Greenpoint
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Culture on the Cheap
Anybody out there want some chickens?
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
Because if you do, go on down to Noble Street and help yourself.
I saw these chickens pacing about on Noble Street just east of West Street yesterday afternoon. After a little research, I learned that their apparent “home” belongs to 72 West LLC. This corporate entity, in turn, is headed by Greenpoint’s favorite citizen, the one and only Josh Guttman. I didn’t realize he was diversifying his holdings to include live chickens. Good for him.
In all seriousness, I could smell these foul-ass fowl all the way from Java Street. Those of you who have the misfortune of living near one of our city’s lovely “live poultry” establishments can attest to the stench I am talking about. It’s not unlike horse shit, only worse.
My curiousity piqued, I did a little poking around the Department of Health’s web site today to learn more about how these businesses are regulated. Here is what I found:
Health Code Subsection 161.19 Keeping of live poultry and rabbits
(a) No person shall keep a live rooster, duck, goose or turkey in a built-up portion of the City.
(b) A person who holds a permit to keep for sale or sell live rabbits or poultry shall keep them in coops and runways and prevent them from being at large. Coops shall be whitewashed or otherwise treated in a manner approved by the Department at least once a year and at such other times as the Department may direct in order to keep them clean. Coops, runways and the surrounding area shall be kept clean.
Here’s my two cents:
- Why are there chickens on Noble Street?
- Who is allowing them to wander about?
- Do these people even have a permit to keep chickens here? If they do, they don’t seem to be following the above regulations.
- Anyone up for some KFC? I’m buying!*
Miss Heather
*Just kidding, I’m a vegetarian.
Shit Parade
This morning I awakened to discover a staggering assortment of blue-chip shit waiting for me in my inbox. One or two of them literally left me speechless. Here is the first installment, which was submitted by a gentleman named Jon Feinstein. It’s some seriously amazing stuff shit which I have taken the liberty of annotating for your amusement. Enjoy!
Manhattan
27th Street between 6th and 7th Avenue
I took a dump that looked just like this before viewing this image. A pretty uncanny coincidence if you ask me, but then again this is the usual by-product when one mixes margaritas with homemade salsa the previous evening. I did stick to using conventional toilet paper to wipe my bum, though. My socks simply have too many holes in them.
Park Slope Shit
The title of this one is “Your future does not have to be a mystery”. This is a reference to the ad copy on the flyer next to this gargantuan lump of shit. If this woman was a bona fide clairvoyant, she would have placed a flyer reading “Warning, I see a pile of shit in your future” ten feet in front of this bad boy. I am certain the person who (clearly) stepped in this puddle of puddin’ would agree with me.
Boerum Hill
Near Wyckoff Avenue
You gotta give the guy credit: at least he did it in a bucket. This reminds me of a story someone I went to graduate school with once told me. He grew up in a subdivision in Topeka, Kansas. One his neighbors decided to quit paying their water bill, and as a result, their water was turned off. Instead of using the toilet (which was rendered useless by lack of water) the entire family shit in buckets. When the bucket was full, they placed it in the garage. By the time these people were finally ejected from the property (by the city) the entire garage was filled with buckets ‘o’ shit. Maybe this family has moved to Boerum Hill?
Gowanus Pool Entrance
Looks like our neighbors to south like to throw them some D’s too!
Thank again Jon for the tasty turds! Another select morsel will be featured tomorrow, so stay tuned!
Miss Heather
Great Moments in Greenpoint Vinyl Siding, Volume III
Filed under: Vinyl Siding
Miss Heather is a big fan of self-expression. If you want to (for example) adorn the front door of your two story house with leopard print, I say knock yourself out. In my opinion such unusual and modest customizations to one’s home only add to the overall quirkiness and character of my neighborhood.
Unfortunately, since New York City has no architectural review board whatsoever, it also gives carte blanche for some miscreant (whose money far exceeds his taste) to make a much bigger and bolder imprint on Greenpoint’s landscape. The end result is usually pretty jarring, if not downright hideous. Take this building on Leonard Street (please!!!).
Pretty fucking fug, isn’t it? Well, wait ’til you see what’s next door.
Shit like this makes me happy there isn’t some nosy government entity (or homeowner’s organization) to mess with my man on Leonard Street’s right to bear siding. All the way down to the last fucking inch of his property.
