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Broadway Pedestrian Plaza Attracting Sedentary Homeless!
By
John Del Signore
Published Jun 8, 2009
Modified Jun 8, 2009
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jun 8, 2009
Modified Jun 8, 2009
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Andrea Peyser isn't the only tabloid columnist with a deep disdain for the new car-free sections of Broadway; Mike Lupica at the Daily News is now pouring out the Haterade with an article dismissing what he calls "Bloomberg Beach" as "Bloomberg's revenge." In his eyes, the whole thing is just Bloomberg's petulant way of bending New York's traffic patterns to his will after his congestion pricing plan got sandbagged by Albany. Which, yeah, Bloomberg's a little prince who throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way, but Lupica's determined to toss the baby out with the bath water.
Where Peyser had to talk to homeless people to find some negative reactions to the Broadway pedestrian plazas, Lupica goes straight to the cops: "'Let's call it a work in progress,' [the cop] said, as another street guy settled in for a nap in front of Starbucks. 'Either that, or comic relief.'" The problem, according to Lupica, is that the homeless are using the chairs during the day, thus making the pedestrian plazas look like "shelters." WTF, now there are homeless people sitting in Times Square!? You'd never see that when cars drove through there!
Tagged
broadway car ban
mike lupica
nyc
pedestrian plaza
plaza
Times Square
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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