Public’s response is perfectly tepid

As Martha Stewart’s trial undulates from high drama to low comedy and back again, many New Yorkers remain unimpressed. Not that there aren’t strong opinions about Stewart or conspiracy theories about her predicament here on the domestic diva’s adopted turf, it’s just that there isn’t much passion, no rabid mob calling for her head or leading a charge to save her.

“She’s a businesswoman,” said milliner Leza Piazza, 55, at her sidewalk hat stand in front of the Museum of Modern Art design store in SoHo. “She’s not doing anything worse than the politicians.”

She doesn’t count herself a fan of Stewart’s by any stretch of the imagination. “She’s not my style,” said Piazza, who has never cribbed a Stewart recipe or bought her wares at Kmart. But Piazza echoed a familiar theme when she added, “They’re still stroking the Enron people and they want to put her under the jail.”

The allusion to the yet-to-be-fully-vetted Enron collapse is one that is often made by pundits and the public alike. There, ordinary people lost their life savings and retirement nest eggs, and yet former CEO Kenneth Lay is lounging in his Houston condo. Here, you have a powerful, if not likable, woman, and there you have powerful, absolutely unlikable men.

Stewart suffers from what can be described as Hillary Clintonitis. “There is a double standard,” said Felix Sanchez, 45, a schoolteacher catching chilled rays in Chelsea. “If she was a man, this wouldn’t be happening.”

Sanchez and his companion, Noel Jackman, 38, also a schoolteacher, have been impressed by Stewart’s products, if not by her person. “I subscribed to her magazine. I bought her towels,” said Sanchez. But with his next breath he said, “I didn’t like her. I admired her. There are so many stories about her being rude to people, like getting to the theater late and demanding to be seated.”

Even in dog-eat-dog Gotham, selling stock on an inside tip pales in comparison to the latter offense. But even among those who consider Stewart an icon, there is little doubt about her innocence.

“I think she’s probably guilty,” said Christine Mottau, 39, a freelance stylist who was walking her dog with a friend, Johnny Machado, in the West Village. Machado, 24, and Mottau are Stewart people. “I’ve done her herb roasted chicken for the last two Thanksgivings, and my table loved it,” said Machado, who went further, calling Stewart’s style “domestic perfection.”

That description would never come from Philip McInnes’ mouth. The lanky native Scot, who has made New York his home for the last six years, was smoking a cigarette outside the boutique where he is a retail consultant. “I think she’s guilty and she should be punished,” said McInnes, 33. “But it may be a little over the top.” McInnes, who once tried a Stewart recipe he saw online (it didn’t work, exactly), added, “What’s the point of locking up Martha Stewart?”

For Stewart, Friday’s ruling barring certain prosecution witnesses on the securities fraud count is, as she might say, a good thing. It will very likely let her avoid taking the witness stand, where personality counts. “She has a sugar-sweet image,” said McInnes, “but she might not come across as very nice.”

Kevin Brynan, 48, co-owner of Mxyplyzyk, a design store, remembers when Stewart started popping up on the radar in the 1980s. “I thought she was an icon in terms of design,” he said. “She was like an Ian Schrager; she branded her style.” If in fact Stewart is convicted, Brynan has the perfect punishment.

Forget jail, banishment from the stock market or even a hefty fine: “Let her do community service,” he said, “helping the poor decorate their homes.”