The Weather.

luka

Well-known member
not to the same extent. and even when it did it didn't have very many. its not as ghettoised in that way.
 

Leo

Well-known member
As immigration trends change, some of the older ethnic neighborhoods are disappearing. Chinatown has expanded over the past 20-30 years to swallow up at least two-thirds of what used to be Little Italy.

OTOH, the Korean population in Flushing boomed so much that at one point a local ordinance was passed that all business signage had to be bilingual...because you could walk for blocks and not see any signs in English!
 
Last edited:

shakahislop

Well-known member
the old neighborhoods get wiped out in the chop and change of the city. immigration continues obviously. but from what i can see, and without thinking about it very much, there's less of a tendency for people to cluster together by background. the areas that incomers settle down in seem to be a collection of people from absolutely everywhere rather than homogenous. the south bronx seems to be like that. not that i spend a load of time there. it's hard to think of an area there which has a reputation as being an enclave in the same way as polish greenpoint / puerto rican williamsburg / chinatown was. maybe this is ignorance talking, coz no-one i know every talks about the bronx. but jackson heights is the same. elmhurst is the same. i spent a bit of time in flatbush handing out food, it's babel, it's people from everywhere.

i guess corona is a counter-example. sunset park maybe. but even there it's not an enclave, there's both a big chinese thing and a big mexican thing going on. maybe this stuff just looks simpler in retrospect and is harder to figure out when its ongoing.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I also can't imagine there are the same numbers of, say, Italian or German immigrants coming here nowadays. Plus Little Italy and Yorkville are too expensive for many newcomers, the Italians who do come are probably heading to Brooklyn or Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
another factor might be that America -- particularly NYC -- encourages ethnic pride and celebrations.

one of the craziest days here used to be the Puerto Rican Day Parade, which starts way uptown in Spanish Harlem and comes down Fifth Ave by all the swankiest old-money apartment buildings on Central Park East. Some rich white folks would freak out, hire security and stores would board up street-level windows. there were a few years where the scene in the park (where in parade ends) was kind of out of hand with disorderly conduct, sexual assaults, etc. Not sure what it's like now, I don't think they held it during the pandemic.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I'm up and out the door at 6:30 am today, real-feel temp is 61. downright crisp.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
seems hard to believe the above is about two weeks old, its been windy rain since yesterday. walked from bushwick to williamsburg underneath the j train line this morning. went into a place called nook to get a coffee. it felt like the next step in the coffee shop - co-working trajectory. stuffed with people on laptops, every space taken by someone sat by themselves doing some kind of work. i like that walk under the train line, there's always all kinds of shit going on, and the difference between j train bushwick and l train bushwick is big. wonder if they'll get separate neighborhood names at some point coz the difference is meaningful.
 

Leo

Well-known member
the worst weather, chilly/windy/rainy. cold winter days are better that this.
 

sufi

lala
Doesn't really fit in the Outer Space breaking news thread, but you got another 10 minutes of partial eclipse in the UK beknighted bog country, get those colanders out!
 

sufi

lala
Doesn't really fit in the Outer Space breaking news thread, but you got another 10 minutes of partial eclipse in the UK beknighted bog country, get those colanders out!
while the new PM met the new king, not ominous at all
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
retro daylight savings clock adjustment happened yesterday morning. at the same time it's unseasonably warm so today it was 25 degrees and a bit humid, really lovely, girls in skirts and lads in tank tops on bikes and all that, but it's now already dark at 5pm. it's an unusual combination, the usual rhythm is off.
 

Leo

Well-known member
yup...but you got to sleep an extra hour in the morning, or get up your regular time and got a jump on the day. so there's that.
 
Lost a 25-foot laburnum tree in the garden. We can't even burn it, the wood's too toxic. I thought of buying a mini chainsaw to get it down to size, but I'm going to get some quotes for professional removal first. Someone else with proper insurance and natural immunity to gangrene can soak up all the gruesome splinters and thorns issuing from the fallen and twisted rose branches the tree brought down with it.

All this rain has filled the fishpond to the brim, leaving it cool and gin clear for the first time in months.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Leo

version

Well-known member
I thought of buying a mini chainsaw to get it down to size,

Unless you've got experience doing that sort of thing and all the gear, I wouldn't go anywhere near it. My brother's been hit in the face with a chainsaw at work and he's been doing it for years and was only saved by the visor on his helmet. They can kick back and catch you by surprise even if you know what you're doing.
 
Unless you've got experience doing that sort of thing and all the gear, I wouldn't go anywhere near it. My brother's been hit in the face with a chainsaw at work and he's been doing it for years and was only saved by the visor on his helmet. They can kick back and catch you by surprise even if you know what you're doing.

Yes, I'm no fool and have a native and intuitive grasp of loads under tension, tensegrity, and springiness. Scary shit that could lop off your jaw or drage your eyes out of your skull in a millisecond, so a local expert is coming to have a look tomorrow, though even he has a bad feeling about it in the back of his mind.
 
Top