worship the glitch
This is Eric Mortensen's blog. He works @ Blip and lives in Brooklyn.
“It’s like a lost art,” the lieutenant said. “It’s all old-school guys who cut the pocket. They die off.” And they do not seem to be replacing themselves, he said. “It’s like the TV repairman.”
Lush workers date back at least to the beginning of the last century, their ilk cited in newspaper crime stories like one in The New York Times in 1922, describing “one who picks the pockets of the intoxicated. He is the old ‘drunk roller’ under a new name.” While the term technically applies to anyone who steals from a drunken person, most police officers reserve it for a special kind of thief who uses straight-edge razors found in any hardware store.
The Police Department does not have a rough estimate of how many lush workers are out working lushes.
It offers an exact number: 109.
That is far fewer than there once were. What do we know of these 109 criminals? All but two are men, and overwhelmingly middle-aged or older, some born in 1947, 1943, 1938 and even, in one case, 1931.
“Our apps are whiz kid certified. Instead of developing transit apps ourselves, we gave our info to the people who do it best. Search the web for ‘NY transit apps’ to see what we mean.”
A complete 180° from the MTA. I’m impressed.
