BEST OF MANHATTAN

Best Egregious Crime Against the Spirit of New York

Coney Island Redevelopment

The absolutely pointless and wasteful "renovation" of Washington Square Park deserves mention, but as far as large-scale damage to the very heart of what New York means is concerned, nothing is more odious than the city's multi-million dollar plan for Coney Island.

It'll bring in a shopping mall, a hotel, a spa, a bowling alley and a few high-end restaurants, and cost us Ruby's, the Nathan's, the Playland Arcade, the miniature golf course, the go-kart track, Shoot the Freak, the souvenir stand and a clam stand or two—most everything on the Boardwalk between the Wonder Wheel Park and the recently-landmarked Parachute Jump.

There's been talk of rejuvenating Coney since the '60s, when it was a seedy, crime-ridden boardwalk next to a filthy beach. Back then there was even talk of tearing the Cyclone down. But most of the plans involved trying to recapture turn-of-the-century Coney, when it was the working class Riviera—a relaxation and entertainment hub unlike anything else in the world.

Of all the plans proposed, none involved the wholesale destruction of so much history and personality. None (except maybe for that rumored Disney deal), tried to turn the Boardwalk into a slick shopping outlet for the well-to-do, who we doubt will ever venture so far from Manhattan in any event. This cheap and doomed experiment will cost us so very much.

Best Vintage Clothing store

Centricity

63 E. 4th St. (Bowery Ave)

212-979-7601

For the most part, vintage shopping in Manhattan is a joke. The entire idea behind digging through racks of hand-me-downs and discarded items is that once in a while a treasure is found and it is priced at pennies. We all know this isn't the case in Manhattan vintage stores, where most good finds are crammed between collections of crap and both the appalling and the alluring are vastly overpriced. Centricity, though, is not only priced extremely reasonably in comparison to other Manhattan vintage stores, but is also filled with fantastic clothing from all different eras and doesn't require the shopper to plow through heaps of undesirable items. Owner/full-time retail girl Christine is stylish, hospitable and helpful in a way you can trust. Because she never pushes items on a customer and obviously has an eye for style, you will never feel compelled to buy something that isn't perfect for you. Centricity is a goldmine in an island laden with overly adored boutiques selling yesterday's junk at Madison Avenue prices.

Every time we have passed through, we have found no fewer than ten items that we desperately needed to make part of our wardrobe. With fashions ranging from '40s shoes to '80s prom dresses, Centricity should be a frequented place for any girl with an eye for clothes. It is, as our grandmother would say, a "choice" place to shop.

BEST PLACE TO MAKE YOU STOP WISHING Best Nickname for Gentrification

Operation Snowflake

Three years ago, when we first moved into Brooklyn's Caribbean-heavy Prospect Heights—located on the wrong side of the Park Slope tracks—we fell in love with jerk chicken–stuffed patties, old-man stoop culture and, let's not lie, cheap rent: $1600 for a three-bedroom is still a steal.

Living in a house with two white kids, soon joined by six angel cake–pale activists, our brownstone gained a nickname.

Sample conversation with random neighborhood stranger: "Where do you live?"

"On the corner."

"Oh, you live in the honky house."

Sticks and stones, you know: Honky was a small price to pay for an apartment that didn't double as a club for hyperactive cockroaches. Anyway, as one year begat two, we noticed a trend: the shock troops of neighborhood expansion—marauding lesbians, paint-splattered artists and boys with wispy facial hair—soon moved into our block's empty apartments.

"It's like someone spilled a bottle of wite out across the neighborhood," said our neighbor Jose. "It's Operation Snowflake!" And now, in Prospect Heights, it's Christmas all year round.

IT WAS STILL 1988 IN NYC

Newark

Toto, we're not in Bushwick anymore.

Spectacular poverty! Unremitting grit! Festering parcels in prime downtown locations! The grim epicenter of a decentralized state whose largest paper could (and sometimes does) boast an annual "corruption section," so readers can page through their favorite mugshots of elected officials!

We've enjoyed the easy pace and mixed energies of Harlem, unmolested (knock, knock) by crime, for seven years. But this isn't Harlem, and it ain't Giuliani time, neither.

No, we had to start work in Jersey to get my gym bag ripped off… from my desk… in broad daylight… by a punk whose first call on our cell phone was to a lawyer famous for entering plea deals for meth-amphetamine and international-child-pornography kingpins.

It's 2005, and this is Newark, baby. Once the most prosperous city in the Garden State, Newark today is plagued by the twin blights of murderous poverty and reverse-commute-inspiring job creation for the college-educated. For nigh on two decades, this Art Deco goldmine has been Mayor Sharpe James's personal piggy bank, failed police state and whipping boy.

It's also a fucking time warp. The shops—both the indoor ones and the "sock souks" off Market Street—bear out fashion trends that spiral backward whither Soho pilgrims and neo-Nolitans dare not so much as glance. We swear, the labels on the shattered beer glasses still all read: "the beer that made Milwaukee famous."

WBGO pumps out top-notch jazz programming, but of more than 75 "local" jazz venues on its website, precisely none are in Newark. A terror threat against Prudential's headquarters did make a few headlines for the Brick City, but try telling someone in Pru's New York offices that they're actually headquartered in Jersey. We, like, double dare you.

This isn't how it was supposed to be when Johnny Mnemonic came out in 1995. Newark was supposed to rise like a fortress while Manhattan, Queens and Nassau fell into chaos.

It's not like the cops here don't try. Newark lost the national title for car theft years ago. Innovative acoustical systems triangulate the source of gunfire before terrified citizens can pick up the phone.

We ourselves, crossing in the shadow of that mighty Pru (and in the glow of Rainbow Lingerie), narrowly escaped a ticket for jaywalking. The officer volunteered no information concerning our gym bag. But we avoided the municipally sanctioned roughing-up that sent documentary filmmaker Marshall Curry off the fence of objectivity in Cory Booker's Storybook Quest to Unseat Sharpe, Book I, or something like that.

It wow'd 'em at the Hackensack…er, Tribeca Film Festival. Look for the sequel in the 2006 mayoral campaign.

But act fast, because the town that gave us Philip Roth is rebounding. Unevenly, but decidedly, and extending beyond the legendary Hobie's Deli and the wondrous culinary onslaught that is the Ironbound. Private-public partnerships are exemplified by the Prudential-backed New Jersey Performing Arts Center, an anchor of redevelopment that is a brilliant marriage of architectural presence, varied programming and acoustical quality. Euphoria is a great little café, and we don't even mind the Starbucks on Broad Street.

Until the real rain comes, take the PATH or New Jersey Transit to Newark Penn Station. Take the City Subway somewhere on the other side of Rutgers after dark. Wear brightly colored golfing attire; sport the latest personal-amusement gadgetry. The pleasures of Newark are best explored alone, so give that bodyguard and driver the night off.

And remember, though Newark has a poverty rate on a par with Bangladesh, it's a high-cost locality. So bring cash. Lots of cash.

Just stand there a few moments. Newark's imminent resurgence is bound to touch you personally.

Best Terrorist Plot

Osama bin Laden Poisons the Cocaine Supply

Earlier this summer, when the New York Post broke the story of this failed terrorist plot, we thought it was a joke: Osama bin Laden attempts to buy a load of cocaine from Colombian drug lords, with the intention of lacing it with poison and selling it on the U.S. market. Cokeheads drop dead by the thousands, sparking a nationwide wave of terror.

It's an inspired idea.

When we imagine hoards of coked-up investment bankers, entertainment industry flacks, supermodels, frat boys, media personalities and gossip columnists dropping like flies, eyes bulging, limbs twitching and mandibles grinding their last, "terror" is not exactly the word that springs to mind. We're thinking something more along the lines of "Well, how about that," or maybe just "Yay."

If an evil terrorist mastermind wants to wipe out a major component of America's asshole population, we say Allah to you, sir!

According to the Post article, bin Laden's diabolical scheme was foiled when the Colombian cartel turned him down, fearing he'd cripple its dependable U.S. trade.

We only hope that an undaunted bin Laden is now working on a set of custom ringtones that render cellphone users sterile.

Best place to see stupid Luddites fucking with street traffic

United artists court street stadium 12

108 Court St. (betw. State St. & Schermerhorn St.), Brooklyn

718-246-7459

The scene is the same on every lazy summer Saturday in front of the UA Court Street Stadium 12 in Brooklyn Heights. It's fucking sweltering outside, and dozens of people are standing in a line, looking like they're going to pass out from heat exhaustion just because they really want to see Lindsay Lohan in that Herbie movie or watch Brangelina blow up their entire neighborhood while exchanging brilliant bon mots. These poor moviegoers often have to wait in line for half an hour, while blocking traffic to the Barnes & Noble next door. Every time we see this line, it crushes our soul and makes us never want to go to the movies again. Until we realize that we can walk right inside, buy a ticket at one of the Fandango machines, where there's never a line, and be sitting in the air-conditioned theater two minutes later. What's up with the crowd outside? Are they scared of technology? Do they not have credit cards? It's a mystery that manifests itself weekly, and one we may never solve.

