Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
Better Homes & Garbage: Greenpoint Waterfront Edition
As I have mentioned previously yesterday I showed my buddy Mitch around our fair burgh. In addition to the “Fuck Me” chair I showed Mr. Waxman the new affordable housing gracing our waterfront. Yes, I am talking about none other than the India Street trailer park! The first thing I observed was a number of the trailers (there were eight originally) have found another locality to call home. There are only three remaining. Among the ones removed was the camper pressed into service as the north Greenpoint outpost of the D.D.D.L. (Dzien Dobry Drinking League). So it goes.
Nonetheless signs of habitation were manifest. In fact, I would go so far as to say a higher caliber of resident is hanging their hat hereabouts nowadays. Is this, the Garden Spot’s first and only trailer park, bravely marching towards gentrification, you ask? I will leave it to you, gentle readers, to draw your own conclusions.
Since the door has already been opened for us (so to speak) let’s take a peek inside, shall we?
While Martha Stewart may beg to differ, the floral decor lends this tenement-on-wheels a downright cozy feel.
The presence of personal hygiene products and a Tiki were noted.
Old Glory hangs proudly.
And last— but hardly least— the presence of reading material was spied by my inquiring eye. For those of you who have been wondering (as I often have):
What is the newspaper of choice for folks residing in campers on Greenpoint’s waterfront?
I am pleased to announce I have the answer!
The New York Post, of course.
Miss Heather
Quicklink: From Reuters
Filed under: Plagiarism
Yesterday yours truly was contacted by a reporter from Reuters named Anthony DeRosa. He was working on a tome about how the mainstream media plagiarizes blogs. As you can imagine, gentle readers, I had a great deal to say about this phenomenon. Well, I am pleased to report this article is online and lavishes a great deal of attention on— or at least links heavily to— yours truly. Enjoy!
Miss Heather
Live From Rosemary’s Greenpoint Tavern: New York’s Bravest!
This morning yours truly got up bright and early. There was work to be done. Among other things I had to drop off a photo for developing, get a shipping container for another photo and drop off yet another photo to a friend who resides on Bedford Avenue. The latter-most task ended up being the highlight of my day. So far, anyway.
This is the vision which awaited me as I arrived at her apartment at 11:15 this morning: a gaggle of New York’s Bravest Cutest engaging in a little St. Paddy’s day merrymaking at Rosemary’s Greenpoint Tavern! Naturally I headed over without delay.
Me (to two of New York’s Bravest): Can I take your picture?
Bravest #1: You aren’t from the Post, are you?
Me: (excised*) NO!
(Bravest #1 and #2 line up to pose for yours truly)
Me: Okay, on the count of three. 1, 2, the Post Sucks!
Bravest #1 & #2: THE POST SUCKS!
This post goes out to the hardworking men and women of fair our city’s Fire Department. Happy St. Paddy’s Day!
Miss Heather
*Rhymes with “duck”.
Quicklink: Animal New York Gets Poached!
Filed under: East Village, East Village Manhattan, Lower East Side, Lower East Side Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, Plagiarism
Many of you who have followed this blog over the years have undoubtedly noticed that a number of stories broken by yours truly have a strange way of finding their way onto the pages of Newscorp’s manifold publications within a matter of hours/days/weeks— often as “exclusives”. As you can imagine I find this phenomenon very interesting. What’s more, I can assure you it is not a coincidence. In fact, one of their own reporters even admitted as much! Alex Ginsberg comments (regarding my reporting about Cutting Edge Fitness):
Post policy prevented me from crediting you in print. Allow me to do so now. You did a fantastic reporting job. All I had to do was follow your steps (and make a few extra phone calls).
I won’t discuss at length the policy of not crediting blogs (or anyone else). I’ll just briefly explain that as long as we can independently verify every bit of info, we don’t credit.
