Screed against Bush....And the guys around him. So, last week Bremer gets in front of the camera at a Senate hearing and they are asking him how come some of this money the Bushites want can't come from the sale of Iraq's oil. Well, Bremer starts shifting around in his seat and looking uncomfortable, saying how like all the Iraqi's oil field equipment is old, and the pipelines need refurbishing and all, but the Senators keep pushing, and he finally blurts out that Iraq will need all its money to pay back the 200 billion that they owe. What! Can't we just excuse that debt? Wasn't incurred by that bad guy Saddam? Why do they have to pay his debts??? Well, Bremer says like we're trying to excuse it, or a least some of it, but it turns out that we'll,... uh they'll... just have to pay it. Cause after all it was real money lent to Iraq by real banks that real people put their money into in places like France and Russia and Japan. And the people of Iraq will have to use some of that oil revenue, actually almost all of it, to pay off those debts. Now, remember last February when they were all gearing up to war, they said if there was damage or we incurred expenses, the Iraq oil revenue would be able to pay us for our trouble? Well. I worked in an investment bank on a research project once upon a time (before the internet) and I remember that all the debts owned by various countries were well known and published, and banks bought and sold them as debentures. So, these guys must have known about Iraq's debt before the war, and knew it when they were saying how Iraqi oil would pay the extraordinary costs. So, not only did they lie about the WMD, they also lied about how much all this would cost, and how it would be paid for. Now we are stuck. We can't really expect to go into a country and remove its government and take over without taking responsibility for building things back up again, can we? I hope all those people that voted for Nader, thinking that it didn't matter if they took votes away from Gore because there really wasn't much difference between Gore and Bush are paying attention. I cannot believe this country has gotten into such a fix in three short years. Yes, things would have bad because of the recession and 9/11 but there seems to be an almost willful desire in this administration to make things just as bad as they could possibly be, just so long as the upper upper class is reaping big profits.

Rebuild the Towers ... Although the twin towers were really pretty ugly, except at sunset or in the mist, I personally think they should just rebuild the towers exactly the way they were, right way, except maybe correcting some of the burn flaws and aesthetic errors. That would make a better statement to the world than all this crapping around about the footprint, the bathtub, the towers of light, the memorial, the loved ones, the brave firemen, the cops, the grief struck iron mongers cutting the tangled girders on the building they spent 10 years putting up, the brave window washers that died doing their job, and all that etc. People think hat no one would want to work in replacement towers cause they are a 3x target, but I bet people would rent the space right away, I know I would. The more I hear about it, the more convinced i am they should just get on with it and rebuild them pretty much the way they were as fast as possible. That would be the best statement to the world, the terrorists, and the people that think we needed to be taught a lesson. Last month I took my bike downtown and was riding around in the park around the SI Ferry when i came upon this crushed up golden globe like statue thing. I stood there looking at this strange crumbled art wondering why does this thing look so familiar? It was never here in the Battery before... when I realized it was the arrogent gold globe sculpture that used to sit in the middle of the WTC plaza that got crushed when the towers fell. They have set it up in Battery Park with an eternal flame and a little plaque. I immediatly burst into tears. As far as I'm concerned that is enough memorial for me.
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Towers on 110th Street... Went to the neighborhood meeting Tuesday Night about what's happening on 110th Street. Now that we have spent 2 years living through the Columbia Construction on the corner of 110th and Broadway for the inappropriate Primary School and apartments, the moving of our bus stop to a mid-residential-block so sleepers can enjoy the heaving of the Number 4 bus starting around 4:30 am, we learned that the owner of the NE corner of the intersection has decided to put up a luxe condominium tower. What does the neighborhood lose? The best market in the neighborhood- The West Side Market with all its wierd Gourmet choices, bakery goods, and reasonable produce, Columbia Bagels, Mailboxes Etc. ( my place for cheap copies on my way to court) Dynasty Restauraunt, and the methadone clinic. Each of these amenities has a special place in the life of the neighborhood- even the clinic, which reminds us of how seedy the area was not that long ago. The biggest loss will be the West Side market, a source for cheap vegetables and fruit. It will have its biggest impact on the eating habits of all the people on fixed incomes who can't get to the used vegetable store down at 104 and Amsterdam. A head of lettuce at West Side is usually $1 a head- while the Dag's has it for $1.79 a pound. Baby Carrots are 1.29 at West Side, Dag's has them for 1.79 except for when they are on sale. And then theres the fact that it will no longer be possible to run down to the market at midnight for some fresh strawberries or ice cream before going to bed. People that come to dinner parties at my house wait until they get off the train to pick up fruit or some specialty to bring. We even rushed down there New years at 1 am to get some more cheese and some seltzer for drinks. Such convenience will be sorely missed. We still miss the Woolworth Store which was replaced with the Footlocker. Things that were avaiable in one trip to the Woolworths now take planning and 2 days of going to different stores out of the area to obtain. The older ladies that liked to crochet had to give it up, cause they can't buy crochet thread in the neighrbohood anymore. We also can't buy nice cheap cotton underwear, Parakeets, Canaries, Goldfish, inexpensive hardware, Lampshades, pots and pans, graters and all sorts of cheap little kitchen gadgets. They had bedroom slippers and cheap cotton sandles, nightgowns, pajamas, no run pantihose, rayon stockings, and half slips, stupid little novelties like the porcelin hen sitting in a basket nest, little starfighters and rubber duckies, board games, Ouija Boards and costumes for halloween, lots and lots of cheap garish cosmetics, dynel hairpieces, hair nets, and color rinses to fool around with. Woolworths was the place to go if you had a craft or sewing project, or just needed a quick fix for your clothing. They carried their own brand of sewing notions which were excellent, iron on tape for a quick hem, rick-rack , and quilting supplies different colored thread, needles and crochet hooks, yarn, fabric, and interfacing. In short, all the things for a full household in a civilized society. Now that Footlocker is finally closing, I wonder if the West Side market will move there.

