Car 54, Where Are You?

Not all is doom and gloom in New York City. .

As this newspaper's 15th annual "Best of Manhattan" issue demonstrates, page after page, just a year after a devastating massacre sapped the city of its buoyancy, if not resilience, there are thousands of reasons to celebrate the world's capital.

Sometimes you just need to be reminded of that fact. A week ago, over breakfast with my friend Mort at the splendid Viand restaurant on Madison Ave., the two of us got lost in an hour-long conversation, traipsing from one unrelated subject to the next, as the waiter patiently refilled our coffee cups. Mort, who's about 20 years my senior, rattled off story after story about his days in the Village in the late 1940s and 50s, and it seemed that at least half of them had an O. Henry-like conclusion.

He spoke of a rare Bessie Smith/Louis Armstrong duet, "Careless Love," that he'd heard just once, decades ago, on a WKCR radio program. It was so powerful, Mort said, that he was forced to pull over to the side of the road lest he wind up in a fender-bender. I suggested he visit Bleecker Street Records, surely downtown's premier shop for obscure CDs and vinyl recordings.

Another store that's worthy of mention here is Tribeca's St. Marks Comics (150 Chambers St.)?my sons spend more time there than in front of the tube. They banter with buddies Jeff, Kat, Pat, Alex and Vanessa, just a few of the ebullient workers at this fantasyland bubble that's impervious to the harsh realities facing New York and the rest of the world.

And here're a few more diversions that keep this NYC resident on an even keel. A midsummer afternoon ballgame at Yankee Stadium, especially when you can see Mike Mussina pouting on the mound. Dinner at the Upper East Side's Cafe Trevi. The cashmere cardigans and slippers from Paul Stuart, a Madison Ave. institution that's as understated as Ralph Lauren is loud and fake. The fledgling New York Sun, a modest 12-page broadsheet that nonetheless is a necessary antidote to the increasingly dreadful New York Times. Zev Chafets' columns in the Daily News. Waking up before dawn and walking a block to the corner deli, watching with amazement the combination of truck-drivers delivering bread, milk and newspapers, men sitting on the stoop, quaffing tallboys after the night shift and the florist preparing for the 8 a.m. rush.

Nonetheless, it'd be dishonest not to acknowledge that New York is in for a perilous stretch. While Mayor Mike Bloomberg fiddles around with small-bore initiatives like banning smoking from bars and raising taxes on cigarettes (depriving struggling businesses of desperately needed revenue), and dispatching cops to collar penny-ante marijuana dealers and hookers, there's little indication that the city is any safer from fanatical terrorists than it was before last Sept. 11. Why there isn't a visible National Guard presence at high-density locations like Grand Central Station, the tunnels and bridges or Times Square is a mystery that keeps me awake at night. Still, Bloomberg found time to visit U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan last week, and reported this stunning revelation: "It is clearly dangerous and uncomfortable. Nobody would argue that they are there for the lifestyle."

In addition, there's little progress in the reconstruction of the financial district, as any number of "experts" squabble over architectural designs, memorials and "open space." It's no wonder huge companies are discovering the comforts of New Jersey and Connecticut.

Meanwhile, a stupid controversy erupted last week when the New York Post's resident schoolmarm, Andrea Peyser, wrote a column condemning Eric Fischl's haunting sculpture Tumbling Woman for being shown at Rockefeller Center. Fischl's work isn't for the squeamish?it depicts a naked woman hitting the pavement after jumping from the World Trade Center last year?but its public viewing is certainly as crucial as the still-omnipresent display of American flags and makeshift monuments to the victims of Sept. 11.

Peyser's myopic rant was probably instrumental in Fischl's piece disappearing almost immediately, and in eliciting an unnecessary apology from the artist. Does anyone seriously believe that the bloodbath last year was a onetime catastrophe? Tumbling Woman is nothing less than a call-to-arms, a brutal reminder to the city's populace that even worse disasters are possible in a locale, the hub of the world's economy, that's the most likely target for further carnage.

Nick Monteleone, writing in the Daily News, was far more sensible. He said: "Artists have, throughout time, shocked and disturbed us into recognizing the world's horrors. Fischl has simply served the traditional function of the artist and social commentator and historical interpreter, but we have asked that his voice be turned down. Would we ask Goya to lighten the reds of his Spanish battlefields?... Rockefeller Center may have placated some critics by removing the statue, but it's done a disservice to the public. Rather than allowing Fischl's bronze piece to disturb us, as it should, Rockefeller Center draped it and removed it from our sight. It's like being told, 'Never forget?as long as it's not too bothersome.'"

I wonder why Bruce Springsteen's The Rising, which contained in one song the lyric, "I want an eye for an eye," wasn't condemned by ostriches like Peyser, instead of being hailed as a balm for a suffering and scared nation.

Could be the Post simpleton is auditioning for an op-ed slot at the Times. She'd fit in with Maureen Dowd's equally dumb commentary. On Sept. 22, the Pulitzer Prize-winner concluded her column with a paragraph that could've appeared in a German or French newspaper. Dowd wrote: "Things are getting dangerouser and dangerouser. Karl Rove's gunning for the Democrats. Ariel Sharon's gunning for Arafat. W.'s gunning for Saddam. And Al Qaeda's still gunning for us."

Brilliant. Of course Al Qaeda's "still gunning for us." But hey, kick back, watch The West Wing and just forget that Saddam Hussein is funding Palestinian suicide bombers and plotting mass destruction, and that Sharon and George W. Bush are bigger heroes than even Martin Sheen and Barbra Streisand.

The following writers and artists contributed to this year's Best of Manhattan: Spencer Ackerman, Doug Allen, Jonathan Ames, Andrew Baker, Lynda Barry, Ron Bucalo, Richard Byrne, Alan Cabal, Christopher Carbone, Matthew Caserta, Perry Chiaramonte, Russell Christian, Marc Crisafulli, Taylor Crockett, Melissa de la Cruz, Marty Dundics, Fly, Dan Galanaugh, Michael Gentile, Ryan Greis, Marcellus Hall, Tim Hall, Glenn Head, Adam Heimlich, Danny Hellman, Sam Henderson, Philip Henken, Laura Hibit, Chris Hiers, Nina Ippolito, Mary Karam, Lisa Kearns, Julee Kim, Jim Knipfel, Bruce Antonio Laue, Lisa LeeKing, Lane Lipton, Don MacLeod, Lincoln MacVeagh, Stacey Martin, Travis Millard, Tony Millionaire, mlteague, MUGGER Junior, Mumbleboy.com, John Nebesney, Jack Pollock, William S. Repsher, Wendy Reynolds, Jeff Roysdon, Jane Sanders, Emily Schuch, Alex Schweitzer, Sarah Shanok, Spencer Sharp, Michelangelo Signorile, Russ Smith, Akiko Stehrenberger, John Strausbaugh, C.J. Sullivan, Neil Swaab, George Tabb, Wendy Tabb, J.R. Taylor, Lionel Tiger, Don Trachte, Daria Vaisman, Ned Vizzini, Spike Vrusho, Mike Wartella, Wayno, Jessica Willis.