Friday, January 29, 2010
Take them elsewhere
Moving the the 9/11 trials (NYT)That sums it up. Initially, a lot of New Yorkers had a typical bring it on attitude. But then what it would involve began to sink in. The trials would go on for a long time. Much of downtown would be paralyzed day after day, week after week, month upon month. The longer the trials went on, the more costly & difficult maintaining security would become, not to mention the bad impact on the area's economy. Certainly, there's more anxiety about terrorist attacks now, but this is mostly the business & real estate interests waking up & leaning hard on Bloomberg, & hizzoner, after all, belongs to them. The mayor of Newburgh, a struggling little city 60 miles north of Manhattan has already suggested the trials be held up there. Bring on those hordes of lawyers, reporters, & federal security bucks, he says.
More recently, in a series of presentations to business leaders, local elected officials and community representatives of Chinatown, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly laid out his plan for securing the trial: blanketing a swath of Lower Manhattan with police checkpoints, vehicle searches, rooftop snipers and canine patrols.
“They were not received well,” said one city official.
If they go, I'm relieved. The trials will be big enough without making them a regular feature of newsradio traffic reports & daily hassle for commuters.
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
My very first trip to New York, as an adult (was there many times as a child) I spent primarily in Newburgh, which tripped me out because all I ever saw of New York was Manhattan. I didn't know there were trees and simple two lane highways running through most of New York!
We bought weekly passes on the train into the city. Only problem was, last train back to Newburgh was at 11 p.m., so if we wanted to party in NYC, we'd have to rent a hotel room and stay overnight. The stay in Newburgh was free, as it was the home of my friend's friend.
It was during that trip that my girl friend and I rented a car and drove to Montreal and spent three fabulous days there, visiting a friend that used to live next door to me, but moved back home. Thank god he spoke French ... but seriously, the Canadian French aren't nearly as snotty as the Parisian French (LOL). I have so many cool pictures from Newburgh, even have one of the local Harley shop (whose owner was a good friend of my then boyfriend, who also owned a Harley shop here in Los Angeles). Even have a Montreal Harley shop T-shirt and picture!
We bought weekly passes on the train into the city. Only problem was, last train back to Newburgh was at 11 p.m., so if we wanted to party in NYC, we'd have to rent a hotel room and stay overnight. The stay in Newburgh was free, as it was the home of my friend's friend.
It was during that trip that my girl friend and I rented a car and drove to Montreal and spent three fabulous days there, visiting a friend that used to live next door to me, but moved back home. Thank god he spoke French ... but seriously, the Canadian French aren't nearly as snotty as the Parisian French (LOL). I have so many cool pictures from Newburgh, even have one of the local Harley shop (whose owner was a good friend of my then boyfriend, who also owned a Harley shop here in Los Angeles). Even have a Montreal Harley shop T-shirt and picture!
I liked the local coffeeshops in Montreal, all had excellent pastries. Seemed that if we made even a bad attempt at French, that was good enough & they switched to English. First night there, hotel had screwed up reservations so they put us in a huge suite, but they sure hustled us out fast to our regular room the next morning.
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