Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of 13.

On Friday the 13th, we asked New Yorkers about their fears and superstitions, and what the word meant.

By day, Karla Schickele is a speechwriter for a top city politician.

But by night, the 39-year-old Fort Greene resident and daughter of composer Peter Schickele plays in two rock bands - and now she is bringing her passion for rock 'n' roll to girls of all ages through a Brooklyn summer rock camp.

"Most of the girls have never played music before," Schickele said, who has taken a leave of absence this summer from her job with Comptroller Bill Thompson to run the camp at the Brooklyn Friends School in downtown Brooklyn.

Professional soccer is at a standstill in preparation for the start of the World Cup on Friday, but fans are gearing up for the games, especially in communities with rich soccer traditions.

In Brooklyn, love of the game is often mixed with pride and nostalgia about the teams in countries the fans left behind.

By JESS WISLOSKI, JONATHAN LEMIRE and LEO STANDORA
With additional reporting by Elva Ramirez and Veronika Belenkaya

In a purr-fect ending, a miner with a heart of gold searched until he rescued Molly the cat last night.

By ELVA RAMIREZ, AUSTIN FENNER and CARRIE MELAGO
With additional reporting by Jonathan Lemire
With one of the biggest games of his career only hours away, Georgetown basketball player Jessie Sapp's thoughts weren't on the court - they were with his little sister.

Thirteen-year-old Steveasia Perry was in the pediatric ICU at Weill Cornell Medical Center yesterday, recovering from a gunshot wound that fractured her jaw.
Sapp, who played in the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA Tournament last night, took time to call his sister before the game.

By FRANK LOMBARDI and MICHAEL SAUL With additional reporting by Elva Ramirez and Jenny Clevstrom
In a shimmering swirl of shamrocks and bagpipes, the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade proudly forged its way up Fifth Ave. yesterday to the delight of spectators and marchers alike.
While politics played its usual role, it was the Irish spirit that dominated the day.
"Who's Irish over here? Let me hear you!" yelled New Rochelle deli manager Dennis Dunn to others in the Long Green Line on Fifth Ave. "This is the biggest and best parade, to show your New York Irish pride."

By ELVA RAMIREZ and JANE H. FURSE
It was the birthplace of the Lindy Hop, where Benny Goodman was crowned King of Swing, and though it closed in 1958, the Savoy Ballroom still fuels happy memories - and happy feet.
Last night more than 400 people jitterbugged and Lindy-hopped the night away to the music of Ron Allen's Harlem Renaissance Orchestra, a black-tie evening at the Alhambra Ballroom that capped a weekend celebration of the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Savoy.

By CARRIE MELAGO, KERRY BURKE, and ROBERT F. MOORE
With additional reporting by Elva Ramirez
A depressed 14-year-old Manhattan boy plunged into the East River and apparently drowned in the frigid waters yesterday as his little sister watched helplessly, the frightened girl told cops.
"Please don't," the 6-year-old girl begged her brother, Sidney Hatchett, before he ran across South St. toward the river on the lower East Side. "Please don't."
But Sidney, who some relatives said had been depressed, ignored the pleas of his sister, identified only as Shakeemah by family friends.

With NEWS WIRE SERVICES

A Pakistani cleric announced a $1 million bounty for killing the Danish cartoonist who drew the now-infamous caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed. In Libya, at least 11 people were killed when a protest over the cartoons turned violent.

New York's Muslim leaders denounced violent uprisings over the Prophet Muhammed cartoons yesterday, even as protests in Libya turned deadly and bounties were offered in Pakistan.

A Muslim leadership council, the Majlis Ash Shura of New York, organized a noontime rally on the steps of the Danish Consulate in midtown, calling for respect and religious tolerance.

The protest, which organizers estimated at 2,000 people but police sources pegged closer to 800, brought out a multi-cultural mix of men, women and schoolchildren.

By ELVA RAMIREZ and CORKY SIEMASZKO The maritime disaster off the Egyptian coast hit home yesterday in New York.
Dozens of worried emigres deluged the Egyptian Consulate in Manhattan with calls and the sadness quickly spread to Queens, where Egyptian cafes and businesses line Steinway St. in Astoria.
"It's a big tragedy," said Mohamed Elmahy, 45, owner of New Yorker Insurance and Travel. "It's a very sad day for all Egyptians."

