Teen Seriously Injured in Central Park BlastNYPD bomb-squad investigators have found no evidence that the incident was connected to terrorism, and are now looking for the fireworks “hobbyist” who constructed the device.
Not Drizzle, Not Humidity, Not Dark of Night…
Flickr is, unsurprisingly, filled today with a few thousand shots of the Macy’s fireworks on the East River. Our favorites, we think, are by Flickr user JBParker, who snapped this smoke-and-color-filled shot — but, truth is, the show looks better in nearly all of them than we remember it looking to us last night. Of course, that might be because now we’re not getting drizzled on.
New York City Fireworks [Flickr]
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Every Day’s the Fourth of July
We’re off tomorrow, as we suspect you are, too. Macy’s says the big show starts at 9 p.m., with “120,000 burst of color” shot from four barges in the East River, three between 23rd and 42nd Streets and one south of the Brooklyn Bridge. We’ll be watching from Brooklyn Heights; if all else fails, there’s always the NBC broadcast. See you Thursday, ideally sunburned and hung-over.
early and often
Could Bloomberg’s Fireworks Phobia Hurt Presidential Plans?
If presidential candidate Bloomberg, should there be a presidential candidate Bloomberg, hopes to snag a certain key swing state, he might want to revisit his get-tough position on fireworks. Last year, citing safety concerns, Bloomberg caused a stir among pyrotechnics enthusiasts by sending undercover NYPD cops to the parking lots of fireworks stands in Pennsylvania. New York’s Finest followed purchasers back to the city (where the cops have jurisdiction) and seized the buyers’ caches and — in some cases — their cars. This year, the NYPD has similar plans, as does the New York State Police, which for the first time in recent years is also piling onto the annual July 4 anti-fireworks crackdown. All of which has pyrotechnics peddlers pissed.
