On May 8, 1970, New York mayor John Lindsay ordered all flags on city buildings lowered to half staff, in memory of the students who’d died in the Kent State shootings four days earlier.
Construction workers at the World Trade Center building site got wind of the plan. When anti-war protesters assembled at the George Washington statue on Wall Street that day complete with Viet Cong flags brokers and hard hats joined forces against the hippies, in one of the weirdest 70s events you’ve never heard of: the Hard Hat Riot.
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Having finally been to NY, I can picture the Hard Hat Riots even more clearly now, because the WTC and Wall Street are no more than a 5-10 minutes from each other, at a brisk pace.
Also, despite what you’ve seen on TV your whole life, Wall Street is actually a dinky 200 year old narrow cobblestone street — the sort you see in Jerusalem.
When the semi-permanent barricades are activated, it is a single lane. Barely.
I can assure you that they cannot fit “thousands” of protesters in this area, so don’t believe Michael Moore (who, alas, will be Adam Carolla’s guest Monday morning. UPDATE — no need to go through withdrawl tomorrow.)
A “thousand” people within that square footage would look more like this.
(I wish.)
Or, as a matter of fact, this.
When we were in New York for 9/11, the most visibly upset person I encountered was… me.
Then I got upset about being the most upset.
And I kept thinking about SDA’s line:
“Not showing up to riot is a failed conservative policy.”
A tall skinny local guy in an NYPD t-shirt put his arm around me when I was ugly-crying in front of the Truthers outside St. Paul’s.
“Don’t worry. If it wasn’t for all the cops around right now, these guys wouldn’t last five minutes.”
But I didn’t believe him, and I think I’m right not to.
In 2011, neither side can be ****ed to even have a decent street fight.
America really is screwed.
Are You One of Those People
(Post inspired by email from The Phantom.)
