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by David J. Gonzo
Friday, July 23, 1999 --- New York (APJP) -- As fate would have it, an early morning breakfast appointment brought me to Carnegie Hill, the beautiful neighborhood on New York's Upper East Side just north of 86th Street.
This was the neighborhood that once was home to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. It is also the neighborhood of St. Thomas More Catholic Church, at which a Mass of the resurrection was to be held in memory of John and Carolyn Kennedy.
Just after my meeting, I took a walk up a stretch of Fifth Avenue's "Museum Mile" about an hour before the funeral was scheduled to start. I had decided to bring my digital camera. What I caught was a smattering of images in the hour preceding the funeral service.
There was a sort of an eerie calm in the neighborhood. All of the streets had, of course, been blocked off -- but on Fifth Avenue, there seemed to be more policemen than pedestrians. As I moved over toward Madison, Park and Lexington Avenues, there were more people to be seen -- but far, far fewer than I had expected, even near 89th Street between Madison and Park -- an area cordoned off to even most of the press sharks.
This left reporters outside the highest echelon scrambling to play up the "human interest" angle. I saw local camera crews from Fox, CBS and NBC affiliates in Boston, Philly and Washington practically accosting passers-by. A surprising number of people -- mostly neighborhood residents -- rebuffed the well-groomed opportunists and their uniformly grungy, slacker-outfitted camera wielders and producers.
The easiest "pickin's" for these opportunists were people in the crowd with handmade signs of the "We'll miss you John-John" variety -- there was actually a line of correspondents waiting to talk to one of them near 89th and Madison.
The only shot I regretted missing -- due to police barricades and a truck obstructing the only good angle -- was the huge "dish farm" on Park Avenue between 86th and 87th Streets, a half dozen of those three- and five-meter dishes the networks use for satellite uplinks, a site rarely seen in Manhattan.
But you can't have everything. You'll at least get a good peek at the media's latest intrusion into tragedy and efforts to rake in the cash at the expense of three people who hardly deserve the indignity of a week of full-blown media spin, speculation and exploitation.
You can click on each of the thumbnails to see the full shot.
Copyright © 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, American Politics Journal Publications.
