1 Bruce Ratner

Nets Owner & Developer

Where's Jackie O. when you need her? The Atlantic Yards project and the rest of the properties this comb-over-mini-Donald's got his greenbacked mitts around aren't exactly Grand Central Terminal, but bear with us. Think of all the upper-middle-class homeowners who will be displaced after long, hard years of work carving a viable neighborhood out of a once-desolate area of Brooklyn. Then there are the many working-class people living in Prospect Heights, and the small businesspersons in the area. Aren't their homes and businesses worth saving? The Empire State Development Board, Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Pataki and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz don't think so. The centerpiece of the proposed development is a 19,000-seat arena that will house the Brooklyn (née New Jersey) Nets, in which Ratner has a major stake. Also on the table are 17 high rises, which will be as high as 55 stories, 628,000 square feet of commercial space and residences. The housing bit is a ruse to assuage the masses. The “affordable” residential buildings will, however, remain out of reach for a single mom of four surviving on a sub-poverty-line paycheck. Ratner's attempts to evade official processes for major real estate projects and the use of Supreme Court-endorsed eminent domain have been met with challenges from underfunded groups like Develop Don't Destroy. What really pisses us off is the imminent razing of Freddy's Bar and Backroom, which is in the 22-acre footprint. With the Freddy's gone, where will we get our $4 beers when that's all we have in our wallet? Oh, and don't look for criticism in the Newspaper of Record: Ratner's building the Times' gleaming new headquarters building west of Times Square. 

2 Larry Silverstein

Real-Estate developer

Sometimes it's funny when a Jewish-American named Larry gets into wacky adventures due to being stubborn and shortsighted. Unfortunately, Larry Silverstein is no Larry David. Silverstein sealed a 99-year-old lease for the World Trade Center complex—only seven weeks before 9/11. This made him an object of universal sympathy. Post-9/11, however, Silverstein has been as greedy and senseless as that other Larry on HBO is socially inept. The path to greed began when Silverstein felt he was entitled to collect double the $3.2 billion insurance policies because two hijacked planes meant two separate terrorists attacks. 

Ultimately, he “settled” for $5 billion—a $1.8 billion profit from our country's greatest terrorist attack. After four-and-a-half years of squabbling over the details of the new WTC complex, little work has been completed while setbacks accumulate. Security concerns are ongoing (hello, you would think this would be a priority) and doubts still remain whether anyone will actually fill these buildings (only 20 percent of the completed Building 7 have been filled, and no leases have been signed for the Freedom Tower). Silverstein has also disregarded public opinion polls that show overwhelming support for two towers in place of the planned single-structure Freedom Tower. 

Silverstein's recent problems involve his self-proclaimed “right to build.” Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff has said Silverstein will run out of money after only two of the four buildings are complete. Silverstein has rejected an offer that would hand over building rights for Tower 3 and Tower 4 to the Port Authority in exchange for lower rent payments. In response to Silverstein, the government has stifled construction by freezing over $1 billion in funding. Most estimates are pushing the project's completion back to at least 2011, which would still be a miracle if Silverstein remains in charge. 

3 Cardinal Egan

Roman Catholic Prelate

An outsider might see Cardinal Egan on television and ask, “Gee, what's so hateful about him? Seems quiet and friendly enough.” He's certainly not as openly controversial as Cardinal O'Conner was. But if a suspended priest from Newark named Bob Hoatson is right, there's something sinister lurking just beneath the surface. Egan and two other bishops from Jersey, he claims in a new lawsuit, are not only practicing (if closeted) gays, but also that being gay has prevented them from doing anything serious about the sexual predators among the clergy. They were, he says, afraid of being outed, and were ready and willing to take action against anyone who called them on it. According to his lawsuit, for instance, Hoatson was removed from his post because he blew the whistle. They in turn claim it was because he spent too much time counseling victims of priestly sexual abuse, while ignoring the rest of his congregation. Even if Hoatson is making it all up as some claim, there's no denying that the church has worked awfully hard for years trying to sweep a deep-seated problem under the rug—and all the while they kept hypocritically preaching against homosexuality and demanding celibacy for priests. And Egan's at the heart of it. Meanwhile, he continues to close down dozens of Catholic schools in the area, claiming poverty without admitting that the so-called poverty is the direct result of paying off so many abuse victims instead of dealing with the problem. (You gotta admit, though, that closing all those schools has probably kept quite a few kids out of harm's way.) You have to wonder sometimes why people are fleeing the church by the millions. Just stupid, we guess. 

4 ALLAN JENNINGS

Former City Councilmember

It takes a special kind of lowlife to spend his time at the office sexually harassing his female employees. It takes an even bigger rat to then try to talk his way out of it by calling those staff workers ugly, and boasting that he would never sexually harass an ugly woman. Such is the case of Allan Jennings, the disgraced former Queens City Councilman, whose over-the-top moves with the ladies would make even the most brazen womanizer blush. According to a City Council investigation, Jennings would stop short when he had female staff members in the car, a la Frank Costanza, so that he could cop a cheap feel. He would make females do demeaning personal chores, force them to place their coats on the ground rather than in the closet, and constantly make lewd remarks to them. One woman who worked for him even alleged that after she informed him that she had cancer, he grabbed her and pressed his throbbing erection into her clothed backside. Jennings denied all of these charges, defending himself by maligning the looks of those accusing him, and informing the world that he doesn't fuck with ugly bitches. And just before voters sent him packing, Jennings took time out of his busy schedule to throw a chunk of metal at a television reporter who dared to try to interview him. A real classy guy.

5 Roger Toussaint.

Transit Union Leader

If the public didn't get anything else out of last December's utterly pointless transit strike, at least the leader of the Transit Worker's Union was exposed as a lousy leader, an inarticulate spokesperson and a terrible negotiator. We are not necessarily against strikes per se, but to time a walkout of such a vital city resource—subway and buses are the lifeblood of New York—during the week before Christmas was cruel to small business owners, shoppers and tourists. We aren't going to mention the sick, elderly, poor... That is the week that the mom-and-pop shops hope to go from red to black. The week they wait for all year. But what would the TWA head know or care about that? This tone deaf attitude makes Toussaint anything but a saint. So he shuts the city down for three long and hard days. The three-day strike would have been nothing more than an extremely unpleasant memory if Toussaint could have shown some leadership and sold his contract (one anyone in the private sector would have killed for) to his rank-and-file. When the 34,000 TWA membership rejected the MTA's contract, Toussaint's time as president was ticking. Now it comes out that as an employer, Toussaint is as stingy as his bosses at the MTA. The VP of the TWU, Ainsley Stewart, stood up to Toussaint and led the charge for the contract to be rejected. Toussaint got Stewart back by cutting his pay $20,000. Real union man. At least when Mike Quill shut the city down in 1966, the transit workers got something in return. Now they'll be lucky if they get the same contract they rejected. The union, meanwhile, may not survive the Taylor Law fines for an illegal strike. Maybe Toussaint will be back working on the tracks after the next union election. We can only hope. 

6 JAMES FREY

'Nonfiction' Author

After trying unsuccessfully to hump a lackluster novel around to the major publishing houses, James Frey decided to repackage his drivel as a memoir. He endured a public flogging at the hands of America's  favorite talkshow host, lost agents and contracts, and faced off against a furrow-browed Larry King, who seemed to sincerely hope that all the fuss would lead Frey back to drugs or, better yet, suicide. In a perfect world, Frey's scam might have been an art school metacommentary on the gullibility of a trauma-hungry public. Alas, he ends up as little more than a no-talent rank opportunist pedaling rehab and catharsis to a nation of suburbanites  desperate for the pretense of high culture. We look forward to running into him sometime soon, preferably unshaven, crack-addicted and bumming change  outside of a Dunkin Donuts. Now that's poetic justice.

