The two most visible figures in the war over bike lanes, NYC Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan (pro) and her predecessor, Iris Weinshall (con) ran into each other. Weinshall embraced the commissioner by the elbows and both smiled and nodded at one another.  (I didn't get my camera out in time to capture the moment.) What did she say to the commissioner? Weinshall told me, "That's between me and Janette Sadik-Khan, don't you think Azi?"

During former School Chancellor Joel Klein's remarks, ABNY's president, Bill Rudin tried hushing the crowd. After he did, Klein joked, "This was like every education meeting I've ever been to. Nobody ever listens."

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, in presenting an award to the Council's Education Chairman Robert Jackson, joked he had so much spirt and energy, she feared he might combust.

Former comptroller, and current mayoral candidate Bill Thompson greeted his one-time fund-raiser, Suri Kasirer (who again is the top lobbyist in NYC). "I cam here looking for you," he said.

State Republican Chairman Ed Cox chatted with former Democratic City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz; Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. chatted with former Congressman Mike McMahon. And former State Senator Craig Johnson and consultant George Fontas worked the room.

Bike-lane opponents are now hoping that the Prospect Park West bike lane could be the place where ... the “unstoppable force” of Sadik-Khan meets an “immovable object.” The immovable object in this case is Iris Weinshall. The knock on the former transportation commissioner among cycling advocates was that her support for their cause always seemed halfhearted. Her backers would say she was just heeding the popular will. “Clearly, if the lawsuit was to succeed, [Weinshall] could say, ‘See, I was reasonable after all,’ ” says Andrew Vesselinovitch, who served as the New York City “bike czar” under Weinshall before leaving the DOT in protest in 2006. To Weinshall’s critics, she is waging a personal vendetta. “It’s not just a bike lane. It’s a repudiation of her tenure as DOT commissioner. And it’s in her face every day,” says [Aaron] Naparstek.

When I approached Weinshall at a ­community-board meeting in January, she said only that she thought the DOT had gone about the Prospect Park West lane the wrong way; later, I spoke with her at length over the phone, but she ultimately declined to go on record. Finally, I received a call from Dov Hikind, a New York State assemblyman who represents the 48th District, in Brooklyn, saying he was contacting me on Weinshall’s behalf. “I can get to God faster than I can get to her,” he said of Sadik-Khan. “Listen, the commissioner enjoys having the freedom she has. At night she dreams of these things, and the next day she does them,” Hikind said. He wanted me to know that he was particularly vexed about a set of pedestrian islands on Fort Hamilton Parkway, in Borough Park. He said he’s exploring a lawsuit against the DOT if the pedestrian islands are not removed.

The memo wondered why CUNY, a public university financed by taxpayers, is paying a decidedly above-market price ($155 million) for its new, 225,000-square foot home at Citigroup’s 2 Court Square in Long Island City.

The memo isn’t going to win Mr. Khosla (whose bio on CUNY’s Web site describes him as, “A passionate devotee of civil disobedience [who] spent months in Indian jails during the 1960s,”) any favors with the CUNY administration, headed by former DOT Commish Iris Weinshall, wife of Senator Charles Schumer.

Mr. Khosla did his research and his math. The price tag, for six floors of office space, boils down to $689 a square foot. In contrast: in March, 1540 Broadway, a top-notch skyscraper in Times Square, sold for about $392 a square foot. In July, another midtown Manhattan skyscraper, Worldwide Plaza, sold for about $375 a square foot. And in August, AIG sold its gorgeous 70 Pine Street and 72 Wall Street, in the financial district, for about $100 a foot.

“In my humble opinion, the price we are paying is beyond reason,” Mr. Khosla wrote. “We should not be spending public money to cover the mistakes of the likes of Citigroup.  We should proceed with the acquisition but only pay what the free market determines to be the fair value.”

In response to a request for comment from CUNY, The Transom got a very long statement that argued, in part, that the $155 million “is far less than it would have cost CUNY to construct a new building for the Law School, which an independent architectural firm estimated would be $250 million.”

That is a question for debate. The New York Building Congress’ most recent numbers put the cost of erecting a prime office building at $290 a square foot. Land acquisitions costs aside, that would bring the construction of 225,000 square feet to about $65 million.

