'Hyped Up' Fans Close Businesses

By E.B. SOLOMONT, Staff Reporter of the Sun
February 6, 2008

Another Patriot suffered a big loss yesterday, as unruly Giants fans shut down a bar of that name in Lower Manhattan for several hours.

"Fans got too hyped up," the bar's owner, Chardee Raymonde, said, describing the scene around 1:30 p.m., when patrons crowded onto the second-floor fire escape of the Chambers Street bar. Armed with pitchers of beer, some threw toilet paper onto the street below, where a crowd was tossing around an oversize beach ball. "Giants fans have a long history of wanting a Super Bowl win, and they finally got it," she said, referring to the enthusiastic and, at times, rowdy celebration yesterday.

Even as crowds converged along the route of yesterday's tickertape parade, revelers wreaked havoc downtown, clogging sidewalks and leaving trash in their wake.

Meanwhile, trains serving Lower Manhattan were temporarily disrupted to control the crowd, with downtown A and C trains bypassing the Chambers Street station and N and R trains bypassing City Hall.

Cell phone service during the parade was spotty. A spokesman for Verizon, David Samberg, said cell phone use along the parade route was up 40% yesterday.

Police, who shut down several streets along the parade route, said they arrested at least 10 individuals for disorderly conduct, reckless endangerment, and public urination. At least one police officer was injured during a struggle with a fan.

In two separate incidents, fans were arrested for damaging unmarked police cars. In one incident, police said two fans jumped on top of a police car that was painted like a taxi and smashed its front windshield.

A fan fighting her way through the crowd, Catherine Coughlin, 28, said she had been accidentally hit in the face with a plastic bottle. "It was madness," she said.

Across the street from The Patriot bar, the owner of a photography store, Mark Mozaffari, closed his shop to avoid vandalism. "I'm afraid they're going to break the windows," he said, eyeing the crowd.