Riddle me this!

It has come to my attention that we have at least one local bestselling author among our fairly silent (but I assume totally supportive, loving, and massive) readership. So in the literary spirit, I bring you a famous-author-inspired riddle.

James Joyce once said, "A good puzzle is to walk across Dublin without running into a pub." Meaning, just try to walk any route through Dublin without encountering a pub. The wiseacre response to this would be, "Right, so I'll walk into all the pubs on the way." Which is what I did while living there. (I wrote down the best bits, dare I say shenanigans, from those days and if blogs had existed back then, oh the blogging hilarity that would have ensued!)



My version of Joyce's puzzle is, "You cannot walk from the pet food store to my apartment without sidewalks being blocked off almost the whole way because there is so much construction going on. Where do I live?"

The answer is, "everywhere in Boerum Hill." Another answer could be to walk into all the pubs on the way. But my personal answer now is to try to become a successful writer, so that I can scram-o out of here and visit Dublin soon while Auntie Nell is still around.

Catching Up

I got to hang out on a different stoop last night a couple of blocks away, amazingly with my roommate from ten years ago, who I haven’t seen in just as long. In between catching up on a lost decade, and sharing tidbits about who got fat and who got racist, we visited the local liquor store of Fortress of Solitude fame. Remember the guy Dylan and Mingus tag while he is passed out in front of the liquor store?

I have been going there since I moved in the neighborhood, and the guys there and their dog have always been very nice. But I got to see a whole different kind of nice last night. As soon as we walked in, up popped some Dixie cups and a small bottle of Jack Daniels. Which we all drank together talking about the evolution of the neighborhood, the yupsters and the early morning customers who come in from sleeping out front, who appear to be on the way out.

Things like that make me love this neighborhood.

And in the spirit of loving things, one reason I am loving being single right now…no more boxes of super ugly lingerie in the mailbox from future mother in law’s with little notes reading “hope you love it…all my friends have grandkids and all I have is grand-cats”

Another one bites the dust

Hey, remember stooper ecs?



(Yes, this is the third time using this very, very awesome photo.)

Ecs is one of my favorite people, who I fully expected to continue making inappropriate comments with well into our old age and cackling our wrinkled old asses off. If years from now we didn't still live nearby, well, we would surely still live in some reasonable drivable or flyable proximity to each other.

So last week, she decided to move to Melbourne, Australia, where her fiance lives. Originally, he was going to move here, and they've been jumping through the many flaming hoops of the visa process for the past half a year. Finally after his recent visit, they were like, F this. Why go through this whole elaborate process just so they can continue to live like college students in Brooklyn and never save any money because it's all going to rent, with no end in sight? I was sad and surprised at this news, because while it's normal for love-interest dudes, no matter how awesome they may be, to not stick around for any significant period of time, I really don't expect a good friend to disappear so quickly. But I really can't blame them. And of course it gives me an excuse to go to Australia, and all I need is the flimsiest excuse to ever travel. But if they stay there permanently, the reality is I'll probably only see them a handful of times again.

Ecs' fiance's aunt Elaine, who by my understanding, has been living in Little Italy since way before scary Warriors era, remarked, "New York is a hard city, but it wasn't always like this. It used to be reasonable to expect to pay one week's salary for your rent. But who makes $2500 a week now?"

I'll tell you who, apparently: those late-twentysomethings in the coffeeshop who can while away the day casually chatting without going to work. Ka-BLAMMO! I just SLAMMED those guys! I bet they'll feel really bad as they drift off to sleep on their like 1000-thread-count sheets tonight.

Tonight, I pour out a bit of my Corona to the memory of ecs on the stoop.

Duuust, in the wiiiind....

Farewell, drunken stooper.



We also tip our bevs to stoopin' Steve, who has returned to Portland for his last year of school.

Crossing Guards Stoop Too

They hang out there every day. And they were way too loud this morning for the way I was feeling walking to the subway after partying away the last week of my twenties. What are they guarding anyway? School's not in. There are no kids.

Anyway, I woke up feeling grumpy and irresponsible after curing a hangover with a bottle of prosecco yesterday. (Thank you Robert and Connie) And I had to go to a meeting, which turned into me getting bought a nice fancy lunch by my client. She began by telling me about her bridal shower on Saturday. About how she drank two bottles of wine before two in the afternoon, puked twice, and then drove home giving up the worry of her breath smelling like alcohol, since it was probably oozing from pores all over her body. Hmm. A little weird. And she's thirty five.
Then the other lady starts talking. About how she has been stalking Steve Tyler for twenty years...which hotels she has photographed him in, what he was wearing in each shot, how he has posed for her, etc. She became more and more animated, and began to pose herself acting out the photos. Apparently she has also been bringing all of these photgraphs into the building and showing them to all the secretaries.
Yeah, this guy.

I left the meeting, and got to sit next to some lady on the train who kept muttering "He can't really be criminally insane...no, not really...it's not OK.."

I am very normal. And sane. And I don't drink my first bottle till way after two.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

It was the anniversary of the Great Blackout of Ought Three on Monday, which also marked the most charming state in which I've ever witnessed our neighborhood.

It's well-documented that all throughout New York City on that day, strangers actually talked to each other and some even helped each other, and this was true in our nabe. I didn't know Reilly yet, had no other local friends, and found myself, as the last light drained out of the day, alone in a hot darkening apartment with nothing to do. The pot o' pasta and six-pack on the fire escape idea had been entertaining for a bit as I watched the streams of pedestrians drain from Manhattan into Brooklyn, but that show was mostly over. So I ventured out to nearby bar Kili, where they were cooking up slabs of thawing meat people brought from their freezers. It was packed with excitedly chattering locals and gathering more patrons by the minute, the crowd spilling out onto the street. Without exhaust fans, the air was a bit too meaty there, so I headed to Smith Street.

I took Bergen from Hoyt to Smith, and the roof of branches over the street created a tunnel-like echo effect all up and down the street. Sight of the night: Spots of candlelight came from every stoop and you could hear voices and laughter in every directon. Neighbors were all chatting away and telling the stories of their day. I often think about that night when I walk that street to the symphony of air conditioners, knowing it'll never be that way again until you know, the next blackout, or the end of the world starts or whatever.

I stepped into the candle-lit Boat bar, which in addition to its usual stale-beer smell had the added attraction of sweat hanging in the air that you could cut with a knife. But they still had a few cold-ish Red Stripes to sell, so I pulled up a stool at the bar and met a few folks. Awhile later we went back to one couple's apartment to finish off some of their perishables before they went bad, so we had ourselves a nice fruit and cheese plate with wine. Then one of the fellows walked me back to my place. He gave me his card as we said goodbye, and when I didn't want to kiss him, he took his card back. Whatever, dude.

It was so hot that I thought about sleeping on the fire escape or sleeping in the pop-up of my camper, but then remembered it was still New York, even though people had been olde-tymey friendly to each other that night. I'm not sure if I ever saw any of those people from that night again, and hadn't gotten a great look at them anyway, since everything was only lit by candles. But it was the most stoopendous (sorry everybody) night I've experienced here, and there should be a lot more of those.

RIP My Favorite Star Deli

Back from sabbatical to tell you that my favorite neighborhood deli has closed down. Gone are my days of flirting with the guy with the semi amputated hand and threatening to steal their cat.



Alas their rent was raised too high, and they found a cheaper spot in Park Slope. Seems like the rent might have been too high for anybody since the place has stood empty for a few months now.
Hmmm, I wonder which one word shoppe will open here?

The one bright spot in all of this is this sight of the morning



The boombox he is carrying is blasting "Eye of the Tiger".
i'm confused ....
wolf man or tiger man, or just all around animal lover?

Everybody's doing it

Thanks to the anonymous reader who hepped us to this article about stooping in the Daily News that ran yesterday. What, three people contributed to this like 10-sentence-long article, and no one found Stoop to Our Level? Impossible. Actually I'm glad that they found real, live stoopers instead of looking on the Internets for something that requires 0 Internets.

Let freedom fry

Saturday's stooping happened a few blocks away from the home stoop, though still in the nabe.
Some main events included:









The sampling of Men's Pocky (!)
I guess these oblong objects that you put in your mouth are normally for women, so apparently what makes this new kind OK for men to put in their mouths is that these ones have bitter chocolate on them.



The consumption of Freedom Fries Chicken.
Is this an attempt to ward off any accusations of terrorism-via-deep-fried-chicken? This reminds me of one local corner eatery whose possibly Middle-Eastern staff put up a flag out front after 9/11 aka "the shit" with what were probably the best of intentions-- only they'd put it up upside down!


Sight of the Day and Night: Dingdingdingdingdingdingding! It's the knife-sharpening truck! This relic of olde-tyme Brooklyn came trundling down the street with the driver hitting its metal bell with a tire iron, and a Beware of Dog sign.
"What's your deal?" I yelled. "I sharpen knives!" Guess I'd been hoping for him to yell a concise history of the mobile knife-sharpening unit in Brooklyn.

