a little crazy

There’s nothing good about an inch of ice on the sidewalk, but there’s nothing not to like about a gigantic snowman with a farm-fresh carrot nose—that’s apparently been stolen.

During my last visit to New York, one of my Road Runners friends asked a question that touches the core of this blog. “When you’re here do you ever think we’re crazy for the way we live?”

Well, yes.

It was especially bad this time amid talk of laying off 20,000 (!) teachers—basically anyone hired in the last five years. Streets had not been plowed because (a) the Sani workers wanted to send a message or (b) there had just been big cuts or (c) incompetent leadership.

Responses to the above varied according to union affiliation and/or attraction to conspiracy theories. Trash piled in man-sized mounds and everyone was grateful that the sub-freezing temps kept the smell and vermin at bay. A novel solution: instead of picking up trash, place it in deep freeze, kind of like left-over turkey parts from Thanksgiving. Wait a minute: those are leftovers from Thanksgiving!

These dark thoughts swam in my head as I ice-skated down the un-shoveled sidewalk to a final brunch date before catching the train back to Virginia. After five minutes in a great café with my friend Amelia, I couldn’t care less about the street conditions. The people are what keep me coming back and they’re still amazing, inspiring, and full of surprises.

After brunch, she took me on a tour of her new gallery and my mind was repeatedly blown away by the things I saw. She showed me a video of a dance performance from Brazil that was gorgeous in its simplicity. The other works on display explore some of the issues that are front and center in my own practice and they do what art does best: reminds us that we are not alone in our emotions. I felt invigorated and ready to jump back into life, somehow restored.

Then it was time for me to rush off to the train station after a quick hug and a last smile. I’ll be glad to return to warmer and greener climes but I’m easily reminded how great it is in New York and why we went there in the first place. It’s all very exceptional and a little bit crazy.

Getting to know the neighbors

Not our house but one nearby. I love the harmony in the neighborhood between landscape and architecture.

I was talking to a fellow Brooklyn transplant this evening as we were hanging the holiday show at the McGuffey Arts Center. We were comparing notes about why we each left New York and why we picked Charlottesville.

“People always tell me that it must be hard to adjust to life in Charlottesville,” she told me. “I’ve actually found it very easy.”

I think a very big reason is because people here are so welcoming and are very gracious with their hospitality and glad to make lasting connections. They see value in meeting new people and are confident in opening their circle to new people.

There’s a social stinginess in the New York art scene that is quite unpleasant, where people look at each other as resources to be tapped—or potential exploiters to be guarded against. It’s curious to find that attitude in a place where most everyone is an outsider, and outcast or an immigrant.

But that’s precisely the problem: New York is a city of 7 million people who are hungry for something. It is a basic fact of living in New York that you are constantly meeting new people and bombarded with their points of view—wanted or unwanted—and you cannot open yourself to everyone.

The crush of humanity there requires a strategic approach to social networking but there is a razor-thin line between caution and calculus. And insecure, calculating people are so tiresome! It’s too Latin (as in ancient Rome) for me.

This past weekend, we received several spontaneous invitations to cocktails, to coffee, to playdate from various neighbors we hardly knew. These were interesting people too: a writer, a designer, an architect, an economist. Busy people with a lot going on, but somehow able to make time to welcome a new family to the block.

Don’t get me wrong: we have many wonderful generous friends in New York, who are full of grace and whom I admire greatly. Of course you can carve a wonderful life out there, but it will assuredly be a lot of work. We left because basic tenants of a good life are unnecessarily difficult (or expensive) in New York, and they’re mostly easier here

So when people ask me if I’m finding it difficult to adjust to life in Charlottesville, my answer is always the same, though never simple. I’m happy to be here and I miss my friends back there. But almost everything is easier here, even for a new arrival.

Bittersweet

When the sun's out, the City's grit can be beautiful. Other times it's plain ugly.

Leaving New York is going to be extremely bitter-sweet. I have no doubt that the decision was correct and I’m very excited about my new horizons (for example: being able to actually SEE the horizon!) and I know the next chapter will be great. I have been blessed with many notes from friends supporting me through the curiously difficult process of stepping away. I am very grateful.

Still, I cannot help but be wistful about the chapter that is now closing. The life we have here is simply wonderful, as if we have been somehow favored by angels or some divine force. It is somewhat counterintuitive to contemplate changing something that is working so well. We have many wonderful memories and the exact moment we’re in right now is very beautiful as well. But I know that the future-present will be very cool as well, if perhaps different.

This is not the first time we have pulled up stakes or thrown the cards in the air and they have always landed well and I’m sure they will this time too. There is something extra about leaving New York however. New York is all about potential and promise and it is easy to think that by leaving, we are throwing away some irreplaceable opportunities.

Yet that is precisely one of the things that bothers me most about New York. There is this collective mentality about this being the place to be and the idea that anyplace else is by default inferior and that the bold and ambitious can only get what they need here. The idea of Opportunity (as opposed to actual opportunities) is dangled in front of dreamers, idealists, and those who want to better their conditions like carrots before rabbits on treadmills.

