Over-sexed up Interview
Author and celebrity interviewer Glenn Plaskin has spoken at length with the likes of Meryl Streep and Donald Trump over the years, but our readers may know him better as the president of the Gateway Plaza Tenants Association. The Battery Park City resident helped generate a lot of news the last week with his exclusive Playboy interview with a more famous B.P.C. boy, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
Plaskin said some of the coverage of the interview “has been biased and distorted.” He did not want to identify any individual news organization, but he seemed to be referring to the Daily News, which first reported the interview and tried to make it seem like Kelly said Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio was “full of [crap].”
Not only did Kelly never say the phrase, Plaskin told us Kelly never once mentioned de Blasio’s name during seven hours of interviews.
Kelly did agree that the entire Democratic mayoral field was full of you know what when the subject turned to stop and frisk.
Plaskin said, “regardless of how you feel about the issue, there’s no question it was used as a political football during the primary… When it was convenient, they opposed it.”
The News also sent a reporter to Harlem with a life size Kelly cutup to test whether the commish was as well-liked in the nabe as he claimed.
Plaskin said the entire city should be grateful to Kelly for building an international counter-terrorism force that averted 16 attacks in the city.
The 8,000-word Playboy interview is free online and is full of many interesting tidbits including a possible reason why President Obama did not name Kelly to lead Homeland Security: the pair differ on how strong al Qaeda is now.
Another one: Kelly was in the private sector and living Downtown on 9/11 and recalled going to his roof a few weeks after the attack. He was “stunned” to see the devastation and said his wife was crying.
“A large part of our neighborhood was literally gone….The magazine stand we went to across the street vanished,” he said. “Standing up there that day was a moment of clarity for me.”
Lhota encounter
A friend of ours was the only one who seemed to notice Joe Lhota on an Uptown express 2 train at Chambers St. Monday.
Lhota, who was trounced by Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio two weeks ago, said he is getting recognized less this week compared to last.
The former M.T.A. chairperson delighted in talking about the new subway car they were riding in, saying it was built upstate with replaceable parts and would last another 60 years.
His future plans are uncertain and he took no comfort in the suggestion he may have been better off not having to confront the city’s daunting budget problems.
“No, that would have been fun,” he said.
Hipster Cop is Back
At the First Precinct Community Council meeting on Nov. 19, local residents were happy to see Detective Rick Lee, who works in community affairs, back on duty after he’d been on sick leave for the past month.
Lee, known as the “Hipster Cop” due to his stylish habits, told us that he was hit by a car last month while riding his bicycle near his home in Staten Island. The detective suffered a fractured arm from the impact of the crash, but said that the arm is “all good now,” after treatment and some physical therapy sessions.
It was a hit and run incident, Lee explained, and the driver who hit him has not been caught or identified. But as meeting attendees welcomed him back, the detective remained lighthearted about the matter. “Well, it could’ve been worse,” he said.
The Cincinnati Kid
Downtown Express editor Josh Rogers, his wife Sarah Wolff, and their son Isaac, 3, drove to Cincinnati two weeks ago to meet the newest member of their family, Eleanor Kate, born Nov. 6 at 6 lbs., 4 oz., 19 inches. The happy parents held their daughter on her birthday and the expanded family returned home last week. They expect to finalize Eleanor’s adoption in six months.