But a knowledgeable broker said replacement costs would likely be much higher, because it’s a law school, and because the city would have to build it.

“I think it’s a great deal for Citibank, obviously,” he said.

drubinstein@observer.com

Taking the stage, Schumer recounted a night years ago, during Ed Koch's third term as mayor.

Koch, Schumer said, “sometimes, he would say these things that were a little bit off the deep end." One night, Weinshall turned to Schumer and said of Koch, “Do you know what his problem is?”

According to Schumer, she went on, "When he goes to bed at night there’s no one laying in bed next to him saying, ‘You know what a jerk you made out of yourself?’”

The crowd laughed. Schumer smiled.

He went on to praise Weinshall's work as vice chancellor of Facilities Planning, Construction and Management for CUNY and, he added, for “keeping me from going off the deep end.”

Koch is not married.

Earlier in the evening, Clinton thanked Schumer for his tireless work both in the Senate and on the dance floor.

Her last day is April 13th.

A statement from Weinshall, wife of Senator Chuck Schumer, is after the jump.

-- Azi Paybarah

STATEMENT FROM DOT COMMISSIONER IRIS WEINSHALL

"It has been an honor and a privilege to spend more than 2 decades serving the city of New York. During the last seven years we have taken great strides towards making our streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists, rehabilitating our historic and iconic bridges, bringing our famed Staten Island Ferry into the 21st century and balancing the many demands on the public space we all share.

I would like to thank the 4,500 men and women who work tirelessly to keep this city moving, and I would like to thank my friend and mentor Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his innovative spirit and unwavering support. I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead and to continuing to serve the city and the people of New York in my new role at CUNY.

The Mayor's statement after the jump.

- Matthew Schuerman

STATEMENT BY MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG ON THE RESIGNATION OF DOT COMMISSIONER IRIS WEINSHALL

"When I became Mayor, the people of New York were already very fortunate to have an innovative thinker like Iris Weinshall leading the Department of Transportation, and I was fortunate that she agreed to stay on and serve for what has now been an extraordinary seven year tenure. Iris tried new ways to solve problems that had plagued New York City for decades, and she worked with local communities to mitigate dangerous conditions, resulting in the lowest pedestrian fatality rate in recorded history and infrastructure changes and improvements in all five boroughs.

"Iris is a tested leader and our loss is CUNY's gain. Whether through the challenges the City faced during and after September 11th, two blackouts or a transit strike that threatened to paralyze us, Iris Weinshall brought her leadership skills to bear and saw the Department through these difficult times. New York is a better place for her efforts.

"Iris always embraced the idea of planning now for the future, overseeing a $5 billion capital plan. As a result, the City has two new ferry terminals and three new ferry boats, vastly improved and safer bridges and tunnels, and improvements in traffic flow including the innovative Thru Streets program that have yielded less congestion. She has also led the City to take additional steps to better protect cyclists and pedestrians. Iris oversaw a revamping of technology at the Department, increasing its efficiency and effectiveness. She fought in Albany to win legislative approval to have more red light cameras installed on City streets and was a key member of planning and coordinating for some of New York City's premiere signature events, including the Thanksgiving Day Parade and the New York Marathon.

"As Iris undertakes her new challenges as Vice Chancellor for Facilities Planning, Construction and Management at CUNY, I know she will continue to serve the people of this City and the students of CUNY with the same vigor, determination and most importantly, innovative leadership that she brought to the Department of Transportation. On behalf of all New Yorkers, I thank Iris for her dedication and professionalism, and I am personally appreciative of her friendship over the years and have enjoyed our warm relationship. I wish her well in her new position."

Now a series of slipups and setbacks has led many City Hall watchers to question whether the administration has its head too high in the clouds—and to ask if Mr. Bloomberg made a mistake by letting some experienced government workers go.

“My concern is that the Mayor has lost people who really understood how to get things done, on the ground and underground,” said Doug Muzzio, a political scientist at Baruch College. “The new team ran a great campaign; there are very talented people there. But still, I wonder if they can deliver on his expansive promises—if City Hall can deliver with the personnel they have.”