You will find that the Daily News observes the same policy, but the Times does not. (They often write an explanatory phrase like, ‘The investigation into Mr. Spitzer was first reported in the New York Post.’ That’s not a real one. I just made it up. Although I would note that another Times policy would prevent them from actually printing the name of your blog, presenting them with an unresolvable conflict between two inflexible rules.)
Looking forward to “amplifying” more of your good work in the future.
So you can imagine my dark amusement when I stumbled upon the above item from Animal New York today. A very angry Bucky Turco writes:
While it’s common knowledge that the New York Post often rips off story ideas from local blogs—just ask editors from Gothamist, EV Grieve, New York Shitty, Vanishing New York, Sheepshead Bites and a handful of others—their latest article on the bombing of the Bowery mural, which was basically lifted from several ANIMAL posts, was particularly egregious…
You can read the whole sad story by clicking here. In closing, I would like to leave you with this quote from Newcorp’s spokesperson, Suzi Halpin:
The New York Post credits blogs, bloggers, and other media all the time, as our readers know.
Except when they don’t. If the Post followed the above policy to the letter their readership would quickly comprehend exactly how much of the content they are reading has its provenance from online/alternative/independent media outlets (READ: blogs). Welcome to the club, Bucky— and by all means keep on writing! Dozens of reporters depend on people like you and me for their livelihood!
Miss Heather
New York Shitty Day Ender: And So The Race To The Bottom Continues…
Filed under: 11222, Greenpoint, Greenpoint Brooklyn, Greenpoint Magic, New York City
I don’t know about you but I’ll be happy when this football season is over. Why, you ask? The latest covers of the New York Post have been— to put it mildly— more cringe-worthy than usual.
Miss Heather
P.S.: If Rex Ryan is reading this I recently lost my job and really need a new pair of sneakers. The above (pink!) New Balances are a womens’ size 6 1/2; have never been washed and have seen a great deal of our fair city. Care to make a deal?
Breaking On The NY Post: The McCarren Park Bathrooms Are Disgusting!
Filed under: 11211, 11222, Greenpoint, Greenpoint Brooklyn, Greenpoint Magic, Plagiarism, Williamsburg, Williamsburg Brooklyn
Not that this is really news to me, the readers of this web site or those who have had the misfortune of patronizing the McCarren Park bathrooms, mind you. That’s yesterday’s news. What IS news to me, rather, is apparently the Post finds it not only acceptable to poach from blogs— to which I have regrettably grown accustomed— but now they have kicked it up a notch by actually “quoting” the blogger whose material they “sourced”!
But don’t take my word for it. Look at the following screencap and decide for yourself. It is an item I posted on the Community Board 1 Yahoo group making my friends and neighbors aware of the deplorable state of the woman’s comfort station at McCarren Park. Note the date.
Just for kicks here’s a screencap of what a few other people had to say about the state of our public lavatories.
Charming, eh? If Mr. Murdoch, et. al. is so keen on poaching my material and has now seen fit to quote me perhaps he should just bite the bullet and hire me? Scratch that. Why should he buy the cow when he can get the milk for free?
Miss Heather
Breaking In Williamsburg: BUSTED!
I have just received word that 112 North 6 Street (AKA: Zip112) has been vacated by the Department of Buildings for being an illegal hostel. Apparently there were up to sixteen people living in each “apartment”, no sprinkler systems were in place and there was no means of “second egress”, e.g.: fire escapes. My buddy over at Brooklyn 11211 has some interesting things to say about this development. You can read ’em by clicking here.
Miss Heather
UPDATE, March 28, 7:59 p.m.: It would appear there was not one, but two hostels operating at this location. Zip112 has been allowed to continue operation. Aaron Short has the full run-down here.
UPDATE, 5:16 p.m.: Here’s an update/statement of Assemblyman Joe Lentol’s office.
