an open letter to landlords.
with economic conditions being what they are in prospect heights and brooklyn beyond, raging against the dying of the non-light is predominantely an exercise in fist-shaking: somewhat therapeutic, ultimately meaningless. the transformation of the neighborhood is well underway, and, while fledgling in some locations, an inevitability there as well. thus, thought and concern need to be directed not towards if things will change, but how they will change. a degree of homogenity is likely, but the end results of gentrification need not be identical; while both mutated neighborhoods, fort greene and cobble hill are very different.
the question that remains to be decided is not if new people are going to move in, but which new people will be dropping anchor. fort greene and cobble hill are different because different types of people moved into each respective area; fort greene is diverse, stylish and bohemian while cobble hill is corny, yuppified and worthless. which way will prospect heights and crown heights go? well, if you've spotted some of the lames who have recently moved into the area, you already the crystal ball is reading park slopish.
the only people who have any real say in who moves in are landlords. and most property owners probably view new arrivals as little more than cash cows with bloated udders full of precious buttermilk. as long as rent is paid on time, they don't care who moves in. this must change. the only way to control the neighborhood's destiny is to implore landlords to follow simple guidelines when renting out property.
if you must rent to people coming from outside of the community, please abide by the following:
don't rent to anyone that was in a frat or sorority. don't rent to anyone who wears black pants, a blue shirt and a gold tie to work. don't rent to anyone who gushes about the opening of a sushi restaurant on franklin without at least considering that every new business catering to recent arrivals ratchets up the cycle of neighborhood replacement. don't rent to anyone who works in equity trading, i-banking or finance in general. don't rent to anyone who describes things as "sketch" (a term only used by people who aren't from the area they're describing). don't rent to anyone who wears a dirty white baseball cap. don't rent to anyone who played lacrosse (unless they're indians). don't rent to anyone who like totally talks in that cringe-inducing neo-valley girl voice.
rent to artistically-inclined people. rent to actors and musicians and painters and writers and designers and carpenters and chefs and gallery curators. rent to social workers and nurses and people who work at non-profit organizations. rent to people who are interesting, people who are intelligent, people who have hobbies, people who have dreams that consist of something other than making partner. rent to people who aren't living here as a pitstop on the way to a luxury condo. rent to people who have heard of the caribbean day parade, of the riots, people who have a rudimentary understanding of the area's history. rent to people that will contribute to the neighborhood in some way, shape or form.
thanks,
young snitch
the question that remains to be decided is not if new people are going to move in, but which new people will be dropping anchor. fort greene and cobble hill are different because different types of people moved into each respective area; fort greene is diverse, stylish and bohemian while cobble hill is corny, yuppified and worthless. which way will prospect heights and crown heights go? well, if you've spotted some of the lames who have recently moved into the area, you already the crystal ball is reading park slopish.
the only people who have any real say in who moves in are landlords. and most property owners probably view new arrivals as little more than cash cows with bloated udders full of precious buttermilk. as long as rent is paid on time, they don't care who moves in. this must change. the only way to control the neighborhood's destiny is to implore landlords to follow simple guidelines when renting out property.
if you must rent to people coming from outside of the community, please abide by the following:
don't rent to anyone that was in a frat or sorority. don't rent to anyone who wears black pants, a blue shirt and a gold tie to work. don't rent to anyone who gushes about the opening of a sushi restaurant on franklin without at least considering that every new business catering to recent arrivals ratchets up the cycle of neighborhood replacement. don't rent to anyone who works in equity trading, i-banking or finance in general. don't rent to anyone who describes things as "sketch" (a term only used by people who aren't from the area they're describing). don't rent to anyone who wears a dirty white baseball cap. don't rent to anyone who played lacrosse (unless they're indians). don't rent to anyone who like totally talks in that cringe-inducing neo-valley girl voice.
rent to artistically-inclined people. rent to actors and musicians and painters and writers and designers and carpenters and chefs and gallery curators. rent to social workers and nurses and people who work at non-profit organizations. rent to people who are interesting, people who are intelligent, people who have hobbies, people who have dreams that consist of something other than making partner. rent to people who aren't living here as a pitstop on the way to a luxury condo. rent to people who have heard of the caribbean day parade, of the riots, people who have a rudimentary understanding of the area's history. rent to people that will contribute to the neighborhood in some way, shape or form.
