I spent my St. Patrick's day in New York City, tilting at a very large windmill - American International Group.
After a weekend of stewing about the outrageous bonus payments that a group of top AIG execs received, I decided on Monday that I wasn't going to simply sit behind a keyboard and vent my outrage any longer. So, on Tuesday morning, I hopped on one of the Chinatown buses that runs between Philadelphia and NYC (what a great deal - $20 round trip, and I didn't have to drive!), and headed for AIG's corporate headquarters at 70 Pine St.
Grab a beverage of your choice, pull up a chair, and follow me below the flip...
The walk from NYC's Chinatown to the financial district isn't particularly far - probably less than a mile - but there's so much in the city for the senses to take in that it seems longer. As I made my way down Broadway from Worth St., I decided to take a short detour down Fulton, and walked over to the World Trade Center area. I've been to NYC many times since 9/11, but never visited the site to pay my respects.
What started as a quick side trip up the block to view a recent gash on American history became almost a quest. The area is totally fenced and blocked, and there just isn't a good vantage point to scope out the construction / reconstruction activities from street level. So I headed down Liberty St. toward the West Side Highway, through throngs of construction workers at lunch, headed up the stairs toward the 1 World Financial Center building, and was finally able to get a fairly decent view from the skyway to 1 WFC.
It struck me how so little has really been accomplished at the site in the 7-1/2 years since the buildings came down. Certainly, there have been many logistical and political issues involved in the reconstruction, but when you actually see the hole for the first time, it's surprising that there has been so little local or national will to rebuild the area.
As I left 1 WFC, making my way toward Broadway I walked past the many small stores and eateries at street level. I tried to visualize what it must have been like to be a cashier in one of those shops when the towers came down, and I wondered how long this whole section of lower Manhattan had been basically uninhabitable before the bodegas and restaurants could reopen. My mind wouldn't wrap around the imagery, so I let it go, but I clearly need to revisit that entire corner of my head sometime in the future.
Heading back down Broadway, I noticed a police car - no, two - no, three or four - with their light bars blinking near the corner of Cedar. I knew that I was getting close to Pine St., and there were news reports that security had been ramped up at all AIG facilities due to threatening emails and phone calls. Was the NYPD presence part of the security response?
As I turned down Pine St., it was clear that the cops weren't on the street for AIG, because there didn't appear to be any security personnel in view as I walked toward the headquarters building, two blocks distant. In fact, except for a small placard on the front of the building, and the address being stenciled on the window of the lobby coffee shop, I would have missed the building entirely. That's the way the canyons of the financial district unfold.
I stopped in front of 70 Pine St. to take a picture. It's a huge building, but has a deceptively small entrance for a 66 story skyscraper. From inside the building lobby, through a single revolving doorway, a security guy watched me warily as I snapped the photos, but I continued moving. I circled the block, and stopped in a Duane Reade drugstore to pick up a piece of poster board. Outside of the store, I pulled a Sharpie pen out of my backpack, created my sign, folded it, and put it in my pack. The logistics of my protest were now in place...
My mini-protest started at around 1PM, just as the office workers were returning from lunch. I situated myself directly on the other side of Pine St., about 10 yards opposite from the entrance to the AIG building. I pulled my sign out, and leaned it against a wall near the receiving entrance of the Deutche Bank building. There was a African American gentleman standing near me, early thirty-ish, perhaps, well dressed in street clothes, and he started chatting me up. Suddenly, I could hear the security radio he was carrying start squawking - someone inside had noticed me: "It's starting! Get a supervisor." Ok, the undercover guy was busted. But he was cool enough, very personable, and after apparently assessing that I wasn't a significant threat, he eventually went about his business.
Not five minutes later, a tall, suited-up, muscular white guy approached me. He looked at me, had a half of a smile on his face, and said: "Sir, I'm with Deutche Bank security. While I respect your right to protest, and in fact I might even agree with you, this is Deutche Bank property and you can't stand on that side of the lease line."
I quickly mulled my options. "Ok, I thought the sidewalk was legally considered as public space. Where does the lease line run? Where can I stand?"
"Right there," he responded, as he pointed to a patch of pavement that was nearer curbside to the street, no more than a yard in front of where I was standing. It all seemed very ludicrous to me. I grabbed my sign and took a giant step forward.
"See you later," I said as he departed.
After this most inauspicious of starts to my protest, I suspect that most readers are asking the question: were you there by yourself? Indeed I was. There were no other rabble rousers or sign-carrying riff raff or righteously indignant masses shouting anti-AIG bonus slogans. I was it. While the security detail wasn't large, they outnumbered me significantly, and they weren't the only contingent with more manpower than myself.
