The Thing About Electricity Is That It’s Really, Really, Really Important

Portions of Queens are heading into a fifth day without power — ironic when the neighborhoods affected are within walking distance of several major power plants:

Some residents of the affected areas complained that the city has ignored a prolonged blackout that affected several neighborhoods in western Queens, which happens to be where most of the city’s power plants are located.

. . .

Nowhere was the “so close, yet so far” sentiment more pronounced as at the Yellowbird Repair Shop, directly across 20th Avenue from the Charles Poletti Power Plant in Astoria. Despite its proximity to the plant’s electric turbines, the repair shop, like thousands of homes and businesses in western Queens, remained largely without power yesterday.

“All they have to do is run an extension cord out to us and we’re open for business,” said Chris Kalatzis, the shop manager, adding that his house in Astoria was also without power, ruining $200 worth of food in his refrigerator.

. . .

In Queens, the system began to fail on Monday, the third day of a severe heat wave, and the failures were probably worsened by thunderstorms on Tuesday night.

In parts of Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside and other areas, there was substantial loss of food, loss of business and loss of cool. “Even third-world countries do not have this kind of problem,” said Jimmy Istavrof, 57, who owns the J & T Greek and Italian Deli on Ditmars Boulevard. “All this from a couple of 90-degree days.”

He showed how his Greek desserts and other foods sat spoiling in his freezers.

“You see? Like soup,” he said, squeezing a soft carton of ice cream. “It’s all going to shame.”

Dude, throw that stuff away!

If You Lived Here You’d Be Laid By Now

Debate rages over whether using sex to sell condos is “fun” or if it just reveals that the market for high-end real estate has, er, shot its wad:

A woman with tousled hair straddles a grinning, shirtless man on a bed alongside the words: “Try This at Home.” This was not an advertisement for beer, perfume or instructional Kama Sutra DVD’s. It was an advertisement for the Herald Towers condominiums in Midtown Manhattan.

In a print advertisement for the Link condominiums, also in Midtown, a red-lipped topless woman (only a sliver of one breast was visible) is shown sitting in an apartment while a tattoo is applied to her exposed back.

A glossy advertisement for the Altair 20 in Chelsea has lush greenery framing a shower stall and a svelte, wet, naked woman with a strategically positioned banner that reads “To the Altair 20 Rainforest.”

Some of the advertisements for new condominiums this year look more like ads for condoms, and that has caused more than a few eyes to linger on traditionally staid real estate listings. These provocative advertisements have also raised eyebrows among real estate and advertising professionals who say sex has never been germane to real estate marketing the way it is, say, to music and underwear.

. . .

Lizzie Grubman Public Relations has increasingly been sought by real estate companies in the last year, including Corcoran, which calls itself the city’s largest residential real estate company. “Companies have come to our agency because they want to go beyond the tradition,” said Sabrina Levine, Ms. Grubman’s partner. “Now it’s all about making their building buzz-worthy.”

. . .

Mr. [Neil] Binder of Bellmarc and [NYU Stern Business School] Professor [Sam] Craig suggested that when marketers play the sex card, it is an indication of trouble, though no marketing executive would admit to such a thing.

Still, Mr. Binder said, “I can’t deny the legitimacy of the strategy.”

The Point Of Which Should Hit You Like A Ton Of Bricks . . .

While it’s obviously an important issue, it’s perhaps a stretch to assume that 34 East 62nd Street would have been avoided if only New York state had no-fault divorce. But don’t let the details get in the way of a smart op-ed on the topic:

Behind the powerful gas explosion that nearly leveled a historic Manhattan town house on Monday is a nightmarish New York saga of divorce and vengeance worthy of a Lifetime channel movie. Authorities believe that the Upper East Side doctor suspected of causing the blast wanted to destroy the house so his ex-wife wouldn’t get it as the result of a nasty divorce fight that dragged on for over five years, even after the divorce was finalized.

We’re tempted to blame the State Legislature.

Obviously, even New York’s dysfunctional government is not bad enough to drive people to blow up their houses. But the story does give us an opportunity to point out once again that, thanks to Albany, the state has notoriously cumbersome divorce laws that regularly produce both hideous domestic squabbles and inflated lawyer’s fees.

And there’s your ghoulish rhetoric for the day . . .

How Did That Work Out For You?

Are we to assume this means that by destroying the house in order to keep it from his ex-wife, she will perhaps earn even more from the land? How’s that for irony:

The gas blast that leveled Dr. Nicholas Bartha’s landmarked Upper East Side townhouse didn’t lower the property’s value — and may even have increased it, real-estate experts told The Post.

“The value is not in the building, but the land on which it sits — especially in that area,” said Corcoran Group CEO Pamela Liebman.

Another broker, who asked not to be named, said the site, minus the four-story brownstone “is a developer’s dream” because there’s no need to pay for demolition or to go through the costly and time-consuming process of evicting tenants.

He added that it also could be more desirable because a developer wouldn’t have as many landmark issues to contend with — although the new building’s façade would have to be a reasonable facsimile of the original.

Another real-estate source, who has visited the house that Bartha allegedly destroyed rather than give up, said that beyond the exterior, the 96-year-old, 4,931-square-foot house at 34 E. 62nd St. “wasn’t all that terrific.”

“Someone would have bought the place and gutted it,” he said.

So how much is the property worth?

Most experts put the value, with or without the intact four-story brownstone, at between $7 million and $9 million.

The average price of a townhouse on the Upper East Side is $7 million, real-estate experts said. But because Bartha’s lot is slightly wider — 20 feet, rather than 18 feet — it could bring more.

. . . [W]ith a new 8,000-square-foot house built on the site, it could sell for about $15 million, real-estate agent Toni Simon of Halstead Properties told Bloomberg News.

Now Why Would You Go And Do That?

A Bronx cop gets busted for buying weed — in his own precinct:

A Bronx cop assigned to the “buy-and-bust” division was nabbed for scoring marijuana in the same precinct he was assigned to protect, the NYPD said.

Ten-year veteran officer, Milton Smith, 44, was arrested at 4 a.m. at University Avenue and West 179th Street for buying an unspecified amount of dope — within the boudaries of the 46th Precinct where the officer was assigned to catch dealers in sting operations, according to his wife, Dahlia.

“He was in the ‘buy-and-bust’ division or that’s what he told me,” the shocked woman told The Post. “It’s really unbelievable.”

Although they are separated, Dahlia said Smith is a “devoted father” to their son and “loves his job.”

“I can’t believe he’d be capable of something like that,” she said.

Smith, who was off-duty at the time, was charged with criminal possession of marijuana and official misconduct. He has been suspended without pay and was released without bail last night.