Times Square Evacuated After ‘Suspicious Package’ Report

From The New York Times 7 minutes ago:

By BAO ONG AND ANDY NEWMAN

Updated, 1:39 p.m. | The north end of Times Square has been evacuated, from West 44th to West 47th Streets, after the police received reports of a suspicious package at Broadway and West 46th Street at about 12:45 p.m.

The package “looks like a cooler,” a police spokesman said. “We’re trying to see if it’s clear.”

It was the second suspicious-package call and at least partial evacuation in the area today.


Following in the footsteps of the Times Square hawkers who spotted the illegally parked Nissan Pathfinder, another street vendor on hyper-alert reported a suspicious package Friday morning.

The vendor, Hassane Soliman Elbaz, 30, parked his silver cupcake cart at the northwest corner of 45th Street and Eighth Avenue around 5 a.m. Several hours later, he noticed a small black duffel bag near a trash bin. He reported the bag to a mounted police officer shortly after 9 a.m.

“Sometimes right, sometimes wrong,” Mr. Elbaz said. “Everybody has to be careful.”

Within 30 minutes, police officers cleared the area and brought in a bomb squad to check the bag.

They found a gray shirt, white tube socks, a toothbrush and pens.

The police deemed the bag not suspicious and left the scene before 11 a.m.

It was at least the seventh suspicious package brought to the attention of the police since the car bomb attempt on Saturday.

Mr. Elbaz, an immigrant from Egypt who lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, said he was relieved. It was only his second day running his Little Cupcake Lover cart. He sells coffee, bagels, croissants and other pastries in the morning before the red velvet, Oreo, Nutella mint and ocean-sprinkled cupcakes arrive.

He said the owners of the Chicken Bar, a lunch operation behind where he works, had given him a difficult time so far, but joked that not even a suspicious bag could have thwarted his business.

“Anything crazy can happen in New York,” Mr. Elbaz said as he dealt with a customer.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

4 Replies to “Times Square Evacuated After ‘Suspicious Package’ Report”

  1. Despite this being a false alarm, its great to see that the people of New York are not taking this lying down.

    This same level of alertness should be nation-wide and everywhere in the free world where Islam has settled. That way we can stop the spread of sharia law and the hajri will begin to fade out as immigrants think twice about leaving countries where they are in the majority.

    Kufar and proud.

  2. Could Mr. Elbaz be a mahoundian? I’d say he’s likely to be a Copt if you ask me… After all, what mahoundian would miss a chance to be blown up and, after that, have his own jannat with those “handsome boys of everlasting youth” referred to in Mein Qurampf 76:19 (plus the 72 virgin women to help them pretend that they’re into chicks and hide that what mahoundian males really like is mixing green tea and black tea with each other)?

  3. RRWest we see this differently. I see this as a massive victory for terror. If we are going to do a millions-of-dollars alert pulling people out of work and home and interfering with normal life and its enjoyment every time someone sees a pair of socks or a water-bottle on the street we are doomed.

    As I see it, we have 2 basic options.

    1. Allow in all the enemies who want to come in and live in a state of total terror and fear and spend tens of millions of dollars every-time someone leaves a gym bag at the bus stop or smokes a cigar on their SUV, or
    2. Stop letting these guys in and get rid of the ones we have, and make their ideology illegal exactly as we did with Shinto.

  4. Saturday’s failed car bomb attempt by Faisal Shahzad, the environmental disaster caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Nashville floods, and the freaking out stock market – well, they just aren’t that new anymore