Former – though the media much prefer the descriptor “disgraced” – police commission Bernard Kerik isn’t just having his bad name tossed in the mud by New York tabloids. Now he’s having it stripped from buildings. And not just any building, but one where some feel he should be headed: the Bernard B. Kerik Complex, aka the Manhattan jail lovingly referred to as The Tombs. Just hours after Kerik pleaesd guilty to corruption charges, Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani‘s naming privilege and brought back the monicker Manhattan Detention Complex.
The mayor’s decision took effect almost immediately. Between 1 and 3 a.m. yesterday, workers replaced the old signs bearing Mr. Kerik’s name at the jail, at 125 White Street, with colorful plastic signs bearing the new name.
The change was so sudden that it startled, and pleased, some correction officers and visitors.
eBay lettering has a tendancy to startle, we’re told.
Disgraced Commissioner Has Name Stripped Off Jail [Sewell Chan, NYT]
• Goodbye Dreary Kerik Complex, Hello Cheery Manhattan Detention Center
• Only In New York: Metal Detectors In Theatres? Uh, No
• What a great homecoming: Stepping off the plane and into handcuffs. [NYT]
• A proposal for metal detectors in New York movie theaters is laughed at, just like the box office numbres for Basic Instinct II. [NYSun]
• Taking bribes as police commissioner? Just pay it back and it’s water under the bridge … or every A1 newspaper headline. [AP]
• Vendors are being robbed by the city, so they protest. But they still need their money, so it’s right back to handing out food to those NYU kids and tourists. [MetroNY]
• A boat collides with a barge and two fishermen go missing. Which causes us to have great concern — about where we’ll get our shrimp. [WABC]