The cages on the Hudson, AKA Little Guantanamo (fwd)

[Bill Stewart]

>On Wed, 1 Sep 2004, Sunder wrote:
> > except these cops don't (yet?) have tanks
>Actually, in New York, they do.  At least they *did* when I lived there,
>all the way up to 1985.  They had exactly one tank (used to mow down the

Middletown NJ has one also (about an hour from the city by car, YMMV by tank.)
Back in the revolutionary days of the 60s and 70s,
the police chief, who was actually named Joe McCarthy and tried
to live up to the name, was concerned that the
Puerto Ricans in the ethnic neighborhoods along the shore
might get uppity and take over the naval base, which everybody knew
had Nuke-u-lur Weapons even though they'd never admit it,
and the naval base might not be able to defend itself against a mob,
so he convinced the town council that they needed to buy a tank.
I haven't seen it, but one of my friends said that when he last saw it,
it hadn't been moved in a while and had sunk about a foot into the mud.

(When I'd first heard they had a tank, I'd assumed it was
really some amphibious military vehicle they used for
hauling cars out of the swamps or something, but no, it's a regular tank.)

                 Bill