thanks,
young snitch
Comments
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Subject: Re: an open letter to landlords.
young snitch wrote: with economic conditions being what they are in prospect heights and brooklyn beyond, raging against the dying of the non-light is predominantely an exercise in fist-shaking: somewhat therapeutic, ultimately meaningless. the transformation of the neighborhood is well underway, and, while fledgling in some locations, an inevitability there as well. thus, thought and concern need to be directed not towards if things will change, but how they will change. a degree of homogenity is likely, but the end results of gentrification need not be identical; while both mutated neighborhoods, fort greene and cobble hill are very different.
It's incredible how much this post shows closed-mindedness on your part. Who are you to judge people? Who are you to say that people who work at banks, people who talk in a certain way are not interesting, uncreative, unintelligent, and without dreams?
the question that remains to be decided is not if new people are going to move in, but which new people will be dropping anchor. fort greene and cobble hill are different because different types of people moved into each respective area; fort greene is diverse, stylish and bohemian while cobble hill is corny, yuppified and worthless. which way will prospect heights and crown heights go? well, if you've spotted some of the lames who have recently moved into the area, you already the crystal ball is reading park slopish.
the only people who have any real say in who moves in are landlords. and most property owners probably view new arrivals as little more than cash cows with bloated udders full of precious buttermilk. as long as rent is paid on time, they don't care who moves in. this must change. the only way to control the neighborhood's destiny is to implore landlords to follow simple guidelines when renting out property.
if you must rent to people coming from outside of the community, please abide by the following:
don't rent to anyone that was in a frat or sorority. don't rent to anyone who wears black pants, a blue shirt and a gold tie to work. don't rent to anyone who gushes about the opening of a sushi restaurant on franklin without at least considering that every new business catering to recent arrivals ratchets up the cycle of neighborhood replacement. don't rent to anyone who works in equity trading, i-banking or finance in general. don't rent to anyone who describes things as "sketch" (a term only used by people who aren't from the area they're describing). don't rent to anyone who wears a dirty white baseball cap. don't rent to anyone who played lacrosse (unless they're indians). don't rent to anyone who like totally talks in that cringe-inducing neo-valley girl voice.
rent to artistically-inclined people. rent to actors and musicians and painters and writers and designers and carpenters and chefs and gallery curators. rent to social workers and nurses and people who work at non-profit organizations. rent to people who are interesting, people who are intelligent, people who have hobbies, people who have dreams that consist of something other than making partner. rent to people who aren't living here as a pitstop on the way to a luxury condo. rent to people who have heard of the caribbean day parade, of the riots, people who have a rudimentary understanding of the area's history. rent to people that will contribute to the neighborhood in some way, shape or form.
thanks,
young snitch
I can only imagine that while you are on your soapbox , you haven't a clue what you look like to folks around you. Stop bringing your judgmentalness to this board. Stop trying to think up ways to hate your neighbors who didn't grow up with you and like you. Open your own mind at the same time you ask others to open theirs.
You don't like your new neighbors? Then extend an open and friendly hand. Show them the things you want them to see and take a part of so they too can feel the love for the neighborhood you feel. Only with goodwill, sincerity and emotional generousity will people get along and become a part of the neighborhood and add to it. Not with your statements of devisiveness and intolerance. -
Young Snitch is the new Armchair Warrior.
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wait a second! young snitch! this is revolutionary!
out with the LAMES!!!!!!!!! -
do you think it will work, SHouston?
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Don't rent to know-it-alls either.
Dare I ask, ys, what do YOU do for a living that A) pays the bills, and
allows you to never compromise yourself to some sort of large corporation? And how exactly do you "contribute" to the neighborhood? -
landlords lord lands in order to make money. if they can raise rents and invite i-bankers then they will do it.
i know some pretty cool people who wear suits to work, by the way. and i know some pretty lame "artistically inclined" people. it's kind of hit or miss either way, no? -
Although I don't always agree with what he says, I do not not not think that Young Snitch is the New Armchair! Thank goodness. Although both can be devisive at least one has a point most of the time. I have to say that while his sentiments were inflammatory, which is not always a bad thing, I kinda think I agree with him... Maybe a month or two ago I wouldn't have, but I have to say recently I've found myself more and more irritated with people in the neighborhood, and I have a feeling they fit more the description of what young snitch does not want his neighbors to be. I don't want my neighbors to be that either. God I know how that sounds. But I don't. If given the choice I would go for the Fort Greene rather than the Park Slope any day, and not just because I happen to be a social worker...
I can't believe I just wrote a post about excluding people rather than being more inclusive, but hey it happens to be what I'm thinking right now. I've walked into Joyce's too many times in the past two weeks just to have to walk right back out again because of the crowd, how they treated each other, how they acted. I just had this feeling that I was surrounded by pretentiousness and it was palpable. I could be wrong, it could be just me, but that's the way its been seeming in there as of late. But I do also have to add that its not exclusively the suit and tie thing versus the flannel and chucks for me, its the attitude, how they treat people, how they live, and I think the part that of me that is in agreement with YS has noticed more empathic and diversified qualities in those whose careers align more with their values. I know not everyone can have a job as a social worker, a teacher, or an artist, and not everyone wants to or has to, but getting back to the point that we're discussing the peoples that make up our most immediate of surroundings - our neighborhood - I think I'm being most honest when I say I would rather be surrounded by those people than the financial analysts and the investment bankers. Personal preference. -
i'm not criticizing people who wear suits to work. my description that mentioned such items was of a particular shirt-pants-tie ensemble that is a hallmark of greasy finance hogs. i'm obviously speaking in generalities here, but that makes it easier for the thousands of landlords who are going to read this and immediately institute the guidelines with an iron-fist worthy of pinochet.
erikka:
i contribute to the neighborhood by being extraordinarily handsome. also, i sometimes let people bask in the warm glow of my humility. -
You should have Pinochet as your next avatar. Surprised you're not thinking bigger about what oppressive mass murderer you can use as a smartass icon on a neighborhood blog.
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Man, that's some snobby s**t. I'm as judgemental as the next person about folks that irritate me, but to call em out on a public message board shows a lack of class. Share those feelings with your friends if you got 'em. Posts like that are the online equivalent of some ignorant graffiti tag on someone's front door or car window. [-X
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As much as I would like to violate the law to change the demographics of the 'hood.
As a landlord I look at the following:
Credit check
Court records
Previous landlord references (two back)
Now I'll take them down to the studio and ask them "so waddya think?" -
I certainly doubt many investment bankers are trying to move into Prospect Heights, so I wouldn't worry about that.
Meanwhile, there is absolutely no way to describe Snitch's letter, however much it was meant to be ironic and a bit tongue in cheek (and hell, however much I might even understand exactly what he means!), as anything other than closed-minded, prejudiced, exclusive, elitist, and a downright message of snobbery and intolerance. There is absolutely no difference between this post and a post imploring landlords not to rent to gays, jews, blacks, or any other group. It's the exact same mentality that is so pervasive in closed, prejudiced "small town in the big city" neighborhoods like Bensonhurst (not to pick on Italians), that have for decades greeted those who are different with hostility. Any lame protest that you might make that people have a choice to be a fratboy but not to be black is just an excuse for labeling a certain type of person as "other". It reminds me of how people I knew in Texas used say, "I don't hate blacks, just ni----s." The only people who deserve to be discriminated against are those people themselves.
