MANHATTAN

OFFICIALS TO BLOOMBERG, PATAKI: USE FUNDS FOR HOUSING

In an effort to pre-empt any siphoning off of money intended for “affordable housing” at Battery Park City, a roster of federal, state, and local officials asked Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg yesterday to ensure that the funds are used as originally envisioned. “The original concept of Battery Park City was to provide affordable housing,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who represents the West Side, including Battery Park City, said in Washington. “We demand that that commitment be honored. Every nickel of revenues beyond what is necessary to maintain Battery Park City must be devoted to affordable housing and nothing else.”

The concern about channeling Battery Park money to other city development projects grows out of Mr. Bloomberg’s controversial plan, since abandoned, to use $350 million in financing for the Battery Park City Authority to pay the city’s share of the proposed expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the West Side.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

SAFIRE TO RETIRE AS TIMES OP-ED COLUMNIST

William Safire, whose op-ed columns in the New York Times have provided provocative and insightful discourse for 31 years, said yesterday he has decided to “hang up his hatchet.”

The 74-year-old Pulitzer Prize winning columnist will write his last op-ed column on January 24, 2005. “After more than three decades of opinionated reporting on the world’s first and foremost political battle page, it’s time to hang up my hatchet,” Mr. Safire said in a statement released by the Times. “The Times said at the start of this run that it wanted ‘another point of view,’ which was what it surely got.” Mr. Safire’s commentary has held Times’ readers captivated since his first op-ed piece appeared in 1973, Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said. A successor has not been chosen, according to the Times.

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

COUNCIL COMMITTEE CONSIDERS TIGHTENING RESTRICTIONS ON GUNS

A City Council committee began considering a sweeping package of bills yesterday that would tighten restrictions on gun sales, increase penalties for gun violations, and require the NYPD to trace all firearms in its possession.

The bills, which have varying levels of support from the NYPD, would allow the purchase of only one firearm every 90 days, would make 21 the legal age for buying a rife or shotgun, and would hold gun dealers and manufacturers financially liable if they violate legal sales practices.

The director of the license division at the NYPD, Thomas Prasso, testified against several of the measures, including one that would require police to trace guns they obtain through anonymous drop-offs, which they currently destroy. While Mr. Prasso called some of the bills “baseless” and said they were built on a “fundamental misunderstanding of how the Police Department investigates gun crimes,” he supported others such as increasing the minimum age to purchase a gun.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MTA TO SPEND $80 MILLION ON NEW BUSES

Mayor Bloomberg and the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Peter Kalikow, announced yesterday they would buy 125 new buses for the MTA Bus Company to beef up the city’s aging bus fleet. The $80 million capital expenditure, which includes upgrading existing buses and depots, is part of a larger initiative that transfers the city’s running a bus service to the MTA. “With the purchase of these buses, riders will begin to get the reliable service that they deserve,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

City Council Speaker Gifford Miller is against the purchasing plan. He says the mayor has been holding $160 million in federal funds that could pay for the buses and the $80 million in the MTA budget should be used to stave off fare hikes, service cuts, and the closing of toll booths. The MTA has said it will have cut back on service because it faces a $800 million budget gap next year.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

REGION

CORNELL RESEARCHERS SIMULATE EARTHQUAKE

ITHACA – Cornell University scientists produced the first simulated earthquake yesterday at their new $2.1 million research facility. Scientists say the earthquake research center will help them test how well the lifelines of modern society – water, electric power, natural gas, fuel, and telecommunications cables – can withstand the massive forces exerted by the shifting earth. The director of Cornell’s Large Displacement Facility for Lifeline Systems, Harry Stewart, said the research could help scientists improve water and gas distribution systems. Cornell is one of three upstate New York universities participating in the National Science Foundation’s Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, a consortium of 15 high-tech labs in 10 states.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

80-YEAR-OLD NUN DIES AF TER BEING HIT BY TRUCK

An 80-year-old nun crossing Sixth Avenue with a walking cane was fatally injured yesterday morning when she was struck by an oncoming flatbed truck carrying construction equipment. Catherine Lee, a sister with the Maryknoll Congregation, a Catholic-based mission located in the upstate town of Ossining, was found dead at the corner of 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue. With two unrelated fatalities occurring at that intersection in Chelsea this year, Ethan Ruby, the president of one pedestrian advocacy group, City Streets, called it one of the most dangerous in the city. A department spokesman did not return calls yesterday afternoon. The driver of the truck was not charged with any crime, police said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

CAB DRIVER TURNS IN $6,000 LEFT BY PASSENGERS

The driver of a yellow cab who picked up two Chinese nationals at LaGuardia Airport last night got a surprise when he dropped them off: They had left a bag containing more than $6,000 in the back seat of his car. Benjamin Adjepong, a Bronx resident, decided to give his fares an even bigger surprise – he returned the cash to a center for lost property near Central Park, and police are looking for the pair to return the money to them, police said. According to police, the cloth bag in which the $6,664.44 was left also contained identification – a social security card and several documents written in Chinese. The passengers, an unidentified man and a 19-year-old woman, were dropped off in Flushing, Queens. Police are withholding their names until the money is returned. The female passenger lives in Manhattan, police said.

– Special to the Sun

THREE STABBED IN BROOKLYN SUBWAY STATION

Three men were stabbed in a Brooklyn subway station yesterday night after a fight broke out on the platform, police said yesterday. According to police, at 5:23 p.m. in Flatbush, a dispute between two groups led to the fight on the southbound platform of the Eastern Parkway subway station. Police said that the two groups did not know each other, and there was no robbery apparent. A folding knife and a box cutter were recovered from the scene. The three victims, who are 15, 17, and 22 years old were taken to King’s County Hospital and are listed in stable condition. Three suspects, who are 16, 18, and 19 years old, were taken into custody at the scene for questioning, but had not been placed under arrest by press time yesterday evening.

– Special to the Sun

MAN CONVICTED IN LONG ISLAND SHOOTING

A Long Island man was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison for a shooting at St. John’s University that paralyzed a star football team linebacker, the Queens district attorney announced yesterday. Christopher Prince, 25, was convicted on October 8 of attempted murder in the second degree and other charges. This is the third time the case been tried. The first two trials were ruled mistrials after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict. The victim, Cory Mitchell, 24, was paralyzed from the waist down by the attack and is confined to a wheelchair. According to testimony given at trial, on March 11, 2001, a group of students were standing at a dorm room parking lot on St. John’s campus when they were approached by Prince and a group of his friends. Earlier that evening, the two groups had been involved in an argument at a bar where Mr. Mitchell worked as a bouncer. According to the DA’s office, another altercation began, and this time the defendant pulled out a 9mm pistol and opened fire on Mr. Mitchell and his friends. Rashan Fray,17,was struck in the knee and seriously wounded, and Mr. Mitchell was hit in the back as he ran, leaving him badly injured and paralyzed.

– Special to the Sun

POLICE ARREST MAN WHO TRIED TO ROB TWO BANKS

A man who attempted to rob a pair of Midtown banks was apprehended yesterday by two officers as he walked down Fifth Avenue carrying a blue bag pouring out red smoke from a security dye pack. According to police, the suspect, Joseph M. Hanks, 56, attempted to rob the Valley National Bank on Sixth Ave. by handing the teller a note demanding money but left the bank empty handed. He then tried again at Commerce Bank on Fifth Ave. but received only a decoy – a dye pack disguised to look like a stack of $100 bills. Two officers saw Mr. Hanks at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 36th Street with the dye pack, police said. They arrested him without incident.

– Special to the Sun