Damn. I knew they'd catch up with us sooner or later. For years, New York State has tried to get us to pony up nonexistent sales tax for stuff we buy online. There's a line in the tax return that asks you to estimate the total amount of "unpaid" sales tax for anything and everything you've bought out of state that you have in your possession here. From the first year they put this in the tax form, I momentarily fretted over it, before chuckling and ignoring it, which I've done every year since. Chuckling to oneself is good for you!

So now comes the news that the State has passed a law forcing online retailers to charge sales tax on every NY-based purchase, even if they don't have a physical presence here. This totally defeats the purpose of buying stuff online, except for the fact that stuff gets delivered right to your house/office. The whole driving factor behind mail-order has always been getting the best possible price. At a certain price break, it's usually worth it to buy online, even if you pay for shipping.

Anyway, the Times says that only 2 of the most popular retailers have not already registered in New York to charge this "use tax" (WTF?) One is Amazon.com, as we all know they don't have any brick and mortar stores here. Duh. Although some of their Marketplace sellers probably do. Whatever, I guess it's back to the used book store for me.

More disturbing for me is the news that the only other unregistered retailer in the Top 10 is Newegg.com. This is a fine electronics vendor from which I have purchased pretty much every computer-related tool in the past few years. Part of their appeal is that they have very good customer reviews/ratings of every product. Also their prices were routinely the lowest around. Best of all, they're based in Jersey, so I would get stuff in like a day.

Now everything will suck. Buying from Amazon or Newegg will be like buying stuff in a regular store, but with shipping costs on top. Yay. Something about this whole thing strikes me as unjust. Why should New York state get to benefit from these sales? I don't know much about interstate commerce, but I'm not fully confident in New York's sovereignty in this arena. They can't even get the damn subways to run right fer chrissakes!

Oh well, I just hope the Calypso Discount Store down the street from me has a good price on USB flash drives.

Labels: Bad Stuff, Politics, Taxes, The City, The State

The other day I trudged uptown to the Bed Bath & Beyond way over past 1st Ave and 61st St. It's nice to have this big box store sort of nearby, but it's always a bit of a hike. I go by the Roosevelt Island tram, which is always fascinating in its total obsolescence (don't get me wrong, I hope they never dismantle it!) I also realized that the area I walk through also contains Scores, the 'gentlemen's club' once patronized by Howard Stern until his friend who worked there quit and now they go to a place called Ricky's.

I also go by Trump Plaza Apartments, a building unique in its design in that no matter the time period, it always looked dated and tacky, yet without style. I dunno, maybe it's the super-scripty calligraphy noting the name of the building all over the place. I walk though part of Sutton Place as well, eyeing actual brownstones and fancy stores I shall never patronize. I balked when I first found out I would have to work in midtown; now I'm pleased to be able to see all these parts of the city I would never set foot in otherwise.

Anyhow, I went to BB&B to buy a warm mist humidifier, because our house has been so dry this winter we are all suffering. I can't even pet the cats without creating sparks worthy of a Mr Wizard episode. Plus it's irritating my nasal passages (it's also possible the 10 cats currently in the house are adding to this). So I pick out a decent, basic model, thinking dimly that I should open the box to check it out before purchase.

"Aw, nah," I think to myself. "I don't wanna be one of those people who opens up boxes in the store." I don't know where this came from, but I had noticed a lot of the boxes had obviously been opened, including the one I ended up purchasing. Still my logic prevailed, I was above tampering with an item before I purchased it.

The box was just large enough to be cumbersome, one of those things that makes you conspicuous on the train. I managed to get it home with only a few scowls, and brought it up to our bedroom. I unpacked the humidifier, only to find a huge-ass crack in the plastic reservoir.

At first I thought I somehow cracked it in transit. But then I realized, that's why it was still on the shelf even though it had been opened. Somebody smarter than I had the foresight to make sure the damn thing wasn't all smashed up before they lugged it halfway across New York. Alas.

So today I had to drag it back. It actually worked out well, because at my initial purchase I had forgotten I had a coupon good for 20% any item (it was actually addressed to Matt but he has no need of the girly gear sold at such stores). So I returned the cracked one, and bought the replacement (I checked it out this time first) and saved ten bucks. I just hope this thing does the trick. I already feel like an old lady, now I'm an old lady with a humidifier.

Oh yes, and 10 cats.

Labels: Health, Job, Midtown, Office, Shopping, The City

I didn't notice it so much during the past week, but when the last of our visitors had successfully decamped, I realized how exhausted I was/am. The upside is that the whole Christmas visit thing went fairly effortlessly; the downside is that it left little time to really relax.

