The City

Here comes sickness

April 3, 2007 – 3:20 pm

Somehow, despite my healthy lifestyle choices and PMA, my cold continues unabated. I thought recovery was imminent when my voice gave out on Sunday, but I'm still decidedly unwell two days later, albeit in new and disgusting ways. My only solace is that by not using my federally-mandated sick days, I may very well infect my entire office. Then I'll have some peace and quiet around this place!

Work on the basement has slowed due to my ineffectual white blood cells, but we are definitely primed for completion. We brought the plywood downstairs yesterday. You may remember this plywood as the old subfloor Buzz painfully removed from the 4th floor during that project. How's that for recycling? Or, more correctly, how's that for being a skinflint? I'm also using as much of the old paneling and furring strips I ripped out of the basement, both to cut down on costs and so I don't have as much crap to throw out later.

Speaking of which, as a new homeowner I am now acquainted with the joys of being fully responsible not only for my trash, but for any little piece of garbage that happens to drop on my property (or the sidewalk in front). I've already been fined for improperly secured refuse (apparently the Dept of Sanitation prefers their garbage gift-wrapped), so when it comes to the big stuff like scrap wood and metal, I get spooked. I don't even want to risk a fine for some law I didn't even know about. For instance, do you know when your 'bulk' trash day is?

Trick question! Officially, there is no single bulk trash day, every regular trash day allows for the inclusion of large items. That's the theory, but of course a lotta people think Friday is always bulk day. Still, I have seen little consistency not just in bulk pick-up, but even the regular trash. I think they only pick up trash when they 'feel' like it. When I put out nonstandard items in the trash, I cross my fingers in the hopes it will be picked up. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. I never know if it's because there secretly is a bulk day they're not telling people about, or if the DOS guys are just jerking me around.

By Jimmy Legs | Also posted in Health, House, Renovation, Soundproofing | Comments Off

A lot of people got it right and the others just wanted to fight

March 28, 2007 – 11:07 am

I'm sure the article has already been linked to death, but I just read it for the first time, and like everybody else who's seen it, have been struck with the similarities in real estate issues now and over 20 years ago:

NYT: The Gentrification of the East Village

You can argue what neighborhood most closely resembles what the East Village was encountering in 1984, but the language used and points made are lifted every day to describe a bunch of Brooklyn neighborhoods. This could be an article in 2007 about Williamsburg, Bushwick, even speculation-heavy Clinton Hill. Here's a list of stuff lifted from this article that parallel what we've been seeing happen lately:

Local commenting on newcomers: "I see them walking down the street in identical blue suits with their briefcases and I think, 'There goes the neighborhood.' "
and

"Why are all these people coming here, where they're so riotously out of place? I don't want my neighborhood to change."

Contrast of old-school and new construction: "The chrome and glass facade of a newly renovated co-op is a block away from a corner known for prostitution."
and

"There is a sushi bar across the street from an abandoned warehouse and a neoned art gallery stands across from a Ukrainian restaurant closed by spiraling rents after 32 years."

A reminder of how the process tends to work: "The first of these [steps to gentrification] is marked by building deterioration and neighborhood crime, the second by short-term speculators, the third by long-term investors and renovators and the last by full-scale construction."

Quarrels over the very name of a neighborhood: "As soon as they said 'East Village,' they tripled the rent. It's the East Village to the real-estate brokers," she said of the area that has been her home for 30 years. "To us it's the Lower East Side."

Quotables from those for and against the changes:
"The area used to be a last-choice area – people thought I was crazy when I started buying here in [insert year]."

"It's finally happened down there. It went through the burnout and the druggies and now there's action."

"I think it's hypocritical of the people who live here who rail against it. They benefit from the changes. We all do."

The East Village had (and still has) a Life Cafe, as does a certain, other so-called up & coming neighborhood. Okay, that's a stretch, but I like the symmetry.

And my favorite one-sentence description of a new resident: "The neighborhood is now home to people like Miss Kelley, who graduated from the State University of New York at Binghamton two years ago with a degree in art history and works for a Wall Street real estate broker."

