Police let civilians back on the street.

9:14

The scene is already being dismantled. The explosives man is taking off his suit. News come in of a suspicious package at the local synagogue.

9:10

There is a small, indeterminate pop like a plastic container falling to the ground.

9:00

Situation remains tense but still no defining moment. The man in the suit returned briefly while some students quickly grabbed some cameras and went to cover it.

8:50

The bomb squad arrived. Police outfitted an expert in a heavy anti-explosives suit that resembled an astronaut’s gear. This “astronaut” donned his helmet and ambled towards seventh avenue.

8:45

Made it upstairs through the entrance on 41st street. At this point, everyone except police cleared the block. The scene unfolded right underneath the newsroom windows.

The incident is starting to look increasingly like a bomb threat.

8:30

Arrived at the scene to discover a police line stretched across the entrance to 40th street between 7th and 8th avenue. Police trucks kept rolling in while civilians kept filing out under police direction.

**I have now edited the photo selection and added captions.

Palestino brothers Kenneth, 5 and Kevin, 7 receive their first ID cards.

 At the 104th Street Fair some children scribbled in the world, flowers, and a cornucopia with sidewalk chalk.  Another crowd of children patiently gazed up at a clown as she magically turned a yellow scarf red. Other children clung to their parent’s hips and formed a line outside of the blue NYPD tent, waiting to be fingerprinted, photographed, and measured.

Operation Safe Child, similar to other Missing Child Alert programs, provides parents with up-to-date information about their child, in the form of an ID card. The child’s address, date-of-birth, eye color, exact height, weight along with other information on the card is stored in a New York State Police database and can be quickly circulated in case of an abduction or missing child emergency.

Brittany Staley from the Bronx and mother of two-year old, Nevaeh Reynolds, thought the idea of registering her daughter was useful.  “Just in case someone kidnaps her or she wanders off, you never know what can happen, she said.  “If she goes to daycare she can keep the card in her backpack.”

In New York City 5,839 children were reported missing in 2007.  A large majority of the cases involve children thirteen and older who are considered runaways.  Officer Garcia from the 23^rd Precinct explained that the East Harlem neighborhood doesn’t hear of many lost children reports.  Roughly about once a month Police say they receive a call about a missing teenager, who most likely turns up back home after a few days.

Regardless of statistics, prevention was on the minds of many parents.  Yvette Russo mother of a nine-year-old, Tyrese, said, “You can never be too safe.”

Kevin Palestino is fingerprinted

The silver Subaru had been parked -- upon impact two tons of vehicle moved five feet onto the sidewalk

Early Sunday morning I woke up early to get a head start on my reading. Forty-five minutes later, I heard a loud screech and then a BOOM!– then a car alarm … Car accident … I could tell the sound came from my block, right in front. When I looked out the window, I saw that one of the vehicles had smashed my parents’ parked car, which was now at least five feet up on the sidewalk. After hustling to get dressed, I grabbed my notebook and press pass, and then I ran out the front door. Suddenly, I was reporting.

Police, Fire, and ambulances had gotten there by this point. First I stood about ten feet away from where firefighters cracked open the doors of the car and rescued the driver and passenger (they were lucky they weren’t killed, and looked as if they may have only been whip lashed and were clearly in shock). After they were taken away on stretchers, I began to try to find out what happened.

Eyewitness Louis Gallo told me that while he was walking his dog on 6th Avenue near the corner of 1st Street, he saw a burgundy Nissan Maxima heading south on 6th attempt to pass a white livery cab going in the same direction. As the livery cab slowed at the intersection, the Nissan accelerated to pass it on the left across the double yellow line. The livery cab began to take a left turn, which clipped the Nissan, causing its driver to completely lose control of her vehicle.

She most likely cut the steering wheel sharply to the right to compensate for being knocked to the left and also to avoid colliding head-on with the parked car pointing in the opposite direction. Simultaneously, she must have slammed the brakes. Gallo told me she was going at least 40 mph.

And she must have been going at least that fast. After getting hit, her momentum carried her another 100 feet slamming into my parents’ silver Subaru Forester and then spinning out (fishtailing) almost 180 degrees.

The burgundy Nissan was actually coming towards the camera when it collided with the white livery cab in the intersection

So my folks and I, who were in shock, then dealt with our “insurance” company. My parents have been paying Geico thousands upon thousands of dollars in car insurance premiums for twenty years in Brooklyn (which has exorbitant car insurance costs compared to the rest of the country). As I know from dealing with health insurance companies, Medicaid, and Healthy NY, insurance businesses are not there to truly provide a safety net– they’re trying to get away with paying as little as possible if anything at all.

But here’s my question: if the car is totaled, you get the worth of the car in the used market, but no car to drive. But if the damage is not past the threshold of “now totaled,” insurance pays for the repairs, and then you have your car back, good as new. This, I suppose, is understandable. But if you were no where near the vehicle when it gets destroyed, how is it that the worse the damage to your car is, the worse off you are? I thought that’s why you have insurance.

I asked someone about this and she told me that it was the same thing with Hurricane Katrina. If your house was damaged and could be repaired, insurance covered it and you had a house to live in. If your house was beyond repair, you got a check (valued at well below the actual value of the house) and then you became homeless. Am I the only one that this doesn’t sit very well with? Let me know your insurance stories if you have them, whether it be auto, health, home, life, etc.

I manage to meander these streets with very little fear in my step. The one place, however, that sets my heart racing and forces to me to ask the question “why on earth do I live here?” is the Times Square subway station.

Mp5 submachine guns make me uneasy like nothing else. While our mayor seems convinced armed guards bring about a sense of security to most New Yorkers, I experience a low to mid grade panic attack every time I run into these guys. 

The placement of the guards in our underground system began last April and is called “Operation Torch.” More than 7 years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the city decided heightened security might be a good idea. Similarly above ground, NYPD squads known as “Hercules Teams” began trolling around Wall Street and landmarks such as the Empire State Building. 

Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement two weeks ago at a congressional hearing, the lives of New Yorkers were improved the guards because we can all “feel safer.” $151 Million dollars has been poured into the units, and Bloomberg urged congress to give me more. Wall Street is falling apart, banks are shutting down, and Mayor Bloomberg wants more money for guns. 

Yes, it is important to protect our city, and it is important to have the equipment to do so. I don’t want to forget I live in a dangerous place, and I do think it’s important to be alert and vigilant about our security. I however, do not want to live in what feels like a police state. I have had my bag searched more times than I’d like to admit (I suppose my look of fear, can translate to a look of guilt though I always come out clean); and I would like to not feel like someone is going to shoot me every time I go to get on the A train. 

I remember when I was younger and a friend of mine had come back from Egypt with her family. She was showing me pictures and noted the guards with machine guns walking around the town. I said to her I hoped I never lived in a place like that. Now, unfortunately, I feel like I do.