Best Subway Pitchman

The "High Quality 10-Piece Manicure Set" Guy

Fingerpickin'. We saw him for the first time as the 2004 holiday season was approaching. It was a few minutes after 6 in the morning when the subway doors opened and a little man with a funny, unidentifiable accent stepped aboard.

"You… better… be-lieve it!" he announced, as if he'd been studying his Ronco commercials carefully. That caught everyone's attention. He then launched into his spiel for the "10-piece men's & ladies' manicure set—for the low price of only $2!" It was such a lively, happy—downright goofy spiel, that he sold half a dozen manicure sets in that car alone, to people who simply liked his style.

We've been seeing him pretty regularly since, and every time the spiel's a little bit different. ("High quality and low…low…low prices!") We also learned that a high-quality 10-piece manicure set makes a perfect gift for whatever holiday happens to be approaching: Christmas, Ramadan, New Year's, Mother's Day, Easter—whatever. A manicure set—and only a manicure set—makes any one of those holidays truly complete. And you know, we believe him. We're sorry to report, however, that the last time we saw him, the price had gone up to $3.

Most Unusual Building with No Reason for Existing

300 W. 38th St. (8th Ave)

The first thing to grab our attention is the exceptionally large cornice, so wide it looks like it could, at any moment, collapse under its weight onto the sidewalk. Closer inspection reveals an unusual row of sculpted female heads; impassive gazes set within delicately curved seashells. The women are adorned with disc-like ear ornaments that descend into a dense intestinal string of garlands and flowers. Every visit to this bizarre 3-story building—which does not seem to fall into any recognizable school of architecture—reveals something new, such as nautical ripples above the corner 2nd-story windows, as well as tiny lions' heads on the upper façade that echo the startlingly large one perched atop the 38th Street entrance. A sign in the ground floor window reads, in descending columnar order, "LINGERIES SHOES NOVELTIES," then, as an afterthought, "PEEPSHOW," but nothing offers a clue as to the identities of previous occupants or why anyone would ever have been inspired to build such a peculiar creation.

A bit of research uncovers some background, but not much. We know that a fire in 1906 caused proprietor Bernard Goodwin $100 worth of damage, that Winston Stewart, 46-year old jewelry thief, kept his stash of purloined gems here in 1932, and, most sensationally, the building was home to one of the alleged killers in the "Capeman" case – the 1959 Hell's Kitchen stabbing that alerted the country to gang violence and later inspired a Broadway show by Paul Simon. Aside from these details, the structure's history and original purpose remain mysteries, although any information from knowledgeable readers would be most welcome. Until then, we'll simply content ourselves with admiring its off-kilter sense of beauty. In a city that seems to be losing its quirks on an almost daily basis, some eccentricities remain.

Best Business Proposal

Rat Shooting Gallery

And why not? Turn a negative into a positive! These fast breeding and nearly impossible to kill vermin will surely be around longer than us, but we might as well squeeze some entertainment out of them. Just pick a semi-enclosed area, supply some small but deadly weaponry, and charge a reasonable fee for access—any rich person can kill some overstuffed large prey, but can you kill a New York City rat? Step right up, and try to succeed where poorly funded extermination programs and centuries of civilization have failed! As for zoning and what not, we'll look into that later.

Best Public Facility for Pee-Shy Men

Mid-manhattan Library

455 5th Ave. (betw. W. 40th St. & W. 42nd St.)

The men's room we have in mind is up on the third floor, on the 42nd St. side of the building. Needless to say, all four urinals are blinkered off each other by barriers—an absolute must for those with our affliction. Then there's the welcoming sirocco-like roar emitted by the hand-dryers: noises, like barriers, are a covering device. And the place is just busy enough (most of the time) to keep this covering noise in play—but not so busy there's a queue waiting to piss (death to the relaxation response). When our turn comes to pound the hand-dryer, we can't help but feel we're performing a service for some fellow sufferer waiting for cover.

Best Street to Get Splatted By Cars

Eastern Parkway

Some people may wager on Williamsburg's car-crazy Bedford Ave. Others may pick Park Slope's fatality-prone Fifth. But if we're placing a mortician's bet on the street most likely to murder pedestrians and bicyclists, we're nominating Eastern Parkway.

When Frederick Olmsted first designed this broad swath of road, he envisioned Paris' bucolic boulevards. To that end, he demanded verdant trees and an idyllic path for Sunday strolls. However, deviating from the sidewalk or strolling lane is the answer to that pesky problem of living.

Minivans and Mini Coopers alike race down Eastern Parkway, dashing from light to light like truckers two days past deadline. Of particular concern is the swamp-like traffic miasma surrounding Brooklyn's cultural pillars: the Museum of Art, Botanic Gardens and Prospect Park. Poorly timed traffic lights. Streets as curvy as snakes. It sometimes feels like real-life Frogger. We have been clipped on the arms by countless rear-view mirrors, our bruises a deep midnight blue. Rumors have swirled about traffic upgrades, but as long as Marty Markowitz has his myopic Brooklyn Nets hard-on, expect cars to claim a couple more notches on their bumper.

Best Wing of a Museum to Get a Blowjob

Brooklyn Museum's Period Rooms

200 Eastern Parkway (Washington Ave.), Brooklyn

718-638-5000

For once, it wasn't the art that sucked. It was a rainy afternoon, and we were at the Brooklyn Museum of Art with our girlfriend, wasting time perusing mummies and their fine sarcophaguses. But it was an esophagus that ultimately caught our attention.

"Want a BJ?" asked our girlfriend, a mischievous young thing with a hankering for hidden hand jobs and flexing her oral skills on the subway. Her nimble fingers danced below our equator, landing on the South Pole.

"Mmm," we mumbled, losing all need for vowels.

"Follow me," she said, leading us up a flight of stairs to the fourth floor. This museum wing features 28 period rooms. They recreate various stages of Americana. From John D. Rockefeller's Moorish-style smoking room to a rustic, 19th-century dining room from South Carolina. They're kind of impressive. And kind of boring. Most visitors whirlwind through, tossing cursory glances before moving onto the modern art upstairs.

"Right here," our girlfriend said, pulling us into a quiet corner, near some puffy, peacock-plumed furniture. Our zipper went south.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…"

"…rt. Yes, that's art," she said, finishing us yet again.

Best Group Therapy as Blood Sport

The Moth

moth.org

A dozen at a time. Eight million stories in the naked city. Given 6,410 years or so, story-telling collective the Moth might tell them all.

For five years, the 501(c)(3) devoted to the impossibly democratic idea that everyone might, just might, have a story worth telling has gone beyond its Moby-magnetized shows at the Players and the NYPL to mount biweekly "Story Slams" at less tony venues. For $6 in arenas like the Nuyorican and the Bitter End, you get to witness raconteur Andy Borowitz alternately bait and coddle minor-league hopefuls in contests that are half poetry slam, half campfire.

While the pregame warm-ups call for "Newlyweds"-style performer sequestration and the kind of audience shoutouts that typically mark improv comedy, the emcee strictly admonishes against standup routines. Audience judges, too, generally reward a delightful narrative arc over simpler comic recall tactics, and persuasive character conflicts over standalone punchlines.

Any given Tuesday (or Monday, or Wednesday — check the calendar on themoth.org) elicits talent, story construction and delivery skills ranging from promising young masters down to green-belt exhibitionists. Familiar stress positions (e.g., roommate indignities and family fiascoes) are staples, peppered with cultural touchstones from Zionism and J-Date to Bartelby and the Oracle of the Fedora in Madrid.

Failure (as the Prophecy of the Stylish Hat would attest) is part of the enterprise, but not for cruel sport: the pre-show buzz is akin to that of a keg party (or we've read) an encounter session. Heckling is restrained, and anything less than a 6.5 from the East German judge tends to draw boos from the many friends there to support their favorites.

At a recent slam, the opening bout drew a feel-good tie that left our thirst for blood unquenched. But a first-time storyteller was named the official victor of the main event. Her dizzying tale-telling grazed our own, punier experiences just often enough to lend them a bit of her energy, illuminating the cathartic value that storytelling has possessed since before Aristotle coined the term.

Or put another way: since before shrinks muscled in on the storyteller's turf. At $3 an hour, We don't need to see the sheepskin.