By ELVA RAMIREZ and JONATHAN LEMIRE An 87-year-old Brooklyn woman was brutally stabbed to death yesterday with a pair of scissors by her mentally disturbed granddaughter, whom cops found covered in blood, police said.
Alarmed by screams coming from the second-floor home on Ocean Ave., neighbors had called police shortly after 4 a.m.
Cops arrived to find Zoila Mosquera, 47, who had recently been hospitalized for mental illnesses, standing over the body of her grandmother, Cynthia Mosquera.

By ELVA RAMIREZ and JONATHAN LEMIRE
A Holocaust survivor was struck and killed by a van yesterday after he collapsed in the street as he went to collect alms for the poor.
Arron Montal, 88, a Hasidic Jew, appeared to clutch his chest as he lost his balance and fell into the path of the oncoming white vehicle on Nostrand Ave. in Midwood just before 7 a.m., police said.

Conor McHugh By ELVA RAMIREZ and JOSE MARTINEZ

Even without a blanket of snow, the holiday spirit was unmistakable throughout the city yesterday. From tourists gazing at the Rockefeller Center tree to shoppers scurrying for last-minute gifts, New York was wrapped up in the holiday trimmings of a simultaneous Christmas and Chanukah.

By ELVA RAMIREZ, LORE CROGHAN and HEIDI EVANS

Shoppers are loaded up and, well, ready to shop some more yesterday as the holiday pace hit fever pitch in Herald Square.

Shoppers happily returned to strike-clobbered stores yesterday, as retailers tried to make the most of the last two shopping days before Christmas.

By JOSE MARTINEZ and ELVA RAMIREZ

It's not the War of the Roses, but Chinatown has a potential flower feud on its hands.

Two community groups that annually sponsor a lunar new year have accused a local media company of plucking their vendors and poaching their idea.

Officials of the Museum of Chinese in the Americas and the United East Athletics Association are irate that Tinnie Advertising - the company the two groups hired last year to promote their event - is strong-arming them.

It's starting to look a lot more like Christmas, now that Radio City Music Hall's orchestra is back to work.

The 35 musicians were greeted with warm applause at yesterday's 2:30 p.m. performance of "The Christmas Spectacular," the first they have played this season because of a labor dispute.

By ELVA RAMIREZ and DON SINGLETON

The Radio City Music Hall orchestra's union said yesterday it is filing unfair labor practice charges against the venue's management.

The announcement came on the second day of a labor dispute that left capacity audiences listening to canned music as they watched the Rockettes at performances of the annual "Christmas Spectacular."

BY ALISON GENDAR, CARRIE MELAGO, BARBARA ROSS and TRACY CONNOR
Additional reporting by Rich Schapiro, Scott Shifrel and Elva Ramirez

Police have a "prime suspect" in the phony-firefighter Halloween sex attack - a deranged journalist who is already on probation for terrorizing his ex-girlfriend, sources told the Daily News.

By ELVA RAMIREZ and PETE DONOHUE

Vodka ads featuring a woman's bottom in a bikini have been stripped from city buses - a cheeky move, according to the liquor's manufacturer.

Viacom, which runs the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's bus billboard program, took the scantily clad posteriors off 100 buses about a month ago.

By ELVA RAMIREZ, KATHLEEN LUCADAMO and ROBERT F. MOORE
Additional reporting by Jonathan Lemire and Shirley Wong

The sad letter foreshadowing the disturbing deaths of a Manhattan family of four was written by the children's mother before she executed a murder-suicide plot with her husband, a police source said yesterday.

Christine Wang, 41, sent the letter by express mail to her mother in Taiwan, detailing the business failures of her husband, Fred Wang, 42.

With the city's burgeoning population and skyrocketing rents, New Yorkers could soon outgrow New York, housing experts said yesterday.

But one city planner thinks he's found a way to squeeze in more affordable apartments.

