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Bloomberg Vows To Protect City From Evil Squeegee Men
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Sep 20, 2011
Modified Sep 20, 2011
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Sep 20, 2011
Modified Sep 20, 2011
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Mayor Bloomberg may have plenty of patience to go through a few swatches to get the PERFECT color of drapes, but he will not tolerate the return of the indigent squeegee men. "The police department has a lot to do, but we're not walking away from squeegee guys when they rear their heads…with their buckets and sponge," he said. Well! See if we ever give his Gulfstream a shine again.
The Daily News sounded the alarm yesterday about the "Return of the Bad Old Days" after they spotted five of them working at 42nd Street and Ninth Avenue, five being way more than three, which is the universally accepted number at which a trend begins. "We are out here making a living," one squeegee man who is also a father of three said, "It's hard to get a job." It's probably just as hard being a squeegee man, but hey: they slow down the speed that cars can travel the roads, so they must be stopped.
Bloomberg was decidedly more circumspect about the return of the squeegee men being a sign of the times: "I don't know that it's a measure of the economy, but we all know that there's too many people in this country unemployed." If they just flat-out begged for weed, would we be more understanding?
Tagged
1980s
economy
giuliani
mayor bloomberg
poverty
squeegee men
Unemployment
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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