[NYPOST] First and Quail streets was a hardscrabble intersection even when Albany had a future, but it was never worth your life to pass through it. Today it is, which could be why the city now has nothing but a past.There were six people shot in that intersection on Friday, one fatally. And a couple hours later, another man was shot to death just blocks away.
Mayhem in a microcosm, you say? After all, dozens were shot in Gotham over the weekend; the subway violence continued full bore; there was that bloodbath in New Jersey; and St. Louis proceeded on pace to become the murder capital of America. The good news is that when the Times Square M&M’s store got robbed Sunday night, there was no gunfire.
But for four years, a lifetime ago, I lived by First Street and Quail. I grew up in the city itself, and so I brought an expat’s attention to Friday’s news, even if it was no surprise; the intersection has a sanguinary recent history.
Just a year ago, five men were shot there, one fatally, in a drive-by; in 2019, a neighborhood daycare center was hit by stray bullets; in 2017, the brother of Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s adopted son was murdered there; and in 2008, a 10-year-old girl was a fatal stray-bullet casualty.
Traumatized locals, in other words, have come by their fears honestly. But to add perspective, Friday’s violence alone, adjusted for population, would be the rough equivalent of 625 shot, 175 fatally, on a single afternoon in the Big Apple.
Preposterous numbers, you might say, and you would be correct, except the exaggeration could explain why the capital city of the Empire State seems so utterly defeated these days, and pitifully so.
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