Rudeness of Cars... Have you noticed that people coming out of cross streets on Broadway no longer bother using turn signals? It's a kind of guessing game here at 110th. Is he going to go straight, or turn? Does that wobble indicate he's going to turn? Is it safe to cross the street? I've got the signal, how about if I just go through the intersection on my bike? Will I get run over cause he's really going to turn? It's not possible any more to tell where cars are going. And with the double park situation right on top the intersection, double parked food trucks, Con Ed emergency vehicles, Moms dropping their kids off at the new school, and turning Number 4 buses, cars get impatient. They make these little agressive rushes when they think they have the light, honking their horns impatiently and going fast without using their turn signals. The situation has become nightmarish. The other new thing is cars honking their horns at you if you are not moving fast enough. They do this constantly - to pedestrians, bikes, and other cars. If I am driving on, for instance 89th street on the block where there is a school, I tend to poke along if there is a red light up at Amsterdam, cause I don't want to hit any kids that may pop out from between cars, and the light up ahead is red and I'll just have to wait anyway. This attitude drives SUVs crazy. They honk and honk, and try to sneak their huge vehicles around me, so they can rush up to a red light and slam on their brakes. Here on 110th a friend of mine had an accident last week after a rude SUV that kept blowing his horn at her, forcing her to move in a tight space created by double parked trucks. The sun was at just the wrong angle, blinding her, and she hit a traffic pole. The honking SUV just sped away. What we really need is a remote that mutes car horns. Some idiot is behind you blowing his horn for no reason, and you just press the remote button with a directional finder on your dash board and his horn goes silent. Pedestrians would carry a more conventional remote with them to shut up cars that are honking because they are not moving fast enough on their walkers. There could be a long distance remote and you could aim out the window at night to silence offending car alarms. Yeah.

Went to see the "Mini Midsummer Night's Dream" directed by Morna Martell and presented by Drama Tune Inc. yesterday at the West Side Community Garden for its final Sunday performance. (The Garden is located on 89th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenue, and is open daily for those who wish to stop by and look at the flowers) Last Sunday the performance was canceled due to a 3 hour downpour. This week the weather held, and there was a good turnout- about 120 people attended. The acoustics were perfect in the Garden amphitheater, and the actors experienced in projecting Shakspearian diction. The audience of all ages and backgrounds followed the story with attention and frequent laughter at the right spots. The most delightful piece of foolery was Puck, played by Jenne Vath, who expertly herded her pack of fairies (played by fifteen neighborhood youngsters) through the machinations of the plot enchantments. Titiana ( Christina Malina)was the beautiful long golden haired fairy queen, and lovingly stroked Bottome's( David Lutzer) hairy donkey ears to the delight of our local pack of fairies hiding in the wings behind the tall Asters growing in Mary Lou Briggs Flower plot. The lover's mixup was an amusing trifle, and the last piece, a "play within a play" for the Athenian king was followed with great amusement by the audience. The cast forswore the timeless Mendelsohnn songs to sing pleasant unaccompanied songs by Ralph Martell. There is a special raindate performance Thursday, Septmeber 4,at 6 pm. It's a wonderful piece, enhanced by a lush Garden setting. I think I'll bring refreshments for the end of the run.