7 John Sexton

University president

What's worse than a bunch of over-educated, privileged crybaby Felicity wannabes? Their disciplinarian daddy, of course. John Sexton helms NYU, that beacon of Downtown real estate and strike-busting. Sexton gave the rising princes of capitalism at the Stern School of Business a lesson in how to break the back of underpaid workers when he refused to negotiate with the Graduate Student Organizing Committee. The private university grad student union's contract had expired, and Sexton's stonewalling led to a November strike. 

Picket lines and petitions led to cancelled classes. Some co-eds went keg wild—in support of the strikers. The strikers believed that they had won the day. But Sexton, the Andrew Carnegie of Academia, wouldn't budge instead issuing an “or else.” The union and its members claimed Sexton's tactic was proof of their power. The strike is ongoing, yet unlike the Transit Workers Union walkout, NYU's newsworthiness fizzled quickly. With a reduced workforce, the university, whose tentacles have spread from the East to West Village, apparently hasn't taken over enough of Downtown Manhattan, and is—if you can believe it—looking to expand. While the school administration claims the undergraduate enrollment is shrinking, and therefore revenue, NYU dorms and classrooms are sprouting like poisoned mushrooms over the two villages. One such project has the villagers brandishing torches and pitchforks: A 26-story dorm at the corner of Fourth Avenue and East 12th Street. That's the site of the soon-to-be-former 159-year-old St. Ann's Church (the Landmarks Commission caved into NYU and denied landmark designation). The building would be the tallest in the East Village. If you were wondering whatever happened to the Saint and the Palladium, the city's two best-ever nightclubs, it's easy: NYU. Lower Third Avenue now looks like Upper Third Avenue, thanks to all the dorm highrises. A recent $200 million gift, earmarked for an institute dedicated to the research of ancient civilizations, will further pad the pockets of a school administration that has already eaten everything around Washington Square. 

8 JUDY MILLER

Former Times Reporter

At first we were so rooting for her—hero journalist courageous enough to go to jail for the ethics of the profession—after she refused to reveal a news source, which turned out to be a now-former vice-presidential aide, Scooter Libby. Then bit-by-bit, we found out that she was the quintessential Washington insider, in bed with power and privilege. What we do know is that she became a New York Times high-flyer after Adolph Ochs Sulzberger Jr.—who was her colleague (and her summer share, with their mutual amours) when both were working the paper's Washington bureau back in the late '70s—became publisher in 1992. She rose to become the Paper of Record's Washington news editor and deputy bureau chief. There, she was perfectly placed to be a victim of Lord Acton's maxim: she was corrupted by power, and absolute power corrupted her absolutely. So when George W. was seeking a consensus for a war he so desperately needed, this presumably sober and judicious senior writer for a presumably liberal newspaper began beating the war drums so loud they could be heard in Baghdad. Miller became an administration lapdog, echoing the now-debunked WMDs. Thousands have died, and one day (probably soon) this country will slink out a la Vietnam with its tail between its legs. Meanwhile, Judy Miller keeps protesting her innocence as being complicit in mass murder. The Times has declared her toxic—a small penalty compared to those shot, burned, widowed and made homeless by her Bush brown-nosing. 

9 Laura Blackburne

Former Judge 

The poster hag for incompetence on the bench, this deluded 68-year-old in a black robe is a living throwback to the craven, money-hungry, gleefully corruptible judges devised by Tom Wolfe in The Bonfire of the Vanities. In fact, Blackburne has been loathsome at least since the Dinkins administration, when she resigned from her Housing Authority post after it was shown she had wasted $341,000 on her gluttonous taste in office furniture, including a puke-pink leather couch, which she defended as essential to create a warm ambience. That might have been her lowest point, if not for the 2004 catastrophe in which she personally escorted a mugging suspect, on trial before her for robbery, out the courthouse's back door, allowing him to evade arrest. Blackburne and her supporters—the NAACP, the Association of Black Women Attorneys and the Latino Lawyers Association of Queens County among them—momentarily contended that she was actually the victim of a police conspiracy to make her look like an idiot, though that theory collapsed in Her Honor's own words: “I guess I really made a boo-boo.” As a panel voted to finally shit-can this grinning lummox last November, she requested her own suspension, complete with her $137,000 a year salary. The request was unanimously granted. 

10 Hilly Kristal

Club Owner

There's no denying that CBGB was an important institution. Emphasis on the “was.” For the past 20 years, Hilly Kristal's Bowery club has been little more than a museum—a distant, fading echo of its former self. But that's the last reason why we felt no sadness at word the club would (in theory, anyway) be closing last October. Kristal's very public battle with the building's owner—a homeless shelter and outreach program, no less—revealed some things that didn't exactly reflect too well on him. While Kristal pleaded “poverty” and “landmark” in the face of a rent increase, it came out that he hadn't paid his rent in—what, three years?—to a homeless shelter! So who's the victim here? Add to that the fact that Kristal has made millions over the years—not from the club itself, which was never a very profitable enterprise (though screwing bands helped out)—but rather from licensing. Those T-shirts he sells are worth a hell of a lot more than putting eight cruddy bands on stage every night. And then there's that Vegas deal he has in the works. But the kicker is Kristal's whining about the big rent hike. Why is the rent going up? Because the Bowery has become an increasingly valuable stretch of property over the past decade—thanks mostly to his promotion. The owners of the building have agreed to let the club remain open until next October. We just pray they finally put it out of its misery, and that Kristal takes his business to Vegas where he belongs.

11 GEORGE PATAKI

Lame-Duck Governor

When he's not busy having surgery on his appendix or having his intestines cleared out, Governor George Pataki is busy running the most laughable presidential campaign since another Northeast governor. No, you have to go back further than Michel Dukakis to Harold Stassen to find a more inept attempt at the White House. In his valedictory State of the State address this year, Pataki announced a huge budget subsidy guaranteed to increase the state's dependence on ethanol over fossil fuel. He proposed the construction of millions of dollars in new ethanol refineries and exempting ethanol from the gas tax. We're sure it's just coincidence that Iowa, which holds the first official presidential ballot, happens to be a major ethanol-producing state. Pataki's proposal to subsidize oranges in public school lunches to pick up that key Florida swing vote is surely on the way. But while Pataki is spending our tax dollars to bolster his fantasy land presidential ambitions, he has allowed the huge gaping hole at the southern tip of Manhattan to remain empty for more than four years. The governor only added insult to injury when he appointed his own chief-of-staff to take the reins of the Ground Zero disaster, even though Pataki's office had been managing the mind-boggling bureaucratic screw-up from the getgo. Had Ground Zero been in Iowa, we're sure Pataki would have figured out some way to redevelop the site on the backs of New Yorkers. Ditto for obeying court order after court order and giving the city its fair share of state education funds—a situation that has pitted him against fellow Rockefeller Republican Mayor Bloomberg. But when it comes to helping his own state, Pataki is just like his blocked intestines: full of shit.

12 Chuck Schumer

U.S. Senator

He makes sure he's in the papers at least once a week, issuing demands, whining, fretting, insisting that the government pass more regulations over whatever minor problem happens to catch his eye that morning. He insists that he's a friend of the little guy and that it's all for our own good, but for the most part, his proclamations fall into three categories: 1) Demanding that security, surveillance and control be ratcheted up a few notches everywhere, on account of those filthy terrorists lurking in all of our basements. (Civil liberties and personal privacy aren't among his top priorities.) 2) Making sure that jerks with cell phones are free to blab away whenever and wherever they like. That's why he wants more antennas on top of more buildings. Who cares what the long-term health effects might be, so long as some moron can tell his buddy he's “walking on 15th Street right now”? 3) Insuring that nothing—not emissions standards, not gas prices, not traffic rules—stand between a bonehead and his SUV. We're just grateful then that, for all his kvetching, very little ever comes of any of his proposals.

