MAYOR Bloomberg had 40 New York filmmakers in for dinner. From Italians from "The Sopranos" to gays from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." The main dish - paella. Being he's running again, he covered the ethnics. Dessert was a cookie. Dark chocolate outside with icing that said "Made in New York" and looked like a cross between tiny manholes, large coins and prop Oreos.

SPEAKING of filmmaking in New York, Fred Zollo is producing two movies that will shoot here. One, still untitled, is about a jazz pianist. The other, a remake of 1953's first indie, "Little Fugitive," about two little kids in Brooklyn, will include an homage to the original Coney Island, since one of these children was found on the roller coaster. Additional locations are Staten Island and East Side, West Side, all around that borough of which you may have heard - Manhattan. A massive open call last week produced 1,000 kids. Zollo is now holding additional casting calls countrywide. Maybe next year he'll make Bloomberg's paella and Oreo feed.

PEOPLE mag's 30th anniversary issue includes "What I Know Now." It's celebs' defining moments:

Julia Roberts: When she was a 17-year-old from Georgia, and New York "scared me" and she "had a hot dog every day at Gray's Papaya because that was lunch for 50 cents."

Michael J. Fox: "Parkinson's isn't a big thing in my house . . . someone will ask if their daddy is OK, and the kids go, 'Yeah, but he's a pain in the ass today.' "

Bill Gates: "Our vision was to put a computer on every desk and in every home. We'd eat pizza, drink Coke and stay up all night writing programs."

Cher's defining moment? "Meeting Sonny Bono."

Tom Cruise's - what else? - finding Scientology.

Madonna's - what else? Finding Kabbalah.

For Muhammad Ali it was knowing 3 billion people were watching him light the Olympics' eternal flame.

For Mel Gibson, watching his toddler Hannah toddle onto a street "with traffic flying by." He "knocked old ladies out of the way, ran through glass cabinets, jumped over everything and grabbed her just as she was stepping into the street. I think I s- - - my pants."

INTERESTING story on page 20, this week's Star, relates Mark Wahlberg's personal 9/11 hair-raising experience. Where he was and what and why, etc., etc. I myself found that so interesting when he initially told it to me that I printed it a year and a half ago on the first anniversary, 9/11/02. FIFTY-SEVENTH and Fifth. Limo stops. Antique blonde with highlights the price of canary yellow diamonds alights with an equally blonde Pomeranian on a rhinestone leash. The Pom pauses and, right in front, smack at the entrance to the store, lifts his leg and can be seen doin' what comes natcherly. Heavens, in front of Tiffany's. Only in New York, kids, only in New York.