THE SURGE IS WORKING! Yesterday I was encouraged to learn that a street-corner slashing incident was turning people off to New York City. Today I found myself on lower Broadway, where the average age of pedestrians at 1 pm was roughly 20 -- a further sign that soon all downtown Manhattan will become part of the NYU campus, dotted here and there with communal living facilities for junior editorial assistants -- and prayed the meme was catching fire. And it may be! Walls of the City takes very badly the news that our citizens by and large do not pack heat: "New York City has made it legally impossible for your 'average', law-abiding citizen to carry [a gun] on his or her person. Welcome to 'modern' society, everyone... ain't it grand?" Somewhere a Second Amendment supporter is deciding that his young'un will attend Kansas Agricultural Land Grant College instead of Columbia. One less! One less!

Even more encouraging is the revelation that the slasher is a former model. When it gets around that even our sultry mannequins are going berserk, we won't be able to reel in the most abject suckers with a signing bonus and Friends: The Next Generation.

I envision the new Eli Roth movie: Fashion Week. Dewy innocents lured to tents in Bryant Park, there to be eviscerated or drowned in bronzer. One day a Chelsea bottle service club will close, and that will be the thin end of the wedge. Spread the word, and dream of a day when we may beat our condos into crackhouses.