Open Thread Wednesday

By on October 10, 2023 11:58 pm in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Andrew Porter

    Here’s Pierrepont Street in 1885 when there was a large park, long gone:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/67a058298713e5761c2b2375efcd766e786783cbe9b9d524e682bd6f4f360510.png

  • Andrew Porter

    Here’s the view from that building looking east in 1887; another photo in the second reply below:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/760d1f9e4ca80ea6c9912a10de1c870ff8233f7de42cde35e010660730fa9108.png

  • Andrew Porter
  • Andrew Porter
  • Banet

    Is that long park on the south side, as one approaches Pierrepont Place/Columbia Heights?

  • B.

    This from Gothamist, a big-dollars boon to some shady vendor, and sure to be stolen and resold on street:

    “New York City will soon require that the vast majority of household garbage be placed on the curb in official vendor-supplied trash cans, which will cost homeowners at least $45 a pop, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Wednesday.

    “Starting next fall, residents of buildings with fewer than 10 apartments – about 95% of the city’s housing stock – will be required to put out their garbage in bins with secured lids.”

    It’s not just household garbage; it’s also debris from home repairs we do ourselves. It’s only once in a while, but it’s more than a trash can will hold. Who thinks up this stuff?

  • Jorale-man

    Well, it sounds like an improvement over the loose, smelly, leaky garbage bags that have been de facto in NY for decades. But in most suburbs, cities usually just provide trash cans without an up-front fee. It seems like a one-time tax charge would be the better way to accomplish this here.

    Related, I noticed the containers at Montague and Henry have been removed. I wonder what will become of that approach?

  • B.

    Mostly I use an old garbage can; of course my new one was stolen. But what I put into multiple black bags after projects is not leaky.

    I feel sorry for supers who take care of 2-3 (or more) small apartment buildings and as it is need to put multiple bags out nowadays at eight o’clock and wind up finishing after eleven. Now they’ll have to drag out a dozen or more cans per building and then in the morning — or whenever — drag them back in, and clean them too. If they’re still there and not lifted.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    Yes. The large building is the Pierrepont Mansion, designed by Richard Upjohn, also the architect of Grace Church and of Church of the Pilgrims, now Our Lady of Lebanon. It was demolished and the Pierrepont Playground now occupies its site.The “park,” I believe, was Mrs. Someone’s (I’ve forgotten the name; maybe someone more versed in Heights history can help) garden. The story I’ve heard is that it had a locked gate, but if she liked you, she would give you a key. The garden site is now occupied by two late 1940s Deco-ish apartment buildings: Two Pierrepont and 57 Montague.

  • RickP

    The cans elsewhere are often large, plastic and with effective wheels. Lids are attached (hinged), close, and protect against vermin. In many places they are lifted and emptied by a specialized truck, needing only a driver to collect the trash. The streets in those places are very different.

  • B.

    True. On Brooklyn’s often narrow sidewalks, black garbage bags can be piled three high and yet they still take up room on the sidewalk. A dozen or more garbage cans in front of every multi-family dwelling will be fun to try to walk through.

    There are rodenticide-permeated, strong garbage bags out there. I don’t have them, but Home Depot does.

    I’ve never had rats gnaw at my garbage. They prefer the discarded and clumsily dropped food from outdoor eateries and feces left by dogs and men.

  • Andrew Porter

    Or you can just throw your trash on the streets, leave dead horses to rot, let the roaming pigs and rats eat it, as was the case 150 years ago.

    Seriously, NYC has set new rules, and apparently you don’t want to comply. Let’s see how that works out for you, financially.

  • B.

    No, I think it’s a stupid new law, but I’ll comply.

    No, I haven’t seen a dozen or more garbage cans on the sidewalk in front of most multi-family dwellings because people are still using bags, but I will when everyone decides to comply with the new law and the bags are replaced by cans. And I do feel sorry for the supers who’ll have to deal with them.

    No, we’re way past horses rotting in the street. But you seem to like to have fun mischaracterizing people’s comments. You deleted your comment the last time you did that to me. I guess you had reread my comment and thought a bit about yours.

  • Andrew Porter

    I post under my actual name. But “B”—who might you be?

  • B.

    Well, good for you. I am glad it doesn’t stop you from writing snarky responses that really do sometimes miss the point. But enough now. I’m done.

  • BH Mike

    Porter is the most obnoxious commentator on this board.

  • Andrew Porter

    Sumatra, uh, Indonesia, no, that’s not it. Oh, here it is: Java With Jo Anne:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cefb6c912c415095847e3c178e38921f77940492161b95d30db2a64d56880fa3.png

  • Jorale-man

    Tonight I saw a motorcycle driving up the sidewalk on Joralemon between Hicks and Willow Place. Yes, that sidewalk – the one so narrow that you have to walk single file in places.

    Welcome to the new normal of NYC traffic laws.

  • Effective Presenter

    The new normal of people who are behaving in a VERY dangerous, disrespectful and rude manner

  • Effective Presenter

    We don’t think Mr. Porter is the most obnoxious commentator on this board there are others who take the cake.

  • Effective Presenter

    Garbage bags became useful in the 1970s before that rubbish was burned and garbage, was put in an aluminum garbage can.