A Great Circle

Interesting idea — what for, I don’t know, but it sounds good:

Aside from taking a nice long swim, the only way to get from Manhattan to Staten Island without paying a toll or the Staten Island Ferry requires a route incorporating two states, three counties, five modes of transportation, three hours and a three-mile walk.

About 30 brave travelers from as far afield as Ireland, California and Pennsylvania, made such a trip yesterday as part of “Terra Incognita: The Great Circle Tour,” hosted by the Municipal Art Society (MAS).

. . .

Beginning at the World Trade Center PATH station in lower Manhattan, the group took the train to the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail. They then continued by foot with a walking tour of Bayonne, before a lunch stop and the strenuous mile-long walk across the Bayonne Bridge.

Jonathan Peters, a College of Staten Island finance professor and transportation analyst, pointed out the potential for future light rail service to connect Staten Island and Bayonne through the rail easements on either side of the bridge, built into the design by the forward-thinking architect, Othmar Ammann.

. . .

Descending the slope of the bridge on the Staten Island side, Peters reminded the group of the significance of their accomplishment.

“We did something that is actually difficult to do — we got to Staten Island without driving.”

The tour wrapped up with the final two modes of transportation as the group boarded an S44 bus to the St. George Ferry Terminal to complete the circle with a sail back to Manhattan.

When Things Are Going Really Well We Are A Cabinet Of Curiosities

The Staten Island Museum doesn’t need anything fancy like a cohesive theme:

The little museum two blocks from the Staten Island Ferry terminal, formally known as the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, is celebrating its birthday, and its status as just about the only general-interest museum left in the city, with a weirdest-hits show, an homage to the age-old notion of a museum as a cabinet of curiosities.

In the main room of the exhibition, which opened last week, a pickled star-nosed mole shares shelf space with the first blue grosbeak nestling found in New York City, a jar of squid eggs and a four-headed chicken born on a Staten Island farm in 1914. All the items are organized, Mr. Johnson said, according to a rigorous scientific principle: “People like looking at dead things in jars.”

. . .

The curved brown object that was originally labeled a musk ox horn is actually an ironstone deposit from a local cliff. The thing that looks like the innards of a baseball is a hairball from a cow’s stomach. Another horn was labeled “tusk from wild boar which I shot in Louisiana swamp but not until he had killed my dog” and signed Charles Roome Parmele. Mr. Johnson offered no information on Mr. Parmele.

Much of the exhibition is assembled from castoffs from larger museums in other boroughs. A slab rich with dinosaur fossils was trash-picked decades ago from the American Museum of Natural History by a Staten Islander who worked there, Mr. Johnson said. “He had this in his backyard for many years,” he said.

And A Special Badge Went To The Scout Who Retrieved Lance Armstrong’s Sweatpants

Pre-race clothes thoughtlessly cast off at the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge approach on the day of the New York City Marathon go to charity thanks to a civic-minded Girl Scout troop:

The Girl Scouts of Troop 5140 spent the day of the New York City Marathon running — to and fro.

They ran with coats, they ran with scarves, they ran with hats and gloves and windbreakers.

They scurried around picking up athlete litter, and all told ended up with more than 75 bags of clothes for charity.

The articles had all been cast off at the start of the race on Staten Island by runners who didn’t want to be hampered by the weight.

The girls and their leader, Sue Tramm of Fort Wadsworth, collected all the leftovers and spent the next week sorting it, cleaning it, and folding it so it would be ready for donation.

“I folded 50 hundred blankets!” exclaimed 9-year-old Evelyn.

Now all the clothes are sitting inside an unused Coast Guard apartment in Fort Wadsworth, in clear plastic bags — a great improvement from being strewn on muddy grass and cold asphalt the day of the event.

It was the second year the Scouts has done this drive, the idea for which was born when one troop mother was lamenting the wasted clothes and wishing the girls could use the opportunity to earn their bronze badges.

. . .

[T]hey were not prepared for the opening shot, when jackets and sweatpants went flying over their heads like incoming bullets.

“Everyone started throwing water bottles!” exclaimed Emilee, 10. “My mom was like, ‘Watch out!'” Shortly thereafter, a piece of bagel whizzed by her ear.

The clothes are intended to go to the New York Cares coat drive.

But When Asked Most Citizens Responded That If They Could Have Charged Him For Driving Around With His Pants Down, They Would Have Done That, Too

Obviously there’s absolutely nothing funny about drunk driving, nothing at all funny:

An Elm Park man arrested on drunken driving charges was really caught with his pants down in Graniteville yesterday morning, a law enforcement source said.

George Alexander, 42, of the 200 block of Trantor Street, was found asleep behind the wheel of his car, the key in the ignition, at the corner of Morani Street and Richmond Avenue, just before 7 a.m. yesterday, cops allege. The car had rolled over a sign on the sidewalk and into a bush, police allege.

When cops approached the vehicle, they found Alexander sleeping, cops allege. His pants were down, according to a law enforcement source, and his genitals visible.

Alexander, who blew a .183 blood alcohol level — more than twice the legal limit — was charged with drunken driving.

The source said he doesn’t face additional charges for having his pants down because he was in a secluded area inside his car, and there wasn’t anyone in the vicinity that he exposed himself to.

But Then Who Would Ever Go To Staten Island?

It’s hard to fathom why a Councilmember representing Staten Island would be trying to make it more difficult to get to Saten Island, but thankfully apparently nothing will come of the proposal to start charging tourists to ride the Staten Island Ferry:

One of New York’s few free rides could be sunk by the city government’s desire for new revenue.

City Council member James Oddo wants to start charging tourists who take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry.

“It’s a way of taking the burden off New Yorkers,” said Mr. Oddo, a Republican who represents Staten Island, said. “How much do tourists pay for the Circle Line?”

At Mr. Oddo’s urging, the city’s Independent Budget Office recently released a report called the “Estimate of Revenues and Costs of Staten Island Ferry ‘Tourist’ Fares.”

The report examined fares at $1, $2, $3 and $4, while taking into consideration the extra costs that the program would incur, such as adding ticket vending machines and gates. The report also assumed that annual ridership would decline as fares rose.

About 57,000 riders take the Staten Island Ferry each week. Of those, about 41,000 are Staten Island residents.

According to the report, fare revenues would exceed costs and create a surplus at every dollar increment above $1. At $2, the city would profit about $4 million a year; at $3 about $7 million a year; and at $4 about $10 million a year.

. . .

The Staten Island Ferry became one of the few commuter ferries in the country to offer unlimited free rides in 1997 when a 50 cent fare was tossed to the wayside by Mayor Giuliani in what was seen as a reward by the Republican mayor to one of the only reliably Republican parts of New York City. Presently, the estimated annual budget of the New York City Department of Transportation for the ferry is about $80 million.

Previously: But Then Who Would Ride The Ferry?