Six trains plus one stroller minus a baby added up to zero searches yesterday on the subway.
To test the heightened police presence and random searches of riders in the city's vast subway system, the Daily News spent three hours riding the rails with a baby carriage.

By ELVA RAMIREZ, RICH SCHAPIRO and DON SINGLETON The great downpour continued for an eighth day yesterday, pushing the city ever closer to a record it could happily live without: the wettest October in history.
The good news was that the end of the wet weather, flooded streets and swollen rivers was finally in sight.
The National Weather Service was forecasting the constant rain would end today. Tomorrow should be partly cloudy and cool, and Monday will be - oh, happy day - "mostly sunny."

By ELVA RAMIREZ, BOB KAPPSTATTER and ROBERT F. MOORE Additional reporting by Monique El-Faizy, Jonathan Lemire and News Wire Services Dozens of Catholic school students returning from a teacher's funeral were injured in the Bronx yesterday when their yellow bus collided with a car and flipped.

Skidding across the highway, the bus kicked up sparks as it turned onto its side amid a chorus of screams and shattering glass.

A fire on a Brooklyn ship yesterday had a potentially deadly radiation leak yesterday. But New York's Bravest were so calm that the worst thing that happened was a broken water hose.

The fire, the radiation and the casualties aboard a merchant ship docked in Red Hook were a simulated joint training exercise between the Marine Corps and the FDNY.

By ELVA RAMIREZ and ALISON GENDAR

The courageous school bus driver who saved a bleeding little girl after she was cut down by a stray bullet in the Bronx says he's not a hero - just a protective father.

"The baby said, 'Mommy, am I going to die?' " Alberto Colon, a father of four, recalled yesterday. "I said, 'No! You are going to be fine.' "

Colon, 42, was idling at a red light on the Grand Concourse and E. 170th St. in the Bronx shortly after 3 p.m. Thursday when gunfire explode nearby.

On the streets of Brooklyn, stray bursts of color have been dotting the urban landscape, fleeting works of art that are impossible not to notice.
The chalk outlines - often of street fixtures such as fire hydrants, lamps or even buildings - are mysteriously signed "Ellis G. 2006."
"My art has always been in the street," said Ellis Gallagher, a former graffiti artist, as he surveyed a just-finished hot pink tracing of a lamppost with traffic box and street signage on the corner of Smith and Dean Sts.

A Brooklyn day care center where a 6-year-old girl tumbled off the roof was slapped with several violations yesterday, Health Department officials said.
The child, Karizma Cox, who landed in the arms of a good Samaritan on a fire escape after Wednesday's close call, was recovering in Kings County Hospital yesterday, playing out of her bed.

By ELVA RAMIREZ, JIMMY VIELKIND and RIVKA BUKOWSKY Brooklyn State Sen. Marty Golden paid a hospital visit yesterday to the 74-year-old woman he accidentally ran over with his SUV.
Hariklia Zafiropoulos, 74, was in critical condition at Lutheran Medical Center after Golden hit her at Third Ave. and 84th St. in Bay Ridge on Saturday. Authorities said she had been crossing against the light.
"It's devastating ... it's a terrible accident," said Golden spokesman John Quaglione.

The conversion of the old High Line tracks into an elevated West Side park is $18 million closer to reality, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) announced yesterday.
"I love the idea of New Yorkers being able to move blocks and blocks through Manhattan without encountering a single car, bus or truck," Clinton said in announcing the congressional funding.

By ELVA RAMIREZ and JANE H. FURSE Additional reporting by Pete Donohue and Jimmy Vielkind
Subway clerks at eight more stations will leave their booths and take to the platforms today as the latest round of token booth closings takes effect.

By ELVA RAMIREZ and ALISON GENDAR
A Manhattan garage attendant didn't know 50 Cent from a dollar - until one of the rapper's entourage allegedly punched him in the face in a dispute over a Range Rover.
Vincent Reyes thought the man screaming at him Tuesday morning at the midtown garage was just another irate customer.
The man had come for his red Range Rover, but the valet parking ticket from the posh Rihga Royal Hotel he tossed at Reyes didn't match the ticket on the car.