Urban Umbrellas, Comely Canopies, Sightly Scaffolding

I prefer the name “temporal portico,” but “urban umbrella” will suffice until we come up with something better for the rainbow-colored scaffolding alternative:

In a bid to beautify city sidewalks, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday rolled out a replacement for the hideous steel and plywood sheds that have been leaking rain water or blocking sunshine for pedestrians outside construction sites since the early 1950s.

“These structures reflect the face of a city that is constantly changing, yet the sheds themselves haven’t evolved at all in the past five decades,” the mayor said. “It’s time to bring them into the 21st century.”

The shed’s replacement, dubbed the urban umbrella, was picked from among 164 designs submitted from 28 countries. The winner, Young-Hwan Choi, is a 28-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania.

Forget All Those Free Bikes, Here’s A Way To Readapt Governors Island!

Use it as the venue to try KSM:

At a news conference Thursday morning, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said that the Police Department was studying the feasibility of staging the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed on Governors Island instead of at the federal courthouse in Manhattan. But by evening, the possibility of such a change seemed highly unlikely, with Mr. Kelly saying in a televised interview that federal officials believed a change in venue would cause serious problems.

Location Scout: Governors Island.

Third Term Meltdown Watch: Bold Moves

The mayor plans to do the heavy lifting, cutting and consolidating where he can:

Two small agencies — the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting, and NYC TV — will also be merged.

How generous of the mayor to consolidate a troubled division he himself created!

I Love The Smell Of Bum Piss In The Morning!

Harold Ford, Jr. channels Robert Duvall:

As for the pedicures, the Ford camp says he gets foot scrubs, not pedicures, because of severe athletes’ foot. More to the point, Ford said: “This race isn’t about feet, it’s about issues.”

Ford said that, like a lot of New Yorkers, his favorite charms are the city’s simplest.

Top of his Manhattan-centic list: Walking down 5th Ave. at sunrise with a cup of coffee, weekend strolls in Central Park, or jogs along the Hudson River.

On his I-Pod: Stevie Wonder, Tribe Called Quest and Jay-Z.

“I love New York, I love the smell of New York. . . . I love the subway,” he said.

Third Term Meltdown Watch: Overwrought Historical Comparisons

We’ll know it’s all over when the mayor starts invoking 1930s Germany, but calling a charter school bill an “insult” to MLK, Jr. on MLK, Jr. Day is getting there:

Mayor Bloomberg Monday called a charter school bill an “insult” to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy.

The bill, which was crafted by the state Legislature’s Democratic leadership, would allow the number of charter schools in the state to double to 400.

But the mayor slammed it for making the creation of new charters too cumbersome.