Dude, You’re Standing In The Middle Of Times Square In A Big Fuzzy Red Suit

Of course people are going to want to take pictures:

The dirty and creepy character demanded money from people and, when he didn’t get it, swore and jostled them.

“No picture. No picture. You have to tip Elmo. You have to tip Elmo or Elmo gets angry,” the imposter shouted as he stuck a filthy red paw over a Texas tourist’s camera lens.

“What the hell, Elmo? Keep your hands to yourself,” shouted Victoria Vought, 47, pulling away.

Wide-eyed at the loud to-do, Vought’s son, Dylan, 4, asked, “What’s wrong with Elmo, Mommy?”

“That’s not the real Elmo. That’s a bad Elmo,” she quickly explained.

Leading Economic Indicators: Packing ‘Em In Like It’s A College Dorm

Tishman Speyer’s Stuyvesant Town resembles dorm now that leasing agents make it easier to convert one-bedroom apartments into two-bedroom dwellings:

A young, chirpy brunette showed us a model one-bedroom apartment that had a pressurized wall built in the living room so it could comfortably work as a two-bedroom. The unit had recently undergone luxury upgrades such as granite countertops, new appliances, posh lighting fixtures, a renovated bathroom and brand-new air conditioners. Even with the wall, the living room and both bedrooms were considerably larger and nicer than any apartment we had seen through Craigslist. We would have both a trendy East Village address and be surrounded by trees, green lawns, street hockey and basketball courts. It was the perfect surrounding to sit and study or play Wiffle Ball. Stuy Town felt like the college campus that NYU could never deliver.

Tap Those Tracks, Then Tax Them

The $170 million High Line project is a great way to raise property values, so it makes sense to find new ways to pay for all those thin wooden planks that will surely have to be replaced sooner rather than later:

Facing crowds that are much larger than expected and with the recession putting a crimp in fund-raising, the High Line’s founders are proposing a business improvement district that would tax nearby property owners.

“We want to make sure we can keep maintaining the High Line to this level that has worked so well,” said Friends of the High Line co-founder Robert Hammond. “We’ve been talking about it for a while, but now it’s becoming more of a necessity.”

Hammond said that weekend crowds have averaged 20,000 visitors a day, while weekdays typically draw between 6,000 and 10,000 visitors — about four times as many as predicted before the park’s opening on June 9.

With the added crowds have come higher maintenance costs, Hammond said.

. . .

A business improvement district would raise about $1 million a year, leaving Friends of the High Line to come up with the balance from donations and fund-raisers.

The annual fee for the owner of a 1,000-square-foot apartment would range from $30 to $90, depending on where they live.

“When we were planning the park, we didn’t know we’d be in the middle of a recession when it opened,” Hammond said, adding that the group has raised enough money to be able to keep up with the costs for the next year.

Do you ever wonder why the city took such an interest in a 15-foot-wide $170 million project? I do, too.

Location Scout: High Line.

What Would Tyler Durden Do?

I don’t know, but I doubt it would involve setting off firecrackers in front of Starbucks, as is alleged:

When a homemade bomb constructed from fireworks explosives, a plastic bottle and electrical tape was set off outside a Starbucks coffee shop on the Upper East Side early on May 25, the police initially thought the explosion might be linked to three others with similar profiles.

But on Wednesday, after the arrest of a Chelsea teenager in the Starbucks attack, the police said there was no connection between that attack and the three others. Instead, the Starbucks bomber had his own agenda, the police said: to emulate the assaults on corporate America planned by a character in the movie “Fight Club.”

The teenager, Kyle Shaw, 17, was arrested Tuesday night and charged with first-degree arson and first-degree criminal possession of a weapon, the authorities said.

“His statements indicated he was launching his own ‘Project Mayhem,’ ” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said at a news conference on Wednesday, referring to a plan hatched by the protagonist of “Fight Club,” played by Brad Pitt, to sabotage corporations by destroying property. Mr. Shaw had told a friend to “watch the news on Memorial Day,” May 25, Mr. Kelly said.

. . .

Mr. Shaw’s affinity for “Fight Club” was well known.

“He saw the movie and he read the book,” Mr. Lewis said. “He wanted to watch the movie in our English class in the 11th grade. We were discussing existentialism in class, and he suggested we watch the movie as an example. We ended up watching ‘I Heart Huckabees.’ “

Fight The Power That Bee

So many salient details in such a short story — which one do you focus on? Is it A) That honeybees are back? B) That they’re taking over the Upper East Side? C) That the police department has a beekeeper? or D) That the story comes out suspiciously close to a bill being floated by the Council to legalize beekeeping? Mind reels:

Some 8,000 to 10,000 honeybees had surreptitiously moved into the neighborhood sometime in the past month and managed to build a giant hive in a tree between 80th and 81st streets without anyone noticing.

The queen decided to bust out at around 4 p.m., and flew south for a half-block before returning home.

She was followed dutifully on her outing by all of her subjects.

“It was a three foot column of bees,” said Doug Becker, 40.

Police Officer Anthony Planakis, the NYPD’s resident beekeeper for 30 years, said it was “one of the biggest swarms I’ve ever seen.”

He took all the bees into custody as a crowd of onlookers applauded, and said he’d bring them “to a farm in Connecticut to pollinate.”

This bees got loose only days after a swarm of amateur beekeepers buzzed around City Hall in support of a bill to legalize their hobby.