13 Mike Piazza

Baseball Player

Mike came to New York with such promise in 1998. He fulfilled most of that promise. He turned the Mets into a playoff winner in 1999 and led them into the World Series in 2000. Those were good years, and when the Mets went sour Mike Piazza tried to pull the team up. It didn't work. 

But he tried and New York loved him for that. So much so that we were willing to play him into 2005. Hell, for his lousy 2005 year, New York gave him $16 million dollars. But even by 2003 it was clear that Piazza was a terrible catcher. 

The joke in gay bars in New York was, what do a lot of gay men and Mike Piazza have in common? They both can't throw a man out going for second base. (At least he deflected the “gay rumors” with good humor and a Seinfeldian “Not that there's anything with that.”) 

Mike, we stuck by you anyway. New York always had your back. So how did you repay us? You ran away when the going got tough—not for the team, but for you. And Mike, that makes you a selfish baby. Now we're glad, glad, glad to see you go. We hope the door didn't hit you on the way out of Gotham. New York is bigger than any one athlete. We swallow them whole. So when we like you, behave or we will destroy you. Just ask Ed Whitson, Calvin Scharadi, Chuck Knobloch, Charles Smith, Neil O'Donnell and Tim Berra. We will eat you and your young. Piazza knew his contract would end in 2005. He could have gracefully retired. We in New York would have hailed him. Given him a job with a Minor League team or in the front office—and maybe one day he could manage the Mets. 

But Mike's ego got the best of him. We even would have let him stay if he learned first base and signed as a part time player for the Mets as a back-up at catcher and first. But no, Mike will not accept aging gracefully. The American League—where he would be a natural as a designated hitter—passed on him and he fled to San Diego to be a “star” again. Mikey, your time has come and gone. You should have retired in 2005 and let us given you the big sendoff. But you are going south to a baseball wasteland and will disappear like Ed Whitson.

14 Michael Mastromarino, Joseph Nicelli

Body Snatchers

Slicing body parts off corpses and selling them without the family's permission is not a big deal. The demand for organ donors and medical school research materials is so high nowadays that it's pretty much a given. What pushed Mastromarino, Nicelli and their cohorts beyond the merely loathsome straight into the heart of crass evil was their greed. Greed drove them to not only falsify death certificates, but to sell diseased body parts for transplantation. Because of these men, an estimated 10,000 people in the U.S., Canada and South America now have to worry that a transplant designed to save their lives might kill them in the end. There is some sad comfort, however, in knowing that even if none of the 120-plus criminal charges stick, the grave robbers are also facing at least two class action suits—one from the families of the “donors,” and one from the unwitting recipients. That should keep them uncomfortable for a good long time.

15 Peter Braunstein

Is there anything the New York media like to rubberneck more underminingly and perpetuate more egregiously than the reputation of the Condé Nast fashion editors? From Toby Young's faux-epic of jealousy (How to Lose Friends…) to Devil Wears Prada's hyperbolic villainess, the trend is a stereotype rapped in a cliché trapped in a pre-9/11 New York magazine. So what better rag to give a gazillion-word profile of Peter Braunstein as disillusioned Condé Nasty, a bit too ugly to remain sane around Manolo-hording bitches? Braunstein is loathsome for revitalizing the idea that these shallow bores should be worshipped. After the Halloween fireman impersonation he used to overcome a helpless woman in her Chelsea apartment, Braunstein's murderous impulse was relegated to unsuccessfully slashing his own unshaven throat when the police finally caught up with him in Memphis. Even Elliott Smith stabbed himself to death. Failure was expected, we guess, because Braunstein is all spectacle, no substance. But the main reason we hate him so much is that he has done so much to besmirch the reputations of put-upon freelance writers. It's bad enough that we make less than garment workers in Guangdung; now we're known as creepy sexual predators. Try a sharper blade next time, Petey.

16 CLARENCE NORMAN

Former Democratic Boss

Being elected to public office comes with a certain amount of public trust attached to it. Clarence Norman, the former New York State Assemblymember and Brooklyn Democratic boss, had no qualms about abusing that trust whatsoever. Norman plead guilty last year to several counts of mishandling campaign contributions, falsifying business records and stealing a $5,000 check meant for his political club. Amid all this, reports swirled that he had been using his leadership position to corrupt the judicial system, selling highly coveted Supreme Court judgeships to the highest bidder, regardless of their qualifications. Rather than own up to his misdeeds, or at least accept the jury verdicts with some modicum of humility, Norman instead played the race card, allowing his prominent supporters to tell this newspaper that he was singled out for prosecution because he was black. “Every person of color in this city, particularly those who have any level of prominence, better understand they're coming for my brother today. They're coming for you tomorrow,” said Eric Adams of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement at Norman's going away party. Never mind that the juries that convicted Norman were mostly black, or that most of the politicians convicted of misdeeds in recent years were white. In the real world, the only color that mattered in Norman's conviction was green.

17 Irv Gotti

Want to make big money living the hip-hop lifestyle? Just run a record label and conduct high volumes of regular business with drug dealers and various other criminals. Better yet, run this all out of the same office and dub it The Crack House. That's what the feds accused Irv Gotti and his brother of doing. Irv's highly successful record label, Murder Inc. (oops, after beating the rap, he changed it to The Inc.—we can't imagine why) had a roster of multiplatinum-record selling artists including Ja Rule and Ashanti. In edition to his sharp business skills, he was also a respected hip-hop producer, having laid down beats for Jay Z, DMX and Fat Joe along with his artists on his own labels. Irv was a regular Crystal bottle popper on the local club scene. The Feds decided to investigate all this crazy nonsense that Irv was proud to preach both on wax and in the streets. What followed was a three-year saga of headlines and a trial that slowly deteriorated both the label and its “don” (he took his name from the convicted Gambino Family crime boss—great role model). In the end, Irv and his brother were acquitted on the grounds that it is not illegal to socialize or do business with criminals (that's good to know) and the rest is history. They were spotted on the night of their acquittal partying it up on a yacht docked on the Westside. And keeping up as role models for today's youth. 

18 Shaya Boymelgreen, Dave Walentas

Real Estate Developers

Watching the two men who turned the area below the Manhattan Bridge from a small-manufacturing enclave into the next Soho duke it out puts one in mind of Oscar Wilde's description of fox hunting: the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. Who else but a real estate baron could allegedly siphon $130,000 of electricity from one residential building to a commercial building next door, both of which he owns? David Walentas, the man who made DUMBO what it is today (a barren wasteland of “living lofts”), has been huffing and puffing over upstart Shaya Boymelgreen's real estate ventures into his turf. Walentas recently threatened to block out the sun à la Monty Burns from Boymelgreen's 57 Front St. property. Walentas owns the empty lot next door and is allegedly strong-arming Boymelgreen into giving up another property. This from the guy that threw out commercial tenants in order to transform a 19th century industrial gem into a Candyland for trust-fund babies to unwind a clothes hanger and declare it art. This feud amounts to a fourth-grade boy punching a girl in the arm because, well, he can. Either meet up behind the gym for an after-school special or rendezvous beneath the bleachers for awkward pawing. 

