Woodlawn Meets Fallujah

Take care of these animals now before they become mass murderers:

Their colony in the Bronx already is devastated by so many ills: homelessness, hunger and rampant disease. Their young are often left to fend for themselves in the streets or in abandoned houses, where many will die a lonesome death.

And now they’re being beaten, burned and mutilated, residents say.

With so much already against them, it seems even harder out there than usual for the feral cats of Woodlawn.

The first report surfaced late last month. Karen Borsotti said she was walking along Vireo Avenue near East 233rd Street when she noticed a gray cat skulking by the road. It had a large gash across its back and seemed a bit haggard, she said. Ms. Borsotti stepped closer to get a better look, but the cat darted off. Later, she said, she saw signs posted on utility poles offering a $500 reward for anyone with information on the person or people responsible for what some say is serial cat abuse.

A couple days later, Animal Nation, a nonprofit rescue group, reported receiving a frantic call from a teenage girl pleading for help. She had found a 6-month-old brown tabby she knew from the neighborhood. It had been badly beaten and its tail was burned to the bone. A veterinarian later said that most of the cat’s teeth had been broken or knocked out, that it had suffered major head trauma and burns to its gums, likely sustained when it tried to bite out the flames on its tail. The young tabby was euthanized.

Where Are All Those Yankee Stadium Parks They Promised?

I don’t know — check the flood plain. Yes, that’s right — flood plain:

Why does the city want to elevate a new riverfront park by five feet?

That was the question this month at a public meeting on replacing parkland lost to the new Yankee Stadium. By raising this parcel, the city replied, people would be able to see over an elevated freight track.

. . .

The land had always been the most peculiar piece of the city’s park replacement scheme. Located next to the Deegan Expressway, it was a mile away from the parkland it’s replacing.

Anger greeted last month’s news that cleaning up this site would cost taxpayers $56 million, three times the previous estimate. When questioned, the city claimed it had no idea the land was so polluted, though contamination had been found there in a stadium project review two years ago.

Capping polluted sites is so prevalent the practice has been derided as “pave and wave.” But why raise the land by five feet exactly?

The parcel was originally part of the Gateway Mall project being built by powerhouse developer the Related Cos. A slice later got pawned off on the city in former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff’s failed bid for the Olympics. A 2005 City Planning document for the mall noted the site would have to be “elevated approximately five feet due to the flood plain requirements in this area.”

Admit It: Yankee Stadium Sucks!

Screw the stupid frieze:

As players were beseeched by countless members of the news media to eulogize Yankee Stadium as it hosts its last All-Star Game, those sufficiently provoked Monday were willing to discuss what they would not miss about the old — very old — ballpark in the Bronx.

Players from the past had no problem saying goodbye to the Astrodome’s rats and Candlestick Park’s hurricane-force winds. Today’s All-Stars have their own reasons to dry their eyes at Yankee Stadium’s funeral.

“The smell,” the Texas Rangers’ Michael Young said.

“The tiny clubhouse,” Justin Duchscherer of the Oakland Athletics added.

“Hitting my head on the dugout,” the Chicago White Sox’ Joe Crede offered. “Every time somebody scored or got a hit, you jumped up and forgot how low the ceiling is in there.”

Yankee Stadium is holding up about as well as any 85-year-old can be expected to, but the ballpark’s 1970s facelift has begun to droop. Players found reasons for moving on easy to come up with.

Olfactory issues led the voting, although few players were able to identify what the problem has been. Is one of Babe Ruth’s half-eaten hot dogs still rotting under one of the grandstands? Are the foul lines marked with sulfur? And how long does pine tar keep, anyway?

“Especially when it rains, the smell that comes up through the drainage system is not pretty,” said Jason Varitek of the Boston Red Sox. “It affects your sinuses, I’ll tell you that much.”

Young added: “It depends on the day. The last time we were there, which was a couple of weeks ago, a pipe burst. I was going back up the tunnel, and there was a flood — a sewer line broke or something like that. So I still have that kind of in my nose right now.”

Location Scout: Yankee Stadium.

We Need A New Smokey

In case you were wondering why there’s dog crap all over 189th street this is all you need to know:

The Bronx teen throws gum wrappers on the street, doesn’t reuse plastic bags from the store and doesn’t have a compact fluorescent light bulb in her bedroom.

A student at University Heights High School, the 17-year-old is like many of her friends in the neighborhood. They don’t care about environmental issues.

“Global warming is going to be coming thousands of years from now,” she said. “We’re not going to be alive, so I don’t care.”

“No matter what, I’m gonna die by growing old or getting shot or something,” said Brian Fermin, 12, of Middle School 206.

Some neighborhood kids said global warming is inevitable, and they don’t see how their involvement could help.

And some teens have other things occupying their minds.

“I am more about boys than I am about my environment,” Brittaney said.

Also, they said, no one they know recycles or even picks up trash from the sidewalk.

The Problem With Sky Trams . . .

If they get stuck — and they do — there’s nowhere to go but down:

Dozens of people on the Bronx Zoo’s Skyfari ride were stranded more than 100 feet in the air for about five hours last night when the tram broke down.

“My son was really, really frightened,” said Olga Perez, of New City, who was on the ride.

“I said, ‘Everything’s going to be OK.’

“One of my nephews got scared. He was screaming, ‘I can’t take this anymore!’ ”

The nephews and son were in another car, and Perez had to talk to them by cellphone.

The cars, which glide along cables 112 feet in the air, ground to a halt at 5:27 p.m., with 30 adults and seven children on board, police said.

The last passengers got off at 10:20 p.m. There were no injuries, but a pregnant woman was taken to Jacobi Hospital for observation.