I have been fortunate (and this time the angels have human faces) to have been engaged in some very meaningful pursuits and I have so far avoided going completely nuts with frustration. I got a lot more done and had more success before I came here and always I always profit enormously when I step away. I’ve never met so many unhappy people as I see when I look around the neighborhood streets and one ultimately has to ask, “Why slide backward and rarely get in the studio?”

I obviously cannot guarantee that I will be happier elsewhere but I am looking forward to not having the City at the table with me at all times, demanding constant attention and with an unquenchable voracity.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the City and I could write more than a thousand pages about its wonders and the amazing people that make it so special. I probably will do exactly that. What is more, I am not completely stepping away. In fact I will be in New York about the same amount of time in the as I will in Virginia during this next cycle. That says volumes about how much I love the place.

I foresaw this stepping-away quite some time ago and this split has always been there, which is why I started this blog. I now imagine many long bus rides where I will be blogging about how much I love the City versus how happy I am when I am away from it. It’s completely ambiguous and there will never be an answer. In absence of definitive clarity, I shall endeavor to sketch out what is in my heart from moment to moment and always keep searching.

That is what artists do.

Atypical day of tourism

I had a cool day at work today: touring the marathon course on a bike. It didn't start so well though: only decaf in the house. Yikes!

Once I rectified the caffeine problem and waited for the rush hour blitz to relent, I took my bike to the L train, swiped my card and turned to the toll booth to ask the attendant to open the service gate.

Nobody home!

I was in a high-strung state of crankiness and all ready to start cursing the MTA, Bedford Avenue, and NYC in general when a woman on the other side of the gate opened it for me with an encouraging smile.

"Fellow biker," she said. She was holding a bike seat in her other hand.

I walked to the very end of the platform so as to minimize my impact on the fellow passengers but when the train arrived, all cars were pretty crowded. Now I felt a little ashamed because although I did far more than I'm required by riding off-peak and in the last car, I knew my bike would still annoy. When the door opened, there was plenty of room. And a lady with a loose dog. Not only was I well on the right side of right, but here was moral cover in the form of a passenger sure to be more annoying than me!

Actually, nobody was annoyed. We all got along and got on with our days.

I spent the day walking/biking six miles of the marathon course through Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and Park Slope. I talked to City officials, coffee shop customers, arts organizations, merchants, old ladies on the street, and moms on the playground. I really got a feel for the Fourth Avenue portion of the marathon and some interesting neighborhoods. It was a really fun day.

Except that I lost my camera along the way. Dang!

Williamsburg to Williamsburg

William and Mary's campus is just ridiculously beautiful. I felt sorry for the prospective students. It should be illegal to be so captivating. There's something to be said, though, for living in a beautiful place. That Williamsburg be more different from Williamsburgh BK.

It took me almost two hours to get from my apartment to the Holland Tunnel. Somehow, I managed to stay really calm and relaxed and did not join the futile klaxon chorus. I was officially on vacation. Finally, within feet of the tunnel’s waiting mouth I got pulled over and issued a $110 ticket for blocking the box (which of course I wasn’t).

Since the City Fathers cannot seem to win the toll-bridge tug-of-war with its residents, they seem to have reassigned the traffic cops from their former duty of moving traffic to the more feudal job of collecting tribute money for overland passage. The squeegee guy I had met half a block earlier was a lot friendlier. My primal yell: “I [no not love] New York!”

By comparison, I-95 was just gorgeous and a pleasure to spend time with, especially as I moved through Virginia. Everywhere flowers: in the trees, in the woods, and on the median strip. It was like driving through a tunnel of pink and white and the pale green of early foliage. Forsythia and tulip magnolia, followed by redbud, dogwood, crab apple, cherry, and a thousand others I could not identify. All the way from Wiliamsburg (BK) to Williamsburg (VA) I breathed easy and clean. Happy.

I unloaded my drawings at the Mascarelle and took a walk around my old stomping grounds at William and Mary for the first time in about ten years. Again, I was pretty surprised. Not by the beautiful co-eds (I had remembered them) but by how studious everyone is there: quite different than from what one encounters around NYU or Columbia. Definitely not fashion victims, I could see how I had fit in and why a parent would want their kids there. The $10,000 tuition+room+board part does not hurt either. The students don’t seem too distracted by the redcoats mustering across the street with their fifes and drums and occasional musket shots. It really is a little bit surreal but so calm it’s almost sedative (which, to my recollection, was the chief complaint.)

I felt a little sorry for the many groups of prospective students touring campus on such a perfect day. The combination of rigor, charm, and value is difficult to resist, especially with Spring in full explosion and Primavera definitely rules that place.

Even the police are friendly down there. I literally would not have made it to Charlottesville had it not been for a friendly Fluvanna County sheriff who told me how to fool my car into thinking its alternator was not shot long enough to limp to my destination.

Now that I’m here, it’s all about renewal: rest for the body and fresh air for the spirit. It’s Springtime in full force, with birds and bees and flowers and April showers.

