Saturday, July 19, 2008
Pictures With Jay ...
Blue Garbage Truck : Most are Green
Biker Bill Says : "You Gotta Aim for the Basket if You Wanna Score"
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Cupid is Wrought ... No. 2
This image was produced at the location of the production assistant . The tent and wall of equipment can be seen in the distance and to the right .
Ray , 75 , works in his candy store at 113 avenue A , 12 hours a day , 7 days a week .He has done so for many years . Thanks to the always rising rent , utilities and the New York City imposed fines for this and that from this and that city agency he is barely making it . His credit cards have kept him afloat for the last couple of years but that accumulating debt is now near to overwhelming him with considerable minimum payments .
A couple of weeks ago Ray was robbed of $400 by some young men ; a $400 that he could not afford to lose .
Today a company producing a television pilot titled " Cupid " Blocked off his store with their equipment and activities causing him to lose a good bit of business . On the uptown side of him was a large tent , on the street side was a wall of equipment and to the downtown side a production assistant stood blocking sidewalk traffic . Of course the PA claims that she always allowed people to pass to Ray's . We watched and many just never attempted to walk towards Rays ; without hesitating they walked around the obviously conjested area before ever encountering the PA .
For a few minutes a few neighborhood folks made a lot of noise protesting the production company for not compensating Ray for the loss of business that they had caused him .
There was not ,to our knowledgew at least , any effort made to compensate Ray even though higher level PAs attended to the protestors promising that they would certainly look into the matter .
Almost certainly there will be no compensation simply because there is no threatened punishment for not doing so .
This is all a piece of the previous post : the big media plutocrats that own this company --this production company has considerable wealth at it's finger tips--and their minion do and take what they want and the ordinary working folks pay for it in ways that they can hardly afford . More and more the common course of things in this town today .
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
"Cupid" is wrought on Avenue A and Mammon Smiled ...
Yes , late last night some members of the reigning Bloombergian Plutocracy sent their agents to move cars . The curbs were to be cleared of the people's cars to make way for the bearers of truckloads of machinery that would be placed on these curbs . More babbling moving images were to be conjured in our midst for television , with considerable profit for some . And this of course was all good and Mammon and Bloomberg smiled .
Meanwhile : The rest of us just have to deal with this crap .
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
A Clarification : Yes a Toilet Topper ...
No life guard ; nothing scatalogical ; just a guy "spanging"in a large adult pottychair atop a gate post at the entrance to TSP.... and the suspect amber liquid below the aperture ? Fermenting fruit juice mixture . He brews his own .
The Demise of a Protest Placard ...
Monday night we found this foam-core protest placard glued to the infamous phone booth of drug lore of yore at the corner of 7th street and Avenue A . We compared this image to photos of placards displayed at the Friday night protest and it is clearly one of the placards displayed at the protest at the Economakis residence at 47 E. 3rd street .
Later in the evening someone ripped the placard from the phone booth and left it on the sidewalk .
The young man cleaning -up the sidewalk outside Yuca Bar was from Mexico City . He asked us what Yuppies were . We tried to explain ; he answered "oh , juniors" . We don't know whether this is an equivalent of yuppie .
As we were walking home much later we saw a young woman carrying the placard with its obverse displayed in our direction .
Monday, July 14, 2008
Tompkins Square Park Life Guard ?
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Protestors Return to the Economakis Residence at 47 E. 3rd Street Friday Night ...
Yes , true you might be the next to be evicted as a lawful rent stabilized tenant in the state of New York ; this fact is in part the cause of this protest along with an expression of sympathy , solidarity and support for the tenant of 47 E 3rd street who may soon all be evicted .
The law , and previous determinations of its meaning by lower courts , here that will allow the Economakis family to disposess lawfully the entire number of remaining tenants has suffered judicial review at the highest level of appeal in the State of New York . The appeals court has simply said that the Economakis family is entitled by the letter of the law , a portion of a statute of the rent stabilization law of the Sate of New York , to claim that it wants the building as its own to use as its own private residence and is allowed to lawfully evict all current tenants to do so ; a conversion of a common tennement building to a personal family mansion on E. 3rd street .
This determination in review by the court of appeals will now permit the eviction of the entire number of tenants of any residential stabilized building by any landlord making the claim of a desire to take the entire building as a his or her personal residence . It is only required that this landlord live in the building exclusively for 3 years ; thereafter he or she may dispose of the building as he or she desires . There is of course no mechanism defined or established to assure that such landlord does actually live in the building exclusively for these 3 years .