Best Conversion of a hospital into apartments

the brooklyn Jewish Hospital

555 Prospect Pl. (betw. Classon Ave. & Franklin Ave.)

Factory-to-loft renovations are so passé. If you're anybody in the ought-five, you're living in a hospital-to-substandard housing conversion. Yes sireee, drop the Sheetrock in your burnt-out Bushwick building and hotfoot it to Crown Heights. Down here, developer Steve Valiotis (the wallet behind Bed-Stuy's Taaffe Place Lofts, aka Pratt HQ) is transforming the long-shuttered Jewish Hospital into the latest bastion of overpriced housing.

No fewer than five years ago, withered bags of flesh padded around the fluorescent-lit halls with their colostomy bags, biding time between radiation treatments. Now, with a massive facelift, the site of so many last breaths is now home to post-college kids paying above-market rent. We are ungodly boggled.

In our short, stupid history, we have lived in countless mouse-ridden apartments in neighborhoods where a baseball bat to the jaw is our neighbors' way of saying howdy. This we can handle. But living in a warren-like maze of white hallways and paying $500 more than market rent to cohabitate with the ghosts of bubbes and zadies, now that's meshuggeneh.

Best Reason to Dress Up Like a Drunken Santa and Make Homeless Men Happy

Santacon

Our cold, Jewish hearts get a little colder each Christmas when we're lighting candles while Jesus-lovers get the Broadway musical treatment: garish lights, catchy songs and a lard-bellied ringleader. To brighten our spirits, we hide our yarmulke, tuck tushies into a jolly old St. Nick suit, glue on a moth-eaten beard and join the jolly mob known as Santacon.

The annual Santacon hullabaloo started as an informal gathering of faux Kris Kringles in downtown San Francisco. That innocent subversion has blossomed into a worldwide phenomenon of adults channeling St. Nick and Skid Row winos, while marauding city streets. Kind Santas pass out presents to stunned children; others pass out in a urine puddle. You'll lose faith in a just God when 500 hootched-up Santas (and assorted naughty elves) stomp down Fifth Avenue, such as we did last year.

"Hey, Santa, got something for me," shouted a man in a camouflage hunter's cap, pushing his friend in a wheelchair.

"Of course, Santa has something for all his naughty children," we said.

We waddled over, handing him a wrapped gift. It had a skinny neck and thick cylinder bottom.

"I know what this is!" Mr. Camouflage said, tearing away paper to reveal New Jersey's finest Georgi vodka.

"Merry Christmas," we said, stumbling away with holiday cheer, which smelled an awful lot like whiskey.

Best Burgeoning Tradition to Battle the Cold With Idiocy

Idiotarod

Come January, when eyeball-freezing winds scream down from Canada, we grind against silver radiators, praying for one last squirt of steam heat. We're reluctant to venture outdoors, sustenance derived from Chinese delivery men, each one quickly replaced, like the Pony Express' foolhardy charges, when the elements enact their toll. We're brownstone hermits…except during the blessed Idiotarod.

After two years, the Idiotarod has become our favorite winter pastime, trumping even our pee-in-the-snow calligraphy. The Idiotarod is like the Iditarod, but with fewer dogs and more stupid humans. In a nutshell: strap four fools to a shopping cart. Enlist a fifth individual as the "musher." Drink cold-quashing rye whiskey and race through the streets, aiming for victory through any necessary sabotage. Examples: providing wrong directions, smacking contestants or throwing a competitor's cart into the East River.

Participating in the Idiotarod is not about victory (to wit: anyone wearing Spandex is eliminated). Rather, the race is about embracing, nay, celebrating the Arctic elements. January in NYC is not for the faint of heart, but for the idiotic, it's perfect.

Best Park to feel like a creepy child Molester

Cobble Hill Park

Veranda Pl. (Clinton St.), Brooklyn

Take an afternoon stroll through Brooklyn's jewel of a pocket park, located on the border between the tony Cobble Hill and Brooklyn Heights neighborhoods, and one can't help but feel a bit out of place. Out of place, that is, if one is lacking that essential accoutrement for true park citizenship—a deluxe stroller, and/or a sticky little kid's hand to hold in your own. Without these accessories, a lone park visitor runs the risk of receiving that terrifying look from the legions of stay-at-home moms and dads giving Junior some air, the one that silently asks, "Will you be attempting to molest my child?" Always a pleasant feeling. Nonetheless, if you can get over that, and don't mind the hordes of writers and other self-employed types lazing a summer's day away, Cobble Hill Park is a lovely place to while away an hour or two. Sit on the park's north side, and face a row of stunning brownstones that open onto an alley in picture-perfect Brooklyn splendor. Or better yet, don't, and save yourself the heartache of tabulating just how many man-hours of your McJob it will take to supply a down payment for one of those babies.

Best Bike Path

Hudson bike path between 125th Street and the George Washington Bridge

The superiority of this riding path lies not only in the scenery, but also in the other folks sure to be enjoying the park around you. On a typical weekend you'll see hosts of Dominican families barbequing, playing volleyball, blasting music, dancing and generally having a good time. You can also buy mangos on sticks, peeled and cut to look like lovely yellow flowers. The point is to make it easy to eat—now if only we could get those pulpy mango bit out of our teeth.

When you get to the foot of the GW, the Hudson laps right up onto the shore you're standing on; and it really looks like a shore: pebbly, a bit sandy, with only tiny shrubs. You can pretend to be a Revolutionary soldier on the banks of the river, resting from a long day's effort evading the Brits and being Independent. When you look north from this vantage, you can see the lighthouse that sits a few miles upriver. Looking south you see the piers down on the Upper West Side and the moored ships at the 79th St. Boat Basin. And looking right out east over the water you might see pleasure ships, kayakers, floating seagulls, or just the determined towers of the Garden State.

An added benefit of this route is that around 125th you must make a detour back from the water's edge to the other side of the Hudson Parkway. On your bike you'll zip past lower Harlem's Cotton Club and, the mansion of chard, Fairway. You can also scope out the big changes going on in the old, Columbia-owned buildings up there, as development continues and gentrification moves uptown.

Best Pipe Dream for a Real-Estate Renaissance

Gowanus, the neighborhood

Stagnant, noisome body of water equals real-estate boom. Of course! Why didn't we see it coming? Realtors will have you believe that Gowanus (yes, the one with the canal) is the next East Williamsburg, but quaint. If by quaint, Mr. Real Estate Broker, you mean homes crumbling from nuclear waste underfoot, sure. Six months into your lease your olfactory will be fried, and you'll develop a nasty whooping cough. But those sunsets! Oh, man. That ain't the most beautiful sunset you've ever saw, it's the radioactive haze rising from the canal. If those Huns are betting on the stroller set, they should fold now. Let's not even talk about the proposed Holiday Inn and its in-room air fresheners. Oy!

Best Man on A Horse

Joan of Arc

93rd St. & Riverside Dr.

We'll grant you that trim mounted NYPD can look mighty fine cantering along (perhaps in pursuit of mounted jaywalkers). But by far the most dashing man on a horse in this town has got to be…Joan of Arc! This fierce French femme in full armor sits pretty atop her steed on her own Joan of Arc Island at Riverside Drive and 93rd Street.

And just as Joan had to work to convince the powers that be that a chick could lead a unit of troops into battle, sculptor Ann Hyatt Huntington dreamed for nine long years of depicting Joan of Arc standing poised in the stirrups, sword brandished, eyes fierce, ready to lead the charge. Huntington went so far as to travel to Joan's native home in rural France for inspiration. Finally she was commissioned to create this bold statue in 1915, making her the first woman to be selected to craft a NYC equestrian sculpture. And Joan became the first woman to be memorialized with a sculpture anywhere in the City.

Mademoiselle D'Arc makes two other prominent New York City appearances, (although neither of these show her storming along on horseback). At the Metropolitan Museum of Art she may be seen in Jules Bastien-Lepage's oil painting of 1879. There we see a young Joan receiving the sacred vision. The Met also boasts a rather more frivolous image of American actress Maude Adams as Joan of Arc in a 1909 oil painting by Alphonse Marie Mucha, who intended it for display when the play The Maid of Orleans, starring Adams, opened at the Harvard University Stadium.

Joan of Arc—she's our man!

Best Urban Legend

Russian child brides for sale

If you're like us, you're almost glad you don't speak Russian, because if you did you'd plunge into Brighton Beach, determined to learn the truth about the Red Mafia—whether legendary gangster Vlad the Hand is really as powerful as legend has it, for instance—only to be badly disappointed when finding that everyone in the know is distinctly unimpressed by the fact that you speak their language, leaving you as badly off in terms of getting in the know as the next man.

