On my way to work this morning in the Flatiron District, I noticed that a section of Broadway was closed off and covered in snow. Snow covering the ground when it’s fifty-five degrees out isn’t the first thing you expect to see, but getting off the train this morning the ice greeted me. It took me a minute or two before I saw the cameras and realized it was some kind of film shoot. Tourists were more confused than I was, which always makes me smile. I’m always happy to get what’s going on before those around me. The existence of tourists means this can happen quite often.
You see a lot of crazy things on the streets of New York. (Perhaps the most cliché sentence ever written.) A few months ago, I saw Minnie Mouse getting arrested in Times Square. She was getting people to take pictures with her for cash, which is illegal. I couldn’t help but think, as the cops were hassling this human-sized rodent, that there had to be a more dangerous crime happening somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen. Or that Disney was charging $150 for tickets to crap like The Lion King just a few blocks away, which certainly should be a crime. It’s not. I’ve never lived in the City when Disney didn’t run Times Square and film crews didn’t block off roads to shoot winter in the fall. Friends of mine who’ve lived here for decades tell stories of the old New York. One where you didn’t see Minnie Mouse arrested, but a drag queen selling herself for coke on 42nd Street. I’ve never seen anything like that in Manhattan. Back home in Brooklyn, probably. I’ve lived in Brooklyn for over two years after eight years mostly in Manhattan. It’s a different world. Everyone out on the streets actually lives there. Nobody is walking around with cameras on vacation. I’m the guy who is usually confused about what’s going on around me. There is something nice about living in a place where people actually live permanently. Minnie Mouse could never get arrested. ____________________________About the author: Ryan is a theater director and social media consultant who lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Follow him on twitter.com/ryannewyork.