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
I can’t walk down the block without tripping over some childless loser not paying attention to where he walks because he’s busy composing a stroller mafia rant for his blog. They’re everywhere these days.
Enough with the Park Slope stroller posts. It is getting old, and seems a lot like baiting for another tedious argument. Let’s find some more interesting stories, Gabby.
In general, many people who did not grow up in New York, often act in ways that are inconsiderate to other New Yorkers. New Yorkers are not rude, they just live a fast paced life that works because New York is a face paced city. That is NY.
When people walk slowly, it f’s everything up, and people get mad. When people stop and talk in the middle of a busy sidewalk, it f’s up the foot traffic. New Yorkers actually hold doors for each other, they drag one hand behind keeping the door open as they walk on. If you are too slow, it closes in your facee. When cars don’t start rolling forward before the light turns green, it slow people down.
The pace of New York is part of what makes it great. New York works.
People who are inconsiderate, and think there is nothing wrong with stopping their double wide stroller in the middle of the narrow Park Slope sidewalks, without moving over to the side, to bundle up their child in baby patagonia clothing, and in doing so, f’up foot traffic, are not true New Yorkers, and should be shot, or at least people should nicely hint to them that it would be nice if they were more considerate, just to keep NY moving.
no different than the creepy opld guy that peers out of his window in the suburb waiting to pounce on any kid that dare touch his lawn.
God Darn Kids! Get off my lawn!
Some people hate kids and families. Agree that he should move or learn to deal. 1.45 Strollers per block in a neighborhood that probably houses over a 500 people per block. That seems like its really low actually.
“war in Iraq
Cyclone in Myanmar
Rape of young girls in Somalia
Faltering economy
yet this idiot is obsessed with strollers”
“It feels like everytime this blog slows down…BOOM….BStoner drops a Park Slope bomb like this one. I live in the border between PH and PS and have never had this problem.”
This why I hate this Assfuck “Brownstoner”!!!!! This is a classic push button issue. It show how far this Blog has fallen.
This is the main issue this morning Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will need to be bailed out. Where is the money coming from? You the Taxpayer!
Fannie Mae to Raise $6 Billion in Capital After Loss
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ava6rLMVLLA4&refer=home
The What
Someday this war is gonna end…
If you can’t beat them, join them Mr. Knipfel.
Give me a call and I’ll swing by and pick you up in my Urban Mountain Buggy. It’s got a UV sun shield so your thin skin won’t get burned on the way to the Connecticut Muffin.
Don’t listen to the haters on this site. AB’s (adult babies) shouldn’t be discriminated against just because our sexual fetishes run a little out of the ordinary.
I’ll bring the talcum…
As for the kids “too old to be in strollers,” be glad they ARE strapped into one. If they weren’t, they would be wandering back and forth across the sidewalk at slow speed, bumping into people, and getting into occasional screaming matches with their parents who need to get from point A to B in a reasonable amount of time.
Kids are kids, and they generally exist where people are found. Deal — or move to some mythical neighborhood where there are no children.
why not move?
It feels like everytime this blog slows down…BOOM….BStoner drops a Park Slope bomb like this one. I live in the border between PH and PS and have never had this problem.