Slope Stroller Overabundance Making One Guy a Shut-In
Longtime New York Press columnist Jim Knipfel has a new rant about Park Slope stroller culture that sets the bar high for future diatribes on the subject. This is how it begins: This morning as I was leaving the bank, a woman recklessly pushing her armor-plated double stroller down the sidewalk veered sharply and unexpectedly…
Longtime New York Press columnist Jim Knipfel has a new rant about Park Slope stroller culture that sets the bar high for future diatribes on the subject. This is how it begins:
This morning as I was leaving the bank, a woman recklessly pushing her armor-plated double stroller down the sidewalk veered sharply and unexpectedly into an elderly man walking with a cane. He, in turn, fell into me. I was able to catch him and hold him upright and he seemed to be okay. Just a little flustered. The woman, of course, had said nothing, apparently considering an apology or even a simple excuse me unnecessary under the circumstances. She was a mother after all, and therefore privileged, so she simply continued careening on her way.
Knipfel says that the number of strollers in the Slope, as well as the neighborhood’s dog breed preferences (it’s really mostly the strollers, though) mean he can only leave his apartment for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time, because he finds the situation out on the streets too harrowing and exhausting. The writer says that for the past year he’s been counting the number of strollers he sees in the Slope (“I’m averaging 1.45 strollers per block. Think about it—there has been at least one stroller, and usually more, for every block I’ve walked. It’s insanity.“) Knipfel takes issue with the air of entitlement that he sees a lot of the neighborhood’s parents displaying and notes that he sees a good number of kids being pushed around who look too old for strollers. Also, he says, it’s not a subject that can be broached in polite, public Slope discourse: “The child-free adults in the neighborhood mutter and complain about the problem, but only behind closed doors, and usually in whispers. They don’t dare say a negative word when they’re outside, for the simple reason that they’re terrified, most of them. Indulgent, affluent parents are too powerful a lobby (and what’s more, those strollers can really hurt when you get rammed).”
The Statistics of Contempt [Slackjaw]
Photo from dailyheights.com
If you are so frail that a little bump is going to get you seriously hurt – then you should be in a “home” – not interfering with my day!
I just counted 7 strollers on Broadway between 89th and 90th streets.
3 people DIDN’T have strollers.
Talk amongst yourselves…
Any of you ever had to jump out of the way when some idiot in a motorized wheelchair comes racing down the sidewalk?? New discussion….
Absolutely ridiculous! I think that 1.45 strollers/block leaves at least a LITTLE room for everyone else. No excuse for the rude behavior reported by Knipfel, but really….
And BTW, I haven’t pushed a stroller for over 20 years, so I have no horse in this race.
Being too busy to apologize for merely bumping into people with a stroller is rude, but sure I guess it can be explained away with excuses about overburdened parents. If you’re that self-absorbed.
Bumping into an old man with a stroller knocking him over completely – that’s criminal. It is. You did that with a car you’d be in huge trouble. When old people fall they can get seriously hurt. Broken hips from falls on cement happen ALL the time in the elderly.
People who are actually defending this particular stroller mom are psycho. If somebody knocked my elderly mother off her feet I would call the police to report an assault. I’m not joking.
This is nothing – I was walking down the street the other day an a retarded kid in a wheelchair was yelling and spitting everywhere creating a ruckous, scaring people and forcing everyone to the other side of the street.
What the hell is wrong with these parents – ship your kid off to a home so I can live in piece – maybe if you didnt create the kid in a test tube he’d be normal in the 1st place…
ever here of amnio – you could have aborted the living drain on society before all this shit started….
Just b/c you had to have a child – now my day has to be ruined by his retarded outbursts – thanks you entitled pricks!
There’s nothing to figue out. This is just entertainment.
Lets get back to the MILF and DILF discussion….
There is not a problem with strollers in Park Slope. There’s a problem with crowding on the sidewalks and in stores, period.
We used to live in Park Slope then moved to another area but still shop in Park Slope. I have made note many times over the last year how much more crowded Park Slope has become. The sidewalks are too narrow to support the crowds, it’s a fact. I can be walking from the B/Q at 7th going South along that super narrow sidewalk along 7th and can’t walk quickly at all not because of strollers but because of the dozen people in front of me clogging the sidewalk. Strollers just make it worse that’s all.
That said, I do encounter extraordinarily narcissistic parents. But it’s not about Park Slope. You see it all over the country. It’s a trend in our generation.
sorry, meant 11:19 and 11:35.
not you dave.