China: We like your tower but not your "Freedom."NYC: Consider it gone!

The Port Authority has finally signed its first tenant for the 102-story tower to be built at One World Trade Center, formerly known as the Freedom Tower. A Chinese real estate interest has agreed to take five floors with a stunning caveat: they get to veto the name. Granted, there is no official quid pro quo, but the fact that the two developments (both of which have been in the works for almost a year) were announced in the same release unmistakably links the two phenomena.

So, just as the Chinese Government blocks its citizens from reading dissident (or even many mainstream) web sites, so they're able to censor the terminology used on the sacred 9/11 site. Not good.

It's all the more disturbing on the heels of Chinese grumblings about US monetary policy, the dollar as international reserve currency, and stimulus rules about foreign steel (which is standard practice world-wide for government construction projects.)

China is unmistakably starting to flex its economic muscles as well they should (from their perspective). I don't begrudge that nor am I overfond of the Freedom nomicker. After all the F word has indelible associations with the Bushies and has been used too often as a bludgeon against our overseas cousins. I can see why they or any entity would want to rid the tower of Pataki's unfortunate choice of names.

I am very disturbed though about what it says about us. First of all, the PA sold our freedom on a symbolic level for a less than 5% rental stake. How much would actual freedom cost? 40%?

More disturbing is the message about real estate. Eight years after 9/11, this behemoth office tower has exactly one tenant. Maybe it shouldn't be built? The thought of a hundred+ story darkened lighthouse keeping watch over the city is very grim indeed. Would it mean New York is officially done?

On the bright side, real estate gluts are good for artists but what tends to happen here in hard times is that you overpay AND have broken-window blight next door.

I do no wish to be a downer on a gorgeous Spring day but if that vertical shaft is a thermometer, today's reading looks rather chilly.

---

Update: Coincidentally, today's Leonard Lopate show has an excellent discussion about the evolving meaning of Freedom.

All about Community

One real estate company that opened on the South Side during the recent boompainted its back wall with lots of friendly and encouraging terms that seemlike core values of an ideal company as upstanding member of a community. Infact, I think "Community" is one of their catch-terms along with such other novel concepts as "Integrity," "Passion," "Commitment," and "Family."


Walking by their storefront operation, I have always wondered if those terms are intended as reminders to their staff of core values that their employer honestly and demonstrably espouses, or if those are simply some words a focus group found gets people "in the mood" to buy overpriced real estate.


Given the almost entirely deleterious effect of the rampant and often predatory speculation that has transformed the neighborhood, I would doubt the former. Also given the ubiquity of equally admirable but transparently meaningless terms such as "authenticity" in real estate advertising, I imagine they must believe that it pays to seem like one really, really cares. Or perhaps they think they don't fit the stereotype and want us all (or at least their customers) to think they're a different kind of realtor; one that is more interested in building communities than in laundering hedge fund bonuses.


I really, really want to think the best of people, but some make it so much harder than it needs to be. One small thing this particular enterprise could do to help fool me into thinking they care about the neighborhood is simply shoveling their sidewalk, as they are legally obligated to do.In fact, they're almost always the last business on the Southside not to performthis small civic duty--and the Southside is not exactly known for its commitment to clean streets. If I recall correctly, they have sat out just about everysnowstorm this season.


What makes it more pathetic is that of all business ventures out there inthe world, one would think that a realtor would have a thick rolodex ofhandymen and maintenance-types they could call upon. They ought also be well versed in the laws--formal and otherwise--that govern storefront sidewalk maintenance, not to mention the ways of smart business. One would equally suppose they ought to have a clue about what it means to be part of a community.


At least their wall says they're all about it.

Grass Clippings approach the cost of Weed

Editor’s Note: We try to limit CountryMouse to just a few anti-New York rants per year. It’s hard enough to live here without being constantly reminded of the dirt, pettiness, corruption, trauma, and various indignities that punctuate daily life here in Gotham. In this case though, we determined that since Country’s diatribe is not limited to New York and because there are broader points contained therein, we should run the piece and let the pieces fall where they may. Enjoy.

I stopped by the local health food store yesterday to pick up some vitamin C packets to help nail the coffin lid on my broncitis. I shop at this place because it’s the closest thing to reasonable in the neighborhood. For example Kombucha costs $4 there, which is the prevailing market price in the City, but a dollar less than anywhere else in the hood. Nothing can be described as ‘cheap’ around here anymore—except the quality of the new construction, which is more like ‘shoddy’ anyway.

Well I had paid my $1 for three Emergen-C packets and turned to go. The guy at the juice counter put a tiny (1 oz) paper cup in front of me, with a thick green liquid. Thinking it a free sample, I swigged that little shot down. (My assumption was not unreasonable based on the tiny product size and the fact that there’s usually some kind of crumbled nutrition bar on a little plate at that spot). On my way out, I asked the juice-barista what it was and he told me "wheatgrass."
Not unexpected at a juice bar.

