Some Things Just Must Be Remembered

The BQE is historic, but not in a good way:

A state agency has lifted a puzzling bureaucratic roadblock that significantly delayed a long-awaited plan to replace the traffic-choked Kosciuszko Bridge.

The Historic Preservation Office last week abandoned its push to preserve the deteriorating bridge, thus ending an inter-agency squabble that delayed final approval of the project by at least six months, the Daily News confirmed Wednesday.

The state Transportation Department had originally anticipated receiving federal authorization for the roughly $700 million project — the final regulatory hurdle — by the end of last year.

However, as The News first reported last month, the DOT was forced to shelve the project last November after Historic Preservation objected to final design plans that call for the Kosciuszko to be demolished and replaced by two new parallel bridges.

Preservation officials deemed the aging span “a significant and unusual variation of the Warren truss type bridge” and argued that a rehab was “a prudent and feasible alternative to demolition,” according to a letter obtained by The News.

In response, DOT officials presented Historic Preservation with a report justifying replacement of the 1939 bridge, which carries the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway over Newtown Creek between Maspeth, Queens, and Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

The report addressed safety concerns, such as its steep grade and substandard merging lanes — factors responsible for bottlenecked traffic and a high accident rate, according to the DOT.

In a written response on Friday, Historic Preservation officials threw in the towel.

“We concur that there are no prudent and feasible alternatives to the demolition of this historic bridge,” an official wrote. “We find that correction of many of the substandard safety features would significantly alter character-defining features of the bridge.”

Takeaway: If The Sunday Styles Section Turns Down Your Pitch, Try Thursday . . . After That, There’s Always The Observer

Leaving the house without makeup does not a trend make, though some will try*:

“I dress like a boy because I feel like boys are generally more comfortable than women,” said Ali Tenenbaum the other day, sitting at a West Village coffee shop and wearing a “typical” outfit of black Hudson jeans, blue J. Crew cardigan, yellow T-shirt and designer sneakers. Ms. Tenenbaum, 38 (whose family was the inspiration for the Wes Anderson film The Royal Tenenbaums, though she said the actual resemblance is slight), has unfussy brown hair that falls to several inches above her shoulders, and clear, radiant skin. She doesn’t wear makeup. She is a professional photo organizer who meets with her (largely) Upper East Side clientele wearing sneakers. “Sometimes it throws them off a bit, but then I charm them and they’re fine with it!” she said.

It was just a few years ago that everyone was nattering about the metrosexual, the New York man who, though straight, loved his Kiehl’s and Thomas Pink tattersall shirts and is addicted to Grey’s Anatomy. Less discussed has been his female counterpart: gals who, while not lesbians, dress like guys (young guys), well into their 30’s; who leap into games of pickup basketball with male friends while the rest of us watch wanly from the sidelines; who affect a wry detachment from their sex’s conventional concerns of shoe-shopping, man-hunting and family. Think of the comedienne Sarah Silverman, mugging and shrugging and strumming her way through an “I’m F*cking Matt Damon” video, a birthday gift to her boyfriend, ABC talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel. Or matter-of-fact Juno actress Ellen Page. Or surly pop star Avril Lavigne.

And these gals are everywhere in New York. Urbane tomboys in $200 jeans, they wear sneakers to the office or the studio (they probably work in a creative industry). They’ve largely given up on mainstream women’s fashion, with its expensive, often unflattering vicissitudes, finding refuge in an eternal sporty girlhood that may or may not be tied to any real athletic bent. They borrow from men’s wear, which is more constant, comfortable and, lately, focused on well-made basics like jeans and T-shirts, and they profess ignorance of female grooming rituals, even if they have a secret love of eyeliner. Ever self-deprecating, this kind of woman is quick to tell you she “wears the same thing every day,” or that she dresses like her husband or boyfriend.

. . .

They like to order Scotch at bars, rather than fruity drinks like cosmos; roll their own cigarettes; and profess to not know their way around a powder puff.

. . .

Many fellas, as girly girls can attest, are all too enchanted with the novelty of the urbane tomboy.

“If you go to a club and you pick someone up and they’re all dressed up and they have a lot of makeup on, you take them home and you roll around in bed and they wake up and take a shower, who knows what they’ll look like?” said Adam Parker Smith, 29, a sculptor from Brooklyn.

Avril Lavigne? For reals?

*[checks calendar; no it’s not April 1 yet]

The Challenger Was Brought Down By An O-Ring . . .

Other things you don’t want to know include that six-ton piece of steel is held up there by a $50 piece of nylon webbing:

A prime suspect in Saturday’s East Side crane collapse — a spectacular disaster across two Manhattan blocks that has now claimed seven lives and is expected to cost untold millions — is a $50 piece of nylon webbing that investigators suspect may have broken while hoisting a six-ton piece of steel.

A photograph taken at the site shows the yellow nylon sling ragged at the end like a child’s broken shoelace, indicating, according to experts, the immense force that may have torn it apart.

The investigation into the accident continued on Monday as workers recovered three more bodies from the rubble of a four-story town house on East 50th Street that was demolished when a section of the toppling crane slammed into it. That brought the death toll from the collapse to seven, making it one of the deadliest construction accidents in New York City in recent memory.

The Seminary-Yeshiva Relief Act Of 2008

It takes chutzpah, when the city’s schools are already underfunded, to ask the City to also provide security for private and parochial schools:

In the wake of a school shooting at a Jewish seminary in Israel last week, a group of City Council members is proposing to publicly fund security services at private and parochial schools around the city.

A bill being introduced today would require the New York City Department of Education and the New York City Police Department to provide to nonpublic schools all of the security services currently provided to public schools. The services could include the placement of school safety officers who are members of the NYPD, video surveillance cameras, and metal detectors, according to a draft of the bill provided to The New York Sun yesterday.

Lawmakers would discuss with private and parochial schools what sorts of services they needed and then develop a budget proposal.

. . .

“In this time of heightened security awareness, we must do everything we can to ensure the safety of all our children,” Council Member Simcha Felder, a co-sponsor of the new bill, said. Council members Joel Rivera and John Liu are also supporting the bill.

Rockaway The Brave

Good thing there are a lot of cops in this city:

Nate Banton — New York City’s only bagpipe maker — opened his business in a Neponsit bungalow four months ago. The 30-year-old craftsman specializes in two types of bagpipes: border pipes and small pipes.

“I’m interested in making hand-crafted pipes with an attention to detail,” said Banton, who grew up in Maine. “It’s a good business to be in. I make a product that people can make art with.”

Banton, who apprenticed for three years under noted pipe maker Seth Gallagher in upstate Cold Spring, N.Y., said he had a hard time breaking into the industry.

. . .

Banton uses dozens of handmade tools and relies on his 1940s South Bend lathe, a hardsaw and a drill press for the bulkwork.

A set will take roughly three weeks to complete. Banton now has a three-month waiting list for his pipes.

“I think he’s well on his way to be successful,” said Brian Bigley, 23, who shares the workspace with Banton and is working on his own design for a uilleann pipe — a traditional Irish bagpipe. “The Celtic music industry is doing really well.”