It should surprise no one that chivalrous behavior was prominently on display during a week in which New York was declared the world’s most polite city. At JFK, Mayor Bloomberg greeted President Bush with a handshake (“You know, he’s going through a rough period,” Hizzoner noted sympathetically) and received a hearty backslap in return. A proposed Al Qaeda subway cyanide attack was revealed to have been canceled because the potential carnage was insultingly low for a city of our stature. The in-laws of a Staten Island man accused of cheating on his wife and abetting her minivan suicide plunge off the side of Bear Mountain invited him to join them for dinner after his release on bail. An angry 19-year-old Lizzie Grubman copycat on Long Island slammed his Jaguar into a crowd outside a bar, but eschewed screaming white-trash epithets in favor of the more racially sensitive “I’ll kill you all!” Serial baby daddy Kevin Federline, who compensates for a lack of good breeding by breeding spectacularly well, came to Times Square to defend the honor of the penny. Angelina Jolie gave her first post-baby interview to Anderson Cooper and charged him not a single cent. In lieu of writing thank-you notes to the dozens of loyal viewers of her canceled MSNBC talk show, Connie Chung serenaded them dressed as a sea anemone. (As a counterpoint, the usually gallant Dan Rather, who lately has been crabbier than Chesapeake Bay at low tide, left CBS in a huff.) Nicole Kidman courteously arranged to hold her nuptials to singer Keith Urban in Australia instead of at her Richard Meier apartment, thus preventing a complete weekend shutdown of the West Side Highway. Cuddly Giants defensive end Michael Strahan shrugged when his estranged wife accused him of living an “alternative lifestyle” with TV doc Ian Smith. Cosmetics tycoon Ronald Lauder paid $135 million for a Klimt painting and will put it on display for all his fellow citizens to admire. As the Texas tourist knifed on the C train put it, “When you get to New York, you know, it’s a beautiful place. That’s why everyone has the I LOVE NEW YORK T-shirts.”

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Related:

• Archive: “It Happened Last Week”
• Articles by Mark Adams
• Table of Contents: July 10, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!