You Aren’t the Only Person Who Comes Home to Find Random People Smoking in Your StairwellClinton Hill: Beware of undesirables who sneak into your apartment building to smoke butts, do drugs, copulate, urinate, and drink coffee. Because it’s happening. [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Village: The latest bank branch hopes that if it puts up a big photo of the hood in Ye Olden Days, no one will notice that it’s filled mostly with bank branches now. [Vanishing New York]
Flushing: Local Quaker farmers demand freedom of worship! Well, they did in 1657. But the tatty document in which they listed their demands, called “The religious Magna Carta of the New World,” is on display up in here. [NYT]
gossipmonger
J.Lo’s Pregnancy SpoilerJennifer Lopez will supposedly announce that she’s pregnant during her show at MSG on Saturday night. Jessica Simpson’s people say she didn’t drink and dash at the Box — her friend just accidentally took the receipt slip with him. Rosie O’Donnell did an impromptu ten-minute stand-up set during a show by Roseanne Barr at Comix. (Rita Crosby was there, despite having been served a subpoena earlier in the day.) Mariah Carey doesn’t know how many bathrooms are in her Tribeca penthouse. Howard Stein, the nightlife honcho behind eighties hangouts Xenon and Rock Lounge, died at 62. The Port Authority says the quality of its toilet paper is much improved, contrary to what Larry David said on last week’s episode of Curb. GLAAD forced “Page Six” to apologize for calling the pre-op transsexual who has a reality show on Fox a “she-male.”
developing
What’s That Shiny Building, and What Have They Done With Our Bus Station?
When Governor Spitzer held a press conference Friday to announce the state was opening bidding for the 12-million-square-foot Hudson Yards site, he mentioned another bit of redevelopment in the works for the West Side: an imminent overhaul of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Which promptly sent us scurrying to the Port Authority’s Website, looking for details. We turned up these renderings and these optimistic stats: Apparently they’re planning 55,000 square feet of spiffed-up stores, 26 new bus gates, and a bright office tower on top. Even if the building doesn’t look too architecturally interesting, it’s still nice to imagine a presentable depot. Just don’t count on it anytime soon; feasibility studies will be ongoing till 2009. —Alec Appelbaum
Earlier: You Wanna Buy a Rail Yard?
ground-zero watch
WTC Insurers Agree to Pay, Only Five-Plus Years Later
A mere five years and eight months after September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center’s insurers have finally agreed to pay out Larry Silverstein’s claims. (And you thought the check from when your apartment was robbed took a long time to arrive!) Governor Spitzer announced a settlement yesterday between Silverstein and the seven insurance companies that tried to stiff him. So after all this wrangling, how huge is the gap between the amount Silverstein originally sought and the compromise sum? A measly $130 million — less than 3 percent of the total $4.6 billion the developer will receive. To think that this was one of the main issues slowing down the reconstruction at ground zero is, in instant retrospect, revolting. But both Silverstein and Spitzer put on gentlemanly performances yesterday; Silverstein offered a “very, very deep thank-you.” Another thank-you is probably being muttered by the Port Authority, which will help itself to a chunk of the settlement as a part of its earlier deal with Silverstein. And perhaps by the rest of New York, which might one day actually see something built on the site.
