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Thursday, December 30, 1999
NEW YORK CITY--As the city prepares for the largest celebration in its history and delegates from around the world meet at the UN to discuss the mysterious events in Indonesia, it feels like a matching being brought to a giant barrel of gunpowder. One can feel it walking down the street. Nerves are on edge, excitement all but bursts into an ecstatic cry.
The mayor obviously feels it too. He's call for the New York City Police department to pull double shifts, patrolling Times Square and the several city blocks around it. He has even enlisted the help from police and sheriffs in cities and towns throughout New York State. "It's not about stopping people from having a good time," Mayor Gullianni said in a speech, counting an accusation about police state tactics. "People are going to live it up no matter what I do, I just don't want anyone to get hurt."
He has also called for special attention to particular parties known as raves. Famous among college kids for their hedonistic extremes and known to be saturated with various popular street drugs, the mayor said that they will add an element of chaos that is certainly not wanted. Such parties have had a history of developing into small scale riots, particularly when police attempt to break them up.
Guillianni gained much popularity from turning New York into the safest city in the country. However these new steps have some people say he's going too far. A director with Dick Clark's Rock N Roll New Years, who wished to remain anonymous said: "I've been doing this for 15 years, and more people have never caused more trouble. It gets so packed in Times Square taht you can even move, much less riot or tear down the city, or whatever Rudy expects to happen. Most of the wild partiers know to avoid the city and go out into the middle of nowhere. I'm more worried about traffic on the 1st than some sort of explosion of hedonism."
The reason for the focus on such parties, is of course from the recent outbreaks of raves in various cities in the northeast. The groups of people having pre-new year parties have been often getting so out of hand, that some cities have been following Buffalo's lead, creating curfews and prohibiting large gatherings, public or private, in this week leading up to the year 2000.
Sources say that virtually all the officers on patrol
will be in riot gear, and prepared for anything to happen. The police
will be there to ensure you have a good time, not to prohibit it.
Have a Happy New Year and a pleasent millenium.
(the pervasive emotionalism should seem strange for this
new article--that was intentional--it's not an editorial.)