Apartments for Rent

Just like Brooklyn—the bad part

The garbage grows.

In the corners of out lot, the garbage grows. The bagel is gone. The refuse multiplies. The filth of a million broken dreams collects in corners and makes a nest for rats. Behind the little shack where parking fees were paid not long ago, is a place to pee. Some hipsters stole two signs that were screwed to the western wall. Now yellowed plywood takes their place.

Our lot. In life?

Stay Late, Party Down

39(8/9) after hours

Late summer: 39th (8/9)

It's like Keats was writing just for us! Especially the part about the "clammy cells"...

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

It rained.

The rain,
the constant steady rain came down with the insistence of a high-school Vice Principal.
It hadn't rained, really rained, for weeks, and now this rain, which assaulted the asphalt with the fury of a middleweight's combination, threatened to wash the stink off the block.

No, that's wrong.
Nothing could wash off the accumulated grime, the gum spots as numerous as the stars in heaven, the filth--both human and animal, of the street. The surface might be scoured. But the filth, the grime, the tears, blood and sweat of a thousand broken dreams were permanent as the puke dried to a marble-hardness in the corner of the abandoned parking lot that dominated the landscape.

Back to our roots...

This blog wasn't always about snapping a photo on the infamous block and penning a cheeky caption.

This blog used to be a place where people came up with ideas.
Where people gathered to better mankind and maybe even learn something.

We need to get back to our roots. Upton Sinclair, August Strindberg, and J. D. Salinger.
Al Sharpton, Cesar Chavez, and Clarence Darrow.
Dick Van Dycke, Jay-Z, and Joan Allen.

Let's take that figurative piece of paper and violently crush it into a ball, toss it in the dustbin, and start over.

A Swede grows on 39(8/9)

Chicken Condo Blu still on the market

In another sign of the worsening economic crisis, Aleef has lowered its asking price for Chicken Condo Blu. Chicken Club also available.

Someone famous coming to 39(8/9).

March of the refrigerators

It's that time of year again

Give us this day...

Our Daley Wanzer.

Bite me

Bagels loiter unscathed while buildings get bites taken out of them. What a block.

Bagel Watch 2010. Day 12.

Reminds me of the old ditty:
As I turned to talk to Conrad Nagle,
He scraped the cream cheese off my bagel.

Bagel Watch 2010. Day 9.

Broken but not defeated.

Striking a leggy pose on 39(8/9).

Bagel Watch 2010. Day 8.

It lives.

Mystery reader: Stand up and identify yourself.

Is it Frank Sinatra? Jimmy Hoffa? Judge Crater?

Or is something nefarious going on?

The NSA? The CIA? Dick Cheney?

Or something extraterrestrial?

Is our precious slice of asphalt and used bubble gum
being watched by aliens?

Working al Fresco.

What could be better than catching some rays on 39(8/9) while you work?

Bagel Watch 2010. Day 6.

Broken into a dozen pieces or more, but still there.

Splat.

From the Archives: 1968

Like many 39 (8/9)ers, I am endlessly intrigued by our Block of Broken Dreams. I recently spent an afternoon poring through the archives at the New York Public Library. I was able to secure a number of classic photographs of the welcoming bosom of ol' 39. Thank you Arthur Lindstrom of the NYPL for all your help! I am currently embarking on the costly and time-consuming process of transferring the photographs from their classic metallic plates to digital and will share them as they become available. Here's the first...

Parking lot. October 6, 1968. (Look closely! The bagel was there!)

Bagel Watch 2010. Day 5.

Last Thursday eagle-eyed observers of "the Lot of Dreams" noticed a beaten but uneaten pumpernickel bagel amid the garbage and pigeons.

It was there on Friday.

Would it last the weekend?

Or would it be "rat-ified" or be breakfast for a hobo?

I'm pleased to report, it's still there.

All the news that's fit to schmear. That's 39(8/9).