My Third Blackout in the City... New York was finally all the way back last night at about 11 pm, and the subways started up this morning. We were out in the country when it happened. I had just gassed up and we were up at Roger's Book Barn. My brake light started going on and off after we left the book store, so I headed for a repair shop. Just as i was going to pay the guy $20 just to look at the brakes, everything went down. The lady there said "oh no, not again", and said it had happened an hour earlier that afternoon but went right back on again. I got the impression it was something local or to do with their fuse box. They went off somewhere to try and get their computer up, and a guy waiting in line with us said $20 was too much "just to look" and that they got a good mechanic down the road at the gas station. When we left the repair shop, I noticed the traffic signals were out. When we got to the gas station the pumps were already closed with cones, but the mechanic immediately told me that the red light meant that my brake fluid was low. He charged 2 dollars to put it in. We couldn't get any radio stations so we thought the power glitch was a local thing, and decided to head back to the City. Along the way we looked with wonderment on scenes of people trying to get gas, closed stores, people sitting by the roads, and local Firemen, boyscouts, Police, and State troopers directing traffic at the intersections. In Fishkill Plains, people were emerging from a pizza place with pizzas so we went in to see about dinner. It was the only place we saw open in three counties. He had the old manual cash register and terrific pizza with real mozzarella cheese. The pizzas were being put together in the darkened kitchen in back of the bar by lantern light for the crowds of people and cooked in old gas ovens. We found out while we were waiting that the blackout extended throughout New York, and over to Cleveland. After we grabbed the pizza I headed back on the Taconic/Sawmill and West side highway to W 95 St and riverside drive ( no signals the whole way) and managed to miss traffic jams of epic porportions on every other approach to the City. The Bronx/Manhattan Hudson bridge was open into Manhattan, and there was practically no inbound traffic anywhere, including the West Side highway. The other side was jammed solid with traffic and throngs of people people walking home on the highways. There were no speedcops anywhere up in the country- they were all deployed at intersections, so I went about as fast as the car would go 85-90 the whole way back so we would get in before sunset.Once back, we parked on 110th and climbed six floors into the apartment to quickly find candles, matches and flashlights before it got dark. It was real hot, about 90, even with all the windows open,so we went back out to the car with the flashlight and sat in the car intermittently running the airconditioning and watched the crowds on Broadway and traffic jams. An event like this really gives you a fair idea of how many people are in or come into Manhattan everyday. The Police had set up red flares at the 110th Street intersection and were trying to control traffic, but it was impossible because there were so many pedestrians - people in business clothes with brief cases walking uptown from work and other throngs dressed up or in shorts walking down towards Times Square. It was weird, cause just one block over on Riverside Drive there were not many cars and practically no foot traffic, even on the wide sidewalks under the trees. We walked around some, to see if lights were on in Queens and over to the River to look for lights in Jersey. Some of the bars were open and letting people run tabs or taking cash. The V & T Pizza Sidewalk cafe part was open and serving pizzas, but surprisingly the Hungarian Pastry Shop cafe at 111th and Amsterdam was closed. The other stores were all closed and locked. Places like the West Side market with substantial outside merchandise had the help sit out in front in case you might want to take a watermelon or something. The guy in front of the Famous Deli had a baseball bat. WNCY was back on the air so we could listen to the radio and read some in the air conditioned car. About 1am it got cooler so we went back upstairs. I read for a while by the light of the big Pascal candle (decommisioned from Church after Easter) and went to bed. We got up early, and I was sitting in the living room when the light went on. Barry went down at 9 am and came back with a quart of fresh milk and the papers.

Blogomat... Just looking in the Times magazine again today and noticed the article by the older guy who ruins himself playing Tennis every chance that he gets, and how Americans have become big "consumers" of exercise. Our President is characterized as a "gym rat", people pay big bucks to join gyms with special machines to exercise, and I am constantly being shoved off the sidewalk or roadway by rollerbladers or cyclers intent on getting their exercise. They all have special little suits to wear too. Pastel shorts, little warm-up items with white stripes down the sides, helmets, kneepads, exercise bras, wrist weights, sneakers. Thus, exercise has been transformed into a consumable item, a consumable that can be referenced as a class item. The other day on the train coming back from Ocean Hill I eavesdropped in on a conversation between a young black man, and a white classmate he met on the train going to Manhattan. After catching up on grades and class schedules, the white guy asked where the black guy was heading-" Oh I'm going to my gym in Manhattan... You mean you go all the way into Manhattan to use a gym? Well yes, you meet better people, and the whole experience is just better in Manhattan...." I ride a bike for basic transportation inside the City. I've been riding a bike for just about my whole life for transportation, first as a protest against automobile culture in Buffalo where I grew up, then as cheap transportation in Germany where it cost over a thousand marks to get a license in lessons fees, and finally in New York, where I rode a bike to my job in midtown everyday until they laid us off. During the nineties, I got a car as a gift, and became a car owner for the first time in my adult life. We use the Buick to go outside the City and on vacations, but still use the bike to get around town- no parking muss, quick routes through traffic, nice routes through parks, no subway or bus fare. The exercise has been a pretty secondary reason for owning a bike - a cheap one that doesn't get stolen more than every two or three years. Everyday on the elevator, my nesighbors confuse me with one who is part of the exercise culture- "Oh, are you going out for exercise? Do you ride in the park? " I nicely but pointedly say, "No, I am going to a meeting", or "I have errands to run. " I wonder how much longer the guy who ruins himself playing tennis, or the young black guy that rides into Manhattan just to use a better class of gym, will keep on exercising. I wonder if the tennis guy rides to the courts in a big black SUV, like many of my neighbors, even in the upper west side of Manhattan. When did exercise become something that was the province of the rich ( or middle class) and the young, or those aspiring to be young and/or rich? How come when I travel outside the City I rarely see anyone outside walking or riding a bike dressed in normal clothes as if they were heading to church, or a shopping center? I wonder how exercise, which used to be an inevitable part of everyday life performed by everyone as part of going about their normal daily business, became a class conscious consumable item.

In the bushes...Looking at the shrub on TV this week, I flashed on an image of the inside his head - that if you could lift off the top of his head and peer inside you'd see a little brown leather brain, wheezing like a tiny bellows when the shrub cogitated about those bothersome things like what he calls the "skepticists," or tried to remember the name of the country that his good friend Tony Blair represents. Like two tiny leather footballs stuck together...

More slow burn...Look, I know the term "burn rate" has been around for a while in places like venture capital firms...I've just never heard it applied by high level government officials to a war in front of nationwide TV before. A Secretary of Defense that refers to the use of our taxes as the "burn rate" in a war that's not really over and where people are getting killed doesn't really inspire much confidence. What's the insider slang for the deaths over there? "broken units?" The government usually doesn't give us an inside view of what they really think about us on national TV. Of course we all know that this gang is in high office because they are ambitious and want power, and not particularly interested in helping people, serving the public, saving money, educating children, or making our country better and a good place to live for everyone. But this is the first time I remember hearing officials in an administration talk the talk that they use behind the scenes right out in the open. And how does that term jibe with a deliberate manipulation of intelligence to get them the war they want? And, after hearing how they really feel about us, how are we supposed to swallow the platitudes dished out to us about freedom, liberty, and being a shining beacon of democracy for the world? How do you justify the two persona's here- the President who gets up every day to read his Bible and tells us that "Amurrica is being tested" and an administration that talks about the "burn rate" for our money? Or how about that guy Brenner on "Meet the Press" this morning who, when asked about the four soldiers killed in an ambush yesterday, included in his answer talk about how the tide of forces for freedom and justice were on the rise. How can we take that seriously? Can you imagine if four people were ambushed up on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx and Commissioner Kelly told a reporter that " the tide of justice is rising in New York" ? There are definitely some unmatched codes here- one behind the scenes a group of testosterone driven, power mad, oil glutted elite power queens, and the other- a pious, Jesus saved, prayerful simple folk face, who just wants us to all get along., but "he's going to get those evil varmits who are causing all thet ruckus over there..." Come to think of it, I'll take the power mad millionaires...

NY Cowboy- 6-23-2003
Broadway Cowboy


A couple of weeks ago at about 7 p.m. we were cruising up and down Broadway in my Buick, looking for the store Judy remembered that had blueberries for $2 a pint and came upon a cowboy in full cowboy work gear with his horse on the west side of Broadway at 94th Street.

Judy whipped out her digital camera and took a picture [which i am unable to post here because technical difficulties] as I exhorted her to "get in the buildings... No one will believe this is New York unless you get the buildings into the picture..." The Cowboy had parked his horse at a parking meter, and without putting any quarters into the meter, went into a fruit and vegetable market to buy carrots and Romaine lettuce, which he fed to his horse. There is a car parked on the expired meter, behind the horse, but it moved out just after we took the picture. The person with the car came across Broadway, glanced at the horse, got into the car and pulled out when traffic was clear, without any acknowledgment of the horse obstacle, other than avoiding it and not blowing their horn. The pedestrians were equally blasé- about one in 3 actually looked, and the only people besides Judy and I that stopped were some tourists from out of town who actually engaged the Cowboy in conversation. (We could tell they were tourists cause they had on pink and blue pastel jersey shorts and tops that tourists wear.) I was double parked in front of the Whole Foods supermarket and didn’t want to leave the car, so I didn’t find out the pertinent information like "where are you from...where does your horse sleep at night?" We found the blueberries at Barzzinis, but when we went back to see the cowboy again he was gone- disappeared into the sunset over New Jersey.

Just as a matter of mild interest, since I am deep in the throes of amending my 2002 taxes just what is that thing that the white house refers to as our current "burn rate" in Iraq? The first time I ever heard the term burn rate was out of Rummy-(one of my all time faves) on Sunday July 13 with George Stephanopolis. It just slithered out, "Burn Rate" and George didn't bat an eyelash. Emboldened, Rummy started slinging the term around more and more- "burn rate burn rate for this..., burn rate that we had thought..., but the burn rate can't be calculated for the future cause we don't know the future...". Now< Tuesday on the Newshour I heard the Whitehouse head of Office of Management and Budget - and he suddenly outed with the term "burn rate" too- giving a sly smile as he said it, as if it is a piece of insider slange that they are letting us in on-. He gave the burn rate as being over 4.2 Billion- somehwat highter than Rummy's 3.9 burn rate even though it was only a couple of days later. And how come none of those news guys ask them about the term "burn rate"?
Just what is it that "burns?" Is that our money? Do they just burn it? Will there be any money to return to me if I am due a tax cut? Is that why they are implementing tax cuts? Because they don't want us to get too mad about the fact that they are just "burning it"? Where are they burning it? Do they have a big bar-b-que in downtown Baghdad where they burn money? Couldn't they just burn oil instead and let me have my money back instead of burning it?? ?

