The Great Triumphs Of The Bloomberg Tenure: Flower Pots Full Of Cigarette Butts, Menus Littered With Odd Four-Digit Numbers And Lawn Furniture On Broadway
You can decide if that counts as a “sweeping vision” or just a series of small-bore Clinton-esque tweaks. As for the lawn furniture, the big so-called traffic-reducing Broadway pedestrian mall initiative apparently has met at least one of its goals:
While tourists and others enjoyed moseying around the traffic-free oasis on its first business day as a pedestrian mall, anyone making a delivery around Times Square fumed.
Drivers said streets surrounding the blocked-off areas were clogged with traffic — and pulling in front of a business to unload heavy boxes became a thing of the past.
“This is making my job more challenging,” said Steven McFadden, 48, a deliveryman for Citi Storage. “Longer walks to loading entrances, more competition for parking, more time for fewer deliveries and more parking tickets.”
John Gannon, 55, a mail carrier, predicted a long summer with traffic blocked off.
“For anybody who has to make a curbside delivery, it will be a problem. You’d have to park and walk a block or two,” he said. “If [Mayor] Bloomberg wants it to last, though, it’ll last.”
And you can amend the post title to include “Naked Cowboys” in the mayor’s sweeping vision:
Posted: May 28th, 2009 | Filed under: Manhattan, Quality Of Life, See, The Thing Is Was . . .Times Square and Herald Square vendors are cashing in on the car-free Broadway.
Everyone from food and souvenir hawkers to street performers said they were rolling in the dough yesterday thanks to the flood of pedestrians on the Great White Way.
“It is the coolest thing in the world. My business has quadrupled. It is like New Year’s Eve every day,” crowed the “Naked Cowboy,” Robert Burck.