McKibben Street: A Trip Down Memory Lane

December 1, 2011 by missheather
Filed under: 11206, 11222, East Williamsburg, East Williamsburg Brooklyn, Greenpoint, Greenpoint Brooklyn, Greenpoint Magic

Three years ago a plumbing supply business graced yours truly’s block. This establishment, like many of its brethren, eventually had to relocate due to the prohibitive rent demanded by their landlord. However, before departing they saw fit to get rid of a little “excess baggage”. Among these items was a toilet (as seen at left). For reasons which remain unclear to this day it remained on the sidewalk for almost a week. During this time there was quite a bit of rainfall. So much so the bowl of said toilet was filled with water. Upon noticing this fortuitous miracle of nature I told the Mister:

Someone is going to shit in that toilet.

He vehemently disagreed. Those of you who are curious as to which one of us ended up being correct can view the ugly answer with your own eyes by clicking here.

Now jump forward to this afternoon, gentle readers. That is when I stumbled upon the above vision on McKibben Street (across from the playground of the same name). Given the anecdote which graces the beginning of this post what happened next should be obvious: I walked over to see if it had been, um, patronized.

The answer was, of course, “Yes”.

At this point a normal person would simply mumble:

Damn, that is nasty.

perhaps chuckle a bit and go about his/her business. I am, however, not a normal person— anyone who has read this site for any appreciable period of time knows this. While generally optimistic I saw this ~~glass~~ bowl as being half-empty. There was ample room for improvement.

Something is missing!

I declared— then I went into action.

First, I commandeered a crate from the colossal pile of rubbish behind this al fresco privy.

Upon it I placed a newly-acquired copy of the New York Times and a solitary roll of toilet paper. I kept the other three rolls for the Mister’s and my own use at home. Bill and Melinda Gates, we are not: our charitable contributions have monetary limits. What’s more, I remembered we actually needed toilet paper.