City under siege
08/31/04
As you can imagine, my arrest didn't exactly endear the NYPD to me. And over 1000 more arrests today, including 200 in a peaceful march that the NYPD said it would allow? Felix Salmon points out that the NYPD is out of control.
More cops @ Unrelated News and Rion.
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RNC
08/30/04
The rhetoric makes a lot more sense in jail. Regarding that, I'm not-quite-quoted in a Newsday article. Many thanks to those of you who've called, written, commented or blogged your support. Please consider writing to Mayor Bloomberg or your city councilmember as well.
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Go indirectly to jail
08/29/04
After taking some pictures of Critical Mass riders getting arrested, I turned to walk away and suddenly was in cuffs, one of the 264 cyclists and random passers-by arrested Friday night. Rather than writing us summonses for the offenses we were charged with, which were violations (on par with a traffic ticket or an open container), not even misdemeanors, the cops decided to teach us a lesson by hauling us over to a bus depot-turned-holding cell where we got to sleep in cages on diesel-sludge-covered concrete. (Many people reported chemical burns from contact with the floor.) I got to spend 16 hours there, then ride a corrections bus downtown to Central Booking for the full handcuff/search/mugshot/prints treatment, in shackles all the way, and spent another 14 hours there while the cops, who were either intentionally stalling on Bloomberg's orders or staggeringly incompetent, took 14 more hours to write us all the same desk-appearance tickets they could have given out at the scene. There were still at least 50 people in there when I got out at 2:30 a.m. Sunday (and spent another hour waiting on line to get my keys, phone, camera, and pen from the property clerk; I don't get my bike back until the trial).
Thirty hours of my life are gone because Bloomberg felt like going on a power trip (it's said he personally ordered the massive arrests), and I still feel phantom handcuffs on my wrists, the way amputees report feeling phantom limbs. Critical Mass has gone down every month for years, with typically no interference (and often even assistance) by the police. On Friday they suddenly decided to start making arrests without warning, penning people in and arresting entire blocks' worth of people, including hapless tourists and people getting off work who just happened to be in the area watching. And they couldn't have been bothered to clean the diesel sludge off the floor of the holding pens where they made us sleep? Someone will pay.
Many thanks go to the National Lawyers Guild, who submitted a writ of habeus corpus demanding that the city either charge us or free us; this probably got us out five or six hours sooner. And thanks especially to the greeters who met us outside the courthouse in the middle of the night, tended to our injuries and diesel-sludge chemical burns, and fed us real food. The prison bologna sandwich, the staple of the nutrient-free and severely constipating jailhouse diet, is made from the lowest-grade meat and bread imaginable. We discovered that the bologna will stick indefinitely to a vertical metal surface, and that the sandwiches are better used as pillows than as food. (They're also quite handy as the ball in impromptu jailhouse games of empty-cup bowling, and as anchors for paper cups in penny tossing.) And thanks to my fellow political prisoners, who stuck together and kept each other sane. The whole process is designed to subjugate its victims in every way, but we made it through.
Other things worth mentioning: The other prisoner who howled, "Officer! Officer! Fucking officer! I know you can hear me! ... We need to live life based on love, not hate! ... The next time I kill, it won't be based on race!" The ever-present signs warning of the dangers of tuberculosis in jail. The "ass chair," which apparently probes your ass to see if anything is hidden there. The sticker in Central Booking promoting a marijuana rally in 1999. "Slashings, stabbings and assult will result in your immediate arrest." And always, always, mind-numbingly (and probably intentionally so) slow paperwork.
Oh yeah, and someone reported seeing me getting arrested on CNN.
UPDATES: I've corrected the time of my release (Sunday morning, not Monday morning; blame the sleep dep) and added a note saying that my bike was confiscated.
12:54 PM | Comments (200) | TrackBack (41)
There, there
08/27/04
Oakland, CA
2:04 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
Oakland train station 2: inside
08/24/04
Southern Pacific train station, Oakland, CA
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Oakland train station 1: outside
08/23/04
The Oakland train station was abandoned after sustaining heavy damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Across the street, two hotels (one of them named after the railroad) have also seen better days:
Oakland, CA
My take on love.
Using the word "hipster" ten times in one article: shameless stats-padding or cry for help?
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Queens by the water
08/20/04
Western Queens
11:13 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
Weird stuff warehouse
08/18/04
Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Apparently the Golden Gate Bridge has been moved to New York.
Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Also, milk goes bad faster within the five boroughs.
sort-of-DUMBO, Brooklyn
Soho
Chinatown. Yes, the truck was in motion.
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The Six
08/16/04
Somewhere on Long Island, or maybe eastern Queens.
The Times discovers Kennedy Fried Chicken. Alas, no mention of KyFC in the Bronx, Kantacky Fried Chicken in Brooklyn, JFK Fried Chicken in various places, or J.F. Kennedy Fried Chicken in Orange, NJ. (Does anyone have a permalink for that article? The usual source fails.)
One year ago: Blackout.
10:24 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (1)
Governors Island 4
08/13/04
And, finally, a panorama of the view from Governors Island:
(Click for larger panorama, 2776x500, 176K)
If you're still wondering where the hell Governors Island is, check out this great aerial shot of New York Harbor. The tall buildings near the center are downtown Manhattan; the tall buildings to their left are Jersey City (visible in the panorama as well); the foreground is Brooklyn; the green island on the left is Governors Island.
Somehow I neglected to link to Joe's panorama of the view from the Williamsburg Savings Bank building in downtown Brooklyn. This seems like an opportune time to remedy that.
9:20 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)
Governors Island 3
08/12/04
Governors Island
Spamusement: cartoons drawn based on actual spam subject lines. My favorites: you were wrong cabinet sanchez and We have located several horny women in your area!.
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Governors Island 2: Fort Jay
08/11/04
Governors Island
A 24-city tour of urban decay.
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Governors Island 1
08/10/04
I'd long wondered what Governors Island was like, and along with Christina, Kevin and Rudy I finally got a chance to find out. The island, which over the years has been home to Dutch governors, British militia, the U.S. Army, Confederate prisoners, and the Coast Guard, is right in the middle of New York Harbor, and there's an unfamiliar feeling of being surrounded by the city yet somehow apart from it. Proposals for the island's future include a CUNY campus, a hotel/conference center, an oceanographic research facility, and a casino; the last one, alas, is forbidden by the terms of the deed conveying the island from the federal government to the city. More at Christina's Governors Island site.
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Iron Triangle 6
08/07/04
Iron Triangle, Flushing, Queens
10:27 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Iron Triangle 5: almost people
08/06/04
Iron Triangle, Flushing, Queens
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Iron Triangle 4: people
08/05/04
9:21 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Iron Triangle 3
08/04/04
Iron Triangle, Flushing, Queens
lost generation: Nice, extremely wide photos from Bulgaria.
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Iron Triangle 2
08/03/04
Iron Triangle, Flushing, Queens
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Iron Triangle 1
08/02/04
The Iron Triangle is an industrial wasteland between Shea Stadium and downtown Flushing. The city wants to clean up the area's junkyards and chop shops. The Triangle is sometimes erroneously called Willets Point because its main street, named Willets Point Boulevard, was originally intended to run to the real Willets Point, near Fort Totten in northeastern Queens.