Tomorrow and the following two Saturdays are the Summer Streets event. 7am-1pm no motor vehicles on Park Ave./Lafayette between 72nd st and Brooklyn Bridge. Expect lots of Citi bikes and avoid this route at all cost (lesson from previous experience).
Actually, the move is to come and participate in this, as a means of supporting the opening up of a major street, and of providing a basis to argue for Summer Streets' expansion. I might be out of town this Saturday; but I will certainly get out to Summer Streets on at least one of the days it is held.
The fact that it occurs only three times a year, and then only from 7am to 1pm, is a bit of a scandal. The stated reason that Summer Streets go on for so few hours is that the cost in police overtime is so great, as there are cops at just about evey corner. These cops are doing nothing, of course; they are just standing there collecting free overtime.
Let us note that no one suggests that the ordinary operation of the streets, in which they are infested with thousands of cars, requires blanket police coverage. But, for some unknown reason, a day in which one street is free of car traffic and is filled with bicyclsts and pedestrians calls for this excessive police presence. What nonsense. In addition to being a naked overtime grab, it is also a power play on the part of the police, who consider themselves above the law and above all civil administration.
The police commissioner recently gave an interview in which he "praised" the mayor for not telling him what to do. He just announced his resignation effective a few months from now; but it is outrageous that he has been allowed to carry on and to leave on his own terms. Any other chief executive would fire an appointee who is so openly insubordinate. So we have a police force whose commissioner essentially dictates policy to the mayor, and whose rank-and-file keeps the mayor in line with the implied threat of terrorist violence. It all raises the question of whether New York even has a civilian government.
Anyway, the only means that we have of pushing back against this is to come out in force for Summer Streets, despite its scanty timeslot. The current mayor is too feckless to act on this; but maybe the next one will have the gumption to support Summer Streets' expansion, without acceeding to the outrageous demands of the police for free money in return for standing around playing games on their phones.