I don't know what Bloomberg and company are trying to prove, but they are giving our city a terrible name. Complaining endlessly about not getting more federal dollars for homeland security a year ago, only this week to have it be discovered they haven't even spent the dollars they were assigned.
Now they are pushing the limits of hospitality to anyone and everyone who genuinely wants to come see "the greatest city on earth." Bloomberg has been talking about "congestion pricing" for a few weeks. Take the eight dollars it will cost you to enter Manhattan and add it to the six dollars it already costs you to cross a tunnel or bridge to get there and you have a tremendous financial disincentive for many people to come.
But let's insult the tourists while we're at it as well...
Since it is such a great tourist destination the city is figuring out how to stick it to people who want to take their memories home with them, by making them secure a "permit" (read that TAX) for permission to photograph the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, or the Magnolia Bakery.
If the rest of the nation felt sympathy for us following 9/11, that will soon subside with all the ways Bloomberg and company are now telling the "huddled masses" to "go the heck somewhere else!"