Law And Disorder: Special Victims Unit

There are unique aspects to living in Manhattan that you don't get in a lot of other places in America.

For example, while walking down the street, you'll routinely find yourself stepping on a set of metal doors leading into a basement, storage room or underground drug-dealer hideout, you never know which.  You can only hope that these doors will support your weight and that you won't soon be plummeting to your death.  Or, possibly, down a chute that leads to China (LG has heard stories...)

You'll encounter seemingly normally-looking people who were supposedly just released from a hospital without a way to get home to Brooklyn.  They'll ask you for $2 to cover bus fare.

LG suspects that some of these people are liars.  But again, it's only a suspicion.  

Subscribing to the theory that teaching a man to fish provides a lifetime of benefits, LG dispenses a piece of friendly advice to these recently-released patients: walk.

LG could go on and on with this list, but let's get to the point at hand, which involves "Law and Order: Special Victims' Unit" (that's "Law and Order: SVU" to insiders like us.)  

Every woman who LG has ever known is a fan of "Law and Order" in one, or all, of its forms: "Law and Order: Criminal Intent," "Law and Order: Los Angeles," "Law and Order: SVU," and the newest money-maker, "Law and Order: Just Commercials."

Women absolutely must watch the show; they have no choice because of biological hard-wiring.  Men only watch the show when they're dominated by their women.  Which is to say, most men watch it too.  

LG recently exited his building in the Gramercy Park section of Manhattan to find "Law and Order: Special Victims' Unit" filming directly in front of him.  The entire street was blocked off (another great convenience of living in NYC: streets randomly blocked off by film crews and politician motorcades) and equipment was everywhere.  

This was the scene immediately to the left of LG's front doorway:

That's called the "craft services" table on the right.  It contains a sandwich/snack buffet for the cameramen, production assistants, etc.  That first cart had been full of grub a minute earlier, but Kirstie Alley was making a guest appearance on the show. I think that may have been George Costanza picking over what was left.

Anyone who has lived in NYC for a year or more has walked by a craft services cart on the street.  It's generally very difficult to snag a bagel or cookie without detection -- and reprimand -- but not impossible.

However, when the production company is blocking your residential street and sidewalk with their equipment and people, it imbues one with a certain feeling of entitlement.  You want to yell "Blocking my street you sombitches?!  Well then I'll just pluck me a Ring Ding off this here cart!"

Of course, LG didn't actually do that.  But he thought about it.   
 

This is what it looked like across the street where they were filming.  Take a close look because at some point in the future that stairway and entrance will be starring in a "Law and Order: SVU" episode.  Check your local listings. 

LG has always wanted to say that.

In the end, LG finally figured out who the Special Victims are: the people who live on the block where they're filming.  We're locked in, prisoners in our own neighborhood.  LG had to wait for the crew to clear cables and carts out of the way before he could pull his car out of his garage.  He was a virtual prisoner for sixty seconds or more.   But he'll tell you this:  If they're there again tomorrow, he's going to grab that Ring Ding.  Maybe they can feature the theft on their newest show: "Law and Order: Missing Snack Foods."