Quicklink: And So It Goes…

Yet another “news” item about the Salvation Army’s “boutique” store in “trendy” Greenpoint. I have refrained from blogging this “news” because quite frankly it is not. News.

It is gentrification porn. It is click-bait. It is easier than, say, writing about a beloved (and rare) water tower’s “character” being painted over. Or even a fatal stabbing on Dupont Street (Which DNA.info reported).

What seems to be lost by the various media outlets writing about this “news” is the fact the Salvation Army did not simply “pretty up” the space. They also saw fit to “pretty up” the staff. You know, so as to make the place more “palatable” for someone who would pay $3.00 for “curated” LPs.* $250.00 for a bookcase which could be easily had elsewhere. Cheaper.

Gone are the employees I loved bantering with/backing up in verbal disputes over prices from disgruntled “customers”. I guess they did not make the “boutique” cut. The former manager had such an elegant, beautifully Caribbean, slightly French-inflected; polite way of telling miscreants to, well, using my vocabulary:

Fuck off.

She was smart. Probably too smart.

The first person who really taught me the “value” of telling someone to fuck off was “Sammy”. He worked at this same Salvation Army store in 2000. Methinks the Village Voice (when they actually had balls) wrote a profile of him. What I do know is he once had to deal with two women disputing over who got to buy a certain a certain ceramic figurine. He resolved this problem employing Solomon-like wisdom by throwing it on the floor and rendering it into smithereens. Problem solved.

“Sammy” resided at the Greenpoint Hotel. Back then the “Greenpoint Hotel” had a very curious rule: you can stay there for three weeks only. The fourth you must leave. This was, of course, to skirt the four week rule of SRO residents being rent-stabilized.

When my grandmother and her sister died (within weeks of each other) who did I ask to “house sit” my apartment/cats? Sammy, of course. He confessed to me later he played his guitar and watched porn. So be it. I like honesty.

Sammy died a few years ago. I miss him.

*Skip the “curation fee”/”community tax” and head to The Thing.