Crystal Meth Lab in Slope Bstone

Yeah, I mean, I thought I was over worrying, even at the time. But recent info about meth labs does suggest that the residue lingers permanently, long after you can't smell it anymore. It's not something that just "goes away."

Posted by: folledontjesuis at July 16, 2009 4:13 PM in response to Crystal Meth Lab in Slope Bstone

Kingston is--

Full of artists, eco-hippie post-urbanites, and assorted other leftists. Kingston's Ulster County is heavily democratic and feels more like parts of Northern California than anything else. Bard College is 15 minutes away, and the Amtrak goes to Rhinebeck (ten minutes from Bard in the other direction). This area is full of the ACTUAL farms that the NYC people use to tout their "locavore" diets--you can pick your own in season, and get whatever's growing the rest of the year. Kingston has an actual ORGANIC butcher--which doesn't even exist in NYC. Because of the Culinary Institute close by, restaurants can be better than NYC at half the price.

I live close by, in Red Hook--downtown Kingston is funky and gorgeous--it reminds me more of Utrecht, The Netherlands, than it does of much of anything else. This is a very, very interesting area, architecturally, and culturally.

Nearby towns:
Red Hook is a sort of Park Slope with a splotch of Vermont. Rhinebeck is like Sausalito, California, kind of. Omega, the huge New Age center, is in Rhinebeck, which means more yoga and pilates and meditation than you can shake a stick at. Eco-housing cooperative.

Jobs: here's where you get creative: colleges and universities: Bard, SUNY, etc.--lots of lawyers and shrinks driving down to the city a couple of times a week. Lots of people on the DIY. You can really live cheap up here. Instead of the food coop, just have your own goats and chickens.

Diversity: virtually none. Please, people of color, move up here. It's great, cheap, and feels like some sort of strange retreat that is also very connected. Doesn't feel racist, actually less so than Park Slope does.

Having lived for several years in the Bay Area, several years in Europe, NYC, Boston, and Chicago, this is one of my favorite places. It's not the French countryside, but it ain't New Jersey.

BTW: anyplace an hour from NYC absolutely sucks. If you're talking lower Westchester and/or anyplace in New Jersey, there is zero nice architecture, no lefty/hippie culture, and robotic android suburbanites with zombified taste and feral, glum, horrible children.
Take a little ride sometimes on the train and you'll see what I mean. I almost feel like I should do tours up here for Brooklynites who don't get it--this ought to be what Mendocino is to San Francisco.

Posted by: folledontjesuis at February 22, 2009 1:40 PM in response to What $2.7 Million Gets You in Kingston

Kingston is--

Full of artists, eco-hippie post-urbanites, and assorted other leftists. Kingston's Ulster County is heavily democratic and feels more like parts of Northern California than anything else. Bard College is 15 minutes away, and the Amtrak goes to Rhinebeck (ten minutes from Bard in the other direction). This area is full of the ACTUAL farms that the NYC people use to tout their "locavore" diets--you can pick your own in season, and get whatever's growing the rest of the year. Kingston has an actual ORGANIC butcher--which doesn't even exist in NYC. Because of the Culinary Institute close by, restaurants can be better than NYC at half the price.

I live close by, in Red Hook--downtown Kingston is funky and gorgeous--it reminds me more of Utrecht, The Netherlands, than it does of much of anything else. This is a very, very interesting area, architecturally, and culturally.

Nearby towns:
Red Hook is a sort of Park Slope with a splotch of Vermont. Rhinebeck is like Sausalito, California, kind of. Omega, the huge New Age center, is in Rhinebeck, which means more yoga and pilates and meditation than you can shake a stick at. Eco-housing cooperative.

Jobs: here's where you get creative: colleges and universities: Bard, SUNY, etc.--lots of lawyers and shrinks driving down to the city a couple of times a week. Lots of people on the DIY. You can really live cheap up here. Instead of the food coop, just have your own goats and chickens.

