Fed-up New Yorkers band together to push car blocking traffic on Manhattan bridge

Now that the worst of the coronavirus has passed in epicenters like New York City, a common refrain on social media has been, “New York City is back,” with some wild, only-in-the-Big-Apple happening attached. Well, add this one to the list.

It’s got all the key elements of a great New York story, including people being mad and a decrepit city services.

Over the weekend, a group of New Yorkers went viral after video surfaced of them banding together to drag away a car that was blocking traffic for hours on the Manhattan Bridge, which connects the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Since then it’s gotten more than 65,000 views on Twitter.

The trouble began on Saturday night, when a three-car crash slowed traffic on the Brooklyn-bound side to a stop. Two people, 30- and 54-years old, respectively, were taken to a nearby hospital and are in stable position. One driver involved in the crash, the owner of a 2017 Mercedes, fled the scene, according to police.

Meanwhile, a crashed 2017 BMW was left sideways, slowing traffic for hours.

Some elected to walk across the bridge rather than wait.

Eventually, a group of about six people buckled down and moved the car themselves, and stranded motorists literally jumped with joy after the BMW was pushed out of the way.

That was not the only New York video from that day that went viral. As motorists hovered above the East River stuck in traffic, hundreds of New York City Police officers armed with bikes and batons descended on the iconic Washington Square Park to enforce a new 10pm curfew, two hours earlier than the park’s normal closing time. Nearly two dozen people were arrested, and people on the scene said officers roughed them up without good cause. The NYPD added eight officers were injured clearing the park.

“It will always be wild to me that even members of my own party denounce us as ‘extreme’ for saying this does not make anyone feel safer or be safer, and contributes to precipitating violence,” US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes parts of New York City, tweeted on Sunday, along with a video of a phalanx of officers moving through the city.