Francis fever grips the Big Apple as Pope gets a rock star reception
THERE is not much that makes New York slow down and pause.
But yesterday, as Pope Francis crisscrossed Manhattan in his Fiat, large sections of the city were stilled – either by choice, or by force.
Bill Bratton, the New York police chief, described the Pope’s visit – which coincides with well over 100 heads of state in the city for the UN General Assembly – as “the largest security challenge the department and the city will ever face.”
Thousands of extra officers were drafted in, boats monitored the East and Hudson rivers and helicopters swarmed overhead. One officer said they planned to “frisk every squirrel”. New Yorkers were being warned to expect significant delays.
Yet as Francis’s Popemobile was driven slowly down Fifth Avenue on Thursday evening – the pulsating commercial heart of the city cut off for his visit – there was nothing but jubilation from the crowds that lined his route.
In their thousands they waved flags and cheered “Papa Francisco! We love you!” as he arrived at St Patrick’s Cathedral, the most important church for the city’s Catholics, which finished a fouryear, $75 million (£50 million) renovation just in time for the visit.
“Benedict came in 2008, but the atmosphere was totally different,” Monsignor Robert Ritchie, rector of the Cathedral, told The Daily Telegraph. “This is huge.”
Cardboard cutouts of the Argentine Pontiff were on display in shop windows, and souvenirs, including badges, toys and even Pope shower curtains, were being sold.
Pizzas bearing his face were selling in Greenwich Village, while Artuso’s Pastry Shop sold more than 200,000 Pope cookies in the weeks leading up to his arrival.
“The line is going out the door, the phone is ringing off the hook. We can’t keep up with demand,” said Natalie Corridori, manager of the shop. Yesterday – a day the tabloid New
York Post marked by renaming itself the New York Pope – Francis embarked on another busy day of events. He began with an address at the UN, which he used to criticise “oppressive” banks, called for greater action on climate change, and urged world leaders to do more to help the poor.
In some of the sternest remarks of his lengthy address, he called for world leaders to examine their consciences over responses to the violence, hatred and persecution found in war-torn countries in the Middle East and Africa. “In wars and conflicts there are indi- vidual persons, our brothers and sisters, men and women, young and old, boys and girls, who weep, suffer and die,” he said. “Human beings who are easily discarded when our only response is to draw up lists of problems, strategies and disagreements.”
Moving on to Ground Zero, he met relations of those who had died in the attacks and led a multi-religious service for 600 people.
“Here, amid the pain and grief, we have a palpable sense of the heroic goodness which people are capable of,” he said, during the inter-religious ceremony. “In a metropolis which might seem impersonal, faceless, lonely, you demonstrated the powerful solidarity born of mutual support, love and selfsacrifice.”
Tom Roger, whose daughter Jean was a flight attendant on the plane that crashed into the North Tower, was fighting back tears. “It means a great deal to us,” he said, standing beside his wife Eileen. “There is so much difficulty in the world today, that to be able to spend a few moments here, and have someone praying for peace, praying for higher values, I think in this location means a great deal.”
The Pope then traversed the city again, heading north to Spanish Harlem. Mamadou Drame, a partially blind campaigner for womens’ rights, who is originally from Guinea and now lives in a shelter in the Bronx, was among those greeting Francis in Harlem.
“I am a Muslim and a refugee and an immigrant,” he said. “Meeting the Pope was the happiest day of my life.”