I stood curbside holding my sign for about 30 minutes, and I noticed a young guy with a slicked up Cannon digital camera taking pictures right next to the revolving door of the AIG building. Security was trying to shoo him off, but he was having none of it. Not only did he snap many, many pictures from different angles of the entrance and the American International Building plaque, he was actually taking photos of the guards. And they were starting to get pissed. Office workers were streaming in and out of the building, and the photographer was getting in the way. Finally, one of the security guys told him, "The police have been called."
He walked across the street, and related the story to me. "Great," I'm thinking. "I'm minding my own business, coloring inside the lines, and this wanker is going to get me run off by the NYPD."
Turns out the guy was a photographer with the Wall Street Journal, and we started talking about the situation. "I'm surprised no one else is out here. You disappointed?" he asked.
"Given what's happened in the past 48 hours, I'm surprised, but not disappointed," I replied. He asked if he could take my picture, and I reluctantly consented. And as other reporters drifted past my location (NY Post, Newsweek, a TV crew, among others) during the course of the afternoon, a theme developed: they all posed variations of the WSJ photographer's question.
My picture was taken many, many times as the day wore on. Professional photographers, bicycle couriers, people passing in cars or walking by, and workers from the AIG bulding snapping my photo with their cell phones. One fairly young guy, long hair, well dressed (and expensive sunglasses cooly perched on top of his head) came out of the building and actually requested permission to take a picture with what appeared to be a Blackberry. "Knock yourself out," I sighed.
I spoke with many people as they walked by me on Pine Street, enroute to wherever their destination might be. Not a single person gave me negative feedback (at least verbally), and the curiosity level was high. So was the outrage level over the AIG bonuses. Almost everyone who read my sign had a positive comment or a thumbs up - and remember, I was in the middle of the financial district of New York City. I suspect that most of the people I talked to make their living in the financial industry.
The most positive encouragement I received was not from the office workers, though - but from the cleaning crew members on smoke breaks, and the rank-and-file union guards watching the receiving entrance of the Deutche Bank building. One young, well-spoken Hispanic guy on the security detail came over to me while he on break, and talked to me for 15 minutes or so. He's an Iraq / Afghanistan veteran, mid-20's, and going to school at night, studying economics. He said that it was difficult for him to understand why so many people working in his future profession didn't seem to appreciate the gravity of the current economic situation, and why there weren't thousands on the streets with me. "Come on my day off," he offered, "and I'll stand here with you."
It started to get very chilly on Pine Street around 3:30PM, and the wind picked up a little bit. It occurred to me that the section of Pine where I was standing probably never receives any direct sunshine, and between the AIG and Deutche Bank buildings, a great windtunnel effect is created. But no matter how cold it became, I had a goal of hanging in there at least until the markets closed, when the buildings around me would start to empty.
("...never receives any direct sunshine". What an apt metaphor for the financial district of NYC in general, and AIG in particular. It occurs to me that perhaps that's why we're in this mess.)
On Wednesday, AIG CEO Edward Liddy testified before congress that he understood that many Americans were "mad as a hornet", and that AIG's brand name was so damaged that it would have to be phased out over time. (Blackwater, anyone?) Mr. Liddy is right. We are mad. I'm mad. And that's why I made the trip in the first place.
Even though I'm only one person, and I had no expectation that anyone was going to join me on my Quixotic journey, I did what I had to do, for me and no one else, and follow the direction in which my spirit moved me.
When I folded up my hand-fashioned sign, waved to the guards inside the AIG building, and started walking back toward Chinatown at around 4:30, I felt pretty good about the day. I had done something, no matter how small and insignificant in the space / time continuum.
As I retraced my route down Worth St., I passed by the New York State Supreme Court and the Manhattan Federal Court buildings near Foley Square. Looking up on the Supreme Court building, I read the following words inscribed on the facade:
"The True Administration of Justice is the Firmest Pillar of Good Government."
The Manhattan Federal Court building in NYC is right next door to the Supreme Court building. Bernard Madoff's new residence is in the Federal lockup directly adjacent to the Federal Court building. Having just walked from a building on Pine Street that I perceive as the scene of a major crime, and then considering Madoff's fate, it struck me that maybe there will be some justice in the long run.
The words that are chiseled forever into the facade of the New York Supreme Court building were written by one of this country's founders - George Washington - and were sent to the first Chief Justice of the NY Supreme Court.
Many years from now, when the current financial mess is finally sorted through and unwound, one can only hope that G. Washington's words will have been applied in full to those who have perpetrated the crimes that we're now witnessing.