While the Mayor made a point to show that he was still running a tight ship by firing an employee for playing solitaire on city time, a spate of bad news in recent days and weeks suggests a loss of control.

Right after his inauguration in January came a crisis, when the Administration for Children’s Services failed to prevent the death of a child known to have been abused. Subsequently, there has been no shortage of bad news. The city Housing Authority proposed narrowing a $168 million budget gap by increasing fees on its poor tenants. The city projected a $509.9 million deficit for the Health and Hospital Corporation. The F.B.I., suspecting bid rigging, raided a street-lighting company that has about $92 million in contracts with the city’s Department of Transportation. Add to that continued inertia at Ground Zero and the Snapple debacle, and you have a lackluster start to the second term.

To be fair, some of those mishaps are the results of first-term programs. The Bloomberg administration also counters each disappointment with a reasonable explanation. For one thing, they say, the deficit in city health care can be attributed to increased competition from private hospitals for Medicaid patients, and the Mayor has also been a champion of hospitals that Mayor Rudolph Giuliani sought to close. They also highlight the Mayor’s remarkable approval ratings in polls, the widely admired and prudent budget he delivered, and the city’s swift reaction to a record-setting snowstorm. It should also be noted that second-term personnel changes are part of the natural selection in any government’s evolution.

Still, after shifting his priorities and shaping his staff for a fight with Albany—and however much he was strengthened by a landslide win last year—Mr. Bloomberg has often found himself on the defensive. Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has accused the Mayor of not putting enough pressure on Governor George Pataki to get money for city schools. Across the aisle, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno reminded Mr. Bloomberg that “bullies end up getting bloody noses,” after the Mayor floated the idea of backing a Democrat in a key State Senate election in order to put pressure on Albany for that education money.

At the same time, the cubicle of Mr. Shaw, who will take a job with Extell Development Co. later this month, has been moved further away from the Mayor. On a damp and chilly March 9 morning, he spent nearly an hour conducting business via cell phone while chain-smoking cigars on the steps of City Hall. While the official line is that he needed a more lucrative job to support kids in college, many insiders believe that Mr. Shaw, a veteran of more than 25 years in government, was forced out. Indeed, his resignation was announced nearly three months after the Mayor named Ms. Harris as his successor. Mr. Madonia, the chief of staff who many expected to take over for Mr. Shaw, left after the announcement. Political advisor and longtime government operative William Cunningham took a job at a public-relations firm.

Some critics think that things would be going a lot smoother with the veterans doing the negotiating. But even some of those very veterans disagree.

“Sometimes only the Mayor can deliver things, and these people know how to get the Mayor to use his bully pulpit in a way he hadn’t before,” said Mr. Madonia, now the chief operating officer of the Rockefeller Foundation, of the new inner circle. “They know him very well, and what he is prepared to do and not to do. There are two things you are looking for—one is experience, and the other is a chemistry with the Mayor. That is an aspect very few can bring to the table.”

Other former City Hall officials saw the Mayor’s more aggressive posture since January as a good thing.

“The nature of ambition is that it causes friction, and friction is necessary sometimes,” said Anthony P. Coles, a former deputy mayor in the Giuliani administration. “You have to assume that any Republican that wins by a huge margin in New York City has the right people to persuade others.”

That includes people in Washington, where the gun-control debate is centered. Mr. Sheekey, Mr. Bloomberg’s boyish campaign manager and now deputy mayor, has worked on Capitol Hill and seems uniquely suited to take on the gun-control issue. But while some admire the Mayor’s new brain trust for taking on the major issues of the day, others think that they are doing so at the cost of properly running the city.

“Are they hurting? Sure. At this point, the city is definitely under-managed,” said Henry Stern, a former Parks Commissioner. “There are almost enough deputy mayors to make up the candles on the menorah, but many of them are not really lit.”

Some critics question the point of having so many top aides—Mr. Bloomberg has seven deputy mayors—and there is much sniping about the role of Deputy Mayor Carol Robles-Roman, who lost her city car’s siren after it was reported that she was using it to get to meetings on time. But these critics also look to the commissioners of embattled city agencies and ask why nobody has been fired.

