Open Thread

Benson, true. I’m sure the HS course was good, but hair care has changed soooooo much. I’m sure she’s spent many years (probably still is), teaching herself all the new techniques, chemicals, etc.

Lech;

Two points:

-the Syrians live in Gravesend, not Bensonhurst.

-their homes are far from ordinary.

quote:
Randi, if you ever passed by those blocks, you would know how loaded these people are. Yearly tuition is 100K at the local yeshiva. The driveways have at least 3 cars and there is never under 60K there but mostly over 100K cars. [Not much taste there DIBS, mostly Lexus, Benz and standard 4 door Maseratis]. The 16-17 year olds usually get a porsche for their high school graduation. Seems like a pretty standard present in that community.

barf. okay weird question, but what do these people look like? is there anything about that might scream syrian? would i ever see them somewhere like soho or at a movie theatre or something? you say there are only about 500 families of them. that would mean there is some hardcore inbreeding happening. inbreds for the most part are easy to spot tho.

*rob*

Slope4Eva;

My dad is most proud of my sister, even though my brother (Wall St. exec) and myself (engineer) have done “better” from a certain point-of-view, and I understand where he is coming from. As I said, she learned her trade in an ordinary public high school, and succeeded by pure moxie and hard work. She started out at a local small-time salon on Kings Highway and West 7th, and built herself up from there.

All the talk about people in bensonhurst being so rich reminds me of middle aged male blowhards talking about navy seals. No, they’re not as rich as you think they are, and certainly not uniformly so. Driving fancy cars is not evidence of wealth. It’s evidence of having enough money to buy fancy cars. And no, no one pays 5 million for a completely average house in a place like bensonhurst without there being some other financial aspect to the transaction. It’s money laundering / tax evasion / shenanigans of some kind. I can’t prove it, but I see smoke and feel heat and I’m willing to bet my reputation there’s fire there too.