New York City, or Boston, Jr.?

If New York City has a fault, it's a tendency to emulate the Hub of the Universe. Boston builds its Charlie, or T, or whatever they call it nowadays, so New York must have its Subway; Boston puts Art in its T-stops, so New York follows suit; Boston makes a mall of Quincy Market, so ditto the Fulton Fish Market; Boston evinces an insular attitude with that old joke that ends "by way of Dedham," so New York plasters its walls with that Steinberg cartoon (you know the one I mean). Whatever Boston does, New York must then do, not necessarily with improvements.

Well, it's happened again. The latest is Snapple's giant melting popsicle in Union Square. Shades of the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919!