The city is temporarily re-naming a West Side street in honor of the children’s program’s 40th birthday

By
EMILY FELDMAN

In honor of the show’s 40th anniversary, New York City has proclaimed Nov. 10, “Sesame Street Day,” and will temporarily name a piece of Columbus Ave. at 64th Street in the show’s honor.

Charles Rosen, the show’s designer created the brownstoney, urban set  based on several blocks on the Upper West Side, Harlem and the Bronx. But despite the inspiration culled from New York’s landscape, the show was not intended to be New York based.

ALBANY — New York drivers will start paying for new license plates next year — whether they want to or not.

Beginning in April, car and tractor-trailer owners alike will have to shell out $25 for spruced-up license plates, by dictate of state leaders coming up with new ways to wring out revenue as an unprecedented budget shortfall looms.

Drivers in New York have been besieged this year by a potpourri of fees. A $50 surcharge has been tacked onto registration renewals, and a driver’s license renewal costs an additional $16. Car rentals now include a 5 percent tax as well.

“It was the last straw, to be honest with you,” said Patricia Ritchie, president of the New York State Association of County Clerks and the founder of NoNewPlates.com, a Web site that she says has attracted 56,000 visitors in less than a month.

BY Meredith Kolodner

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

New York has the nation’s worst GED pass rate, falling below even Alabama and Mississippi – and it’s the city that’s dragging the state down.

Although 1.6 million city residents older than 16 are not in school and lack a high school diploma, only 28,000 took the high school equivalency test last year to get a General Equivalency Diploma. Just half of the test-takers passed.

Statewide, just 60% test-takers passed – making New York’s pass rate dead last, the American Council on Education says.

Two Harlem Streets Named for Civil Rights Leaders

On Saturday, two streets in Harlem were named in honor of two civil rights leaders with ties to New York City: A. Philip Randolph and W. E. B. DuBois.

All of 145th Street was named A. Philip Randolph Boulevard, in honor of the labor and political leader. The length of Bradhurst Avenue, running from West 141st Street to 155th Street, was named W. E. B. DuBois Avenue, after the scholar and writer who also helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

BY Rocco Parascandola

DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF

The city detectives union is considering pushing to end an unusual scheduling practice that may contribute to incidents involving cops and booze.

The union says it will ask detectives for feedback about the the schedule that involves turnaround times of as little as seven hours between night and day shifts.

Instead of driving an hour or more each way to go home, hundreds of detectives sleep at precinct houses.

Others go out drinking because they have nothing else to do during the hours between 1 a.m., when their night shift ends, and 8 a.m., when the day shift begins.

By RICH CALDER

Big Apple parks are anything but green.

A Post investigation found there’s little recycling going on in city green spaces, but the more shocking news is how waste collected in parks gets dumped.

Not only are routine recyclables like bottles, cans and paper being sent to landfills, but so is other waste that is supposed to be trashed separately, such as animal carcasses, medical waste and bins of used kitchen oil, according to some longtime parks employees responsible for garbage pickups.

One worker said supervisors routinely give orders like “make sure it all disappears,” meaning dump everything on garbage trucks, because it’s the fastest solution for cleaning parks.

“Not much gets recycled. We pick up everything — furniture, concrete, even dead animals,” said a worker whose route covers parts of Brooklyn parks.

The trash gets trucked to waste-transfer stations, where it is prepared for disposal at landfills.

By YOAV GONEN Education Reporter

Thousands of city public-school students and teachers are participating in a “Brain Education” program run by a group with ties to an alleged cult.

For the past three years, the Department of Education has shelled out nearly $400,000 for 44 schools to participate in the Power Brain Education company’s lessons and workshops.

But dozens of former employees of an organization called Dahn Yoga — whose founder developed the teachings for Brain Education — said the school program is run by a group that is part of a vast web of interrelated companies conning participants into investing all their time and money in unproven health and healing activities.

“If my child was [participating in Power Brain], I would pull them out in about two minutes,” said lawyer Terry Brostowin, who settled a wrongful-death suit against Dahn Yoga last year. “I would be very scared.”

Perhaps it was fear of crowds that kept the crowds away on Sunday from the clinics offering free swine flu vaccinations to schoolchildren. Or, maybe, as some of the few who did show up suggested, the small numbers could be attributed to wariness about the new vaccine or a lack of knowledge about the clinics.

The Strat-O-Matic Game Company, an old warhorse in an age of computer-driven fantasy leagues and high-tech video games, usually relies on detailed statistics to create ratings and tendencies for hitters and pitchers. But in creating a new 103-card Negro leagues set for its board game, Strat-O-Matic found that the data was not easy to come by.

Coverage of Negro leagues games was spotty, especially because many black newspapers were weeklies. Although stories abound about Josh Gibson’s prowess or Satchel Paige’s wizardry, much of what has been handed down borders on folklore.

Yet Hal Richman, who founded Strat-O-Matic in 1961, was determined.

NEW YORK, NY – George Wein is a legend off the stage, but he’s made quite a name for himself on the stage as well. Catch a rare performance by the jazz impresario on Tuesday, November 17 – Sunday, November 22, at 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm when George Wein brings his Newport All-Stars to Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th & Broadway.

Joining Wein at Dizzy’s are Howard Alden (guitar), Winard Harper (drums), Jay Leonhart (bass), Randy Sandke (trumpet), Lew Tabackin (tenor saxophone) and some very special guests.

But last month, as Carolina Palmgren prepared to give birth to her first child there, she learned from a midwife that the center at Bellevue, a city hospital, had been quietly closed. “The upsetting thing is that there was no notice,” said Ms. Palmgren, 31.

The closing has provoked complaints about a lack of public notice that it was being considered, as well as about the declining number of natural-birth options in the city.