Just what’s lurking across the East River?

When someone suggests going to Manhattan for a night out, there are plenty of reasons to object: you’re already in Brooklyn, things are going to be cheaper on this side of the East River, you’re less likely to run into a pack of dudes wearing Ed Hardy cologne. Now you can toss a reason out that trumps all of those: Manhattan is full of syphilis. What? It’s science. The Post got their hands on a report by the city Department of Health that collected STD data, and the report found that places like Murray Hill and SoHo had higher rates of syphilis than anywhere else in the city.

Were you going to find yourself in Murray Hill anyway? Well, no, probably not. But maybe SoHo. And while we’d love to use this news as yet another opportunity to solely tweak Manhattan, Brooklyn has its own STD problem, with Bed-Stuy, Williamsburg and Crown Heights leading the city in incidences of HIV and hep c. Which is bad. But at least you won’t have traveled on a train all night and paid $14 for a shot and a beer to get your life turned upside down.