Don’t go tipping your hat off to all New Yorkers Just yet.
I was stuck on the 11th floor of the time life building when the power went out, no biggie. I just walked over to the Sports Illustrated building sat down with my boss and waited till the crowds thinned out at around 7. IT was kinda cool walking around the building with only the emergency lights on, the most normal looking places gets really spooky with no lights. Anyway, I start trooping down to Brooklyn, stopping at Times Square with all the lights out (kinda cool actually) and kept walking south. All over the place people were helping other people. Some brave individuals stepped out into busy intersections that the police didn't get to and helped direct traffic. All in all a heartwarming sort of thing make you proud to be from the big apple.
So an hour and half to two hours, I get to City Hall where they are giving out free bottled water for people crossing the bridge, but there were too many steps, so I kept walking. The Brooklyn Bridge was PACKED! Wall to wall humanity, everywhere you looked again people helping other people, I saw a few older couples being helped across the bridge by total strangers, some guys were selling what would normally be a $1 bottle of water for $1 :eek: You’d think price gouging would be rampant, but not so. As I approached the Brooklyn Side, who do I see standing on the walkway with a big ole bull horn? Marty Markowitz the Brooklyn Borough President welcoming everyone back to Brooklyn. It was kinda lame, but still brought a smile to my face to here a short chubby Jewish guy shout “Where Brooklyn at?” So I stop off, open my shirt, and get a nice warm bottle of water (Cold would be nice, but lets be serious where was I going find ice- it all melted 3 hours ago?)
I hit the Fulton mall just as the police are setting up some lights, the kind they use for road crews at night, as well as road flares every 20 or 30 feet. As I got closer to my house in Bed-Sty I could here all the parties people where throwing, as well as smell the BBQ( Man you just got to love black folk in Brooklyn.)
So after all of this really heart warming stuff I get to my street, two blocks away from home, some people on their stoop start cheering and welcome me back to Brooklyn, (somebody whispered I must have been coming from Manhattan) I get to my street 3 houses from my own and what do I see? Some God damn idiot 15 year old a flashlight and an attitude problem who gets in my way, along with his three juvenile delinquent friends and take up the sidewalk. He gets in my face and starts telling me to “Yo watch my feet” As if the fact that he’s wearing a red bandana over his face is going to stop me from killing him. And this ladies and gentlemen is why I walked away. If not, you’d be reading about the only person (or people there were a group of them) killed in NYC during the black out, because I was so close to just reaching out and touching someone that I don’t think I’d have left any of them ambulatory.
But I digress, other then that one little piss ant it was all good, and not that I’d like to repeat it any time soon, but it was a great experience and made me proud not only to be a New Yorker, to be an American. We really do show our best when times are at there worst. :cool: