Dalai Lama is honored by N.Y. City mayor

NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented the key to the city to the Dalai Lama on Sunday and called the Tibetan spiritual leader "a moral beacon to millions around the world, with a clear and constant voice for human rights."
The Dalai Lama pantomimed opening a door with the oversize key and said, "I think with this key I can go everywhere. It can open every door."

The brief Manhattan ceremony took place on the steps of the James A. Farley post office, at Eighth Avenue and 33rd Street, which is slated to be converted to the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Train Station.
Maura Moynihan, daughter of the late Sen. Moynihan, said her father had known the Dalai Lama since his stint as U.S. ambassador to India in the early 1970s.

She said the station "will benefit all New Yorkers and all visitors to our great city, including the several thousand Tibetans who are now New York citizens."

Bloomberg said, "When Moynihan Station is completed, you'll come back and use that key to open the door."
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 following an aborted uprising against Chinese rule in the territory and now keeps an office in exile in the Himalayan town of Dharmsala, India.

After the ceremony at the post office he crossed the street to Madison Square Garden for an audience with local Tibetans.

That's So New York