Diversity: virtually none. Please, people of color, move up here. It's great, cheap, and feels like some sort of strange retreat that is also very connected. Doesn't feel racist, actually less so than Park Slope does.

Having lived for several years in the Bay Area, several years in Europe, NYC, Boston, and Chicago, this is one of my favorite places. It's not the French countryside, but it ain't New Jersey.

BTW: anyplace an hour from NYC absolutely sucks. If you're talking lower Westchester and/or anyplace in New Jersey, there is zero nice architecture, no lefty/hippie culture, and robotic android suburbanites with zombified taste and feral, glum, horrible children.
Take a little ride sometimes on the train and you'll see what I mean. I almost feel like I should do tours up here for Brooklynites who don't get it--this ought to be what Mendocino is to San Francisco.

Posted by: folledontjesuis at February 22, 2009 1:40 PM in response to What $2.7 Million Gets You in Kingston

Frankly, the notion that the black guy with the two dogs story becomes, immediately, a story about various "identities" is really fascinating--First, the man with the dog--is he homeless or a homeowner? Or, to go back to the typical Brownstoner dichotomy: owner/renter? Then, his mental status: sane/crazy? And let's not forget the dogs: Pit Bulls/other breeds?

Of course, race is relevant, because in a story about a "gentrifying" neighborhood full of anxious, class-climbing people with rapidly declining in value Brownstones that they bought hoping that most of the blacks in the neighborhood would leave sooner rather than later, or, at the very least, magically and instantly transform into people who share their values to a "T,"--well-nearly every story takes on elements of this race/class/property struggle.

The insistent denial of this, and the desire to say some "people" are just "bad" often fuels discussions on this board, which is why it is such a parody of itself.

Heather's simple initial comment put it best--and the point is that this kind of instant, hateful judgment is what the "Brownstoner" zeitgeist is all too often about. Please, people, try to see the humor and absurdity in your contradictory desires for upward mobility in neighborhoods full of--yes--projects--and gasp--homeless people.

And if you can't see the humor, or the humanity--or realize that these "Brownstone" neighborhoods were not empty when you came--

Then please--move to Scarsdale. Sooner rather than later.

Posted by: folledontjesuis at December 28, 2008 11:10 AM in response to A Christmas Tale

When Nouriel Roubini, the only person to have forecast any of this, is talking about the "worst recession in 50 years," and he's THE top American economist on this particular constellation of issues, bar none, and you guys are making crazy song lyric jokes about this--

Do you think maybe, possibly, it's YOU who appear crazy, and not The What? Frankly, if you don't want to comment on his posts, ignore them. NY Magazine, among others, actually finds The What more interesting than most of the rest of you. Yes, sometimes he's annoying, but his macroeconomic points have actually been far more on target. If this Blog is also about the Brownstone "lifestyles," and not just "architectural details" (as if most of you aren't complete architectural phonies anyways--then why isn't talking about stuff like economics, race, class, etc., part of that "lifestyle?" Or does "lifestyle" mean shallow, faux-cultured materialism? Uggh. Sorry I asked. This IS the new crassness. You are the philistines, not The What, who is at least interesting.

Posted by: folledontjesuis at November 19, 2008 3:34 PM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

When Nouriel Roubini, the only person to have forecast any of this, is talking about the "worst recession in 50 years," and he's THE top American economist on this particular constellation of issues, bar none, and you guys are making crazy song lyric jokes about this--

Do you think maybe, possibly, it's YOU who appear crazy, and not The What? Frankly, if you don't want to comment on his posts, ignore them. NY Magazine, among others, actually finds The What more interesting than most of the rest of you. Yes, sometimes he's annoying, but his macroeconomic points have actually been far more on target. If this Blog is also about the Brownstone "lifestyles," and not just "architectural details" (as if most of you aren't complete architectural phonies anyways--then why isn't talking about stuff like economics, race, class, etc., part of that "lifestyle?" Or does "lifestyle" mean shallow, faux-cultured materialism? Uggh. Sorry I asked. This IS the new crassness. You are the philistines, not The What, who is at least interesting.