Northside Williamsburg Building Evacuated for Being Illegal (and dangerous) Hostel and a Fire Hazard
Assemblyman Joe Lentol has just learned that a building in his district, at 112 North 6th street is currently being evacuated by the FDNY and the buildings department for being an illegal hostel. Also on site are the Office of Emergency Management and the Red Cross. According to information given to Assemblyman Joe Lentol’s office the building is zoned commercial but had been divided into 12 apartments with up to 16 people living in each apartment for a potential capacity of 192 people. Lentol’s office was also told that there were no fire escapes or sprinkler system and no secondary exit should an emergency arise.
“My heart goes out to the people affected by this and I am very relieved to hear that emergency services and the red cross are available to them. My office is as well,” the assemblyman added. “We are going to do everything we can to help the people affected and to ensure these things don’t happen in the future. I intend to work with the city and my colleagues in state government to find ways to improve the system to try to prevent this to the best of our abilities.”
“This type of situation, where people are being kicked out on the street, should not be allowed to occur in the first place. Its simply unacceptable. I never want to see people on the street in my district. I am very glad that the Department of Buildings is stepping in to ensure that everyone is safe going forward but I think we need to be asking ourselves how did it get to this point?”
“This is certainly not the first time people have been put out on the street because they find out that the landlord doesn’t have the proper zoning or safety requirements for what he is renting out. The other day a constituent told me that his real estate agent told him he could also live in the building he was buying to operate a business. He found out she was wrong. If he hadn’t checked for himself, he could have ended up on the street for violating the zoning and also lost a lot of money.”
“It points to a larger problem where too often the owners or the renters of buildings are trying to do things, or are being told by real estate agents that they can do things, on a wink and a nod and the people living there get the short end of the stick. In some cases the risk is monetary, in some of these cases of serious fire hazards they are risking much more”
“For some time now, my office has been trying to look at ways that we can try to remove the guesswork from the system so that when you move into a building you know what you can and cannot do with it, you know whether the owner has a certificate of occupancy, you know the legal situation of where you are living, so that we can avoid this,” said Lentol. “This situation the perfect example of why we need to do that. It put peoples lives in real danger. That cannot happen again.”
“I always believe in prevention first, but now that we are in this situation, I will be sure to work the Mayors office to help everyone involved. And then we focus on learning from our mistakes.”
UPDATE, 10:22 p.m.: It would appear the New York Post is on the story. I’m happy one of my commenters could be of assistance. Who needs to do research when they sit on their ass, surf the Interwebs and get it for free?
Quicklink: Here We Go Again…
Filed under: Plagiarism
I imagine some of you have read the tome to the left. It was published today by the New York Post. Well, a blogger by the name of Andrew Fine has some things to say about it. This is because he broke the story first:
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That theory is being put to the test.
As many of you know, I wrote an article on the seemingly ridiculous “rules of conduct” sign at the Harlem branch of Chuck E Cheese this past Monday. The article detailed how various gang clothing, conduct, and weapons were banned from Chuck E. Cheese and questioned whether the sign was motivated by the area’s racial or socioeconomic make-up. The article was well received and went a little viral with Gothamist.com, Curbed.com, Eater, NYMag.com’s food section picking it up, as well as it being re-tweeted hundreds of times. The thing that all of these outlets had in common is that every single one credited the story to A. Fine Blog. That was until this morning…
Yes folks it would appear that blog poaching season is in full swing! It is interesting to note that one Amber Sutherland is involved in this (latest) incident. If this name sounds vaguely familiar to some of you, dear readers, here’s why: she shared the byline on a certain article that made yours truly, um, rather unhappy.
You can read Mr. Fine’s whole sad story by clicking here.
Miss Heather
Image Credits: Queens Crap
Quicklink: Much Ado About Blog Poaching
Filed under: Plagiarism
Remember how hot and bothered I got when I received what essentially amounted to an admission from one of the New York Post’s reporters stating that they do, in fact, use blogs for news leads without crediting them? Mr. Ginsberg called it “amplifying”. I call it bullshit.
It would appear I am not the only one who feels this way. Read it and weep, folks.
Miss Heather
NYS Flickr Pool
You must be logged in to post a comment.