After 8 months of living on the Isle of Manhattan, and about half as much time spent (unsuccessfully) attempting to find affordable housing outside of Manhattan, I am pleased to announce that I am finally bidding New York County a tearful adieu, and moving to Brooklyn. More specifically, I'm shipping out to Bed-Stuy, the neighborhood in central Brooklyn that received a shout-out in "You May be Right" by Billy Joel, when he crooned "i walked through Bedford-Stuy alone" while listing crazy shit he's done in his life. Holla'.
In what I can only interpret as an attempt to sabotage my overwhelming glee and uncontainable elation at having finally found a legitimate piece of New York City real estate to call my very own, as soon as he heard that I was moving to Bed-Stuy, Chris scampered off to his computer excitedly in order to pull up the NYC homicide map. You don't have to look too closely to realize that indeed, the highest concentration of murders in New York do occur in, or around, my new hood. Lest we forget, the neighborhood's motto is "Bed-Stuy do or die". This however, is no deterrant to me, because if the stats on this highly interactive map tell me anything, they tell me that 20-something white girls don't get murdered all that often in NYC. And really now folks, murder jokes aside, the pluses in this situation CLEARLY outweigh the minuses.
A few examples:
I am now unofficially authorized to shout "Do or Die!" every time someone asks me which neighborhood I hail from. I am confident this will give me some added street cred. Or get me shot. Tough call.
I get to take the A-train home! This is pretty darn convenient, since I have had an unfortunate tendency to snap my fingers and sing "you must take the A train..." while waiting on the subway platform since moving to New York several years ago.
I get to try out all these new restaurants that I would probably not have bothered to schlep to otherwise. I'm particularly stoked for Peaches, a pseudo-soul food place where you can get grits as your entree. O.M.G.
I will now have lived in 3 of 5 NYC boroughs. Whether I'll ever make it to the Bronx or *gasp* Staten Island remains to be seen, but I think this is a pretty impressive start.
All silliness aside, I'm moving into a beautiful apartment on a street with lots of trees and pretty brick buildings, with super cool vegetarian roommates and a brand new dishwasher (what what!). Goodbye tiny Manhattan dorm room, hello spacious Brooklyn flat!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Compost = Common Sense...or DOES it?
After years of enduring the shittiest that shit has to offer in food service at Hunter College, Sodexo has been replaced with a new food vendor, AVI. For sustainably-minded students like myself, this is extremely exciting news for several reasons: 1) finding food that doesn't break the bank but is still within walking distance and marginally appetizing on the Upper East Side is really quite challenging, and 2) AVI promises to improve the sustainability of the food services at Hunter. Some of the exciting things their contract contains include:
• Work with Hunter on developing a rooftop garden to grow herbs and vegetables for its menus.
• Introduce a tray-less food service program to limit waste.
• Provide eco-friendly packaging made from corn-based polymers and recycled paper.
• Use only non-toxic, biodegradable cleaning products.
• Provide drinking fountains with paper cups made from recycled materials.
• Recycle used cooking oil for conversion into bio-diesel.
• Partner with New York Presbyterian Hospital’s successful composting program.
Hark! Did someone say composting? Well, sort of...
I walked into Tuesday's Sustainability Council meeting and was greeted by a schmorgazborg of breakfast goodies provided by AVI. Notwithstanding the vast array of free mini-danishes at my disposal, I was most impressed by the plates, cups, cutlery, etc, which were all compostable, made from recycled paper or corn starch. AWESOME! "This is too good to be true!" I thought. Then the cloud of doubt set in. AVI had clearly stuck to their vow to use eco-friendly packaging--and compostable packing at that--but were they planning to provide composting bins in the cafeteria to receive this eco-waste? I dared to ask this question, only to find out that my good friend Rion had raised the same question earlier in the meeting (yes, I was late. yes, i had a good excuse.)
According to AVI's spokesperson at the meeting, there was no need for this compostable cutlery to deserve special treatment in the waste stream...it would simply be composted in the landfill.
