Jackson Heights Life

The nighttime cashier at Trade Fair was being interviewed by the police when I was on the checkout line earlier this morning. (My receipt says 04:16.) The line wasn’t moving, and I heard him tell the police he was robbed at gunpoint at his register. The officers were very impatient with him, seemingly annoyed he didn’t anticipate their questions. When they asked for a description of the perpetrator, the cashier started by describing his height, but the officers wanted him to start with an ethnic description (“Was he white, black, Hispanic, Indian?”), so the cashier said the robber was “Spanish.” They seemed annoyed he took a moment to answer the subjective question of whether the robber was light- or dark-skinned. The cashier did explicitly say he had seen the gun. The waiting customers were moved to another register, staffed by the manager, where we could pay only by credit or debit card. At that time, the manager told the police he estimated over three hundred dollars had been stolen. Just before I left, the police were not allowing new customers in and were telling them the store was closed.

Have we posted about this before, and I just didn’t notice it? This story must be read to be believed. According to the article, the owners of Bangladesh Plaza are Humanists, a married couple one of whom was raised Muslim, the other Hindu. When they decided to have their son cremated in Hindu tradition rather than buried, chaos ensued on 73^rd Street including a street protest and alleged arson and bomb threats. The article also says the issue is national news in Bangladesh and the subject of articles in local Bangla newspapers.

• Anne Barnard with Toby Lyles, “Hindu-Muslim Family in Queens Chooses Cremation, and Faces Criticism,” The New York Times, 3 October 2008.