Monday, December 29, 2008

Who Said NY is Rude and Pushy?

CNN reports that Carnegie Hall has made the following offer in an effort to extricate its most decrepit form of furniture …

“Carnegie Hall has offered to pay for the rent-control tenants' relocation expenses and move them to apartments which are "equivalent or better" in the neighborhood. The Hall also is offering to pay the difference in rent to each of those tenants for the rest of their lives.”

A remarkably generous offer from a private foundation; a foundation which embodies no public obligation beyond that of any other private entity.

Any rational person would assume this generous offer precludes the possibility of conflict. However, this rationality fails to account for a significant X factor: the stupefying ego of a 96 year old woman.

"They can pay me $10 million. I'm part of history," she said. "You want to tell me they don't have enough rooms? They have a building of rooms. This place is history, and I think Carnegie, the people running it, I don't think they think about that."

Imagine a resident, any resident, of Beijing telling this same story. When did the founding principal of each individual “created equal” morph into “created special”. This woman is only remarkable because of the place in which she happens to reside. I say send in the New York County Sheriffs to remove her for trespassing.