Figures soon to be released state that for the first time there is now as much crime on the streets as there is on TV. What I want to know is, if crime doesn’t pay — how come there are so many lawyers?
We are told New York, only an island of two dozen square miles yet the biggest candy store in the universe, is rated the safest A-1 city. Kiddies, mother will tell you why. I’m not intimating some elected officials rob us. Nay. Forsooth. I’m only saying that with assorted Albany legislators behind bars, a company’s coming out with a nicotine lollypop to make it official. Politics sucks.
One savvy councilman made an assemblyman his partner. This way, he figured, stealing from your partner is not such a crime. Pedro Espada said 12 people out of 8 million found him guilty — and they call that justice?
A local official, accused of having his fingers in several deals, confessed with: “It’s true. And if everyone worked as hard as I do, this country would be on the road to prosperity.” Unfortunately, pols let out of penal institutions complain of the treatment. They’re for redoing the system. Making it more like a home away from home. Hevesi may sew a line of slipcovers for their cots.
But, listen, in our recent presidential election, the majority of Americans voted for Obummer — so, truth is, anybody can make a mistake. Speaking of Washington, there’s now talk of capital crime. With how the government’s looking to get vigorish off us, I’m hearing “NCIS” might even investigate DC.
Back to NYC. We’re twice as expensive as an average city. A cocktail’s $14. A studio rents for 3G’s a month. Ride on the subway, you have to take out a loan. To economize you can relocate to Wichita Falls, which is whereverthehellitis in Texas and supermarkets are “cozy.” Translation? “Small.” Or Pueblo, Colo., where what’s to steal? Nothing. It’s not necessarily safe just cheap. Because what’s to grab? Cactus?
Affordable health care, our town doesn’t exactly have. Or good air. Clean environments. Unclogged streets. Trash-free roads. Safe schools. An MTA that works. Non cutthroat competitors. Naaahh. Things like shoe repairers, scissor sharpeners, Avon ladies, vacuum cleaner salesmen, milkmen, Fuller Brush men we also don’t grow a lot of. Also we’re a little light on ladies wearing gloves, gents who tip hats, kids who mind manners — but you can’t have everything.
I mean, have respect. In some of our really bad neighborhoods, muggers travel in pairs. Coming up is topless burglars. So nobody can recognize their faces.
Next season the fashion will be bumper stickers that say: “Have you hugged your bail bondsman today?”
Our great mayor Bloomy says thefts are down. Yeah. We’ve run out of victims.
Our great commish Kelly has done a nifty job stopping organized crime. A shame because it raked in billions a year and spent very little on office supplies.
Statistics tell us that last year, with 52 million visitors and roughly 400 homicides, we’re the planet’s safest. Just don’t show your cellphone, carry the wallet in a back pocket or leave your door unlocked. Don’t even read a report about some rising crime rate because the bus passenger next to you might steal it.Please. An area in a certain borough boasts a traffic sign that reads “Stop if you dare.”
Fact is in the 1890s, this financial, manufacturing and entertainment capital was the degradation destination. Richard Zacks’ book “Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt’s Doomed Quest To Clean Up Sin-loving New York,” reports it was from sea-to-shining sea corrupt. Seedy. Sleazy. Bawdy, bestial and ribald. Filth over salvation.
Two million citizens numbered 340,000 prostitutes. Hookers, age 16, patrolled the streets. Averaging four clients a day, they charged 50 cents down on Eldridge Street. One out of six men were customers.
Beat cops wanting a few days off to go on a drinking bender were allowed, but first they were advised to produce a doctor’s note.
Children age 10 hauled two-cent beer. It was jazzy casinos playing faro and roulette. All-night dives. Tammany Hall worked on bribes. Payoffs were the norm. Commissioners were on the take. Opium was around. After-hours barrooms served drunks on Sunday. It was crossdressing homosexual brothels. Cops offered to distribute madams’ business cards for a cut. It was debauched. Licentious. Vile. Districts “smelled of sweat and horse manure.” The poorest “slept in shifts.” Tenements had “courtyard outhouses.”
Not a single traffic light regulated the tens of thousands of horses, carriages, wagons or cable cars. Vehicles rode in any direction. Speed limits were ignored. Thieves stole more horses in Manhattan than in all of California. Animals were raced to outlaw stables, quick-dyed from dappled gray to black, and their tails clipped.
A man with an itch, letch or thirst to quench could easily fill it night or day. Pool rooms with telegraph tickers were located in hotels’ back quarters. Certain sections and polyglot babble of the streets garbled our language into a street slang that defied interpretation. (Well, that hasn’t changed.)
Newspapers reinforced New York’s reputation for wickedness. There were shakedowns even of bootblacks. NY was the admitted vice capital of the US. Dance halls, open all night, charged 25 cents. Every building had immunity secured by a scale of police taxation. So we must be grateful. Jet Age? Ice Age? Stone Age? Bronze Age? That was the Harsh Age. So, for us, shove global warming, think global rotting. Brits have economic misery. Also Prince Harry. Greece is down the toilet. Spain’s following. Italy, which surrendered to both sides in the World War, doesn’t know its pasta from a hole in the ground. France is taxing its brains out. The only place doing well is Fiji.
Manhattan’s doing great. Its high spot is that Al Gore doesn’t live here. And if he did, we could tell him to take the Second Avenue subway to his apartment.
Hey, let’s hear it for our city.