Fourth of July... 2003. More late tree stuff. Went out of the City for a trip to someplace high up where its cool. We settled upon New Paltz ( Neu Pfaltz) as a destination, with a run up to Lake Minnewaska for advanced cooling. As we drove up into the mountains, we discovered the Mountain Laurel are in full bloom- a full month late. This is usually a Memorial Day experience. They are especially full this year, and the floor of the forest looked like it had 3-4 foot drifts of fluffy pink scattered under the trees. The forest gloom surrounding the hiking trails around Lake Minnewaska is lit up by the pink and white blooms, and the meadow we like to hike to was filled with bowers of bloom. People were swimming in the sun warmed lake and the beach was also surrounded with the late Mountain laurel blooms. Even without the Mountain Laurel this is one of the most scenic spots on the East Coast, if not the world.

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Another two hours poured into the black hole of computer hell.
Well I downloaded and installed City Desk, which is Ok but has a headline on it: "My new site" which I did not put in and which I don't want. And, it doesn't have a way to install "comments" that I can find which is the main reason I installed it. So I went to squawkbox.tv which has some type of comment code to slip into your template. Of course I was in Internet Explorer, and on my computer the default lettering for Explorer is something called "Aeterna" so I couldn't read the code. So I went over to Netscape, and simultaneously brought up the blogger.com templates, and squawkbox to get the code in Times New Roman, and tried to install the code, but nothing doing. First, you have to install it between the "head" tags- wherever and what ever they might be. Then- this long ass line of gibberish has to be installed as a single line. So I found something like and installed the code right in alongside the word "head" between the darts. Then I took the other code ( which also had to be installed in a single line) and put it down below, and pressed preview. Voila- no comments and my email address was gone! After a erasing or not preserving my "work" I got my email address back, but could never get the comments thing to appear no matter what. I tried between Head outside the darts, and something else both backwards and frontwards. Asshole Explorer, asshole Aeterna default font ( and how did that get to be the default font I'd love to know?), asshole Netscape, asshole head tags, and especially asshole things that have to be installed as one line, in a small pop up window that can't be resized

Tuesday July 1, 2003. Homeless in NYC ... Had to go to the garden and sit for an hour or so waiting for the exterminator guy to come and check to see if we had a rat problem. J., the 75 year old evicted person, came and sat in the Vegetable Garden under the Fig tree with me to update me on her progress as one of the newly homeless. She saved her rent money when it became clear that eviction was inevitable, and used it to move to a "tourist" hotel on Riverside Drive. I had advised her to take a room in a hotel to relax and get over the horrible eviction experience when I left her off at the Health Department last week to get a TB test, ( a prerequisite to getting into the welfare system in NYC) So it turns out the hotel she checked into is a rent stabilized SRO and she is requesting a lease. She went up to the NY State office building ( DHCR) today to check the rent history on her room and we have our fingers crossed that the rent stabilized rent will be no more than 2 or 3 hundred a month. Not only that- the room is airconditioned, has a private bath, and a refrigerator. If everything checks out, she will have a much nicer place to live for the rest of her life, and will not have to interface with the Welfare system and nosy bureaucrats trying to push her into a "facility." The rent stabilized rent in these places is usually low because the owners illegally converted them to Tourist Hotels in the late eighties. Therefore, the rent is based on the last legally registered tenant's rent back in the late eighties or early nineties. The reason the legal rents are fairly low and affordable is because the last registered tenant lived there for a long time as a resident. After J. left, I turned the Compost until the rat guy appeared. He looked around, but there were no more rats left.

