So why haven’t I been doing my trees not trash duties? The same reason that I am posting at almost midnight, which is that I have been slammed.
That is not to say that there aren’t great things to do that, if it wasn’t for my occasional need to be a slave to the man, I would be all over. For instance, Trees Not Trash is doing a benefit Concert at the Asterisk art space.
On a side note, the New York Times has made a great retrospective on Bushwick, 30 years after the fires and the blackout of 77 (yes the same blackout that gave birth to many of hip hops earlier DJs). Like a previous village voice article, there seems to be a literary stance that the people who are moving into Bushwick are bad people for gentrifying a neighborhood. This I think is an easy plot for a simple writer. Big bad rich white kids being sent to upend poor working class families. “Artists are the shock troops of gentrification,” is the statement of someone who seems to think that living is a war, and that artists do what they’re supposed to. Artists don’t do what they’re supposed to, that’s why they can’t afford anything but to split an apartment with three other people in a loft where they build their own walls.
Honestly, since this is the central issue about Bushwick now, I need to say the following. It’s easy to take a look from outside and say that the people moving into this neighborhood are pushing the people living here out. Another way to think of it however, is to take a look at the perspective of the people who live here vs. the people who don’t. A lot of the residents (myself included) are not the Manhattan types that never come out to Brooklyn, have no idea about it. Also, a lot of the influx from New Jersey and Long Island like only Williamsburg, would never step foot outside of the northside, and wouldn’t hang out in Green Point or Bushwick
A month before I moved here, I met a girl living on this block, and we had a short conversation that crystallized my desire to move here (besides the asshole neighbors I used to have). I asked her if she knew “Super” and “China,” two of the residents that lived across the street. She said of course she knew those kids, and that, if she was going to stay in New York (she ended up moving to LA to act), that there isn’t any other block she would rather be in. Part of me wanted to only be surrounded by people like her. People who can see the beauty in the grit and the mix. When I first moved to Brooklyn, I stayed with a an italian friend of mine who was living underneath another Italian guy. We would hang out in the courtyard, they would yell out their windows at each other, etc. The life that happened was an exchange that happened on the sidewalks and the streets. Life in Bushwick is a lot like how I remember the Brooklyn I fell in love with to be. People interact with each other on the streets, the kids play in hydrants, everyone on the block watches out for everyone else’s kids.
I had been living in Williamsburg for a long time when the intolerance of the people who were moving in became, well, intolerable. I think maybe it’s my background, being an immigrant, a refugee who straddled two different cultures, but part of me always liked to be where there was the biggest variety of people and cultures. I mean, hell, that’s why we move to New York, right? There are some bullshit writers who don’t see that economics is an emergent system, not predetermined. There is no one puppetmastering the way people move, it’s all a matter of what can people afford, and what people need. But in the end, people just realize how great it is here.
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So I was awful late to this last week’s Trees Not Trash session on Jefferson St. I had a my usual brunch at the Lorimer stop to see mi amiga Chilena, but the buses don’t move like the trains. Speaking of things being horrible and crippling, having to take the shuttle bus for all stops past Lorimer is pretty wrong.
We all know that supposedly the disruptions in the past have been due to the MTA changing the train over to CBTC. The promise of CBTC was that we could have the trains automated and run closer to each other. Now I know a lot of you future fearing cave dwellers still insist on having human operated trains whenever you leave your hole in the ground to chase down dinosaurs or take sabre tooth tiger rides. I, however, have recalled many times when I’ve tried to get help from the friendly MTA staff, and I say I would trust my life to the T-1000 before I trust those strike-happy teamsters to drive my train correctly. Don’t tell me that New York’s system is too full or old to be run automagically. If it can be done in Paris and DC, New Yorkers ought to be able to handle it.
Well, accordng to AM New York, “The changes are due to rehabilitation of the Lorimer station and elevator repairs.” Well then why does the Lorimer station still run, but trains after that stop? They say that disruptions will run til August 6th though, so that means our hottest weekends are now spent waiting outside in the sun for a bus. Thanks again MTA.
Anyways, so I was late to Trees not Trash this week. That left me with nothing to do after I got there but work on my tan. And get yelled at by the local kids who are kicking in to help. (below are pictures from the trees not trash session before that, when I was on time, we built fences, and the kids didn’t make me feel guilty about my tardiness).
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So, like any reasonably internet addicted person, the iPhone’s promise of constant, usable access to the internet has got me hooked like my cat on tuna (for your information, my cat would trade everything he holds dear, including me, for a bite at that tuna).
So when it came time to wait in line for an iPhone, i had the option of going to an apple store or an AT&T store. Now living in New York (aka the 5% of the market that uses macs), I’ve known that the Apple stores have had line junkies and Queue Masters since the Monday before iDay. So what do I do? I look for the AT&T store in Bushwick. And so, come 4:30 before the 6pm sales time, I am waiting on Graham Ave, in a line that snaked past the Payless Shoe Source to the shadiest of AT&T stores. And 3 hours and a lot poorer, I walk out past the very restless mob with the second to last 8GB iPhone the store had, and ran home. So now we can expect some cool on the spot picture taking like the one I will soon post from today’s Trees not Trash section.
I can also take pictures of people like the lady that said, “iPhone?? That’s ghetto” right before she walked into Pay Less Shoe Source.
PS the new header image (do you like?) comes from said new phone, down Jefferson St (Put your lightas up!)
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Hey all,
So this is the beginning of Bushwicked. I am still trying to iron out a mission statement, but essentially this blog is gonna focus on the goings-on around Bushwick.
To start off, I moved out to Jefferson Street on the first of June, and have been getting to know the neighborhood more and more. After leaving behind 5 years in Williamsburg, it was time to get away from the new influx and back to the kind of Brooklyn that I remember from when I first arrived. I’ve been coming out to this block for the last two years, so now I finally live here.
To start, I kicked in for the first time last weekend to help out Trees Not Trash. Kate, who started it as far as I can tell, started out with a nice little garden on Bogart and Mckibben (close to the droves of kids out on the Morgan stop). Now she’s gotten her crew out here to the Jefferson stop, helping put in a community garden where a couple weeks ago there was a lot of trash and pieces of a tv (though raking through the dirt, I do keep finding old pieces of brick and broken beer bottles).
If you’re not doing anything sunday, come on over and kick in! It’s great, you get to make friends, and you get to desketchify the long stretch of industrial buildings from the train station to all the residences along Jefferson St. Here’s a google map that you can get directions to the exact location (Jefferson street between Irving and Wyckoff, look for the garden with a little fence and a moocow).
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