the morning line

Scientific Proof: Manhattanites Are Superior to Queens Residents

• As home sales slump in other cities, New Yorkers, wallets fat with Wall Street’s big year-end bonuses, kick off 2007 with a surge in purchases of everything from tiny studios to whoppers like a $2.5 million home “in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn,” the Times overexplicitly reports. [NYT]
• Who’s slimmer, Manhattanites or folks from outer Queens? Likely the former, according to a new Columbia study finding that New Yorkers who live near lots of stores and subways have lower body-mass-index levels than do those from more suburban parts of the city. [Medical News Today]
• From Teaneck to Asbury Park, hundreds of gay couples show up at town halls in New Jersey today as the state becomes the third to offer civil unions. [NYP]
• Bill Clinton “stands in” for his wife at an Albany summit of state black and Latino lawmakers, many of whom stay mum on whom they’ll back for the Democratic presidential bid, HRC or her duskier rival, Illinois Senator Barack Obama. [NYDN]
• Mary’s Fish Camp, Artisanal, and, yep, good old Eisenberg’s are among the venues offering the twenty best sandwiches in New York City, from fancy-shmancy grilled-cheese redos to old-fashioned egg salad. [amNY]

Scientific Proof: Manhattanites Are Superior to Queens Residents