http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19991226/us/mil_times_square_security_2.html

Sunday December 26 7:06 PM ET Times Square To Get Heavy Security By RICHARD PYLE Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - The manhole covers will be welded shut, six police helicopters will hover overhead and 8,000 officers, some with bomb-sniffing dogs, will be on duty New Year's Eve in and around Times Square.

While publicly downplaying ``terrorist hype,'' New York City officials have made Times Square the focus of an elaborate security plan that puts the nation's biggest metropolis on a virtual war footing for the millennium celebration.

In Times Square alone, as many as 2 million revelers are expected for a 25-hour celebration of lights, lasers and noisemakers.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir said they knew of no specific threats against the city, but the recent arrests of people suspected of extremist connections at U.S.-Canada border crossings in Washington and Vermont have heightened fears of terrorist acts timed to the millennium.

``There are no guarantees, but we can take every precaution that's humanly possible,'' Safir said in Sunday's edition of The New York Times. ``I think the public should come to Times Square, and I think they should not be deterred by all this terrorist hype that is going on.''

He earlier called last week's comments by former New York FBI chief James Kallstrom, who urged people to avoid Times Square, ``caving in to terrorism.'' Kallstrom later insisted he wasn't referring to terrorism.

Nevertheless, many of the precautions outlined in ``Archangel'' - the intricate security plan that has been three years in the making - are designed specifically to thwart terrorists.

An area 24 blocks long and three blocks wide will become a pedestrians-only zone, with the manhole covers sealed, garbage cans removed and mailboxes locked to remove possible hiding places for explosives. Parking will be banned, beginning at midnight on Dec. 30, and private vehicles left there will be towed and impounded.

In the hours before the giant lighted ball descends to mark the start of the new year, the century and the millennium, twice the normal New Year's Eve complement of police officers will deploy in the Times Square area.

Officers will be watching from helicopters and rooftops while 300 plainclothes officers teams with bomb-sniffing dogs mingle with the revelers and watch for suspicious people, Safir said. The exact definition of suspicious behavior was not divulged.

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-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 27, 1999

Answers

welding manhole covers

Could be a blunder. If the water system has problems due to Y2K...oh, I forgot, Y2k is solved, terrorism is now the problem...

;-)

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), December 27, 1999.

Since I am a good citizen I will destroy those terrorist italics before they crawl out of a manhole cover! ;-)

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), December 27, 1999.

Manhole covers?? Manholes?? Isn't that how JFK bought the farm??

-- Z (Z@Z.Z), December 27, 1999.

This is a move by the feminazis. Partof a larger plot. Once the manhole covers are wleded shut on the manholes, they will be reopened with much fanfare, in 2000 as "personholes".

>"<

-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), December 27, 1999.

What happens if they need to get in to the manholes? That is what they are for.

-- tony boya (tony@boya.com), December 31, 2004.