2015.08.24 New York Post
Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton are the real boobs, according to throngs of bare-chested women who jiggled their way through Midtown on Sunday for an annual topless parade.
About 100 shirtless women, flanked by some 300 clothed supporters, marched from Columbus Circle to Bryant Park for the Go Topless Parade — with many knocking de Blasio and Bratton for singling out the topless, body-painted ladies of Times Square while practically ignoring the costumed panhandlers who have long plagued the tourist nexus.
“If you’re going to get rid of them, then get rid of everybody, like the characters,” said a topless Joy Nightingale, 35, of Long Island. “People should know that it’s fine and dandy to be topless. It’s legal.”
Others said the officials’ campaign reeks of hypocrisy.
“There’s a double standard. Bill de Blasio has never tried to get the Naked Cowboy out of Times Square,” said topless marcher Priya Singh, 21, referring to the guitar-strumming cowboy who busks in only a hat, boots and a pair of tighty-whiteys.
“De Blasio is teaching women to be ashamed of their bodies. He should leave it alone. If men can show their bodies, women should be allowed to show their bodies as well,” she added.
Costumed menaces have wreaked havoc on Times Square in recent years, including pushy topless ladies who wear body paint and very little else, a scourge first exposed by The Post in April.
On Thursday, the mayor convened a task force to deal with the problem. The multiagency team, co-chaired by Bratton and city Planning Commissioner Carl Weisbrod, will study the “legal and oversight issues associated with regulating topless individuals and costumed characters,” City Hall said.
Asked about the state of Times Square on Thursday, Bratton blasted the area’s pedestrian plazas, suggesting the city “just dig the whole damn thing up.”
“Put it back the way it was, where Broadway is Broadway and not a dead-end street,” he told 1010-WINS Radio.
Marchers at Sunday’s parade — an event intended to promoted gender equality — said de Blasio’s administration was a bust.
“What do you think about the mayor’s actions?” one woman shouted, as the marchers arrived at Bryant Park.
A chorus of boos rang out from the crowd.
“The mayor is contributing to the over-sexualization of women’s bodies,” said 18-year-old high school student Nikki Raynor, of Shoreham, LI.
Targeting the women is only feeding the problem, others said.
“If it wasn’t such a big deal, the girls in Times Square would disappear,” said Karen Penn, who sunbathed topless in Bryant Park after the parade.
The march came hours after Bratton told 970 AM radio that both the mayor and Gov. Andrew Cuomo were trying to figure out a way to handle shirtless women.
“We are trying to find ways within our laws . . . to deal with those among that population who are potentially harassing or some way intimidating people who want to be in that square for family purposes,” he said.
The top cop said car traffic would remove the pedestrian plazas where tip-grubbing performers have been harassing tourists and locals alike.
“The activity is not occurring anywhere else in the area,” he said.
