Mayor de Blasio’s response to the Trump Tower mess is turning Fifth Avenue into a yuge disaster. Why not turn it into a local good?
Last Tuesday, as people in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin were making Trump the president-elect, New York City (and the Secret Service) were making Trump Tower the northern White House.
By midmorning, sanitation trucks ringed the building. By 9:30 p.m., as a street vendor was putting away his Hillary Clinton buttons and keeping out his Trump buttons, police were extending the security zone.
And by the weekend, it was clear: things aren’t going back to normal anytime soon. Jersey barriers now ring the tower, replacing the salt trucks.
Fifty-sixth Street between Madison and Sixth avenues is closed to traffic (car and foot).
On Fifth Avenue, two vehicle lanes are closed. Madison has one lane closed.
Pedestrians must herd themselves between metal barriers, because much of the sidewalk is taken up by protesters and press.
Buses can’t pick up passengers.
Nobody can walk by the stores on the Fifth Avenue side of Trump Tower.
And during big anti-Trump protests, all of Fifth is shut down to cars, buses, and trucks.
Monday morning, marchers were gone, but daytime traffic was back. One ambulance on 50th Street with sirens blaring had to wait three light cycles to move crosstown.
What does de Blasio say? “The holidays are coming anyway. Midtown is going to be all messed up anyway,” he told reporters. “We’re talking about the next few months and then Donald Trump is going to be living in the White House.”
But the fact that the holidays are here isn’t an excuse not to act.
It’s an excuse to act fast.
Even when Trump is in Washington, Trump Tower will still still be his house. Family members, including his wife and young son, will come and go. The tower is also emblazoned with Trump’s name. Even when Trump is not there, the building is going to be a prime terrorist target for four years and nine weeks (at least).
And much of what we’re seeing is not security, but security theater. Jersey barriers, as the US government notes, “are ineffective against vehicular attack.” You haven’t been able to drive anywhere near the White House since the Oklahoma City bombing.
Meanwhile, cordoning pedestrians as cars and trucks go by puts pedestrians at risk of a France-style truck attack.
So what to do?
Ban all traffic except yellow cabs (whose owners have already paid to use the city’s densest streets), delivery vehicles and city buses, from 58th to 48th streets. Drivers prefer constrained predictability to unconstrained chaos.
That would leave room for deliveries at night and bus and cab pick-ups and drop-offs during the day, in the lanes farthest from Trump Tower, making room for more permanent protection for the tower itself.
The city and Secret Service could work with owners of private buses, too, including tour buses, to vet drivers and set schedules.
And Fifth Avenue’s business owners could run a shuttle bus for people getting dropped off elsewhere who are unable to walk the few blocks.
That would leave room for the crush of pedestrians, plus protesters and press, and even some tables and chairs for a pop-up café on 56th Street, for restaurants and stores who are losing business.
Plus: make it look nicer. Get rid of the metal barriers, which offer even worse protection than jersey barriers. Replace them with something more substantial to separate walkers from drivers — and ask designers on the street to decorate them, fast, for the holidays.
There are problems with every idea — and the mayor should tweak as needed. The worst idea is to do nothing, and wait for Trump to leave. That’s what got us Trump.
This piece originally appeared in the New York Post
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Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post