Since it's the dog days of summer and I've started putting the occasional piece of art in the blog, here's a New York Times photo by Nathaniel Brooks from March 10, 2008 (March 11 for the print version). "Crowds gathered in Albany on Monday, waiting for Gov. Eliot Spitzer to make a statement concerning allegations against him," the Times cutline said.
That's me in the bottom left, listening to Betty Flood of Cuyler News Service, in whose small office we were on the third floor of the Capitol, waiting for Spitzer to comment on the prostitution story the Times had just broken online. The LCA television couldn't pick up the NYC station which was going to carry the Spitzer appearance, but Betty's could.
Standing to the right is AP reporter Valerie Bauman, and the guy looking in at the middle of the doorway is Assemblyman Michael Benjamin, D-Bronx. From that doorway you could hear The New York Post's Fred Dicker on the phone in his office across the hall filling someone in on the surrounding chaos. This was before Spitzer's first statement, not his resignation two days later. I remember walking into the Assembly chamber that afternoon, empty except for Westchester Assemblyman Dick Brodsky who said forcefully on his way out, "What the f----!" Then Jim Tedisco, who was Republican leader of the Assembly, showed up in the hallway between Betty's office and the LCA and called for Spitzer's resignation. And in another hallway I came across Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who said something not particularly supportive of the governor.
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