Posted by: folledontjesuis at November 19, 2008 3:33 PM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

When Nouriel Roubini, the only person to have forecast any of this, is talking about the "worst recession in 50 years," and he's THE top American economist on this particular constellation of issues, bar none, and you guys are making crazy song lyric jokes about this--

Do you think maybe, possibly, it's YOU who appear crazy, and not The What? Frankly, if you don't want to comment on his posts, ignore them. NY Magazine, among others, actually finds The What more interesting than most of the rest of you. Yes, sometimes he's annoying, but his macroeconomic points have actually been far more on target. If this Blog is also about the Brownstone "lifestyles," and not just "architectural details" (as if most of you aren't complete architectural phonies anyways--then why isn't talking about stuff like economics, race, class, etc., part of that "lifestyle?" Or does "lifestyle" mean shallow, faux-cultured materialism? Uggh. Sorry I asked. This IS the new crassness. You are the philistines, not The What, who is at least interesting.

Posted by: folledontjesuis at November 19, 2008 3:33 PM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

My address had Lincoln and St. John's on either side, and Franklin a block over. I'm not a spatial whiz, but that's where I lived, one block from Eastern Parkway. Both the Bloods and the Crips have shootouts. Having witnessed some unreported shootings (and written about it on Brooklynian), I can say that all is not calm there. Murders were up dramatically in the last few years. I also spoke at great length with various police officers, some white, some otherwise--and they all spoke very disparagingly of the crime level of that area of CH. That said, beautiful architecture, and a strong community. The prices ought to go down, though, so the middle class can still be there. They're at least doubly inflated. Salaries haven't doubled since 2000--why should real estate prices? Oh, yeah. That's right. So the entire global economy can crash. Makes sense.

Posted by: folledontjesuis at October 15, 2008 11:07 AM in response to Condo of the Day: 255 Eastern Parkway

Let's be honest. The What sounds more like Nouriel Roubini than anything else.

Posted by: folledontjesuis at October 15, 2008 9:03 AM in response to The last hurrah..

Let's be honest. The What sounds more like Nouriel Roubini than anything else.

Posted by: folledontjesuis at October 15, 2008 9:03 AM in response to The last hurrah..

Hmmm, well--I lived on a block right between Franklin and Lincoln Place last year. There were several murders in a five block radius, many of them in broad daylight, much of it either un-reported by any media. Although I am not white, I was called "whitey," and not in a friendly way, and I couldn't go more than a few steps without being greeted by much of what I refer to fondly but with a certain, well, je ne sais quoi as "Big Jamaican Dick." All jokes aside though, there are lots of shootings around Franklin. On Franklin. It's a Bloods-Crips dispute area, something about which the Brownstoners may be ignorant, but I am pretty well informed. Talking to younger neighbors who are not giving you the gentrifier brush-off changes things. Crown Heights, I believe in, long term. More than 500K for that apartment, though, is silly. Let's not forget the salary/cost ratio. In fact, given what salaries will become in the wake of this mess: 250K makes a lot more sense.

Posted by: folledontjesuis at October 15, 2008 9:00 AM in response to Condo of the Day: 255 Eastern Parkway

This is a complicated one, franchement. First off: I've lived very near here, and I love certain things about Crown Heights--it's quirky, intriguing, and has weird gems, like great caribbean restaurants and groceries that serve lots of rare fruits and veggies. Crown Heights has a strong middle-class backbone, some cool gentrifiers, and a scattering of hipster kids. It also has gangs, shootings, crackheads, and what I call "crackhead o'clock," which is roughly any evening after nine p.m., when spooky starved-looking people haunt the streets around Franklin Avenue and Lincoln Place. Is anything on this part of Eastern Parkway really worth this much? I'd say a resounding no. You're really living still in what is a charming mostly ghetto, and such prices only harm the long term inhabitants, really, who will end up being priced out of their own 'hood. Also, although I guess The What has been banned (weirdly, nobody seemed to notice or comment on the fact that NY Magazine wrote about The What?), there's just no way that these prices aren't going to do a major plunge. Why buy anytime in the near future? Just seems crazy.

