The “Whoever Smelt It, Dealt It” Rule Of Gentrification

Young urban professionals moving back to Manhattan from Brooklyn can rest assured that the Brooklyn Papers will make them look real stupid in the process:

As Melanie Greenberg unpacked boxes in her new 500-square-foot Lower East Side apartment, her next-door neighbor was, for no apparent reason, on the fire escape singing mournful ballads.

And that was the good news.

Greenberg, a 27-year-old freelance writer, was back in the city where she felt home — just two years after she had moved to Williamsburg to save money.

But within months of that move, the traditionally Italian neighborhood she loved started changing. And Greenberg didn’t like the changes.

“Big high-rise buildings started going up and slowly but surely the hipsters started spilling into my part of the neighborhood,” said Greenberg, who is now single.

“I decided I wanted to go back to Manhattan — specifically to Alphabet City — where there is a real feeling of community and more diversity than probably just about any other neighborhood of the city.”

Greenberg is not alone. The type of hipsters who once moshed from Manhattan into Williamsburg, Cobble Hill and Park Slope like crowds at a Beck concert are now singing a different tune: “We’ll re-take Manhattan.”

Bring On The Gigantic Tattooed Elephants!

I can’t believe they found a way to make Coney Island classier than it already is but somehow they have:

Architectural renderings obtained by The Post show a grand vision of the famed summer amusement area’s rundown streets being transformed into a glitzy year-round playground and public attraction.

In one image, Stillwell Avenue becomes a fantasy-filled boulevard marked by larger-than-life street furniture, such as a mermaid swimming in a martini glass and a gigantic tattooed elephant.

I Guess It’s A Start . . .

The healthiest choice at a Bronx bodega? It’s a tough one:

All this week, nine western Bronx restaurants and five bodegas will be offering free samples of the healthiest dishes on their menus or shelves.

The bodegas, near schools, will offer samples of such healthy products as baked chips, low-fat milk and fruit. Organized by Bronx Health REACH and its sister program, Bronx Healthy Hearts, the Bronx Food Festival hopes to potato-chip away at the borough’s burgeoning beltline, with an estimated 27% of its residents considered obese.

We’ve got a long way to go when “baked chips” are one of the healthiest options . . .

This Just In . . .

Researchers find that people who live along traffic-clogged streets are crankier, more curmudgeonly, have shorter tempers and attention spans, seem more bitter, have trouble focusing and maintaining relationships, and generally are just less friendly*:

New Yorkers who live on blocks with heavy traffic are less friendly toward their neighbors and more likely to stay indoors than those who live on quieter streets, according to the report by the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives.

They also get less sleep and have more trouble enjoying a television show or a family meal.

Dubbed “Traffic’s Human Toll,” the 14-month study zeroed in on a range of residential blocks in four neighborhoods in order to measure the effect all that honking and exhaust has on quality of life.

The study found that 49 percent of the people interviewed said less traffic would “totally improve” their quality of life. On heavier-traffic streets, the percentage rose to 62 percent.

Residents of the heavily trafficked blocks in the survey said they experienced no shortage of road rage in their living rooms.

“This should be a quiet street, not an access road to the BQE,” said Charles Thompson, who lives on an often-bumper-to-bumper block of Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights. “It’s a nightmare.”

It’s hard to love thy neighbor amid all the honking, others on the block said.

“I know my neighbors, but I don’t want to stand out there talking much,” said Doris Kirtzman. “It wasn’t anything like this when I moved here 30 years ago — I can barely hear the Yankee game with all the trucks or SUVs on this street.”

*I didn’t think I seemed this way.

You Saw The Concert, Now Buy The Tour Shirt

Take a stand on the issue of economically unsustainable benefits packages for the working man and, oh yeah, support Roger Toussaint’s TWU Local 100 reelection campaign by purchasing official Roger Toussaint transit strike merchandise:

Roger Toussaint’s reelection campaign is hawking $2 signed photos of the Transport Workers Union Local 100 president from the union’s big battle with the MTA.

One photo shows Toussaint at a rally and one shows him leading a march across the Brooklyn Bridge as he headed to jail for leading the three-day December walkout.

A third simply shows an empty bus shelter with a “TWU on Strike” sign.

The photos are going for $2 each, or three for $5. The campaign — through the Web site www.rogertoussaintvictory2006 — also is selling T-shirts. They bear the inscription, “It’s About Respect. NYC Transit Strike 2005.”

“There is a market out there for mementos or memorabilia from the strike,” Toussaint said. “After all, the strike was historic, there’s no doubt about it.”

That market goes beyond transit workers because, he said, the union took a stand to protect pension and health benefits, which resonates with all workers.

. . .

Token booth clerk Gloria Browne, however, said she just might buy a few T-shirts for family members, and a Toussaint photograph for herself. The T-shirts are selling for $17.50.

How could they not mention the Livestrong-esque Transit Strike bracelets which are also on sale? Sweet!