The window box on the third floor is a nice touch, don’t you think?
Miss Heather
Shaffer Family Values
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
After getting a little housework done I finally have time to sit on my ass and sip a brewski. The laundry has been run, the dishwasher is loaded and groceries have been purchased. Life is good.
This morning I could not for the life of me decide what to feature for today’s installment of Greenpoint crime blotter fun. Thankfully, Greenpoint gave me a hand: at precisely 8:30 a.m. This is when I got up from my desk, peered out my living room room and discovered an ambulance parked directly in front of my apartment building.
The EMS workers didn’t seem to know where they should be headed. Thankfully Vito, a gentleman who lives across the street had a word with them and whatever he said seemed to help. The previous is pretty remarkable given that Vito is mentally retarded and his speech is, for the most part, unintelligible.
Vito is a neighborhood institution— or he is to me and the guys who work at “The Thing” anyway. On any given day he can be found hanging out at the laundromat over on Huron Street (which presumably, his family manages). I’ll never forget the time Vito saw Kerry speaking on a cordless phone. He left the store and came back less than five minutes later with a phone receiver. JUST A PHONE RECEIVER— with which he commenced to strike up a ‘conversation’ with Kerry. This was hilarious beyond words. I like Vito; he brings a much-needed touch of Greenpoint zen to my life. But I digress…
After watching the ambulance episode this morning I remembered the Shaffers. They are my very favorite Greenpoint family. The local patricians may not have seen fit to name a street after them like the Meseroles, Bennets, Calyers or Provosts, but they made their mark nonetheless— in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle crime blotter. Repeatedly. Without further ado, let me introduce you to Joseph “Grandpa” Shaffer…
June 18, 1867
SENT TO JAIL.— Justice Dailey yesterday sentenced Jospeh Shaffer, of Greenpoint, to jail for 10 days, on the complaint of Officer Beckingham, of the Forty-Seventh Precinct, who found him very drunk and disorderly in the vicinity of the ferry.
And take my word for it, the acorn nut does not fall far from the tree…
June 8, 1894
A young man entered the Fifth Street Station house in Long Island City yesterday afternoon and said he had been shot in Greenpoint a few minutes before. He gave his name as John Shaffer, and said that at the corner of West and Huron Streets he met a man he had never seen before. He had some words with the fellow who was about his own age, 19 years, when the latter pulled out a revolver and shot him in the knee. The Greenpoint police were notified and an investigation was made. Captain Rhodes, who examined Shaffer, thinks he invented the whole story.
What about the lovely ladies of the Shaffer brood, you ask? Well, let’s just say you probably don’t want to marry one of them…
June 28, 1884
Rosanna Shaffer, of No. 89 Clay Street, Greenpoint, was arrested on a warrant this morning, for assaulting her husband, Fred Shaffer.
Poor Fred. What is a hen-pecked husband to do? Kick the family dog, I’m guessing. Shit rolls downhill. Even in Greenpoint.
August 24, 1884
Yesterday morning while a number of children were at play on Clay Street, Greenpoint, a large dog, the property of Frederick Shaeffer, of No. 89 Clay Street, bounded out of a yard and sprang upon a little girl, the daughter of John Hawley, of No. 79 Clay Street, and fastened its teeth in her right arm, lacerating it in a fearful manner. The dog was taken to the station house and hanged by Doorman Brennan, The girl’s wound was cauterized.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like I know these people. I can only imagine what their holiday celebrations were like, but I strongly suspect knuckle sandwiches were on the menu alongside the turkey, stuffing and cranberry dressing. The Shaffers are were my neighbors. That’s why I am grateful four blocks and 150+ years separate us.
Miss Heather
Photo: 89 Clay Street as it stands today, taken by Miss Heather.
Fecal Yoga at Berry and N. 11th Street
In Williamsburg even the doggie droppings know how to do the suryanamaskara.
Miss Heather
Say WHAT?!?
After a rather pleasant evening outing this week I arrived home to find a disturbing missive in my inbox. The email was entitled “Kill me now” and its author was “Rebecca11222”. She wrote:
Saw this in a coffee shop in Williamsburg today. Enjoy.
Noticing an attachment, I opened it.
