Republican mayoral hopeful Mike Bloomberg yesterday said he wants to get rid of graffiti-covered metal shutters on storefronts that make neighborhoods “look like a war zone.”
The media mogul said the unsightly plague mostly hits areas with “very low economic activity,” which could be spruced up easily by pulling down the thick gates and planting trees on some of the sidewalks.
“At night, every store is covered with these metal, graffiti-covered shutters,” Bloomberg told the 2001 Preservation Breakfast Forum.
“They are dangerous because the police don’t know what’s happening behind them. They keep light [from] coming out onto the street, and they make the neighborhood look, to me, like a war zone.”
Bloomberg said he’d favor offering incentives to store-owners to “put open grills [up as protective barriers], and keep lights on at night, and if we could plant some trees on those streets, I believe we could renovate those neighborhoods for a relatively tiny amount of money.”
After facing recent criticism for putting his foot in his mouth on the campaign trail, Bloomberg – who normally holds a press conference each day – did not answer any questions yesterday.