This week we learned that President Donald Trump really did try to buy Greenland from the Danes, that Harry and Meghan are pissed because their kids may not be granted the title of royal highnesses and that entertainer Nick Canon sired his ninth child along with, if I’ve counted correctly, his sixth baby mama. Bless all their hearts.
It’s fun reading the stupid stories but it’s getting scarier and scarier reading the important stories.
This week we read that Chicago is so dangerous, so crime-ridden, the CEO of McDonalds says he’s having a tough time recruiting new people to work in the Windy City. We also read a shocking National Public Radio poll in San Francisco, that almost half of the city’s residents say they’ve been robbed in the past five years. We also read about what happened to 18-year old Ethan Maddi as he was sitting on a stoop, eating his lunch, on West 20th Street in Manhattan at 11:30 Monday morning.
Ethan was randomly and viciously attacked by a man wielding a brick. The surveillance video shows the attacker lifting the weapon from a tree bed and Ethan never saw it coming. He doesn’t even remember being attacked. All he knows is that he woke up in the hospital with a broken bone under his left eye.
Ethan’s mom told the New York Daily News that her Chelsea neighborhood “is now a little scary…you hear on the news about people getting hit, pushed to the tracks. But when it happens to you, it hits home.”
Ethan said something more disturbing. He said, “it never crossed my mind that it could happen to me if I was alone. I believe it now. It definitely can happen to anyone.”
So while I would much rather read about the perfect Greenland call, or the renegade Royals’ righteous indignation or Nick Cannon’s virility, I must read about the demise of Chicago and San Francisco because New York is staring a similar fate right in the face.
What’s making life in NYC so scary are the random, unprovoked attacks. It’s what Ethan Maddi says, the belief that some violent wacko will bash you with a brick and break your face and it can happen to anyone at anytime. That’s what’s freaking us out.
That’s why I walk in the City with my eyes scanning, my head pivoting, my mind alert. I am aware, attentive, watchful and vigilant. I can’t let my guard down for a second.
We haven’t yet gotten to the point where major companies are pulling out of New York, but that’s just around the corner. We haven’t gotten to the point where half our residents say they’ve been crime victims, but that day isn’t far off.
But maybe I should change my perspective.
Civilizations greater than ours, empires that seemed unstoppable and invincible, met ignominious ends. Take those wacky Romans for example. They were at the top of their game for centuries and then rotted from within. Nero fiddled, yada, yada, yada. All they left behind are aqueducts, columns and coliseums.
We were at the top of our game too for, um, two decades, the safest big city in America, yada, yada, yada, and look where we are now. Scanning, pivoting, watchful, vigilant.
During an address at a prestigious Manhattan synagogue last week, Mayor Eric Adams exhorted the congregation to vote for politicians who believe in order and sanity, who don’t believe in the same free-for-all policies that have transformed Chicago and San Francisco into cesspools of crime, illegal drugs and pervasive street encampments.
He criticized activist journalists that parrot the unproven ideologies of crime prevention in the pages of their publications.
And he’s right. We, the citizens, need to take back our city from the know-nothings.
But you know what? Adams needs to step it up too. Yes, policies passed in Albany have made his job much more difficult. The lack of support for the NYPD has dangerously thinned its ranks. But there are things under Hizzoner’s control that can make life here better.
Clean the streets. Pick up the garbage. Get serious about rats. Tell cops to get their heads out of their smartphones and start ticketing quality of life crimes. Light a fire under the buildings department and cure the scaffold epidemic.
To butcher a saying from an NYPD Commissioner of a bygone era, Adams so far has spoken loudly but has carried a small stick.
But maybe, instead of wringing my hands about New York, I should call the Danes and cut a deal to become his Royal Highness, Prince Friend of Greenland and hire Nick Canon to help repopulate my new realm.
That would be a stupid story to read, don’t you think?
5 thoughts on “Stupid & Scary”
I bike to work. Across Manhattan and over the 59th street bridge. I wish they would get the motorcycles off the bike path. Stop the delivery guys going 25 mph the wrong way on a one way path/ street and from running red lights. If they enforced these quality of life issues, my bike rides would be safer. All pedestrians would be safer. And it would probably be a helpful step toward people again respecting the rules.
Carry Conceal is the answer.
So we’re back to pre-Giuliani days. Big deal, we got through it before, right? Just wait til the pendulum swings back and hope no one hits *you* in the face with a brick?
The difference now is what the NYC economy has become — all “service” and office work — and what technology has wrought. Most NYC workers don’t have to be in the office or otherwise on site. *No one* is seriously dealing with that beyond telling people they have to come in to work. And if they don’t? Or they come 2 days a week? This is existential, FWOB. Lindsay/Beame/Koch/Dinkins didn’t have to deal with this issue.
Of course, we *could* turn NYC back into a seaport…or a manufacturing center…or disconnect the Internet. That would solve it all, right? Right?
Well said!!
Fascinating article. Totally agree with you. The silly stories take our minds off the more serious and frightening issues for a minute or so. Please be careful walking around in the city and let’s hope Mayor Adams starts getting control of crime, the police and the rat population increasing by the minute. Thank you for your insights.