New York City isn’t as tough as it once was, but it’s practicing.
A few weeks ago, I saw a young black woman barreling down the sidewalk on Madison Avenue. She tackled an elderly white woman at a bus stop. I was on the bus and saw the whole thing unfold. The elderly woman rolled over to protect her purse, which prompted her assailant to start choking her. At that point two clerks from a shop ran out and the attacker fled. The bus driver opened the door and the elderly woman hobbled abroad to the cheers of the other passengers.
Our bus proceeded up Madison where three blocks later we saw the same young woman tackling another elderly woman. This time the bus didn’t stop. As far as I know, no police were involved. Even if a cop had arrested the young mugger, she would doubtless have been back on the street within hours to pursue her trade.
Jody, my wife, works near Port Authority several blocks west of me, which is a distinctively grittier neighborhood. Here on Madison Avenue the drug deals are semi-discreet. Over there, you have to step around the addicts with needles hanging off their well-traveled arms. Yesternoon, Jody was ordering a sandwich at her usual spot, when a thief grabbed something and headed towards the door. I’ll let her tell the story:
Two (1 and 2) guys caught up to him (BG, bad guy) at the door. 1 and 2 tackled BG as he was leaving. BG resisted and 2 threw him down to the ground and BG hit a display case. Then another guy (3 from sandwich counter) came over to help. 1, 2, and 3 were throwing BG out as BG hit 3 in the head with his umbrella. By this time 4 (from sandwich counter) had also run to the door. Everyone trying the wrestle the guy and throw him out. BG also threw punches, and 3 hit him back while trying to push him out.
This is nothing out of the ordinary in NYC these days. I don’t want to exaggerate. Some days I don’t see any robberies or assaults at all and the cops, who are now deployed to the subways to deter psychotic people from shoving unwary travelers into the path of on-coming trains, linger peacefully against the walls. Turnstile jumpers and vagrants who smell so ripe that they can empty rush-hours cars don’t count, let alone people smoking joints or bringing their alpaca-size canine companions onto mass transit.
Sometimes the lyrics of an early Bob Dylan song come to mind: “If you’re lookin’ to get silly/ You better go back to from where you came/ Because the cops don’t need you/ And man they expect the same.” Dylan was evoking the border town Juarez (“And it’s Eastertime too”), but now much of Juarez has moved to the vicinity of Times Square, thanks to the hospitality of our mayor, Eric Adams, and are living rent-free in luxury hotels. So it is not all bad.
In any case, if you are looking not to get silly but want to live here, it is wise to know how to move. Jody and I have been taking karate classes for fourteen years. The aim is not to learn how to punch and kick your way out of a tight spot, but to avoid getting into one in the first place. The Japanese term for this is “tai sabaki,” which means roughly evasive movement, or never being where danger will find you. That means more than just fancy footwork around aggressive people. In NYC it means spotting the problematic guy half a block away, and when not to stand too close to a cop, who is not necessarily your friend. It means walking a little faster than the crowd and not getting stuck at a street corner. It requires shutting off the too-friendly overture from a stranger, and not getting tricked into apologizing for bumping someone who may in fact have staged the bump.
Sound like fun? There is a reason why nearly half the office space in Manhattan is currently vacant. Commuting by Zoom has real psychological drawbacks, but so does getting knifed.
Mayor Adams is now demanding that people entering stores remove their masks, at least temporarily. Some are customers who have been warped into believing they should wear masks forever to protect themselves from Covid. Their masks are a religious devotion to a false god, and they deserve a measure of pity. But other masketeers are professional shoplifters and bandits. The authorities have gradually become alert to the readiness of shopkeepers and even the general public to take matters into their own hands. The cops won’t or can’t do anything, and our George Soros-backed district attorney Alvin Bragg stands resolutely against sending criminals to jail, so what’s left is street justice. You can evade the predators only so much, before you have to start teaching the predators to evade you.
