Oh, God! It's back. The maple syrup smell that has occasionally made appearances in NYC over the last couple years is back! We can smell it in the office right now. "NY1 has been receiving calls from as far south as Lower Manhattan and as far north as Harlem." [NY1]

Is the New York Times Company trying to buy Metro, the city's freebie daily and the rest of Boston's? Silly rabbits. Running Bill Kristol and buying yet another flagging property isn't going to scare off Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. Don't lets look too desperate and flail-y. [FishbowlNY]

Click to viewAll those people—such as myself!—who complain about what New York City is like today? Too much anecdote, not enough fact. What really happened to New York City? I thought of one way to find out. Over the last month, I have read the Metro section from each issue of the New York Times—starting in mid-2000 and ending with today's paper. Here's what I learned.

It's comforting to know that no matter how much money you make—like, if you work at a hedge fund, for instance—you will still be hanging out in the same rotten Times Square bars, drinking Coors Light. This is how I met "Charlie" The Hedge Fund Manager and tried my best to learn how they work, in order to make the Real Money some day. Here is his advice: "You don't hafta study the European markets, you just gotta buy a bunch of good stocks and hold onto them." Advice: "Some guys work long hours, but not me." Finally, the moment of reckoning: "I don't know what I'm doing here!" he moaned, looking out onto Eighth Avenue, where some dude was puking in the middle of the street. "I'm a fuckin' billionaire."

Um, ALERT! Still new-ish Times badass Ellen Barry is back with a blockbuster Metro read. What can we say? This is how it's done. [NYT]

The fourth lawsuit against the Parks Department's plan to DESTROY THE CHARACTER of Washington Square Park was thrown out of court yesterday, so bring on the bulldozers. The city will move the fountain over 23 feet to line it up with the arch, because that's been bugging them for 130 years now. Thankfully community activists saved the weird concrete mounds.

Bay Ridge smells like shit. Ever since a mysterious $6.9 million sewer project was completed in 2006, "a stretch of Fort Hamilton Parkway between Marine Ave. and 99th St." has been blanketed with the unmistakable stench of human waste, according to the Daily News. Which has Bay Ridge's old and cranky residents upset!

Governor Spitzer will hold a press conference at 9 to recommend that the MTA hold off on a fare hike. NY1 may not cover the conference live, because the Governor's office is all the way up on the 34th floor.

According to cops in the 78th Precinct, Park Slope has had its first reported iPhone theft! A woman who lives on Union Street was the victim—she was walking home from the subway when two perps approached her and one of them filched the device from her jacket pocket. There goes the neighborhood. [Brooklyn Paper]

Reactions to the MTA's proposed fare hike ($2.25/ride, unspecified increases to monthly and weekly metrocards, and higher prices for LIRR and Metro-North tix): "Hell no," "I find it ridiculous," and "Ladies and gentlemen, fuhgeddaboutit!" (that last from Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Does he have any other purpose?). The increase will most likely happen anyway, starting early next year. Because you don't matter. [NYP]

"Stripper" is the styling-of-choice for so many non-stripping ladies these days. So what's the difference between an actual pole-dancer and, say, classily "branding" yourself as a young, sex-positive lass? (Heck, even the housewives of New Jersey have stripper-pole workout sessions in their own homes.) Can anybody tell the different between a strip club and the basement of Happy Ending on Tuesday nights anymore? This weekend, I went deep into Brooklyn to a neighborhood strip bar to find out if it felt just like the playgrounds of Manhattan. It didn't!

Dear Twentysomethings,

"164 KENT AVE & NORTH 5TH ST| ALL FIRE HAS BEEN XTGH'ED, PRIMARY SEARCH ON THE TOP FLOOR(S) IS (-)." Hot. [Gothamist]

Good news for crazed narcissists who think the world should be able to reach them AT ALL TIMES because they're just that important: The MTA is set to announce a deal to wire all 277 subway stations over the next six years. Sadly, your cellphone will only work in the stations, but hey, at least that time you spend sweating on the platform waiting for a 6 train that never comes will now be scored to a soundtrack of, "So then I was all, 'Why won't you tell your friends we're dating?' and he was like, 'Let's not cheapen it with labels,' which kind of makes sense?" Even better, the terrorists will only be able to remote-detonate their bombs in the station, so you can kick back and relax while you're cruising through the tunnels at 3 miles per hour.

"I live on Mulberry Street. Every morning as I walk to work during the disgusting San Gennaro Festival, people are pouring what seems to be bleach on the street in an effort to 'clean' the street. Just another example of how the San Gennaro festival is a parasite on this neighborhood." [Scott Kidder]

From the mailbag: "Holy crap. I was having lunch at Rock Center with pasta on my lap when this car explodes right outside of Anthropologie about 20 min ago. I'm back at my desk now having a diet coke— wishing it was scotch. People rushed towards the scene to take cell phone pics. A second boom. Not funny stuff. People were saying it was a taxi." And: "There was some car fire coming out of 5th Avenue near Rockefeller Center. The fire guy is saying at was on 50th St." And: "A cab blew up on 51st between 6th and 7th. At first the rumor was that 30 rock blew up. It didn't. and now nobody here cares."

What the hell is that skywriting going on right now? Um, near as people can tell from 23rd Street, it seems to be about the U.N. We can't tell at all from SoHo. Is it about the black helicopters that run up the East River on behalf of the secret Jewish world government? Because we hear that's true.

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE from our special correspondent at the Madison Square Park-adjacent shooting area for Gossip Girl: "Um, there's a big crane parked there now. That is all.

So, because we have a problem with alcohol and we desperately needed something to quell the tremors, we just stopped by Shark Bar, which is on the corner of Mulberry Street. Guess what we noticed? The San Gennaro Festival has started! If you've never heard of the festival, you should know that it's the greatest street fair in New York, because it lasts eleven days and it sells all the same crap as every other goddamn street fair but likes to pretend that it's Italian-themed! It celebrates some saint from Naples or whatever. Anyway, if you haven't gone, you should go, but we want to make something clear: The people you see at the feast are NOT REAL ITALIANS. They are street fair people, and two weeks from now they'll be setting up their sausage stands in some other location, where they will wave "Hi" to the guy who sells the $2 socks and the lady with the grilled corn covered in farm cheese. REAL ITALIANS do not work street fairs.

Capitalization-averse Times Metro head Joe Sexton has shared the happy news: Times reporter Jodi Rudoren and her comedian husband Gary are the proud new parents of twins! Sexton notes in the office memo that he doesn't think "they have settled on names. but i believe jodi has backed off her naked effort at career advancement and decided not to go with bill and jill." (That's Times boss-folk Bill Keller and Jill Abramson. Funny, creepy, or funny-creepy? Hard to tell!) Anyway, while we know that the Rudorens have plenty of expertise when it comes to choosing names, we thought we'd all pitch in and put together a list of suggestions? We'll go with Dillinger and Gingerly. Your thoughts? Full memo follows.