19 James and Charles Dolan

Sports Arena Owners

Talk about dumb and dumber. These guys are stupider than a bag of hammers. Everything they touch turns to garbage, and then they shrug their shoulders and walk away, leaving the City of New York holding their bag of losers. Look what they have done with basketball in this city. Once the jewel of the NBA, the Knicks have descended to become an utter embarrassment. They are truly the laughingstock of the league. It is almost as though the Dolans want to devalue the team. Jim Dolan sails his boats on the Long Island Sound and meanders into New York City to work banking hours. The Garden is a mess and becoming worse daily. Jim Dolan claims he listens to the fans but doesn't do what they want. Then the other scholar, Charlie Dolan, led his ad team to attack the West Side Stadium. They got fines for their fast moves to stop the Olympics and the Jets from building a stadium and competing. After the Jets lost the stadium and the city lost the Olympics, the Dolans—surprise!—announce grand plans to move the Garden west, territory now available and cheap. 

20 Isaiah Thomas

Knicks Manager

Just the look on his face is annoying. This un-manager ruined the CBA. Failed in Toronto. Now he has come to New York and assembled the worst team to ever play in the Garden. Think on that. He took something mediocre and totally ruined it. Basketball is a joke in the Garden. Once the Mecca now the Borscht Belt of basketball. Even the popcorn he makes sucks. Then he gets into a sex-suit problem, and he has his overpaid coach, Larry Brown, and his overpaid point guard, Marbury, ready to kill each other. Thomas, Brown and Marbury all killed the Knicks. Thomas has the power to save them, but he wont because he doesn't know how. Under his oversight, the team died and he doesn't look like he will bring them back anytime soon. Isaiah gives Jim Dolan street cred and Dolan gives Thomas money—lots 'o money to ruin a franchise. Thomas makes trades like a blind man throwing darts at an NBA roster. Then he coddles that spoiled little prince, Step-on-Me Marbury, and allows this child to ruin a team instead of putting him to bed without milk and cookies. The Knicks are done, and so should be Thomas' reign of incompetence. Thomas has turned Knick fans in to the pre-2005 Red Sox fans. 

21 Lil' Kim

Rapper

Lil' Kim, aka The Queen Bee, is serving a 366-day prison sentence at a Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia. What did the nasty lyrical sexstress do that sent her to the big house? Actually, it was what she didn't do. She was just keeping it real. A bit too real. As just a witness to a 2001 shoot-out outside Hot97 radio station in the Village, Kim had done absolutely nothing wrong. When questioned by the police, however, she decided it was in her best interest to deny witnessing the event as well as any relationship to the shooter. This couldn't have been further from the truth. The triggerman was not only a longtime friend, but he was also the underdresser's bodyguard. In the end, a surveillance tape of the shooting and a few basic interviews were all took to bring Kimmy down. Which leads us to ask: Why did she lie? She would have been back on a video set in a pair of matching pink fur undies in no time had she told the truth. Was it for street cred? In the 'hood, or anywhere for that matter, it shows some serious heart-risking jail time for a buddy. No, it was just stupidity. Then again, she put out an album (“Naked Truth”) weeks after her sentence began, recorded a television reality series documenting her last days of freedom (Lil' Kim Goes to the Big House) and plans to write a book. That, young aspiring rappers, is not stupid—although it's worth remembering that both album and TV show bombed. 

22 Michael Bloomberg

Don't get us wrong: We'd much rather see your distant, corporate style of running the city like the CEO of a privately held company than the Giuliani-Time moralizing and hectoring lectures. But the city isn't Bloomberg LPC, the City Council isn't a rubber-stamp board of directors, and the public aren't mere consumers. If you wanted to build a giant stadium in the middle of Manhattan, maybe you should have tried a bottom-up approach, instead of the top-down ukase from your capo, Dan Doctoroff. Thanks to your hamhandedness, New York lost the Olympics, despite the world's sympathy for our 9/11 losses. While we love the fact that you have transcended party politics to actively oppose local politicians who aren't vocal about the state's shameless refusal to support schools, we loathe your GOP lockstep support of the administration. And what's with this relentless opposition to the innocuous bill that would force vendors doing business with the city to give the same benefits to employees' domestic partners that they give to spouses? You had your hand slapped by the courts and still you refuse to implement it—despite the City Council overriding your veto by an historic margin. Even worse is your vicious campaign against collective bike riders and anti-war protesters—again, after repeatedly being told to make nice by judge after judge. Mike, it's New York City. Not Cairo or Minsk or Harare, OK? Ease up, already.

23 The Strokes

Rock Band

The music industry likes to blame massive file-sharing for their miserable status, but what they forget is that this era produced bands like The Strokes and touted them as the saviors of rock 'n' roll. Relying on the crude, formulaic approach jumpstarted decades ago by the likes of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, The Strokes are far from saviors of the ailing music industry. Instead, they have swayed rock from being dangerous, thrilling—hell, even enjoyable—to stale, monotonous and wearisome. After straddling the indie/mainstream fence with their first release, we should have recognized they are no more “saviors” than the Rolling Stones, for whom they opened on tour. We can only pray for something as miraculous as the Apocalypse if they are able to sustain their careers to the age of those British geezers. There is a place for simple, catchy rock; but for minimalist rock movements to succeed, substance must triumph over style, pretension sacrificed to essence. With the über-pompous Strokes, it's difficult even to tolerate their crudeness from a jukebox muffled with the converse of bar patrons. Are they the saviors of rock 'n' roll? Maybe in the sense that their presence could result in the utter destruction of an archaic, out-of-touch music industry. 

24 Lenora Fulani

Ex-Party Leader

Do you know anyone who supported right-wing radical Pat Buchanan's presidential campaign in 2000? Lenora Fulani did. The former leader of the cultish Independence Party has never had a hard time embracing the worst elements of the political spectrum, from the ultra-conservative Buchanan to the leftist Rev. Al Sharpton. What has united her bizarre politican spectrum is rank opportunism. She has no problems aligning herself with whatever politician she deems to be the appropriate flavor-of-the-month to push her agenda, which uses political activity as a form of therapy. Reports have circulated that Fulani has used children involved in her bogus All-Stars talent project to panhandle for spare change, and the charity is now being investigated on various child-abuse charges stemming from its treatment of child actors who had signed up for the program. The only ideology Fulani seems willing to embrace is that staple of political nut jobs, good old-fashioned anti-Semitism. Last year, Fulani repeatedly refused to denounce or apologize for comments she had made in 1995 stating that Jews “had to sell their souls to acquire Israel and are required to do the dirtiest work of capitalism,” and that Jews currently “function as mass murderers of people of color.” Had she been pressed further, Fulani would have likely remarked that Jews use the blood of Palestinian babies to make matzo when they're not busy running the world's banks. Even Michael Bloomberg, who never met an endorsement he didn't like, had to run for cover after that one. 

25 Meatpacking District

Neighborhood

The Times' William Grimes put it best when he remarked that no neighborhood has gone from marginal to annoying as quickly as the Meatpacking District. From a district known solely for its abattoirs, anonymous gay sex and tranny hookers, the area around West 14th Street known collectively as the Gansevoort Market in the past few years has become one of those horrid “international destinations” so beloved of travel writers and—oh, ye oxymoron!—lifestyle journalists. The beginning of the end was probably the opening of the Far West Side of Greenwich Village to rapacious developers at the beginning of the most recent real estate boom, but there are three distinct cultural markers to separate Old Gansevoort from Yuppie Gansevoort. Glenn Close's loft so big it needed its own zip code in Fatal Attraction; Chelsea Market, which gave upscale denizens their own bon marché; and Samantha moving in on Sex and the City. By then, Jeffrey and Stella McCartney were already selling overpriced schmattes. Industria Superstudio (where Madonna shot her Sex book and video) gave the area more oh-so-safe “edginess.” The Gansevoort Hotel, a Collins Avenue clone, was the first hotel in the city to have a velvet rope. Now streets are overrun with men in black and ladies in Blahniks, all with cell phones permanently attached to their ears; and “La Petite Bruxelles” has been overrun by Belgian res-taurants. The Olsen Twins, Nicole Kidman and Calvin Klein soon followed. Now that the boutiques and super-restaurants like Spice and the Michael Graves glass high-rises have crowded out the leather bars (The L.U.R.E.), unpretentious straight bars (Hell) and even standby, Florent, which reportedly may be leaving, the new residents are taking on the few remaining wholesale butchers and the straggly remains of the trannies who still ply their wares on the cobblestone streets. They complain about the blood, rats and noise—thereby destroying the very “flavor” that was supposed to have been the neighborhood's attraction in the first place. 

