Results tagged “veterans”

            

Thousands of people gathered along Fifth Avenue for the 90th annual Veterans Day Parade. The Daily News reports it was the largest turnout for the parade in years; a 64-year-old Vietnam vet from Queens said, "I'm sure it means a lot to the troops to see this turnout. I think people are finally realizing they have an obligation to come out and support the troops."

For today's 90th Veterans Day Parade, the city alerts us that "a 21-gun salute and a military flyover featuring two military helicopters are scheduled to occur on Nov. 11 starting at 11:00 am on East 26th, 27th, & 29th Streets between Park Avenue South, Broadway, & Madison Avenue." This year, organizers are expecting 27,000 people for the parade, which starts at 11 a.m. at Fifth Avenue at 23rd Street and heads north to 57th Street; there is a wreath-laying commemoration ceremony at 10 a.m. in Madison Square Park. Among the parade participants will be Navajo Code Talkers from World War II.

Since Mayor Bloomberg was robbed of his chance to engage in Weiner Wars this election year, he's settling for the next best thing—the Wars! Yesterday on his weekly radio show, Bloomberg was asked about the recent crackdown of illegal vendors outside the Met. Since it was reported that veteran Dan Rossi was taking advantage of a 19th Century law that allowed vets to vend without paying, more veteran have been making their way to Fifth Ave, many employed by vendors who use them to beat the law and allow them to sit idly nearby. The mayor said, "They hire a vet to stand there and [he] has nothing to do with [it]. That's as much fraud [as] minority and women-owned businesses where you just hire somebody that's a minority or woman and say, 'Oh, you're the name person.'" As for Pasang Sherpa, after being evicted from his $600K lease to vend at the Met, Rossi hired him to man his stand after seeing Sherpa crying on the Met stairs. Now Sherpa simply joined in on the "rent-a-vet" system, paying disabled Leo Morris Jr. $100 a day to nap in his car near Sherpa's new cart.

The "Wiener Wars" taking place outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art may have sparked a debate over just how much money food cart vendors rake in, but one thing seemed agreed upon—Met vendor Dan Rossi was raking in the dough. Well not any more, the city says. A loophole for veterans allowed Rossi to park his cart in the high profile spot without having to (frank) foot the bill of $600k in rent paid to the city by Pasang Sherpa. But now the Vietnam Vet tells the Post that the city has declared the strip along Fifth Avenue "a street," meaning that his special privileges no longer fly there. Nonetheless Rossi tells the paper that he "would be back [today], even if it means getting arrested." He also tells them that he is the only veteran who owns his cart, but that other carts utilized the exception by hiring vets to man their stands. More concerning to us: if Rossi gets tossed, where will the recently evicted, overbidding Sherpa turn now??