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Wednesday,
August 30, 2006 at 16:09:14 (EDT) |
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50,000 watts of goodwill
The building around the corner from my house was sold in
the past year or so. I know this because the building has
been marginally fixed up (new windows on the back that face
my yard, replacing plywood boards,etc). Also I know there's
new management because suddenly the building is fulla white
kids. There appear to be a few black families left, but there
are definitely some honkies up there somewhere. We know this
primarily because at least one apartment has a band practicing
in it.
On a certain level this pleases me. I like the idea of other
bands coming out of Clinton Hill, though I admit that's a
pretty arbitrary reason for liking a band. There's another
band that practices on my corner, just high school kids who
plays gigs at CBGBs at 7 o'clock. But the kid who lives there
lives in a duplex whose lower floor is subterranean. So you
can't really hear his band, except the occasional rumbling
from the corner.
This new band lives on the top floor of the building. They
don't practice very long or very late, but when they do, everybody
knows it. Once we were hanging out in the backyard when they
started up. Our neighbors (who have been super kind when it
comes to my own band's practices) were also in their back
yard, making comments towards the blaring music 100 feet away.
As the summer progressed, they seemed to get quieter, until
I realized that what had happened was they had bought 3 in-window
A/C units, so the windows were just closed. The other day
I walked by the front of the building on my way to the grocery
store and realized that however loud it sounded from the back
was nothing compared to how it sounded on Grand Ave.
It's really friggin' loud.
Not hold your ears while an A train scrapes the inside track
loud, but definitely take-notice, raise your voice to speak
on the sidewalk loud. The neighborhood seemed to be taking
it in stride, but I bet some of the guys hanging around would
like unfettered access to their apartment. This made me feel
guilty about the noise my own band makes in our basement,
but we've tried to contain it as much as possible.
We only practice a couple of times a week and never go past
9pm. We're down in the cellar; i've noticed that if you stand
outside you can barely hear it. But inside the house I know
it can be pretty loud (somehow I don't worry about the opinions
of the other people who live in my building). The next-door
neighbors have spoken up when they thought it was too loud,
but they haven't said anything about it in years now (except
for the one guy who makes fun of my attempts to play the saxophone).
What bugs me ultimately about the band is that they're making
things worse for me. People are gonna associate the loud band's
behavior with me, either because of how I look, or the fact
that I too produce a certain amount of noise myself. If the
neighborhood was all raw lofts full of gritty artists, I'd
be all for it. But it's not. I just add this to the growing
list of trespasses I observe the newly-transplanted committing
around here. So maybe I'm a hypocrite, maybe I'm feeling a
sense of invasion I have no right to possess (considering
I only got here 5 years ago).
Then they started shooting fireworks off the back of the
building.
It started one Sunday a few weeks ago. at first it was amusing,
some Roman candles and screamers. It made the cats jump. It
was funny. But they keep doing it! Not every night, but just
when I've forgotten about it, they start it up again. It's
like they're daring the neighbrohood to respond. But somehow,
I don't think they're thinking at all about the neighbors.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Monday, August
21, 2006 at 16:55:19 (EDT) |
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Watch out momma cuz I'm going Whole
Hog
All this real-estatin' has left me exhausted
and barren of inspiration. While other blogs fight over who
'broke'
the story of the pig that lives in the neighborhood (how
'bout March
24, 2005?), I think about things like "If I finance
more of the closing costs, I'll have more capital left over
to make value-added upgrades to the sewer main." I always
wondered why people stop going out to bars or have to be in
bed at a reasonable hour, but now I think I know: Buying property
saps the very essence out of you. Still, I hope it won't last;
otherwise, what is the point of even doing this if it makes
me a dried-up ol' grump? Hmm, that sounds like my old landlord
...
Anyway, in the spirit of documenting my remaining period
in Clinton Hill, allow me to recap some stuff I've experienced
recently. We've been spending a lot more time at The
Alibi and Rope,
old haunts I've become reacquainted with lately. They've beefed
up the lighting in the Alibi's backyard, some hooded flood
lamps on top of the deck make things much more inviting than
the olden days of the bare white 100-watt bulb (which has
been nicely shaded with a steel lampshade made by one of the
regulars). Rope is also still very friendly, it's become the
de facto home of the Sweet
Action Skate Club, which, against all odds, seems to be
growing in membership by leaps and bounds (who knew so many
people wanted to strap on skates and injure themselves outside
of Roller
Derby?)