One name that has repeatedly popped up in conversations with City Hall insiders is Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall, who is married to Senator Charles Schumer. Ms. Weinshall has been criticized for her agency’s handling of the Staten Island Ferry crash more than two years ago, as well as the delay in addressing complaints about traffic congestion caused by trucks and, now, the potential street-lighting scandal.

“There have got to be standards,” said Brandon Ward, a D.O.T. official who is also a tireless critic of the commissioner and the president of the New York chapter of Blacks in Government. (He recently wrote an open letter to Ms. Weinshall in which he asked sardonically if a lack of qualifications is required for promotion within the agency.) “Where is the gravitas of transportation experience that informs decision-making?”

Risk Takers

The Bloomberg administration counters that Ms. Robles-Roman is a critical member of the team and that Ms. Weinshall is a successful commissioner who saw the city through a blackout, a record snowstorm and the introduction of the successful “thru streets” program. More broadly, they say that many of the apparent shortcomings in city agencies are signs of innovative thinking.

“You want people who try things that may fail, people who are innovative,” said the Mayor’s spokesman, Stu Loeser. “People have to know that they aren’t going to get fired for just trying something.”

“We did a lot of things in the first four years,” added Mr. Madonia. “Everything is not always going to pan out as hoped.”

Mr. Loeser defended other commissioners who have come under fire recently, like A.C.S. head John Mattingly, arguing that the Mayor stands by his people when he believes in their ideas and commitment to improving the city.

“The Mayor has picked the team he wants, and they are well suited to building on the accomplishments of the first term,” said Mr. Loeser. “Now we can take that measure to Albany and Washington and fix long-term problems.”

But there are also the long-term consequences to consider regarding the Mayor’s staffing decisions.

The introduction of Bloomberg loyalists at the top, combined with the Mayor’s reluctance to fire commissioners—even those leading embattled agencies—has stymied mid-level officials looking for advancement, critics say. Some talented bureaucrats have left for the private sector.

“He left in place some people who are not doing anything bad necessarily, but who are kind of stale. The Mayor didn’t fire anybody,” said one former City Hall official, who asked not to be identified. “The people who knew government the best and know how to effectuate long-term change, people like Shaw and Madonia—they’ve left. Now you have people in there who are more about the short term, who pay more attention about what plays well in the papers for a day.

“Really talented people at mid-level have no room to advance. They feel stagnant, frustrated, or they leave. That has been the Mayor’s biggest mistake,” the former City Hall official added.

At the same time, Mr. Bloomberg’s top deputy mayors are expected to follow him back to his philanthropic ventures after he leaves office in January 2010. With those people gone, many wonder who will make up the permanent government so crucial to the Mayor’s legacy.

“It’s a huge question mark,” said Scott Levenson, a Democratic consultant, who admired the new team’s focus on Albany. “It’s such a personal thing that brought them in. You’ve got to believe that despite her commitment to government, Patti Harris is going to go where Bloomberg goes next.”

Mr. Stern and Mr. Madonia were just two of the many bright young officials brought in by Ed Koch, who left behind a generation of protégés to influence City Hall years after he left office.

“I’m very proud of that,” said Mr. Koch about the deep roots he planted in City Hall, adding that Mr. Bloomberg’s top aides were “more private sector in affinity.”

But Mr. Koch also argued that enough people, including Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs, would stay behind to build some sort of legacy for the Mayor.

“Will there be a permanent impact that will last after he leaves, as a result of people in high office staying?” said Mr. Koch. “I believe there will be.”

The ferry mystery, and the way City Hall has handled it, stands in stark contrast to other recent incidents involving city workers. "We will not tolerate a cover-up," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said when a firefighter was severely injured in a brawl with a colleague on New Year's Eve. Indeed, the next day the alleged offender was arrested and, last week, the captain in charge of the firehouse that day was forced to retire and fined $90,000. (The captain originally said the injured firefighter was hurt in an accident, not a fight.)

When a police officer killed a teenager on the roof of a Brooklyn apartment house two weeks ago, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said within 10 hours that the shooting was unjustified. The next day, the cop's photo was on the front page of the tabloids, guilty until proven innocent.