As I reached the door, the store’s only other customer, a thickly-bespectacled hipster from England yelled, "Hey! I just paid for that!"

"How much?"

"Two fifty," replied hipster and cashier in unison. "It’s really good for you, full of antioxidants," added the man whose morning concoction I had inadvertently swiped.

"It had better be at that price," was my grumple (a grumpy rumble).

Of course, it's a fad-inflated supply-demand thing just like the kombucha. Still, its a sign of a dying society that folks pay the rough equivalent of $40/pound for grass clippings and then drink it. Sebastian goes most days without seeing a single blade of grass, apart from what I grow in my flower box to keep the soil conditioned. I can never shake the contrast between that and the amount of time I’ve spent mowing, playing on, and rolling in the green stuff.

I think humanity’s future is an urban one, characterized by much increased density. Yet the human need for green is irrepressible and comes out like, well, grass through cracks in our paved lives and this is a pathetic response to that need.

I’m sorry: I know you may like your wheat grass shots in your custom juice drink and I may have offended you. I myself have written many times in praise of chlorophyll’s nutritional benefits. But a little drop of sunshine on your tongue a few times a week is no substitute for clean air, a sky that you can actually see, and a soft earth to lay on. No wonder everyone around here is in therapy.

But ya know, it doesn't have to be like that...

Lurking Menaces

untitled (plastic) ink on paper 9" x 12" 2008.


untitled (bag) ink on paper 9" x 12" 2008.


untitled (undies) ink on paper 9" x 12" 2008.

Hanging out in Virginia with a bunch of New Yorkers has reminded me of a basic Citymouse/Countrymouse tension: the more people become divorced from Nature, the more frightening it becomes. VCCA has many great places to walk, including over a mile of trails right on the property. Yet my colleagues here are largely unwilling to venture onto them for fear of lurking menaces: bears, poison ivy, wild dogs, and (most fearsome of all) ticks. To no avail, I remind people that if they stay on the grounds and on the path, they have absolutely nothing to fear. In fact, we are walking menaces and the woods are rightly afraid of us--we pose far more danger to them than they do to us. Let me say this officially: I would much rather have wildlife than garbage lurking among the trees.

That's a long-winded and anecdotal introduction to this new series of drawings about some of the negative consequences of the Human/Nature interface. In Williamsburg (Brooklyn) almost every tree has trash in it. And why not, when every corner and crevice seems to be full of human detritus.

Still, I hope there is at least some gritty beauty in these drawings...

[More New Work]

There Goes the Neighborhood

Real Estate speculation has reached an obscene level that is effectively destroying the fabric of New York. This very fine parody, created by Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese was part of EyeWash's excellent Artwalking show on Bedford Avenue.

Pat McGeehan's piece in yesterday's New York Times should be required reading for anyone who wants to live in, visit, or even discuss Williamsburg.

He describes the plight of the Brooklyn Brewery, which in many ways is the very heart of the Williamsburg renaissance, yet has found it basically impossible to locate a space in the borough that will allow it to expand or--perhaps--even continue it's operations. It's not because the increasingly wealthy neighbors don't want a brewery next door. On the contrary, it's universally loved. The problem is that light manufacturing has been zoned out of much of the neighborhood and those spaces that remain are being held vacant in the hopes of getting a coveted variance to build luxury condos. I won't rehash the story: you should read it yourself.

McGeehan rightly points out that the plight of small manufacturers is not limited to craft brewers. Because he's writing about business, though, he completely misses the cultural angle, which is very dear to me, and which is at least as deeply troubling.

The brewery certainly was a pioneer in the neighborhood, in a relative sense. Even before their arrival, artists were here converting early-to-mid-century industrial spaces into studios. We all know that artists are being priced out of the neighborhood and have been for some time. It's even worse than that however. When you think about light industrial production, it pretty well matches what an artist does. So the vision of a Brooklyn without light manufacturing is one that does not include artists. Very sobering to think of oneself as completely anathema (as opposed to simply foreign) to the real estate barons that control the city.

So every time I celebrate a nice cafe opening across the street, I also hear my own clock ticking. It's a simple fact of an artist's life that one must constantly relocate ahead of gentrification's tidal wave. What's happening now though is fundamentally different: this is not artists decamping from a building or even a neighborhood. This is an entire city slowly evicting its cultural class.

That is why I stopped fighting for the loft law. Normalizing the inhabitation of industrial land has had the perverse effect of opening a door through which to usher artists out of the neighborhood. So in leading the charge for more housing in North Brooklyn, the arts community has effectively written its own ticket out of here. Beware the law of unintended consequences...

Where's the Love?

First the "Love" note got taken down, now the whole dialogue has been removed.

Someone took down the "Love is in the air" response to the recent mockingbird bulletinboard battle. That's just sad.

Of course, I blame it on the City Itself, which renders people utterly incapable of handling Nature's slightest caprice, all the while becoming caricatures themselves.

I reiterate: someone needs to take a little vacation from the city...

Save THIS!

