You’re Not Using That, Right?

An early start to looting at old Yankee Stadium:

Stealing and bunting are normally encouraged in baseball, but a pair of dumb Yankee season-ticket holders learned the hard way that the two do not go together.

John Bunjaporte, 41, and Keith O’Rourke, 39, both of Westchester County, allegedly tried to snatch a piece of the red, white, and blue bunting that hangs over the edge of the upper deck, police said.

The team took the highly unusual step of revoking their $55-per-game season tickets because the Yanks intend to auction off every last brick and grain of dirt in the stadium after the season, officials said.

Both were charged with petit larceny and criminal mischief. They face fines and up to a year in prison.

Location Scout: Yankee Stadium.

Either That Or Expand The Definition Of “City” To Include Wakefield, Tottenville, Bayside And East New York So No One Feels Left Out

Better to decamp to Jackson, Prospect or even Morris Heights than whoring every detail of your life for clicks, according to the person who started it all (by portraying someone who started it all):

Budding Carrie Bradshaws better think about moving to Queens, says “Sex and the City” icon Sarah Jessica Parker.

Manhattan is bracing for another influx of Blahnik-wearing career girls after the film is released May 30. But New York is “a really hard city, and it’s very expensive and it’s not what it used to be,” Parker told me at the Cinema Society and Linda Wells’ screening of her new film, “Smart People.”

“That’s why the outer boroughs are so desirable,” she said. “The outer boroughs are pretty sexy. It’s just a matter of time before they have their own shows.”

Boys Of Bummer

But with congestion pricing . . .:

A shooting suspect blew his brains out after the Con Ed truck he had stolen to flee cops got caught in traffic outside Yankee Stadium just as last night’s game ended, sources said.

The unidentified man — who earlier had shot his girlfriend in the shoulder after a violent argument — killed himself as pursuing officers closed in on him.

The suspect had gotten into a fight with the woman near East 151st Street and Courtlandt Avenue, about 20 blocks from the Stadium, at about 10 p.m.

He suddenly drew a gun and shot her in the shoulder, a police source said.

. . .

The gunman then hopped into a Con Ed truck that was left with its engine running at a work site.

When a utility worker confronted him, the suspect pointed a gun at his head and sped off.

Shortly after, he smashed into a police car, but got away.

As he approached the Stadium, at East 161st Street near the Macombs Dam Bridge, he got stuck in traffic. When cops approached the truck, they heard a gunshot and found the driver dead with a bullet wound to the head, authorities said.

Easy To Solve: Just Look For The Girlfriend Who Is Still Pissed Off About Valentine’s Day

Make it a dozen long-stemmed, and fast:

Cops are hunting for an armed robber who hit a flower shop and a candy store in the Bronx.

The bandit held up Heavenly Treats Candy Bouquet in Morrisania about 2:40 p.m. on Feb. 28, flashing a handgun to rob the register and steal property from a 48-year-old woman, police said.

He struck again on March 2 at Diana’s Party Supply & Flowers in Longwood, holding up two teenage girls, 15 and 18.

If Only Joel Osteen Were Around He Could Probably Consolidate Some Of Them, But I’m Sure Then The City Council Would Try To Pass Some Sort Of “Wal-Mart Of Churches” Bill, And Then . . .

The City Section takes on spirituality and nail salons in one article:

As noon approached on a recent Sunday, the mostly Jamaican congregation of New Life Tabernacle gathered in its small storefront on White Plains Road in the Wakefield section of the north Bronx. Women in elaborate, wide-brimmed hats and men in dark suits filled six rows of pews and two dozen wooden chairs. The pastor’s wife, Paulette Randall, wearing a violet dress and holding a microphone, stood before the congregation.

“Is your soul right with God?” she asked the crowd of about 60, her voice exploding into the microphone. “That is the question.”

. . .

If this were not enough spiritual fervor for one block, worship at three more storefront churches was also about to begin. As the afternoon wore on, the worshipers became increasingly ardent, cries of hallelujah turned to shrieks, and White Plains Road between 239th and 240th Streets, home to seven houses of worship in all, throbbed with the ardor of believers readying their souls to meet their maker.

The abundance of churches in Wakefield is not limited to this block, which sits opposite a desolate strip of auto body shops. Amid the retail stores on the two-mile stretch of White Plains Road that runs from 240th Street south to East Gun Hill Road, there are about 30 storefront churches.

While the faithful often attribute the proliferation of churches to the will of God, a few earthly factors help explain their numbers in this particular part of the Bronx.

Starting in the 1970s, in a trend echoed throughout much of the city, Wakefield was plagued by crime that drove many of the neighborhood’s residents, among them large numbers of Italian and Irish families, to the relative safety of the suburbs. In response to their departure, many of the butcher shops, travel agencies, pharmacies and other small businesses along White Plains Road closed, leaving behind empty storefronts.

During the 1980s, immigrants from the Caribbean began replacing residents who had left. The immigrants brought with them faiths like Pentecostalism, and they established fledgling churches in the cheapest and most convenient places they could find, the White Plains Road storefronts widely available at low rents.

The houses of worship do not, however, inspire praise from all quarters.

. . .

While the churches offer their members spiritual reinforcement that helps them endure life’s trials, some neighbors view the sheer number of houses of worship with exasperation.

“There are too many churches,” Mario Ferrante, the gray-haired owner of Fairbanks Lumber and Home Center, said one recent afternoon as he stood outside his lumber yard, flanked on either side by a church. “How many gods are there?” he asked with a shrug. “How many popes?”

Donna Stewart, owner of Salon Express, a business sandwiched between two storefront churches, would agree. “Business could be better,” said Ms. Stewart, who was working near four hair dryers that sat dormant. “If we had other kinds of businesses around, we’d have more people walking by.”

According to Ingrid Gould Ellen, a director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University, there may be some truth to this claim. “They fail to attract the 24/7 street traffic so critical to urban retail,” she said of the churches, which are typically shuttered most days. “Retailers want to be around other retailers.”

Yet there are other reasons business could be better here. Nail and hair salons, seemingly immune to laws of supply and demand, are in oversupply on White Plains Road, and shoppers seeking more options head north to malls in the nearby suburbs. And on this particular block of White Plains Road, auto body shops and a New York City Transit yard add to the desolate mood.

I guess storefront churches are to the Bronx what banks are to Manhattan . . .