Hey, I don't begrudge you your taste in people, and like I said, I even agree with you on some points. I certainly don't like everyone, and I have my own prejudices. But keep that shit to yourself. -
Subject: Re: an open letter to landlords.
young snitch wrote: with economic conditions being what they are in prospect heights and brooklyn beyond, raging against the dying of the non-light is predominantely an exercise in fist-shaking: somewhat therapeutic, ultimately meaningless. the transformation of the neighborhood is well underway, and, while fledgling in some locations, an inevitability there as well. thus, thought and concern need to be directed not towards if things will change, but how they will change. a degree of homogenity is likely, but the end results of gentrification need not be identical; while both mutated neighborhoods, fort greene and cobble hill are very different.
the question that remains to be decided is not if new people are going to move in, but which new people will be dropping anchor. fort greene and cobble hill are different because different types of people moved into each respective area; fort greene is diverse, stylish and bohemian while cobble hill is corny, yuppified and worthless. which way will prospect heights and crown heights go? well, if you've spotted some of the lames who have recently moved into the area, you already the crystal ball is reading park slopish.
the only people who have any real say in who moves in are landlords. and most property owners probably view new arrivals as little more than cash cows with bloated udders full of precious buttermilk. as long as rent is paid on time, they don't care who moves in. this must change. the only way to control the neighborhood's destiny is to implore landlords to follow simple guidelines when renting out property.
if you must rent to people coming from outside of the community, please abide by the following:
don't rent to anyone that was in a frat or sorority. don't rent to anyone who wears black pants, a blue shirt and a gold tie to work. don't rent to anyone who gushes about the opening of a sushi restaurant on franklin without at least considering that every new business catering to recent arrivals ratchets up the cycle of neighborhood replacement. don't rent to anyone who works in equity trading, i-banking or finance in general. don't rent to anyone who describes things as "sketch" (a term only used by people who aren't from the area they're describing). don't rent to anyone who wears a dirty white baseball cap. don't rent to anyone who played lacrosse (unless they're indians). don't rent to anyone who like totally talks in that cringe-inducing neo-valley girl voice.
rent to artistically-inclined people. rent to actors and musicians and painters and writers and designers and carpenters and chefs and gallery curators. rent to social workers and nurses and people who work at non-profit organizations. rent to people who are interesting, people who are intelligent, people who have hobbies, people who have dreams that consist of something other than making partner. rent to people who aren't living here as a pitstop on the way to a luxury condo. rent to people who have heard of the caribbean day parade, of the riots, people who have a rudimentary understanding of the area's history. rent to people that will contribute to the neighborhood in some way, shape or form.
thanks,
young snitch
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Oh, and I see absolutely no connection with this kind of post and Armchair Warrior's posts. Granted, AW's posts are at times bizarre, and most often incomprehensible, but I've never seen him come out with anything even remotely resembling this kind of arrogant hostility.
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escap is right. Young Snitch posts things that are coherent and oftn funny. Armchair Warrior posts like an autistic with ADD. The problem is that on this board certain opinions are unwelcome, no matter how they're expressed.
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I didn't mean to compare AW's benign, friendly, neighborly posts to Snitch's misanthropic ramblings. Just that it seems to me that they both provoke strong, often negative reactions on here - Snitch deservedly, AW not so much.
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escap:
i guess i didn't realize that beneath their phi gamma epsilon football jerseys, those frat dudes aren't so different from you or me. and perhaps i could look beyond the color of the yuppie's chestnut-infused brie baggette to realize that we are all one people clustered beneath this prospect heights sun. what about nazis? can we dislike them? how about baby seal butchers? do we need to welcome them into our community with hugs and wicker baskets full of fresh-baked cookies? political correctness has reached a level that even even satire falls short of.
comparing a dislike for stockbrokers and meatheads to using slurs against racial minorities = classic material. -
Also Devincf, you seem to have read escap's post as an endorsement of Snit, when it is hardly that.
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ANFIELD wrote: You should have Pinochet as your next avatar. Surprised you're not thinking bigger about what oppressive mass murderer you can use as a smartass icon on a neighborhood blog.
^^^ fuming. -
This board is populated almost exclusively by people who do not understand sarcasm.
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yourself included
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I've been zinged!!!
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It'll never happen again.
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young snitch wrote: i guess i didn't realize that beneath their phi gamma epsilon football jerseys, those frat dudes aren't so different from you or me. and perhaps i could look beyond the color of the yuppie's chestnut-infused brie baggette to realize that we are all one people clustered beneath this prospect heights sun. what about nazis? can we dislike them? how about baby seal butchers? do we need to welcome them into our community with hugs and wicker baskets full of fresh-baked cookies? political correctness has reached a level that even even satire falls short of.
