Compost A Shark? Who Knew?

Three sightings makes a trend:

Sunbathers found a shark on Staten Island’s South Beach yesterday — a dead, blue-eyed beastie no more than 2 feet long.

The silver-skinned, dorsal-finned sand shark was no man-eater, but it fascinated beach-goers who found it floating near the northernmost end of the beach.

Victoria Torello of Prince’s Bay and Maria Sciabica of Grasmere called the city Parks Department in order to save the shark from becoming poked at and picked apart by seagulls and curious beachfolk. Parks scooped the animal into a black plastic bag and took it away, most likely to be trashed or composted.

“We just felt bad for it,” said Ms. Sciabica. “It’s God’s creature.”

Sand sharks are fairly prevalent in the New York Bay, according to marine environmentalist Jim Scarcella of the Natural Resources Protective Association, who occasionally sees them pulled up on fishing lines off the Ocean Breeze pier.

“They’re becoming more and more common because of changes in the ecosystem,” he said, noting that the scavengers will slither into shallow waters when food becomes scarce further in.

“The good news,” he added, “is that they pose absolutely no risk to bathers or swimmers.”

Another 2-foot sand shark, a live one, washed up at Coney Island over Labor Day weekend, prompting a lifeguard there to rescue it from the blows of frightened swimmers and coax it back to sea.

A 5-foot thresher shark also scared beachgoers at Rockaway Beach in Queens that weekend: A greater threat, because the thresher is known to be more aggressive, Scarcella said.

Excuse Me, Sir — What Time Will The 3:10 To St. George Arrive?

I don’t know — ask the fancy new electronic doodad:

A Staten Island City councilman has earmarked half-a-million dollars to install a device that would indicate arrival times for a train that is almost always punctual.

While South Shore Republican Vincent Ignizio calls his plan good customer service, a handful of commuters call it a waste of valuable tax dollars.

Ignizio has set aside $500,000 of his fiscal 2008 capital budget for the plan, which he assured will improve the morning commute for riders who often end up running in heels and business suits to catch a departing Staten Island Railway train.

“It’s all about ensuring that people have a better commute and one they’re more informed about. It’s arming them with info,” Ignizio said. “The point is you can look up, see the train’s coming, see if you have time to grab a cup of coffee, a bagel, in real time.”

The city only has a time-tracking device for one subway line, the L line, but the equipment is still undergoing tests. Ignizio said the technology eventually will be installed throughout the city and his plan would ensure the Island does not lag behind.

Still, a handful of South Shore commuters at the Eltingville station criticized Ignizio’s proposal as a waste of valuable tax dollars, since the rail is routinely on time.

The agency that runs it, New York City Transit, boasts 98.6 percent punctuality, according to its most recent statistics.

. . .

. . . Billy Shott of Great Kills, doubted the device’s practicality.

“The schedules are right there,” he said, waving toward the timetable encased in plastic at the platform entrance. “I think that’s a waste of money, and it’s just something the kids are going to break.”

. . .

To be sure, Ignizio acknowledged the reliability of the rail, as well as the availability of schedules posted in the stations.

But the councilman defended his plan as a guarantee the Island would not be overlooked in the future.

“This technology is going to be unveiled system wide within the constraints of budget funding and in priority order,” Ignizio said. “I don’t want Staten Island to be last on the list, so I put my money where my mouth is.”

A Priceless Addition To The Waterfront

The ProLogical end result to Staten Island’s NASCAR failure:

Concerns about race weekend traffic drove the NASCAR debate and ultimately killed a deal to build an 82,500-seat track on the edge of Bloomfield.

But those very same worries — this time over truck traffic, not eager Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans — will likely accompany a plan to build a large industrial park there.

And the entertainment value is nil.

International Speedway Corp. confirmed yesterday that it had reached a preliminary agreement to sell its land to ProLogis, the world’s largest developer of distribution warehouses — places that are also magnets for trucks.

Unlike the proposed NASCAR track, however, an industrial park is permitted under the site zoning and does not need City Council approval, something that proved elusive for NASCAR.

A spokesman for ProLogis, the publicly traded Denver-based Fortune 1000 company, said it had reached a preliminary agreement with ISC to acquire the 676-acre site in Bloomfield. The transaction is expected to close by year’s end.

. . .

The feared flood of fans on race weekends will be replaced by a steady stream of trucks to the site, minus the fun and brand-name sponsorships. Former Borough President Guy Molinari, who once worked as a lobbyist for the racetrack proposal, stopped short yesterday of saying, “I told you so.”

