New York City emailed or called about 40,000 New Yorkers Thursday to notify them they were blessed with two tickets each to see Pope Francis cruise through Central Park during the second leg of his five-day East Coast tour. More than 93,000 New Yorkers entered the lottery to try to catch a glimpse of Pope Francis’s motorcade, but unless a good friend invites you to be one of the 80,000 people crammed along the west side of the park, you’re pretty much out of luck. Or are you? As with many highly coveted and historic events, some entrepreneurial souls have taken to Craigslist to try to resell the tickets they were fortunate enough to get for free from the city.
Some are pushing the “once-in-a-lifetime” visit line to sell individual tickets for a cool thousand, or they are just planning to give them to the highest bidder — though at least one seller posted that he would donate his earnings to a friend who was a victim of clergy sex abuse. There are still some relatively cheap tickets available at a few hundred bucks a pop, though none of the ads seem particularly reliable:
I have multiple winning emails for Pope Francis Central Park Procession. You can claim up to 2 tickets per winning email. Contact me and i can better explain. Once i forward the winning email to you , you can put your information in and your tickets will be emailed to you on the 21st. The procession is on friday sept 25th Check in begins at 11am
The Mayor’s Office told Daily Intelligencer the city, along with the U.S. Secret Service, is monitoring all ticket-sales sites to remove those listings, so grab ‘em now while you still can.
