Opinion: Oops, green Bloomie gets caught in an SUV
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Well, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s cover is blown.
Starting with his first mayoral campaign, Bloomberg has struck a populist tone, urging New Yorkers to take public transit and being seen to do so himself, so much so that Newsday dubbed him ‘regular Joe Commuter.’ Subway stories are a staple of his standard speech fare.
Unfortunately for that image, New York Times reporters staked out the mayor’s home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for five weeks recently. The resulting story reported that the mayor was picked up every morning by two gas-guzzling police Chevy Suburbans. Most days they drove him all the way downtown to his office at City Hall.
About twice a week before driving all the way downtown to City Hall anyway, the Suburbans drive 22 blocks past two local subway stops to an express line station at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, where they drop the billionaire off for the straight shot down to City Hall.
The closest subway stop to the mayor’s home is about a five-minute walk.
A mayoral spokesman said the mayor stopped walking there when he attracted hordes of cameras and photographers. Informed that Times reporters had never seen any photographers lurking near the mayor’s home, the spokesman said, ‘So you’re saying the solution worked.’
Of course, when Bloomberg gets to the White House after the independent campaign he says he has no plans to run, he’ll be able to commute by simply walking down some thickly-carpeted stairs.
--Andrew Malcolm