Uncovered Politics
On September 24, Christina González, a Green Party candidate for the open District 7 New York City Council
seat in upper Manhattan, was arrested in a Harlem subway station on her
way to protest the hiring of former CIA Director and U.S. General David
Petraeus by the previously tuition-free City University of New York (CUNY).
Gonzalez is determined not to let the arrest detract from her
campaign. She explained recently that the incident was prompted by the
fact the city’s public transportation has become prohibitively expensive for many New Yorkers. More than 1.6 billion people use the subway yearly in New York City, and while some view public transit for being “just for poor people,” the average New York straphanger makes $55,000 a year, hardly a working-class wage.
Gonzalez says she believes public transportation should be free for
the public, as it is in many other countries, and she typically asks
the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) attendant or police officers in
the station if they can let her on. Although this method has worked in
the past, on that particular day she ran into some officers from her
local Harlem precinct, who told the subway booth attendant not to cut
her any slack.