WTC Insure War Is Over [NYP]
the morning line
New Jersey and Stewart Airport, Perfect Together
• The Port Authority has permission from New Jersey’s acting governor to buy or build two new airports outside its normal area of operations. The first one will be Stewart International, 65 miles from New York; next up, Atlantic City? [NYDN]
• The plan to open a secular Arabic-studies school in Park Slope is nearly dead in the face of a massive and misguided outcry from parents and media who thought it would be a madrassa; the Sun, for instance, suggested we “break out the torches and surround City Hall to stop this monstrosity.” [NYT]
• An eBay official is testifying in the Peter Braunstein case to list the items the crazed ex-journalist bid on in preparation for his crimes: firefighter gear, handcuffs, a gas mask, potassium nitrate, a Detroit cop badge, a FDNY sticker, and a camcorder. [WNBC]
• A unique surgery healed a Long Island 3-year-old from a case of the permanent giggles doctors dubbed the Joker Face. (It’s actually a very rare form of epilepsy, caused by a tumor on the hypothalamus.) [Newsday]
• And we’re shocked — shocked! — to report an intern scandal in the halls of power. Republican Mike Cole has become the first-ever assemblyman to get officially censured for spending a night in a female intern’s apartment. Granted, he was merely watching the NHL playoffs there, with a bunch of other people present, but still. [NYP]
in other news
We Want to Work for the Port AuthorityToday’s Daily News takes a look at the Port Authority’s payroll, and the only possible reaction to the findings is this: “Where do we sign up for a job there?” The paper made Ralph Berlangieri, a gardener who took home $102,700 in 2006, the exposé’s marquee star, but there is a wealth of talented supporting players. One electrician, for instance, earned $124,000 last year; 50 Port Authority cops take home more than $200K. Of course, police officers and electricians put their lives on the line, albeit in two different ways, so perhaps deserve big paydays. But then there’s the toll collector making $86,000, a garage attendant with a $67,000 salary, and not one but two full-time salad makers at $40,000-plus each. But, hey, don’t worry about it: The Port Authority’s got plenty of money to spend. After all, it’s not like they have to keep cutting back the big downtown PATH station for lack of sufficient funds. Oh, wait.
103G(reen) Thumb [NYDN]
Related: Career Opportunities [Port Authority]
the morning line
Wanna Buy the Freedom Tower?
• Guess what Port Authority is going to do with the Freedom Tower once the construction is over? What every owner of a half-built property dreams of doing: Flip it. By its completion in 2011, the skyscraper may be up for sale, say Spitzer and Corzine. [Metro]
• Meet Mathieu Eugene, the City Council’s newest member and the first Haitian to fill the seat. Eugene won a low-profile, low-turnout special election in Brooklyn after his predecessor, Yvette Clarke, moved on to Congress. [NYP]
• Busta Rhymes, on trial for kicking a fan and beating up a former chauffeur, rejected a deal that would land him in jail for a cred-building six months. The alternative: probation, anger management, and two weeks of lecturing kids about violence. [NYDN]
• In New York, we wage our war on Christmas all year round — and we’re winning it, too. The U.S. Supreme Court washed its hands of the Brooklyn-filed case that challenged the citywide ban on school nativity displays. (Menorahs and Islamic crescents, however, are totally okay). [FoxNews.com]
• And in New Jersey, a similar battle with a techie twist: A public-school history teacher is in hot water after a student taped him proselytizing (“If you reject [Jesus], you belong in hell,” etc.) and saying that dinosaurs were on Noah’s ark. [NYT]
ground-zero watch
Now Calatrava’s Transit Hub, Too, Isn’t Quite Working Out as PlannedWe’ve always been partial to Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center transit hub; the building, a kind of spiny origami piece with movable wings, is the most genuinely exciting structure on the site. It’s also the only one that, for a long time, seemed to be getting anywhere. So it’s with a heavy heart that we report the following: The damn thing is suddenly a billion dollars over budget. The projected cost for the hub is now a jaw-dropping $3.4 billion. (And that’s the kind of money, as we learned today, that will buy you about 120 apartment towers in Brooklyn.) The contractors are embarking on a “major value engineering effort” to steer the project back to its original $2.2 billion price-tag. We think we know what that means — dumbed-down form and Plan-B materials — although the builders swear the “overall integrity of the design” will be intact. Screw integrity. Give us the movable wings.