If you're like us, though, despite all this you still do wish you spoke Russian, not because it would allow you to read Goncharov in the original but because it would allow you to investigate that hoariest of all New York urban legends, the one involving Russian nightclubs where one can supposedly mingle with immigrant families literally selling off their heartrendingly beautiful teenage daughters to slick killers from Petersburg. Such a thing couldn't possibly be true, and it really wouldn't even be worth going to a few nightclubs in search of such a scene—but then, if you're like us, you've actually spent time in the tunnels underneath Prospect Park looking for the pale subterranean race alleged to live there, the youngest of whom are said never to have seen the sun, and thus spend far too much time wondering if it's actually possible to buy some young girl in Brooklyn, maybe even under the benevolent eye of Vlad the Hand.

Best Place for a Tattoo of Satan

The Forehead

We realize that the parts of the body are limited and choosing the right tattoo placement is key. The anchor (classic) tattoo goes on the sinewy arm; the zenned-out Chinese character tattoo (which we're all convinced have the literal meaning of "eat me" in Chinese) goes on the oh-so-sensitive nape of the neck. The Celtic motif goes just north of the great buttockal divide, where today's low-cut jeans can expose both. The upper-arm band tattoo goes on the upper-arm. The butterfly poises on the shoulder. And the unicorn over a castle with dancing fauns and happy ponies with dolphin faces and teddy bear bodies goes all over the back.

However, Satan can go nowhere but smack-dab in the center of the forehead. It screams "not afraid to embrace the Dark Side!" If evil is to prosper, its advocates must be outspoken. That is why the best tattoos of Lucifer that we have come across have, without a doubt, been those centered right in the middle of the brow.

Best Reason to Enforce Public Dress Code

Maternity–Wear Chic

When our pregnant wife hit that point where it was time to shop for some new clothes last summer, we quickly despaired—not because of the change in her figure (good genes and healthy habits actually made her a quite fetching mother-in-waiting), but because of the horrible fashion choices she was forced to make. Not one to pay much attention to her dress past maintaining a certain standard of decency, our poor wife was confronted with the horrible fact that she could either wear shapeless pastel mu-mus or lacy, expensive top from specialty boutiques whose designers had apparently spent their working lives pondering the question of how best to make a woman deep into the second trimester look like a tarted-up slut. Faced with the appalling prospect of paying eighty dollars for a wispy piece of fabric she'd outgrow in a month or two, one meant to display as much of her bosom as possible and thrust her womb at passerby, our woman showed why we married her and went for the shapeless pastel mu-mus.

Imagine our horror, then, when while walking about downtown a friend pointed out a heavily-made up harlot flouncing about in an expensive maternity shirt, tight enough at the ribcage to staunch the flow of a mighty river and billowing just above the waistline of her jeans, which we slung low enough to reveal a thong.

"Can you imagine?" she asked us as we feared for the future of this poor woman's child. "Wearing something like that when you're not even pregnant." And then, after looking the woman over and failing to note even a single sign of incipient parenthood, the awful truth dawned on us that women no more pregnant than Betty Grable are deliberately choosing to wear maternity clothes for heaven only knows what reasons, presumably having to do with the dictates of smart magazines. We cherish our liberty as much as the next man, but would find legislation unobjectionable.

Best Reason to Spend Some Money At The Local Smoke Shop

Tube injectors

Count us as a foe of punitive cigarette taxes. We don't care that Mayor Bloomberg doesn't like smoke; the policy is ridiculous. Aside from the always-questionable wisdom of attempting to legislate morality, which inevitably backfires (in this case by creating a black market and driving consumers out of state and online to get their cancer sticks, harming small businesses here in the city), these taxes have inconvenienced us and hurt our bankroll. Who wants to choose between spending eight dollars on a pack of filtered Luckies and giving out a credit card number to a shady website?

The roll-your-own alternative has always struck us as distasteful. Partly this is because hand-rolled smokes just don't satisfy. Partly this is because of their unseemly association with sensitive artists who fancy their Bali Shag habit sophisticated because of its vaguely European associations and dippy vegans who think it's somehow more healthy to light up a formaldehyde-free smoke. We don't like picking shreds of tobacco out of out teeth and we don't like being mistaken for the sort of person who wears a suede jacket, drinks cappuccino and soulfully nods while listening to art school girls talk about their feelings.

Luckily, clever engineers have arrived at a method of getting the savings associated with roll-your-owns while being able to smoke a proper filtered cigarette. All you need is some tobacco, a carton of filtered tubes and a small gadget called a tube injector, which will set you back about $40. You sprinkle tobacco into the gadget, shove a tube into it, turn a crank and out comes a perfectly packed cigarette, visually indistinguishable from a real smoke. It takes no more than five or ten minutes to roll a pack and by keeping them in a naff cigarette case one has an even better affectation with which to impress NYU girls than a random twerp slobbering over a hand-rolled does. Going this route, a pack of smokes costs under $2, and we can happily report that the smoking is good—excellent, even. Using Bali Shag, out cigarettes draw well and taste good, like nuttier Winstons, and we can pass them to our confederates without inflicting the taste of our saliva on them. Real savings and a civilized air—what's not to like?

Best spot to watch the revolution devour itself

Union Square Park

Now that Washington Square has become little more than a "local-color" lunchtime atrium enclosed in the confines of NYU, the HQ for the counterculture has moved uptown. For that "only in New York, folks" brand of wackiness that out-of-towners will jot down in their journals with breathless excitement but locals just find tedious, Union Square is the place to spend an afternoon.

The park staked its claim to being the staging ground for the anti-war movement from the moment the second plane hit, eventually becoming so packed with soapbox-screamers and gutter "revolutionaries" that it's taken on the look of the cantina in Star Wars.

This hive of scum and villainy has seen both "Communists for Kerry," a pack of junior-varsity Swift Boaters whose shtick was to costume themselves as such Marxist luminaries as Lenin and Che and extol John Kerry as their boy, to the never ending antics of ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), a group who co-opted the antiwar movement from its inception but who also seem to have much love for megalomaniacs like Zimbabwe's venal Robert Mugabe. At first glance (and second and third) such folks cause passersby to cock their heads and wonder Um? are they for real??

When parody and self-parody unite, the dead (or other creeping automatons) will walk the earth. Among the undead horde you can find the theologically baffling Jews for Jesus, the perpetually grinning Mormons and equally creepy 9-11 conspiracy theorists (many of whom, interestingly enough, reserve their particular ire for FDR). Sprinkle on top of this mess a gaggle of hip-hop Goths and the smell of wet dog shit wafting over from the dog run and serve on a very, very hot day.

Best Place to Exert Peer Pressure

The schoolyard behind P.S. 120

Staten Island

We've tried a lot of back alleys, schoolyards, boys' rooms, etc. to break kids down into doing our will though the threat of ostracization. We found the highest capitulation took place at the expansive and habitually teacher-less lot behind P.S.120 on Staten Island. There, dressed in over-sized t-shirts and swaggering, we pressured teens into everything from giving up speakin' wit' right English to skipping out on Gender in 20th Century Astronomical Physics Studies class.

What makes this yard so particularly effective for getting other kids to do the stupid things they might otherwise resist is a combination of features. A wire fence is perfect for leaning up against to look extra cool, scaling at night to seem dangerous and cool, or pinning kids to in order to intimidate them…and seem cool. Also, hidden under the fencepost is stashed a list of names to call the kid you want to pressure; names such as "squirrel" "pussynoggin" "frank's mom" "and mushpants" will break any straight-and-narrow kid down into the drug-buying sycophant you'd like him to be. It's worth the ferry ride just to try it out!

Best Vomitous Smell

Central Park South

We ask, paraphrasing Lauryn Hill, "When it smells so bad, why's it feel so good?" And if curious odor holds a similar magnetism for you, please do check out the stench on Central Park South—the stretch of 59th Street between Columbus Circle and the roundabout at 5th Avenue. This is a picturesque section of Central Park where horse-and-buggy rides are still to be had (for a peasant's price of 50 bucks a ten minute trot).

On a fine summer day the smell of warm horse rises aloft, mingling with the essence of midtown car exhaust, the rising fumes of the M59 crosstown, the farts of foreigners sated with Central Park hotdogs and the aroma of pet dog excreta. And if you're lucky enough to encounter one of those meth-crazed, nose-bombing pigeons that flap right at your face, you may, in fact toss your cookies. Sure, subways are dank, Tompkins Square Park sometimes smells like urine, and your hamper smells like socks: but for New York's absolute most gut-turning reek, check out this locale!