Monday June 30, 2003 Unter den Linden... Well its finally hit, about two weeks late this year, but its finally arrived, the best time of the entire year to be outside in the Upper West Side of New York, when the Linden trees are in full bloom. The air is so laden with perfume in some areas it makes me swoon. The Linden are blooming all along Riverside Drive from West 72nd street to the George Washington Brige, Morning Side Drive, Central Park West, and all the adjacent streets. You can smell them along Broadway, and even on Amsterdam Avenue if the wind is right. Tonight the Linden odor was so strong I could smell iti n the Post Office at 103rd Street as i waited in line to get a Certificate of Mailing for my rent. At night I lay in my bedroom on 110th Street with the windows open, breathing the perfume laden air as it rises from the Linden trees by the Rite Aid at 110th and Broadway. A woman going down into the Number One Downtown subway today remarked to me, " What a nice smell, I smell it everywhere today, it must be some new kind of cleaner they are using on the subways" When I told her it was the trees she responded "What, in New York City?" During these weeks of Linden fever I escape whenever possible on the bicycle down the length of Riverside Drive and into the park at 95th street just breathing deeply. There's an area in Riverside Park near 79th Street just before the tunnel to the Boat Basin where there are two giant especially odiferous Linden Trees that overhang the path. The Linden season lasts about two weeks in total- usually starting around June 15 and over before June 30. It was so cold and wet this year that I thought we would miss it, because the trees had bloomed in the rain and the smell had all washed away. But this weekend it started full force. A few of the smaller trees started in Morningside park last week and are almost over, but the big trees are in full swing along Riverside.

Eviction of an old woman
J. is a feisty75 year old who is living on $639 monthly from Social Security and SSI. The rent is $930 a month. She is being evicted into the street tomorrow at 11:30 am, because she owes back rent- much of it from when she was hospitalized with shingles. She is currently blind in one eye and has skin cancer. The $639 a typical payment for woman who worked at various jobs at small businesses and never got into any retirement plan. She came to New York in the fifties from Pa. to pursue a career acting, temped at office jobs, married for a few years, had no children, divorced, and never remarried. When her Mother got old she found a good old folks home for her in Pa. But now that its her turn, there's no one left to help her out. When she moved into the VOA's Brandon Residence for Women at 340 West 85th Street in 1995 the rent was $500 a month for a 7X 10 foot room, with no telephone, and no AC. It was leveld off at 678 under a stipulation, but they claim that it should be $930 a month. There is a communal bath & WC on each floor shared by 30 women, and a communal kitchen on one floor for heating up tea water soup mix etc. The first floor of the building is pleasant with two large lounges- one with a stage, and the other for watching TV. There is a conceirge who gets all the mail and slops it into boxes. The New York Headquarters for the VOA is located on site, with offices on the second and third floors, and Richard Salyer, the President or chief minister ( yes the VOA is a religion- I found this out when I called the Secretary of State for their financials as a charity, and was unable to get them because the VOA is a religious corporation) lives and entertains in the penthouse on the top floor. In the basement is a cafeteria for the female residents where breakfast and dinner is served. The Cafeteria Workers are from one of the VOA's drug rehab programs and there is, or was, a drug rehab program on site for recent releasees. The VOA started a nonpayment case against J. in 1996-7. J.withheld rent because there were warranty of habitability problems in the residence-heavy mold in the bathrooms, electrical wires draped from the overhead fixtures and strung in the hallways, and broken doors. . After motion practice, we signed a stipuation in 1998 to get repairs, and giving J. a 3000 rent abatement. Another feature of the stipulation was that they could not bring a future holdover action against her. She got sick and defaulted on the repayment plan so 30 something Civil Court Judge Tammi Elsnor issued a warant, snapping at us from the bench that Joyce "should have saved money when she was young and made better plans for her future." We stopped the eviction by declaring Bankruptcy under Chapter 13. US Bankruptcy Judge Cornelious Blackshear was more accomodating, we kept the case alive for four years. When the Bankruptcy was finally dismissed for failure to pay the trustee during a bout of pnuemonia, January 2002, the case went back to Civil Court, and after more manurverings Civil COurt Judge Milin issued a judgement of eviction but stayed it 30 days to permit the respondent to "Move with Diginity" How does one move with diginity to the street, or Riverside park? I was getting ready to go on vacation, so we filed for bankruptcy again, this time under Chapter 7, with no repayment plan under a new theory. The VOA came roaring into court screaming that Joyce deserved to be evicted, that she was simply decalring bankruptcy in bad faith to stop an eviction, but US Bankruptcy Judge Gropper stopped them dead, stating that everyone stands equal under the law- if Enron and other large corporations can obtain relief under the shield of bankruptcy so can a 73 year old woman with no money and no place to go. This time I had new theory - under bankruptcy law, - specifically" the anti discrimination rule" no government entity can discriminate against a debtor for insolvency, or owing back rent. Therefore they may retain their possession of their apartments even after all the back rent is discharged under bankruptcy. The Government may not discriminate against them by evicting them because they owed back rent. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld this theory in "In re Stolz" and I guess City housing praying that their tenants don't find out about this. Anyway, in our case my job was to prove that VOA is so entwined with the government that it is, or stands in the place, of a government entity. As you can see from their website, the VOA is the largest provider of Homeless services and services to the aged in the area. 95% of their funding is from Government contracts. The constitution of New York state provides a constitutional right to shelter - which in this town, the VOA overwhelmingly provides. So I reasoned, the VOA stands in the shoes of the Government in providing this service which the State Constitution mandates is a right . Unfortunately, because the Brandon is not a shelter- it is supportive housing, or as the VOA falsely claims "housing for professional women and students," we lost. ( My other case- with the two 80 year olds in a HPD TIL building won) So here we are, at the eleventh hour, once again looking for someplace to put Joyce. The Marshall just called, he's having Adult Protective services come, but he agrees with me that they are useless. I've called all the senior services, but they are full to the gills with homeless seniors. Basically Joyce can go to Peter's Place on 23rd street, and they will try and find a placement for her for the night. (The guys at our church shelter are usually bussed in by the City at 7:30 for the night at our mens' beds, and are bussed out at 5 am the following morning).I've been looking for months, and have found nothing in Manhattan. Most social workers tell me that unless the person is actively homeless, they can't find them a placement. Last resort- we are looking for a large space at Manhattan Ministorage on the West Side Highway. They allow access 24/7 and according to a NYT article last summer there are showers and toilets. I've visited the one downtown in the west village and there are large cubicles separated by cyclone fencing with an electric light. Years ago, I represented some guys at the Stanford, a flop house on the Bowery. They lived in cublicles separted by Chickenwire, with an overhead light. Now that the flops are gone, I guess we'll have to go into storage.
Then there's a possibility of a "facility" somewhere in the outer boroughs, usually between something like the Bruckner expressway, and the Hutchinson parkway, located two trains and three buses away from the old neighborhood and old friends. There's an 8 pm curfew, with a monthly trip by ambulette to the Rite Aide on White Plains Road for diversion. There's tapes of movies twice a week in the lounge, and yarn crafts, and a cafeteria for all your meals. You share a room, and are limited to a minimum of personal possessions cause you don't need them anymore. Your social security check is signed over to the facility, and they immediatly ask the government for more money- another 1500 - cause its impossible to keep you there for 639 monthly. I've visited people in such places and they are all desparate to get free....

