This is why I live in Greenpoint

I found this piquant piece of social commentary at the Greenpoint Avenue stop of the G train on September 11, 2006.

‘Nuff said.

Miss Heather

Hot in the Ass

Last Sunday evening my husband and I took the L train home after knocking around the West Village. Upon entering the car, I noticed that there were a few seats left that no one had not seen fit to take: they chose to stand instead. Shortly after I sat down and the train continued its trek to Canarsie, I found out why.

I plopped my ass down next to an older black gentleman. He was a tad scruffy, but clean and kempt. He was definitely not homeless, just a tad odd. He was rocking some strange mojo and the monologue he gave for the edification of his fellow MTA patrons—from 6th Avenue to Lorimer St. (where we got off)— pretty much proved my intuition to be on the mark. I have yet to decide whether or not this man was insane. I am tilting towards “not” only because he was (a hair’s breadth) too lucid.

I can’t recall everything he rambled about (there was simply too much), but I suspect I speak for most of my fellow L train riders that night when I say we found him quite entertaining. His repartee was a vulgar, rapier-sharp brand of wit seldom found anymore, save unless if one went the local library and leafed through anything written by Rabelais. My favorite part of this man’s diatribe(s) was what I call the “hot in the ass” musings. In a nutshell, he asserted that each and every person riding in our car (and in New York City in general) was “hot in the ass”. He even challenged to us to argue the contrary:

I dare any one of you in this car to raise your hand and say you’re not hot in the ass.

No one did. Point made.

For the last week I have been wondering exactly what it is that makes people feel compelled to ramble endlessly in public spaces (e.g., the rapid transit system). Does New York City simply attract the kind of people who engage in this practice or does New York City drive people to it? I am veering towards the latter because the last few days here at Chateau de Ghetto have been pure, unadulterated HELL.

Not only do the events that follow result in some poor 311 operator getting his ear chewed off, but spending $2.00 to ride the subway and scream at total strangers is starting to look damned appealing to me. When everything comes to pass, it would probably be more effective anyway. I am just a silly idealistic pissant who follows the rules and expects others (landlords) to do the same.

It all started with last Thursday, September 7.

My Thursday morning started at 7:30 a.m. This is when the contractors hired by the MTA to tear up the street in front of our apartment (ostensibly to do something with the G train) fired up the heavy machinery. At 9:30 a.m. I hear yelling. I peer outside to see some goon in an expensive suit getting in the face of one of the contractors because he cannot park his Mercedes-Benz SUV in front of his building. Lovely. I go back to working on the computer.

10:00 a.m.: I hear a very loud sound. Come to think of it, I didn’t just hear a sound: I felt it. “What in god’s name is going on?!?” I asked myself. I wandered to the back of the apartment (from which this din seemed to be originating) to see what’s up. The kitchen floor was vibrating as was damned near everything else that wasn’t nailed down. Not cool. Whilest taking a sip of my coffee, I looked out the window and saw this:

I was aware that the landlord next door was doing renovations to the salon he owns/operates, but never in my wildest dreams nightmares would I have thought it would come to this. When you live in a building with an incompetent, intransigent, and LAZY Super (hence why I call him the “Stupor”), it simply does not cross your mind that other landlords do work on their buildings. Much less that they would do such work voluntarily. The landlord next door is destroying my “Backdoor Crapstavaganza” and as the day wore on, it only got worse…

and worse.

The noise was bad. The smell of the roofing materials being removed was worse; it filled our apartment with black dust and a sulphurous odor. But his raising the roof and using shitty construction methods really did it.

Yesterday, September 9, 2006 (SATURDAY from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) I watched, listened and SMELLED this man’s dubious plan unfold. And when the ramifications of this man’s tomfoolery became all too clear, I got (*ahem*) hot in the ass.

This is my bedroom window. It is one of three windows in our apartment that face this man’s questionable ‘renovation’. Three windows that will be partially ‘blocked’ by his new roof. Well not exactly “blocked”; he has been thoughtful enough to cut niches around them. Niches which will probably pool with rainwater that will LEAK INTO MY APARTMENT.

Here is my one of my neighbor’s windows:

I am no expert, but I suspect the FDNY would not like this. The roof is going to obstruct the three windows she has facing this space as well. Three windows which provide the only means of egress from her apartment in the event of a fire other than her front door.

Before calling 311, I had the presence of mind to pull up the Department of Buildings web site and review what (if any) permits this man had open. He has one which allows him to do “Interior Alterations and Plumbing as per PLANS. NO WORK ON FL. 2 TO 4”. I strongly suspect what this man is doing is decidely not what the DOB had in mind when they issued him this permit. A permit, I would like to add, that was issued after the DOB received a complaint that he was operating without a permit. That complaint was dismissed, but that’s okay because now they have a new one: mine.