Needless to say I was a trifle troubled by this— not so much by the class itself, but the dangerous precedent it sets. The women who will probably attend this class will not fill a sequined halter top as nicely as Fayzah does. They’ll either be anorexic beyond belief (and thus have no belly to ‘dance’) or they will sport an Orson Welles-eqsue paunch that is impossible to differentiate from second trimester pregnancy. Perhaps this is crass and sexist (it probably is), but all I’m saying is only in Williamsburg do I see twenty-something year old women with beer guts.
I shared the previous piquant observation with my buddy Rebecca. To wit she quipped:
The Star Wars bar scene-inspired hair is going to become the new trucker hat.
I fear she might be right. God help us all. Thankfully, we Greenpointers know better. We may not know what “Electric Tribal Fusion” means, but we don’t need to; if it isn’t European techno trash that can be cranked at ear-splitting volumes in a SUV it is not music. Period. As for the “Star Wars” hair…
it looks like someone on McGuinness Boulevard doesn’t care for it either.
Gotta run now. It’s time to get my aura adjusted.
Miss Heather
Today’s submission
When I got home this afternoon I discovered a select morsel of goodness in my inbox. “Begonia44” writes:
Hi Miss Heather!
I wanted to share my poop finding with you and also vent if that’s OK. But first of all, I just wanted to say that I am a huge fan of your blog. Thank you for adding giggles and laughter to my day.
So, here is what I have today.
Place: 89 Eagle St. between Franklin and Manhattan. Our back yard. In our garden.
Time: This morning. May 24.
Mood: Nauseated and pissedMy poop isn’t from a dog, rather a cat. These are the cats who have been having sex in our back yard, tearing up my garden, and taking dumps on my newly planted seed bed. In the beginning, the squirrels dug up all of my planters and hid peanuts and other nuts in them. It was a war. I caught a squirrel in the act of destruction one day and ran outside like a crazy woman on crack and he actually came running at me (Holy SHIT! — Ed. Note). I went running back into the house. Crazy little things. Now it’s the cats shitting on my flower and herbs. Gross. I came home last night and my boyfriend Adam said he has cleared out a giant pile already. And now, I wake up to this nasty yellow piece of shit. I give up. Seriously.
Anyway,
Thank you so much!
I hope you are well,
And thanks again for your great writings.
No, thank you! Not only for your kind words but for seeing this sickly pile of poo and thinking of me.
Miss Heather
This pretty much speaks for itself
Filed under: Vomit
I saw this sign as I was leaving for work this morning; it was posted on the inside of my apartment building’s front door. It has since been removed.
What the author of this sign doesn’t realize is the foul odor permeating our building is not vomit. The Stupor finally got around to cleaning out apartment 6 a couple of days ago. This apartment has been vacant since last November.
Among the items removed were (six month old) rotten food* and used vintage cat litter. As a result, our hallways smell like a combination of homeless person ass-crack and limburger cheese. The Stupe, in his infinite wisdom, attempted to conceal this malodorous perfume with some generic form of Pine-Sol. The results of this futile attempt at ‘damage control’ are truly eye-watering.
Miss Heather
*He also threw out the refrigerator, which I could smell from my own living room 20+ feet away!
Mount Shitimanjaro
I’ll be the first to admit that Manhattan Avenue between Eagle and Freeman Street is not especially pleasing to the eyes. A number of the buildings there are run down, the huge construction fence (that swallows up much of the sidewalk) is hideous and the sheer amount of litter to be found there is can be astonishing— even for Greenpoint. That said, yesterday I discovered a new and more disgusting addition to this urban landscape: two enormous mounds of dog shit.
One at 1049 Manhattan Avenue…
and another, older escarpment of caca next door at 1043 Manhattan Avenue.
Yummy.
Miss Heather
New Business Frenzy
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
Jack O’Neill’s pub at 130 Franklin Street is finally open for business…
and the interior is every bit as nice as the exterior!
They have a patio in the back too. Very nice!
The Parish Diner at 218 Richardson Street is open for business as well…
as is the North Henry Eatery one block away on Meeker.
I haven’t tried either of these yet, but I am looking forward to the experience. Anyone who lives in this part of Greenpoint will probably agree with me when I say that this area has been under-served on the restaurant front for way too long.
Permanent Records (at 181 Franklin Street) is slated to open this week too!
And last— but hardly least— my homegirl over at 11222 has brought a new vegetarian restaurant to my attention: The William Taft Vegetarian Diner.
Way cool!
Miss Heather
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