Jackson Heights Life

. . . but it seems as though this site's activity is picking up.

It's controversy, Kiddies. It's a controversial thread that takes them from the lurker column into the poster column. Bbbbbbut, I have been told to stop it.

So, you lurkers, no more fun around here. Just the same old, same old stuff you can get elsewhere.

Shucks!

My two cents:  NYCMac = tension. 

Mac, stop trying "to stir the pot".  You just love to fight, don't you.  For those who don't know that about you, you'll make that fact loud and clear yourself.  This is a different board than you're used to -- you'll be arguing with yourself.  Why do you feel a conversation has to have conflict?  And I'm not saying everyone has to agree with everyone else but you're always "reacting" and looking for a reaction from others.  It's a bit drama-rama.  And I'm not going to fight with you here.  Probably no one is.

DAMN! It's such a good way to have fun.

Okeedokeepokee, you win. Since I can never get a ticket, I really shouldn't give a crap.

WIll - good job. You are right on and as a JH resident and business person I totally agree.

Yeah, anytime you want to be taken seriously, remember to spell someone's name wrong.

NYCMacUser - try to relax and put on a positive face. After, we in JH want a happy, peaceful, safe and polite neighborhood. By the way, do you live in JH? Your bio says you are from Astoria.

Is that another way for telling someone to smile? You want a positiver face? Take a look at that letter! It is as positive as a heart attack. You seem to think that I don't want a happy, peaceful, safe and polite neighborhood. But I'm not going to move out of New York in the near future. So, what I am willing to settle for is making sure the lowest person on the totem pole, the local working man and woman, is not paying the price for the some organizers who make the loudest noises and think that they can speak for everyone when they are in fact representing a very small minority of like-minded individuals who no-one would support if they were on a ballot. Contact the Mayor's Office and find out the real reason Jackson Heights has been targeted for this phase of the ticketing blitz. It has to do with the potential income that will be excreted from local residents. The 115 is already so overburdened and is having very little to do with it.

Really?  Do you have stats to back this up?  I always thought younger people moved to Astoria because it was so close to the city- you know, an easy commute to their finance and banking jobs in Manhattan. 

I almost fell of my chair. Finance and banking? For the college graduates, try Social Work and Teaching. For the High School graduates, try bar tending, bus driving and home (health) care worker. The vast majority of Astoria's 1 bedroom apartments are now shared by 2 roommates who build walls or hang curtains to afford a separation. The 2 bedroom apartments are 90% occupied by roommates, whereas less than 10 years ago were 90% rented by families. Oh sure, we have a share of the City's population of trust-fund Hipsters. You can always spot them, though. They are dressed shabbily-chic, have their ears plugged with Bose earbuds attached to their iPod Nanos and/or have their BlueTooth receiver covered ear wirelessly receiving transmission from their iPhones carrying on their text messaging as though there were no world around them, and they carry their Badgley Mischka or Prada Messenger Bags on their shoulder as they enter the local take-out sushi joint to complain about the last time they were there and how they expect better food and service.

You mean poor bastards like FedEx and UPS?

Yeah, I guess I mean even FedEx and UPS. Would NYC be NYC without their services? What would a City, the size of NYC, do without FedEx and UPS? Have you EVER seen a USPS truck get a ticket? They double park in exactly the same manner as does the private delivery options, but they don't get tickets.

Just think about this for a second: If FedEx and UPS didn't get ticketed in NYC, they could probably reduce OUR costs to use THEIR services by the 20% of their profit margins that are now dedicated to paying those fines. That would roll back their prices to us to around the mid-1980s when the now $12.95 overnight letter costs only $10.50.

The focus of the ticket blitz  is not on how people do or do not make a living.  It's penalizing people who simply do the wrong thing. People who cause the potential for a hazardous condition.

Now you are making my point for me. The ticket blitzes of this City are indiscriminate in who gets ultimately penalized. Truck delivery people should not be the target of these freaking blitzes. Privately owned passenger cars are the real problem. And I will never understand the concept of fining people for the potential of their actions rather than for their actual dangerous actions.

There are a myriad of reasons why small mom and pop stores go out of business.  The advent of Costco, Home Depot,  Target, Bed Bath and Beyond have  affected such closures more so than parking.

In the example I gave, this small business had already survived the large box stores and found that their personal service was more important to their customer base.

I agree, there needs to be some sort of regulation which allows businesses to have deliveries in a way which is not intrusive to the community at large.

Or what? Go the way of Main Street in Flushing or Steinway Street in Astoria? If a retail business has no merchandise to sell they cease being a retail business and become yet another empty retail location.

Driving is a privilege.