First Day of Summer... Today started very gray, I overslept because there was no light outside, on today, the longest day of the year. Even the birds ( yes we have birds that chirp in the morning in Manhattan) seemed subdued in the mist and gray. I lay in the living room lethargically reading an alarming story about the Shrub administration's reaction to global warming in yesterday's Times and drinking coffee until my friend Judy from the Garden called to see what's up with the Garden Compost, and do I have plans for today etc. About a half hour later, after we both dragged ourselves to the garden for the first day of summer, it started raining lightly, so we decided to erect one of our little tentlets over the compost area so we could work in comfort, protected from the rain, and later, if the sun ever comes out, we could work in the shade.
The tentlets were our brainstorm to protect us from the rain at our annual Garden benefit party this past Wednesday. They looked festive and I hung lights on the musician's tent. Alec Baldwin, the actor, attended and presented one of our environmental awards - a framed picture of the garden to ABC TV for their support of environmental projects in NYC. Pictures of the garden are posted at www.westsidecommunitygarden.org.
The tentlets are 10 foot square shelters made out of aluminum poles that hold up a roof made out of some type of translucent plastic cloth. Judy and I found them last Saturday while we were on our annual quest to find the cheapest decent paper plates for the benefit. We found cheap plates and better yet we found the tentlets for $19.97 at National Wholesale Liquidators out on Route 17 in New Jersey.
Anyway, the compost area is exactly ten foot square, with a concrete brick wall behind the bins on the west side, and our tool shed bordering the east side of the compost area work yard. Overhead on the south side of the area is our giant fig tree -[ which made it safely through the winter, thank you very much] and on the north side, where the neighborhood guys hang out on the sidewalk drinking beer and malt liquor, is the compost gate to the garden. The three wooden bins themselves are about three and a half foot square and four foot high, with removable wooden slats on the front and interior walls, and are set flush against the concrete wall.
People come from the neighborhood and deposit their coffee grounds, tea leaves, vegetable parings and rotten fruit through the compost gate onto the end bin. One man keeps his stuff in the freezer and bicycles over from the East Side with bags of frozen spoiled fruit and vegetable waste. There's a stable on 89th Street, so we scrape up horse offerings left on 90th Street on their way to the Central park Bridal path. Although Judy will reluctantly carry the pail for me while I collect the offerings, only a Presbyterian will actually scrape the stuff up off the street in broad daylight.
Today, although the compost pile was hot underneath, it was smelling rank because it had rained during the night and it's way too wet. The remarkable thing about a good balanced compost pile is that if its kept turned and has a goodly population of red worms, it has a fresh almost piney smell, despite all the horse manure.
So these two women of a certain age - let us say well over 50- dragged one of the disassembled tentlets from the shed to put up in the lightly sprinkling of rain. Because of the presence of the compost bins, all assembly had to be done above the bins, sort of in midair, with Judy holding the assembled pieces flat while I formed the aluminum rod roof assembly.
The first problem was assembling the slippery wet aluminum rods. They are numbered with tiny numbers that can't be seen by middle aged eyes without glasses to clue you in as to where each rod fits. The # 7 roof rods have little wire loop tabs that must be depressed firmly with a (wet) thumb while the rod slides into a rigid plastic corner of the roof square.
After the wire things slide into the plastic joint, they pop up through a slot to strengthen the corner joint. Unfortunately, the wire tabs are made for heavy strong men's hands to depress, and we struggled away for about a twenty minutes in the intensifying rain to get the rods properly seated in the plastic corner joints. The rain intensified then, and we stood in the tool shed for a few minutes while it poured, nursing our smarting thumbs while Judy prayed loudly to the God of Complaining.
When it let up a little, the "dimples and bumps " problem emerged when I charged out to work on the center roof rods and side rods which connect the corner joints together.
The dimples and bumps problem is based on the premise that in cheap tentlets, each connecting aluminum rod has a dimple which corresponds to its corresponding rod's bump. The dimples and bumps must be mated exactly to slide together, and then you must turn the rods smartly to lock them. Naturally, there are two ways to turn the rods smartly, and if you lock them in the wrong direction, it's impossible to proceed to the next step of assembling the tentlet.
As the rain intensified again Judy stood in the downpour holding the partially assembled rods in midair while I tried to locate the dimples and bumps and clicking them together one way, then another, until the roof assembly was "complete."
Soaking wet by now, we took the balled up plastic cloth roof and stood under it while we spread it onto the roof rod assembly. As soon as the roof cloth was partially stretched over the rods, they began popping apart again, and the dimples and bumps had to be lined up again and turned smartly again, this time under the plastic cloth, until the roof assembly was squared off over our heads while we held it flat, so we could fit the tentlet to the corners.
Wholly disheartened by now, I put the top legs into the corner elbow, hoping that they would lend some structural integrity to the assembly, and also hoping that the legs would not slip out and fall between the compost bins and the concrete wall. [ did I mention that the bins are bolted to the wall?]
Against all reason, this worked after a fashion. Although the dimples and bumps kept popping apart, we finally got them to hold together by looping the tentlet's interior Velcro tabs tightly onto the aluminum rods. But, while this operation was underway, rain collected in the slack pockets of the roof where the dimples and bumps were coming apart and dumping down on us when we Velcroed the tentlet to the rods. After more trial and error, we put both top and bottom leg sections on each corner and pulled the tentlet down over each corner, stretching the tentlet tails down each leg and fastening them to a hook at the bottom of each pole to form a tight structural unit. Of course we couldn't open the tool shed door, but a couple of blue slates and Belgian blocks dragged over to prop up the legs of the tentlet by the tool shed raised it enough to provide clearance for the door. Yes, it's lopsided, but we will be able to turn the compost in comfort in the only tented compost bins in New York City.