I was about as nice I could be to the 311 operator (he was very understanding and helpful), given the circumstances. These circumstances included having to shout over all the noise the very people I was trying to report were making. Mind you, I made this call from the other end of our apartment. This did not go unnoticed by the city employee I spoke with.

311 Man (hearing noise): Are they working right now?
Me: Yes, they are. They have been working since 9:30 this morning.
311 Man: Do they have a variance to do work weekends?
Me: Not that I know of.

And then I cited the open DOB permit verbatim all the way down to the permit number. I have also reported this to the Stupor of our building (as I suspected our landlord may find these developments disconcerting). The Stupe didn’t care; this guy is his buddy. Tomorrow I will report this to the Fire Department and anyone else I can think of until I come across someone who does care. This is not a mere matter of inconvenience, it is one of safety. My safety and that of my neighbors are more valuable than the dubious eight feet this man is adding to his roof.

Miss Heather

Hipsters Need Only Apply

I recently noticed that the “for rent” sign has been removed from our apartment building. The apartment in question has been on the market for over two months. It has had no takers (until now, anyway) because it is an overpriced piece of shit.

The landlord has offered this apartment to my husband and me twice, and both times we have declined. We would like a two bedroom apartment so we could convert one of the bedrooms into an office, but this apartment is a ‘two bedroom’ in only the most rigidly academic sense of the term. It has…

1. two bedrooms: one was about 10′ x 12′, the other was 8′ x 10′ (READ: a glorified walk-in closet)
2. maybe 100 square feet more than what we have now, probably less
3. walls that looked like they have been worked over by Keith Moon and then repaired by a circus monkey on crack
4. one closet

   And last, but not least…

5. a brand-spanking new remote controlled ceiling fan (wtf?)

The asking rent for this ‘palace’ was over $300 a month more than what we are currently paying. It was all I could to to keep from laughing in the Stupor’s face when he told me the price. He was pretty damned proud of that ceiling fan he installed and the rent certainly reflected this. To be fair, it was a very nice ceiling fan, but it looked completely out of place because the rest of the apartment was a complete and total DUMP.

I have been wondering who my new neighbors were going to be what idiot would rent this apartment. Last night I got my answer.

Around 9:00 p.m. I heard something that is music to my ears: the sound of hipsters of moving somewhere else. I like ‘moving day’ because that’s when they throw out lots of cool stuff. Items only someone with no concept whatsoever of what it is like to work for a living would throw away. Nice stuff that only requires a little ‘TLC’, like this…

…and this.

I never knew Lite Brite even made tricked-out shit like this. The four lights even flash in tandem when you hit the button twice. Way cool! But I digress…

I peered out my window and saw a guy placing an antique lamp out with the trash. I bolted out of my apartment to grab it. When I came back, new score in hand, there was a eighteen-to-twenty year old chick talking to some dude (around the same age) who must have had at least a thousand dollars worth of tats on his arms and NECK. These “J.C. Penney Punks” (as my friend Mark calls them) were standing in front of my apartment.

Me: Excuse me.
Dude (moves, leans on my front door): Sure.
Me: That is my front door.
Dude: (moves)

*end of conversation*

P.T. Barnum has been (erroneously) credited as saying “There is a sucker born every minute”. If this is so, the 1980’s must have had more such ‘minutes’ than any decade to be had before or since. I find it fascinating that as this crappy apartment gets more (and more) ridiculously expensive, the people who rent it get younger and younger. I suspect this is because they have rich parents and do not know any better.

They will learn soon enough.

The apartment they are moving into is the ‘widowmaker’ of this building. No one has lived there for more than one year. It is Greenpoint’s very own “Room 101”— or perhaps “Room 237” from The Shining is more appropriate— as anyone who goes in there soon wants nothing more than to get the fuck out. They arrive here as fresh-faced, arrogant upstarts and they leave with hollowed-out faces completely bereft of any trace of humanity. And after they leave the rest of us get a good laugh and descend upon all the cool stuff they left behind like the vultures we are.

I suspect this cycle will perpetuate itself again next year. In the meantime, I hope these kids get some serious money and/or gifts for Christmas because I saw their possessions as they moved in. It was a bunch of crap even I would not want. ‘Slipster shit’ if I ever saw it.

In closing, I would like to give the following Greenpoint ‘shout-out’ to all you hipsters out there. I do not mind you moving to my ‘hood. Seriously. This is because I know you will leave soon enough, and when you do, I will score some seriously cool stuff. In fact, the only thing that keeps me from stabbing most of you arrogant fucks in the gonads is the prospect of getting free shit. That’s it.

So please do me the courtesy of not moving here unless you have stuff worth taking. There are plenty very nice people elsewhere who will accept items of inferior quality. Most of these people can be found off the Morgan Avenue stop of the L train or just about anywhere off the JMZ line in Brooklyn.

Your immediate attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Miss Heather