But at what price, your rent? If you run some of the the numbers mentioned in the article through an inflation calculator, you get this:

1984/Now
Studio: $570/$1112
1-Bedroom: $700/$1366
2-Bedroom: $900/$1756
Store with Adjoining loft: $500/$975
3-Bedroom: $2000/$3,900
3-story Brownstone: $100,000/$195,153

A cursory search of craigslist seems to show that 3-bedroom apartments are still in that range (those there are tons up in the $4500-5000 range). But most 2-bedrooms are nearly twice what they used to be. Studios seem to be as low as $1500. Sadly, brownstones (even in the bad neighborhoods) go for a helluva lot more than $200K. Feel the burn!

By Jimmy Legs | Also posted in Bushwick, Gentrification, Renting | Comments Off

I'm so soaked to the skin

March 16, 2007 – 1:36 pm

I hate to talk about the weather instead of something more substantial (like, um, how smart pigs are or fantasy holidays), but this weather sucks. It's like March got really nice for a couple of days only to make us feel the pain of this crap all the more. I was lamenting that South By Southwest is going on, as it drains the city of most of our bands, for better or worse. But I'm not going out in this muck tonight.

What's worse is that as a homeowner, I'm supposed to do something about it on my little plot of sidewalk. I guess I'll throw some salt out (thoughtfully left behind by previous owner), but you can't really shovel this sleety/icy/puddly stuff. You remember the scene in Fargo when the cop talks to the guy while he's sweeping his driveway ("And then he says, 'Geez, I'm goin' crazy out there at the lake'")? Imagine that falling from the sky, that's what it's doing on the streets of New York.

Times like these I wish my building had its own underground connection to the subway. I think all building within a block of a subway station should have tunnels built so we don't have to walk outside. Better yet, let me stay the hell at home and not bother with any of this crap.

Plans for this weekend include hanging drywall on the ceiling in the basement. This will either go smoothly or the ceiling will collapse upon us and kill us. So if I don't update this blog for, like, a couple of weeks, you'll know I didn't make it.

By Jimmy Legs | Also posted in House, Job, Mass Transit, Weather | Comments Off

Give me convenience or give me death

February 27, 2007 – 11:15 am

Here's a breakdown of car ownership (or actually non-car ownership) in the 4 boros:

Most NYC residents don't own cars. New York City total: 54% (vs. 57% in 1990), The Bronx: 60%, Brooklyn: 54%, Manhattan: 78% (vs. 77% in 1990. Unclear if this is actual decline in car ownership or from rounding the numbers.), Queens: 34%, Staten Island: 20%. [bicycle universe]

I should be heartened by these figures, but I wonder how accurate they are. On the one hand the stats are from 2000, so things are probably different now. Also, lots of people who live here keep their cars registered in other states to save on insurance costs. Then there's this article in the Times that notes how New York is falling behind other more enlightened cities who are shutting parts of town down to car traffic. Not surprisingly, Mayor Bloomberg hasn't been very inspirational for bicyclists. Commenting on one of the many bike/car fatalities of the past year, he advised cyclists to "pay attention."

The article suggests the reason for the increase in problems over the past few years has something to do with the city attracting an increasing number of people who, for the past 50 or so years, normally would opt for the suburbs to roost. As usual, these folks know the melody of the song but get the words wrong. They flock to the Big City, but want to take their suburban accoutrements of convenience with them.

If something is convenient, it seems to nullify all debate. Case in point is the ongoing moral struggle seen in patrons of Fresh Direct. They love getting fancy food and fresh produce delivered to their door, but have serious misgivings about the pollution, congestion and waste produced by the company's trucks and packaging. While I do think FD could probably find better packaging methods, I'm not sure I see a way the company could feasibly maintain their delivery schedules without using those big trucks. It kind of seems like the people who are complaining about them are trying to assuage their own guilt over using the service in the first place.

