u/RobertJCorcoran

Absolutely flabbergasted by the experience tonight. TLDR: lot of people, zero crowd control.

A friend of mine won the lottery ticket to access Brooklyn Bridge park for the fireworks tonight. Asked me to join and told me he and two other people were thinking of going to the Pier 2 around 6. Had other things to do today, so I said I would have been there around 8.

Got to Camden Plaza around 7:45, and there were people in line from the intersection with Clark St; okay fine. There were actually two lines, somebody was yelling ‘Zone B left, Zone A right’. After a while the line does not move. At a certain point everybody starts walking towards the park, till a complete standstill before the BQE bridge.

Then, NYPD starts sending people on Doughty Street saying that they are at capacity. Another NYPD officer starts sending people from Doughty Street on Elizabeth Place and then Old Fulton St going East, up to the point where people are stuck on the sidewalk and cannot move under a scaffolding.

Around 8:30 I was able to get to the a tent where nobody was checking the QR code. Ended up giving up completely when by 9pm I got to the security checkpoint and nobody was moving anymore.

City of New York: there is no point in doing lotteries if nobody is checking QR code after a certain time. Don’t say you can access the area ‘till 8:30 if it’s not true. Just leave it as free access as it has always been. And NYPD, if there are people pushing because they cannot move, yelling ‘just go there’ is not going to solve the situation.

I saw the worst of people only to get 2 inches ahead of somebody else. Okay, whatever.

Sorry, rant over. Happy 4th everybody.

EDIT: yes, I should have gotten there early. Yes I was venting. I hoped that since there were the tickets and everything else access control would have been better. Yes it’s on me. Thanks for all your comments.

Woke up yesterday without my bike. I checked the location of the AirTag I have in it, and it showed up at the local precinct.

Walked there, asked for the bike, they confirmed it was there. The officer who did the towing was not at the precinct, so another officer brought me to the alley, gave me my bike, and told me to “call the precinct later in the day” and ask for the officer.

When he brought me to the alley where they’d decided to store my bike, I immediately pointed out a lot of scratches that were new, and I could see some scratches as if the bike had fallen on its side. The officer said he had no idea about the procedure.

I tried calling the precinct yesterday afternoon, no one picked up. Even the direct phone number the detective squad gave me wasn’t picked up.

I have no official ticket from the NYPD, no towing report, just a ‘Voucher number’ and the name of the officer who did the towing.

Is there anything I can do now to recoup the money for the repairs? I don’t mind paying the fine since the parking wasn’t legal, that’s a separate issue. But having my bike damaged because of how they handled it… well, it sucks.