Like many opinions my wife has, they are not her own. Her father told her the NYT was a "Commie, pinko rag." Obviously the paper never entered her household, and just as obvious my wife's opinion of the paper has never changed. She can be intransigent. She's not uninformed, she's just not a newspaper person.
Similarly I had a friend who grew up on West 55th Street whose father was a producer for TV shows at CBS. My friend always told me the story that his father was incensed when the public school grammar teacher sent him home with an assignment to read an article in the New York Times and talk about it in Current Events the next day.
It didn't matter that my friend's father was Jewish, he hated the New York Times. He was a Herald Tribune, New York Post kind of guy, and how dare they send his son home to read what he pretty much thought was Commie propaganda. He might have even visited the public school which was just up the street from the apartment.
My own view of The New York Times has been way more neutral. I'm aware it can skew left, but I read it for news and stories and the once upon a time sports section which has now been outsourced to The Athletic that has a tough time knowing where Madison Square Garden is. I don't read editorials, and I don't absorb opinions. I've probably been a reader since the paper was 10¢ in the '60s.
I am a newspaper guy. I could always fold one on a crowded train when I commuted. I have a good laugh at the NYT because I don't readily think their reporters were born and educated in New York City. Probably not many public school kids from New York City get into Ivy League J-Schools, and therefore are never hired by The Times. No matter. The paper is written and edited well, but it does sit inside a cocoon of unreality of everyday life.
Take what would be someone's idea of a New York City bridge. If you were to ask a native born and educated New Yorker (even if they went to private, or Catholic school) and told them there are 789 bridges in the city they might say, "you're fucking nuts," or something close to that, but definitely using the word fuck.
Such was my reaction when I read in Wednesday's paper the story of now forbidding vendors from selling their NYC souvenir goods from the walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge, and therefore from any of the other 788 bridges. Huh?
I asked my Bronx born, Catholic school dedicated wife at dinner, did she think there were 789 bridges in New York City. She said "what, who said that?" (I didn't have the nerve to tell her.) as she went back to watching weatherman Lonnie Quinn with his sleeves not rolled up telling us there would be "some snow" somewhere soon. Ever since Lonnie effectively shut the city down several years ago with a devastating prediction of so much snow that we would disappear under it like Quebec City in February, and did not see anywhere near it, Lonnie's been a good deal more circumspect in telling New Yorkers about that other four letter word: snow.
A Tweet to the reporter, Sarah Maslin Nir, went unanswered when I asked if they could provide a map of the 789 locations of these bridges and what was the source of that number. Expecting a reply Tweet from a NYT reporter is like waiting for Godot.
It hit me an hour or so later that this figure might be derived from including overpasses, not necessarily structures that convey people or vehicles over water that the city would love to put tolls on. The OED tells us the definition for bridge is broad enough that overpasses could be included in the tally. And I am convinced they are.
Bridge: A structure carrying a road, path, railway, etc. across a stream, river, ravine, road, railway, etc.
Yes, but why would you lump overpasses with bridges over waterways like the Brooklyn Bridge? It makes no sense.
Good old Google does confirm that the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) says they are responsible for maintaining all 789 bridges in the city. And apparently proud of it no matter what their condition is.
The story is about one bridge in New York City, the Brooklyn Bridge, instead of being offered for sale to some rube, that has instead become 34th Street or 125th Street filled with vendors clogging up the sidewalk or walkway. I didn't know this about the bridge, but it's not surprising.
I've never seen vendors hugging the sidelines on either the Whitestone or Throggs Neck bridges, but then again they don't have walkways.
The sub-heading to the story is emphatic: All 789 spans are closed to souvenir sellers, leaving many of them with nowhere to go. It is now the city's fault that thousands of people will now not be able to sell you I Love New York sweatshirts, or operate a 3-D photo booths as you cross any of the 789 spans.
Are they nuts? Typical New York Times. By counting overpasses the city has been deemed to be cruel to all these people who are using 789 spans! When I lived in Flushing around the corner from the house there was a Murray Street overpass that went over the railroad tracks for the Port Washington line. This was between 41st Avenue and Barclay Street, in front of the NYFD Engine Company 274 firehouse.
In all my years in Flushing I never saw anyone selling T-shirts on this overpass, or any other overpass in the city. You might get approached in your car while you wait for a light in the Bronx or Brooklyn on an exit ramp on Mother's Day by someone selling hydrangea plants, but nothing approaching the open air bazaar of what the city is trying to close down on the Brooklyn Bridge.
The Brooklyn Bridge is a tourist attraction, and the walkway helps give it foot traffic, and with foot traffic come enterprising vendors.
Build it, keep it open, and they will come back.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
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