Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
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
Ghetto-gate Update
After seven days of construction constriction, I am finally regaining my sense of humor. I have no doubt that sleep deprivation and consuming ample amounts of Budweiser* have helped me get back to my usual beatific state. There is a certain dark humor to be found in my predicament: the recent ‘improvements’ going on around me (in the name of ‘gentrification’) are the very reason for my diminished quality of life. “Progress” has my rendered my apartment (which one would presume to be my place of refuge) downright unbearable of late.
Thankfully, the rain has given me a reprieve from any construction-related rooftop hijinks the last 24 hours. Other than the soapy smell of glue** wafting from the untreated plywood behind my apartment or the occasional “pop” made by a(nother) piece of plywood warping, it has been fairly peaceful. I have even managed to get some work done.
Mr. Markowitz, I have the Dog Shit Queen of Greenpoint on line one…
After running errands this morning I arrived home to find an email from a Ms. Luyando from the Brooklyn Borough President’s office in my inbox. I had honestly forgotten about the crazed missive I had sent to Mr. Markowitz’s office last Saturday, so this was a pleasant surprise. Ms. Luyando asked me for some additional information (which in my rage I had forgotten to provide, but then again jpegs like this speak for themselves) and she gave me a case number. I gave her the information she requested and told her she could consult my blog (www.newyorkshitty.com) for images of the questionable construction I was complaining about.
I can only hope she (or one of her assistants) did so. If I were (still) a civil servant I would be overjoyed at the prospect of being paid to parse through pictures of dog crap and blog posts with titles as “Hot in the Ass”.
Otherwise, I am going back on the beat and am currently planning a trek to a very special part of Greenpoint. I spent two (LONG) years of my life in the area I plan to showcase and suspect it will be quite the fruitful snootful. (It was awful then and I see no reason why it would be any better now.) I also plan to do some much needed troubleshooting/maintenance to New York Shitty and add new links to my blogroll this weekend, so stay tuned!
Miss Heather
*The Dog Shit Queen of Greenpoint’s drink of choice is the King of Beers. For obvious reasons.
**My husband says it is formaldehyde. He was a finish carpenter once, so I guess he would know.
Photo Credit: I found this genuine vomi de l’artiste (the presence of red wine is a dead giveaway) in front of 123-125 Green Street.
Nature: 1, Landlord: 0
For reasons one can only imagine, the landlord next door did not see fit to protect the untreated wood on his new roof against the rain. Perhaps he had planned to do so yesterday but the visit from the Fire Marshal threw a monkey wrench in his plans, who knows? In any case, it’s becoming a real mess back there. The last time I saw something as bucked and wonky as this, it was the result of British dentistry.
I wonder what the Building Inspector is going to think about this? I will find out soon enough.
Otherwise, he is back at work and concealing his DOB Permits (AGAIN).
I wonder if the man wearing a jacket reading “Bureau of Fire Prevention” I saw standing across the street noticed this?
Miss Heather
What I did September 11, 2006
Filed under: Area 51
Most consider 9/11 a day of remembrance. Ceremonies are held where survivors give statements about how the events of that day irrevocably changed their lives and our current regime doles out their usual fear-mongering and panders their failing agenda. I for one had neither time for reflection nor outrage: I was busy collecting a delinquent payment due to my husband.
An advertising agency has repeatedly failed to pay my better (?) half for his consulting services. Five hundred dollars worth of consulting services rendered over two months ago, to be precise. I suspect these people have been acting in good faith; their incompetence was (is?) the root of the problem.
Last Friday I visited their office and personally picked up a new check. The prior two checks they have cut never found their way into our possession. This is probably due to the fact that this agency addressed these checks to my husband’s DBA and had them delivered via the United States Postal Service to our home. I do not know where these checks went and I do not care to know. What I do know is that my husband and I want our five hundred bucks.
The check I picked up last Friday also proved to be made out to my husband’s DBA, so we could not deposit it. My husband got really pissed, so I took charge. I sent an email to his contact stating when I was going to return for a new, properly-written check: September 11, 2006 at 11:00 a.m.
September 11, 2006
I woke up late and hurriedly put myself together. Most of my clothes were dirty, as was my hair, but I did not give a damn: $500 was at stake. I threw on the first clean tank top and skirt I could find, pulled my ratty hair into a ponytail and headed to Manhattan.
I arrived ten minutes early. This agency had just relocated to a new office, so everything was in disarray: lots of plastic sheeting, plaster and no Receptionist to meet or greet me. I waited and surveyed the cubicle farm around me.