26 John Bolton

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.

That this night-stalker hasn't single-handedly toppled the U.N. building into the East River—not in his first six months—hardly lightens the piss-in-our-face humiliation of his being installed in the first place. By the way, that only occurred via Bush's pathetic appointment during a congressional recess when it looked as though even GOPers would bolt Bolton. A neocon lunatic who Jesse Helms said “is the kind of man I would want to stand with me at Armageddon” (memo to Lucifer: kill two turds with one stone), Bonkers Bolton made his pre–U.N. career out of defending dictators, sweetening the intelligence pot and, of course, excoriating the U.N., not to mention terrorizing female underlings like a Colt 45–chugging wife-beater swinging his tiny fists. Tipped for the U.N. job after being rejected for State Department deputy (to the relief, surely, of Condoleezza Rice), this paranoid warmonger is currently dismantling a human-rights measure that would restrict the U.S.'s ability to rape and maim detainees. So far, his main contribution has been pissing off the major nations by insisting, with a total rube's comprehension of international diplomacy, that meetings start on the dot, as though they were auto-dealer sales pep-talks. But Bolton's sheep's clothing gets thicker, courtesy of a recent Nobel Peace Prize “nomination” and puff pieces in The New York Times and Time magazine, the latter mentioning Bolton's prized gold-plated grenade, a memento in honor of his bomb-throwing status. We know exactly where this human-animal hybrid can stick it.

27 IRIS  WEINSHALL

Transportation Head

In the private sector, when your department is responsible for a horrible disaster, you have to fall on your sword. That was not the case for Department of Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall, who kept her job after the Staten Island Ferry disaster in 2003 which killed 10 people and injured 72 more. But when you're married to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, you have joined the class of political untouchables and are able to stay employed no matter how incompetent you might be, how unsuited to your job, or how many people die on your watch. If Weinshall was fired, you would have a hard time reading about it anyway, since the DOT has launched an aggressive campaign to battle the First Amendment by making it as hard as possible for newspapers like this one to distribute their wares. Under onerous rules passed with Weinshall's expressed consent, newspapers can now be ticketed for one of many ridiculous violations, such as having a single sticker planted on it or being inches too close to the curb. Under the guise of aesthetics, Weinshall is helping to create a city devoid of the vibrant exchange of ideas that community newspapers help create. Anytime political hacks concoct grand schemes to rid the world of newspapers, the general public should always think the worst. Maybe amid all the brouhaha over Bush's erosion of civil liberties, someone can take a close look at Weinshall's unrelenting campaign to stifle free speech in this town. 

28 Jonathan Safran Foer

Author

Was Jonathan Safran Foer born or hatched in some weird, underground, genetics lab? Older brother Franklin was recently foisted into lefty-journal New Republic's top spot, while younger brother Joshua contributes sciencey pieces to Slate like “The Adderall Me—My Romance with ADHD Meds.” Wife Nicole Krauss has published two of her own novels, and even their Great Dane, George, has expressed literary leanings. Still, we're not about to hold a good gene pool against the 28-year-old, or the sparkler-manufacturing explosion that marred his eighth summer and continues to haunt him to this day, or even the fact that he has already purchased an entire brownstone—in Park Slope, no less. No. Safran Foer hasn't had it easy, despite his Georgetown Day School adolescence and the four-year lock he held on Princeton's annual Creative Writing Thesis Prize.  Only after a textbook publisher picked up his debut novel in 2002 was Everything Is Illuminated marked not so much an auspicious debut, but the new messiah. Everyone from John Updike to Salman Rushdie sang his praises—until the 2005 9/11-Holden Caulfield follow-up, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. This very paper dubbed him not just a bad author, but a vile one. Everything but the box office was illuminated for the big-screen bomb of his first book. Both 2005 efforts came crashing down like the towers he writes so badly about. But as loathsome as exploiting 9/11 for bad magic-fiction might be, pity the poor producer in charge of translating his red-inked, blurry typefaces and flipbook cartoon—not to mention that entire page taken up by just the word “purple”—into the audio version.

29 Andy Cuomo 

Perennial Candidate

With inbreeding, the reduction in genetic diversity tends to accentuate the best or worst traits. Andrew Cuomo's political gene pool was especially volatile. He was born a Cuomo, befriended a Clinton and married a Kennedy. Instead of creating Super Democrat, however, all those negative traits in that political Petri dish created one of New York's most arrogant, deceitful and scandal-prone politicians. Consi-dering the talent pool for such a dubious distinction, that's saying something! Cuomo entered big-time politics in 1982, in his early 20s, when he helped manage his father's successful gubernatorial campaign. Later, he accepted the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development position offered to him by Dad's bud, President Bill Clinton, in 1997. It was here that Cuomo began to develop his remarkably Clinton-like arrogance—but unlike Clinton, Cuomo failed to accomplish anything noteworthy within the notoriously inefficient HUD. In 2002, Cuomo ran for governor of New York (a state he had been absent from while working in Washington for the previous eight years). This is when he shifted from arrogant ass-kissing sycophant to the treacherous-bastard phase of his career when he unveiled a new character: in-party, negative campaigner. Poor 60-year-old H. Carl McCall had earned a spot to contend for governor thanks to decades of faithful, quiet service to the Democratic Party, only to fall in the polls thanks to Cuomo's slander, and some comments and political flyers that more than a few found edging perilously close to race-baiting. Cuomo soon dropped out of the governor's race because of the public uproar he created after trying to play the 9/11-card, accusing Pataki of doing nothing more than standing behind Giuliani and carrying his coat. Nice: taking the city's greatest tragedy and turning it into trash talk. With the damage already done to McCall, however, Pataki had no problem winning the election. Those Kennedy genes finally caught up with Cuomo when he learned that his wife, Kerry Kennedy, was apparently cheating on him with a polo-player (to add insult to injury, a Republican, no less). Instead of keeping quiet, moving on discreetly and limiting the harm that such a scandal could create for two of the most prominent Democratic families, Cuomo made the discovery public by announcing it to the media. If all these failures weren't enough, Cuomo is now campaigning for attorney general despite having never been elected to a public office. 

30 Isaac Mizrahi

Fashion Designer

We remember when the poor man's Gianni Versace seemed to be fading into well-deserved obscurity. What was there to hate? He's graciously fat; a charming queen and, after Unzipped showed him throw his tizzies with all Supermodels In Creation bedecked in his creations, he seemed to grow quietly obsolete. It seemed to make no difference that no one actually bought his clothes when he was a couturier, until his going out of business made the front page of the Times (his biggest cheerleader). But savvy branding made him suddenly ubiquitous: at Target (giving Starck and Graves a run for their money), on the tube (taking up where the Queer Eye guys left off). Then came the Golden Globes. Seems that's when he overstepped his boundaries and morphed from perfectly harmless court jester to an object of disdain. By honking one of Scarlet Johanseens hooters, he became a devil in a tux. At last it was revealed: Isaac is a closet hetero! 