Ummm....WHAT?! This is bogus for at least 2 reasons, one of which requires a basic understanding of 7th grade science, and both of which require the capacity for common sense. Most organic matter biodegrades aerobically, or with oxygen. Typically, things break down best with a cocktail of oxygen, water and organisms like worms or microbes. When a landfill is sealed up, water and oxygen (and most likely, earthworms) are pretty much shut out. Hence the reason why you can go to a landfill and dig up a largely intact banana peel, 50 years post-consumption. Doesn't everyone know this? Apparently not.
Next, the benefits of compostable cutlery made from recycled materials are three-fold: 1) you reduce the amount of raw natural materials required to produce new products; 2) you decrease the amount of solid waste entering our limited landfill space; and 3) you create a useful product in the process--compost, which can be used in your garden to grow healthy, tasty plants sans synthetic fertilizer. Eureka!
So long story short, it looks like the students on the Sustainability Council will continue fighting an uphill battle in our quest to knock some sense into the silly, misinformed administrators of good old HC. Props to Hunter Solar Project for representin' in a serious way. And props to AVI for their early attempts at improving the sustainability of Hunter's food service. Lack of common sense aside, you're already a billion times better than Sodexo, and your coffee's pretty good, too. Keep the mini-danishes a-flowin' !
• Work with Hunter on developing a rooftop garden to grow herbs and vegetables for its menus.
• Introduce a tray-less food service program to limit waste.
• Provide eco-friendly packaging made from corn-based polymers and recycled paper.
• Use only non-toxic, biodegradable cleaning products.
• Provide drinking fountains with paper cups made from recycled materials.
• Recycle used cooking oil for conversion into bio-diesel.
• Partner with New York Presbyterian Hospital’s successful composting program.
Hark! Did someone say composting? Well, sort of...
I walked into Tuesday's Sustainability Council meeting and was greeted by a schmorgazborg of breakfast goodies provided by AVI. Notwithstanding the vast array of free mini-danishes at my disposal, I was most impressed by the plates, cups, cutlery, etc, which were all compostable, made from recycled paper or corn starch. AWESOME! "This is too good to be true!" I thought. Then the cloud of doubt set in. AVI had clearly stuck to their vow to use eco-friendly packaging--and compostable packing at that--but were they planning to provide composting bins in the cafeteria to receive this eco-waste? I dared to ask this question, only to find out that my good friend Rion had raised the same question earlier in the meeting (yes, I was late. yes, i had a good excuse.)
According to AVI's spokesperson at the meeting, there was no need for this compostable cutlery to deserve special treatment in the waste stream...it would simply be composted in the landfill.
Ummm....WHAT?! This is bogus for at least 2 reasons, one of which requires a basic understanding of 7th grade science, and both of which require the capacity for common sense. Most organic matter biodegrades aerobically, or with oxygen. Typically, things break down best with a cocktail of oxygen, water and organisms like worms or microbes. When a landfill is sealed up, water and oxygen (and most likely, earthworms) are pretty much shut out. Hence the reason why you can go to a landfill and dig up a largely intact banana peel, 50 years post-consumption. Doesn't everyone know this? Apparently not.
Next, the benefits of compostable cutlery made from recycled materials are three-fold: 1) you reduce the amount of raw natural materials required to produce new products; 2) you decrease the amount of solid waste entering our limited landfill space; and 3) you create a useful product in the process--compost, which can be used in your garden to grow healthy, tasty plants sans synthetic fertilizer. Eureka!
So long story short, it looks like the students on the Sustainability Council will continue fighting an uphill battle in our quest to knock some sense into the silly, misinformed administrators of good old HC. Props to Hunter Solar Project for representin' in a serious way. And props to AVI for their early attempts at improving the sustainability of Hunter's food service. Lack of common sense aside, you're already a billion times better than Sodexo, and your coffee's pretty good, too. Keep the mini-danishes a-flowin' !
Romantic musings on a little place called Red Hook…
So, for reasons I do not wish to detail at this time—I’m trying my darndest to maintain an “All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds” attitude here—I have been abruptly flung back into the frenetic rat race that is the New York City housing market for the second time this summer. Yesterday my apartment quest led me to Red Hook. If Staten Island is NYC’s forgotten borough, Red Hook is Brooklyn’s forgotten neighborhood, avec great view of said forgotten borough.
