Tales from Real America

Just Another Pleasant Day on the LES

2009-07-21T19:14:00.001-04:00

Helpful NYC hint: if a guy smacks you once with a U-Lock, back off.

Big Changes in Store for Local Bus Line

2009-07-16T20:42:00.002-04:00

Apparently the B61 is going to be split into two lines to make it more efficient.

Which is cool, though I must confess it makes me sad to think I can't just grab a B61 on Atlantic and head on up to Hipstertown. But the greater good and all.

Tip of the hat to Word on Columbia Street for breaking this news.

Marriage Equality Delayed

2009-07-13T07:43:00.001-04:00

Unsurprising, but the Senate coup has held up a vote on the marriage equality bill until at least September. At which point more reasons will be found to push it back to appease a new Gang of Four who will threaten to shut down the Senate again. Ugh.

Senate Coup Ends

2009-07-09T23:30:00.003-04:00

And like that, Paterson unconstitutionally appoints a Lieutenant Governor and within hours, Pedro Espada sits with Dems in exchange for a leadership position. And the Dems sit down to conduct business...then realize they are one short of a quorum since the Republicans were boycotting the session and one Dem was out for a medical emergency. Oy.

So we ended up with one month of time wasted, millions of dollars and a hiring freeze in NYC, but Pedro Espada gets to be leader...until he gets booted out of office by agry voters or guys leading him off to prison eventually.

Politics.

For Sale: The Community's Identity!

2009-06-29T13:07:00.003-04:00

Somehow I missed it, but NYC's Parks Department has put a lot of naming rights up for sale recently. This comes on the heels of the MTA's plan to sell the name of Atlantic-Pacific to a bank.

It troubles me to see this because the historic names of places have a much deeper meaning than people admit. It's important to think of, for example, Central Park as a place with a rich history and not simply sponsored by whatever corporation is able to pay the bills this year. Naming places as monuments is a link between our past, present and future - I for one don't feel comfortable telling people "Well this USED to be McCarren Pool, but then we needed cash so it was AIG Pool, but then they went bankrupt and we sold the name to Coca-Cola, but they decided that the free advertising wasn't worth the money so they sold the contract to Proctor & Gamble..." and so on.

When I lived in Washington DC in the 1990s, we had a severe budgetary crisis that cost us a community radio station. The city owned the frequency (90.1 FM) and sold it - to C-Span - and we lost a vital and important voice in the community in exchange for a short-term fix to a long-term problem. This is similar; selling our identity for a quick cash infusion in these times is not the kind of stewardship this city needs. What we call the spaces that create our worlds creates a community and identity that is far more valuable than $3,000,000 that will be spent all too quickly, leaving all of us culturally poorer in the long run.

I <3 NY

2009-06-28T11:25:00.001-04:00

Brooklyn Day Care center did double duty as a drug haven. Eventually, the joint was robbed and there was a shoot out. Stay classy!

Watching NYC Prep

2009-06-27T11:14:00.002-04:00

This show makes me embarrassed to be, in ascending order:

A New Yorker

An American

A Westerner

A Human Being

Seriously.

More Pedro Espada Antics

2009-06-26T10:05:00.002-04:00

It's not enough that he is too cool to live in the district he represents, or that he shut down NY State government because he was denied $2,000,000 for so-called charities he and his cronies run.

But now it also appears that he has violated several campaign finance laws along the way. Using a non-profit to fund his campaign, using the firm's resources to send out political mailings...

Meanwhile, Albany inches towards a power-sharing deal to get the Senate working again, but Espada demands that his importance be recognized.

I'll enjoy watching this guy get turned out in the next cycle - assuming he's not in jail yet.

Beer Bars Don't Make Beer Barons

2009-06-25T16:04:00.004-04:00

I quite enjoyed this interesting piece on NYC's surplus of beer bars and the way which we have the ability to be connoisseurs but so few of us have the wherewithal to follow through on it.

And god bless the place, but Studio Square is just not the equal of The Bohemian Beer Garden. Even if Studio Square is bigger and more convenient to the subway. There's such a thing as charm.

The High Line, More than Expected

2009-06-25T08:42:00.004-04:00

I woke up this morning to read this NY Times piece about a woman who lives along The High Line, a public park reclaimed from an abandoned elevated rail spur that was formerly used to transport manufactured goods from what were once industrial areas in the southern section of Manhattan to what were once rail yards in the middle of Manhattan.

I admire the spirit that compels both of these endeavors - a conservancy group determined to create public space out of abandoned private industry and a lone musician determined to create a random bit of wonderment for a city that too often ignores the amazing things right in front of us. There's no hustle here, no mariachi band trying to trick the tourists into thinking they've witnessed something unique and exciting. It's just doing something because the opportunity is there and why not do it?

I'll be trying to catch one of these performances, of course, before somebody in the area makes them clamp down on the fun. This is Bloomberg's New York after all.

Bailout for Ratner

2009-06-24T15:30:00.001-04:00

Forest City Ratner is allowed to defer payments to MTA over 20 years, through 2031, as part of Atlantic Yards deal.

