What’s New in Old New York?
Mayor Bill de Blasio, an ultra liberal, has:
A new hands off
policy for cops and the people. No more stop and frisk of potential suspects. Deemed
to be too racially profiling. This took effect in January. Crime In certain
areas of the city has risen by 25% as has the number of arrested people
carrying firearms.
A more laissez-faire attitude about things like cars honking
their horns. Mayor Bloomberg told the cabs and cars to stop honking their horns
all day long. It was the first thing I noticed when I moved here, how quiet the
streets were. The horn honking has begun
again.
The New York Sports teams have really gone in the dumper.
The Yankees had their worst season in 15 years. The Mets, perennially middle of the pack or
worse ended up a bit below the middle of the pack. I prayed the Knicks would
not resign Carmelo Anthony, a prolific scorer but not a team player or leader
but they brought him back. He gets his 30 plus points a game and the team
loses. Par for the course. The Nets new splashy first season in Brooklyn last
year (they still have the classiest unis) has given way to inertia and
indifference this year. The Rangers (hockey that game played on ice) made it to
the Lord Stanley Cup championships last year but this year they are off to a
yawn of a season
and the Football Giants and Jets are the equivalent of
really, really ugly twins. Thank God for my favorite team playing well the New
York Islanders. They are in first place in the National Hockey League Capitol
Division (they are a hockey team you know that game played on ice).
Philip Seymour Hoffman died in Greenwich Village of a drug
overdose. The East Village and Greenwich Village (neighboring communities in
Lower Manhattan) are the places of choice for celebrities that do themselves in.
Horse drawn carriages in Central Park are about to be a
thing of the past. The Mayor pledged to get rid of them for the sake of the
horses. Where will “Mr. Big” and Carrie
go for that rich person’s romantic interlude now? The horses (not breed horses,
nor recreational animals) will go to the glue factory. Well, at least they
won’t be exploited. By the way the horses were not consulted on their future.
Fares are soon going up on the subway (locals just refer to
the subway as “trains”) and buses from 2.50 per ride to 2.75 per ride. That
means my monthly ridership will jump from 65.00 per month to 70.00. I spent
more on gas in San Diego in 2 weeks than that. The most used mode of
transportation in Manhattan and some outer boroughs continues to be walking.
An elderly Chinese-American man was pushed in front of a
train in the Bronx for no apparent reason.
The alleged perpetrator (although the camera videotaping the assault
made his positive identification easy and along with that a positive identification
that the perpetrator is dumber than dirt); a black man was accidently shot in a
stairwell in Brooklyn, a rookie cop’s gun went off when he had the adrenaline
rush of busting down his first door. Also, the perfectly executed (in more ways
than one) choke hold on a man on Staten Island that was selling cigarettes from
his car, did the trick. They don’t call it a choke hold for nothing. He choked
to death.
The rookie cop said he was sorry, he got so caught up in his
first “Miami Vice” like take down he lost count on how long to keep choking the
criminal. He begged forgiveness of the citizens. He promised to do better with
his next choke hold. The Reverend Al “Sharpy”, Sharpton of course was on the
scenes of the grieving families declaring everything an “outrage”. Everything
that is except himself. Oh by the way he didn’t get to the grieving
Chinese-American family because he said he has to confine his outrages to black
American families that get on TV due to time constraints with his own
outrageous TV appearance schedule. He also said he did feel sorry for those
people in the Bronx for whatever it was that was upsetting them, but he hoped
they would still be able to keep their laundry business going.
New York, my kinda town
