The Best Economic Indicator Since Housing Starts Turns Out To Be The Lincoln Town Car

Market watchers have a new economic indicator — the number of Lincoln Town Cars idling in front of banking industry offices in Lower Manhattan. And if you don’t feel like counting, the next best thing is the mood of the ornery cranks on Community Board 1:

Every community activist feels that his neighborhood has too much of something. Too many strip clubs. Too many curb cuts. Too many liquor stores. Too many warehouses. In Battery Park City, circa 2006, the problem just happens to be a little more upscale — too many Lincoln Town Cars.

Call it black-car blight.

To wit: Paul Goldstein, the district manager of the local community board, says that he regularly fields phone calls from Battery Park residents who are fed up with the unseemly sight of so many seemly vehicles.

“In the evening hours, we end up with loads of these vehicles staging all over the district,” says Goldstein. “We get complaints about them. Now that we have more and more residents in the neighborhood, they are not thrilled with these vehicles popping up everywhere.”

Linda Belfer, the chair of the community board’s Battery Park City committee, can readily tick off a list of the black-car transgressions. They double park. Triple park. Congest the streets. Run their engines. Pollute the sky. Park illegally. Block emergency vehicle routes.

. . .

Every work night, the clusters of black cars congregate at certain predictable spots, including Vesey Street (outside Merrill Lynch and American Express), Wall Street (outside Deutsche Bank), and Liberty Plaza (outside of Scotia Bank, the bank of Nova Scotia). In short, anywhere there are bankers.

As it turns out, the economy seems to be chugging along nicely:

On a recent Tuesday night, local resident Jim Vail is out walking his dogs alongside the esplanade in Battery Park City. As he strolls along the empty sidewalks, he passes a black Lincoln Town Car, idling at the curb. A few steps later, he passes another. Then another, and another.

At roughly the same time, a few hundred feet away, a Town Car pulls up in front of the Merrill Lynch headquarters on the north side of the World Financial Center. From there, the caravan of black cars stretches back down the block, past a movie theater, around a corner, past a hotel, around another corner, past the Irish Hunger Memorial, around one final corner, and past the tree where Vail’s dog has just taken a whiz.

Vail hardly seems to notice the 50 or so Town Cars, the smattering of well-tinted SUVs, and two stretch limousines. Just part of the backdrop of Battery Park City. “They could be more observant of stop signs,” says Vail. “Otherwise I don’t think they’re doing much harm.”

Ultimately, the invisible hand of the marketplace may have a greater impact on the fate of man and black car in and around the financial district than the outcry of neighbors less sanguine than Vail. In the aftermath of the ’87 stock market crash, for instance, many black-car companies simply went belly-up.

Tough Crowd . . .

How badass are community boards? The Tribeca Tribune tells the story of how Community Board 1 in Lower Manhattan recently brutally rebuffed a group of schoolchildren looking to honor an early African-American civil rights hero:

There is precious little park space on the east side of Lower Manhattan and Community Board 1 is protective of every square inch of it — from the benches and planned play space at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge to the open land way out on the southern end of Governor’s Island.

So last month when a small contingent from “uptown” came to the community board with a request to rename the recently rescued Pearl Street Park, members of the board’s Seaport/Civic Center Committees reflexively grew defensive — even if the proposal was delivered sweetly by a group of 3rd- and 4th-graders.

Students from P.S. 361, on East 12th Street, hoped to rename the park for Elizabeth Jennings, an African-American woman who in 1854 was forcibly removed from a horse-drawn bus at Pearl and Chatham Streets. The incident sparked a landmark court case more than 100 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in Montgomery, Ala.

Board members literally applauded the students’ presentation and history lesson, but were still not swayed.

“How many of you actually play in that park?” asked board member Joe Lerner.

Miriam Sicherman, the students’ teacher, explained that the class made their first visit to the park on that very day, but while they were there they collected 336 signatures on a petition in favor of renaming the park. She also produced a printout of an e-mail of support from the city’s Parks Commissioner, Adrian Benepe.

“He’s no friend of ours,” said Lerner, pointing out that the board only recently won a skirmish with the Parks Department and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation that saved the park from demolition. Officials planned to replace it with housing as part of the revitalization of Fulton Street.

