Of Bombs and Bombshells

“Grew up in a town that is famous as a place of movie scenes
Noise is always loud, there are sirens all around and the streets are mean”

When visiting New York for the first time, the city is overwhelming and yet familiar at the same time: Crowds rushing down the Avenues, people jogging through Central Park, couples sitting on the steps of brownstone buildings and business women stretching their arms into the air trying to hail a cab.

So many places and scenes from New York feature on TV shows and movies, that coming here for the first time feels weirdly unreal… almost like stepping into a movie set.

Virtually all areas of New York have featured in movies, including my neighbourhood of Park Slope. “As Good as It Gets”, “The Intern”, “The Age of Innocence”, “Mona Lisa Smile”, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, “The Royal Tenenbaums” and many more have been shot on the streets I stroll on every day. And, as of last Sunday, it’s time to add another movie to the list.

On Sunday morning, I was crudely awoken by dozens of voices and the sounds of sweeping right outside my window. I was expecting to see all my neighbours on the streets in some gigantic “make our street beautiful” effort but was instead surprised to see a film crew setting up and cleaning the area. It turns out, they were preparing to shoot scenes for a new Japanese movie in my street, just outside my bedroom window. This was really annoying and at the same time, quite exciting! While I really needed a lie, long-term, I think it’s more fun to be able to say that I lived on a street that was used as a movie scenes.

“Grew up in a town that is famous as a place of movie scenes"

Another aspect of New York that features prominently in movies is New York’s police chasing criminals through the city, trying to fight evil villains supported by superheroes like SpiderMan swinging through the streets.

While New York is nowhere near as dangerous as it is in the movies and as it was in the 80’s, there is still a lot of crime in the city. Last month, the city celebrated its first shooting-free weekend in 25 years; I am torn whether that is actually a reason for celebration of concern... 

In addition to the “traditional” crime, there is also the new kind of crime: terrorism. The Twin Towers are of course the most prominent example of terrorism in New York, but they are sadly not the only one. I remember that when I visited the city in 2016, there was a car bombing taking place ten blocks away from where I was having a late-night dinner.

Today, on World Children’s Day, the Safety Officer at UNICEF made an announcement that a suspicious parcel had been found in the courtyard outside the main entrance and asked everyone located on floors 1 – 5 to vacate the adjacent side of the building and move away from the suspicious object. Shortly after that, New York Police and the Bomb Squad took over the scene, ordered to evacuate the premises and blocked off the street as hundreds of people were rushing out of the building. Fortunately, a couple of hours later, the police gave the all-clear with the package turning out to be only suspicious but not dangerous. 

The incident made for a minor scare, but a pleasantly early end to my work day. On my ride home, I was busy reading the news when I noticed a girl screaming, running past the train on the platform and jumping into my carriage. Someone I couldn’t see was chasing her and also stormed into the carriage; it seemed as if he was trying to stab her. Clueless as to what was actually going on, but with active shooter incidents at the forefront of everyone’s mind, panic broke out as people tried to get off the train and away from the scene. In the end, only angry words were exchanged and no-one was injured, but the shock and adrenalin rush of the experience stayed with me for the rest of the day.

"Noise is always loud, there are sirens all around and the streets are mean"