Thursday, August 07, 2003
Report from the frontlines, Downtown New York
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
New York is a city under siege .This may not be evident to the placid throngs on Union Square, taking in a noontime concert or shopping for an upbeat dinner in the Restaurant Capital of our world.. Just take the express IRT three stops downtown, to Wall Street, and the atmosphere changes. The fever thermometer, to me, is the guardpost at the crossing of Exchange Place and Broad Street, the southern corner of the New York Stock Exchange. This wide street, once the scene of weekly street festivities celebrating the IPO or an anniversary of a some major industrial or financial giant, has been blocked with barricades since 9/11/2001. Except for the huge Christmas tree every season, the square between Wall and Exchange remains empty the year around, except for some blue-jacketed badge-laden Stock Exchange employees out for a smoke .As to the guardpost. Today, after the President's speech, in addition to the usual shirtsleeved uniformed police officers, there was a black dressed squat left-handed helmeted figure, Kevlar jacket easily discernible, leaning against the railing, eyes fixed on the pedestrian traffic, middle finger on the trigger of the submachine gun slung around his neck, index finger extended, "ready to rock," as the suave manager of the new office ofMcRoberts Protective Agency on Stone Street put it. The last time I saw guards in such state of readiness was at the entrance of the airport of Lodz, Israel, in the period after Rabin's assassination. Actually, four of these NYPD Emergency Service Unit gun-toting guards have been a presence at the NYSE for the past seven months. You can see them in more relaxed atmosphere, at noontime , at the north end, helmets off but eyes on the thick crowds of tourists milling around or sitting on the steps of the Federal Memorial, having a sandwich under the benevolent gaze of the giant statue of George Washington.
Some of the new anti-terror precautions are less noticeable. At the top of Exchange Place, corner Broadway, the neat polished stone flower pots, full of blooming plants, have multiplied, almost blocking the roadway, athwart which, as usually, is a panel truck. There is parked vehicle also at the bottom, near William Street, in a yellow box painted on the asphalt, so that the authorized delivery vans, for whose arrivals and departures the truck gets moved, can plan their curbside spots. Also, the Downtown Alliance, the BID of Lower NY, has strengthened its street force in red doormen uniforms with a black-shirted dog patrol, sniffing through the lobbies of member buildings on a daily basis.
But the spirits of New Yorkers are irrepressible. On Stone Street, the narrow cobblestoneservice road that bends between Hanover Place and Water Street, every morning at 10 AM sees the unfolding of collapsible picnic tables and café sets, with market umbrellas, and squads of young Wall Street boys and girls, both shirtsleeved and suits, descend to lunch at noon, and to drink beer from pitchers and long-necked bottles in the after-work hours, the latter purchased by the bucketful at Ulysses, the new favorite pub. It stretches, with its neighbor The Financier, from Mill Lane to nearly the northern corner, for the past 32 years ruled by Harry's on Hanover, the famed basement bar in the 153-year old India Club building. In the evening Harry's is totally blocked in by black cars waiting for home-bound drinkers, reeling up the steps, ready to collapse on the leather seats, money's no object. At the south end of Stone Street, towards Coenties Slip, neighboring Cassis, Gerardus and Waterstone Grill lock arms to fill the roadway. Most of the restaurants, in addition to decent lunches offer raw bar and pub food to frame up the stomach for the beer crowds.Taking advantage of the traffic stoppages due to the precautions, the city has Judlaw Construction rip up Williams Street for a two-year project ,replacing old communication and electric cables. Their hordes of yellow-and-red waisted workers move fast, opening closing the trenches practically overnight. On Thursdays you see a stout cigar-chomping straw boss handing out pay envelopes to the worker ants, who come up from the holes, one by one. Just like the old days.
Washington Irving High School Watch. In these days of budget shortages, why does one see 30-copy tied-up stacks of New York Times dumped outside the school? During vacations we ordinary people prudently suspend our newspaper subscriptions. Is the taxpayer money less valuable? Which reminds me of the 50-odd computer CRT monitors the school dumped early in the year. We ordinary people use the same monitors year after year, although upgrading the computers to, say, migrate from Windows 95 to 2000. Why can’t a public-money-using institution do the same? .
