A Ticking Time Bomb Scenario That Even Alan Dershowitz Can’t Abide

The couple who survives in a 265-square-foot apartment* one-ups themselves by having a baby:

When Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan told friends late last winter that she was pregnant, they offered the obligatory congratulations. Then they asked when she was moving.

It was assumed that she and her husband, Maxwell, would have to go somewhere else. For four years the couple shared a 265-square-foot, one-bedroom rental on Bedford Street in the West Village, an apartment so preposterously miniature it could fit neatly inside the foyer of many apartments uptown. They made it work for the two of them in part by jettisoning clothes, a television and a home office. “It never felt too small,” said Ms. Gillingham-Ryan, 31, a food writer. “It helps to keep your life well edited.”

No amount of editing, it seemed, would create enough room for a baby. But after looking at more than a dozen apartments, and weighing the benefits of more square footage against the burden of debt, they decided to stay on Bedford Street, where they pay $780 a month for rent. And they would renovate to accomplish the seemingly impossible: accommodate a baby.

. . .

“The only problem with all this is kids,” Mr. Gillingham-Ryan said one day last month while Ursula napped in the bedroom. “She’s a ticking time bomb. She’s going to need room. We know we can’t stay here for long.”

*I guess the apartment gained 15 square feet since we last read about it.

Come See Our Shiny New $1.1 Million Bathroom!

I know a $1.1 million bathroom is like a $400 ashtray, but it’s still a $1.1 million bathroom:

To make our own ceremonial first flush, The Brooklyn Papers sent its top cub reporter to seek comfort in the so-called “comfort station.” After a brief campaign of shock and awe, he declared it a mission accomplished.

Refurbished with a wheelchair ramp and a ventilation system that keeps the air warm and fresh on a cold day, this is one state-of-the-art outhouse.

The structure’s stately brick gives it a Colonial feel, and the natural glow from the skylight adds a nice modern touch.

In fact, it’s such a pleasant comfort station that visitors have been known to seek a lot of comfort. One man, for example, stayed in one of the two stalls for roughly 45 minutes (yes, it’s that clean a bathroom).

He finally came out with a strong endorsement.

“It’s beautiful in there,” he said. “Thank God.”

No, thank City Councilman Vince Gentile (D-Bay Ridge), who pushed the Parks Department to finally finish the $1.1-million project after two years of contractor bungling.

All of which serves as a useful reminder to the Parks Department PR machine that some things are better left unpimped.

All Politics Is Disturbingly, Frustratingly Local

As the rest of the country votes on weighty topics like energy policy, stem-cell research and, say, “Bush’s failed war in Iraq,” the key issue in the 13th Congressional District turns out to be . . . a two-way toll:

Three words changed the face of this year’s congressional campaign on Staten Island: Two-way toll.

In August, Democrat Stephen Harrison floated the idea of eliminating the one-way toll on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge for residents of the 13th Congressional District, utilizing a high-speed toll collection system and spreading the levy to both sides of the span for everyone else.

His opponent, Republican Rep. Vito Fossella, pounced hard, deploring the two-way toll of yore that was scuttled through federal legislation in the 1980s to reduce traffic jams. The issue, he says, shows Harrison is out of touch with Island residents.

Harrison, an attorney from Brooklyn, refused to back off, insisting that new technology could cut traffic, pollution and freeloaders traveling in only one direction. He said that Fossella’s portrayal of his two-way toll plan without caveats — he wouldn’t do it without elimination of the toll for district residents, he says — is a distortion.

Carolyn Maloney: Queens Plaza Already “Wonderful”

There’s spin and there’s spin:

“When the Queens Plaza project is finished,” [Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney] promised, “and it should be finished by 2009, the change will be dramatic. This place will look and feel like the exciting, dynamic, wonderful place that it already is.”

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.