BEST MANHATTAN NEIGHBORHOOD FOR DOG OWNERS

Inwood

We were forced to admit that there is something infectious about New York City after a desperate escape attempt failed in L.A. Once New York's got you, there's not much you can do but settle for the filthy subway, the sick garbage smell and the rude people who would slit your throat before letting you have that seat on the bus.

We were worried about moving back, though, because we now had a German Shepherd puppy who was used to California sunshine and tanning by pools. We had new priorities and knew of no neighborhood where we could afford to live and have a happy, healthy and well cared for dog.

Then we heard about Inwood. We'd never been there, but we heard that there was a huge park that had dog runs galore. Well, it sounded great and once we saw the neighborhood we began to get hopeful. We've had our share of New York apartment disasters, so we know how dangerous hope can be. But the apartments were huge and affordable, and no one was joking about the park. It's the last remaining natural forest left on the island of Manhattan and if you are careful, it can be dog paradise.

The park itself has the softball fields, tennis courts, creeps and garbage that other city parks have, but behind all that is a real forest-—just like forests in the country. Sure there are a few more people and a decent amount of broken glass, but the trees and plants and pure outdoors of it is so incredibly different than everyday life in New York. And if you're daring you can let your dog run free off-leash in the woods, though you do have to watch out for the cops. Because the park is a nature reserve, they can ticket you as much as $1000. But usually tickets are for $100, and once you know where they are, you can avoid the police.

The dog run is frequented by a collection of people obsessed with their dogs. We see each other every day, know all the dogs, and have a sort of neighborhood watch that revolves around Inwood Hill Park. In the year that we've lived here, about 100 dog run regulars have formed a not-for-profit group called "Inwoof," whose goal is to make Homer's Run the safest and best dog run in the city.

As nutty as this may sound to those who aren't serious dog owners, these people are some of the best resources in Upper-Manhattan on everything from where to get the cheapest and safest pet care and free shots to how to avoid getting ticketed or mugged.

So for anyone who loves dogs but feels like it would be cruel to have a dog in the city of no backyards, there is hope. Just move to Inwood.

Best place to Bond with other Low-Tax Bracket New Yorkers

The Insidious Lines at the Greyhound Port Authority Counter

Out of all the rundown subway stations, public parks, and loitering hotspots in the city, nothing tops the Port Authority. Year after year the bus station attracts the same mixed crowd of budget travelers, street sleepers, loonies, junkies, lazy cops, and impatient, harried locals. But there's one thing that makes all drama scenes appear mild—the endless line at the Greyhound counter.

The bus stop is one place in every city that unites the people. Black or white, old or young, rich or poor, busboy or clichéd artist, they are all slaves a primitive form of transportation.

Despite much practice, every time you reach the ticket line, the same feeling of dread washes over you. Twenty minutes later, you'll find the queue hardly moved and the computers crashed, as they do almost every Friday in the summer.

The only solace you find in this traveler's chaos is the consolation that you're not alone. So you bitch and moan to your neighbors—the young couple backpacking, the family visiting relatives, and the middle-aged man traveling alone. As the hour rolls around frustration incites nearly enough to rage to start a riot, for the sole purpose that press attention may cause Greyhound to establish more efficient processes.

BEST OUTER-BOROUGH SUMMER ACTIVITY

Bronx Culture Trolley

718-931-9500 x33

Although on weekends this little red trolley is an excellent way to get from the Bronx Zoo to the Botanical Gardens then over to Arthur Avenue for pasta, it's on the first Wednesday of the month that the trolley actually does something interesting. Dubbed the "Bronx Culture Trolley", it makes a run down to lower Grand Concourse (once the borough's art deco version of Park Avenue) and stops at various cultural destinations for performances, art shows and the like. Their August 3rd lineup included a meet & greet reception at Hostos Community College's Longwood Art Gallery, a poetry reading at the Downtown Bronx

Bar & Café, a "multi-media presentation" at the Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance. Each month's roster of activities varies but tends to be a sampling of art, dance and music events that showcase local talent. There's usually a fairly interesting crowd, including serious arts afficionadoes mingling with high-school kids for whom it's a free date activity. The trolley runs until December and begins again in March, admission is free but reservations are recommended.

BEST PLACE TO WATCH DIVORCED DADS DESPERATELY TRY TO ASSUAGE THEIR LINGERING SENSE OF GUILT

American Girl Place

609 5th Ave. (49th St.)

1-877-AG PLACE

It says something when even a seven-year-old finds a toystore just a little too intense. American Girl Place, the newish Fifth Avenue flagship store of Pleasant Company's American Girl line of dolls, was too much for our daughter and us. We were expecting something like the old FAO Schwatrz experience, we were ready to deal with lights and displays and songs and cuteness attacking from every corner, but five minutes in this dystopian Girl-World drove us outside to the steps of St. Pat's, resolving to buy the damn dolls from the catalog.

For the uninitiated, American Girl makes dolls to represent various time periods and cultures in America's history from the colonial girl to the depression-era cutie. For those of us remembering Barbie, or even those Cabbage Patch creatures, the American Girls are wildly expensive, and each comes with a king's ransom worth of painstakingly accurate (and sold separately) accessories. Salon called the dolls a "class indicator," and a trip through the store did make us wonder who could afford all these things?

Then we started looking around us. Sure, the tourists were there. The impeccably dressed and smiling families of six from Atlanta or London. But more commonly, you would see single children, one girl generally between the ages of six and nine, dressed in a brand-new outfit, one hand clutching the hundred dollar "starter kit" of a doll and a book, and the other caught and held by a worried-looking fortyish man in a suit. These kids are suave little Manhattan natives, and it's apparent that the store is a regular stop for them on visitation days. Unlike the tourist kids, who dash around in excitement and awe, begging their parents for everything they see, these girls look dazed and even blase. It's dad's job to feign tremendous excitement at doll clothes, maxing out the credit cards to wring a smile out of their precious weekend darlings. We actually saw one father who had bought every doll, all nine boxes balanced in his arms as he navigated two solemn daughters down the escalator.

"So, um," he asked from behind the boxes, "is mommy seeing anybody?"

BEST NEIGHBORHOOD TO WATCH THE GENTRIFICATION wave SLOWLY recede

SoBro

Kind of an unwieldy category title... maybe we should just call it the Bushwick Award? A year ago, we would have put good money down on Crown Heights as the winner in this category, but then there were all those ads for lofts in the clock tower, and the twitchy little actress friend from Florida who was living near Yankee stadium, and suddenly, taking the D on our way home to the leafier Northernmost edge of the borough we started seeing the occasional defiant-looking white kid getting off at 161st or thereabouts.

Then, suddenly, the New York Times article. According to them, we're already into the second wave of gentrification before anyone even noticed the first. The article scrapes up as much evidence of Bronx-gentrification as it can (a lot gets made of the fact that you can now buy yogurt and mesclun south of 187th Street), and manages to completely ignore some of the prettier, still-affordable residential neighborhoods that are actually nice, in favor of the cachet of living in a spot that went up in flames in the seventies. We'm not quite buying it. The South Bronx may not be burning anymore, but it isn't much of anything else, either. At least Belmont has an ersatz ethnic identity, and Pelham Parkway has trees.

This is a gentrification bubble, people. A lot of buildings in the Bronx are being sold for more than the market rate of rent in the area justifies, with the new owners under the assumption that the place is about to go Williamsburg any second now. When this doesn't happen—because we're too far away from Manhattan, or the borough has a bad reputation, or even the newcomers finally realize that having a bulletproof-glass bodega as your only source of groceries is not "vibrant urban culture" but mind-numbingly bleak and inconvenient—it will be interesting to see what the new landlords do with their overvalued buildings.

Some of the pioneers are getting itchy feet already. The Times quotes a young guy looking to move on as he "can't live in a neighborhood that's played out."

We were stumped trying to think of what to suggest to him... East New York, maybe? We guess when you've outgrown Hunts Point, there really are no more worlds to conquer.

Best Terribly Soul-Searching Insightby a Bum… this week.

We were leaving the E station at 5th Avenue in midtown, meeting some friends. We were going to have a martini and watch them slurp down dirt-cheap oysters —the only acceptable kind, as far as we were concerned. We were running late, as we often do. We were totally locked into our own mind, feeling stressed and guilty about the drinking we were about to do on a weekday, as we often do. We made a pact with ourselves. One drink only, we told ourselves.

Then, just before we stepped on the escalator, this old man with long, flowing white hair and a long, flowing white beard fixed us with an unusually lucid, piercingly blue version of the classic bum intimidation stare and declared, "No one loves you and you know it. I can see it in your eyes." The evening, unsurprisingly, required an extra martini or two.

Best park for a mushroom trip

Prospect Park

So Central Park has all sorts of windy paths and some very cinematographic views. But what fun are shrooms when you have to be all restrained and mindful? What if you have to strip naked, for instance, or have a very private moment with a tree? Do you want to do it in front of a thousand of gawking tourists?