Several years ago I worked in the Advertising Sales Department of a travel magazine, so I have some familiarity with the industry. This office struck me as being just like any other: an incubator (presided over by Baby Boomers) teaming with fresh-faced, edgy, 20-something college graduates awaiting transformation into the surly, burned-out assholes who staff the so-called ‘upper tier’ agencies I had the misfortune of interfacing with. Young and Rubicam immediately comes to mind, but I digress…
I waited for ten minutes before a high-status silverback female saw fit to ask my impeccably-wrecked 30-something person if I have been helped. I told her “no”, explained why I was at her place of business,and handed her the bad check. She ambled off to find someone to help me.
I waited.
And waited.
The cubicle monkeys took note of my blighted presence and whispered among themselves.
The silverback woman came back 10 minutes later and told me that the people I needed to speak with were not in the office, but they would be back soon. I asked if I could wait. Reluctantly, but politely, she said OK. I sat in a cubicle right by the front door (clad in this tank top) in plain view of anyone—staff and clients alike— who came and went. I made myself feel right at home.
For the next forty minutes I:
- called friends
- asked the employees around me where the kitchenette was so I could get a glass of water
- asked around as to where the bathroom was “because I drunk a lot of coffee earlier this morningâ€
- made a rather lengthy phone call to the Bureau of Fire Prevention about some construction work that was “blocking the only means of egress* from my neighbor’s apartment (other than the front door) in the event of a fireâ€
Long story made short: I got our money.
Miss Heather
*It has been my observation that civil servants really like it when you use the proper terminology. It makes their job easier.
Miss Heather: 1, Landlord: 1
I returned from running errands this morning to find a fire truck— an honest to god FIRE TRUCK— gaggle of New York’s Bravest and handful of chromosomally-disadvantaged onlookers in front of the building next door.
When the Fire Marshal cometh, I guess he likes to make an entrance. If that was his intention, it worked. Ever since the Greenpoint Terminal Market caught on fire, the local yokels around here get very interested when a fire truck shows up on their block.
I have no idea what transpired, but the landlord next door has gone back to work completing his new ghetto-ass roof with two notable changes:
- The openings made around several of my windows and those of belonging to my neighbor have been enlarged.
- His DOB permit is in plain view.
I guess it is a “draw”. But there is one question I can’t get out of my mind: if this man had to file plans with the Department of Buildings in order to get permission to make these ‘renovations’, why weren’t the fire code violations (which would presumably be manifest in his ‘plan’) caught earlier?
Hmm…
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…
- two bedrooms: one was about 10′ x 12′, the other was 8′ x 10′ (READ: a glorified walk-in closet)
- maybe 100 square feet more than what we have now, probably less
- walls that looked like they have been worked over by Keith Moon and then repaired by a circus monkey on crack
- one closet
And last, but not least…
- 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
Year of the Dog
Filed under: Area 51
I was born in the Year of the Dog.
2006, the year I conceived and developed this blog, is the Year of the Dog.
A blog about dog shit created during the Year of the Dog, by someone born on the Year of the Dog seems strangely fitting.
For the above reason(s), it is ironic that my first and only upbraiding by a New York City Parks employee to date would be at the behest of a dog.
Aside from the “Latina Chicks with Dirty Old Geezers” dvd I recently found behind our apartment, I gave my husband the very best birthday present of all last week: I landed an interview for a job. But in true Miss Heather fashion, this did not come to pass without incident.
Being the punctuality freak that I am, I left Greenpoint at 12:00 p.m. in order to make sure that my well-groomed white-trash ass got to Union Square by 1:00 p.m. I got there at 12:20 p.m. Damn.
I decided to knock around Union Square awhile and what happened next merited a phone call to my husband.
Me: I just got my ass reamed out by an employee of the New York City Parks Department for having a dog in a public bathroom.
Husband: (laughing)
Mind you. We do not have a dog.
I had consumed a lot of water and tea before I left the house, so I sought out a public bathroom. Union Square does have such facilities. They are pretty disgusting, but I really needed to go, so I ventured inside.
The ‘handicapped’ stall appeared to be occupied, so I selected the other one. Pissing away in a state of bliss that can only be had after drinking at least a gallon of water, in August, and riding the L train, I looked downward to find a dog. An old Boxer was peering up at me.
“This is weird”, I thought to myself.
I do not like anyone watching me ‘do my business’, so to speak. Then again, a dog is probably the least of all evils I can possibly encounter in a New York City public bathroom, so I tinkled away. Eventually I heard a woman’s voice from the adjacent stall say “O.K. Betty, are you ready to go?”
“This is getting really fucking weird” I thought to myself.
The word “go” has a very distinct meaning in a bathroom. I sat on the bowl as he/she/it/they exited the adjacent stall. I heard the door to the women’s bathroom open, and shortly thereafter, a banshee-like scream.
A.
