As we await the Bryant Park shoe shine booth to be rebuilt, the mystery around it and its predecessor's demise linger. On March 23rd we reported on the first booth being torched in the middle of the night, and just yesterday at 1:30 a.m. the replacement booth met a similar fate. Now the NY Times has given the incidents some attention, wondering along with park administrators who exactly is targeting the booth.
The Bryant Park Corporation put the booth there 10 years ago; the organization's director of operations, Daniel Biederman, told them it was put up after shoeshiners set up make-shift shops with office chairs, which "looked terrible." Biederman also noted that "recently there has been very little crime in Bryant Park, and almost no vandalism on the sidewalks around the park, so everybody is very shocked. But we are going to beat this guy who is lighting fires, and bring in another booth.”
Allegedly some construction workers in the area saw the man who torched the booth yesterday, and say he was watching it burn. He ran off after they yelled, "You did it," and now the BPC thinks the incidents may have been the work of a pyromaniac... though we aren't ruling out the sinister electric shoe shine machine industry or area human competitors!