This is effectively a landmark determination that will , as can easily be seen , come to affect a great many rent stabilized tenants in this city ; tenants that , with things as they are in NYC ,have few options . A determination that will have disastrous consequences for many especially the elderly and those with lesser means raising families .
The Economakis family must still return to housing court to be granted permission to evict the remaining tenants and take possesion of the entire building . That judicial process may take some time , a year or more perhaps we have been told , but it is almost certain that the Economakis family will prevail .
The only hope for rent sabilized tenants in this city is that they can convince their state legislators to change this law to prevent this sort of whole building eviction from becoming a common tool of landlords to clear buildings of rent stabilized tenants .
Thus on moral grounds this protest of the Economakis family and a law that most without considerable means find quite frightening was conducted Friday night . A mindful state of general frustation , anger and fearful hopelessnes with the manner in which a wealthy elite , a plutocracy , has put entire neighborhoods , indeed the entire city up for sale to the highest bidder with little regard to the fact such action is destroying the culture and soul of New York City was also agitating in support of this protest .
There will almost certainly be more protests , especially on the day of eviction , conducted by members of the East Village community . Support them and champion their cause to your elected New York State representatives .
The plan and structure of this tenement building does not allow an easy conversion to a private family mansion . Having spent many years designing , building and converting structures , in our opinion this building is a poor candidate for such a conversion and thus we suspect that this building will never ever be so converted by the Economakis family .This is all but a scam to empty the building for its eventual sale .
Early in the evening the commander of the 9th precint professionally and courteously explained the rules , mostly do not take to the streets at any time , that the protestors must obey to organizer John Penley .
They evening protest went well , without problems , though the protest did not in the end go to all the sites orinally planned . NYPD personnel were freindly and courteous throughout the entire protest .
Sadly , the French Revolution theme was hardly evident . There was no guillotine , no cabbages rolling as severed heads in the street , no white wigs , no Marie Antoinette , no dung heap of a cake ... but there were cakes , cupcakes , and 2 Boots Pizza did provide 5 pizzas for the protestors . We did hear a brief bit of a French speaking pedestrians cell-phone conversation but little else ... not even a red , white and blue French flag .
David Peel performed "Die Yuppie Scum " of course and a nasty little tune about the Economakises of 47 E 3rd street .
For a video of the performance go here :
Penny Arcade expounded on the nature and consequences of the courts landmark determination to the protestors .
The march to the numerous other protest sites beyond the Economakis residence begins .
Protesting NYU's gobbling-up of East Village neighborhood real estate at the NYU dorm at Bowery and 3rd street .
Protest organizer John Penley leads the protestors forward to the Bowery Wine Co . to claim the pizza promised to them by Chris Sileo , owner of BWC, in an interview in " The Observer "
As the protestors arrive at the Bowery Wine Co. on 1st street , patrons calmly and indifferently sip their drinks and continue with their conversations , but one woman in white videos the event in all its silly detail .
Aaron Kay , "the Pieman" , infamous for having been the only one to have mashed and smeared pies in the mugs of Mayor Lindsey , Mayor Beame , Jackie Onassis and numerous other notables , waits for his promised pie , that is pizza pie .
Protestors demand pizza .
With jubilation the masses respond to the news that the pizza is finally being ordered . Unfortunately the cops suggest to the BWC management that pizza should not be ordered for the protestors because they suspect that some protestors will on receiving their pizza simply hurl it back at the BWC personnel as well as at the cops .
Bowery Wine Co. owner Chris Sileo talks with David Peel . Both realized that they had at a time in the past met and had conversed before .
We asked Mr. Sileo if Bruce Willis was in any way an owner of BWC and he confirmed what we had read in "The Observer " that being that he was not ...just an old freind .
At this time the protest broke-up into two groups , one group moving-on and one group remaining , talking with BWC personnel and others for some time at the BWC
The last stop on the protest march was again as with the last protest , the Christodora on Avenue B where the protestors serenaded a resident who hung out of her window , drink-in-hand , waving with a big smile on her face seemingly entertained by it all .
All's well that ends well and this evening of protest was quite congenial , protestors and NYPD working well together . At the end , the last photo , the commander of the 9th and two of his troop .
Finally we were informed by protest organizer John Penley that he has contacted Chris Sileo and offered that if he and Bruce Willis will publicly, i.e., in a newspaper of note , condemn the Economakis family for their efforts to evict the tenants of 47 E. 3rd street that he , John Penley, promises to never lead a protest to the Bowery Wine co. again .
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