We picked up nephew Devon on Friday. Man, JFK really needs to get their story straight about picking up unaccompanied minors. We ended up running all over Terminal 8 trying to get him, being variously told to wait by baggage claim, the security check-in, or that we were supposed to have visitors' passes to meet him at the gate. No two people had the same answer. Even with everybody conferring on cell phones it took a long time to snare him.

Jeannie's mom came up the next day, and her sister (who lives here and we see all the time anyway). We did a lot of the touristy stuff; Little Italy, Chinatown, Panna II, Pearl River, (veggie) sushi, South St Seaport, The Bodies Exhibit, the J&R computer store, Thai food, World Trade Center, the Natural History Museum, an abortive trip to Rockefeller Center. The latter was like being in a Night of the Living Dead movie, except instead of rending human flesh the zombies assault you with their manfactured Christmas cheer.

Other notable moments: we thought we should see a movie to pause from the frantic running around. None of us had ever seen an IMAX movie so we got tickets to see I Am Legend on 68th St. We totally blew it, getting caught in the unforseen rains on Wednesday and not making it to the theater until it was too late to find a seat. In short, everything the movie was supposed to alleviate stress-wise ended up only compounding our aggravation. The one good thing to come out of the day was stopping at Economy Candy which never seems to be open when I'm there normally. We saw the movie the next day; it was okay, but that big huge screen scared the hell out of me!

Christmas Day was festive, though I learned the hard way that the grocery store actually does close that day. I made another vegan pot pie, even better than last time (I swear I just want to make this recipe and nothing else all year). Devon, however, was in dire straits as we didn't pick up much of the meaty variety (hey I thought the store was gonna be open!) We did have some hot dogs and frozen pizza at least, which everyone knows they had at The Last Supper.

Later in the week we did end up getting a game console, a Playstation 3 specifically. The games seem interesting, if very complex. For my money though, I am more excited that the console acts not only as a gaming device, but also as multi-function DVD player. It's got that Blu Ray technology, so now suddenly I hope to god that format wins out over HD-DVD. But it also plays video files in the Divx/Xvid formats, the primary format I get movies from on Usenet. Which reminds me, No Country for Old Men kicks ass, but the Joy Division movie, not so much (and I'm a fan from way back).

The week ended with us getting Devon's return flight time wrong. We thought it was Sunday afternoon when it had actually been at 7 in the morning. His mom was able to reschedule for the next day, meaning we'd have to leave for JFK by 4:30 AM. So we just stayed up all night.

We took a car to JFK and waited in a huge line for no good reason. Why can't everybody use the kiosk things? I know we had special circumstances but was this true for all the other people in line with us? Anyhow, we get up there and I fill out some form, at which time they tell me I have to go with him to his gate. Jeannie would have to wait outside the checkpoint. A little awkward, but whatever. I figured I would take him to his gate, where he would be met by an airline rep, who would chaperone him the rest of the way. Devon was asked to pony up $75 for this privilege.

So we go through security and to the gate, where we proceed to wait for an hour. We ask what he's supposed to do and they tell me to hang out and he'll go on after everybody else is on the plane. Then they tell me I have to stay until the friggin plane takes off. What?

So Devon finally gets to get on the plane, after asking "So what did I just pay $75 for?" and I stand around like a chump. I wait for a while, thinking that if I bail, someone will arrest me for child abandonment. But eventually I slip away, find Jeannie and hop on the Airtrain home. It doesn't take all that long to get home, we end up on the exact train that we normally pick up at Halsey Street every morning. We go home and pass out. Consequently, New Year's Eve was a decidedly low-key affair this year.

Here's some photos from the week. I kept forgetting my camera, as usual, so they are a little abrupt. Meanwhile I finally found time to build that cat shelter!

Labels: Holidays, The City, Vacation, Video Games

Whoa, what a long week. We've been preparing the house for our visitor all week, which was a lot more work than I thought. And now I'm not even sure the house looks that much better than it did before (there's only so much a broom and a sponge can do when you've got mismatched moldings and poorly-patch ceilings). But things should be stable enough to weather a couple of people coming over for a few days.

Speaking of visitors, Mugsy the feral cat showed up after disappearing for almost half a year. We assumed he was dead, but as you can see he's as beautiful as ever.

We have a bunch of brochures for stuff to do this week. Lucky for us, we haven't done anything culturally-relevant since moving to Bushwick. We'll probably go to that Bodies exhibit, even though I think it might make me hurl. There's another brochure that advertises a "Tour Simulator," some kind of IMAX type thing with footage of the city. I love the idea that people travel here from all over the world then see a simulation of what they ostensibly are here to see.

Last weekend, our interior designer Sean (so named because we keep furnishing the house with stuff he's throwing out) lent us an Xbox plus a bunch of games, so that should keep everybody occupied for at least a half-hour. I still can't tell the difference between the PlayStation and the Xbox; the Wii still seems like the most fun, but I usually get broed with video games after a couple days anyway. What's really fun is ... building cat shelters!

This weekend I am hoping to finally assemble the shelter I ordered from FeralVilla, it's basically a 2-story, shingled-roof house for cats. If the cats don't use it, I'm moving in.

Labels: Cats, Feral, Strays, The City, Vacation, Video Games

So much stuff is going on, and all I want to do i lie around on the couch. No such luck, however, as the Holidays are upon us.

I gotta remember to take a picture of our Xmas lights, it's so lame. Rite Aid has a sale on lights so I bought a couple strings and put them around the perimeter of the windows on the ground floor. They're white lights too so they don't even look all that festive; it looks like a dressing room mirror. Oh well, I'm a Jew, your traditions are 'strange' and 'frightening' to me.

Great upheaval includes the departure of our tenants. Yep, they moved up to Greenpoint yesterday, piano and all! Incredibly, we were able to sleep through most of the actual move, except when one of the movers loudly bet another that he'd pay him a hundred bucks to ride Buzz's bike down the stairs. Without going into it too much, they decided to move due to some safety issues, for which I totally don't fault them. We knew going into it that Bushwick is not exactly the safest place on earth, and I always felt a little bad that we sort of dragged them here in the first place. Still, they got a darned cheap rent for a duplex apartment! But money isn't everything and now they're in a neighborhood that's not only one of the safest in town, but is full of those amenities that everybody normally aspires to: grocery stores, restaurants, book/record stores, and an Irish pub right across the street. Damn, I could use one of those!

That's what sucks about home ownership; we're stuck here. Eventually this might turn into an advantage, say, if the neighborhood gets all fancy around us and we make a killing in real estate. Of course, the way things are going, this doesn't look too likely in the foreseeable future (for instance, all eyes were on the local corner property that was about to open, as a litmus test of the area; it opened as a wig store.) But I still like the house and, barring any personal violence I might endure, I'm okay with the neighborhood. But what are we gonna do with this house?

For the time being we are going to see if we can afford the whole joint without rental income. This comes mostly because the house, as it is set up, is unworkable for a rental to any but those we can wholeheartedly trust (and of course, my motto is: Trust No One). It's a legal 2-family, but there's no actual division between the units. To divide the house properly would take quite an undertaking at this point, and honestly wasn't something I was planning to do for a while. But if push comes to shove we'll have to jumpstart the renovations. Assuming we win the lottery, no problem!

Having the house to ourselves at this point has another big advantage: we have people coming for Christmas. Jeannie's mom and nephew are coming up for the Holidays, so they will be camping out on separate floors, on their respective futons (futons currently make up 50% of our furniture now, classy!) We certainly won't feel crowded. Now the problem is, what do we do with a 13 year old kid?

The nephew looks like he's in his 20's, he's 6 feet tall and otherwise precocious, so he's pretty flexible. But the law is not. So we can't just blithely take him to shows and bars as we would do with, say, Jeannie's mom. We're trying to figure out what a kid from St. Thomas would want to do in the city, but we're coming up short. Worse still, Todd P, purveyor of all ages shows, just announced he's cutting back on his bookings, meaning shows we could get a kid into will be in short supply. Argh.

I dunno, if I was a kid raised in the Caribbean, NYC in the winter sounds like Siberia. Hell, now that I've visited the Caribbean, NYC feels like a gulag to me too. Don't get me wrong, I love it here, but I just don't wanna have to leave the house. Aside from the requisite tours, museums, restaurants, what do kids do here? Should we give him some spray paint or what?

Labels: Holidays, House, Real Estate, Relatives, Renovation, Renting, The City, Vacation, Weather

It's after 10AM and none of my coworkers are here! Then again, they often don't show up, choosing rather to work from home while I toil away as the public face of my company. Not that anybody sees me here. In fact, one could argue that more than ever I should be a full-time telecommuter. But one won't, because somebody's gotta be in the office.