The leader of the faction fighting to keep the high-rises out of Domino Sugar site added a few extra stories to her own historic building when she renovated, to the detriment of the adjoining playground. She understandably would like to protect her view but is that our problem? Is her cause even helpful for the rest of us?

Now I see signs all over the place calling for us all to rise up and "save Grand Street" from a huge condo building slated for the NE corner of Driggs. But what real harm does that project portend? Even the flyer itself only argues for "context." The real concern for the group that is posting the flyers, based in the co-op building across the street is that it will block their view. It will not even really diminish their light because the zoning requires considerable upper-story setbacks, there is a wide avenue in between, and the complainants’ windows face north anyway so a glass tower of the type so in vogue might actually increase their natural light.

So why the fuss? Because that view is a magnificent selling point and its loss will diminish their units’ resale value without reducing their [likely undervaluated] property taxes. I’m sure the view is nice itself as well.

Of course they can and should fight to protect their interests but I don’t have a dog in that fight. I sometimes wonder if those NIMBY-driven battle cries are actually even contrary to my interests. It breaks my heart that we cannot buy a home in New York and will soon probably leave as a consequence. After all, once this apartment leaves the rent stabilization regime (about 5 years), we will not be able to continue renting in the neighborhood. Buying is the only way we can stay long-term.

Loads of new housing stock coming on line can only make spaces more affordable for purchase, even accounting for the strange dynamics of real estate in New York. I am well aware of the downsides, but we must at least consider the benefits. It could well be that my interests are opposite of this particular group of crusaders.

But the disingenuous and prejudicial tone is what really bothers me. It’s like the Boogyman is coming and I’ve been on the other side of that. The talk of "context" is the key.

All of the "Save such-and-such edifice" signs I’ve been seeing around lately remind me of the "Save our school" signs the PS 84 PTA used to block the new neighborhood charter school. They talked about the school’s "context" and "character" but that was code for race. They didn’t have any idea what they were talking about—after all the Board of Education had not finalized any plan. That did not stop them from rallying, holding a press conference, and raising a very passionate ruckus. End result: one fewer option for their (and my) children.

So I’ve been the imagined boogyman and the eventual loser in a NIMBY spat. I’m not sure that blocking the construction of more housing is a winning strategy for my family in this case either. Something to at least consider.

Infinity's Crossing Point

The signs of Spring are everywhere!

The other night I attended a celebration in the East Village to welcome the Vernal Equinox and the amazing full moon that arrived on the same evening. That was not the first pagan ritual I have joined over there—I love the spirituality that is resident in that neighborhood. It feels plugged in to something really, really old. Lots to think about: seasonal renewal, new beginnings, and the interweaving of opposing forces, the male and female, the Hieros-gamos.

Of course the trip home was a nightmare due to construction on the L train. Took me over an hour, which is considerably longer than it would have taken had I walked home. About two miles as the crow flies. It was one of those things that make me hate the city. Those periodic (and frequent) indignities are a key part of the Williamsburg experience. Yet we cannot relocate within the city, leaving a stark choice between regular humiliation or departure.

The historical trend in the neighborhood (going back at least a hundred years) is for the ambitious to leave and for the broken to default to systematic degradation. I don’t feel like I can take that $h!t much longer. Couple that with the predictable longing one feels for green and growing things following a springtime rite and it is easy to ask oneself, "Why exactly am I doing this?"

I had lifted weights that day and it tends to make me ornery, so that explains the mood a little bit. The next day I took a train to Sleepy Hollow and went for a three hour run through the woods and fields and that certainly mellowed me out. Still, I feel like there is a clock ticking within me and the point is approaching when the alarm will ring and I will say, "I’ve had it."

Hedge Fund Traders and Nightmares, Revisited

"Good Greed" coming to our fair nabe?
Photo Stolen from 20th Century Fox via NY Times
PapaCole and MamaCole were in town this past weekend so that meant a [woohoo!] date night for Citymouse and Mrs. Mouse. We decided to try a new place in the neighborhood that we had heard about. One of our playground friends had told us that the food was really good and the prices exceptionally low, either because they were trying to grow the business or they simply didn’t know better. Either way, we were all over it.

It was true: excellent food, very reasonable prices, and outstanding service. A very nice experience and of course Citymouse is far too savvy to say where the place is, lest the hungry masses from Manhattan overwhelm the place. It’s a sad refrain of the City-savvy: when you find a good thing, keep your mouth shut.

Sadly, that ship already seems to have sailed. Notice that I didn't say anything about the atmosphere. As dinner progressed—the mouse family has an early bed time—the place filled up and we started to look around and be surprised and then horrified by what we saw. The place was full of suits and starched shirts—you know the blue ones with the white collars. I would not have been surprised to see Michael Douglas walk in to reprise his role in Wall Street.

And this on a Saturday!

Even more frightening were the trophy wives/girlfriends/escorts. All bleached out, made up, scarey thin and dressed to the nines. Yikes!