LOUD.
ASS.
SHRILL.
SCREAM.
Imagine Yoko Ono getting buggered with a fire hydrant and you’ll get the general idea. It was not a pleasant sound. My bum-gut instinctively sealed itself shut, so I ‘adjusted myself’ and ventured out of the stall. I found a homeless woman washing herself while her dog waited patiently.
Homeless Woman: Why the fuck do these people get so freaked out by dogs?
Me: Hell if I know, but if I had to take a guess I’d say it’s because most people expect large dogs to be mean. Your dog (Betty?) is nice enough, she doesn’t bother me. Boxers are good dogs. They’re being assholes.
As the homeless woman washed herself and I waited, a NYC Parks Employee started beating furiously at the door. “Betty” started to get restless, so I placed my shoe firmly upon her leash so she would not try to bolt out of the door.
NYC Emp (opening the door and looking at me): You MUST get that dog OUT OF HERE!
Me: But…
NYC Imp: GET THAT DOG OUT OF HERE, A WOMAN HAS COMPLAINED ABOUT IT ALREADY!
Me: But it is not my dog…
NYC Imp: ?
Me (pointing to the Homeless Woman) : It’s her’s.
NYC Imp (in a soft voice, to the Homeless Woman): You need to get your dog out of the bathroom. There’s a woman out here who will not go into the bathroom while it’s in there.
Me (exiting the bathroom and thinking to myself): FUCK YOU!
Even homeless people get more respect than I do. Wherever Rodney Dangerfield is now, I am certain he is weeping tears of sympathy. Perhaps even tears of envy.
Then again, getting a good dressing-down before a job interview is not such a bad thing. It actually made everything that followed rather anti-climactic, if not downright pleasant. I arrived at my potential new employer’s place of business with a renewed sense of humility. A placid state that can only be had from extreme paranoia.
And when I got home I made a very long, very overdue and very gratifying visit to the bathroom.
Cats were afoot everywhere and yet no one screamed.
Miss Heather
American Playground Women’s Bathroom
As if bumping into Tarzan last Saturday morning wasn’t a big enough mindfuck, the condition of the of the women’s restroom at the American Playground left me absolutely dumbfounded. It was clean. Terrifyingly clean. “Wipe up the blood from the crime scene with bleach so we don’t get caught by the police” clean.
I entered the facilities Saturday morning braced for anything: after all, if the McCarren Park bathroom was disgusting, surely this bathroom will be as bad— if not worse.
WRONG! The bathroom lacked soap, but the sink and mirror appear to have been cleaned recently. And when I say “recently” I mean during this Bush Administration…
A trash that does not require preventative measures against theft?!? Holy shit, this is getting serious!
I approached the solitary bathroom stall with a mix of anticipation and dread. Perhaps the public area of the bathroom is clean so as to lull me into a false sense of security? That way I will be completely thrown off-guard when I open the door to the toilet stall and find a 200 hundred pound shitbeast ready to rip my head off. “Ain’t no way I’m falling for that shit” I thought to myself as I kicked open the door.
Oh…
MY…
GOD!!!
For reasons you can probably imagine, I got my ass the hell out of there. I hightailed it home so I could tell my husband my findings.
Me: The garbage can was not chained down, Sam! Anyone, A-N-Y-O-N-E can just walk in there and take it!
Husband: Maybe the people in that part of the neighborhood don’t steal things?
Me: Are you fucking kidding me? This neighborhood is a veritable den of thieves! I swear they are hard-wired for theft, why else would people around here steal all useless shit that they do? If there was a man without an asshole in this neighborhood, he’d be the one caught trying to shoplift fifty Fleet Enemas from Eckerds! Such is the nature of compulsive thievery here. It’s fucking unreal. There are two groups of people in this neighborhood; thieves who have been caught stealing and thieves who have yet to be caught. Simple as that.
Husband: (nods)
Me: Remember when Kerry at “The Thing” caught that old Polish broad* trying to steal an issue of Architectural Digest?
Husband: Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that.
Me: I will never fucking forget it. Magazines only cost fifty cents there for chrissakes— why would someone go to the trouble of stealing something that only costs fifty cents?!? What is an old Polish woman— in GREENPOINT of all PLACES— going to do with an issue of Architectual Digest anyway?*
Husband: (nods)
Me: It’s not like she can or will read it.* No one reads here. I betcha she tried to steal that magazine because one of the legs on her coffee table is shorter than the rest and she was going shove that fucker under it to make it level!
Shortly after this conversation, my husband and I agreed that the American Playground toilet facilities require another inspection. And this time we are going to inspect both the men’s and women’s bathroom!
Miss Heather
*I can such crass remarks because I am, indeed, of Polish descent.
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