If I Ruled NYC: Tourist Policy

N.Y. Souvenir, 5th Ave. near 47th St.
Pretty soon tourists will figure out that the most "new yorky" things left in New York are tourist shops.  And all those shops are doomed to lose their lease, so we need to get as much out of tourists as we can now, before they get wise.

As Absolute Ruler of New York, I would do the following:

1) Install a pair of "Welcome to the Big Apple" arches -- like the famous arch in Reno, Nevada, left -- over 34th St. outside Penn Station, where open-top tour buses pass by every 30 seconds heading east.

2) Install sprayers on the first arch the buses pass under, to spray the "roofie" drug on tourists so they forget what's going to happen to them.

3) Install incredibly powerful vacuum hoses in the next arch, to suck up everything the drugged tourists wear and carry.

Don't worry!  An attendant in an apple costume will be ready to unclog the hoses in case a child, scrawny person, or extra large pair of sweatpants gets sucked into the vacuum.

4) Pay for the program, and enrich the city's coffers, by selling the tourists' cellphones, credit cards, cameras, shoes, etc. to Internet entrepreneurs.

5) Give the tour bus company a cut to take the groggy tourists to Fort Lee, New Jersey and drop them off behind a motel -- so that any complaints about their trip will be about New Jersey!

Earlier: If I Ruled NYC

Stereo Plaza Mall, 8th Ave. near 37th St.

If I Ruled NYC

The signs suggest NYC "loves it hard," and I'd be happy to oblige.  If I ruled New York City:

Cellphones would explode at the "event horizon" of my presence, forming a ring of fire 80 feet across.

If only!  Unfortunately I have not developed super powers to match my super desires, so I have to be more realistic:

Bankers would spontaneously combust and make an unearthly shrieking sound, like a burning witch, as they melt into puddles along the sidewalk.

Again, sadly, I'm hoping too high on the hog, because the childhood warning "liar liar pants on fire" has turned out to be nothing but empty words, words that only affect people with a conscience -- a laughable weapon in these times, like a gun that shoots best wishes.  So I have to be even more realistic:

Drivers would be required to have microscopic horns implanted in their ears before they could use their horn or car alarm, so that using them would unleash a skull cracking, eye exploding assault that would cripple the driver and leave them with a never-ending ringing in their ears, as if they were wearing a Gothic church bell hat, even as deafness set in and their sanity drooled out their ears.

Hmm... Still too hopeful.  Drivers are sitting in their escape vehicle, so it would be hard to round them up for the implants without assaulting their vehicle, which would probably destroy it and leave massive piles of wreckage all over the city, causing even more honking and alarm.  I guess I'm just going to have to settle for something pathetically mediocre and hardly worth doing:

Flatbed trucks with catapults would patrol the streets 24/7, flinging cinder blocks at luxury developments until they're all reduced to rubble.  Then crews would pour compost over the rubble and plant flowers.  The flowers would attract bees, their honey would attract bears, and the bears would kill any new developers who threaten their idyllic hill of rubble, flowers and bees.

And if, God forbid, even that turns out to be asking too much, maybe I'll just order the Sanitation Department to stop trucking garbage out to fill every hoot 'n holler in the country, and start flinging it over the fence of hole-in-the-ground developments, like the one in Williamsburg below.

Beekman Tower Launch Party

While vacationing in Florida, I tested
the concept with a single Saturn V rocket
If I ruled the world I would give the cream of the financial industry free apartments in Beekman Tower, then throw a blow-out party with gourmet food and recreational drugs served by sex professionals working the halls from top to bottom.

Then I would seal the entrance, strip the scaffolds camouflaging the half dozen surplus Saturn V rockets I had strapped to the building, and press the launch button.

Note that it wouldn't cost me a huge amount to pull this off because, where the typical manned space flight requires an expensive guidance system to go somewhere specific and come back, I really don't care where the rocket goes, just so long as it never comes back.

Making NYC a Better Place

I push crosswalk buttons along the West Side Highway even when I don't
cross, so drivers can stop and contemplate their role in Global Warming
You might think that, as a blogger, I just run my mouth and leave it at that. But talk is cheap, and I am a man of action!  Here's what I've been doing to make NYC a better place:

Reduce Clutter and Noise.  If I notice a distracted cellphone user peering at my ankles -- using me as a guide through sidewalk traffic so they can update their Facebook page or argue with a Customer Service representative while on the move -- I try to lure them into vehicle traffic to get run over.

Reduce Health Care Costs.  If I succeed in getting them run over, or I come across the scene of an accident, I become a First Responder and ask the victim questions from my Karma Triage Checklist like: Who did you vote for in the past few elections, do you support universal health care, and have you ever been a murderer, a child molester, or a Fox News fan?

If they pass the test, I yell for the paramedics; if they fail, I flash my 99 Cent Store badge and tell the gathering crowd to disperse, then drag the failure to the gutter, cover them with newspaper, and leave their fate to God.

This may seem cruel, but since we have a huge surplus of assholes on earth, why hoard them?

Reduce Effects of Global Warming.  When miserable summer heat forces me out of my oven-like apartment, I find a strip of stores with arctic air conditioning and automatic sliding doors, then walk back & forth in front of them.  This approach not only cools me down, it cools down the city and planet too!

What have YOU done today to make NYC a better place?