December 12, 2009
The End," by Ed Ruscha (2001)
December 10, 2009
Truth is stranger than DeLillo's fiction:
According to the New York Times City Blog, a man was shot by a police sergeant today outside the Marriot hotel at 46th and Broadway, after fleeing a street-vending investigation. The man died at St Lukes Hospital, and, according to the Police Department, had drawn a machine pistol on the officer.
If I were there today, I would have expected the Christmas shoppers and tourists to flee the scene screaming, but instead they gawked. And not only did they gawk, they advanced. And not only did they crowd around, they took pictures.
Here's an excerpt from the Times piece; it's something DeLillo could have easily written, somewhere between White Noise and Underworld:
The intersection of 46th and Broadway is in the heart of Times Square. The hotel — and a giant Bank of America illuminated sign — is at the southwestern corner; a large new American Eagle Outfitters store is to the northwest; Father Duffy Square (and the TKTS booth that sells discounted Broadway tickets) is to the northeast; and a traffic island is to the southeast.
In the shooting’s aftermath, there did not appear to be significant alarm, at least as judged by tourists who, far from avoiding the area, seemed to push forward to get a view of what had happened.
Emer Rooney, 33, a visitor from Ireland on the last day of a trip to New York, walked with a friend from a nearby hotel to take pictures of the scene. She said she had never felt unsafe in New York. “I actually feel it’s very safe,” she said. “Look at all the police officers.” She cited the shooting, in fact, as one of the more exciting moments of her trip, including recovering lost luggage at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and getting tickets to the musical “Wicked.”
A tourist from Australia, Suzanne Davis, 42, stopped to take images with a video recorder. “It’s my first day in New York, so it makes very real what you see in the movies,” she said.
Nearby, vendors continued to sell tickets for double-decker bus tours.