Videos: Pope Benedict departs Manhattan by helicopter; an empty Popemobile ventures into Red Hook, Brooklyn
One of the fabulous things about living in New York City is that you never know what you're gonna see. Like maybe you're driving through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and you happen to realize the Popemobile is in the next lane.
The video:
The Popemobile, in Red Hook, turns left under the Gowanus Expressway and you head off to dinner. (Map.)
And then the people who later sit at the next table say "We just saw the Popemobile, too. At Columbia and Atlantic." (Map.)
Then you get home an hour later and wonder why there are so many hovering NYPD helicopters over the edge of South Brooklyn. And then you notice tons of flashing police lights in Manhattan heading south on the FDR -- toward the Wall Street Heliport.
Then you see a pair of Marine One-looking helicopters head out over the East River, out into the New York harbor, in front of the Statue of Liberty and out to the Verrazano Bridge -- the same route the US Helicopter commuter service takes on weekdays to and from JFK Airport.
The video:
(Just now, as the YouTube clip is uploading, the live TV feed shows the pope has just arrived at JFK with Vice President Dick Cheney. OK, still waiting on YouTube, and NY1 has just noted that indeed, the pope departed via the Wall Street Heliport.)