I should have known better. After all, the woman who recommended the place to me is married to a Wall Street type, though she’s a very down to earth. They’re both perfectly nice actually. But man, has this neighborhood really changed!

Let’s be honest though: every wave of immigrants tries to keep the next group out. My ranting is really not any more excusable than the ignorant mutters of "diablo blanco" I occasionally hear on the Southside. Still we’re getting it from both sides: Sebastian’s school wants desperately to stay frozen in a romantic Latinized past yet milk is pushing $10 a gallon at the local grocery stores. It’s an unpleasant way to be squeezed.

That’s the reality of the City though. Better to get past the prejudice and ignorant assumptions and treat each individual and every experience with a fresh mind and an openness to the good in each. That restaurant was excellent and we’ll go back. My friend is sweet and I would be glad to see her husband more if he didn’t work so much. And no one is asking me to leave my home. The rest is just stuff I have to get over. The world is too small to live any other way.

Eastward Ho?

Something's going to fill the block between Bedford, Berry, N3, and N4—but what?

There’s lots of speculation about what’s being built on the super-lot that fills the entire block between Bedford and Driggs and North 3rd and North 4th. From what I hear, the reality is going to be much more sane than the original 40-story plan—last I heard was 5 stories. There is a new wrench in the mix, one that poses an existential crisis that is uniquely Williamsburg.

Trader Joe’s.

That’s the rumor around the Met Pool locker room. It must be said that the building is a loooooooong way from complete—I would estimate at least a year—so all bets are off. Still, the notion does cause a quandary for Williamsburgers. It is a national chain—no two ways about that—and this neighborhood does not like and has almost entirely blocked national chain stores (with one minor exception).

Traitor Ho’s (as I call them) may be one that neighborhood long-timers may be inclined to accept. See, in a district with a zillion restaurants, there are shockingly few grocery stores. The two that exist—CTown on South 1st and Tops on North 6th—are ghetto (rotten produce) and corrupt (prices ring differently than what's marked on shelves), respectively. And like the many fancy or fancified bodegas that flourish on both the North and South Side, both retailers are radically over-priced. For example, milk (albeit organic) approaches $10/gallon.

So most Williamsburgers I know ride the subway that oft-quoted "five minutes to Manhattan," stopping at the first available grocery store: Traitor Ho’s. There we find consistent quality and reasonable prices. Plus their offerings are hip and exotic and well suited to the creative type’s idiosyncratic tastes. A neighborhood Joe may be a go.

We need to look at this thing in the larger context of what is happening in the neighborhood. National/International chains are certainly coming. The huge new buildings along the waterfront are slated to include retail footage measuring in the millions of square feet. Few mom-and-pops or boutiques will move into those spaces. Only chains. And the people who actually live in those buildings will most certainly want their starbucks and other suburban trappings. That had better include grocery stores or the the massive influx of people will lead to a food shortage on a scale not seen since the Great Hunger.

The most sensible plan (and the most likely) envisions the shops along the charming blocks around Bedford Avenue remaining low scale and local. The small size of the available spaces makes that outcome likely anyway. Meantime, big stores along Kent Avenue in the big buildings. It’s a delightful compromise for an urban planner and a winning sale for a politician, but I’m not sure I like even this idea.

Doesn’t that just create a microcosm of what killed American Cities? You know the story: Charming downtown; huge stores open on periphery; local stores cannot compete; local stores go out of business; national (but faux- or retro-boutique) chains also move into downtown; sponge away all local color and replace with a Disnified and neutered verion of one's own home town and life experience.

Not at all sure I like it.

But I would love to have a shorter trip to Traitor Ho’s.

Like so many things about this city, I love the idea and hate it. Passionately and simultaneously.

Shady Ladies

The recent snowfall set off a different
type of storm at the Metropolitan Pool
This "ladies swim" thing at the Met Pool is plain ridiculous.

As you may know, the Metropolitan Pool has four sessions per week reserved for "ladies" only—Hasidic ladies, that is. That’s roughly a quarter of the available swim time. Truth be told, the official policy is that all women are allowed but no gentile will go there anymore because the Hasidim are likely to abuse and/or beat them if they try. Not very lady-like.

The word on the street is that this arrangement came about as part of a back-room deal between the Parks Department and the Hasidic elders. In exchange for partially funding the Pool’s 1992 renovation (the Hasidim claim they did, Parks says they didn’t), the Hasidim asked that several sessions be reserved for them, so their women could exercise without their modesty being offended by the presence of men. One shudders to hypothesize that this might be their modern-day version of a niddah. Of course, Parks could not officially reserve one of their pools for religious ritual, but they compromised by keeping the men out. The ladies themselves maintain the religious homogeneity on their own through bullying.

The ladies swim in their long dresses (which trail clouds of dye) and have a special technique for quickly swapping their wigs for bathing caps. They used to have their own Hasidic (female) lifeguard who they paid cash on the sly in the locker room at the end of each session. Parks closed this corrupt window and agreed to furnish a female lifeguard who is a Parks employee and certified life-saver.

