Jackson Heights Life

Ekbalam your comment is unhelpful and frivolous. The sarcasm leads no where . It offers no problem solving, it is not an attempt to develop pragmatic solutions or build some consensus about how to proceed. It is meant to ridicule those of us who worry about our public spaces being used as open air flop houses. Of course we are talking about two or three instances of homeless men living on the street but what if it grew to ten encampments which is perfectly possible(see the LA examples of how this happens) would you be still be using the same Olympian dismissal of concerns about these problems?

 Sometimes community action works. The man who had set up a makeshift camp on 77th St and 37th Ave. has left. The advice Danny Dromm had given which was to alert city services by calling 311 worked quickly and amazingly well. Apparently this man accepted the offers of help which has addressed at least some of his problems. Jackson Heights is the better for it

What I take from this is that we should report instances of encampments through the 311 mechanisms. This can be an anonymous report or you can give your name. This is a win-win result for Jackson Heights and the men who feel that their only option is to make the streets their home.

I can't speak for others but whatever "vituperative tone" I can summon is for the political class in our community who have not addressed what is a growing threat to civil life in our community. There is a deafening silence when it comes to these quality of life concerns.
Yesterday I took a walk down 37th Ave and the man who on 77th St is still there(joined by another man who has taken up a spot  slightly up 77th). Food cartons are all over, open and spilling its contents. Further down 37th the garbage can on 76th was overflowing with bags that were all over the street.  This was replicated on other corners and on 74th St

As I would not dehumanise the unfortunates who live on the street I would also hope that those of us who see this as a crisis in the maintenance of civil life for the majority of people who live here are not demonised as heartless or self-interested. If there is a way these men can be helped then they should be helped. What I despair of is our feckless politicians who do nothing to retain the character of the community and who turn the other way when parts of Jackson Heights are in the beginning stage of becoming skid row.

 
This is another loss that strips away the character of the neighborhood. This used to be a community of small shops run by shopkeepers who were part of the community. Now we get soulless chains that are interchangeable with any other branch in any other state. I fear that we are on the cusp of a return to the decline of previous years. I hope this is not a small indicator of that.

Just a note about Dr. Jaffe. He was the Principal throughout my years at PS69. A quiet and authoritative presence and I remember
him as kindly. His daughter was Rona Jaffe who wrote romantic novels one that was made into a movie -both called the Best of Everything. For reasons that I can't really account for I remember the names of teachers from PS 69 more clearly than I do my high school teachers. So the list is Mrs. Gerity(not sure if that is the right spelling)in first grade, Mrs. Tuchman in second, Mrs. Brock in third(her husband Harry Brock, an FBI man was killed in the line of duty), Miss Sperry in fourth grade, Dr Plover for fifth grade and in sixth grade the wonderfully eccentric Mr. Isby and that's the best I can do. Was the Assistant Principal someone with an Irish name something like Ms. Lenihan? Then to JHS145 and then finally to Bryant HS. My friends were Doug Ehrhardt, Arthur Nadel, Alf Liljeros. I have not seen Doug since that time, Arthur and Alf have remained my friends for all those long years since then until Arthur's untimely passing about seven years ago. I am still in touch with Alf.

The PS 69 schoolyard was where I played stickball, I drank Mission grape soda at Moe and Archies and I  was a Boy Scout in Troop 217,Cobra patrol It was a good time to be a kid.

She has been there for the last few months. She also camps in the Apple Bank from time to time. There is also a growing circle of men who have camped on the corner of 82nd and 37th in front of the bank. They have sleeping bags and food and drink so it seems that they are planning, if that's the right word, to remain there for a while. They are not masked and they are not socially distant. Are the politicians of this community who seem to be endlessly self-promoting doing anything about this?

 I can't imagine the Lidl's in Astoria being a patch on its European cousins. The UK Lidls which I know well had an interesting and sometimes surprisingly good wine and spirits section-many no-name brands but often winners in blind tastings. Their cheese section was very good, croissants were baked in-store ovens so they were fresh and their sweet smell would waft through the store. They had a full range of Spanish, German, and Italian ham along with Scottish smoked salmon, smoked mackerel,et al. Of course, the prices were consistently discounted so they were much cheaper than US equivalents. Everything else was proprietary brands-they cloned everything Initially, the first Lidls were seen as downmarket no-frills places for shoppers only interested in bargain basement produce but because Lidls managed to provide quality and budget pricing they pretty rapidly became a major and influential player in the supermarket world. Their check-out system btw was as Trader Joe's one long line for a free register No friendly guidance however just a very long line.
I would add that Lidl can be found right across Europe and they are all the same so that going to the Lisbon Lidl feels like your local supermarket back home. I hope this marketing concept will apply to the Astoria store although I am not sure that car-less, as I am even a Lidl, would tempt me to go to the difficult to reach Astoria store more than once.

The helicopter remains hovering. A speeding police/ambulance came up 78th St and turned right on 35th. There is one flashing light vehicle on 35th and 79th and ambulances going back and forth on 35th. I have no idea what it is about but the helicopter remains in place as I write.