Although spring had just begun, some New Yorkers were already visibly sweating. Investment bankers had their steely nerves tested by a wave of abrupt firings on Wall Street, a result of tightened ethical codes (or fear of regulators). Things got hot at Morgan Stanley as former executives publicly agitated to bring down top man Philip J. Purcell. Mayor Bloomberg perspired a bit as he personally shoveled molten asphalt into a pothole in Queens, the 600,000th to be filled since he took office. (But he must’ve breathed a sigh of relief over the stadium bid.) Actor Daniel Davis was fired from La Cage aux Folles on Broadway after feuding with his co-star and walking around the theater muttering, “I can’t believe I’m in this fucking show.” Although the city’s homicide rate was down 12 percent, murderers seemed to be having an increasingly difficult time finding places to conceal the bodies of their victims: Subway tunnels are just too busy, garbage bags preserve the evidence, and corpses dumped in the harbor tend to bob up to the surface with the change of season—they’re called “floaters,” a sure sign of spring. Bruce McM. Wright, the legendary judge known as “Turn ’Em Loose Bruce” for his clement way with poor and minority suspects, died at 86. Another casualty of the week was Pancho, a tame rooster who delighted the residents of Ludlow Street between Hester and Canal until its owner, a Chinese man named Loi, accidentally backed his car over the beloved bird. With less than two months to go before Memorial Day, there were rumors of a slight uptick in gym attendance as besotted members sweated away in their vain pursuit of beach-worthy abs. But the majority of New Yorkers remained, like the weather, medium cool—much the best way of coping with the fierce rush of life.

Related:

• Archive: “It Happened Last Week”
• Articles by Jim Holt
• Table of Contents: April 11, 2005 issue of New York | Subscribe!