Yesterday’s snow storm threw a monkey wrench in the works. Not surprisingly, the weather prevented the special female lifeguard from making it to work, leaving just the regular male lifeguard. This met water safety requirements but was unacceptable to the ladies and they demanded that the Met Pool request that the Crown Heights pool send over their woman. Obviously, Met could not commandeer another pool’s lifeguard. Undaunted, one of the Hasidic women called Crown Heights pretending to be from Metropolitan to ask the same thing. Smelling kvelte fish, Crown Heights rang Met back to confirm and the two were able to unravel the subterfuge. Perhaps they shared a laugh about it.

It’s silly and it’s ridiculous but most importantly it’s inappropriate. I’m sorry but there’s no reason why a public facility should be set aside for a single ethnic group. Can you imagine there being a session reserved for Sicilians or Puerto Ricans? Please. This episode does however illuminate how and why such an absurdity can persist. When the system doesn’t serve their needs, some people are willing to subvert it. You would be surprised what a gang of angry ladies can achieve, witness the French Revolution. But this was not about Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood. Quite the opposite.

I’m not sure which is more disgusting: this perversion of democracy or Meredith’s descriptions of the coat rack full of wigs with the furry hats still attached.

Our Children OUT OF DANGER?

Following up on our recent post about P.S. 84, there was much rejoicing in the schoolyard as our lovely PTA managed to block the new charter school from opening, before they even knew anything about it.

No word yet on how they're going to address that failing school designation though.

Failing grade from the city, complete segregation, only half the neighborhood served, under 50% capacity. The math is not that complicated....

Update 2/1/07: There are pretty even-handed reports in the Daily News and the New York Sun.

Our Children IN DANGER?

So it’s finally coming to a head.

Sebastian’s pre-k class at P.S. 84 is a portrait of racial harmony, a best-case scenario where all kinds of children from around the neighborhood grow and learn together.

The later grades are an entirely different story, however. Situated in the heart of one of the City’s most rapidly changing neighborhood, where artists have been gathering for 20 years and are now leaving, and where one-bedroom condo price tags routinely surpass seven figures, 84’s demographics skew to a 90+% Latin (read Puerto Rican). The playground outside is a beautiful melting pot, but the school itself is more homogeneous than anything I’ve seen in the South or the White Midwest.

It’s not that the white parents don’t have children: they do. Nor do they send their children to private schools: these are artist-types who believe in the virtues of public education. I know several families who live directly across the street from P.S. 84, yet commute their children an hour or more every day to Manhattan to give them a reasonable education. I’ve worked hard to reduce my own commute and we’ve vowed to never follow the absurd path of taking our child to a whole other county for a public education.

Primary schools are the heart of a community and to give up on the local school is to write off one’s community. And therein lies the rub. Two (or more!) distinct groups live side by side in Williamsburg but they do not interact and in situations where real cooperation is required (like schools) things get very difficult. So P.S. 84 is this Latin enclave and the Latin community wants it to stay that way. Let’s be real: that’s the truth of the matter.

The problems of the school go far beyond its near-total self-segregation, however. I’ll leave for another entry my rants about the saint’s-day processions the school sponsors, or the fact that the PTA uses its treasury to hire a Santa to bring presents to the children. I’ll be generous and say that that stuff has anthropological value and it is undeniably sweet. Far more devastating is the failing performance measure the school recently received from the Board of Education. This is an objective evaluation that rates the school’s progress against its socio-economic peers, so it's not just that it's a difficult school; it's a difficult school that's not doing anything to right itself. Here are a few other failing grades: Great Schools Rating (Graded 1 out of possible 10); Inside Schools

The school’s leadership does not have a plan to correct the problem, which is how the school got into the mess in the first place. In absence of leadership from the school, the Board is required to provide other options in-district for parents—presumably to save parents from making absurd efforts of I’ve described above. So it was apparently announced (though the Board of Ed. denies this) there will be a charter school opening in P.S. 84’s underused third floor (the school is currently 60% capacity).

Reaction from the "community?" Quiet hallelujah’s from the middle class and very public outrage from the school’s PTA. The school was wallpapered with flyers proclaiming a threat to the children’s education and [ominously] safety. Anyone who has read American history should be able to easily decode invocations of "safety" when segregated communities see someone new on the block. There were women outside the school talking to parents (not me, oddly enough!) about the ominous news and telling them to write to their public representatives. Does that mean Sebastian is some alien agent, some kind of one-Booga sleeper cell?

I can well understand the concern of many people who have worked hard to make P.S. 84 reflect their family’s heritage and values. It’s very sweet and I want Sebastian to see it. Where, then, was the outrage when the failing grade was announced? Not a murmur.

My concern is that the school’s principal, who is very much complicit with this explosion of outrage, is creating a diversion from the real issue, which is the school’s performance, and her own inability to improve matters. Principals in more difficult neighboring schools have had success.