Hmmm, and what is comparing Nazis to stockbrokers? Also, like I said, I have nothing against your "dislike for stockbrokers and meatheads". I, too, have not known many stockbrokers or meatheads that I've liked, although I've only known three stockbrokers and none were meatheads or frat boys. In fact, they were all former Brooklyn street kids. And I understand that your post was ironic, but while you are free to dislike people, calling for discrimination against them just b/c of your own taste is completely different. The Nazis slaughtered people; you are a bigot (as were the Nazis); the Ayatollah is a tyrant; I don't know too much about seal butchers. The people you dislike are mostly guilty of being annoying and having bad taste in clothes. And investment bankers make so much money that if they ever do move to PH it will be to buy, and they will most likely be your landlord.
comparing a dislike for stockbrokers and meatheads to using slurs against racial minorities = classic material.
How about an appeal to landlords to steer clear of the closed-minded and hateful (which by coincidence would also eliminate lots of frat boys, in addition to yourself)? Happy medium? -
young snitch, great post. i thoroughly enjoyed your soapbox speech.
but worry not - i'm in ft greene now and ironically, i do work in finance, but on weekends, i like to kick it in the selvedge denim and the nike limiteds. and as i see myself moving to prospect heights in the next year, i may well take myself over there and even out the odds against the 'lame-o's' you say are making it park-slopeish.
you definitely made some points that many others out there are thinking but don't have the cojones to state. on that alone, you get props.
escap, i beg to differ: i think there will be some i-bankers who will soon move to prospect heights and snatch up some of the prime brownstones. -
Subject: Re: an open letter to landlords.
young snitch wrote: rent to... chefs..
eat FUCK -
ltjbukem:
see, you're a nettlesome case: an exception to the rule that lets other financiers slide in on the heels of your limited edition de la dunks. my valuable generalizations are unfairly discounted because people can trot out that one cool corporate dude who defies the mean-spirited yet completely justifiable stereotypes. a pox on your spiz'ike IVs. -
ltjbukem wrote:
Buy, not rent. Any i-banker who rents in PH is at one shitty bank. And I still say that time is a good ways off.
escap, i beg to differ: i think there will be some i-bankers who will soon move to prospect heights and snatch up some of the prime brownstones.
And you, as an non-native buyer of a new luxury condo (built by one of the most reviled developers around, to boot), and someone whose blog is full of cheers for things like new sushi places opening up in the nabe, not to mention a life-long finance guy, are taking curious sides.
I have to admit Snitch's post is funny--credit where credit's due. But it's also extremely annoying on quite a few levels. -
On YS's side here, of course. Let's think of a neighborhood such as the East Village. Was at a bar there the other night and found it to be intolerable because it was a Dave Matthews fest with way too many khakis, collegiate sweatshirts and the aura of date rape in the air. Even as late as 98' it was still pretty punk rock and artsy in the EV. Now, it is just plain sad. Another graveyard neighborhood in the city, blanketed by whiteness that could be found in any other region of this medicre country. It is hard to think of the city as being that exciting anymore in regards to white people in general. Most like conformity and fear individualism, or at least collectivism. It is sad that more and more of those outside forces are creeping into neighborhoods such as this. On the other hand, I spend so much of my working time with immigrants from all over the place. We should be thankful for them and for the rising numbers of which they are arriving to our city. They have hearts that are big and ideas that aren't stagnant. They also can deal with criticism and culture shock that people down the block from me simply can't. I recommend everyone sit down and take a listen to "NYC's Like a Graveyard" by The Moldy Peaches. Simply substitute "Prospect Heights" to turn it into a micro-experience.
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LeeHo wrote: Even as late as 98' it was still pretty punk rock and artsy in the EV. Now, it is just plain sad. Another graveyard neighborhood in the city, blanketed by whiteness that could be found in any other region of this medicre country. It is hard to think of the city as being that exciting anymore in regards to white people in general.
i suppose this is against the rules, but screw you. at least YS's post is about behaviors, not skin color. and funny, too.
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