Hizzoner The Hall Monitor

By STEVE LOPEZ

It was almost too perfect. The volcanic mayor of the new and improved New York City was on his way to speak at Our Lady of Pompeii church. That's Pompeii as in the city buried under the molten lava of Mount Vesuvius. What if Rudy Giuliani, in the middle of his big civility campaign, blew his top as the gathering of seniors digested their lunch of franks and beans?

Giuliani was already three days into a meltdown in which he'd snapped at, among others, a columnist who claimed that he clocked Giuliani speeding in his GMC Suburban shortly after the mayor vowed a crackdown on scofflaw motorists as well as jaywalkers, and promised--read closely here--the creation of a more polite New York City.

God love it. The only town on the planet where a civility-campaign slogan could be, "You talkin' to me?" And the best part is that everyone in New York, with the lone exception of Giuliani, has caught the irony. "He's got a lese majeste personality," observed ex-Mayor Ed Koch. "If you say anything critical, off to the guillotine!"

But there figured to be only friendly fire from the mayor's fellow Italian Americans at Our Lady of Pompeii. In an informal sampling at a table of six before his arrival, the wildly popular second-term Republican mayor was elected President of the U.S. One of the diners, Antoinette Vomero, told of the time Giuliani kissed her on the cheek.

One thing about Rudy, though: you never know when he'll blow. And sure enough, after his speech a reporter asked about his cut in hospital funding, and that was all it took to light Rudy's boilers. "You should be ashamed of yourself," snorted the mayor, whose tight-lipped administration keeps basic information about city services out of the hands of pesky reporters and government watchdogs. "I'm not ashamed," said Rafael Martinez Alequin of the monthly Free Press. "I know, that's the problem," scolded the mayor, who never really left seventh grade.

But this time Giuliani fought back the fire, took his bows and emerged from the church to hear a man call from the front of Joe's Pizza, "Rudy, you're the best!" Informed of the presidential poll before his speech, Giuliani replied, "I'm flattered," but insisted he wasn't thinking Commander in Chief. So why is he planning to raise several million dollars this year, in accounts that can be used for state or national office? "Just in case," Giuliani said.

Just imagine. After taming Gotham, Giuliani comes whipcracking after the rest of us. Are you ready for national jaywalking legislation?

"One has to think of him as a potential candidate for President," says Larry Mone, a Rudyologist at the Manhattan Institute, a neoconservative think tank. "He has a pragmatic approach to problems that once seemed so intractable." Precisely, chimes Giuliani, who takes credit for dramatic reductions in crime and the welfare rolls and resents criticism that his second-term initiatives aren't as grand as those of his first. "The press likes to trivialize what I do," says the mayor, who invokes Plato and the concept of an ideal society. One in which strippers wear bloomers.

"This is my career he's talking about," complained lithe, 25-year-old Josephine at Billy's Topless on Sixth Avenue, an old-fashioned joint where the lights are as bare as the ladies and the Christmas garland is still up. Josephine is leggy, yes, but can she pay the rent if Giuliani, who brought Disney to Times Square, closes most sex shops?

The mayor of New York is like the head counselor at a camp for 7 million special-needs cases, and Giuliani never puts down the clipboard or the paddle. The former federal prosecutor is now going after kamikaze cabbies, litterbugs and sloppily dressed teachers. "Civility is about the responsibility you have as a public official and a citizen," says Giuliani, who appeared in drag last year on Saturday Night Live. "You have to work. You have to obey laws. You have to consider the rights of others."

Bravo, says Judith Martin (a.k.a. Miss Manners), a Washington columnist and potential Secretary of Etiquette in a Giuliani Cabinet. Rudy's campaign "is a noble mission, but it's fraught with dangers," warns Martin. You can be rude, after all, in the way you prod people to be nice.

Yes, and critics say Giuliani's politeness push is cover for rising police brutality and social neglect on his watch. How do you teach civility to kids sardined into crumbling classrooms where there aren't enough books or desks to go around after mayoral budget cuts? In the Bronx one principal wears a hard hat because his school is falling down around him.

But that's not what really riles New Yorkers about Giuliani. "Nobody has a problem with going after cabbies who think Broadway is the Khyber Pass," says author and columnist Pete Hamill. "But the essential religion of New York is anarchy. How do you police jaywalking? You'd have to hang nets from buildings and drop them; catch 150 at a time." Look for it soon.

On one block of Fifth Avenue, seven cops watched over barricades erected to keep the pedestrian cattle in their proper chutes. Three cops who were interviewed vowed not to write jaywalking tickets, but Giuliani had a retort for this kind of back talk. He promised to raise the fines.

This is the man who had a snit fit over the Grammy Awards and told the organizers they could take their show elsewhere. When New York magazine ads said the weekly was "the only good thing in New York Rudy hasn't taken credit for," Giuliani's gestapo ended up in court trying to remove them from the sides of buses.

Last week artists who sell their wares outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art were arrested while protesting an edict that they apply for permits. Sergei Rounovski, 31, grumbled, "This is what Russia was like before perestroika." Yeah, but Rudy has turned the world upside down, and Plato has a Brooklyn accent now.

"Things are generally good, and everyone's having a good time but Giuliani," says Hamill. "He needs a vacation. Go to an island, get a sunburn, read books. You know?"

Yeah, Rudy. He's talkin' to you.