••• “Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver spent $20,219 in taxpayer money over the past three years jetting from New York City to Albany—but the top-flight pol turned easy 150-mile, one-hour jaunts into epic 500-mile, five-hour odysseys in a greedy quest to rack up frequent-flier miles, according to sources and expense records. […] The second-most powerful man in the state takes long, expensive detours through Philadelphia or Washington, DC. […] This year alone, the Democratic kingmaker and bill slayer submitted 21 claims for reimbursement, with an average round trip costing $354—while his colleagues slummed it on $82 round-trip Amtrak trains or stuffed themselves into carpools that cost $210 for gas and tolls. Yet Silver doesn’t need to fly. The state provides him with a $15,000 Ford Taurus for the three-hour drive from his Lower East Side home to the Capitol. The 69-year-old jet-setter barely uses his taxpayer-gifted 2011 sedan, claiming just $832.78 for gas this year.” —New York Post

••• The New York Times visits Museum, the “museum” in an elevator shaft on Cortlandt Alley. Of note: “The founders have discussed expanding Museum but would rather do it by opening different ‘wings’ in other abandoned ground floors in the alley.”

••• The New York Times profiles Fred Mwangaguhunga, founder of the gossip site Mediatakeout.com, who lives in Tribeca with his wife and three-year-old triplets. Inexplicably, when the paper needed a quote verifying that the site is major, it turned to “Marvet Britto, who runs the Britto Agency, a public affairs and branding company that once represented Mediatakeout.”

••• “Preservationists Have Concerns About Plan to Sell Hudson River Park’s Air Rights.” —New York Times