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Real New Yorkers LOVE the transit strike
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del.icio.us“Transit chaos!” screamed the front page of the Post. “We’re Stuck,” added the Daily News.
And these people call themselves New Yorkers?
Let’s face it, the only time a New Yorker is truly happy is when he gets to complain about how tough it is to be a New Yorker.
So what’s the inconvenience of biking or walking in the cold to a job you probably hate when you can whine all day about it and be completely justified?
New Yorkers generally don’t talk to each other, but the transit strike actually brought us together, as we shared cars and shared war stories. I even talked to a woman from Canarsie (from Canarsie, Jerry! Canarsie!).
Naturally, reporters ignored the real story and chose to lead the gripe parade. At the mayor’s digs — the Office of Emergency Management headquarters under the Brooklyn Bridge, where he slept on a double-wide cot and an air mattress — news producers screamed at mayoral spokesman Jordan Barowitz after he said the mayor would not do live interviews with Matt and Katie or Harry Smith.
“You don’t understand,” one of the producers screamed. “This is a network!”
“This is a transit strike,” Barowitz retorted.
The mayor, hatless, eventually emerged, and gave his first exclusive of the day to this bike-grease-stained wretch.
“The hospitality I’ve experienced in Brooklyn has been extraordinary,” Hizzoner said, although he did echo the most persistent culinary complaint of DUMBO residents: No bagels.
“I would have thought that our commissioner, Joe Bruno, a lifelong Brooklynite, would have ensured that there was coffee and good bagels. I will talk to him about that.”
Fortunately, the mayor was told, La Bagel Delight has finally opened on Front Street.
Bloomberg walked a few more blocks in his faded jeans and tasseled loafers, and then he was off, bounding up the stairs of the Brooklyn Bridge towards the world beyond.
People travel from all over the globe to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. So who am I to complain?.
©2005 The Brooklyn Paper
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