31 Marty Markowitz

Brooklyn Borough President

Instead of using what little power he has positively during the transit strike last Christmas (press releases and sound bites don't count), the genial Marshmallow Man Markowitz turned Borough Hall into a coffee-and-tea joint for those commuters who decided to brave the winds on the Brooklyn Bridge. He stood at the foot of the entrance to the bridge cheering on the frostbitten, grumbling masses, essentially putting on a kissing-babies act. Gee, a bialy and hot coco really warms our toes, Marty. That's his shtick. Smile, pat some backs, announce his support for the newest cause du jour as long as the press is around. Then there's the real Marty, the backroom Marty. Case in point: his ebullient support for development czar Bruce Ratner's proposed Atlantic Railyard, 20,000-seat, Frank Gehry-designed sports arena and the surrounding retail, residential and “public” (ironic quotes) spaces. Last summer, Markowitz held a press conference with Upstate and city politicians and Ratner's puppet community groups—among them BUILD—to announce the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement. They all agreed Ratner's vision is in the best interest of Brooklyn. But the beep is really hot about pipe dreams of a supposed sports renaissance, heralded by the construction of a complex for what would be the Brooklyn Nets. The restless ghosts of the Brooklyn Dodgers would at last be laid to rest at Ebbett's Field. Meanwhile, he oversees a borough in the midst momentous change, with neighborhood after neighborhood falling prey to rapacious developers, and long-established communities uprooted. 

32 Gawker

Web Site

Don't get us wrong. We love snark. This issue should be proof enough of that. But let us be clear: Snark should be used for good, to goad the rich and powerful. Snark for its own sake becomes merely vicious. As gossip central for Manhattan's media set, Gawker.com does a good job of relaying breaking news. But it also has lowered the bar on celebrity gossip—something we had thought impossible in this day and age. The Gawker Stalker, a map of where celebrities (an elastic term in Gawkerland: “Michael Musto ate a slice of Pizza on Bleecker Street!”; “Hal Rubenstein bought underwear on 14th Street!”) go about the business of daily living, has brought the site criticism. We always believed that New Yorkers prided themselves on their sangfroid about celebrity sightings. If Lindsay Lohan wants to go to Amy Sacco's latest velvet-rope bar and get toasted, hey, it's her business. Who cares? Gawker also does a lousy job of editing out the space-filling crap from other sites and publications from the truly juicy. The problem with snark as a worldview is that its tone intonates everything. Even when Gawker tries to be respectful, such as when someone dies, it comes off as, well, snarky. How do we know? Because we read it every day. It may be obnoxious, but it's also indispensable. 

33 Naomi Campbell

Supermodel 

It's as if Naomi Campbell has spent her entire career trying to exact revenge for Linda Evangelista butchering her last name in the 1995 documentary about Isaac Mizrahi, Unzipped. Now that she's become a first-name-only boldface, her last name seems superfluous. But her life story continues to unspool as if John Candy's Planes, Trains and Automobiles character was replaced by a five-foot-nine-and-a-half, gorgeous but psychotic woman. Whether hurling courtesy phones at minimum-wage employees long before the Gladiator thought of it, pushing assistants out of moving vehicles or attacking airline passengers years before al-Qaeda, La Campbell has always been ahead of her time. But if that's not enough of a story, try her 1995 “novel,” Swan. This 359-page dog-pile has the nerve to introduce a nefarious snuff-film impresario on page 335. It's enough to make one tell Judith Krantz she can take Manhattan, as long as she takes Naomi with her.  But perhaps dancing is more your speed. How about 1995's disco disc Babywoman, which was huge—in Japan? Poor Naomi, the fur was flying when she was caught in Milan working the runway in mink after her debut as a PETA spokesmodel. Even wax Naomi at London's Madame Tussaud's required her own velvet rope after visitors repeatedly molested her. Actually we love the naughty Naomi; you're on this list because 2005 was an endless litany of excuses for bad behavior. Whether in the House of Lords or on the house of Tyra, this year has been a nonstop whine-a-thon from the 36-year-old. Reported drug use, crazed stalker, the Dalai Lama: You already have a mountain named after you outside Madrid: La Maliciosa. It's a swift drop after you've reached the Valley of the Dolls. 

34 The Foodies

Homo Omniverus

Anonymous sex is no longer fashionable New Yorkers' preferred form of instant gratification. Instead, they're filling their mouths with less likely substances—namely, fried mayonnaise paired with pickled tongue and tomato molasses. Welcome to New York's new food order, wherein plebeians are derided for munching medium-rare burgers unless Daniel Boulud has topped them with truffles. Now, we're hardly hating on chefs and their miso-encrusted cod (though flame-haired Bobby Flay could certainly stand to sit and spin on an habañero-tipped knife). They're merely Culinary Institute of America–taught coke (Coke-marinated tuna?) dealers to foodies, the insatiably trendy eaters who are sucking the life out of supping like flesh from Zak Pelaccio's chili crab. With Frank Bruni and Chowhound.com as their leaders, foodies roam Columbus Circle and the Meatpacking District like packs of hungry wolves, salivating over offal and similarly overpriced tripe. Afterward they retreat to their cave, 14th Street, buying $6-a-pound heirloom tomatoes and compassionately raised veal at Whole Foods, Balducci's and newcomer Trader Joe's. Here the foodies wait, like lemming-inching toward a cliff, in 20-deep lines to snag budget-priced Pad Thai and tamales. Whether loathsome or just plain ludicrous, we have to wonder: What happened to the days when New Yorkers subsisted on ciggies, caffeine, party drugs, booze and slices of greasy street pizza? Condos and luxury apartments aren't the sign of NYC's Armageddon: It's six-pack abdominals (these creatures' mantra is Jackie O's “exquisite food in tiny portions”) and the nauseating quote, “I got seated right away.”  

35 Richie Rich

Fashion Designer

There's the blue shorts and various other ridiculous ensembles; the too-blond shock of hair; and the way he always has to lord it over the other kids in Richville. Not to mention, he's born in 1953 and he still looks like he's 10. Oh, wait a minute, not that Richie Rich. Oh well, then did you ever wonder why tranny superstars Amanda Lepore and Sophia Lamar, once joined at the removed rib, are now only seen together on paper invites? The last time we ran into him, he was performing such a glad-handing campaign at a crowded, noisy nightclub that a gossip columnist asked, “Is he running for office?” He has an office. And a showroom and street cred (or at least, club cred) from his Michael Alig days, and an ex-boyfriend entangled in their mutual business interests. The pair's Web site instructs, “Put your finger on a map of downtown New York City and you can feel the pulse of Heatherette.” We'd prefer to put our finger down our throat. But if some offal landed on our shirt, we just might be the next Heatherette! While we're on the subject of aerobic activities, what's with the spaghetti straps? We're not talking about clothes, either: We mean those pasty, scrawny, limp noodles you're always flashing in your micro-muscle tees. Don't you have a (comped!) membership to David Barton? Revert to the comparatively demure costumes of your mysterious Ice Capades/Kristi Yamaguchi era. Or put yourself on ice for a while and design some wearable clothes.

