Swirling around martinis faster than the olive is an unconfirmed — also, so far undenied — rumor. Maybe just maybe just only possibly conceivably could be who-the-hell knows for sure but Giuliani might fleetingly far-flungedly casually lightheartedly consider peut être think of diving back into City Hall’s waters.
1. NYC loved him. 2. He loves NYC. 3. He’s itchy to do something. 4. The field’s wide-open, and nobody’s focusing until Republicans play “Pin the Tail on Obama.” 5. Pay attention, kiddies, mother now informs you, our charter allows this.
Previously, two consecutive mayoral terms and — done. Gone. Finito. Over. Mayor Bloomberg widened that to three. New York City’s charter allows you to again stand for office after time passes and you are out of office.
Is all I’m saying. And if I strain my ears, hearing.
ROOSEVELT Island. In 1854, this little chunk plunk in the East River off 60th and Second’s overhead tram was Welfare Island’s sober ruin of a smallpox hospital built by the architect of St. Patrick’s.
Next Wednesday this one-time dead rubble heap of landfill, now prime waterfront, will hold President Clinton, Gov. Cuomo, Sen. Schumer, Mayor Bloomberg, Rep. Maloney, Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr., its chairman Amb. William vanden Heuvel and shore-to-shore VIPs.
It, $54 million later, is the dedication of Four Freedoms Park, a solemn exalted austere public space, a meditation retreat, a memorial conceived four decades ago to our 32nd president. Like a ship’s jutting prow, its tip bears a 1,000-pound bronze of President Roosevelt. Plus North Carolina’s giant granite slab from Mount Airy, Andy Griffith’s hometown at the foot of the Smoky Mountains.
Inscribed Jan. 6, 1941, nearly a year before Pearl Harbor, it bears FDR’s Four Freedoms speech: Freedom of Speech and Expression, Freedoms from Want and Fear.
The space has been lifted to accommodate climate change after the Army Corps of Engineers said the river’s raised five inches since the ’70s. A monumental stone stairway. Water on both sides flanked by 36-ton marble blocks. The Pepsi-Cola sign on Jersey’s shore, the UN founded under Roosevelt’s watch, on the other. Birds resting on a river boulder. More than 100 linden trees planted in special soil.
Visiting recently with vanden Heuvel, Tobie Roosevelt and Shelby White, another involved in its birth, walkways were thick with mud. Under my construction boots, 254,000 cobblestones laid by hand. Our companions were tractors, workers, heavy earth-moving machinery. The unlit john was in a trailer. The entire area’s off-limits to skateboarders, brown-bag lunchers and four-legged visitors.
This will be ready by Oct. 17? Tipping her hard hat, architect Gina Pollara, on this job since 2004, said: “Absolutely.”
ARETHA did Chase Bank Columbus Circle with entourage ahead, behind, and toting her handbag . . . On “My Grandmother’s Ravioli,” Oct. 24th’s season premiere Cooking Channel thing, a grandma, 76, teaches Mo Rocca Jewish cooking . . .Carleton Varney redoing Palm Beach’s Colony Hotel, one-time home to Marjorie Merriweather Post (per her remaining footman) and the D&D of Windsor . . . At Christopher Fischer’s shop, Bette Midler vacuumed up a creamy cashmere shawl.
FROM lawyer Raoul Felder’s book “Reflections in a Mirror”:
“A landlord is the ultimate thief . . . produced no product to help his fellow man, created no intellectual idea or artwork to enable or elevate man . . . New York property ownership is in being stolen or conned by white men from Indians. A real-estate owner is a thief, a receiver of stolen property . . .”
ANOTHER bio. Alan Thicke’s one-time wife one-time soap star Gloria Loring, 65, in “Coincidence Is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous”:
“Age 3, I was awakened by the crushing weight of my father on top of me, reeking of alcohol and in a state of arousal. Memories remain vivid, the sickening smell of stale alcohol, parts of my body going numb where his weight was pressing, and a scream that rose up out of me.”
LONG back, I reported JPMorgan Chase mistakenly sent me another’s transactions with their name, ID number, deposits, withdrawals, private information. Nobody, not one exec called to inquire about that until a friend asked them why. Result? Months later I received a typed two-line letter saying “Sorry.” Not asking whose account I received. Just saying “Sorry.” Jamie Dimon’s operation sparkles like a rhinestone.
EAST HAMPTON. Place called Loaves & Fishes. Sign in the window says: “We take euros.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.