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Messages - diablevert

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Neighborhood Chat / Re: crime, revisited
« on: June 01, 2009, 11:23:57 PM »
I can't comment from personal experience, thank god, except to say that if coming home late at night the only place I usually get a sketchy vibe is Roosevelt, and even there there's usually a lot of people around, and I frequently see cops on foot patrol. But I do tend to avoid that area at night, and will sometimes wait for a bus at 74th st instead of walking, though that can take quite a while after midnight.

You might want to check out this website:

http://nyc.everyblock.com/crime/

Everyblock is a micro news site which brings together all sorts of publically available data and puts it all in one place and sticks it on a map --- restaurant reviews, pictures from Flickr, health inspector's reports, crime reports, news, all kinds of stuff. The link above is to thier crime page, it lets you compare neighborhoods and see where crimes happen on a map. Also, you can see from them that the 115 and the 110  each have about half of Jackson Heights. Hope that's useful.

I'm not affiliated with the site or anything, I just heard about it and thought it was a neat idea, even though they're just starting with it and there's lots more to add. The health inspector's reports are kind of a bummer, though --- sometimes you see, like 20 violations and then you click though and they're all for leaving spoons out on the counter or whatnot. And then sometime it's for visible rat droppings. Makes you think. About not eating.

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Pets and Animals / Re: Horse poop?
« on: April 06, 2009, 09:41:16 PM »
Quote
Why am I the only person upset about this?

I don't know, and yet this clearly seems to be the case. It's a funny old world.

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Neighborhood Chat / Re: Anyone have any interesting sites/blogs to share?
« on: April 02, 2009, 01:00:40 AM »



Everyblock, a micro news site. Brings together data from lots of city sources --- restaurant violations from dept of health, crime reports, sanitation --- along with news and blog posts, organized by zip codes and/or neighborhood.

Here's a link to the latest for 11372:

http://nyc.everyblock.com/locations/zipcodes/11372/

Also, if y'all like photo blogs, check out The Big Picture --- http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/ A collection of 30 or so of the best photos on a subject in the news every other day. Good series recently on Afghanistan, the drug war in Mexico, Holi, and the beginning of spring around the world...


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Neighborhood Chat / Re: New evidence on the broken windows theory
« on: February 26, 2009, 01:47:30 PM »

But an increased police presence is a core part of "broken windows" theory --- you can read the original article that gave rise to all the brouhaha right here --- http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198203/broken-windows -- it's free, and not at all academic.  The recent article by the globe suggests that cleaning up the physical environment had the _most_ impact on crime/calls to the cops, but said that increasing misdemenor arrests also had a measurable, positive impact, and the quotes provided in the article said that increasing police presence at "hot spots" and making quality of life busts on things like public drinking was a big part of their strategy. So if we're talking about what the Lowell experience might suggest would be useful here in Jackson Heights, the Globe article doesn't seem to me to obviate the suggestion that increasing police presence could have a positive impact on crime. Or even if not directly on crime, at the very least on making people feel safer --- which kind of takes you all the way back to the original article in the Atlantic. The very first point they make in that article is that fixing this kind of minor stuff isn't necessarily going to have a direct and immediate impact on crime rates. But it can have a direct and immediate impact on how safe people feel walking around, and that is in some ways more important....

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Neighborhood Chat / Re: New evidence on the broken windows theory
« on: February 25, 2009, 01:03:00 PM »

It doesn't seem like an either/or issue --- either beautification or more cops. The same article says:

"Sometimes, we create mini-task forces to saturate an area at a particular time of day when we see disorder," Lowell police Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee said. "We target those activities that could be a quality of life issue, like drinking, motor vehicle enforcement."

He's basically saying that putting a bunch of cops out at particular places and times where there's likely to be rowdy behavior can help cut down on that  behavior as well as help create the impression that anti-social behaviors aren't tolerated. Broken windows theory is basically saying that the environment sends a signal to people about what they can get away with --- so is somebody thinking to themselves, hey, there's some spilled garbage on the street here, seems like this would be a good store to rip off? No. But when you see trash and graffitti and yes, broken windows, you unconsciously pick up that vibe --- this is a rough neighborhood. Stuff gets fucked with here and nobody cares.

The storefront idea is interesting --- and I'm sure cleaning up the streets and stuff would help, although I think the 7 creates inherent problems there (eg, the layer of pigeon shit across from the 74th st station). But making JH sparkle still wouldn't turn it into 5th Avenue. It's never going to have the vibe of a place so wealthy that even though you can't _see_ any cops you assume they'd be on you like white on rice if you so much as busted a mailbox. So I think there needs to be a visible police presence also.

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Restaurants & Food / Re: Cannelle Patisserie
« on: February 03, 2009, 10:56:09 AM »
Could have been king cake? I know there's a Mardi Gras tradition with that....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_cake

There's also something called Royal icing, which is that smooth white icing that's pretty stiff, that you get on wedding cakes and the like....

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Neighborhood Chat / Re: Noisy Neighbor - Suggestions/advice Needed.
« on: January 21, 2009, 09:29:52 AM »
You could try leaving another note listing the shows she was watching last night. You know, a little friendly chatter about how ridiculous that case was on CSI, could you believe where they found that bloodstain, and would she consider switching to House on Tuesdays at 9 because you prefer that to the Biggest Loser and basically, you have to watch it with her anyway?  ::) A little polite humor might make your point for you.

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Restaurants & Food / Re: Favorite recipe websites
« on: January 16, 2009, 09:04:14 AM »
 I like the food blog Smitten Kitchen quite a bit.

 http://smittenkitchen.com/

She always has tons of excellent pictures --- enough to make you hungry, for sure --- and she explains each step of the recipes she tries and any problems that she had that you might want to watch out for or changes that she made that you might like. Sometimes she tries tricky stuff, which is nice if you want a challenge, but most of the things she makes are simple and hearty, and she bakes a lot and is very good on desert ideas.

I just tried the gingerbread she did for a dinner, and everyone liked it. (http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/12/gramercy-taverns-gingerbread/)

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Pets and Animals / Re: Horse poop?
« on: December 12, 2008, 04:56:33 PM »
"horses are really expensive animals to take care of."

According to this, they're cheaper than cars. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/18/nyregion/18horses.html?_r=1&fta=y

The cops think theyre good for crowd control and traffic in congested areas, and kids like them.

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Pets and Animals / Re: Horse poop?
« on: December 05, 2008, 09:10:07 AM »

According to the city health code, technically, no, they aren't supposed to poop on the sidewalk. But they can poop on the street, as can your dog. You could, in theory, attempt to find an official of the Departments of Health, Sanitation, or Parks and Recreation to issue a ticket to the officer if you should find them letting their horses create a nuisance on the sidewalk again. I would not care to speculate on the results of such a maneuver.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/public/161-03-notice.pdf

§161.03 Control of dogs and other animals to prevent nuisance.
(a) A person who owns, possesses or controls a dog, cat or other animal shall not permit the animal
to commit a nuisance on a sidewalk of any public place, on a floor, wall, stairway or roof of any
public or private premises used in common by the public, or on a fence, wall or stairway of a
building abutting on a public place.
(b) Notices of violation for failure to comply with this section may be issued by any authorized
employee, officer or agent of the Department, or of the Departments of Sanitation and Parks and
Recreation, or successor agencies.

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