Really? For whom? The able bodied? Those who live in major metropolitan areas filled with shops of all descriptions that can satisfy all of the needs of it's people? If I were to consider it a privilege, it would be one dedicated for the rich, sorta like polo, or it wouldn't be so expensive to participate in the sport. Right now, driving, implying ownership of a car, is so cost prohibitive that it is purely for the wealthier residents of our communities or for those whose cars are their only alternative ways of getting around.

Let me share a little incident with y'all.

One day, last week, while parking my car in front of my house after a doctor's appointment, I was approached by an on foot uniformed representative of the DOT ticket patrol! (Even I am pleased with myself that I didn't say the asshole who walks my block while talking on his cellphone, drinking his Starbucks (iced) coffee with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, while scanning registration stickers and printing out tickets at the exact minute that start the Street Cleaning Alternate Parking rules!) And mind you, I am in a 4-day-a-week zone, even though we rarely get to see a street cleaner more than once every 2 weeks, if that. Anyway, he growls at me and tells me to move my car. I remove my official NYC Handicapped Parking Permit from my dashboard and I show it to him. He tsks and walks on. Right across from where I live is an NYFD ambulance depot and all those EMTs park on the sidewalk all day and night. Not a single one of their cars has ever been ticketed. Yet as the 3rd shift bus driver and the 3rd shift ER nurse are running out of my building to discover that have been ticketed at 11:30:15 AM and 11:30:56 AM, respectively. Sure, they deserved the tickets; they were (albeit by mere seconds) parked illegally, but exactly what do the residents of my block have to do to stop this sidewalk parking that is being ignored, and thereby condoned for years.

Free the trucks to make their deliveries, and get the damned cars off the sidewalks!

I'd like to tell you folks about a local Astoria Mom and Pop shop.

Really nice family owned small corner business who had been around since the mid-1980s. They opened up very early every morning to meet the needs of their local customers. They stayed open especially late at night to meet the needs of their local customers. When more than one customer asked for a certain product, they'd contact their jobber to find out if they could carry it. They were not only accommodating but extraordinarily so. If you didn't have enough money, they would always tell you you could owe it to them the next time you came in, because they knew their regulars by first names and cared about their customers. Then started the Astoria ticket blitz of the winter of 2007. Their Coke franchisee's truck would get 1 or sometimes 2 tickets each time they delivered.

Then, this past April they got a certified letter informing them that they were no longer going to be getting any Coke products delivered because the cost of delivery, including the cost of the double parking tickets, outweighed any profit from their account.

They tried to make a go of it without Coke, Diet Coke, or any of the other Coke brands like A&W, Fresca, Dr. Pepper or Disani.

But, last weekend, they were forced to throw up the white flag and they shuttered their doors forever.

So you can go on applauding the enforcement of those getting tickets without any regard to the ultimate effect of those actions upon our neighborhoods. When all the Mom and Pop stores have been forced out of business because they can no longer get their deliveries, and we will all be stuck with the crap available at the supermarkets or chain stores who willingly reimburse those parking tickets out of their profits which they make on our purchases.

I am personally so sick and tired of all the thoughtless bitching and whining about crap without any regard to the reality of the end product.

Hey, I do all that shit.     Maybe you should move into my building.  :-)     Thanks for making me feel pretty una-freaking-preciated.   :tickedoff:

Handyman-B, please don't feel that way. You and I both know that these Jackson Heights folks have a much higher per capita income than Astorians. Just compare the difference in the numbers of coops and condos between our 2 communities. The last stats I read showed that the largest number of Astoria rentals were to the roommate generation.

I live in a 140 unit rental building in Astoria with a Building Manager, an on-site Building Super and three on-site Porters. NONE OF WHICH HAVE ANY COMMAND OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. When there is a building-related problem the wait time can be as much as 4 weeks to get your point across . . . unless the rushing of boiling hot water running out from under your front door can help get the point across for you faster! I tip based on the promptness of the repair. NEVER on how long the repair takes. Hell, if my floors get ruined, they are going to have to replace them for nothing, if they hadn't waited as long as they did. And in the case of my kitchen floor that got ruined when a hot water pipe broke, I simply deducted the cost of the floor replacement over the next 2 months rent. I had to report my non-stop flushing toilet to the DEP to get that repair expedited, and I did NOT tip for that repair.

None of us have a money tree in their backyard, and I especially resent the hand out, waiting for the tip, trying to make conversation with me, when I have had to make 12 phone calls, put 4 notes under doors and spoken directly to building personnel on-site, and still had to wait 2–4 weeks just to get a leaky faucet fixed.

If I need something done that is not building-related, I call Handyman-B. At least I know it will GET done, get done correctly, and I don't mind being given a rate to pay when I call on him. The fee is always fair and reasonable, and the problem is rectified correctly.

What are y'all planning for July 4th?