Opinion: Sotomayor strolls streets of New York, looking like cover of ‘Abbey Road’

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Just after 3 p.m. today, the Senate confirmed federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor as the 111th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, making her the third woman and first Latino to sit on the nation’s highest court.

Sotomayor watched the debate from her office in New York.

For the last few weeks, ever since her high-profile confirmation hearings in Washington, Sotomayor has been quietly back in New York, visiting her courtroom office, taking clerks to lunch, surrounded by a security detail. TMZ, the Los Angeles-based celebrity gossip website, caught her walking in TriBeCa last week and treated her like, well, a celebrity.

‘What do you think of Rosie Perez playing you in a movie?’ shouted the website’s reporter. The judge -- in black blazer and top, white pants and white sneakers, graduated from the crutches that became part of her uniform after a fall on Capitol Hill -- threw back her head and laughed. Later the reporter got very excited about Sotomayor crossing the street, calling it his video’s ‘Abbey Road’ moment.’

Meanwhile, back in Washington, real estate agents are speculating -- salivating? -- over prospects that Sotomayor will soon need a place to live there. Georgetown Realtor Gay Pirozzi, herself a former New Yorker, said Sotomayor is arriving ‘just at right time -- not only for politics but the market is great.’ Besides, said the Coldwell Banker agent, ‘everybody wants her in their neighborhood.’

-- Johanna Neuman

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