It was brought to my waning attention recently that there's
a newish cafe on the Fort Greene side of things, called Smooch.
Despite the name it seems like a nice place, and almost all
the food is vegan. I haven't eaten there yet, but who could
have guessed a year ago that there would be two vegetarian
restaurants within a couple of blocks of each other in these
parts? I have dined at Red
Bamboo many a time, and it never fails to amaze me what
they can do with textured vegetable protein. I almost believe
a carnivore could eat there and not even know the animals
are missing. Okay, maybe they could tell, but they might not
mind it.
A stroll down Clinton Ave last night reminded me of the Crazy
Cat Lady who used to stand in front of her brownstone and
try to sell passersby old magazines at severely inflated prices.
I looked up the records of her house at 306 Clinton and determined
that she's grown too old to care for herself, but the house
has been put into the name of a trust and the proceeds from
its sale are earmarked to support her for the rest of her
life. She'd been in that place nearly 40 years! I guess it
comes as no surprise that she's in the old-folks home now,
considering that even several years ago she was exercising
some dubious judgment (no electricity in the house, several
tell-tale cat carriers stacked up by her front door, trying
to sell me a 5-year old copy of Us Weekly because
"it has Brad Pitt on the cover!") Now, all I can
think of is when that house sells, she'll be able to afford
to buy the nursing home.
I'm sure Bushwick will have its share of colorful characters,
and some not-so-colorful ones, but I suspect a dearth of run-down
bars, and I can pretty much guarantee the only Morningstar
Farms Chik'n Nuggets I'll be seeing there will be the
ones I've transported from some more upscale location. But
at least I've noticed no lack of stray cats in the new neighborhood,
so I should feel right at home in any case.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Friday, August
18, 2006 at 13:22:04 (EDT) |
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She always hated his hacking cough
You gotta be kidding me
We had the inspection of the house yesterday. What a depressing
experience! Despite this home's outwardly decent appearance,
inside it harbors many horrors. chief among these is the presence
of some good ol' fashioned ASBESTOS
in the cellar! Can you believe this? I mean, really, who still
has asbestos? It's in the form of pipe insulation on two heat
pipes that run the length of the property. It's not totally
crumbling, but as you can see, it's not exactly looking secure.
So it costs a lot to get rid of asbestos, sure. But how do
people live with it for years and do nothing about it? Wouldn't
that be considered a good idea by pretty much anyone? So now
the sellers are going to have to pay to have it removed, right
as they are about to relocate to Hotlanta. They could have
done this 10 years ago and enjoyed all those carcinogen-free
years (and feasibly paid far less for the removal). But now
they have to pay for it anyway and they don't even get any
benefit from it.
That's what I keep thinking about in terms of my own possible
home ownership. The engineer found some issues with the house
that won't be a problem for at least 10 years, but will cost
a lot to deal with (such as roof repair and brick pointing
of the facade). We certainly won't have the money to do that
sort of thing for a long time, but it definitely be taken
care of somewhere down the road. By the time it becomes really
necessary to fix, we may have adequate equity in the house
to finance larger projects. Of course, that's a long way off.
I think the average length of home ownership these days is
something like 5 years. So I guess I might end up having to
make some big repair right when I'm selling the house, just
to keep a buyer on the line. And the circle of life continues
...
But still, really. Asbestos. Come on!
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Thursday,
August 10, 2006 at 12:24:19 (EDT) |
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Get god, get giddy, you're moving to
the city
Let it not be said that I did not have
a Darned Good Reason for letting this blog grow moss lately:
I was consumed by Real Estate. Jeannie and I have been looking
to shack up together somewhere, so we figured why not blow
our lifes' savings on a house in a disreputable neighborhood?
And it now appears that we are about to do just that.
 Our
offer has been accepted on a house in the bowels of Bushwick
Brooklyn. I warned you kids we wouldn't be able to stay in
Clinton Hill! I will miss its amazing architecture, its shady
lanes, its entitled yuppies. But we can barely afford this
house, much less anything in high-profile neighborhood. As
you know, Bushwick has been touted for a while now as The
Next Place You Are Missing Out On, but that is not exactly
the Bushwick we're buying in. Most reports about the gentrification
of Bushwick involve the northern part of the area, where everything
is warehouses, 6-family buildings, and displaced college kids
whose brokers told them this was "East Williamsburg."