36 Ron Perelman

Financier

Perelman: even the name suggests a grotty mollusk clamping down on its ill-gotten gains. Actually, according to his official biography, Perelman “cut his teeth running the family sheet metal business.” Lots of trés '80s, Gordon Gekko corporate-raids grew his portfolio until it included Revlon, Technicolor, Marvel Comics, Sunbeam and Panasonic. Along the way, he made Forbes' World's Richest People list. But a trail of broken boards wasn't the only thing this cigar-chomping Romeo wracked up. There's also the trail of broken-hearted trophy wives: Claudia Cohen, Patricia Duff and even Ellen Barkin, twice! It seems as though it was only six months ago that Barkin was taking time out of the Palindromes junket to bill and coo about her man, who apparently approaches the pre-nup with the same humanitarian business sense he applies to the corporate takeover. Still, even though his bank account has shrunk, reportedly to the tune of close to $4 billion since 1997, Perelman is still livin' large, or at least keeping up appearances. His annual New Year's Eve birthday celebration, with pals like Usher and Russell and Kimora in attendance, went off as planned this year aboard his 188-foot yacht docked in St. Bart's. The only difference was his wifey was nowhere to be found, leaving many to speculate that the clock was ticking on their eternal vows, which could result in a significant alimony bump for Barkin. Appropriately, a judge finalized their divorce on Valentine's Day. Actually, Barkin came out well. Look at Patricia Duff: She was presented with a pre-nup while she was reportedly in the hospital giving birth to their daughter Caleigh, whom she subsequently lost in an ugly custody battle. Meanwhile, Perelman dukes it out with The Donald as New York's most notorious serial monogamist. 

37 Hillary Clinton

U.S. Senator

As she prepares for her run for the presidency—whoops, we mean senator—it's about time liberals took off the rose-colored glasses and realized that at least some of the character assassination coming from the right is grounded in very real personal flaws. True, she is intelligent, articulate and certainly ambitious. But she's also arrogant, aloof and detached. Her unwavering support for the president's Iraq debacle and her relentless opposition to gay marriage have finally attracted much-needed criticism from the left. Still, we are told to avoid in-fighting. But if the “liberal” Clinton's policies are indistinguishable from her “enemies,” what's the point? Fact is, Clinton's “it takes a village” outlook is the kind of bloodless bureaucratic collectivism that overlooks persons in favor of “the people.” We suspect that, had Clinton lived in St. Petersburg, she would have been the kind of apparatchik who would have had no qualms about killing a few million kulaks for the good of the peasantry. We don't begrudge her the Chappaqua estate or the Georgetown townhouse. But some true fellow-feeling for the welfare mother in East New York or the lesbian who has no visitation rights for her lover dying in the hospital would be nice. 

38 Michael Shvo

Real-Estate Broker

In a city where cutthroat businesses predominate—fashion, media, finance, Broadway—residential real estate is in a class by itself. The big fish get eaten by the bigger fish. But the biggest shark in the sea by far—for now—is Michael Shvo, a young broker who has carved out a niche in the once-gentlemanly game of shared brokerages as a conniving, grasping overachiever. Shvo cut his teeth at Douglas Elliman, where he ingratiated himself to—and then alienated—the formidable Dolly Lenz, the real-life model for Sylvia Miles' character in Wall Street. Despite being admonished by the Real Estate Board of New York for allegedly trying to steal business, Shvo has made a name for himself by refusing to allow other brokers to see apartments he is listing. Brokers will eventually get their act together and shut him out, but in the meantime, we're forced to witness another Master of the Universe yelling into his multiple cellphones, cutting deals faster than a lox-slicer at Zabar's, dating supermodels, getting seated at A-List restaurants and generally making a public nuisance of himself. 

39 Margarita Lopez

Former City Councilmember

We can certainly understand why, just on a sociocultural level, the Lower East Side would want to elect a radical activist Hispanic lesbian Democrat to City Council. There's nothing wrong with that. But wouldn't you think they'd be able to find someone a little more competent and a little less conniving than Margarita Lopez? She was elected to the District 2 seat because she talked a good game about non-profits, the poor, civil rights, and the environment, but after she was elected, she kept her mouth shut for six months after learning of Con Ed's plan to expand the 14th Street substation—and her silence prevented local environmental groups from getting involved in the process. Her petulance over the closing of the CHARAS community center on East Ninth St. and her dismissal of the non-profits who wanted to take over the space led to the building of yet another massive, hideous NYU dorm. She backed the equally grotesque Cooper Union expansion. In short, she sold the East Village out to developers, while she kept talking like an activist. Perhaps it should be no surprise then that she endorsed Bloomberg for a second term. While running for Manhattan Borough President, it was revealed that about a quarter of her campaign contributions—roughly $100,000—had been donated by the Church of Scientology. It also came out that at the same time—wouldn't you know it?—she was trying to funnel hundreds of thousands of city funds into building a Scientologist “medical center.” Needless to say, she didn't win, and even Bloomberg is keeping his distance. 

40 Bill WELD

Former Mass. Governor

Perhaps we're missing the underlying charm of an oddball Republican who guzzles liquor and brags about how lazy he is. Since mucking up one state isn't enough for a man with a true appetite for destruction, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld has decided to stick his own bent sword into the cock-sparring match that is the New York State gubernatorial race. An obvious choice for a bored Harvard and Oxford alum with family money to burn. Weld arrives with a fantastically diverse resume that includes the typical tax cuts along with a financial scandal involving a shady  distance-learning university. As a reinvented “New Yorker” with a trophy wife and an Upstate estate, he's clearly mistaken  spontaneity for competency. “This from the man who quit the governorship because he was lured for a longshot nomination as ambassador to Mexico. We admit that it would be interesting to see how long Weld could tolerate the glacial pace of Albany before he bagged it for another quixotic appointment. 

41 Andrea Peyser

Newspaper Columnist

At least the New York Post finally stopped running that questionable “Columnist of the Year” tag under her name. You can still find it on her Web site, though. And both places still sport that old airbrushed picture she insists on using. (Ever see Andrea Peyser in person? Eee-yikes.) So why is she so hateful? It's not just that she's a shrill toad. It's that her howling rings so false—that she's trying to be contrary for contrary's sake, and not pulling it off very well. It would work a little better if she were at least consistent. Take a few recent examples. On March 12, while solid evidence against Darryl Littlejohn was still lacking, she was proclaiming his innocence. The very next day, after some evidence came to light, he was a filthy bastard who deserved to be killed. She hates Howard Stern until he says something nice about her on the air. We thought it was funny when she didn't quite see the irony in condemning the mayor for not firing the prison Imam outright for making a few controversial statements. She swings from fake blue-collar populism to bragging about how her daughter attends an “outrageously expensive private school” to letting us know what's going on at her “outrageously expensive” Upper East Side health club, back to the fake populism again. (So why is she expressing outrage over HIV education, when that program only pertains to public schools? Because she can, we guess.) None of that would matter if she at least had some basic writing skills—at least some original skills. But that's what you get when you study at the feet of Steve Dunleavy.

42 David Marvisi

Former Nightclub Owner

It's unclear if the infamously underhanded former club-owner (Exit, Spa, Capitale, Estate) has already been run out of town, or if he was somehow able to successfully utilize his legendary scheming skills to scam the local real-estate market. Either way, one thing is certain—Marvisi's sleazy demeanor and shady business dealings still resonate today, leaving an indelible, if not original, mark on nightlife. Sure, it wasn't easy living in archrival Peter Gatien's shadow, but giving his mercenary legacy a run for its money? Now that's impressive. Maybe we're glad the man responsible for ushering in an era of body-cavity door-searches at Exit is out of the headlines and out of our hair, or maybe in some sick and perverted, sado-masochistic way, we miss him and his drama just a little bit. Nah.

43 Peter Rauhofer

DJ/Producer

While most of the people who make this list will probably express feelings ranging from anger to apathy, Rauhofer may be the only one who's actually appreciative. In his twisted, attention-starved mind, the altercation-oriented Austrian might even consider it an honor. Quickly running out of club owners and promoters in the city who will put up with the lunacy of his increasingly irrational tirades, the personality-deficient DJ has had trouble finding a new home ever since he childishly stormed out of Roxy last year, effectively ending his longtime Saturday-night residency at the club. A master at manipulating even genuine compliments into platforms for confrontation, his permanent scowl and misanthropic temperament perfectly fit the worst stereotypes of his nationality. For now, Madonna and Mariah may still be willing to put up with the Grammy Award-winning remixer's drama (at least musically), but the rest of us have had enough. Beethoven or Mozart you are not. So let's leave the diva tantrums to the real divas, OK? And what's up with not wanting to share billing with some of your peers? Petty rivalries with fellow DJs and inferiority complexes are so '90s. Just play a record. 