$3.4B For WTC Hub a Rail Shock [NYP]
in other news
Stewart Airport: Good for Everyone, Great for Rich People
As you may have heard, the Port Authority is planning to soup up sleepy Stewart International Airport in New Windsor, New York — that’s about 55 miles up the Thruway — and turn it into the area’s fourth major airport. (The already-crowded Kennedy, La Guardia, and Newark airports are projected to reach capacity in 2020.) Moving to the big leagues will be a major change for the now-underused airport, which currently touts its appearance in an upcoming Denzel Washington movie as a primary claim to fame. But more than just easing congestion for all of us and giving New Windsor something to brag about, the transformation of Stewart will also have one more major effect. The new airport will significantly benefit the area’s posh exurbanite community; local VIPs will be able to dash to L.A. and back to their organic-squash farm without the hassle of swinging by Teterboro. The Catskills: soon to be just like Aspen.
4th Major Hub for Air Traffic Moves Ahead [NYT]
the morning line
One Day, Everything Will Be Named for the ‘Daily Show’ Host
• The Post has “Mob scion” Chris Colombo on tape waxing nostalgic about the days of former New York A.G. Dennis Vacco: “Spitzer is the worst. Vacco was the best. He didn’t care about anything. I had a hook in him.” Oh, the election ad that would have made. [NYP]
• So there’s JFK, La Guardia, Newark and … Stewart? With the Spitz’s blessing, the Port Authority is about to buy an underused airport 60 miles north of the city and turn it into the region’s fourth international hub. Pataki, apparently, hated the idea. [NYT]
• We suppose it was inevitable: The issue of how to list the names of WTC victims on the 9/11 memorial — alphabetically, at random, in weird associative clusters — is now fodder for hysterical TV ads running on NY1. [amNY]
• So there’s this $140 million police-radio system the MTA had been installing in the subways for ten years. It’s done, but the cops won’t use it: Everything sounds “as if you’re talking through a glass of water.” A $140 million glass of water. [NYT]
• And the Daily News somehow “learned,” unprompted by any recent developments, that Thor Equities is planning to redevelop Coney Island as a “glitzy playground” — a plan in the works for years. Let’s not tell the paper about the whole WTC memorial thing; it might upset them. [NYDN]
in other news
Neighborhood Part 1 (Tunnels)Mom, the Times is giving terrorists ideas again! Turns out the PATH tubes under the Hudson are “more vulnerable to a bomb attack than previously thought.” (That would be, previously thought by those not always paralyzed with crippling fear of a riverbed cave-in every time their train enters one of those pitch-black death tunnels.) According to a new analysis, were a “significant” bomb to go off somewhere in one of the four tunnels, it would only take six minutes for the tube’s entire length to flood. The paper says it’s withholding information about the bomb’s size and the precise locations where it can do the most damage; it does say that a 50-foot hole would cause 1.2 million gallons of water to rush into the tunnel per minute.
As a consolation, consider that the Port Authority recently earmarked $180 million for security improvements. Clever plans include installing floodgates at various points of the tunnels and laying concrete blocks atop the tubes (in case of an explosion, the blocks descend and plug the hole). So, please update your irrational fears to include randomly closing gates and concrete hunks tumbling through the ceiling. Thank you, and good night.