No! That's why you hit New York's second largest park instead, trading a few hoity toity fountains and castles for a whole lot of peace of mind. In Prospect Park you have your choice: you can prowl the woodsy wilderness far from man and any vestiges of his evil "civilization" (only condoms and forties) or you can observe the baseball diamonds (from a safe distance) to watch the mannish trolls at their games. And the park is a great big circle, just about the right size so that if you set out in any direction you'll probably end up where you started by the end.

(Oh yeah, and there's this middle aged white lady who'll rap for you while you're coming down).

Best Place to Pick Up a Man in Uniform

Penn Station

Penn Station is crowded. Filled to bursting, often, with people from everywhere, on their way to and from nearly everywhere. Ê There are entrances and exits galore, so many ways in and out of the place that locating someone in there, even if you know who you're looking for, is like finding the proverbial needle. However, for the peace of mind of daytrippers and residents alike, cops and soldiers are stationed all over the building every day. They can be found near most of the entrances and the tracks, by the Smoothie King, the Hudson News, and the Soup Man.

Perhaps based on the mysterious alert level – the fear factor, as we like to call it – some days there are only a few, but on a good day there are dozens of uniformed young men are in evidence. The must know, as well as we do, how unlikely they are to catch a criminal before they commit their crime.ÊHow can we tell? Ê They seem to spend most of their time smoking, eating pizza from Pizza Hut (poor schmucks!), getting their boots shined (really!), and most of all, checking out and chatting up girls. We would too, if we were them.

Best Display of Emotional Infancy (or should WE say delusional disorder) by an Ex

WE won't name names

WE thought, when we read it, that it was an empty threat. And at that, a quite understandable one. We had dumped him, after all, moved out, and entrusted him with a few of our belongings. Mistake number one. It was mostly records and our beloved Eames chair, and he liked our music and our chair, so he said it was fine. We left them too long, admittedly, but we were lulled into complacency by our still-friendly relationship. The ex got a new girlfriend and told us about her. He showed us pictures, even, and we said she was pretty. We went out for coffee. Then, one day, we got in a ridiculous, petty argument. We tried to smooth things over, but to no avail.

He had an infamous temper that he rarely tried to control, so we weren't really surprised when we received an email at work that denounced us in many and various ways before closing with a vague threat; we could kiss our belongings goodbye. We were less than thrilled by his rudeness, but disregarded the threat. We would never have dated anyone childish enough to actually sell our stuff in anger. Would we? That assumption: Mistake number two.

As the workday crawled on, we became less convinced. Just in case, we finally decided to check Craigslist. We simply searched "Eames" and there it was. Our lovely cherry red Eames chair, photographed in all kinds of pornographic positions – legs only, upside down, from the back, all over our old apartment. Horrified, we reported him to Craigslist. We'd bought that chair. He was stealing it, and worse, selling it! He had no right! They removed the post. The ex posted it again. We reported it again. And so on. We called him. He didn't call back. He was holding our chair hostage! We couldn't let this happen!

Finally, we called his roommate and (without explanation) told him we needed to pick some things up. The roommate let us in, and we steeled ourselves for the big fight we were sure would ensue. Amazingly, the ex was not there. Relieved, we took our chair and records and left. It was over.

That same night, he left us a voicemail that told us, among many expletives and insults, apparently both serious and sober about it, that "Stealing is a felony, Silvia." Nice.

Best Fwends of Manhattan

Defensive outer-boroughs types who can't deal with Manhattan's inherent superiority

You're totally flipping out, going all reclusive, pledging to never leave your borough again. You know what? Thanks. You're doing us a favor, man. You know what else? This thing is called Best of Manhattan, not best whining about how Manhattan totally sucks now.

Freaking outer borough maniacs, arguing with each other over the relative merits of the boroughs—Prospect Park is better than Central Park. Queens Center Mall is better than the Manhattan Mall. Your immigrants are better than our immigrants. Your drugs are better than our drugs. The pizza's better in Brooklyn, the pizza's better in Queens – actually, the pizza's better in Staten Island. But who cares? It all smacks a little of desperation, you must admit. If the Bronx is so much better, why do you have to keep on proving it?

Manhattan's got everything. Even if it doesn't have the best pizza (which we're not admitting), it has good pizza that you can walk to, no matter where you live on the island.

Oh, and we're sorry our neighborhoods aren't as cool as yours. It's too bad that the Italians don't live in one neighborhood, the Ukrainians in another, and the Indians in a third. We're really sorry that we all live together.

In Manhattan, you're likely to live near two or three train lines, so you can get to Jackson Heights, or Coney Island, or wherever you want, easily. You don't have an inferiority complex the size of the the Unisphere, so you can actually leave Manhattan, go other places, and enjoy them. Instead of bitching, with rose-tinted glasses on, about how you knew Manhattan when.

So yes, fine, you're right. Your borough is better. So instead of coming all the way into Manhattan to hang out and tell us about it every freakin' day, why don't you just stay there? Keep your big gas-guzzling car off our already-crowded, crappy little streets. Drive 20 minutes to the nearest strip mall instead. Get your pizza there. It's better, right?

Best advice from a homeless guy

Don't run around in that Washington Square Park Fountain

It was a slow summer day and, on a spur of the moment invitation, we were having a Colt 45 in Washington Square with a couple of homeless guys, one of whom was on a wisdom-dispensing roll. We got all sorts of free (not counting the can of Colt) advice from this man: where to find higher paying work, where to get free donuts, how to get free plane tickets, etc. Not all of these leads panned out as well as we hoped, but we did receive one really reliable and indispensable piece of knowledge as we strolled by the happy little children frolicking with their parents' blessing in the cool shower of the Washington Square Park fountain: Homeless people are constantly pissing and shitting in that fountain and it doesn't get fed from any renewable source either—it just keeps recycling the same old piss and shit. So don't run around in that fountain.

Best pet

40 LB. JUNGLE CATS

So we haven't seen these, mind you, but apparently there's these half-breed 40 pound African cats (half serval/half wild cat) running around the apartments of the old ferret-owning nihilist set. How cool will it be when their owners start brazenly walking these beasts on leashes? Or when, by chance, one of these domesticated jungle stalkers (temporarily unleashed) catches sight of a rat in Union Square, and in a frenzy of fur and squeaks, rips it into pieces, when this feline predator, now rabid, turns his fury on his fellow jungle cats and the rabid army newly formed takes to the streets tagging up storefronts and mugging rich old ladies? How cool will it be? It'll be like 1988 all over again. (And those poor nihilists just wanted the money)

Best word retirement

"Hipsters"

"Hipsters are just like hippies who dress well," said our friend to us in the summer of 2001, on the topic of his dropping the hardcore scene for the "emo" crowd.

That was the last postive thing we heard about "hipsters." Over the next three years those weasel-y bastards allegedly weaseled their way into every crevice of this godforsaken city sucking the fun out of all sorts of cool shit.

Now we say "allegedly" because we never saw a confirmed hipster. We were at parties where reports of hipsters were flying around. And strolling around our beloved city, once familiar neighborhoods showed what seemed to be unmistakable signs of having been given the treatment by a swarm of merciless hipsters.

But not a single suspect ever admitted to being one and we have no reason to doubt their word, since we ourselves were occasionally mistaken for hipsters and would have to plead in our defense, "No, not us, but we'll keep our eyes open."

Anyway, with the exception of our other friend who still thinks we can bring back 1988 by fire bombing hipsters with Molotov cocktails, there isn't much talk of hipsters this year in the Big Apple. Maybe New York is just officially hipsterized and its no use bringing up a painful subject. Or maybe the menace has been contained. Or maybe people realized that whatever is fucking this city up is a lot more vast and complicated than some easily identifiable gang of fools with all the wrong values. Or maybe it isn't. We still haven't figured it out. One more time and then no more: "hipsters."

Best Corner to Get Jerked Off To

Broadway and 51st

It was a night like any other, and on a jaunt down Broadway, we found ourselves innocently distracted by a debacle across the street – a fight! Replete with garbage pail hurling and broom beating, the brawl had drawn a rubber necking crowd.

It was an engaging match, so we didn't notice a sneaky character who had inched up just behind us. A distinct presence was suddenly felt. But hark? What moves there? We turned to be confronted with a big, shiny salami, shamelessly out and swelling, about a millimeter from our unsuspecting buttocks.

Lovely. We wondered what ever happened to our garbage pail hurler. Due to our friendly flasher, we never found out. Instead, we continued down Broadway, compulsively checking our ass for any surreptitiously spilled spooge. And we thought pigeon shit was bad.

