Greg Packer holds a missing person flyer (from the BBC):
Greg Packer, from Huntington, N.Y., looks up Monday on Dec. 31, 2001, at where the traditional crystal ball will drop to ring in the year 2002, in New York's Times Square (AP Photo on the ABCNews.com website)
Greg Packer, center, and Eriko Migagawa, right, watch the overhead giant video screen in New York's Times Square for news from Iraq. (AP Photo in NewsDay)
This article explains that the guy is obsessed with meeting celebrities. It may be that he hunts out the News in order to make comments. In any event, he is hardly a random man on the street. An excerpt:
By 8 o'clock on the coldest morning of the year, Greg Packer was already in his second hour waiting in line to go on a double-decker bus tour of Manhattan with Brandy, the R&B singer.
Spending a day waiting in line to meet celebrities is not unusual for the 38-year-old Huntington, N.Y., native, but his position so far back in the queue was. Packer has made obsessions out of being first in line and of being in the company of celebrities.
Here are three examples of the results from a Google search. There are too many to go through them all. I don't think Google is allowed to cache the NYT so that is why hits on their stuff doesn't turn up in a google search. Someone with Lexus/Nexus could check it out, through.
1. Associate Press in Newsday March 20 - On the start of the War.
In Times Square, Greg Packer, 39, a highway maintenance worker from Long Island, wore a black t-shirt with "War" written on it to show his support.
"9/11 was the catalyst. Having been in the city on that day, and seeing how the streets were so empty and the sky smelling so bad, it really reminded me that we had to do whatever we had to do," he said. "And tonight is the night."
2. Associate Press Jan 2, 2002 - Commenting on Ground Zero
History was on the mind of Greg Packer, a New Yorker visiting Ground Zero for the fourth time.
"Each time, it just gets harder and harder," he said. "But there's nothing more important than to see this. This is more important to me than any concert or game that I've ever seen, because this is history."
3. NBA.com - Commenting on the 2002 NBA Draft
I think they need to add a bug guy," said one. Greg Packer, of Huntington, N.Y., who was attending his second draft, had an opinion as to who the Knicks would draft.
"They need Wilcox," Packer said. "They need to get bigger."