10/04/2005

Salad Threat

It was Saturday morning; or Sunday morning - and I was standing outside Grand Central Station watching as 42nd street was closed off by the authorities. A bomb truck arrived. A fire truck arrived. We were standing on the other side of 42nd - tourists - a couple of press people - everyone wondering what was going on. One guy heard a cop say "bomb" on the walkie-talkie.

So I just stood around waiting to see if there would be an explosion and then I could get the scoop. After about a half hour - the machinery disappeared and they began to let people down into Grand Central.

As I came down the steps - there was a reporter interviewing someone. The train was coming to a halt. I couldn't hear what it was about. But I got on the train with the woman who had just been interviewed and asked her what it was all about.

She told me that some council - I don't know if it was the MTA or the city council - but something along those lines were voting or had voted to ban food on the subway and how did she feel about it. I realized afterwards that she must have been chosen since she had that small container of salad in her hand.

We laughed about it. What were they going to do - have "food police" on the trains? The woman told me that even if the drink or the container had a top on it - THEY were proposing to ban it.

I asked her if she knew that there had just been a bomb scare upstairs? Did she hear any announcements or anything?

No, that was news to her.

Well anyway - I'm happy to hear that someone in New York is keeping their eye on the ball. One of the things that has been most scary to me are those plastic containers with salad. Especially the ones from the Korean places with fresh fruit. You know - once you cut fruit it can go bad and make you sick. Could start a whole epidemic in the city that way.


dave beckerman photography

The container ban was not passed. I think this is my favorite line from the MTA's rules:

"The singular shall mean and include the plural; the masculine gender shall mean the feminine and the neuter genders; and vice versa." Keep that in mind folks.

No comments: