The Reluctant Hero of Times Square

The T-shirt vendor who may have saved Times Square Saturday evening wasn’t very interested in taking his time in the limelight. Although he did not want to give up his name, a tag on his shirt identified him as Lance Orton. He’s responsible for grabbing the attention of a mounted police officer to start the Times Square evacuation last night. Twelve hours after the vendor had alerted police of a suspicious, smoking S.U.V., all the vendor wanted was to go home and be left alone. “I’m fed up,” said Orton, who was tired of the whole ordeal and uninterested in speaking at length to the media. As a veteran who had served during the Vietnam War, he did say he was proud of his actions and also advised New Yorkers if they “see something, say something.”