New York is a city under siege .This may not be evident to the placid throngs on Union Square, taking in a noontime concert or shopping for an upbeat dinner in the Restaurant Capital of our world.. Just take the express IRT three stops downtown, to Wall Street, and the atmosphere changes. The fever thermometer, to me, is the guardpost at the crossing of Exchange Place and Broad Street, the southern corner of the New York Stock Exchange. This wide street, once the scene of weekly street festivities celebrating the IPO or an anniversary of a some major industrial or financial giant, has been blocked with barricades since 9/11/2001. Except for the huge Christmas tree every season, the square between Wall and Exchange remains empty the year around, except for some blue-jacketed badge-laden Stock Exchange employees out for a smoke .As to the guardpost. Today, after the President's speech, in addition to the usual shirtsleeved uniformed police officers, there was a black dressed squat left-handed helmeted figure, Kevlar jacket easily discernible, leaning against the railing, eyes fixed on the pedestrian traffic, middle finger on the trigger of the submachine gun slung around his neck, index finger extended, "ready to rock," as the suave manager of the new office ofMcRoberts Protective Agency on Stone Street put it. The last time I saw guards in such state of readiness was at the entrance of the airport of Lodz, Israel, in the period after Rabin's assassination. Actually, four of these NYPD Emergency Service Unit gun-toting guards have been a presence at the NYSE for the past seven months. You can see them in more relaxed atmosphere, at noontime , at the north end, helmets off but eyes on the thick crowds of tourists milling around or sitting on the steps of the Federal Memorial, having a sandwich under the benevolent gaze of the giant statue of George Washington.
Some of the new anti-terror precautions are less noticeable. At the top of Exchange Place, corner Broadway, the neat polished stone flower pots, full of blooming plants, have multiplied, almost blocking the roadway, athwart which, as usually, is a panel truck. There is parked vehicle also at the bottom, near William Street, in a yellow box painted on the asphalt, so that the authorized delivery vans, for whose arrivals and departures the truck gets moved, can plan their curbside spots. Also, the Downtown Alliance, the BID of Lower NY, has strengthened its street force in red doormen uniforms with a black-shirted dog patrol, sniffing through the lobbies of member buildings on a daily basis.
But the spirits of New Yorkers are irrepressible. On Stone Street, the narrow cobblestoneservice road that bends between Hanover Place and Water Street, every morning at 10 AM sees the unfolding of collapsible picnic tables and café sets, with market umbrellas, and squads of young Wall Street boys and girls, both shirtsleeved and suits, descend to lunch at noon, and to drink beer from pitchers and long-necked bottles in the after-work hours, the latter purchased by the bucketful at Ulysses, the new favorite pub. It stretches, with its neighbor The Financier, from Mill Lane to nearly the northern corner, for the past 32 years ruled by Harry's on Hanover, the famed basement bar in the 153-year old India Club building. In the evening Harry's is totally blocked in by black cars waiting for home-bound drinkers, reeling up the steps, ready to collapse on the leather seats, money's no object. At the south end of Stone Street, towards Coenties Slip, neighboring Cassis, Gerardus and Waterstone Grill lock arms to fill the roadway. Most of the restaurants, in addition to decent lunches offer raw bar and pub food to frame up the stomach for the beer crowds.Taking advantage of the traffic stoppages due to the precautions, the city has Judlaw Construction rip up Williams Street for a two-year project ,replacing old communication and electric cables. Their hordes of yellow-and-red waisted workers move fast, opening closing the trenches practically overnight. On Thursdays you see a stout cigar-chomping straw boss handing out pay envelopes to the worker ants, who come up from the holes, one by one. Just like the old days.
Washington Irving High School Watch. In these days of budget shortages, why does one see 30-copy tied-up stacks of New York Times dumped outside the school? During vacations we ordinary people prudently suspend our newspaper subscriptions. Is the taxpayer money less valuable? Which reminds me of the 50-odd computer CRT monitors the school dumped early in the year. We ordinary people use the same monitors year after year, although upgrading the computers to, say, migrate from Windows 95 to 2000. Why can’t a public-money-using institution do the same? .
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 4:47 PM 
