Convention Updates
So things have been alright here. The biggest thing people notice is… there are no people. While tons may have come into the city for the convention, even more seem to have left to avoid it, and commuters are taking their vacation times to avoid it as well.
Best scene: I’m walking home and there are about eight cops on the sidewalk gathering for whatever they’re gathering for. As I’m walking by the crowd, directly to my right I hear a thud. Cabbie slams right into an SUV (looks like an officials’ car). Nice. All the surrounding police shout “ohhh…” and start walking away shouting one guy’s name while laughing. Everyone else around there starts laughing as well at the rookie abuse. Nothing like a little extra-security-in-the-city humor.
So I snapped some pictures the last couple of days.
Here are some eerily empty streets in the morning:
Looking up Ninth Avenue
Looking Down Seventh Avenue
Cops and horses aren’t actually an uncommon sight in Times Square, although there’s rarely more then two, and now there were a handful scattered around. I always love it when tourists come to the city and are shocked to see horses walking (and crapping) around Times Square. Apparently they didn’t think we allowed animals other than rats here. They’re close to right.
Hey! It’s Erik Estrada! What’s up Ponch? There are a slew of bike and motorcycle cops around actually. We saw a pack Saturday night of over 20 motorcycle cops, and there are a few bicycle stops around that usually have at least 15+ bike cops parked there. And look who else is there - the Naked Cowboy. See, not everyone is staying home this week. Some New Yorkers obviously have work too important to let any silly convention get in the way.
This girl was arrested. I never got the real story why. I think it was because some of her hair was green since no one had a good reason. Someone said it was because she was biking, but, of course, this bystander was on her own bicycle. There were a few others with bikes around and at least one of them said “bicycling against oil wars ” on the back of it. Then a few other people biked by. So I’ll take this crazy guess it wasn’t because she was biking. This same bystander then started yelling at the cops about how people are allowed to bike in the city. Apparently they already knew this because they didn’t arrest her.
So I then asked another person. He mumbled something incoherent. Great help he was. I then walked to someone else who was talking to other people, looking like she was filling them in.
“Do you know why she was arrested?”
“Yes, because they’re all facists”
“Oh really?”
“They’re like this everywhere…”
“Where are you from?”
“L.A.”
“Well thanks for filling me in about my own city’s cops…”
“They’re just arresting people for no reason…”
“No one else was arrested, she must have done something.”
“No, they’re just looking to arrest anyone who’s…”
“Listen, they’re doing their job and ignoring all these other dopes yelling at them, she did something and no one here admits it. Go back to L.A. if you don’t appreciate it.”
She then huffed and we walked away from each other. I tried to get this other girl’s attention because she was a radio reporter with a mic and a bag around her shoulder but she was running all over the place and it was hot and time to keep on moving. I really can’t stand some of these out of town protestors. You want to say your thing, fine. Don’t tell anyone here “how it is” though, you have no clue.
Now this guy I had no problems with. He wasn’t yelling at anyone. He moved from spot to spot and simply stood there with his banner. Almost everyone saw him, knew what he was about and on one was bothered. He also gave me a good picture. Thanks guy, for that you get a link: www.veteransforpeace.org. I’m not a veteran, but peace never sounds bad.
See - I wasn’t lying - it’s not just the Naked Cowboy, people are still working hard here in NYC, and we all can’t just take off because of the convention. Go get ‘em Spidey.
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