BEST BUS FARE DEFENDER

MTA BUS DRIVER WITH BADGE NO. 7713, DRIVING THE M5 ROUTE

All hail to the Metropolitan Transit Authority Bus Driver sporting Badge No. 7713. We've seen him in action, and he deserves special commendation for seriously serving the public interest. Case in point: While driving the M5 route, No. 7713 picked up an elderly lady— well-dressed but rather frail— at the bus stop at 72 Street and Broadway. The woman seemed dizzy from the day's 100 degree heat and immediately sat down at the front of the bus. After taking a minute to catch her breath, she began searching her purse for her transfer. Then, from her seat, she informed No. 7713 that she couldn't find her transfer. "I must have dropped it when I got off the 104 to take the 5," she explained. No. 7713 stopped the bus in the middle of the street, opened the door and said, "Lady, pay the fare, or get off the bus." A passenger sitting across from her suggested that she keep looking for her transfer, and she began to search her things again. But No. 7713, spouting eloquently chastising comments, refused to move the bus until she paid or got off.

She asked him to continue driving while she searched for her transfer. He refused, and accused her trying to ride for free. He told the other passengers to "remember her face." Protesting, she asked that a cop be called to mediate. No. 7713 refused to call the police— and refused to move the bus. He just sat there, yelling at the woman and detaining the other passengers. He even refused to drive the bus to the curb, so she could disembark in safety. After several minutes of being humiliated, the woman left the bus in tears. Before she'd set foot on the sidewalk, No. 7713 drove off, still making derogatory comments about the woman.

No. 7713 deserves our praise for defending NYC against the loss of this lady's $1 senior citizen bus fare. If you see him, let him know how much you appreciate his exemplifying why it's Philadelphia, not New York, that's known as the City of Brotherly Love.

Best Case of "He Doesn't Know What He's Getting Into"

we don't understand, either

Gallagher Takes a Break. It was one of those unbearably intense, oppressive days from this past summer, and we'd found ourselves walking down the sidewalk behind a man in his late 20s. He was dressed in a sharp Italian suit, wearing expensive sunglasses and, of course, talking on his cell phone.

"Know what I'm doing this weekend?" he excitedly asked the person on the other end. "I'm going to a watermelon patch!"

Best place to encamp during the inevitable hurricane

The 17th Corps Artillery Armory

Marcy Ave. (Betw. Heyward St. and Lynch St.)

A gated community. Marcy Avenue, which divides Williamsburg from Bed-Stuy, hurts for trees and landscaping. But not for stronghold. Along the avenue, a hulking brick structure that once hosted proto-professional baseball games provides turrets and dark-gray arched windows. Walk around the periphery and imagine providing shelter to Williamsburgers of all shapes and sizes when the East River breaks the barricades. The Hasids would get there first. But you'd all be in this together. Yes, even the trust fund babies.

Best Disappearing Crime Story

The Brute

But…did they catch him? Last April, every news outlet in town was screaming about a crime that was so cold-hearted, so callous, that it's almost as if it were designed to make normal civilized folks feel ashamed to be human.

A young woman named Catherine Jones was pushing her baby in a stroller near the Central Park bandshell when, out of nowhere, a big black guy materialized, pointed a gun at her baby's head, and demanding her rings.

It was all over in a second. The thug snatched the rings and ran away and no one was hurt. But within minutes the sky above the park was abuzz with police helicopters, and hundreds of uniformed officers scoured the park on foot. There was no sign of the brute anywhere.

Then it came out that Ms. Jones was Fox 5 commentator Christopher Jones's daughter. That helps explain why the Post's coverage was the most shrill—as well as why the Post was the only paper that continued running the story long after everyone else had dropped it. Seems those others smelled something a little fishy, but didn't want to publicly humiliate their colleague's daughter..

On the day of the "mugging" cops were already hinting that sometimes women very often lose their rings if they take them off for some reason. Not to imply anything, but…maybe she lost the rings somehow and didn't want to…well, we'll just shut up.

Making things even worse were Ms. Jones's statements to the press, in which she came off as a snotty, pampered little princess, who threw a tantrum whenever anyone questioned her story.

Quietly, it became clear that there was no serious effort being put into trying to find the mugger. Then less than a week later, for all the coverage that it received that first day, the story was gone, never to be heard from again.

We wonder why?

Best Youth Trend to Encourage

NYU Jumpers

Geronimo! The new semester at NYU seems to be starting off pretty slow, jumper-wise. Not like last year. Last year you couldn't get through the week without at least one sensitive, privileged young soul taking a header. Sometimes they took the plunge in that hideous library, sometimes off the roof of a nearby apartment complex—sometimes the more creative made that final swan dive in the atrium of some swanky Midtown hotel.

Yeah, they sure were lively days. Forgive us if this comes off a little crass, but NYU students are pampered little self-absorbed pains in the ass, and the fewer of them around, the more comfortable we feel.

So what's happened this year? Where are all the petulant, cellphone toting sidewalk soufflés? Does it have something to do with NYU administrators replacing all the dorm windows so they can't be opened and barring student access to the roofs of university buildings? That's doubtful, since those token moves, clearly undertaken only to deflect any future lawsuits—were done in buildings where no one had ever jumped before.

Another possibility is all the professional hand-holding the university has provided in an effort to convince each and every student that he and she are special and beautiful people, deep down inside. That crap just seems par for the course, though, at a school which has spared no expense when it comes to protecting its students from having any contact with the real world.

A much more likely possibility is that this new crop of students just ain't got no imagination, and haven't accepted on their own yet what useless and miserable creatures they are. They will in time, though, and when they do, they'll probably just go back to boring old drug overdoses.

Best Consistently Irritating Group

The 9/11 Kin

You'd think those big fat checks would've been enough. We've said plenty about the so-called "9/11 Kin" before—these self-appointers arbiters of what can and cannot be done when it comes to anything at all connected with the events of Sept. 11th. Works of art, building and memorial design, what museums are allowed to exhibit—if the Kin don't like it, it's got to go. In their efforts to transform the events of that day into the groundwork of a new religion, they've become our own, homegrown mullahs, self-righteous and humorless and profoundly stupid.

We've written all that before, but we just thought it was worth pointing out that they're still at it, and show no signs of letting up, as they one again insisted that the Freedom Center be redesigned to their liking or cast into the desert.

Our question today is the same question we were asking shortly after the Kin began making their presence known: Why do people (especially policymakers) listen to them?

Best redundant phrase to justify shrinking public space

Architectural Lofts

445 Lafayette St. (Astor Pl.)

As opposed to, you know, confectionary lofts. When we were teenagers, Astor Place was a place for a cheap haircut and a free whiff of loitering. The new luxury tower on Astor Place has a twisting, glaring stripper-on-a-greased-pole shape that overwhelms the skateboarding naifs under the tilted cube. Turns out Astor wasn't ready for this kind of bling. For all their predictability, Starbucks' twin outposts on Astor Place give a ramp and a wraparound to promote foot-traffic flow. Even Kmart opens itself to passersby. While Starbucks relieves those who need to void, the Gwathmey-Siegel building presents a void. The architectural lofts distract the eye while overwhelming the plaza. We never expected to get sentimental about Starbucks and skateboarders and that orange Mud Truck, but architectural lofts can crush open plazas.

Best irony-choked waterfront view

The city automobile tow yard in Red Hook.

Great spot, but you need a car to get there. At the end of a pier so long it takes four minutes to walk it, you can inhale the horizon from the Narrows up to the bulkhead of Lower Manhattan. You can see tugs and cutters and the occasional cormorant. That you can only get onto this pier if you've towed an illegally parked car or come to collect one seems a little screwy. It's cars and Robert Moses' worship of them that cut off so many Brooklynites from this kind of perspective. Of course, keeping the tow yard where it is might make people who buy in the new garage buildings all over town more careless about parking. Bring a bottle from one of the Van Brunt Street liquor stores and a sandwich from Defonte's over on Columbia and it's a pretty classy date.

Best post-Sept. 11 canard

ID checks

Have any unknown persons given you any unreasonable guff? OK, shoe inspection and fork confiscation in airports is one thing. But how do the terrorists suffer when we can't cut through the Morgan Stanley lobby to get through Times Square when we're late for a meeting? There's no arguing with the pudgy security guards: They're just following orders. So the jostling on Broadway—and Park, and Sixth—thickens as the lobbies where thousands of us work become more like impediments than neighbors. If this is optimal procedure for protecting office workers, then our name is Ayman Al-Zawahiri. No, no, just kidding. Here's our driver's license.

for businesses that want to drive you indoors

731 Lexington (betw e 58th st–e 59th st)

The light touch. Bloomberg LP is famous for trapping its reporters and analysts in the office with seductive racks of free popcorn and Panoptikon-like "bullpen" offices. The Home Depot is smack for cocooning yups who think retiling their kitchens constitute a growth experience. Yet the new HD outpost, in the new Bloomberg LP headquarters at 58th and Lex, glow in a lobby with a trellised courtyard. Rafael Pelli's design takes a putrid block near the Queensboro Bridge and makes it a measured, airy arcade. For Bloomberg LP employees, it may be the closest thing to the outdoors they see from morning until night. And with the glass and openings in Pelli's design, it may be enough.