Posted by: folledontjesuis at October 14, 2008 7:46 PM in response to Condo of the Day: 255 Eastern Parkway

And really it's the 'children' [I sometimes include myself in those activities] that should be spinning off their own blog/tab/thread or something. What and his posts are valid and in fact interesting and I'd miss them if they went away.

Posted by: cobblehiller at November 19, 2008 4:14 PM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

"And really it's the 'children' [I sometimes include myself in those activities] that should be spinning off their own blog/tab/thread or something. What and his posts are valid and in fact interesting and I'd miss them if they went away."

Sorry Cobbler, but we don't have to. We prefer to let The What do the work of setting up the playground and then we play. Just like he enjoys jumping in with his own off-topic rants. That's how it works.

Posted by: Biff Champion at November 19, 2008 4:30 PM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

Whatever Biff. What is way less intrusive than you, DIBS, and BRG, if you're honest.

Posted by: cobblehiller at November 19, 2008 4:41 PM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

Sorry, I intruded with my..
'Snark, you are a brilliant' comment.

Posted by: bayridgegirl at November 19, 2008 4:46 PM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

And The What is also a psychopathic, homophobic, mysogynist who is praying for the country to go bankrupt and all of us to be out in the streets killing ourselves, if you're honest. I think most people would agree that's probably worse than being intrusive. Ever heard of the Stockholm Syndrome, Cobbler?

Posted by: Biff Champion at November 19, 2008 4:46 PM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

Oh, and by less intrusive, I assume you mean by him posting 15 times off-topic in all of my End of the World Party Threads without anyone having mentioned him. It's all good. Didn't bother me at all...he's a fun and easy target.

Posted by: Biff Champion at November 19, 2008 4:48 PM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

folledontjesuis kudos..very eloquently put. what i dont know is WHAT how or why you bother, this is like discussing quantum physics at my daughter's nursery..pointless.. you have done your work here pack it up and bring it over somewhere where it will benefit folks that give a damn about the gravity of the situation that we are facing.. the strength of the dollar I think may be the MOST disturbing thing about this whole situation, it makes you realize how f**d the WHOLE world is. i dont really want to insult anyone or anyone to insult myself for it becomes very barbaric very quick on a lot of threads. we don't have to prove that anyone is RIGHT we are discussing very serious world shifting events here and it is nice to commiserate/assess what the hell is going on in the world. peace.

Posted by: derwood at November 19, 2008 8:47 PM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

> this is like discussing quantum physics at my daughter's nursery.

"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics" - Richard Feynman

Posted by: SnarkSlope at November 20, 2008 12:26 AM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

Oh bother Biff, take a deep breath. Your sounding a little close to the edge, dear. Stockholm syndrome? Wow, oy, patently absurd.

Posted by: cobblehiller at November 20, 2008 10:30 AM in response to Fed's Kohn Says Crisis `More Severe' Than Episodes Since 1990s

Read METHLAND by Nick Reding if you want to scare yourself stupid. He was interviewed on NPR's The Connection last night. Crystal meth and all the associated by-products are super toxic. Maybe you should call 311 and/or DEP?

I wouldn't post flyers in front of the building but I guess you could mail a letter to each apt to let the current residents know of your concerns. In case they find it a little strange that you are following up on this years later, be sure to explain that you've only recently learned about the long-term enviromental hazards of meth.

Posted by: grand army at July 16, 2009 6:12 PM in response to Crystal Meth Lab in Slope Bstone