Last week I saw a junkie couple on the sidewalk. She was sitting down in a semi-coherent stupor and he was getting in her face, calling her foul names and threatening to slap her around. I walked by without doing anything as I assumed this was their customary way of communicating and it didn't look like he was actually going to hit her.
There was this short skinny gay kid, probably 20 years old, who saw this and he immediatly ran up to the junkie guy, who was twice his size, pushed him back and then got up in his face and cut loose with a string of obscenities. The junkie was a little taken aback and balled his hand up into a fist and threatened the kid, but the kid didn't back down. The surly junkie backed away. Sometimes these lib. kids surprise you.
New Yorkers always surprise me.