Open Thread Wednesday

Van Leeuwen Ice Cream is taking over the defunct Ample Hills spot at the ferry landing in Brooklyn Bridge Park
(website lists “1 Water Street, coming soon”)

Anyone know when Chama Mama is going to open up on Montague?

Another update on the trash front: The sidewalk around the abandoned building at 144 Clinton St. finally got cleaned up after a couple more citations from the city. Somebody is still managing it, it appears. Will see how long things last.

And detail of 52 Clark entrance from same date in 1928, unchanged over 90 years later:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/97321288f986a1aeb158722c1c7e888c8872139ce607d2c5b78163200a8653c7.png

Well, that’s about 15 years too late, and a substantial dollar short. You’d think, with all the TV training of “we’ll head them off at the pass”, someone would realize that when you acknowledge that there’s a problem, you need to act swiftly, before it becomes a bigger problem. $1M to prevent existing laws is not an acceptable solution.

It gets worse. Just as UPS and Fedex deem it a “cost of doing business in NYC” and park illegally pretty much 99% of the time … and get ticketed AND PASS ON to customers that expense, watch how the present “for sale or lease” Mayor fights any attempt to make tickets TOO EXPENSIVE to ignore. And, in all fairness, we need deliveries every bit as much as truckers need to ply their trade. Roads like the BQE probably account for 1% of truckers’ mileage, so the likelihood that they’ll invest in a separate fleet for NYC use has got to be infinitesimal.

That’s the thing about places where “anything goes” for too long – it really IS NO LONGER possible to enforce laws & rules. People recognize that and take their chances on the occasional summons. As I say, it’s especially true when you are in business and don’t have good options to be law-abiding and know that you won’t REALLY be less profitable if you get dinged – by virtue of making your customers pick up your tab.