Neighborhood Threat

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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El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!

I know, we probably didn’t have a lot to do with this. I am sure they would have gotten into trouble eventually with or without the community holding them responsible.

But it sure feels good.

Latest From Kent Avenue

Lest you feel this is anything new, these are the same people who would throw stones at an ambulance going lights and sirens to the hospital on Yom Kippur in Israel, if that ambulance went down the wrong street. (Nevermind that Jewish law specifically states that to save even a single soul it is permissible to break the Sabbath or most commandments.)

They’re my people but this is making me want to bike up and down the Southside on a Saturday.

When I first heard about the Election Night incidents at N. 7th and Bedford, and read some of the comments over on Free Williamsburg, I have to say that my immediate reaction was: stupid entitled white children acting as though only they matter, I am sure they did not help themselves very much.

On the other hand, I do not like or trust the NYPD. So I was completely certain that they were wrong, at least to a certain extent.

Now that I have seen the footage, and talked to a perfectly respectable citizen of our community who was handcuffed and taken in for giving a cop the finger, I will say this:

The NYPD was completely over the top on this. They were wrong.

I will also say this:

The stupid kids exercising white privilege and blocking traffic and keeping people up all night under the guise of entitlement are also wrong. Not everyone had the luxury of staying up all night celebrating. People had to get home to kids and family and to and from jobs. You can cry out for a car-free Bedford another time, right now, it’s a transportation artery - and that also goes for PUBLIC transportation, like the B61 (which should go down Berry and not Bedford, but that’s another story too).

There is no question that the cops were out of line, however. There is very little justification for their behavior. And they only got away with it because they were doing it to white kids in Williamsburg. If they had tried to pull an action like this in Bed-Stuy it would have been an international incident.

We went to vote at around 8:15 this morning. There was a line out of the McGuinness Senior Center, mostly due to the backup of not remembering what district we were in. The guy in front of us insisted that we had to wait in line even if we DID know our district.

Not true.

We are in District 75. It’s never that crowded, but today was not any normal day.

The poll workers seemed amazed that that many people were there that early. They said that lunchtime was when it really got bad.

I don’t even want to think about what that meant today.

My record was there just fine, but the boyfriend’s was not. He had to produce ID and then he disappeared. I love how we still have the old-fashioned booths that I remember from when my parents voted in the 70s, complete with pencil carefully clipped to the side in case you wanted to write someone in. I went into the voting booth, closed the curtain, twirled my knobs and pulled the lever.

When I came out it was even more crowded. The phone rang, and it was the boyfriend. I had no signal downstairs but had enough to hear him say he was outside. He had to vote on paper, even though he didn’t want to, he had to vote on paper because despite not being on the rolls the last time this happened and him sending them a letter AGAIN updating his address, he was still not there, even though his ID actually reflects his current domicile.

Him and Tim Robbins. He was in good company, and would have liked to have been afforded the luxury of taking Tim’s protest route and going down to the Board of Elections, but alas, that course of action was not for us peons.

(I’m glad Tim did, and at least he pointed out that he had the luxury of doing so.)

My flickr feed is here, and I cannot tell you how important it was for me to have my camera this morning.

I’ve always used Northside, after two incidents when I first moved to the neighborhood. Never had a problem, never had an issue.

Until yesterday.

The boyfriend is home sick with the flu. He never gets sick, which means it’s a million times more miserable for him than for me. I couldn’t stay home or go in late, so I left him cash to take a car to the doctor.

Northside charged him $40 to the Upper West Side from Greenpoint. He didn’t even really think about it or have the strength to argue, and didn’t really put two and two together until he took a cab home and it was only $25.

He didn’t tell the driver he was sick, but it’s pretty obvious from looking at him. It costs $40 to go to JFK, for heaven’s sake. Yes, he should have pushed back, and if he didn’t know how much it cost he should have checked with the dispatcher. But this blatant rip-off ensures we will never give Northside our business again. My guess is that the driver assumed he was new to the neighborhood and since he was white and male, had money and wouldn’t know the difference. That’s reprehensible.

This sign is displayed at a noted nightspot in downtown Manhattan. I would like to call your attention to the last line:

“Exit the bar briskly and silently. People are trying to sleep upstairs. Please make all travel plans and say all farewells before exiting the bar.”

This is clearly an establishment that wishes to stay in business. This is clearly an establishment that wishes to have as little impact on its neighbors as possible. In short, this is a responsible bar owner.

Now, no, I don’t know how well this is enforced or if this is all just window dressing. But at least it’s there.

And they’re worse than ever. Last night’s grand reopening party made noise that kept me awake from just after 1am until 5:15 THIS MORNING. The trucks that drive up Franklin at that hour were quieter.

1. The music was louder. I know because I could hear it clearly from the building. It wasn’t just a dull thump. So they’ve done nothing to ameliorate it. There is no double door. And I bet they had a dj on the roof, despite insisting that they don’t.
2. The people were stupider. Someone drover around the block SIX TIMES IN A ROW blasting that horrific Haddaway song. They yelled more, they yelled louder, they yelled later. People were yelling at 3:15, 4:30, 5:15. (Linda, I hope you finally caught up with your friends.)
3. The horn blowing was insane, and it wasn’t cabs. It was people waiting for their friends. I think that some of these people actually worked at the club, based on the tenor of the conversation. “Hey, it’s 3 in the morning, and I want my friends to hurry up. Let me keep blowing my horn, alternating with yelling. I mean, I don’t have to go to work tomorrow so no one else does. There are no families with children or babies in this area, what difference does it make if I make noise?”
4. Nothing actually started to be noisy until about 1am, which explains why I didn’t go outside and try to see what was going on. Because I’m one of those people who had to work today. I also did not file a complaint with 311 for that reason. I am a bad neighbor.

Basically, they didn’t learn anything. It’s business as usual. They never had any intention of being a good neighbor until they got busted, and now that they are back in business (although no one is sure how, given that none of the statues of their permits have changed), they’re just going to continue to be the blatantly inconsiderate assholes about running their club that they always have been.

I cannot wait for their liquor license to come up for renewal. And I will never again not phone a complaint into 311, no matter how late it is.

Can anyone recommend a good white noise machine?