In a brazen instance of citizen journalism…
June 24th, 2010 at 3:10 pm ET…I bring you this photo of a brownish Volvo wagon bearing tags reading “NYC Council 7,” with a New Paltz decal in the back window, parked alone in the curb lane of Canal Street at the height of the lunchtime rush. I had plenty of time to photograph it, as the taxi I was in sat behind it for more than five minutes before we were able to merge left, inch around it, move right again, and make a right turn. Just to be clear, because of this fellow, it took us five minutes to move half a block in the right lane in order to make a right turn.
Now, I’m not in a position to say for sure that this car belongs to New York City’s District 7 councilman, a New Paltz graduate. But it’s a plausible first hypothesis. And if I were a detective, or, perhaps, a journalist, trying to identify the guy who personally narrowed Canal Street from three lanes to two, sucking perhaps 50 hours of inconvenience out of the lives of several hundred strangers, the first call I’d make would be to his office. I might ask what errand he was on that was so important that it justified taking an entire lane of Canal Street to do it.
The little things aren’t the only things that are important. But they are important — they set the bar for civil behavior across the city.
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by Edward Rutherfurd
by Ben Macintyre
June 25th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
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