Late 90s Anecdote
“I remember the Secret Service being tougher.” “Me, too.” — The rubber, as they say, is starting to hit the road at last. Below is a surreal yet true anecdote. I cannot recall exactly what year it was. Bill Clinton was President, Rudolph Giuliani was Mayor of NYC. I worked at 1251 Avenue of the Americas as a consultant, probably environmental at that time, so pre-1999 but 1993 or after. For whatever reason I needed to go to the office on a weekend, possibly a Saturday. Seems likely I was on the D train so that’s a clue that it was after the move from the Village to Brooklyn, so likely after Summer 1995. The first thing I noticed was few if any people at all getting off at the 50th Street stop, maybe something odd about which doors opened and where. I went to one of those exits with the circular bars, where you can push out but not in. Then, like something out of a zombie film, no people at all in Rockefeller Center. And no cars. No cars on Sixth Avenue, known as Avenue of the Americas.