Blossom Dearie’s song, I’ll Take Manhattan, (Great rendition here by Ella Fitzgerald, needs to be brought up to date. With apologies to the late, great Blossom, today’s Manhattan is far from “an isle of joy,” especially if one has to ride the subway. Dante would have loved the NYC subway, giving it a circle of its own. Commissioned to re-write the song, my title would be You Take Manhattan.

But Bragg still gets points among Democrats for trying. I’m sure he went home conviction night feeling good about himself.
The latest Gotham gothic comes from a Manhattan courtroom where one of America’s latest heroes is being criminally tried for doing the right thing, preposterous and ill-motivated charges having been brought by the most political prosecutor in the lower-48.
Informed TAS readers are familiar with how Daniel Penny stepped in and disabled a crazed subway rider who threatened to kill other passengers. “Somebody’s going to die today,” Jordan Neely explained to his terrified fellow riders. He then moved toward innocent strap-hangers in a threatening manner as if to suit the action to the word. Death or great bodily harm might have resulted had Penny not stepped in and done the honorable thing. For which gift to New York, this friend of civilization is placed in peril of prison by Alvin Bragg.
Reasonable persons had every reason to expect that Penny acted reasonably, and a reasonable jury, after brief deliberation, would have brought back a verdict of not-guilty. Then trial judge Maxwell Wiley could have thanked the jurors for their service, dismissed Penny, and then sentenced Alvin Bragg to riding the NYC subway for eternity.
But no. After three-plus days of deliberation we learned Friday that the jury could not come to a unanimous decision on the manslaughter charge, which was later dropped. But they’ll be back Monday to deal with the lesser charge of negligent homicide, Bragg’s fallback position.
Manhattanites are not famous for sticking their necks out for others...