Open Thread Wednesday

By on April 1, 2020 7:32 am in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    My wife and I were up tidying our apartment on Monday night in advance of leaving town the next morning so we went to the Promenade at 1am to see what the city looked like (aside from especially calm waters in the bay and the display on the Empire State Building it looked disappointingly normal). There were perhaps two or three other people in sight along its whole length, probably doing the same thing.

    As we were leaving a young male (white, slim, clean shaven, about 5’10”, late 20s or early 30s perhaps) approached a woman on a bench and trying to engage her in conversation. When she moved quickly away from him it was clear they were not together.

    We confronted him, and he come toward us, seemingly content to violate social distancing until I told him to hold off at six feet. He was creeping us out. He claimed that he was “just out making friends” and got an attitude when this caused some vexation from my wife and me. I reminded him that there was a pandemic on and he should find things to do that don’t involve going up to people in public. He latched on to this and attempted to turn it into a conversation to chat us up until I deflected and we left. It was a very unpleasant encounter.

    If anyone here knows who this guy is, and if you’re in a position to do so, please make sure he’s getting the help he needs. It’ll be safer for everyone.

  • Heightsdude2020

    I’m more concerned that you’re leaving town during this Stay at Home order. It is much too late to leave. You are potentially spreading the virus at the soon-to-be apex of this thing. Ugh.

  • CookieGuggleman

    And for some reason choosing not to comply with the CDC advisory to New Yorkers not to travel out of the area now.

  • Puffinette

    Hi all…anyone have any further news on lack of mail delivery?

  • Cranberry Beret

    Seems to have been resolved for at least some of us in the North Heights (see the post office thread)

  • Compost dilemma on Henry St.

    I’m wondering if anyone has solutions for composting, now that Borough Hall’s greenmarket isn’t offering composting. (I’ve tried to request one of the brown bins for our building repeatedly, but no luck–presumably the landlord just doesn’t respond to the city.)
    It seems a long shot, but perhaps someone has an under-used bin they might be willing to share, provided that the neighbor put compost in without touching handles? I don’t have tons of compost, about a frozen gallon-sized tub each week, and it’s all vegetable matter–mainly coffee grinds.

  • Andrew Porter

    Just put your stuff into one of the many bins visible around here. Unless it’s an enormous amount, I’m sure your neighbors won’t mind.

  • Andrew Porter

    Just tried—several times!—to post a photo here of the North Heights in the 1930s, but when I added the jpg, the “post” button disappeared. Bother!

  • Joey

    I would mind. I don’t want people dumping their compost in my compost bin. So please don’t speak on behalf of the neighbors.

  • Andrew Porter

    It’s not compost until it’s composted.

    Besides, are you going to guard it with gun in hand, outside?

  • Joey

    Just stop being presumptuous and stick to what you do best and that’s posting old pics of the neighborhood.

  • Joey

    If the bin is on my property I have every right to dictate who uses the bin or not.

  • Andrew Porter

    I would post an old photo of you, but the juvenile detention center didn’t take any.

  • CassieVonMontague

    Go around your block looking for composting bins in front of multi-million dollar brownstones. Then go home and look on streeteasy to see who owns the home. Then find out which investment bank they own and email their office. Hopefully they will put you in touch with the owner who is currently sheltering in the Hamptons. When the owner gets done playing tennis or swimming for this morning, you can call him and ask him if it would be okay if you could put a gallon of compost in his bin each week. Overtaken by a spirit of noblesse oblige, he will allow it. He will also wonder if the doorman at the co-op next door is making sure to sign for all his packages. He will ask if you know him. You will say no. Then he will say you must be sure to put the bin out every week, because his housekeeper is sheltering in the Hamptons with him and the company that changes his window box flowers every week has stopped because they are not an “essential business.” Make sure the investment banker isn’t named Joey. This is obviously the easiest way to solve your problem.

  • Joey

    You’re making personal insults now? You come across this blog as a know it all like you’re Mayor McCheese. You’re the farthest thing from it.

  • Andrew Porter

    Claude?

  • Reggie

    Oh, relax, Andrew. You cannot be unaware of how you are perceived online, can you?

  • Andrew Porter

    I post many things to many people, the vast majority of them of a science-fictional nature. Google my name, and I suspect a lot of hits will come up.

    My posts here are a very minor part of my on-line presence.

    Look at my Wikipedia page–which doesn’t even mention my Brooklyn historical posts–for more about me.

  • Andrew Porter

    Love this!

  • Reggie

    I stand corrected. He is unaware.

  • CassieVonMontague

    Buzzfeed article on Trader Joe’s reports one Cobble Hill store employee tested positive for COVID and two more are diagnosed by doctors as suspected cases.

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/coronavirus-trader-joes

    Here are tips from this video on keeping our supermarket workers safe

    (https://kottke.org/20/03/grocery-store-worker-offers-suggestions-for-staying-safe-while-shopping-during-the-pandemic)

    1. Make an organized shopping list so you can get in and out.
    2. Stock up (don’t hoard) so you don’t have to come in as often.
    3. Go to the bathroom at home.
    4. Sanitize your hands right before you enter the store and wipe down the shopping cart/basket.
    5. Touch only what you need to.
    6. Maintain space between you, other customers, and employees.
    7. Ask if we’d like you to bag your own groceries.
    8. Wash your reusable bags
    9. Sanitize your hands when you leave the store.

  • KXrVrii1

    Then, take advantage of the owner’s absence to slowly ingratiate yourself with the family. Offer to start their spare car to make sure it runs when they return. In fact, explain to them you’d actually be happy to work as their driver when they return. Mention the regular cleaning by their maid seems poor, but your wife happens to have some spare time and would pamper their house. Oh, and by the way, your kids would be happy to do some remote education with their kids while they are stuck in the Hamptons. Move your whole family into the Brownstone as the pandemic continues. Start to notice random food items are going missing. Discover secret basement where the prior housekeeper is living in abject squalor. Intra-Brownstone guerilla warfare ensues. Pandemic begins to ease. Owner returns randomly, with new coterie of security guards and an advance team of personal disinfectant specialists, the latest trend among the wealthy. You and prior housekeeper are evicted and now homeless. All this because you had to compost a gallon of food scraps.

  • CassieVonMontague
  • KXrVrii1

    Interesting, I was thinking more of “Parasite”, so I guess its been done again…

  • KXrVrii1

    Come on, that was the most milquetoast “personal insult” I’ve ever seen, and he still deleted it…

  • CassieVonMontague
  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    Fear not, Heightsdude. We left town two weeks ago, and drove back for only a few hours to pick up some things we needed from our home while maintaining best practices on social distancing during that entire time, including while we were back. This included wiping down doorknobs with alcohol, you name it, we are maintaining a 100% sanitized environment wherever we go.

  • CassieVonMontague

    Positive tests and total tests by zip code: https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/blob/master/tests-by-zcta.csv

    11201
    Positive: 204
    Total: 479

  • Joey

    I really wasn’t insulted and it was harmless. I just wanted to call him out for it.

  • Marty Nau

    Anyone else notice that 2 River Park is no longer in development? The construction site at Altantic and Hicks now has a picture of an ambulatory health care building, rather than a luxury skyscraper (presumably NYU is finally expanding beyond the little ER on Amity st).

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