But the day after the ferry crash, the Mayor said it would take a year to find out what really happened.

Investigators are still trying to determine the exact whereabouts of the doomed boat's captain, Michael Gansas, at the time of the accident. A crucial piece of evidence-the captain's log, which Mr. Gansas had to sign at the beginning of his tour-was turned over by city Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall to the National Safety Transportation Board.

The city is devoting time and energy to checking on the residencies of ferry workers, who are not permitted to live out of state. But Ms. Weinshall has yet to announce the results of any investigation into a far more serious subject: the complicity of New York shipping companies in providing fake "sea papers" for ferry workers.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, the king of the weekend press conference on topics ranging from cell-phone portability to gift-card fees, has yet to say a word about the ferry crash, even though a federal agency, the Coast Guard, has some regulatory powers over the ferry. The Senator, of course, is married to Mr. Bloomberg's transportation commissioner. Could that have something to do with the long delay?

Although the assistant captain of the ferry, Richard Smith, fled after the accident took place, he has not been arrested for leaving the scene of an accident. But the Mayor promises that he will chase down anyone who is "urinating on your doorstep," as he said last week when he was forced to admit that his staff had released phony figures-off by 100,000-on the number of "quality of life" summonses issued last year.

Sources tell The Observer that at least two ferry supervisors face indictment, mainly because they failed to follow city safety rules, including the one mandating that the captain and the assistant captain should be in the pilothouse at the same time. That wasn't the case with Mr. Gansas and Mr. Smith during the deadly journey across the harbor on Oct. 15. Left unexplained is what will happen to their supervisors.

Just two weeks before the fatal accident, Ms. Weinshall and Mr. Bloomberg were aboard a Staten Island ferryboat. Did they notice if there were one or two people in the pilothouse? One of Ms. Weinshall's deputies was spotted regularly in the Manhattan ferry terminal, where the ferry pilothouses are clearly visible as the boats pull into the dock. Did he ever report anything untoward?

After the crash, Ms. Weinshall assigned her staff to ride the boats to make sure that ferry workers were all at their assigned stations. Now Mr. Bloomberg wants to spend another $1.4 million to extend the contract of a maritime consultant charged with improving ferry safety-a task that would take any competent administrator about two days.

Anyone who thinks the ferry has changed since Oct. 15 should stop by the Manhattan ferry terminal, where they will find every fire exit locked-a violation that would close down any nightclub in town. Such a violation puts the lives of thousands of commuters at risk and is a contradiction of the Mayor's crusade to reduce legal claims against the city.

A visitor this week found that the deckhands and the city's anti-terrorism cops were back to pre–Oct. 15 normalcy: hanging around the snack bar and not patrolling the boat.

As the ferry pulled into the dock in the darkness of a cold winter night, a deckhand had one hand on the security gate and the other on his cell phone, chatting away. Despite the "equal opportunity" mantra touted by Mr. Bloomberg on a regular basis, female passengers found a locked women's bathroom with a sign claiming that there was no money to pay for an attendant.

The men's bathroom, which was open, had no such sign.

U.S. Representative Vito Fossella of Staten Island publicly accused Mr. Bloomberg's staff of "stonewalling the investigation by putting pressure" on the committee to "disinvite" a key witness, Ferry Mate Robert Rush. "This is bizarre, hypocritical and unconscionable," Mr. Fossella said at the hearing, held on Staten Island under the auspices of a House Transportation subcommittee. Both Mr. Fossella and Mr. Bloomberg are Republicans.

Mr. Fossella, not known for his incendiary personality, noted that the Mayor only recently called for the firing of anyone who refused to testify. Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall, one of the several witnesses who testified at the hearing, fired back in unusually strong language, accusing Mr. Fossella of a "blatant falsehood" in making his claim.

At issue is the testimony of Mr. Rush, who has told city and federal investigators that Captain Michael Gansas was not in the pilot house at the time of the accident. Mr. Rush also claimed not to have noticed that Assistant Captain Richard Smith, who was on six forms of medication, had lost consciousness but was still standing at the wheel when the ferryboat Andrew Barberi rammed a wharf. Mr. Rush said he was doing paperwork in the pilot house.