So we're getting an ugly stadium and selling the naming rights to the subway beneath it and now we have to wait for the guy to pay off his debt as well? After giving him a sweetheart price in the first place?

MTA Crosses a Rubicon

2009-06-23T23:27:00.002-04:00

MTA sells naming rights to the Atlantic-Pacific Subway stop to Barclay's bank.

For $200,000 a year.

For 20 years.

MTA, Forest City Ratner and Barclays can all go to hell.

Around NY: Mixed Signals Edition

2009-06-23T09:24:00.003-04:00

Federal Judge strikes down NYC rules on hybrid taxis.

High School graduation rates at highest levels in years in NYC.

State Senate unable to reach quorum, still.

Westboro Church harasses synagogue that is LGBT friendly, synagogue turns it into fund raising opportunity!

At least seven dead in Washington DC subway crash.

A new reason to hate lawyers (sigh): improper disposal of confidential records.

You Know You're Lost

2009-06-19T09:30:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I got on a G Train to help my friend move an air conditioner and some other stuff from his ex's apartment. As I settled down for the two stop ride to Fort Greene, a European couple bounds through the door, guide books in hand, and begins to talk animatedly. "Excuse me," the blond dude asked, "does this train go to Times Square?"

I hope they were able to understand the transfer at Hoyt-Schermerhorn.

The Hierarchy of Panhandlers

2009-06-18T13:33:00.003-04:00

Downtown 6 Train, 1pm. A twitchy guy gets on, gives the usual rap about being down on his luck etc. This time, however, he professes to be an opera singer. After the robovoice finishes its announcements, he launches into a passable aria that he claims is from Tchaikovsky. I don't know opera, but it's better than I could do.

Then the door at the end of the car comes in and another panhandler launches into HIS rap in a raspy, abrasive voice - and pauses, realizing somebody else is working the car. He's clearly befuddled at the etiquette question of who gets the car, and also realizes that he's totally being outclassed from his monotone shouting by the dude singing a freaking opera in the middle of the train. Finally he shakes his cup, then turns around and goes back to the other car.

Overheard On the Boltbus

2009-06-17T13:26:00.002-04:00

"I live on Wall Street, because I am scared of all the violence in Manhattan. I figure those guys by the Federal Reserve with machine guns mean I'm safe."

Annoying Investment Banker Woman, 6/12/09, on the bus to Boston

Arizona's "Wild West Legacy"

2009-06-17T12:54:00.000-04:00

This story kills me. It seems that after a general election and a runoff, the town of Cave Creek, AZ had ended with two opponents in a tie for a city council seat. So in true Wild Wild West fashion, they settled the election by cutting a deck of cards (as is specified in the Arizona Constitution - though I could not find it). Highest card won.

Needless to say, Norm Coleman's lawyers are already filing briefs trying to apply this Arizona constitutional quirk to Minnesota's electoral politics.

Obama's Gay Rights Shuffle

2009-06-17T11:34:00.000-04:00

I am definitely disappointed by Obama's gay rights shuffle. But I understand it, and I may not support his decision to backburner issues like DOMA and Don't Ask Don't Tell, I get why he's doing it.

I've been reading Rick Perlstein's book Nixonland and it gives me pause on what could be seen as "overreaching" on this issue. Nixonland opens with the 1964 election of LBJ. At the time, the conventional wisdom was that the Republican party, which had been hijacked by its far-right elements in the Goldwater faction, was dying out - a rump party at best. We'd reached an age of national consensus and the future would be one of progress in Civil Rights, in eliminating poverty and creating, all puns intended, a Great Society.

Sound familiar?

While attitudes have shifted on gay rights, the support that we see in liberal states like Massachusetts is still soft in a lot of other states. I think many of us who don't live in "Real America" forget this. Politics in America is about consensus, building one that can last for generations. The Republicans did this in 1968 by appealing to Lower-Class Whites on cultural issues, saying "It doesn't matter that you are broke, the real problem is that your privileges as a white man are being taken away by minorities, and uppity feminists, and egg-headed liberals, and pointy-headed professors." They forged an unlikely coalition that lasted a generation based on the backlash against LBJ's righteous push to eliminate a legacy of apartheid in America.

Now we're at a crossroads of a new consensus, one that is Center-Left, that may actually give us national health insurance, that may ultimately lead to marriage equality. I believe that Obama sees this as his legacy - creating a new consensus that can carry us to the middle of this century and make a lasting change in our attitudes toward government, markets and people. If he chooses to take things slowly, I believe that his plan is to make sure he forges that coalition first, before he smashes it against a backlash that could easily be marshaled by those on the Right who value power over principle. Do we want to risk 50 years of progressive change for immediate gratification on this - which could easily be rolled back by a new administration run by Gingrich, or Palin, or Jindal, or Huckabee, or Romney?

Or maybe I'm naive. I know I speak from a position of privilege - after all, it's not my civil rights being violated, so it's easy to bandy about these ideas.