PATH Tunnels Seen as Fragile in Bomb Attack [NYT]
gossipmonger
Amy Sacco Is Still Probably Not Selling BungalowLindsay Lohan wrote a long and incoherent e-mail, which for some reason referenced Al Gore and Bill Clinton. Amy Sacco says she’s actually not selling Bungalow 8, the Observer’s reporting to the contrary notwithstanding. (Daily Intel readers already knew that.) Mary-Louise Parker may be dating her Weeds co-star Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Pataki consigliere Charles Gargano says he’ll keep his seat on the Port Authority board, even with his man gone from Albany. Frustrated Knicks fans, here’s your chance to vent: Garden chief Jim Dolan is performing with his band tonight at B.B. King’s. (It is, however, a cancer benefit, so don’t be too mean.) Paramount/Dreamworks execs are pushing Beyoncé over Jennifer Hudson for a Best Actress Oscar nod, and Jennifer Hudson is okay with it. Lenny Kravitz went to the dermatologist. Anna Wintour found The Devil Wears Prada “entertaining” and has had the same haircut since she was 15, she tells Barbara Walters during her “10 Most Fascinating People” interview (in which Wintour actually does wear Prada). TomKat didn’t invite Oprah to their wedding, and they didn’t invite her to their post-honeymoon bash, either. Kevin Federline showed up at a book reading for the free booze. Jordan’s Queen Rania and King Abdullah are on the rocks. Damon Wayans was fined $320 for dropping the n-word sixteen times at L.A.’s Laugh Factory. Jessica Alba and the Duff sisters are hosting a New Year’s Eve party at a club in Miami and are doing it for free. Ellen Pompeo wants to gain five to ten pounds, because they’d go straight to her boobs, she told Playboy. Robert Evans is suing the electrical company that installed a screening room in his home that mysteriously burned down. Liz Smith cried at the end of Dakota Fanning’s Charlotte’s Web.
the morning line
Comptroller, Comptrol Thyself
• The State Ethics Commission is taking Alan Hevesi behind the shed with a harshly worded, 26-page report on all that Albany wife-chaffeurin’. It says Hevesi “knowingly and intentionally” broke the law and tried to cover it up. Good enough for GovernorAttorney General Eliot Spitzer, who’s starting his own investigation of his ticket-mate. [NYP]
• Get ready to learn as much about sarcoidosis and granulomas as you once did about hanging chads. That’s because government agencies still can’t settle on an official relationship between toxic 9/11 dust and lung disease, and things are about to get very ugly and very arcane. [NYT]
• Move along, folks, nothing to see here: The Port Authority bus terminal is back to normal after a brief shutdown yesterday. A man boarded a Greyhound with one of those enduring fashion staples, a Suspicious Bag; he then refused to get off, forcing cops and bomb squads to flood the area all the way to Madam Tussauds. [WNBC]
• As a perp, Raffin Vellon doesn’t seem to lack for motive: According to the police, he bludgeoned his ex and her son to death, then murdered a super’s assistant, who happened to be Dominican, out of “ethnic hatred.” amNew York goes strikingly Post-ish in its coverage, coining the phrase “Bronx Barbell Murders.” [amNY]
• And transgendered New Yorkers can now use any restroom they want, says the MTA after settling a lawsuit with a snubbed Chelsea woman. Only in New York, kids. [Newsday]
the morning line
Bollards and Gribbles and Photogs, Oh, My!
• NYPD and DOT realize, after five years, that concrete bollards don’t actually protect us from terrorism. They do, however, teach us new words like “bollard.” [NYT]
• The Dolans really want to take Cablevision private. So much, in fact, that they’ll be happy to absorb $11.3 billion in debt (the company is valued at $7.9 billion). [WCBS]
• Yanks bask in the ultimate humiliation: throwing the postseason to the Tigers and getting outlasted by the Mets. Steinbrenner is likely to fire Torre and replace him with Lou Piniella. [WNBC]
• The city’s operas try to freshen up their crowd by offering $20 or $25 orchestra seats. Giving quotes like “We were all amazed that out of the woodwork these people came roaring up” does not help the populist cause. [NYT]
• In a textbook case of good news, bad news, cleaner water in the Hudson nurses back to life an array of disgusting critters like shipworms and gribbles. Bring back the pretty petroleum slicks! [IHT]
• And finally, city photojournalists, sounding surreally combative (“We are not a group to be trifled with”), demand rights to shoot in Port Authority facilities. Once you’ve seen the Christopher Street PATH station at dawn, you’ll understand. [AMNY]
[Ed. note: Apologies, by the way, for the late start. The Morning Line should post about two hours earlier than it did this morning, assuming in the future we can figure out how to use Movable Type.]