Usually, the Admin is here, but even she hasn't made it in yet. Subways were effed up today! I checked the MTA site before leaving and was astounded to see that it said there was no 4-5-6 service between Borough Hall and 149th Street! That is so insane, considering it's the line that regularly runs at 103% capacity. Where did all those people go?

I normally take the 4 & 6 to work, but given the conditions we opted for the F train today. This wasn't great, but it did eventually arrive and we shoved on uptown. I planned to take the V train at 47-50th Streets, but it stopped running so I walked. Which would have been lovely, as it takes me through Rockefeller Center (hey, they have a greenmarket on Wednesdays!) and St. Patrick's. But it was already getting pretty damn sultry out. Still I'm sure my commute wasn't as horrible as a lot of people's; at least I had the Internet to tell me where to go. In Kensington, it appears there may have been a tornado (or possibly Lindsay Lohan) that swept down the streets, uprooting huge trees and upsetting the delicate balance of gentrification south of Prospect Park.

Anyway, it's all downhill from here, now I've got nothing to do but my job. Blah.

Labels: Bad Stuff, Gentrification, Mass Transit, The City, Weather

It's the end of another frustrating week! I guess it wasn't all bad, but I'm building a new web site for my job and I have to use the most irritating content management system software ever created. This CMS replaces the old one, which previously held that title. Before they rolled out the new system, they promised it would alleviate the issues of the old system and generally make life as effortless as sipping a mojito under a palm tree at dusk.

However, the opposite is true.

The system is incredibly convoluted and completely useless, except as a means to drive me insane. It could only have been designed by back-end programmers. No offense, but you how when new products come out, ie Apple Computers, they use words like "elegant," "intuitive," and "robust"? These are the three words that absolutely do NOT describe the system I am working with now. I can't even get into what's wrong with it here, because it would take so long to explain how Rube-Golbergesquely insanely overcomplicated it is. So let's talk about cats!

Three of the four kittens are eating solid food, and I think somebody used the litterbox (something's in it, I dunno what). Walking into the room now is akin to stepping into a racquetball court while somebody shoots ping pong balls at your ankles with a potato gun. Well, it's not that bad, but it probably will be.

Meanwhile, Marbles wasn't seen for a couple of days, then she showed up last night looking slimmer with decidedly mauled udders. We had hoped to get her to have her kittens inside the house, but I think she didn't dig all the other cats around. So her kittens are out there somewhere. After she loaded upon food, she dashed across the street. I followed her a bit to try to figure out where she nested. But instead of darting into the parking lot, she hopped up the stoop across the street, where a man sat smoking. He petted her, and Marbles looked completely at home. Jesus, does she live there? Has she been playing the homeless cat routine in an effort to get two feeding stations in the neighborhood? And is she doing this at more locations around the neighborhood?

Of course my main questions is, if somebody owns her, why the hell isn't she fixed? But I've learned this question falls on largely deaf ears in the neighborhood. I just hope plans are being made for the kittens, and they won't just end up rooting through the garbage in a couple of months. I'll be very interested to see how many people show up at the mobile spay unit on the 30th. Which reminds me, I should put up some flyers for it soon.

Which brings me to another pet-related irritant: pet stores that sell puppies and kittens. the pet store on Broadway off the Kosciusko stop on the J has some of each. They don't really have much space to move around in, and who knows if they ever get taken out of them before getting sold. Besides the less-than-great conditions they live in, the puppies may well be the products of disreputable breeders, aka 'puppy mills,' grinding out as many dogs as possible, health and safety sacrificed for profit (how much money do these places make anyway?)

The Prospect Heights Message Board has a huge thread on a new pet store on Flatbush that reportedly is selling such puppies. Although I feel they may have immediately jumped to worst conclusion (that the owner is trafficking in unhealthy puppy mill dogs, keeping them in unsafe conditions in the store, and indirectly adding to the crisis of the homeless pet population), but so far most of their suspicions seem to be true, although I have not been there myself and am admittedly getting all my info here from a message board. It's the Wikipedia Effect, I guess, but just because anybody can claim anything they want as fact ... doesn't necessarily mean it's NOT true, right? Isn't living in the modern age a blast?

In any case, it's a depressing situation to me even if the puppies are registered or whatever they do to prove a dog isn't the result of a mother and son dog gettin' it on. It just goes back to the irrefutable fact that there are so many animals in shelters, why in the hell would anybody buy a retail dog or cat? Frankly, I didn't need to see Best in Show to suspect that people who are into dog breeding are not operating on the same wavelength as most of us.

