Back in the day, Michele Brody was as pumped up by the sight of a manhole cover as she would be accidentally stumbling across a showing of "Teen Wolf Too" on late-night television. On the ground, there were wads of chewing gum, tattered leaves, rocks, dirt, manhole covers, cigarette butts, etc.... etc. None elicited even the slightest palpitation.

Then, one afternoon seven years ago, something snapped. Upon graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago, Brody - the prototypical young, struggling, up-and-coming artist - moved to Manhattan and took a job at Todd's Copy Shop near her SoHo apartment. She began walking to work, a joyful yet surprisingly dangerous endeavor after the morning dogwalkers had made their rounds. "Out of self-protection, I would look down at the ground a lot. Just to keep my shoes safe."

There they were. Manhole covers. Lots and lots of manhole covers. Manhole covers with wagon wheels. Manhole covers with patterns of blocks. Manhole covers with long-ago dates. Manhole covers that shone and manhole covers layered in dirt.

New York City boasts more than 600,000 of the 150-pound cast-iron discs, and with a new passion, Brody decided to make it her business to track as many variations as possible. She was dazzled by the intricate details, the geometric designs - stars and dots, squares and rectangles, dots and arrows that made the objects as one-of-a-kind as a blindfolded haircut.

The Big Apple's manhole covers date back to the mid-1880s, when dozens of local foundries were responsible for production.

"I was hooked," says Brody. "I was thinking, 'How can I take my new interest in manhole covers, my interest in New York City history and my interest in art and put them all together? Here was an answer."

Brody, who is 35, operates her own art studio in which she produces one-of-a-kind light fixtures made of prints and rubbings of - drum roll, please - manhole covers. Most weeks, Brody can be found cruising the city's streets at 5 a.m., a roll of paper in one hand, a container of linseed oil in the other. She coats the covers in oil, then puts down the paper. Presto! Instant print.

On Sept. 10, 2001, Brody received final approval from the city's art commission for the installation of the first of her 10 new manhole cover designs. When the 9/11 tragedy struck the next day, the Department of Transportation chose to put the project on hold, and now Brody has only one manhole cover in Manhattan - a beauty on 30 Wall St. that pays tribute to the old Assay Office building. The image is an eight-pointed star, with Greek pediments mixed in.

"She's truly dedicated to the art form," says Alan Solomon, Brody's business partner. "Michele is taking manhole covers and their designs - something most people don't think of - and making them memorable. It's a wonderful talent."

Hence, the artist - still down with manhole covers but no longer making photocopies at Todd's - is a natural for the World Forum on Manhole Covers, an event she will help host/organize/headline tomorrow at booth 1433 of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the Jacob Javits Convention Center.

Scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m., the forum will be an open-to-the-public debate/discussion on manhole covers, their place in the world and the group of die-hards (Brody included) who wish to have them deemed landmarks by the city's (thus far unmoved) Landmarks Preservation Commission. There also will be a manhole cover slideshow, as well manhole cover-related furniture on display.

Perhaps most notably, the World Forum on Manhole Covers will bring together the Christina Aguilera-Britney Spears/Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier/Vanilla Ice-MC Hammer rivalries of the New York City manhole cover scene. When Brody arrives for the day's festivities, she will come face to face with Diana Stuart, aka "The Manhole Cover Lady."

The author of an upcoming book, "Designs Underfoot: The Art of Manhole Covers in New York City," Stuart conducts manhole cover tours in the city on behalf of the Municipal Art Society, among others, and will serve on the event's panel as historic representative. Indisputably intense when it comes to her favorite topic, Stuart never has attempted to hide her feelings for Brody's modern manhole covers, which she considers to be a mugging of history. "Everyone can't have their names in the sidewalk," Stuart angrily told a writer for the Columbia University journalism Web site in 2001. "Brody's covers have no connection with reality."

For her part, Brody considers her adversary to be a brilliant-yet-unrealistic proponent of the manhole cover. Both women have argued vigorously for landmark status. But while Brody believes a select number of covers can earn protection, she questions Stuart's desire to make every visible cover a landmark. "Her feeling is that a manhole cover made today will become history one day, and therefore it must be protected," says Brody. "Yes, it's admirable in a way. But I don't think you can win many arguments with that."

Ding-ding-ding. Let the festival begin.