Happy Birthday, Bridge!

Let’s, uh, brown bag a toast:

The Brooklyn Bridge was the toast of the town last night, but Mayor Bloomberg was one of just a few allowed a drink in its honor — and even that turned out to be illegal.

Bloomberg . . . drifted away from a closed reception and into Brooklyn Bridge Park — in violation of the city’s open-container laws.

“Is that wine in your glass, Mr. Mayor?” a Post photographer asked Bloomberg.

“Yes, it is,” he admitted. Bloomberg’s spokesman, Stu Loeser, later said, “It was an inadvertent mistake.”

There Must Have Been A Film Shoot Scheduled

More NYC & Company overreach:

Tree-lined Henry Street was briefly turned into one long billboard, but Brooklyn Heights residents erupted after seeing commercial banners on the mostly residential street, so the city removed them.

On Monday, banners reading “Brooklyn loves to shop” were hung on lampposts from Clark to Montague streets — and locals slammed the commercialization of the strip.

“I absolutely detest them,” said Veronica Rylander, 48. “They’re so out of place here above all these houses. I feel like it cheapens the look of the neighborhood.”

For Liana Schwartz, 36, it wasn’t the aesthetics, but the practicality of the banners that provoked her disdain.

“I just don’t even get why they’re hanging here,” said Schwartz. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to put them Downtown or on streets where there are actually places to shop?”

After The Brooklyn Paper started asking local officials about the appropriateness of posting ads in a residential corridor, the banners were taken down and relocated to commercial Court Street on Wednesday morning.
Brooklyn Bridge Realty

The banners — which are sponsored by Greek natural skincare company Korres, which just opened on Montague Street, and NYC& Co., the city’s tourist board — also annoyed people who think tourism officials don’t get Brooklyn — or maybe get it too well.

“They put those signs on Henry because they know there are lots of cars speeding through here,” said one man.

That Works Out To $11.11 A Day

If you found yourself without power for, I don’t know, like nine days during the summer, know that you will be compensated at a rate significantly below that of jury duty:

Customers in western Queens can expect to receive about $100 each from Consolidated Edison as compensation for having to sweat through nine days without power in July 2006, according to officials who have been briefed on the settlement.

The approval of the settlement, which the utility proposed several weeks ago and which will total $17 million, was to be announced at a news conference on Thursday.

Customers will receive a credit on their monthly bill, which will also include a brief apology from the company.

Jersey Trash

Sure he’s a traitor, blah blah, but there’s also something really, really funny about it:

The man who tried to curse the Yankees by burying a Red Sox jersey in the Bombers’ new stadium lives just a short drive from the House that Ruth Built.

The culprit is a mason — born and raised in the Country Club section of southeast Bronx.

“As I stuck it in, I said, ‘The Yankees are done for the next 30 years.’ I only put a 30-year curse because I’m 46 and in 30 years I’ll be dead, and I won’t care if the Yankees win then,” said “Gino,” who spoke from a construction job in Manhattan.

Already, the man’s co-workers defaced his station wagon with Yankee slogans written in shoe polish.

Long a Yankee hater, the turncoat hatched his plan last August after refusing to set foot on the job out of spite.

One summer day, he placed a carefully folded jersey bearing the name and uniform number of David Ortiz, the slugging Red Sox designated hitter known as Big Papi, into the concrete mix being laid along the third base line.

“The reason why is George Steinbrenner told [Yankees GM Brian] Cashman to get Ortiz and Cashman told him, we don’t need him, We have [Jason] Giambi and Nick Johnson,” Gino boasted, referring to a chance the Yanks had to sign Ortiz in 2003.

“Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for All-State Insurance company to make more money,” he ranted. “Every ball thrown, I hope I have the last laugh. Red Sox Nation is alive and well.”

Two witnesses spotted the mason planting the shirt, which he wore to work that day, in the floor of the visitor’s locker room in front of the third-base line — not on the field.

But Gino was coy as to the exact location.

The Steinbrenners “don’t have enough money to [make me] tell you where it actually is,” he said.

The traitor said he’d been rooting for the Red Sox since the days of Jim Rice in the 1970s.

When he buried the jersey, this Benedict Arnold was making $88 an hour to do construction at the treasured site. And he documented the entire sabotage on his cellphone camera.

What Are You Going To Do, Make Me Pay?

If you conveniently forget what your mama taught you about taking something for nothing, it’s easy enough to ride a bus for free:

For commuters outraged over never-ending fare hikes and double digit tolls on the Verrazano-Narrows bridge, a little known Metropolitan Transportation Authority rule — and the compassion of many bus drivers — lets you hop on any city bus and ride for free.

All it costs is your dignity.

The process is simple: Hop on a bus and try one of the following:

1. Tell the driver you forgot your wallet.

2. Tell the driver you have no change.

3. Just ignore the driver and sit down.

We tried the first two and saw the third happen often enough. It worked like a charm nearly every time.

If you’re worried that the other passengers will shoot a disapproving glance your way, don’t.

On almost every occasion, fellow commuters were too busy with their papers, iPods or just staring out the window to care.

And then there’s the old school uniform tactic:

A New Dorp teen and her mother have recently sued New York City Transit and bus driver Richard Benjamin for more than $22.1 million. They allege the burly Benjamin hit the girl with a metal garbage can on the street last year after they argued over her failure to produce a MetroCard moments earlier when she boarded an S78 bus.

The lawsuit, filed by Lisa Marie Thompson and her mother, Annette Nash, in state Supreme Court, St. George, seeks $20 million in punitive damages and more than $2.15 million in compensatory damages from Benjamin and Transit.

Miss Thompson alleges “serious, multiple and permanent” injuries to her hand and emotional and psychological harm.

A Transit spokesman declined comment on the suit; however, the agency previously contended the teen was the aggressor.

Miss Thompson, then 14, got on the bus on Hylan Boulevard at Ebbitts Street around 8:10 a.m. on June 5, according to an interview she gave the Advance later that day for an article on the incident. The freshman at St. John Villa Academy in Arrochar was headed to school.

Miss Thompson said she was wearing her school uniform — a white short-sleeve shirt with Villa’s initials and a tan skirt — and advised the driver she’d forgotten her MetroCard. She told the Advance that other operators had previously let her ride the bus “at least five or six” times without a MetroCard, and she walked toward some friends seated in the back.

Miss Thompson said school officials had told students that city bus drivers could not refuse them a ride on school days provided they wear their uniforms.