To better understand Gotham, it helps on occasion to see it from a distance, as I did last week. The break reminded me of two big truths.
Truth No. 1 is that New York is an amazing beehive that features most of the best things life has to offer, and they are available to millions of people. Historians and boosters of other places might disagree, but it is likely there has never been a place on Earth to offer such a dizzying bounty of goods and opportunity to so many people of such varied backgrounds.
Truth No. 2 is that the whole structure is very fragile. Steel-and-concrete canyons, glitter, glamour, stupendous wealth and hordes living cheek-to-jowl are fascinating, but offer no guarantees about tomorrow. Collapse could be just around the corner.
Which brings me to the huge risks Mayor Bill de Blasio is taking. With too little thought and too much advice from Al Sharpton, he is embarking on a reckless experiment to see whether human nature is better here than in Chicago or Detroit.
The mayor wouldn’t put it that way, but that’s the bottom line of his toying with the NYPD. He wants to see if he can have the police back off from “broken-windows” enforcement without unleashing mayhem.
The evidence of retreat is everywhere, with The Post citing three recent examples.
Arrests plummeted in the Staten Island precinct where Eric Garner died after being put in a police chokehold, with superiors reportedly telling cops not to “agitate” the community.
“The bosses told us not to do anything ‘proactive,’ ” said one cop, who added that officers were ordered not to make arrests or hand out summonses unless absolutely necessary.
Brooklyn cops were told to ignore illegal liquor sales inside three junkyards turned into open-air nightclubs during Labor Day weekend, the paper reported.
And cops reportedly were told to back off a part of Washington Heights where residents attacked them with bottles while chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot!” over the weekend.
In a vacuum, each example might be defensible. But the pattern of retreat, if it continues, will have two certain effects: It will frighten law-abiding citizens, and embolden those with larceny in their hearts.
To be fair, the early results of de Blasio’s experiment are mixed. Through Aug. 24, murder fell by 11 percent from last year’s record low, and overall major crimes are down by 3.5 percent.
But shootings are up 9.6 percent, and the 899 people shot this year are 74 more than during the same period last year. If the shooters become more accurate or prolific, the murder rate will skyrocket.
Yet there is more to public safety than simple statistics, a fact Rudy Giuliani grasped and de Blasio doesn’t. The politician who did more than any other to reform urban policing, Giuliani recognized that how the public felt about safety was a key part of winning the battle for the streets.
“It’s not just about statistics,” Giuliani said during his successful 1993 mayoral campaign. “It’s about whether people actually feel safer.”
That defined his approach to policing, which zeroed in on disorder as well as violent crime. He spoke at a time when an editorial endorsing him, which I co-authored, said this about the city: “Teenagers are armed with automatics and misdemeanor arrests seem quaint. The shattered car window and the stolen radio are insurance, not criminal, matters. Falling-down schools are filled with asbestos, and the streets with trash. The homeless sleep on corners and populate the subways.”
Violent crime is a true pestilence, but it needs a home, and disorder provides it. It is crime mixed with bedlam that leaves people frightened — and ready to head for the exits.
Many other cities never learned those lessons, and still try to stop crime while tolerating disorder. It won’t work because it can’t.
It won’t work here, either.
A Staten Island man who complained to The Post about the lack of police enforcement since Garner’s death put it this way:
“When the police make fewer arrests in this neighborhood, that’s a problem,” he said. “The decision to go easy on these people is going to come back and bite the cops in the ass.”
The weak-ly update on our leader
A friend who somehow remains a supporter of Barack Obama believes the president soon will announce major pushbacks against Russia and the Islamic State.
“I think he’s going to surprise people with how strong he is,” the friend says.
Alert the media. After years of delay and denial, a strong pushback would come as a surprise not just to Americans, but to our allies and adversaries around the world.
Each day brings a new opportunity. Tuesday’s video beheading of Steven Sotloff had the same earmarks as the beheading of James Foley. Both journalists were forced to read messages to Obama before being butchered by a black-clad terrorist with a British accent.
It was probably no coincidence that North Korea paraded three Americans it is holding before TV cameras. Who knows what their fate will be?
Obama is headed for a NATO summit in Wales that aims to develop a rapid-deployment force that could be used to counter Russian advances. The meeting comes after Ukraine leaders accused Vladimir Putin of starting “a great war” inside their country. A White House aide says the trip will show Obama’s commitment to NATO.
That commitment is not in question. The only question that matters is whether he is committed to stopping tyrants and Islamist terrorists from gobbling up whole countries. So far, the answer is no.
Bamnesty is just political
Reports say White House aides are battling over when Obama should offer blanket amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. They are fighting over whether it’s better for Democrats if he acts before the November elections, or after.
Whether such a move is right, or even legal, does not appear to be under consideration. Only the politics.
You don’t have to be a cynic to find the whole scenario disgusting. There is not even a figment of pretense that decisions are based on what’s good for America.
In the age of Obama, politics is first, second and last.
Buff luck all around
Is it more worrisome that a hacker broke into celebrities’ gadgets and released their nude photos, or that Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and others kept nude photos of themselves in the first place?
Either way, our culture is in trouble.
Peacrock network
Now that Chelsea Clinton has quit her $600,000 seldom-show gig at NBC News, Mommy and Daddy Dearest presumably are free of any obligation to the Pea-brained network. Otherwise, the feds should be probing to see whether NBC hired Chelsea to win favor from her parents.
When American banks hire the offspring of big shots in China, Washington calls it a crime. At home, it’s called business-as-usual.