, but also in the glory days of Bella Abzug, checker cabs and CBGB — this city of yore seems as perversely lovable as some long-lost episode of The Magic Garden.

“It seems kind of weird to say that one would be nostalgic for times when you were scared to get mugged going out at night and riding the subways was taking your life on your hands,” said Dalton Conley, 37, an Alphabet City kid turned New York University sociology professor, who memorialized his childhood in the book Honky. “Yet I think there is something that’s lost.

“The old New York is kind of like an old spouse that you just complained about the whole time,” he said, “but then, when it’s gone, you realize you loved him or her.”

New York has always been a breeding ground for nostalgia; constant change will do that to a place. But sometime in the last few years, between the outlawing of the squeegee men, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the coronation of Michael Bloomberg, this sentiment has been particularly overwhelming to those natives who took their first bite of chocolate at Barton’s Candy on West 86th Street in 1974 (now a Gap), bought their first Duran Duran album at West Side Records on Broadway, or perhaps got their first human biology lesson from some random guy in a trench coat.

But between the born-and-raised (read: “never-been-west-of-Newark-Airport”) New Yorker and the new New Yorker — “the kind who has just moved to Manhattan with dreams of dinner at Per Se and dancing at Bungalow 8” — exists a truly pernicious third group who moved to the city as adults in the bad old days and now bemoan the departure of treasured institutions like, say, Western Beef. To these people we say “Move along, gramps! It’s twenty and out for you!”

Twenty And Out, we’re certainly impressed by you still only paying three figures for a West Village apartment. That must feel good each month! But we also look at it this way — you live on an island that is well on its way to becoming the modern equivalent of Bruges. And even if we could afford anything south of 191st Street, we certainly couldn’t afford the price of, I don’t know, toilet paper at your local bodega.

So yeah, it’d be a blast to live in “Tribeca” or the “West Village” or “Alphabet City” or “SoHo” (oh those great historical names!) but when you think about it, Flushing is kind of far from there, no?

And let’s be clear — “Twenty and out” should apply to all transplants (god help me if I ever start pining for the glory days before Queens had guidebooks). The real problem could be that New York City is just way too fetishized, in which case everyone should just get over it and finally move to Philadelphia. Besides, I hear they still have a big violent crime problem*!

*This could become the great anti-statistic for upper-middle class thrill seekers!

Not So Much The Fact That There’s A Mountain Bike Trail In Manhattan As The Idea That There’s A New York City Mountain Bike Association

The Chamber of Commerce soon will abandon the phrase “I can’t believe this is New York City” for “Of course this is New York City”:

Manhattan is small, flat and crowded with cars and concrete — but it still has room for a new 3-mile mountain-biking trail.

“On the face of it, it sounds preposterous,” admitted city Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “But we really do have it, and it takes advantage of the terrain that was always there.”

The Fort George Hill Trails wind through a hilly, remote section of Highbridge Park in Inwood where crooks once dumped stolen cars and parkgoers feared to tread.

“It’s probably the only mountain-bike course in the country you can get to by subway,” Benepe said.

The Parks Department offered to turn the area into a biking trail because it couldn’t do much else with the land — and because rogue bikers were tearing up other hilly northern Manhattan parks in pursuit of muddy, high-energy thrills.

After 18 months of work, a $100,000 state grant and lots of discussions with city lawyers to limit the liability risks, the trail officially opens Saturday — with areas for BMX jumpers, casual riders and hard-core experts.

“It’s pretty impressive for mountain biking in the middle of New York City,” said Jamie Bogner of the New York City Mountain Bike Association, which helped plan and build the paths. “We look for the longest way from point A to point B, with every technical obstacle we can find.”

Maybe If You Don’t Mind Picking Up Some Bubba Gump Merchandise For Me On Your Way To The Subway . . .

If you felt like being cruel by sending someone on an errand in Manhattan, we suggest doing it on what might be the single most crowded hour of the year:

Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance business improvement district, has a convincing answer. He puts the most crowded time at 5 to 6 p.m. on the Wednesday after Christmas, which will be Dec. 26 this year.

“You have, on the one hand, all the tourists who are here,” he said in an e-mail message. “Then you have people who have left the matinee and people who are coming to evening shows and eating dinner before or after the shows.” Add the commuters who are still pouring out of offices, along with people returning gifts or using their gift cards.

Finally, Times Square attracts onlookers curious to see where the New Year’s Eve ball will be dropped — if not the heartiest of revelers intent on camping out there for five days.