Leading Economic Indicators: If You Can’t Beat Craigslist, One-Up Them By Integrating Erotic Services Into Your Content

Many of New York’s weeklies have stopped printing sex ads but at least one is now embracing the content:

Many city magazines court singles and sex-related advertising. Time Out New York has decided to make it part of its editorial content.

The magazine, a weekly better known for its exhaustive cultural and restaurant listings, introduced a “Sex and Dating” section in early July. Along with articles on finding strippers and getting checked for sexually transmitted diseases, it features photos of local singles in the hunt, with e-mail contact information.

“I want sex and dating to be another brand for us, just like we cover theater, music, film and museums,” said Michael Freidson, who became editor in chief of the magazine in February 2008. “But I don”t want it to be the dominant category.”

Still, “[n]ot everyone who opens the magazine to find a movie to go to wants to find a photo of a veterinarian posing nude with his cats” . . .

Things I’d Rather Not Know About Include . . .

. . . the idea that pedicab drivers are getting payola in the form of lap dances:

A Midtown strip club has made raunchy rickshaws out of the three-wheeled rides — and management is plying the three-wheeler drivers with free meals and private tours to help promote the hot spot.

In the latest move in its ongoing ad campaign, Rick’s Cabaret has outfitted at least 50 pedicabs with its posters.

Club owners have asked drivers to hand out free passes and are giving them firsthand knowledge of the club’s offerings.

“The drivers always ask when the next ‘orientation’ will be,” said a taxi driver.

Sarcasm And Bitterness Are Symptoms Of A Populace That Is Beaten Down

First Haberman, now Patrice O’Shaughnessy:

Yes, 10 years from now, we’ll be looking back at former Mayor Bloomberg’s absurd remaking of a city of unique character to one big homogenized mall, where the tourists feel right at home because it is exactly the same as their hometown.

Oh, wait. Bloomberg will probably still be in office, trying to close off E. Tremont Ave. to all but tourists in horse-drawn carriages.

Let’s get it all out now before it starts eating away at us later . . .

Leading Economic Indicators: Unorthodox Event Spaces

Why stop at Bryant Park, the West 4th Street Courts or Central Park? Every city property should be rented out for events large and small:

A wealthy inmate was allowed to host a lavish bar mitzvah behind bars for his son at the downtown lockup known as the Tombs, The Post has learned.

The proud papa, Tuvia Stern, is a financial-scam artist who jumped bail and spent nearly 20 years on the lam.

City Correction Department officials permitted him to use his own caterer, who supplied kosher food, china, forks — and knives — for about 60 guests who partied and danced the hora for six hours in the jailhouse gym.

Stern’s family and friends were allowed to keep their cellphones — normally a huge security no-no. And Stern was given the OK to dress in clothing appropriate for the occasion.

The guest list at the jail included several prominent rabbis as well as Yaakov Shwekey, a popular Orthodox singer, and a band.

The city threw in its own present — overtime pay for the correction officers staffing the soiree.

The Dec. 30 bash was so successful that jailbird Stern chose the same venue four months later for his daughter Breindy’s engagement party for 10 family members, sources said.

Shame-faced Correction officials yesterday quietly disciplined five top employees, including a rabbi and an imam, for signing off on the bar mitzvah.

“I’ve never seen, in my career, anything as stupid as this,” said a Department of Correction insider about the bar mitzvah, which was permitted over the objections of at least one jail official. “It’s outrageous what transpired.”

Creating Good Jobs By Investing In Our Workforce And Leveraging City Economic Development Assistance To The Creation Of Quality Jobs

Questions . . . 1) What is the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City if not a slush fund for city employees to work on city officials’ under-the-radar pet projects? 1a) Followup: Why is this somehow OK? 1b) Followup: How many of these initiatives would be mistaken by the average person, applying contemporary community standards, as a stealth form of campaigning? 2) Why does New York City need another tour company operator? 2a) Followup: And why is this entity undercutting the private sector by using its massive organization and brand to edge out its competition? 3) Do we really need the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting making podcasts? 3a) Followup: Don’t they have enough to do by issuing all those permits? 4) Is New York City in danger of losing its tourism or something? 4a) Followup: Why is the City so desperate to promote itself like it’s some dusty Route 66 relic between Albuquerque and Vegas? I don’t know that there are answers to all these questions, but here’s a place to start:

If Cathy Epstein had been drinking a beverage when she saw a report about City Hall’s latest tourism promotion, the double-take she did probably would have been a spit-take.

Ms. Epstein is the director of marketing for On Location Tours, a company that has been selling tours of movie and television show locations in and around New York City for 10 years. On Monday, the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting started giving away audio tours of some of the same locations on its Web site.

The agency’s initiative upset some tour operators, who complained that it could cut into their already shrinking business. Rather than offer an alternative to their services, they said, city officials should be supporting them, especially during a severe recession.

. . .

She said nobody from the city government had contacted her company, which is a dues-paying member of the city’s tourism marketing agency, NYC & Company, about the podcasts. She said she and her colleagues wondered how much farther the film office planned to go with the audio tours, especially because On Location offers a walking tour of locations in Central Park.

Katherine Oliver, the commissioner of the film office, which helps arrange filming at city locations, declined to be interviewed about the podcasts. A spokeswoman said the office spent $23,000 on the podcasts, all of which came through private donations to the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City.