Anyway, I guess the simplest way to handle these pet stores is just not to shop there. That's easy enough for the one in Prospect Heights: I don't live anywhere near there, and if I did, I'd go to Acme Pet Supplies. In my neighborhood, there's Pets Ahoy, the aforementioned pet store, and the Pigeon store near my house, which may or may not have cat supplies (their hours seem to be something like 'Noon to Noon-thirty, weekdays'). Given the schedules that most New Yorkers maintain, how possible is it to avoid a pet store if it's convenient? For my part, I don't go by Pets Ahoy on a regular basis, I work near a Petland Discounts (they sell rodents and birds, the latter I'm beginning to think shouldn't be there either), its only real failure is that Science Diet cat food is $20 for an 8.5lb bag!

Labels: Bad Stuff, Cats, Feral, Job, kittens, Pets, Strays, The City

On the Map Dept: I live on Eldert Street, a 6 block long stretch on the south side of the Shwick (let's get all the kids to start calling it that!). My end of the block is residential, rowhouses and an elevated train. Children run around the block and participate in activities that can only be described as "wholesome." They roller skate (with or without those shoes with the wheels in the back), jump rope, bike, play basketball, pick broomsticks out of the trash and hit each other with them. It's been pretty startling to see kids act like this, I thought kids just sat in front of the TV all day, absorbing Fritos and Hawaiian Punch while watching reality TV shows about people starving themselves. What I wanna know is, how do these nice little kids transform into the surly teenagers who hang out further down the block?

Anyway, that's life on my end of Eldert Street. On the other end there is an old knitting factory building that's been converted to loft apartments. The industrial side of Bushwick somehow made it this far south, seemingly only along the L train. The building at 345 Eldert is full of artists, and apparently a group of them are trying to get financial backers so they can buy their building from its management company. If successful, they will have a huge space in which the artists call the shots. Nice idea, I guess, but are they serious? The article in the Brooklyn Paper isn't clear how much of a joke this is, but the accompanying photo doesn't lend a whole lot of credibility to their crusade. They need some kind of venture capitalist to provide the dough to buy the place, who's gonna do that? This sounds like the 21st century version of the "Let's put on a show!!" type stuff from the 70's and 80's. I hope they pull it off, though I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time anybody thought of this ("Hey, we all live here, we're all into the same stuff, let's buy the building!"), but I dunno if anybody ever actually went through with it. Aren't there any wealthy, eccentric philanthropists anymore?

Still, the notion of a gaggle of artists trying to run their own building ... shades of Lord of the Flies? Speaking of which, are you aware there's gonna be a reality TV show in which a group of children live in the wild without adult supervision? See what the kids on my street are missing out on?

Labels: Brooklyn, Bushwick, Gentrification, Neighbors, Real Estate, The City

Ever-attuned to all things related to soundproofing, I read with interest the NYTimes article about people dealing with noise issues in their homes. I'm mostly glad they actually devoted a (small) section of the article to the DIYer, though the brunt of the article was clearly aimed at people who will pay through the nose for quiet. It still astounds me not only that people are willing to pay so much ($3-4K PER ROOM!) for stuff like this, but that plenty of folks in this town are willing to do this for property they don't even own.

Like that episode of Seinfeld when Jerry has Conrad/Con/Conny redo his kitchen cabinets, it always sticks in my craw that he was just renting. But apparently it's not the unheard-of for renters to upgrade their apartments. I guess they assume they'll be there long enough to make the lost expense when they move worth their while. Maybe I'm more old-fashioned that I thought (don't worry kids, I'm still wicked cool), less existential than I thought I was (don't worry kids, I'm still wicked goth). Maybe it doesn't matter in the long run if you own something, as long as you have landlords who will let you install $10,000 soundproof windows and $250 per panel Quietrock drywall.

Meanwhile, the cops have been outfitted with Segways. If there is a god in heaven, please let them start patrolling my neighborhood. Oh sweet jesus I would love to see what the neighborhood would have to say about that. I hope they're teaching the cops to juggle spaldeens as well. That's money well spent!

And congratulations to Jenblossom, whose stray cat just moved a little of kittens into her yard. Ah, what fun awaits them! At least those kittens look a little better than the ones I got (pictured). But they're hanging in there, as is their mom.

Labels: Bushwick, Cats, Friends, Renting, Soundproofing, The City

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.

Labels: Health, House, Renovation, Soundproofing, The City

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!

Labels: Bushwick, Gentrification, Renting, The City

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.

Labels: House, Job, Mass Transit, The City, Weather

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.

Labels: Cars, Mass Transit, Renovation, The City

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.

Labels: Mass Transit, Music, The City