This is a bit ironic.

Hopped an earlier train home yesterday, thanks to a late afternoon meeting at 30 Rock that didn’t quite leave enough time to hustle back to the office.

So I made a few phone calls from an absolutely filthy MSNBC Cafe, soiled coffee cups and sundae containers spilling out of garbage cans onto the floor. There’s a candidate for Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World” prize–the clean-up guy/gal at MSNBC Cafe.

I then sat amidst the tourists around the mushy skating rink–it was 92 here in Gotham–and slowly made my way to Grand Central for the 5:27.

When we pulled into Hawthorne, I saw that just about each and every car in the main had a flier on the windshield. So tenacious were the purveyors of leaflets that they even rolled one up and slide it into a loop in my bike lock.

What, pray tell, was the message in these fliers that would inevitably end up floating around the revitalizing Hawthorne train station like big-ass Noreaster snurricane flakes? [EDITOR’S NOTE: To be fair, I didn’t end up seeing the fliers littering the ground. I guess residents got the message and threw them out properly.]

“Clean-Up Day!”, in fact.

“Please join us on Saturday, April 10th,” the flier implored. “We care about our town and hope you feel the same way!”

In fact, I do. So I’ll pass along the rest of the info: Meet at James M. Carroll Park in Thornwood–a.k.a. “Goose Poop Park” to those who’ve been there–at 9 a.m. to help clean up Kensico Road, the Saw Mill entrance, Columbus Avenue, Broadway Field and, yes, Goose Poop Park itself.

Coffee and donuts will be served.

Please take care to dispose of your damn Dunkin’ Donuts cup.

Our dear neighbor to the north Pleasantville was the subject of the most recent “Living In” profile in the NY Times Real Estate section. The writer, Elsa Brenner, does a nice job of looking beyond the idyllic village name and cute downtown–attributes that helped Pleasantville grab Trainjotting’s illustrious “Best Commuter Town” honor back in 2008, voted as such by you, dear readers. (Come to think of it, we didn’t do BCT in 2009.) 

To be sure, Brenner discusses what’s pleasant about Pleasantville:

AN outpost 30 miles from the city where children walk to school on sidewalks lined with trees; where lovingly refurbished Victorians have old-fashioned front porches; where shopkeepers greet longtime customers by name: The 1.8-square-mile village of Pleasantville pretty much lives up to the qualities implied by its name.

But she–and I’m assuming Elsa is a she–digs a bit deeper and injects a bit of menace into the story. The Rockwellian lifestyle might not be in place for the long haul, she suggests.

Amenities that the 7,200 residents of this affluent and overwhelmingly white village take for granted, like twice-weekly backyard garbage pickups, may have to be scaled back, said Peter Scherer, the mayor. “The time has come to rethink the way some services are delivered,” he said recently. “It’s a matter we’re very, very deeply focused on.”

Residents might also need to reconsider their traditional resistance to new development in light of the pressing need to generate more revenue, Mr. Scherer said, citing the long-opposed idea of building a multilevel parking garage downtown. “We want to make sure the lack of parking doesn’t thwart business development,” he said. “We need the tax dollars.”

You’ll see Brenner describes Pleasantville–referred to as Priusville by snide bloggers, or at least by me, for its lefty mindset and abundance of Priuses on its streets–is “overwhelmingly white.” If Pleasantville, with a few pockets of affordable housing, is overwhelmingly white, then Hawthorne must be “shockingly white.”

Brenner concludes:

It is clear why some residents have fought to preserve the status quo. But others are now asking, at what price?

Walking back from holiday party at Black Rock (Moonves a no-show due to a funeral, but pigs-in-a-blanket delightful), lamenting just how slippery the whole of midtown is when it’s precipitating. Thick stone slabs + worn down soles + rain = all the unintentional comedy one could want.

I cross 50th on 5th, and my consternation turns to the tourists, packed several deep to look at the tree in Rockefeller Center, to see the window displays at Saks.

I see a sign between 49th and 50th that says “Don’t Even THINK of Parking Here.”

It was an official looking sign, like the Department of Transportation had authorized it. It was brilliant. It was, as the cliche goes, only in New York.

Instead of cursing the tourists and the foul weather, I took a moment to enjoy the giant Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. A bit blue for my tastes, but otherwise lovely.

Christmas in New York…