Mr. Rush has not yet spoken publicly about the events leading to the disaster. He was expected to be one of the most important witnesses at the hearing, since he claims to have been in the pilot house when the accident occurred. But he did not show up, despite the subcommittee's request.

Confronted with Mr. Fossella's charge, Ms. Weinshall tried to parse her words by saying that "no one in D.O.T. or the Mayor's office called the committee." Mr. Fossella interrupted her, saying: "One of us is lying, and it's not me." At that point, the city's Corporation Counsel, Michael Cardozo, took the microphone and admitted that he called the Mayor's lobbying office in Washington. He said that he'd asked an official in the office whom he wouldn't identify to tell the subcommittee that federal investigators were concerned that Mr. Rush's testimony would hinder the inquiry.

"I never asked that Rush be uninvited," Mr. Cardozo said.

The fireworks were limited to the exchanges between Mr. Fossella and Ms. Weinshall. No ferry personnel testified, and so the only person who has placed Captain Gansas on the boat is Mr. Rush. The Observer asked Ms. Weinshall, who arrived at the disaster scene at 4 p.m., if she ever saw Captain Gansas that day. She said she did not. She also said she has no idea where Captain Gansas is or if he under any sort of surveillance.

New Yorkers who are enraged by this stonewall might wonder just how safe the city is these days-not from terrorism, but from home-grown incompetence and cover-ups.

After Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez threw Yankee coach Don Zimmer to the ground during a playoff brawl in Fenway Park, Mr. Bloomberg announced that had the incident taken place in New York, he would have thrown Mr. Martinez in jail. But three weeks after the worst mass-transit accident since 1918, the Mayor has yet to order the arrest of Mr. Smith for leaving the scene of an accident. Under the City Charter, the Mayor is the city's chief magistrate and has enormous investigatory powers through his Police Department and Department of Investigations. So far, he hasn't used them.

The Mayor's inaction contrasts with the arrest of a subway motorman, Robert Ray, who crashed a No. 4 train at the Union Square station in 1991, killing five and injuring 200. After leaving the scene, Mr. Ray meandered upstairs, bought some cheap liquor and sat on a park bench watching the body bags of his victims being carried out of the station. He was arrested later that night, tried and convicted of manslaughter.

Also, in March of this year, it took the police just three days to arrest the alleged killers of two city cops murdered during an undercover "buy and bust" gun transaction. There was no waiting period for grand juries, subpoenas, Congressional hearings or safety experts hired by the city. As things now stand, there is nothing to prevent either Mr. Smith or Mr. Gansas from fleeing the country.

As this waiting game goes on, there still are vital questions that remain unanswered and leads that apparently are not being pursued. For example:

· Who is checking on the credentials of ferry workers, especially deckhands? The possible complicity of New York's shipping companies in providing fake papers "documenting" sea experience of deckhands has yet to be examined. This has enormous implications for homeland security. If ferry documents are easily forged, what about the manifests of ships entering the harbor?

· Why did four workers in ferry garb speed away from the disaster site in a navy blue S.U.V. less than 30 minutes after the accident? Why did the workers park the S.U.V. around the corner from the home of the parents of Captain Gansas? The Bureau of Ferries concedes that it owns such a vehicle, but officials say it was "blocked in" at the St. George terminal by police and fire emergency vehicles.

An eyewitness to the speeding S.U.V. told The Observer that the vehicle was veering into oncoming traffic during its mad dash from the disaster site to a location near the captain's parents' house. "They seemed crazed and in a rush," said the eyewitness, who was unaware of the ferry accident at the time. "I thought that perhaps they were cops-but when all the action [police, firefighters, E.M.T.'s] was going in the opposite direction, I began to think that they might be bank robbers." Although the witness couldn't get close enough to copy down the S.U.V.'s license plate, she saw the driver nearly hit two cars, run a red light and then park near a doughnut shop. The men inside the S.U.V. "were jumpy-in and out of the front seats," the witness said, noting that they did not go into the doughnut shop. Thinking they had noticed her watching them, the witness went into the shop. The S.U.V. took off.

