8 Comments on Greenpoint Gentrification Watch: McCarren Park

mikki on Fri, 12th Jun 2009 9:21 am


The sticker might have reflected the kid’s political sentiments. My goddaughter, who was seven at the time, was big into Hillary Clinton during the election. (Her mom and I were both for Obama)

missheather on Fri, 12th Jun 2009 10:44 am


I can see a “Warriors” type altercation at Abate Park. Gangs of youngsters wearing their “colors”. Red for John McCain, Blue for Obama, Green for Nader. It would get ugly… 😉

neighborhood threat on Fri, 12th Jun 2009 11:38 am


I hate yuppies with a fiery passion that burns, but:
1) those scooters are so cheap now, they are not cutting edge, you can get them at the chinese variety stores.
2) kids have strong political opinions too
3) if you work in graphic design, you can put together a sharp looking flier in half the time it would take me to make a crappy looking one. now, i realize that working in graphic design it’s ont a huge leap that this person is a yuppie, but they could also be an artist who works a day job…

no yuppie condemnation here.

d on Fri, 12th Jun 2009 1:11 pm


The kid’s name is pretty bad.

Rebecca11222 on Fri, 12th Jun 2009 9:12 pm


Just relieved the kid’s name isn’t “Dylan” (close to Devlin) or “Zoe.” Btw: my husband’s bike (which he locks EXTREMELY and needs for WORK gets stolen once or twice per year.

mikki on Sat, 13th Jun 2009 7:35 pm


Rebecca they had a guy on WNYC last week who had all these great tips on the best way to lock bikes. He had all this stuff about using two locks, etc. I kind of tuned out bec I dont have a bike but I bet if you go on their archive you can hear it.

allrockkitty on Sat, 13th Jun 2009 10:26 pm


As the mother of the child in question (Devlin, which I had no idea up until this point was a yuppie name…or a “bad” name…I just thought it was Irish…after Bernadette Devlin, y’know?) and the wife of the guy who made the flier I felt I should say something.

So yeah, the scooter was not expensive, but we didn’t want to buy a new one, thus the fliers.

The scooter wasn’t stolen, we left it in the park. And if anyone wants to know the outcome, we live in a great community and it was returned to us.

The professional quality of the flier is due to my husband being an artist and having a program called Photoshop at home.

Nope, we weren’t trying to advertise our political leanings through our child. I never even thought of that to tell you the truth. He was obsessed with Obama during the election cycle, and yeah, he put the sticker on there and truly I never thought, “wow, he shouldn’t have that.”

Oh, and there was no purposeful connection between the blue scooter & obama…they make them in pink and blue and I thought that the gender-identity issues the pink brought up might be too much for the little one.

Its very odd to see yourself critiqued through a single item like this. When you posted a photo of the back of my friend’s head and I think, referred to him as a “circus punk” (he had a shaved head with leopard spots around it and some small blue spikes going up on top) I forwarded it to him as I did think it was funny…but now I have that feeling like…”and then they came for me”

And please don’t pommel my son, or suggest he be pommeled… If you must know, he is a third generation Greenpointer – his grandfather was born on Leonard Street between Greenpoint & Calyer. He may grow up to be a yuppie, but hopefully he will be a sweet yuppie 🙂

missheather on Sun, 14th Jun 2009 12:19 pm


Point taken— although methinks you are taking this post (which is satire lest the reference to McCain scooters, Nader scooters, and the Warriors— I think filming a spoof of the closing sequence of this movie in Abate Park with political “gangs” of 5-6 something youths, the McCarren Park McCains, Humboldt Street Hillaries, Oak Street Obamas and Nassau Avenue Naders and their scooters would be hilarious) a bit too seriously.

I would never, ever advocate striking or generally mistreating a child. In fact I once called ACS on one of my neighbors for just this kind of thing. Had you seen the conditions that little girl was living in you would have been horrified. I certainly was.

http://www.newyorkshitty.com/?p=489

But let’s keep things light…

As for your friend with the amazing hairdo, if you’ll reread the post you’ll notice that I was hardly making fun of him. Quite to the contrary, I really liked it.

http://www.newyorkshitty.com/?p=8032

I’ve always loved how the people here have a collective fascination for animal prints. It simply doesn’t get anymore Greenpoint than that!

Good luck getting your scooter back. If you have not filed a police report already (and I would) I’d watch Manhattan Avenue around the C-Town. A lot of bikes, etc. of very suspicious provenance tend to turn up there. It would hardly surprise me in the least if Devlin’s scooter turns up there as well. I’ll certainly keep an eye out for it.

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