Turning the Compost - Well here it is another rainy weekend in NYC. I'm sitting here contemplating going to our garden on West 89th Street to transplant Farinacious Salvia into the shady east side of the Garden before the hot weather hits next week, and turning the Compost, which is wet as hell at this point, but cooking away nicely. Our red worms which used to live in the compost and help me turn it died in the protracted cold winter, so I've got to go down to 14th streeet market and see if Christina Datz from the Lower East Side Environmental Action Center is still around selling them. I like to turn compost. Its the perfect ruminative activity for turning over legal problems that come my way. First I do a lot of research, then I turn the compost. Right now I have a 75 year old client in fairly good health who is penniless and is going to be evicted on the street, unless I can come up with a new angle. Its an old case- five years, and we've been through Civil Court NYCounty with several stays, twice to Bankruptcy Court, and on to US District Court with a unique procedural argument I came up with a couple of years ago whilst turning compost, but now it looks like the end is nigh. Don't feel sorry for the landlord- the landlord is a well known very well funded charitable organization which prides itself for helping people- just not my client. She doesn't want to move into a "facility" and none of the agencies i have contacted have any rooms. So it's back to the Compost and then to court again.

The Hallelujah Man... I was riding my bike up Broadway this afternoon and I saw him again, the Hallelujah Man. He' been a fixture on the upper west side since i moved here in the 70's. Today he was at 97th street handing out trachts and saying God ,God, God, God, God Loves you, God Loves You, God, God, God, to everyone who passed. Usually he just stands on a corner and shouts Halleujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. He's toned down the volume some from the old days, after some people hasseled him up at 106th street. The Hallelujah man is about 70 now, a slight light skinned black gentleman, always impeccably dressed and wearing a fedora. Today he was dressed in a sharply pressed gray suit, and carried a raincoat. By his accent I would say he's Haitian, one of the remnants of the Haitian community which used to dominate the streets east of Broadway between 97th street and 106th street. His appearences have decreased some since the late 90's perhaps due to age and increasing frailty. I don't mind his shouting, in fact there is something rather reassuring about it now after all these years. Sitting on the couch reading on a rainy night, I'll hear him in the distance shouting Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah over and over again and I'm comforted.