NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg had folks questioning what planet he was on Monday when he declared “there aren’t very many panhandlers left” in city subways.
Bloomberg got irritated when the question of panhandlers came up in a press conference.
He cut off the questioner, saying, “There aren’t very many panhandlers left, in all fairness to the MTA. Come on.”
Advocates quickly suggested our billionaire mayor’s sight may be clouded by the security detail around him when he travels from the upper East Side to City Hall on the subway.
Joel Berg, head of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, called the remark “absurd” and said it “bears no relation to reality.”
Saying the mayor lives in an entirely different city “from the one that I and 8 million other New Yorkers live in,” Berg added, “To quote that great statistician, Chico Marx, ‘Who you gonna believe – me or your eyes?'”
Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign reacted less harshly to the mayor’s comments, saying, “I respectfully disagree with him” and adding that riders probably would, too.
{NY Daily News/Matzav.com}
Is he kidding? On Sundays there will be three or four on the same train!
The Mayor is right. They no longer use pans. They use their caps, cups, etc. We may have cap handlers and cup handlers, but no pan handlers.
Yes Lord Mike. Sorry to disturb you, in your ivory tower! Whenever you take the subway, you have the NYPD clear it out way before your highness puts his precious feet in the subway door! You are are so far out of touch with the common hard working, tax paying, New Yorker, it’s pathetic! It’s high time you & your side kick Ray “cover up” Kelly, step down!