Neighborhood Threat

They were still filming at 2am.
They were still filming at 3am.
Around 3:30am, they decided to film the screeching car getaway scene, where the wheels squeal and then the vehicle hits a barrier.
I don’t think they finished until well after 4:30am, but not before PUTTING THE STREET SIGNS BACK THE WRONG WAY, which is going to cause an accident (yes, we’ve called everyone relevant about this already).

They did not start filming in the residential area until 11am, but they were filming down in the building supply place near the MTA mobile wash unit on Calyer & West St. NO ONE LIVES THERE. Why on earth did they not film in the residential area early in the evening, and THEN go film from midnight onward in the location where NO ONE LIVES (Sorry, folks on Oak St., I know you’re there, but you would have been far enough away to not have been impacted).

Calls are being made, letters are being written.

It’s 2am. This is a view out my window.

For the first couple of hours it was kinda neat. Now it’s like going to sleep in the middle of the day.

To their credit, they posted the NO PARKING signs a week in advance. However, they took a tremendous amount of parking for THE ENTIRE DAY but didn’t start filming until well after dark. Ann Kansfield at the Greenpoint Memorial Church had a similar problem on Milton St., where they were yesterday.

I hope someone in the neighborhood profited from this production.

Now, I have officially seen everything:

Smiths Speed Dating at our own Black Rabbit Bar. Friends in SEATTLE are enviously emailing me about this.

(That’s Smiths as in Johnny Marr and Morrissey.)

Here’s to the power of citizen journalism: our neighbor to the south at INSIJS (great blog, horrible name) did an unbelievable job running down the reality of those ‘no parking’ signs posted by contractors and construction sites on his blog here.

Now, I’m not sure I would always disregard these signs (as some of the commenters mention, there is the chance of retaliation), but if I got home late one night and the only space was here, I’d take my chances, knowing that there is no chance of a monetary penalty from the city.

The boyfriend is a WaMu customer, and although he works in Manhattan, and is, therefore, within spitting distance of many, many branches, he chortled when Extra was replaced with a WaMu branch on Manhattan Ave.

Until, that is, today. The WaMu branch will be closing, and once again he will have to trek out to the Bushwick (e.g., Graham and Grand) branch.

So what goes in the space now? And how long will it take to fill it?

I will start by saying that one of my resolutions is to be better with updates, and if my update is less informational and more chatty, so be it.

Last night was a very Greenpoint night. I ran out of work to get back to Brooklyn for my shift at the soup kitchen at the Greenpoint Reformed Church. As I said at the volunteer party this week, getting to the soup kitchen to volunteer is neither easy nor convenient for me, but I always walk out feeling a million times better than when I walked in. Please, if you have the money, donate. Even $5 or $10 can help. Or drop off some food. Or things like sponges, ziplock bags, aluminum foil, dishtowels, cleaning products, paper products, plastic cutlery - those were just the things that I noticed last night that we needed.
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