FOR THE RECORD

Manhattan District Attorney Bob Morgenthau last week brushed off rumors that he was contemplating early retirement at age 88, and to prove his friskiness, couched declining crime statistics in the borough in a way that could be interpreted as a tweak of his Brooklyn counterpart.

Mr. Morgenthau, who is midway through his ninth term (he took office in 1975 following a special election to fill the unexpired term of Frank Hogan), told reporters that he was not certain he would seek re-election in 2009, when he will turn 90, but that right now "I expect to."

The New York Post a week earlier had reported that he was thinking of stepping down prior to that election and appointing Cyrus Vance Jr. - whose father was Secretary of State under President Carter - as his interim successor. Mr. Morgenthau told reporters who cover his office that there were only two things accurate in the Page Six item: that he was the DA and that the younger Vance had once been one of his assistants.

Making the case that he was improving with age, Mr. Morgenthau noted that to that point there had been just 65 murders in Manhattan, or 40 percent fewer than in 2006, and that barring an end-of-year killing spree, the borough would wind up with just 25 percent of the body count it had in 1963.

He also noted that "Brooklyn has three times as many as we do." That contrasts with the two boroughs' totals when he first took office, when Manhattan had 50 percent more murders than the Borough of Churches.

Brooklyn DA Joe Hynes's spokesman, Sandy Silverstein, declined to say whether he resented Mr. Morgenthau's comparison but noted, "With 11 days to go [in 2007], we have 17 fewer murders in Brooklyn than in '06." He also noted that the borough's murder rate is nine persons per 100,000, while cities including Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis and Washington have rates of roughly 40 per 100,000.

Also taking up the cudgel for Brooklyn was State Sen. Eric Adams, a retired NYPD Captain, who suggested that the gentrification and prosperity of previously troubled Manhattan neighborhoods like the East Village and Harlem might have more to do with the declining murder rate in that borough than a difference in law-enforcement effectiveness.

"I don't know if it's so much that you're dealing with a great prosecutor as you're dealing with a great real-estate broker," Senator Adams told the Daily News.

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The reception for the opening of the exhibit of late Track Worker Marvin Franklin's art work at the New York City Transit Museum Dec. 18 was overall a somber event, but Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint was able to draw a few chuckles from the crowd with his speech praising the artist.

"I'm speaking as someone who's completely lacking in talent, except maybe for making trouble, running from the law and so forth," he said, summoning up memories of the illegal three-day transit strike of 2005, for which he served a brief jail sentence.

Mr. Toussaint was joined by Metropolitan Transportation Authority Executive Director Elliot G. Sander and NYC Transit President Howard H. Roberts in describing improved labor/management relations and a joint effort to improve track safety since Mr. Franklin was killed on the job in April.

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Speaking of Mr. Toussaint, he was part of a 20-person delegation of American labor leaders at the United Nations summit on climate change in Bali, Indonesia earlier this month.

Sean Sweeney of the Cornell Global Labor Institute reported from Bali Dec. 11 that Mr. Toussaint told the gathering, "As trade unions, we recognize that the best way to create the conditions for adaptation to climate change is to address poverty by creating a decent living standard for people, which includes fair wages and benefits."

He also urged people to support the Nairobi work program, calling it "crucial because the poor are the most vulnerable. They lack the resources to respond to climate change." According to Local 100, Mr. Toussaint attended the conference at the request of TWU International President James C. Little.