Obama Sighting in Manhattan
My girlfriend and I were in Manhattan today. With an hour or so to kill, we decided to walk around Central Park. Before we got into the park, we noticed quite a few police officers, several barricades, and just generally a lot of hoopla at 79th and 5th along the east side of the park. Our curiosity piqued, we asked a police officer what was going on. “The President’s motorcade will be coming through the area soon.”
Since we really had nothing else to do and since seeing a Presidential motorcade is kind of a rare experience, we hung around that corner for about 30 minutes along with several dozen others in anticipation of the motorcade. I rolled this video on my phone when it finally came through. At around the 0:26 mark, one of two Presidential limos begins the turn off of 5th onto 79th to drive through the park. Obama is in the second limo. Pause it right before you think the clock is going to hit the 0:32 mark and you can make out his head in the back of the limo that’s on the left side of the frame. He was smiling and waving to the crowd, but it’s pretty hard to see on this video. Here’s a screenshot with an arrow pointing to what you’re looking for.
I had never seen a sitting President before today. It was pretty surreal. There was like a half a second where you realized it was him and were like, “wow, there he is!” but before you could really absorb the fact that you were looking at him in real life, it was over. That’s the best way I could describe it.
At around the 0:48 mark, a blue vehicle goes by. Again, you can’t really see it in this video, but there were secret service agents pointing an absolutely enormous automatic weapon out the side of it. It’s amazing how much planning and security goes into transporting the President.
I let the video keep rolling until the entire motorcade had gone by which all told was close to two minutes. It was funny overhearing New Yorkers complaining about having to walk down a few blocks to cross 5th due to the road being blocked off for the President. I think in most places of the country, people would be like, “oh wow, the President!” But in New York they’re like, “are you kidding me? I can’t cross here?”
Update: So while I was taking that crappy video on my phone, my girlfriend was firing off pictures on her digital camera. She ended up getting a really great shot of Obama where you can actually tell it’s him. Full size here.
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That’s no Obama. Look again at the nose and the smile. I smell a Dave like incident.