We'll be setting up shop on the other end of the place, the
southern end, where it's all houses and 99-cent stores.
The neighborhood admittedly seems rough, but the house is
near to all the services we need, a supermarket 2 blocks away,
bodegas on every corner, and the J train one block away. Yes,
we'll be living in the shadow of the elevated train, whose
noise our agent said, "Aww, ya hear it once, then you
never hear it again." I'm hoping that this location inspires
me to ride my bike more, as I've learned it's a very quick
ride between Bushwick and Clinton Hill (otherwise, only the
B26 bus is a worthwhile option to get there).
Here's hoping the deal makes it to closing. I'm not sure
what will happen at this point as we work out the deal's details.
Soon we'll have an inspection done to root out any problems
with the place, and then it'll be time to lay out the cash.
We've been working out a budget for a while now, we may have
to curtail some of our nightlife now (turns out we go to a
lot of shows and drink a lot of beer, who knew?).
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Thursday,
August 03, 2006 at 11:35:12 (EDT) |
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Get home safe
So meanwhile,
I'm back on the house-buying horse. Sadly, to do this, I must
abandon the neighborhood that for so many years has been my
sanctum. Clinton Hill is one of the finest residential spots
in the country, but now that I'm finally in a position to
purchase property, I've long since been priced out of my own
neighborhood. A million dollars for a house here is a "bargain"
in the eyes of wealthy transplants like those found on Brownstoner.
I seriously considered a tiny box of a house that faces an
ugly laundromat simply because it was 'only' $595,000. Then
I came to my senses and realized that Brooklyn is one big-ass
borough, so we looked elsewhere.
Bushwick has a terrible reputation ("Murder Capital
of New York!") but has access to the J train, one
of the highest rated subways on the Straphangers' survey
(then again, they rated the L train even higher, where were
they at 5 in the morning on a Saturday, only to find there's
no train whatsoever?). Aside from Bed-Stuy, which really only
has subway access at its far borders, it's the only neighborhood
that still seems to have 'affordable' houses (okay, I'm not
ready for East New York, yet). This is partially because everybody
thinks we'll be mowed down by random machine-gun fire the
moment we step off the train. Everybody keeps telling us how
unsafe it is, how sketchy everything is, all delivered with
knowing groans of concern. But none of these people who tell
us this have ever lived in Bushwick; indeed, some people who
warn us about the area have never even been there.
So, I put it to you people: how bad is it? I would love to
hear from somebody who actually has lived in the area we're
looking at, not somebody who heard from somebody else about
how some guy got jacked for his Blackberry. We're looking
in the mid-to-southern end of the neighborhood mostly, where
all the houses are. We'd be interested in any part of the
area, but the northern side of the neighborhood is all warehouses
and 6-family railroads. Down by the Gates Ave J station there
are lots of properties for sale, some are pretty nice. Of
course, Broadway is always gonna be kinda ugly, but hey, there's
a Payless shoe store right there. That's gotta count for something!
Certainly it seems more dangerous than Clinton Hill. But
then, wasn't it Clinton Hill that saw the shooting
deaths of two
people in the past couple of months? Not to mention the
related lockdown
of Grand Ave, the brothel
on Lefferts Place, the weird double
murder earlier in the year. I've always felt lucky that
I've never had any serious problems here (besides the occasional
beating), but everybody I know who lives in Clinton Hill
has been mugged or otherwise assaulted during their tenure
here. So I'm not exactly a babe in the woods here. I'm not
trying to fool myself that Bushwick is some haven of happy
families who will bring us welcome baskets and give us inappropriately
long hugs when we move in. But if I'm way off base, if I've
barely escaped the hood with my life on my visits there, somebody
tell me. Give me some comparison, is it like as bad as, say,
Youngstown?
Speaking of neighborhoods, I can't recommend highly enough
the act of riding a bike around Bed-Stuy, especially on the
really nice blocks (there are a lot of them). The area surrounding
Stuyvesant Heights is especially awesome, architecturally
speaking. I gotta bring my camera next time. And one time
I had to ride through a group of kids who were playing stickball
in the street. I rode through on my ridiculous folding bike
and they didn't even throw the ball at me. I totally would
have.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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