The stoop dogg came back

Hey, remember this guy?



Just last night, our pal Therese spotted him, rescued from the curb and the dump, in someone's apartment building!



Yay.

Stoopin' 'Em to the Curb!

We were excited that Stoop was featured on Set Speed and Curbed in the past few days, and not all that surprised when our blog was met with some vitriol on both Curbed and here on our own stoop.

I have been helming this blog for awhile while Reilly studies away for a series of tests that will possibly earn her a measly few thousand more a year. So you're stuck with me for now, but you will be hearing quite a relevant update from Reilly pretty soon. Now let's take a moment to address some of the comments, noting that all critical comments were anonymous:

whine, whine, whine! if you don't like it, do something about it!

Um...like...what? Lie down in front of a steamroller?

Like this spoiled child isn't part of "gentrification"? Who does she think she is? Plus, if she is so down on these "zillion dollar" townhouses, perhaps she would feel more comfortable if they just left she decrepit parking lots on that block. Maybe she could become a squatter in the parking lot, not pay rent and really make a difference. This is so behind the times and disappointing to be on Curbed.

Does living at or below the poverty line for much of the past 5-1/2 years in Brooklyn count as being spoiled? If so, then color me spoiled! Sorry that I am not ethnic enough and not oldschool Brooklyn enough to make any complaints about gentrification. Actually, not sorry. F U.

moron - theres multiple tree pit openings along the sidewalk that fronts these buildings. street trees are usualy the last things to make their way into a project

OK, you have called me a moron, fair enough. Never mind that sentences are begun with capital letters; some folks ignore that as a matter of style or laziness. But with contractions such as "there's," an apostrophe is used before the S. The word "usually" is spelled with two Ls. And sentences are concluded with periods. Moron.

Nothing like chic hipsters keeping it real drinking 40s. Its like this is ripped out of "The Burg".... but maybe it was. I only hope these girls are being ironic in that pic, if not god help them.

Dude, we are having fun on a budget. Although I'm glad you think that I am a chic hipster, in Payless shoes and a shirt from Conways. Do you know Conway? It's in the Fulton Mall, but you don't shop there because it doesn't serve your needs. It's true, our neighbs have forgotten how to rock. And yes, God please do help us, because once my decrepit building gets torn down for more condos, it's either move into a share with like 4 roommates, move further into deepest Brooklyn with like a 2-hour commute, or move out of the city altogether and start over somewhere new.

And yeah, there is definitely some goofiness and some tongues in cheeks here. We are two women who are in this city trying to make better lives for ourselves and are basically finding ourselves getting priced out because we aren't investment bankers and didn't marry them. So yeah, there is resentment. But we are also trying to create a bit of community in the neighborhood again while we are still here, and point out that no one is using their own bit of public space, everyone is sealed off into their homes or their backyards, and even when they are out, they aren't all that friendly. And so on.

Props to loyal Stoop reader Preworn, who actually has been here in Brooklyn probably longer than any of the commenters above.

The coldest stoop in the heatwave

So I left my keys at work yesterday, and while waiting for one of my saviors to bring me spare car keys, I parked my arse on one of the new soulless cracker box zillion-dollar townhouses on State Street. And though it was 157 degrees out, and there were no trees for shade on this fancypants side of the street, I felt the cold, cold wind of "progress" in Brooklyn.



Time Out New York had a cover story about this last week called "The War for Brooklyn", which, while it tragically overlooked Stoop to Our Level in its list of Brooklyn Blogs, had some very relevant things to say.

The section on Downtown Brooklyn was especially close to this blog's heart, as it takes up the case of Fulton Mall. Check this quote out: "Other residential neighborhoods near downtown are increasingly white and high-income, and the folks there, by and large, don’t shop on Fulton Street. “With the exception of Macy’s, Fulton Mall is not really used by the people who live in walking distance,” says Sue Wolfe, president of the Boerum Hill Association. “It just doesn’t have the stores or restaurants that would attract us to come and shop. With some enlightened landlords, I think that could change.'"
ARRRRRGH!

In the section about the gentrification of Bed-Stuy, from resident Tammy Mitchell: "This is what we do every day. We sit out on the stoop after work and drink a beer. Nothing is going to change that. Not now and not ever." Yeah, you just keep on thinking that, Tammy. Good luck to you, and good luck to all of us who aren't in the multi-million-dollar home-buying bracket.

Watch out, Warriors!

We have a gang, too: the Shockers.