Newark Mayor Cory Booker called it his "come to Jesus moment" when he ran into a burning building to save a neighbor's life.
Booker arrived home last night to discover his next-door neighbor's house on fire, and rescued a young woman trapped upstairs by carrying here through the flames, suffering second-degree burns in the process.
The mayor's security team discovered the fire and pounded on the door to alert residents, when an elderly woman said that her daughter was trapped upstairs.
At first Rodriguez would not let Booker into the burning house. "He basically told me, 'This woman is going to die if we don't help her,' and what can I say to that?," Rodriguez said. "I let him go and without thinking twice, he just ran into the flames and rescued this young lady."
Booker said that as he jumped through the kitchen on the second floor, "I actually wasn't thinking. When I got there and couldn't find her in all the smoke, looked behind me and saw the kitchen really erupting with flames all over the ceiling, that's when I had very clear thoughts that I'm not going to get out of this place alive and got ... very religious.
"It is a very, very scary thing. And I'd like to say that I, at that point I was feeling so courageous, but honestly, it was terrifying, and to look back, you can see nothing but flames. Look in front of you see nothing but blackness.
Booker knows this. “The big thing for us is the continued thawing of a reputation that’s frozen in time,” he told me then. “We are a city with exciting things going on, and these things are often overlooked because people think Newark is a place that just does not exist anymore.”
So why attack the man who made it possible? Politics, probably, although Booker denies it. Hard feelings over losing in arbitration — a process the city initiated, by the way — although he denies that, too.
Booker’s beefs were mostly bogus. He’s right that Vanderbeek withheld payments for youth programs and job training programs, but the city was withholding money, too, from parking.
The mayor railed about Vanderbeek wiggling out of an agreement to build a community center, a provision that was taken out of the deal in July 2007. Three months later, the Prudential Center opened, and Booker declared Vanderbeek “a lifelong friend of mine, and more importantly … a lifelong friend of the city of Newark.”
His opinion is entitled to change, but if Booker is labeling Vanderbeek “one of the most despicable owners” in the NHL, we’ll just assume he’s too busy tweeting to keep up with the league. One team (Atlanta) moved last season (to Winnipeg), another (Nashville) is constantly threatening to do the same and yet another (Phoenix) doesn’t even have an owner. The NHL is running the team.
That doesn’t even list teams that are inept on the ice, like Edmonton, Toronto and the Islanders. The threat of bankruptcy still hangs over Vanderbeek — he has until July 1 to work out the team’s debt crisis — so his legacy could change in a hurry. Until then, Vanderbeek has presided over a successful and stable franchise.
Booker arrived home last night to discover his next-door neighbor's house on fire, and rescued a young woman trapped upstairs by carrying here through the flames, suffering second-degree burns in the process.
The mayor's security team discovered the fire and pounded on the door to alert residents, when an elderly woman said that her daughter was trapped upstairs.
At first Rodriguez would not let Booker into the burning house. "He basically told me, 'This woman is going to die if we don't help her,' and what can I say to that?," Rodriguez said. "I let him go and without thinking twice, he just ran into the flames and rescued this young lady."
Booker said that as he jumped through the kitchen on the second floor, "I actually wasn't thinking. When I got there and couldn't find her in all the smoke, looked behind me and saw the kitchen really erupting with flames all over the ceiling, that's when I had very clear thoughts that I'm not going to get out of this place alive and got ... very religious.
"It is a very, very scary thing. And I'd like to say that I, at that point I was feeling so courageous, but honestly, it was terrifying, and to look back, you can see nothing but flames. Look in front of you see nothing but blackness.
Booker knows this. “The big thing for us is the continued thawing of a reputation that’s frozen in time,” he told me then. “We are a city with exciting things going on, and these things are often overlooked because people think Newark is a place that just does not exist anymore.”
So why attack the man who made it possible? Politics, probably, although Booker denies it. Hard feelings over losing in arbitration — a process the city initiated, by the way — although he denies that, too.
Booker’s beefs were mostly bogus. He’s right that Vanderbeek withheld payments for youth programs and job training programs, but the city was withholding money, too, from parking.
The mayor railed about Vanderbeek wiggling out of an agreement to build a community center, a provision that was taken out of the deal in July 2007. Three months later, the Prudential Center opened, and Booker declared Vanderbeek “a lifelong friend of mine, and more importantly … a lifelong friend of the city of Newark.”
His opinion is entitled to change, but if Booker is labeling Vanderbeek “one of the most despicable owners” in the NHL, we’ll just assume he’s too busy tweeting to keep up with the league. One team (Atlanta) moved last season (to Winnipeg), another (Nashville) is constantly threatening to do the same and yet another (Phoenix) doesn’t even have an owner. The NHL is running the team.
That doesn’t even list teams that are inept on the ice, like Edmonton, Toronto and the Islanders. The threat of bankruptcy still hangs over Vanderbeek — he has until July 1 to work out the team’s debt crisis — so his legacy could change in a hurry. Until then, Vanderbeek has presided over a successful and stable franchise.
No comments:
Post a Comment