Have Ferry Accident, Will Travel

You can afford to be a little scrappy (“Mayor Bloomberg is not going to treat the governor poorly, with disrespect!”) when you were the only guy on the scene while weekend news happened:

Of course, Gov. David A. Paterson was there because the Andrew J. Barberi ferry had crashed four hours earlier, injuring dozens and raising the specter of the 2003 crash of the very same boat, in which 11 people were killed. After visiting the scene of the crash, Mr. Paterson returned to Manhattan by ferry, telling the television cameras that people “should not even hesitate to use it.”

He boarded the ferry accompanied by two aides in suits, a uniformed state trooper and several camera crews. The governor wore a smart pinstripe suit and a tie. This alone set him apart from about 99 percent of the riders on the weekend ferry, when the commuters give way to camera slingers. The majority of the passengers seemed to be tourists, and most of them foreign, so the governor’s presence was met with many mute stares.

But soon enough, constituents noticed. “Hey, governor!” a man in shorts called out, and the governor smiled and waved.

The mayor was in Bermuda I take it?

Location Scout: Staten Island Ferry.