Open Thread Wednesday

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Concerned2

    Who need these homeless , and what are they good for anyway?
    They loiter around, urinate and defecate like cats and dogs, and unlike the
    latter nobody scooping their poops (although I must add that around here many
    dog owners skirt their responsibilities in this respect). I am siding with
    Concerned. Hey Concerned, let’s start a campaign for Homelessless Brooklyn
    Heights!

  • StudioBrooklyn

    That one would be a plastic decoy “pigeon-scarer” as well…although i’m intrigued at the possibility that we have proper owls in the neighborhood.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Two words:

    Farmed salmon

  • DIBS

    Where are the Hare Krishnas when u need them??

  • DIBS

    I have foxes and coyotes where I live now.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    I’ll be right over

  • AnonyMom

    Wow, just wow. If you have such a bee in your bonnet to “get rid” of “dirty, annoying” homeless people you should know it took me all of five seconds to do a quick Google search for “How to help a homeless person in NYC.” It produced a link to Coalition for the Homeless’ resource page called “What do I do if…” It lists a number of scenarios and gives advice for each one. You could also call the 84th Precinct and speak to the Community Affairs officer. Of course, making this small effort would require you have an ounce of compassion. I pray for you that you find some (and I’m not even a religious person!) Seriously, be kind. Be part of the solution. Otherwise, please keep your opinions to yourself. In the meantime, I’m going to leave you some food for thought. This is an interview with Holocaust survivor, Francine Christophe. As a child, she shared a piece of chocolate while she was interred at Bergen-Belsen. Her one act of kindness had far reaching effects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXGfngjmwLA

  • Concerned

    Well Concerned2, if we tried to make a change to clean our neighborhood up of homeless in a humane way, what we’d get would be our faces on the front page of the daily news as NIMBYs and racists, and our faces on the front page of the Post as patriots. I can’t afford, either. I love Brooklyn Heights, but there’s too much of a load to do anything on this one unless you’re extremely wealthy and don’t mind being picketed 24/7.

  • Concerned

    Fair enough. Thank you for the information. I appreciate your opinion and I am saddened by the homeless problem. I simply don’t want it around my children when they wake up and go to school. Is that too much to ask?
    Either way, I’ll take your suggestions to heart and move forward with them. We’ll see if anything comes about from it.

  • Concerned2

    I think the situation is quite dire and it calls for a
    selfless act here. I believe we should appeal to a truly dedicated group of
    people from the neighborhood – the stalwarts of the neighborhood – and setup a
    stirring committee to come up with a strategic action plan to wipe these pesky
    folks off our beautiful, historic streets.

  • AnonyMom

    I have a small child too. I understand wanting to protect your kids. The homeless can sometimes be frightening, erratic or dangerous. But you didn’t say that about this particular person. You said they are “dirty” and “annoying.” IMHO that’s an incredibly entitled position to take. I don’t have to tell you that this is NYC and there will always be someone less fortunate who isn’t getting the help they need. Enter compassion. So if you do take action that’s a wonderful example to set for your children. And, I’ll be curious to know how the various agencies respond.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    Yeah that’s the answer, Isolate your children from reality so they can grow up to be ignorant a-holes just like their parent.

  • HereToStay

    Thanks

  • HereToStay

    Thanks – haven’t gone in ages; will check it out.

  • Concerned

    Lol. There’s plenty of a-holes that I know that weren’t isolated. Why don’t you take your garbage mouth to willow street and get knocked on your a-hole by Willow Street Watch.

  • Jeff Paging Howard Roak? Smith

    No, that’s a good description of the board of, and the physical reality/design/effects of a certain park I could name…

  • Jeff Straight Pipes Smith

    So your neighborhood is filled with diva R&B singers and illegal immigrant smugglers? Amazing! I think I’ll call the Trump campaign
    and report a suspicious group of people in a wrong year and wrong model Rolls….

    The least you could have done is louvered the hood……does that thing have glass Pak’s or steel Packs on it? …..

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    True, but those are street smart a-holes, not ignorant a-holes.
    As for my “garbage mouth”. Offensive language takes many forms. Your comments regarding homeless people are very offensive to me.

  • Jeff Smith

    Those doors are some of the best exterior wood oriented design/art in this city. Really exec composed photo.

    L

  • Jeffrey Smith

    Mr moderator, I really DO on grounds of decency, think that clearly crosses the line.

    And this shows the moral, ethical and cultural level of at least two major on this blog. (Say what you want, but can you imagine WSW or JS using vulgarity or obscenities like this? )

  • Willow Street Watch

    This is an example of the worthlessness of BOTH the left/liberals and most kinds conservatism. Two sides of the same materialistic coin…
    And, the utter futility of listening to or trying to reason with their prattle.

    The ONLY way to help in this country’s downward spiral is to reject the artificially created right and the left. Again, two sides of the same poisonous coin.

    Hey, why don’t we ask every DAVOS and Bilderberg and federal reserve A class stock holder to contribute say .5 % of thier worth or at least yearly income to help the homeless. The problem would be disappear instantly and would be solved for any foreseeable future….

    So, which big NGO/son of thread needle street wants to be first?…year that exactly what I thought.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    I actually agree with you on that one.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Thanks! My wife shot this one. I’ll give her the compliment.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    What??

    I understand homelessness to be symptomatic of one or many other serious problems affecting individuals on a macroeconomic and personal scale. These MAY include issues relating to housing shortages but for the most part I think they’re related to unchecked mental illness and lack of interpersonal safety nets.

    It’s easy to see a homeless person and just say “clearly this person’s problem is that they don’t have a home” but I think you’ll find in most cases the problems lie elsewhere, and the homelessness is caused in turn. In other words, you can’t fix homelessness only by giving these people a place to live indoors.

  • Andrew Porter

    Big deal. We have coyotes, raccoons, opossums, skunks and all manner of 4-footed wildlife in NYC now. Don’t forget the deer that was hit by a car on the upper West Side a couple of years ago.

  • MaryT

    Owls watching the Clinton Street parade

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    I agree, mental illness is the biggest contributor to homelessness. However, lack of affordable housing does play a part. Consider the lower economic fringe of society, where people are renting half a room or couch space to live. There is a transition point from that to the street and affordability must play a role.
    I read an article (Atlantic or the Economist) maybe 20 years ago, about how the mindset behind buying a home had shifted from having a place to live to making an investment, and how it effected the market by driving housing prices prices beyond their actual value. and of course the banks did indeed cash-in on that mindset by writing millions of bad loans.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Sure but homelessness? Id expect to see maybe displacement, poverty, as the result of problems confined to the housing crisis. Homelessness seems much more closely and quantitatively linked to mental disease and/or substance abuse combined with lack of network.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Almost forgot, there’s also a taxidermied one in the window of Teresa’s wine shop on Montague

  • Taters

    Hey it wouldn’t hurt to ask! I’ll see what I can do. You are wise, indeed.