The teen heat army has landed on our shores. Be afraid.
On a sweltering Sunday, when hormonal girls should have been at the beach or trolling the aisles of Saks, a crush of affluent, smart-phone-wielding teens, all female, sat on concrete stoops or lounged on the pavement around the nonalcoholic East Side eatery popular with youngsters, Serendipity 3.
It wasn’t frozen hot chocolate the teeny boppers craved.
As the girls’ numbers swelled, the restaurant’s manager grew apoplectic.
“I swear on my children!’’ he yelled. “He’s not in the restaurant!’’
“I swear on my mother!’’
For the uninitiated, or those over 21, “he’’ is Louis Tomlinson. He is one-fifth of the Anglo-Irish boy band One Direction, which lately has turned seemingly level-headed teen and ’tween girls into gelatinous messes.
Word went out that morning on 1D’s vast Twitter network that one of the boys was dining at Serendipity. Within minutes, some 50 girls arrived. And yes, my 13-year-old daughter follows the band like a heat-seeking missile.
“I’ve been here all day,’’ reported a 14-year-old girl. “I’m not leaving.”
Minutes later, two members of the quintet were spotted wandering in Times Square, and hysteria ensued, the likes of which has not been seen since production was suspended on the Today Sponge.
Band member Liam Payne had his T-shirt ripped by some 60 girls who responded instantly to a tweet giving his location. Niall Horan had his hair pulled. And One Direction — which also includes Harry Styles and Zayn Malik — decided maybe it was time to beef up security.
When One Direction played the Izod Center in Jersey on Friday, followed by a pair of shows at New York’s Beacon Theatre, it was a kind of coming out party. And an eye-opener for freaked-out parents.
Hundreds of girls camped out in front of the Beacon, straining for a peek, or to participate in what’s become a movement more ardent than Occupy Wall Street.
Like the Monkees boy band, members of 1D play no instruments, although Niall does dabble at guitar. Unlike the hyperactive Jonas Brothers, they don’t do back flips.
Like the Partridge Family, they don’t pretend to have sprung up organically. The band was invented in a studio to make pots of money.
Each young man in the band, aged 18 to 20, competed individually on Britain’s “The X Factor’’ in 2010, before the Simon Cowell-produced show put the lads together. The newly formed One Direction placed just third in the contest, proving that adults badly underestimate the power of pretty boys with good hair, English accents (Niall Horan is Irish) and hips that swivel not manically, but modestly.
Welcome the Fab Five.
Their debut single, “What Makes You Beautiful,’’ with its sweet message of a guy loving a girl, warts and all, topped the US Billboard chart the week of Valentine’s Day — without one play on the radio.
“I’ve never seen a single come out and sell 131,000 copies in a week without radio,’’ said a music industry source. “It’s exciting.’’
And scary.
Melanie Drutz, 15, of Toronto is an unapologetic Directioner.
“I walk with my head down looking at my phone’’ in case she gets a band-related tweet. She tripped down a flight of subway stairs when one popped up.
“I’m not going to school the whole week because they’re in town and I need to meet them. I need to make sure I know where they are at all times.’’
Melanie spent an entire night outside 1D’s hotel, but never saw them. Undaunted, she’ll try again, though it’s unclear what Melanie would do if she found herself face-to-face with her idols.
One Direction’s 2012 US tour sold out in seconds. In an unprecedented move, the band immediately announced a 2013 tour, which sold out as quickly, leading kids to whine their parents into paying $300 each for crappy Beacon seats on StubHub.
They’ve sold more recordings than The Beatles, the boy band to which One Direction has been most closely compared. But the Beatles — or Nirvana — never had a mob of teens so plugged in through the Internet to their every move. They’ve become prisoners of their own success.
The lads project a wholesome image. No drugs. They sing about love, not sex, though 18-year-old Styles has been outed by tabloids for squiring around older women.
We could do worse.
So get used to it. Until the next, big thing comes along.
Infantile Weiner’s wee duty
At least Anthony Weiner’s new playmate laughs with him, not at him. For now.
The unemployable ex-congressman, whose career imploded after he was exposed tweeting photos of his manhood to strange females, has a new job. He’s Mr. Mom to Jordan, the son born to Weiner’s jet-setting wife, Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. And why not?
Babies are not particular about who feeds and burps them, and Weiner is an expert at infantile tasks. Just keep the child away from the Internet, Anthony. And stay away yourself.
Can’t teach old horndog new tricks
Months after John Edwards’ poor wife, Elizabeth, died of cancer, and while he was still involved with mistress Rielle Hunter, Edwards put the moves on a 25-year-old. The appropriately named Andrea Love was the recipient of Edwards’ attentions at a dive bar near Chapel Hill, NC, last spring, The Post’s Tara Palmeri reported. “He was all over her,’’ said a witness.
Edwards, 58, must wear some fine cologne, because he worked on Love until she gave the disgraced ex-senator, now on trial for campaign-finance violations, her digits. He didn’t call. She moved out west. Love’s mom is still steaming.
“She’s many decades his junior, ’’ said Elaine Love.
Some old horndogs won’t quit.
Girl, park that rage elsewhere!
A Los Angeles-bred “jeweler to the stars’’ allegedly threw a titanic temper tantrum over a Seinfeld-ian problem:
She tried to back into a Greenwich Village parking space. Another driver claimed the spot.
Dawnella Joie Jager, 42, who has bejeweled Kim Kardashian and Heather Graham, argued with Meng Dong, 29, over a spot on Christopher Street last week. And California dreaming turned into hand-to-hand combat.
In the midst of backing up, Jager allegedly jumped out of her car and punched Dong in the chest, then swung her umbrella at the Queens resident, causing cuts and bruises to his arms and hands, cops say. She’s charged with assault.
Jager likes “unicorns, rainbows, puppies and kittens. oh, and pink.” she wrote on Facebook. Next time, wing nut, cut out the caffeine.
Leave it to li’l brawlin’ Bieber
Lovers of pup-sized Canadian pop star Justin Bieber — look out!
The teeny-tiny singer, 18, was out with gal pal Selena Gomez near LA last weekend when, a fotog alleges, the moppet went caveman and roughed him up. Cops are investigating.
It’s unclear what injuries the shutterbug endured. But days earlier, Bieber trained with former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, who bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s right ear during a 1997 fight.
Has Bieber graduated from munchkin . . . to macho man?