The Brooklyn Record had a recent post which led to a lot of discussion about ways in which food delivery companies could reduce pollution. I commented that it was important to remember what a luxury it is to have such a service, and how it comes with a price. At that point I was told that FD is a 'necessity' for certain people, mainly because there is no decent grocery store in their neighborhood. This got me to thinking, we live in a city with one of the most extensive mass transportation systems in the world which, despite its problems, provides its citizens with flat-fare access to most of the city. Yet despite this we have a whole bunch of people who apparently live so far off the grid that they must compromise their ecological morals and, regretfully, have to have their avocados brought to their door. Yes, they have to do this because there is no other option; it's not like they could hop on the bus and get the stuff they want.

The unspoken, irreducible element here is convenience. Nobody wants to really use that as a defense but that's what's going on here. It's not like I'm above this, I'm a slob for convenience as much as anyone. I'd probably use Fresh Direct sometimes, if only it came to my neighborhood (it's amazing I haven't starved to death yet). But I wouldn't kid myself as to what I was doing, I'd at least be honest enough with myself to admit I could get pretty much anything I wanted if I just hoofed around the city more.

People will claim they don't have enough time and so simply must use services like FD just to keep it together. I sure hope these aren't the same people who whine about emissions from the trucks. Maybe you need to reorder your priorities more than you need to worry about some fumes and some cardboard boxes.

But like I said, I'm not immune. Lately I would kill for the convenience of a car or big pick-up truck. I have all this stuff I need to get into my house, but have to jump through all these hoops to get it there because I have no vehicle. For the basement soundproofing project, I'm having a bunch of drywall delivered from a local contractor's supply house. The delivery charge alone was $75. Now, I could have rented a $20 a day van from U-Haul for less, (usually it's more like $50 a day when all is said and done). But getting the van is a pain, and driving it is particularly stressful for me. So not only am I paying for not owning a vehicle, I'm paying for the convenience of having it delivered to my door. I admit it.

But if I want some exotic vegetable, I also know I'm gonna walk over to 49th street and go to the fancy grocery store before I go home tonight. It sure is nice we have all these subways to get around.

By Jimmy Legs | Also posted in Cars, Mass Transit, Renovation | Comments Off

No more wood on the fire

January 30, 2007 – 2:15 pm

Now that some of the house repairs are beginning to die down (well, actually it's more like outright ignoring), I can get back to other methods of shortening my life through external tasks. Tonight that means wandering around on the cold streets to go see some bands. I've already got my flask of Jim Beam, so the journey shouldn't be too painful.

The show is USAISAMONSTER, one of my favorite bands of the past several years, they're playing at the Glasslands Gallery. I've only been there once before, over the summer at what I think might have been the first show in this incarnation. That was also a USAISAMONSTER show. The trick now is I no longer live on the G train line.

Normally, that wouldn't be considered a handicap, but in terms of getting to this location in Williamsburg it would actually have helped. Used to be I could take the G to the L train to get where I was going (in this case, Kent Ave & S. 2nd St.) but now I live only near the J train. There paradox is that the J stops at Marcy, which is pretty much the only train in all of the South Williamsburg area. But it still leaves me almost a mile from the space. Though the L train drops me off at Bedford and 7th, it's about a half mile to the joint from there. And that's as close as mass transit will take me.

Or so I thought. Thanks to the MTA's Trip Planner (what a catchy name), I see that the Q59 bus will pretty much take me right to the club's front door. But to get to this bus I gotta take the J to Lorimer St, exit and catch the B48 bus first. I dunno if I have it in me to stand around waiting for the bus in this weather (and forget about it when the show is over, there'll be one bus every 6 hours).

Now, I can take the J train down to Broadway Junction and transfer to the L, whipping around the eastern edge of the neighborhood until it hits Bedford. This will take forever, and now that I think of it, also involves standing around outside (both trains are elevated at Broadway Junction). Or I could walk half a mile to the Bushwick Ave L station and take that over. Either way it looks like I'm gonna be out in the cold for much of the night. I better stop, I'm starting to talk myself out of it.

By Jimmy Legs | Also posted in Mass Transit, Music | Comments Off