DSK: the view from inside Rikers Island jail

I have looked down on it from the Triborough Bridge a thousand times en route to New York’s JFK or LaGuardia airports. Rikers jail a vast anaemic yellow grey brick block house dominating Rikers Island in New York’s East River. I have wondered at the windows – solid opaque glass bricked things.

He may be out of sight, but he’s not yet out of mind. Dominique Strauss-Kahn has just spent his second night in his 11 ft by 13 ft cell. Will he have heard the calls for him to step down from the leadership of the International Monetary Fund? They are led by Austria’s Finance Minister, bolstered discretely by top level US anxieties.

DSK is sharing Rikers with a staggering 14,000 other male inmates although he is under “special protection” which accords him, for the moment, a cell to himself. His breakfast is served this morning between 5am and 6am. According to a contact of mine who was in there for a bit, breakfast consists of processed meat, tinned veg, some wonky cabbage, and a sickly sweet orange drink. I don’t feel well even writing this.

It is a cavernous distance from the Midtown Sofitel, whose $3,000 a night suite he might be able to glimpse on the Manhattan skyline, if his cell window had see-through glass. An hour of exercise, a shower a day, and three visitors (behind glass) a week for an hour each. DSK’s crash is beyond a Bonfire of the Vanities (if you haven’t read it, read it now). My contact describes seeing crack smoked; hearing the screams of assault, and worse. The jail is eternally a sleepless din.

And the alleged victim? What support is she getting? What pressure is she under?