But If King Kong Attacked The Washington National Cathedral, Things Might Have Turned Out Differently

Even though it took years and years to fill up all that office space, the Empire State Building is the most popular architectural landmark in the country:

The Empire State Building, the famed marvel of steel and stone at Fifth Ave. and 34th St., was named America’s favorite work of architecture in a public poll released yesterday by Harris Interactive and the American Institute of Architects.

“It’s one of those places you have to go see,” Ian Molyneux, 26, of Manchester, England, said yesterday as he took in the sweeping view atop the 1,454-foot-tall skyscraper.

“When you go back home, everyone’s going to ask if you went to the Empire State Building.”

The fallen World Trade Center and 31 other city landmarks were also listed among the nation’s 150 favorite structures, making the city the top architectural destination in the U.S.

. . .

The Empire State Building, which was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates, beat out the White House and the Washington National Cathedral, which ranked No.2 and No.3 respectively, in the poll of 1,804 people.

Location Scout: Empire State Building.

A Man, A Plan, A Fax Machine And An Email Inbox

The Queens Chronicle crunches the numbers and deems Councilmember John Liu grandstander of the month for December:

One of the modern personalities that accompanied the invention of e mail was the electronic chatterbox. Friends who forward every chain letter, relatives who send a new digital photo every time their child eats a new type of food, and dates of little consequence who keep sending text messages long after the initial spark is gone are all prime examples of this.

In the world of Queens politics, the leading electronic chatterbox is City Councilman John Liu (D Flushing). Over the past month, the Queens Chronicle has collected every e mail and fax sent by Queens representatives at all levels of government: city, state and federal. The paper tabulated the total number of communications and Liu came out ahead by a large margin.

Between Nov. 21 and Dec. 21, he sent 37 separate e mails and three faxes about his work on the council. He sent out advisories about his intentions to take part in rallies after the police shooting of Sean Bell, releases about his opposition to Rosie O’Donnell’s impersonation of Asians and announcements about his appearances on television. He also chronicled his participation as the council’s Transportation Commitee chairman and outlined his opposition to the expansion of a gas station in Flushing. On one day in particular — Dec. 1 — Liu sent five individual e mails on topics ranging from the announcement of new free Chinese language courses to the dedication of a new mobile computer lab in a local school.

Where’s My Princess?

If I hear “Shoomy shoomy pwetty Princess” one more time, I swear I don’t know what I’ll do:

Max, Lucky, Princess, Rocky and Buddy were the five most-popular dog names in 2005, according to a Health Department review of dog licenses that was released yesterday. The same names took thetop five spots the previous year.

Mixed breeds came out on top of the list of popular breeds, followed by Labrador retrievers, pit bulls and Shih Tzus.

Although the Health Department issued 101,274 dog licenses last year, that figure represents only a small portion of city dogs. Many owners never bother to get their dogs licensed, even though that’s required by state law.

In other dog-related news, Councilmember Peter Vallone, who is good at proposing excessive and/or unconstitutional legislation, is now looking to crack down on one of those top breeds:

Pit bulls will be an endangered species in the city if one lawmaker gets his way.

Calling them potentially lethal weapons, City Councilman Peter Vallone renewed his call yesterday to ban pit bulls from the five boroughs.

“I am an animal lover,” said Vallone (D-Queens). “But I have always thought they should not be allowed on our streets. They have been bred to be violent.”

. . .

Vallone, whose two daughters own a Bichon Frise, pointed to several incidents in which children suffered serious injuries after being attacked and bitten by pit bulls.

He wants the state Legislature to change the law so cities like New York can ban specific breeds. Although he wants to bar people from owning or breeding pit bulls in the five boroughs, current owners would be exempted.

Vallone said it’s too early to say how a ban would affect thousands of homeless pit bull mixes that end up in city animal shelters every year.

Sure, Pick On Sunset Park

The Health Department reveals the fattest, skinniest and drinkiest neighborhooods in a new study:

If you live in Sunset Park, it might be time to get off the couch.

A new city report found people who live in the Brooklyn neighborhood are least likely to exercise of all New Yorkers. In fact, 57% admitted they are sedentary, while residents of Greenwich Village and SoHo hit the gym on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, Staten Island is still the smoking capital of the city, especially the South Shore and Mid Island sections, where 33% of residents smoke,

The updated Community Health Profiles released by the Department of Health use yearly phone surveys and other data to measure health indicators such as depression, asthma, diabetes and smoking in 42 neighborhoods.

Some conclusions:

East Harlem residents may exercise a bit more than those in Sunset Park, but they should lay off the fried foods — 31% say they are obese.

Binge drinking — defined as having five or more drinks in a night — is highest in Chelsea.

Hell House, New York City Style

This year features borough-specific haunted houses:

Last Halloween, [Timothy] Haskell, a theatre director, staged a public haunted house on the Lower East Side, and so many people showed up that hundreds never made it inside. “We realized that we had to turn away a lot of local people,” Haskell said. So this year he put up haunted houses in all five boroughs, tailored to prey on the fears peculiar to each one.

For months, Haskell and his crew polled residents of the five boroughs to find out their worst nightmares. . . . People from the Bronx and Queens, they said, tend to fear things that might actually happen, like being mugged (harpaxophobia), while Manhattanites are frightened of fantastical and unlikely occurrences (flying sharks, riding in an elevator that rockets through the roof of a building). “In Manhattan and Brooklyn, we heard ‘fear of the homeless,'” [chief designer Paul] Smithyman said. “Then, in the Bronx, we heard ‘fear of becoming homeless.'” Staten Island residents apparently dread chemical spills and gas leaks.

. . .

The challenge of creating a tableau representing acrophobia, the fear of heights (and the seventh most common fear of Manhattan residents), almost stumped the designers. “One idea was that we’d have people walk up a staircase and onto a Plexiglas floor and see teeny-tiny furniture beneath them,” Haskell said. “But there were liability issues.” Instead, they paired a video of someone falling off a ledge with an evocative sound effect: vroooooom, splat. For illyngophobia (fear of dizziness, No. 11 among Manhattanites), the team installed a giant spinning tunnel; for entomophobia (insects, No. 3), they glued a thousand dead cockroaches onto a wall; and for musophobia (mice, No. 6), they ordered an essence of dead rat from an outfit in Chicago called Sinister Scents.