· The Coast Guard records the radio transmissions of all harbor traffic. Tapes of the transmissions would reveal the voice of the person who was at the wheel as the Barberi left Manhattan. The transmissions also would tell us who was communicating with the pilots of other vessels in the busy harbor.

· Security cameras are trained on the harbor by the Coast Guard and the F.B.I.-NYPD joint anti-terrorism task force. Video enhancements might help the city determine Captain Gansas' whereabouts during the trip. The images might also reveal who else was in the pilot house, and what Assistant Captain Smith was doing as the boat crashed into the dock.

· Tourists on the ferry, on Circle Line cruises and near the seawall in Battery Park regularly shoot video and film of the passing Staten Island ferries. No one in City Hall has issued a call for such images. The Department of Transportation has installed "high-tech" security cameras in the Manhattan terminal-the kind that showed Mohammad Atta at a Maine airport on Sept. 11-but the city's cameras do not have any tape in them and are used only for "crowd control."

· Assistant Captain Smith left the scene of the accident: That is beyond dispute. But Mr. Bloomberg needs to ask which ferry workers helped Mr. Smith off the boat and away from the scene. He needs to ask why the pilot house wasn't fingerprinted, to begin the process of learning who was there and who wasn't.

While the Mayor correctly expressed his "outrage" that Captain Gansas has refused to cooperate with the investigation, he has not lived up to his promise to "take every legal action" against him. The Mayor's outrage over the withholding of vital information, however, appears to be selective, because his Police Department has refused to release tapes of 911 calls made from the crippled ferryboat.

Those tapes would show whether 911 operators had difficulty figuring out the exact location of the boat-a frightening possibility, but not without precedent. Last January, four teenagers drowned while boating off City Island after a 911 operator couldn't pinpoint their location because city computers track only streets and can trace a "call-back" number only to a land line, not a cell phone. After that accident, news reports highlighted the fact that the technology now exists for 911 operators to pinpoint the exact location of a cell-phone caller. The city, however, has yet to implement this technology-even though the state collects a monthly surcharge on cell-phone bills to upgrade the 911 system.

The ferry crash wouldn't be the first time 911 operators have had trouble identifying accident scenes. Last year, a retired police officer told The Observer about his frustration after watching a motorcyclist slam into a wall in the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. "The police operator kept asking me for the cross streets," he said. "I was screaming into my phone that it was the tunnel that connects Manhattan and Brooklyn and I didn't know the streets. She said, 'It doesn't show up on my computers.'"

Some other clues about the behavior of the ferry crews have yet to be addressed, including the casual atmosphere of the pilot house. After this newspaper published a story about the ferry's close connections with the Staten Island political machine, a reader supplied a videotape of television host Regis Philbin steering the boat. Former Mayor David Dinkins was at the wheel of the Barberi in 1992. And as recently as August, a young Staten Island woman was invited to the pilot house and allowed to steer the boat in mid-harbor. There is also a famous news photo of Jackie Onassis at the helm, with then-Commissioner Vito Fossella-the Congressman's father-smiling broadly next to her. The only question seems to be: Who hasn't piloted the Staten Island ferry?

Meanwhile, Ms. Weinshall has yet to tell the public if she and her staff have verified the home addresses of ferry workers who are required to live in the five boroughs. Captain Gansas, it turned out, actually lives in Hazlet, N.J., but used his parents' house as his "official" address. One longtime ferry manager told The Observer that he knows at least 20 ferry workers who have fake New York City addresses. "They've been protected for so long by politicians that some of them got cocky and they didn't even try to hide it," said the ferry manager, who asked to remain anonymous.

The cockiness is still there, as the ferry crew members hide behind a seawall of silence. Despite the fact that Ms. Weinshall has now assigned other city workers to monitor the activities of deckhands, mates and captains, last week a deckhand was spotted on the lower deck, locked in a passionate embrace with a woman for the entire 20-minute crossing, oblivious to everything else around him. In addition, some workers with political connections still feel that they are beyond the reach of supervisors. One of them is so brazen that he takes a truck clearly marked "Bureau of Ferries" home every night and uses it for his private business.

City Hall is doing nothing to persuade the public that we really are prepared for the next tragedy.