Red Hook really is a charming place, despite the fact that it has received several big “Fuck You’s” from the city, mostly related to transportation, or more appropriately, lack thereof. One of these is the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, which when constructed essentially severed Red Hook from the rest of Brooklyn for all functional purposes.
Next there's the fact that the closest subway station is Smith-9th Streets on the F line, which is not only a 20+ minute schlep of a walk from Red Hook, but also the highest subway station in the city--a whopping 88 feet above street level. That’s right, after you’ve schlepped a good 20 minutes to get to the train, you have to ascend approximately a million, billion stairs (only some flights of which have escalators) in the dirtiest, most neglected train station I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. If you’re lucky enough to make it to the top, you’re treated to a lovely view of the Statue of Liberty…IF you make it to the top. Last night I watched a morbidly obese man with a cane lumber up the final stretch of stairs. Seriously, the MTA owes that dude an ice cream cone at the very least.
Finally, there’s the IKEA ferry, which can get you to Manhattan, but only if you give at least $10 to the Sweeds, and then another $5 to the water taxi…not such a good deal, even when faced with the prospect of the never-ending schlep to Smith & 9th.
All that notwithstanding, Red Hook really is an oft-overlooked gem of a neighborhood. Here are a few reasons why:
• Lovely views of New York Harbor
• Cobblestone streets and abandoned street cars/tracks, oh la la
• Delicious Key Lime Pie
• Hella-sweet industrial/maritime architecture from days of yore
All in all, the on-the-verge-of-gentrifying-but-not-quite-there-yet feel mixed with the gritty old buildings and salty sea air left me feeling like I could bump into a swarthy old sailor smoking a pipe and saying things like “ahoy landlubber, why don’t ye join me for a drink” at any minute. Unfortunately this was not the case, but I did enjoy a saunter through the maze that is Fairway (motto “Shop Locally, Eat Globally” – so not cool), and a beautiful NY sunset before headin’ home to the big city. Oh, and in case you actually remember why I started this post in the first place, the apartment turned out to be “eh”, and the potential roommate was drunk and/or high, and seemed to want me to prove to him that I was cool enough to live with his artsy self. Awesometown.
Red Hook really is a charming place, despite the fact that it has received several big “Fuck You’s” from the city, mostly related to transportation, or more appropriately, lack thereof. One of these is the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, which when constructed essentially severed Red Hook from the rest of Brooklyn for all functional purposes.
Next there's the fact that the closest subway station is Smith-9th Streets on the F line, which is not only a 20+ minute schlep of a walk from Red Hook, but also the highest subway station in the city--a whopping 88 feet above street level. That’s right, after you’ve schlepped a good 20 minutes to get to the train, you have to ascend approximately a million, billion stairs (only some flights of which have escalators) in the dirtiest, most neglected train station I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. If you’re lucky enough to make it to the top, you’re treated to a lovely view of the Statue of Liberty…IF you make it to the top. Last night I watched a morbidly obese man with a cane lumber up the final stretch of stairs. Seriously, the MTA owes that dude an ice cream cone at the very least.
Finally, there’s the IKEA ferry, which can get you to Manhattan, but only if you give at least $10 to the Sweeds, and then another $5 to the water taxi…not such a good deal, even when faced with the prospect of the never-ending schlep to Smith & 9th.
All that notwithstanding, Red Hook really is an oft-overlooked gem of a neighborhood. Here are a few reasons why:
• Lovely views of New York Harbor
• Cobblestone streets and abandoned street cars/tracks, oh la la
• Delicious Key Lime Pie
• Hella-sweet industrial/maritime architecture from days of yore
All in all, the on-the-verge-of-gentrifying-but-not-quite-there-yet feel mixed with the gritty old buildings and salty sea air left me feeling like I could bump into a swarthy old sailor smoking a pipe and saying things like “ahoy landlubber, why don’t ye join me for a drink” at any minute. Unfortunately this was not the case, but I did enjoy a saunter through the maze that is Fairway (motto “Shop Locally, Eat Globally” – so not cool), and a beautiful NY sunset before headin’ home to the big city. Oh, and in case you actually remember why I started this post in the first place, the apartment turned out to be “eh”, and the potential roommate was drunk and/or high, and seemed to want me to prove to him that I was cool enough to live with his artsy self. Awesometown.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