“You could have wound up with something very, very nice that would have endeared us to the rest of the world,” he contended of the failed NASCAR proposal. “They would have heard about us on Staten Island, and the image would have been improved by NASCAR coming to our shores.”

Molinari recalled that when ISC executives warned the community that if the track did not get built, the site would be used for industrial purposes, they were accused of strongarm tactics.

At the time, ISC officials estimated that as many as 2,200 trucks each day could traverse borough highways if the site was used for industrial purposes. An ominous ISC slide presentation showed smokestacks looming behind a line of trucks, and ISC claimed that three race weekends a year was preferable to the alternative. That prompted some lawmakers at the time to accuse the company of making threats to get support for a track.

“We didn’t aim to be threatening. We just aimed to set the facts out. I’m not surprised,” Molinari said yesterday of the ProLogis deal.

Earlier: Container Ships Are Exciting, But They Sure Don’t Go Vroom Like A NASCAR Track.

Container Ships Are Exciting, But They Sure Don’t Go Vroom Like A NASCAR Track

Staten Island goes from maybe getting an exciting new NASCAR track to a boring old shipping port:

International Speedway Corp. has selected a buyer for its former NASCAR site in Bloomfield, where plans for an 82,500-seat race track hit a dead-end late last year.

ISC is expected in the next few weeks to name the purchaser — one of three top bidders for the 676-acre property located next to the Goethals Bridge.

Potential buyers included two large real estate development companies and an international shipping firm, with bids for the barren, industrial waterfront property ranging from $90 and $110 million, one source said.

The likely pick is a development firm that will use the land for warehousing and water-related uses in line with the site’s manufacturing zoning.

. . .

In recent months, the real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield has marketed the property in privately circulated materials as an ideal spot for warehousing and distribution, calling it the “Staten Island Logistics Center, Port of New York” and “largest contiguous waterfront and port related distribution site in the New York Metropolitan area.”

“All three [bidders] are focused on the port aspect of the property,” one source said recently.

. . .

Almost 100 million tons of cargo flowed into New York and New Jersey shipping terminals in 2004, a 27 percent spike from 2000. The industry here employs thousands and generates close to $1 billion to the local economy, experts have said.

And most agree that building homes would be nearly impossible on the former NASCAR site, where ISC is still cleaning up toxic soil from the oil tank farm that was once there.

On The One Hand You Have Fort Wadsworth And A Couple Of Boring Guys Taking You To A Few Museums, On The Other Hand You Have Fort Wadsworth And A Bridezilla Stuck On The SIE

The forgotten borough gets PBSed:

The history and culture of Staten Island — from Dutch settlement to Denino’s pizza — will be the subject of an hour-long Thirteen/WNET documentary to air during the station’s pledge drive in early December.

Co-hosts David Hartman and historian Barry Lewis reunited for “A Walk Through Staten Island,” the latest in an acclaimed PBS series that has featured 10 other walking tours of various sections of New York and New Jersey over the past decade.

Filming ended yesterday.

. . .

The documentary will begin with a ferry ride, the starting point that Islanders have long lamented is also the ending point for tourists who don’t go on to see the rest of Richmond County.

Hartman and Lewis disembark to explore Borough Hall and the Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George; the Conference House in Tottenville; the Greenbelt; the Alice Austen House, Sandy Ground and the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum; the Sea View Hospital Historic District; the Seguine Mansion; the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art; Historic Richmond Town; the 9/11 “Postcards” Memorial; Fort Wadsworth, and Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Livingston.

Then you can tune into something a little less fancified:

The path to the altar isn’t all bell chimes and roses — least of all for the brides in distress typically showcased on WE-TV’s “Bridezillas.”

The reality show that has a crazed bride decapitating an ice swan during its opening credits will feature one of Staten Island’s very own tomorrow night.

As we’d expect, the South Shore’s former Suzanne Montijo and her high-school sweetheart, Justin Stadler, face a dramatic string of premarital hurdles: A dress that might not fit; a hairdo that may not pass muster with mom, and — in true Staten Island style — traffic halting the church-bound bride along the Staten Island Expressway.

To add further drama, the bride-to-be vowed she wouldn’t go through with the wedding if she failed to pass the New York state bar exam, and the official results came in the mail just hours before the nuptials.

. . .

Island sites to spot on the show include Mrs. Stadler’s former block in Rossville; Arthur von Briesen Park, Fort Wadsworth; St. Thomas the Apostle R.C. Church, Pleasant Plains, and the Hilton Garden Inn, Bloomfield. All that, and Justin Stadler receiving a facial.

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