By telling the parents that "the Man" is coming to steal their kids’ school, she is invoking one fear that trumps all others for many long-time residents. And they’re buying it. If the school performed better, the neighborhood could have a school that the whole neighborhood could love. It seems that preserving cultural heritage trumps educational achievement in many minds. And the principal is playing into it.

Yet the school will change, one way or the other. The question is whether this latest spat of outrage is a communal coping mechanism or an active effort against the children’s interests that will prolong the school's decline.

Time will tell, and very soon...

WWW: Walkin' While White

Apparently, panthers striking from the trees
are not the only menace lurking on South 4th Street...

So the other day I burst out of the door to my apartment building in my usual bat-out-of-Hell way. I’m always in a hurry.

Out of nowhere, who plain clothes police officers told me to stop right away and keep my hands away from my pockets. This was the second time this has happened and I was annoyed. But I rarely lose my cool. Especially when the other guy has a gun.

"You must be joking," is what I said and it made them laugh.

They weren't joking though and began right away with questions like, "Are you carrying anything you shouldn't?"

No.

"Do you live here?"

Yes. Apartment 4R.

"We're looking for someone who lives in 6R. How long has it been since you were incarcerated?"

Excuse me?

It went on like that even after they had established that I wasn’t the guy they were looking for and was totally minding my own business. The whole Civil-Rights thing bothered me a little bit but what really got me was the incompetence. They had to have known that I wasn’t their suspect (my driver’s license said so) yet they kept trying to trip me up with leading questions. I understand that they have a difficult job but they could have made it easier by asking questions like:

"Ever see any suspicious activity?"

"Have you seen so-and-so lately?"

And the like.

But they never did.

Finally, in lieu of apology they told me that they get a lot of complaints about drugs in a certain apartment (not mine) and that I should be careful since it's a dangerous neighborhood.

Really? News to me.

Actually, the Civil Rights part does bother me alot, but not because I feel targeted. I just had a tiny two incidents of stop-and-frisks because I dress scruffy and am always in a hurry. I guess that puts me into some kind of profile. But what if I were black? Let’s be real here: it would happen all the time. So I’m not sure if the cops were a) incompetent, b) sadistic, c) trying to find some white guys to harass so they could harass black guys more often.

None of those possibilities inspires confidence...

That #$^%@@& Squirrel!!

Not THAT squirrel! We LOVE the Splinter squirrel!
It's the one that's been digging up our garden that has us all outraged.

With the passing of Epiphany, it was time to compost our enormous Christmas wreath. Sebastian and I took it outside and methodically unwired and dismantled the thing, making little blankets of greenery for the sad trees that line our street, like they do on the Upper East Side. Those pine needles were the only greenery to be found within about a mile radius of our house. I’m not exaggerating about that.

We saved a bag full of twigs for the flower box in our kitchen window, that planter being the only green anything visible from our apartment window. There used to be a tree back there but our lovely neighbors chopped it down to give the “denunded-tropical-hillside” look that reminds them of home. They, did, surprisingly enough, leave an eight-foot stump, so the grandmas could still hang their laundry lines. The drunken supers and the old ladies are serious threats to the backyard ecosystem, but the greatest menace of all is scruffy, vicious squirrel.

In one of my fondest recollections of the summer, we once spotted him digging the plants out of said flowerbox so I called my cat (Creepers) to deal with him. Creeps is a bad-a$$ kitty: big, burly, aggressive and a very efficient and reliable hunter. Prototypical New York street cat. Anyway, Creepers made good on his name and crept right into the windowsill until only a screen window separated himself from the rodent.

When the squirrel looked up from his depredations and saw that he was face to face with a big cat, he did not run. No sir, he bum-rushed Creepers, leaping spread-eagle onto the window screen and hissing, sending the cat rolling backward head-over-tail in astonishment. It was very cartoon-like.

Creepers was pi$$ed. His expression read “Let me at him, I can take him!” I was quicker though and repelled the varmint with a broom I had ready for the occasion. Our victory was merely tactical (not strategic) and he soon returned while we were away and completely devastated our fine window planting.

So we’ve decidedly lowered our expectations for the flowerbox. I thought about planting my bulbs while I was gardening, but I figured the pest would quickly devour them. So I decided to simply mulch the flowerbox with the pine branches, to keep the soil moist and active. Well, no sooner had I finished and closed the window then the wretched thing arrived and started rooting around. Finding nothing buried under the needles, he proceeded to eat the pine needles themselves. Ouch! Yucky!

That’s one hungry squirrel, with a belly full of turpentine. I’m sure his nastiness results from starvation and he’s undoubtedly driven to desperation by the total lack of vegetation. But he’s also to blame for it. I once saw him systematically going from branch to branch of the now-deceased tree and stripping off every leaf one by one and letting it fall. That squirrel is sort of typical in my neighborhood. It’s a vicious cycle where people live in squalor and don’t see any reason to not trash the place.

After chasing the squirrel off again, Sebastian and I decided to go to the playground (which obviously has no grass, but at least affords a decent view of the sky). As we left the building, we noticed that the super had meticulously removed the garlands we had laid and dumped them into the trash.