44 RUBEN DIAZ

State Senator 

No public figures in the entire city has ever based their career on homophobia quite like Rev. Ruben Diaz, the Bronx State Senator and leader of the New York Hispanic Clergy Coalition. It all began in 1994, when he lost his seat on the Civilian Complaint Review Board after displaying a healthy knowledge of medicine by declaring that holding the Gay Games in New York would lead to a massive outbreak of AIDS. Since then, Diaz lead the fight against the creation of the Harvey Milk High School—hailed as a success around the world. He opposes the use of taxpayer funding to “promote the homosexual lifestyle.” He later organized an enormous rally on the steps of the Bronx County Courthouse in opposition to gay marriage, where protestors held up Bibles and chanted such anti-gay clichés as “Adam and Eve/Not Adam and Steve.” Diaz is nearly alone among city officials in actively supporting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage. He actually failed to endorse his friend Mayor Michael Bloomberg last year in part because of the mayor's vocal support for same-sex marriage. Diaz is unapologetic about his stance, and hopes that other Democrats will join him in his holy cause. “I hope that my Democratic Party understands the importance of marriage for a man and a woman,” Diaz told Gay City News after his rally.

45 Zac Posen

Fashion Designer

Flashback six years, and the clothing designer, who grew up the hard way—in a paint-splattered SoHo loft, attending Brooklyn's tony St. Ann's School—was bohoslumming in a damp London basement, snipping and sewing frocks which he would sell to moneyed friends. But then Naomi Campbell came knocking. And in two snaps, girlfriend was whisked back to New York City to assume his role as a swishy fashion plate out of central casting for “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” Look! There's Zak posing with Natalie Portman! Look! There's Zak dressing Nicole Kidman! Look! Claire Danes tells USA Today he's “brilliant”! But the real reason to hate Posen is this tidbit: British Vogue reported that, “as a child, Posen spent many happy hours dressing his first model, She-Ra, Princess of Power (of He-Man fame), in outfits made from seaweed and tinfoil.” Read that again: Posen spent many happy hours dressing She-Ra in ocean weeds and foil. Umm, and this is the man dubbed fashion's savior? Puh-lease. Send Posen back to Castle Greyskull, where perhaps He-Man will master Posen's universe. 

46 Amanda Lapore

Transsexual Performer

If you've ever picked up one of those Downtown scenester rags, you've undoubtedly seen a picture of her. Although we admit we can't see why anyone would want to turn into a living Barbie Doll, we sympathize with people who wish to “transition” from one sex to another. No, our beef with Lapore is her consummate trashiness. Wearing nothing has become her calling card. With no talent other than taking off her clothes to epater le bourgeois—not that anyone's shocked or even amused by it anymore—she exposes those brave souls who have gone through hell and back to fulfill their dreams of living in their chosen sex. If there were a prison for the overexposed, we'd force her to watch Boys Don't Cry over and over until she finally got the message. 

47 VITO FOSSELLA

Congressman 

Republican Congressman Vito Fossella is actively bucking any tradition of Italians putting family before everything else. As the U.S. representative from Staten Island and Bay Ridge, he has assembled a horrible record on LGBT issues, especially gay marriage—despite the fact that his sister is a lesbian in a long-term, committed relationship with children. Fossella, however, has an even-larger “family” to worry about: the national Republican Party. No one has done more to march in lockstep with the Bush administration than Fossella, who has become one of the most reliable toadies to the Bush agenda anyone could have ever asked for. Fossella has a zero rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America on issues of choice, another zero rating from the American Civil Liberties Union on civil liberties issues. He continually is thrilled with the warrantless wiretaps of American citizens, but he has never dared to utter a critical word on the Iraq war, even though many of his Republican colleagues have. He has been hand in glove with Bush on Social Security “reform.” Fossella is the timid pup to George Bush's dog-walker. Sure, he has a mean bite, but he'll only go as far as his master's leash will allow him.

48 Taki Columnist & bon vivant 

When Taki was remanded to Pentonville Prison in the United Kingdom—where the arch-conservative was arrested for cocaine possession—he was a “Greek aristocrat,” he was giving his entire raison d'être: rank snobbery. The guy has spent his life looking down on the less fortunate or the low-born (even though one could ask what good is a title from a country that has been a republic for the past 40 years). Taki, although he poses as a working journalist, uses racial invective that would have been considered bad form in Nazi Germany. Kenya is “Bongo-Bongo” Land. New York's Puerto Ricans are “a bunch of semi-savages…fat, ugly, dusky and unbelievably loud.” Observations like these are a dime-a-dozen among the idle rich in private. Unfortunately, for those of us not tony enough to go to Fifth Avenue dinner parties, Taki—far from it. He's downright prolific in his petty hatreds. He has written columns for many magazines and newspapers, including this one (his teeth marks are still on the furniture). He started “American Conservative” magazine with the pre-Neanderthal, failed political figure Pat Buchanan, after getting disgusted with “mainstream” right-wing vehicles like National Review and the Washington Times. Taki, being a “society” figure as he so often reminds his readers, likes to boast of getting drunk with famous personages such as Princess Di. He has a “princess” of his own, his wife, Alexandra of Austria. Taki divides his time between New York, Gstaad, London and Greece. Even in his twilight years, the erstwhile playboy still has a lot of bile in him. As a self-described “soi-disant Anti-Semite,” maybe he can revive the German-American Bund, or go back to prison and start a British Aryan Nation. Perhaps he can find some small country he, Buchanan and buddy Claus Von Bulow can take over, where they can perform medical experiments or create a master race. Or maybe they can just take their xenophobic hatred somewhere else—Afghanistan or Iran, maybe. 

49 CHLOE SEVIGNY & VINCENT GALLO

Truly a match made in indie-film hell. She got her start as a luckless teen slut in Larry Clark's skateboard-and-AIDS epic Kids, later joining forces with fellow twat Harmony Korine for such faux-highbrow masterpieces as Julien Donkey-Boy and Gummo, all the while besting Lindsay Lohan as girl-about-town-and-in-the-stall. He was a super-egotistical male model who wrote and directed the  self-obsessed and unwatchable Buffalo 66 before achieving greater fame as an  out-of-the-closet Republican who's apparently into having phone sex with any woman who's willing. Since upscale cinematic porn is just so au currant these days, Sevigny got down on her knees to give him a gosh-darn real blow job for the (ahem) climax of Brown Bunny. Together, they epitomize everything wrong with Manhattan's inbred Celebutatati. Gallo is a card-carrying anti-Semite who walks around with a visible hard-on for Ronald Reagan. The lovely Ms. Sevigny has been  known to charge several thousand dollars in order to grace a party with her B-list presence. Stuck up and overhyped, they're one loathsome duo that we find increasingly hard to swallow.

50 FORMER PRESS EDITORIAL STAFF

Former Press men

Oh, come on! You didn't think we were going to let this issue go without some kind of dig about our predecessors, did you? These guys walked out in the middle of a production cycle because they felt “censored” by not being allowed to show those ridiculous Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed (which were readily available on the 'Net). This mountain-into-a-molehill gave them a semi-Warholian 13 minutes of fame, while we were left picking up the pieces. (And don't think we're going to add to their notoriety by mentioning them here.) Thanks, guys!