New York is no
model for America

  The more recent groups, Latino Americans, African Americans and every other ethnic community under heaven, join in the rage. The results? Nothing gets done. If Chicago is sometimes the ''city that works'' (when the state Legislature is not fooling around), New York is a city that does not ever work.

  Consider Columbus Circle. For the better part of a decade, New York has been messing with it and has not yet finished. Each year, there is a new construction obstacle. Nor is there any reason to think the place looks any better now than it did 10 years ago. Worse still is the fate of the site of the World Trade Center. In rationally run locales, it would have been self-evident that the only response to the Saudi attackers was to replace the center immediately. Now six years later, maybe, just maybe, reconstruction is beginning. The drawings suggest that the new center may well be more ugly than its predecessor.

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  Worst still is Broadway, a street that has been praised extravagantly by songsmiths from George M. Cohan to Bob Fosse. It is in fact a wide, smelly, noisy alley. One sits in a delightful sidewalk trattoria, consumes delicious pasta Bolognese and high-quality Chianti and pretends that this is a magical setting, despite the garbage at the edge of the street (because the geniuses who built the Big Apple figured they didn't need alleys!), the buses that pump exhaust fumes into the cafe, the horns equipped with cars, the fire sirens, the rumble of refuse trucks and the constant clanging of mobile phone alarms.

  Pedestrians walk on cracked sidewalks with impunity, either because of genetic programming or because they have fallen often and have learned how to navigate the Big Apple. They also know how to swarm against red lights and escape the certain slaughter of tourists who try the same thing.

  Everyone in New York is a critic. However, some people are paid to be critics -- professional
judges of books, opera, plays, sports, concerts, art and architecture. Because they are very
clever and write skillfully, they can find flaws in almost any activity and thus create a general
atmosphere of bored cynicism. Manhattan has more talent per cubic foot than anyplace in the world, and they'll tell you in great detail how talented they are.

  They'll also tell you how former mayor (pronounced mayuh instead of the proper mare) Rudy Giuliani will deal with the Islamists just as he did with the (African-American) street gangs by unleashing the cops with their billy clubs. No one mentions that crime declined everywhere during those years without the mayuh's fascist tactics. A Giuliani administration would make the present incumbent look like a member of the ACLU.

  Libera nos, Domine!

Read Father Greeley's latest Articles: 
New York is no model for America        Two welcome insights from Readers
Mukasey would enable power grab        Americans are feeling broken hearted
Will we fall for war vs. Iran?                   U.S. needs to get back on track
Why are there no war crimes trials?       Bias against 'illegals' no longer acceptable? 
Why won't Bush admit mistakes?          Bush not swayed by Iraq reality
True or false: Can Bush tell difference?   A church 'scandal' that isn't.

Read the Chicago SunTimes' Daily Southtown articles.