Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
The Chicken Wing Project
Filed under: Chicken Bones
This morning I was tooling around Flickr to see if there are any groups dedicated to documenting discarded chicken bones. This is a very worthy and noble cause, one which I had hoped to be on the cutting edge of. But alas, there already is one.
I have asked to be invited to this group. You see, membership to this fine org is by invite only— probably because these chicken bone professionals want to weed out the practicing amateurs and dilettantes. I’m already on pins and needles waiting for their answer.
Perhaps I should have sent them my resume?
Miss Heather
Mary D’s Housing for Seniors
I have often wondered why there is so much dog shit on Dupont Street. Of all the blocks in my part of the ‘hood, Dupont is by and far the worst when it comes to crap. It’s fucking gross.
My initial theory was that dog owners were letting their canines crap with total abandon behind the old folks home (Mary D’s). And after last week’s fact-finding mission, I determined this to be true. What is surprising is WHO the statistics suggest as being the responsible for this doggie doo death gauntlet. Read on and draw your own conclusions.
The area I covered was a small one: Clay, Dupont, Eagle and Freeman Streets between Manhattan Avenue and Franklin Street. How much shit did I find? A LOT.
SEVENTY PILES OF SHIT IN FOUR BLOCKS.
Note: These are conservative figures. I often encountered mounds of dog shit and was forced to estimate how many separate bowel movements were present.
The above pie chart illustrates how much dog shit was found on/adjacent to Mary D’s versus the rest of the block. What is especially telling was the amount of shit located immediately outside and DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET from the rear exit of this facility (at 80 Dupont Street).
God I hope it was dog shit I saw back there; what kind of place are these people running?!? Maybe this is a new part of President Bush’s Medicare Plan? Hell if I know— and I don’t think I want to find out.
Elder abuse concerns aside, here’s a brand-spanking new “Crap Map” for your entertainment.
Enjoy!
Miss Heather
New Developments
I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but be assured that I have been very busy consolidating and planning the expansion of my “shit empire”.
In the (hopefully) near future you can expect:
1. The birth of the “crap map”. I have been busy collecting pix and data, the only thing holding me back now is technology (or my lack of mastery thereof). Ideally, this map will be not unlike Gawker’s “Gawker Stalker” map. We’ll see.
2. Expansion of subject matter: the last few weeks working on this blog has made me realize that there are so many topics which, hitherto until now, remain sorely unexplored. The creation of a “Chicken Bone Gallery” is one such example of how I am going to address this problem. Anyone who has lived in New York City, much less Greenpoint, long enough knows that discarded fried chicken bones are a pervasive, gross and for dog owners, DANGEROUS, phenomena.
3. Expansion of territory: although this is contingent on getting the “crap map” launched, I am eyeing expansion into Williamsburg and Bushwick. Naturally, I will be heavily reliant upon contributions from you, the public, to make this happen.
4. Amusing anecdotes from myself and others, such as a story about a guy my friend and I call “Scoop Dogg”. This dude is more than a little dogmatic (bad pun, but I had to make it) about how one scoops the poop.
More to follow soon…
XOX
Miss Heather (Your Shit Master)
McGuinness Blvd. Redux
Another day, another trek down McGuinness, another bounty of refuse.
Having lived in Greenpoint for almost six years, I am fascinated by the recent surge of condominium construction on McGuinness Boulevard. I have seen a number of developments going up along this strip from roughly Calyer Street northward, and I have frequently wondered to myself: why would anyone want to live there? Thus far, the best answer I can come up with is that these developers are banking on P.T. Barnum: there’s a sucker born every minute.
McGuinness Boulevard (to those of you not in the know) is a busy (READ: loud) thoroughfare. When the Pulaski Bridge is drawn (on a humidelicious hot summer day), the emissions from all the backed up vehicular traffic is thick enough to eat to spread on your toast. The fact that crossing McGuinness is in and of itself a death-defying task does not help matters. It is common knowledge among the locals here, myself included, that speeding cars hit buildings and other inanimate objects regularly. This being so, what chance does a slow-moving, less sturdily built biped have?
If any Hollywood hack sees fit to remake the movie Death Race 2000 —and why not, it’s a better movie than most of the ‘new’ crap the dream factory is churning out nowadays— I wholeheartedly endorse, no, I ADVOCATE, McGuinness Boulevard as the location to use.
Traffic-related concerns aside, there are a host of other reasons not to purchase one of these condos:
1. For starters, these properties are all in close proximity to the Fire Department. This is a good thing if you happen to pull a “Pryor” and set yourself on fire while free-basing, but for the rest of us, the roar of fire trucks at all hours may prove to be an annoyance.
2. Let’s say you purchase an apartment on a higher floor (away from the din of traffic), you can expect one of two things:
A. The view of Manhattan you were promised by your broker will be short-lived (once towers are tossed up on West Street).
B. You will have a ‘scratch and sniff’ view of the water treatment plant.
Lastly, it should be noted that the caliber of person who frequents McGuinness Boulevard is— how shall way put it— a bit lackluster? Don’t take my word for it, go and hang out at the Taco Bell ‘food court’ yourself. On any given (work) day you will find a motley crew of thugs, junkies, old Polish men sucking and grinding away at their dentures like a cow works a wad of cud, and “Joe Dirt” types whose curricula vitae can be found on a Post Office wall, “America’s Most Wanted” or a milk carton.
If you are not up that, simply walk along McGuinness and you will detect their presence: by their garbage and discarded chicken bones, ye shall know them…
Dog shit (at Java Street and McGuinness Blvd.) notwithstanding…
If I were a fly on the wall, I honestly do not know which of the following I would want to see more:
A. The fool who will pay 1/3 -1/2 million dollars to look at this pile of shit (and numerous other piles of shit, garbage and vomit) every day.
OR
B. The broker/developer pandering these condos and the ‘spin’ he/she will put on the location.
McGuinness Boulevard is decidedly NOT Bedford Avenue— and it never will be— Robert Moses saw to that forty years ago. So, when you see an unwashed, unshaven and mop-headed man on Mickey Guiness rocking an AC/DC shirt, he is not aiming to be ironic or edgy. He attended AC/DC concerts back in the 70’s, got addicted to coke (meth or whatever), and is too shit-ass broke to buy new clothes.
I never knew that drug-addled poverty could be so chic. Thank you, B-Burg ‘Influx’ Hipsters!
A cheap holiday in other people’s misery, as Johnny Rotten put it— a ‘holiday’ made only more piquant when purchased with your parent’s money.
Yeah, that’s tearing the “man” (your old man) a new asshole.
Stupid fucks.
NYS Flickr Pool