Impounded Because . . . They’re Just Silly

“Party Bikes” — those big circular multi-player cycling contraptions in Times Square — have been impounded by police:

Is the party over for PartyBike? The owner of Peddle Pushers Limited, which runs a fleet of red, seven-seated giant tricycles often seen traversing Times Square, faces a bumpy ride after the Police Department impounded 14 of its 15 vehicles in the city.

Donald Domite says his company is being singled out by police. “We follow the vehicle laws. We stop at lights. No one was ever injured,” said Mr. Domite, 52, of Sayville, L.I., whose company started about two and a half years ago.

Mr. Domite said police have been issuing “ECB tickets” — a reference to the city’s Environmental Control Board — which allow them to impound the vehicles for violating the city’s vending laws. Published reports have said that Mr. Domite’s PartyBikes were drawing complaints of noise on Eighth Avenue.

Mr. Domite said the ECB violations fall under the charge of “vending without a license.” Previous summons of “disorderly conduct” have been dismissed in court, he said.

Although PartyBike has received about 250 disorderly conduct tickets, Mr. Domite said, a bicycle is allowed anywhere in New York City unless there is a sign saying “No Bicycles.” When asked if his vehicles have impeded traffic, he said, “You cannot impede traffic if you’re part of it.”

. . .

The vehicles were at first well received, Mr. Domite said, until one of his drivers had a verbal dispute with a police officer in September 2004. Tickets and impoundment since followed, he said. Mr. Domite said the police have singled him out, arresting him for loitering six months ago in Times Square. He said he spent three days in jail but the city, he said, declined prosecution at the arraignment. In October, he filed a civil action against the police and is seeking a civil rights attorney.

Some Top Law School Should Recruit These Kids

Not only did frustrated West Village residents fail to extend the curfew at the Christopher Street Pier but the Community Board 2 resolution ended up adding even more amenities for the youth that use the facility:

Village residents again called for an earlier curfew on the Christopher St. Pier. FIERCE! — the gay-youth organization — again called for a later one. But the end result was the same as reached at a community board Waterfront and Parks Committee meeting earlier this month: The curfew of the Christopher St. Pier will remain at 1 a.m. for this coming park season.

. . .

In addition to the pier’s curfew remaining 1 a.m., the resolution calls for social services and food and nonalcoholic beverage vendors to be provided on the pier; for the pier’s bathrooms to stay open till 1 a.m., instead of closing at 8 p.m., and, if feasible, for Portosan portable toilets to be made available . . .

. . .

Back in front of the meeting venue at 75 Morton St., residents grumbled over the outcome.

“Of course we’re disappointed. We wanted an earlier closing time,” said Elaine Goldman of the Christopher St. Residents and Merchants Association.

“I just think it was an insult to the community,” added Kathy Christel, president of the Far W. 10th St. Block Association.

“Now they’ve got food, more amenities [on the pier]. It’s going to escalate,” predicted Kathy Donaldson, president of the Bedford Barrow Commerce Block Association.

Backstory: The Best Defense Is A Good Offense.

“It Comes From California”

Trader Joe’s opening as reported by the Villager:

Three days after its grand opening on St. Patrick’s Day, the specialty grocery store at 142 E. 14th St. attracted more shoppers than it could handle. So 30 people had to wait outside before a Trader Joe’s employee allowed them to enter. “Are you serious — this line’s for a grocery store?” one woman hissed before joining the queue.

Inside, Trader Joe’s aisles were packed with shoppers. Employees dodged carts and baskets as they tried to restock the rapidly emptying shelves. The line for the cash registers looped around the entire store, all the way to the bread section. There, a cheerful employee dressed in a Trader Joe’s signature Hawaiian-print shirt held up a sign indicating “End of Line.”

. . .

As Monday’s crowd indicated, Trader Joe’s has its share of fans. Waiting on line for the register, a couple asked the stranger in front of them to snap a photo of them in front of their overflowing shopping cart. The man obliged as the couple grinned from ear to ear.

Vida Mulec, 25, an international affairs graduate student at New School University, exited the store, pleased with her purchases. It’s cheaper than the nearby Whole Foods Market, she said. “I got a dozen eggs for 99 cents,” she gushed.

Other first-time Trader Joe’s shoppers were less impressed with the store. “It’s not that cheap, but if it’s organic, you pay a special price for that,” Alex Brunavs said. Brunavs, a 64-year-old retiree, read about the opening of Trader Joe’s in the newspaper. “I heard it comes from California,” he said.