Best place to hear NYC's oldest choir

St George's ChURCH

You didn't even know New York City has a choir that's been around for almost two hundred years, did you? Now in its 188th year, St George's Choral Society, New York City's longest-running choral group, performs a concert each fall and spring at historic St. George's Church, overlooking Stuyvesant Square Park. This autumn's concert will feature Haydn's "Lord Nelson Mass" and "Te Deum." You go to way too many local rock shows anyway, and you know it!

Best Way to Say Goodnight to Manhattan

Watch the Empire State Building's lights flicker off at Midnight

350 Fifth Ave (betw. 33rd and 34th Sts.)

212-736-3100

Oh, New York, New York. We love you just as much as De Niro does, even if we can't shoot a commercial to prove it. You make (and sometimes break) our dreams as fast as we can live them. Every day your bustle is placed under the world's largest microscope — you are truly a miracle of science. We thank you for excusing our bad fashion years, one night stands with other cities, and sporadic bouts of claustrophobia. Truthfully, we crave your approval more than that of our own parents.

We share the burden of your towering heartbreak. We try to emulate your spirit and perseverance.

Your Empire State Building now serves as our main beacon, so to honor your gleaming glory, just before midnight we often step out on our fire escapes, roofs, or favorite street corners and crane our necks upwards. At the end of a chaotic day, we marvel that we have the patience to wait for the last seconds to tick by.

And then, at once, your Empire State Building goes dark. It catches us by surprise each time. "Good night, Manhattan," we say aloud. We wish you the sweetest of dreams...after all, you are our biggest dream come true.

Best Non-Alcoholic Drink

Papelón con Limón at Caracas Arepa Bar

91 East 7th St. (betw. 1st Ave. and Ave. A)

212-228-5062

Yes, we admit, we're suckers for anything with sugar, and our favorite sweet tooth elixir is the Papelón con Limón at Caracas Arepa Bar. This cheery, miniscule Venezuelan jewel can be identified by the crowd lingering outside, waiting to take a seat in the cheery, open-kitchen arepa factory. We can't resist the Domino arepa (black beans with a white, salty cheese) and the Cachapa (a corn and cheese pancake that we like with shredded beef).

Our beverage of choice, made from sugarcane and lime juice, is sweet yet tart, with a hint of molasses. We always drink it too fast and wish we could order it by the gallon. Our friends look at us with an odd glint in their eyes when we fantasize about being served the Papelón in a solid mass, like the maple sugar chunks sold at the Union Square Greenmarket.

Caracas, which opened in Summer 2003, was BYOB until recently. We wonder if the owners have considered concocting an alcoholic version of the Papelón, but think it's probably best not to mess with liquid perfection.

Best Incentive to Spend More of Your Precious Time Waiting in Line:

Shake Shack

Madison Square Park, South East Corner (enter at Madison Ave. and 23rd St.)

212-889-6600

From the moment you saunter to the end of the snaking queue, to the time you collapse at one of Shake Shack's vacant tables, more than a few diners have already forked their way through a tasting menu across the street at Danny Meyer's Eleven Madison Park and Tabla. In its second year, the Shack's line can be double or triple its infant length. But the wait, we promise, is worth it.

When Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group partnered with MSP's Conservancy to open the Shack in Summer 2004, we were first in line to try the city's newest perfect burger and a dip of the velvety frozen custard. We've since eaten our way through every burger, dog, brat, fry, and Concrete on the menu. Ten times.

Currently, we can't slurp up enough of the Purple Cow, a custard and Grape Crush float, and the 'Shroom burger, a fried portobello stuffed with melted cheese, onions, and "Shack Sauce." The first few bites are what food whores wet themselves over; the fried layer gives way to squirts of cheese and Sauce before our teeth meet the firmness of the mushroom. Our face and hands are covered in ooze, and we expertly lick up every drop. This year the Shake Shack will remain open until December. We predict the lines will be there too.

Best Village Cafe With Charmingly Delinquent Service

Café Rafaella

135 7th Avenue (W. 10th St. & Charles St.)

Let's admit the dirty little secret: rapid table service is frequently more in the interest of the restaurant than the patron. Many a time we customers want to linger and chat—to lounge—and we really don't care how fast the waiters are. The speedy Gonzales service is meant to "turn" the table: hustling us out on our ass.

Consequently, there is one impressively slow service that we've always loved especially for the arctic lassitude of the wait-staff: Café Rafaella. Short of Central Park in springtime, it maybe the nicest place to idle in the city.

Start with the chairs. They're the biggest, comfiest thrift-store wing chairs to be found in any restaurant west of Saigon. In front of these are heavy marble tables for the reasonably-priced yum-yums. Ceiling fans turn slowly above and the music is both pleasant and (very key) not too loud.

The menu includes a range of superb, cheap and filling salads, especially including the house number, which is a feast of hearts of palm, romaine lettuce, dressing and cut corn stretching more than a foot in diameter. The classic pizzas are also excellent, and the pasta and sandwiches good. Oddly, the desserts—which Rafaella's features as its raison d'etre—can be bland.

The Café has two other locations, and a very romantic and lovely sister restaurant for classic tablecloth Italian. They're good, too, but, for us, there is no more delightfully dilatory dining than here.

Best Affordable Downtown French Pastry Shop

Ceci-Cela

55 Spring Street

(212) 274-9179

Sure, Balthazar has great pastries. But, of course, if you can guiltlessly pay their prices you can probably afford your own pastry chef housed in your double-wide East Side townhouse as well.

For the rest of us, here's a tip we first got from a pastry chef who'd worked in an East Side townhouse: if you want great éclairs, croissants and financiers go two blocks east on Spring from Balthazar, and you'll find Ceci-Cela on the north side of the street. The pastries are equally good (or nearly) and literally half the price. In addition, Ceci-Cela has a nice, cozy little area above some uneven wooden floors in the back; there you can rest your heinie and enjoy the shop's fine coffee. What's more, the restaurant makes some of the very best made-to-order cakes in the city (Oh, the chocolate ganache!), again at sane prices.

Best New Top-of-the-Line Sushi Joint As A Reason To Scorn The Scornful Nobu Staff

Komegashi

928 Broadway

(212) 475-3000

Yeah, we've been to Nobu. And we've had the famous black cod (a dish which our grandparents called—and recognized—as the lowly fish Sable.) And you know what? The food actually isn't that great. For our (vast sum of) money Blue Ribbon Sushi is better, and Taka, which is half the price, is more inventive and possibly superior, as well. All this makes us scornful of this loud, over-priced "legendary" restaurant, a spot where you're typically treated like the dirt under someone's cuticles, even, say, when you show up on the reservation sheet in the name of a Wall Street Journal staff writer you're meeting. (Yes, this happened to us.)

But the final reason recently appeared for us to look down our noses at those self-professed God's-gifts-to-humanity women who serve at the hostesses at Nobu: Komegashi.

Komegashi offers the kind of rich-tasting menu dinners that Nobu does, but the food is so much superior that even Kate Moss would stuff herself here. And it's not only the luscious and very creative sushi and sashimi. A friend who accompanied us says the veal-shankbone was the best she'd ever munched on while the beef made her feel pampered like one of those Kobe beef cattle that get hand-served beer by the bottle. Chef Nakayama uses genuinely interesting ingredient pairings—as miso with cappucino—and, well-tailored to these, is an extensive sake menu that's very reasonably-priced. The cocktails are tasty, and, what's more, the restaurant's ceramic tile-festooned décor is elegant, it's quiet and the tables are spaced far apart. The only negative we can think of is that it sometimes takes a bit of time to get seated. But the service is thoroughly kind, welcoming and attentive.

This gets us to our final point: The Japanese are likely the most polite people in the world. How does Nobu even dare call itself Japanese when its attitude towards its patrons appears to have been cultivated by watching the shoe salesmen at Gucci's diss tourists in for the weekend from Dubuque? Skip the 'tude in Tribeca and head for the Flatiron district.

(For those looking for Nobu, incidentally, here is Nobu's unlisted number, should you be foolish enough to want it: 212-219-2442.) Good night and God speed.