Tutto Il Resto

This is another plant at work.  Here we see Gertrudis.

A friend sent me the following story:

A fairy tale that should have been read to children many, many years ago...
Once upon a time
In a land far away,
~~~~~~~~
A beautiful, independent, self-assured princess
Happened upon a frog as she sat
Contemplating ecological issues
On the shores of an unpolluted pond
In a verdant meadow near her castle.
~~~~~~~~
The frog hopped into the princess' lap
And said: ' Elegant Lady,
I was once a handsome prince,
Until an evil witch cast a spell upon me.
One kiss from you, however,
And I will turn back
Into the dapper, young prince that I am
And then, my sweet, we can marry
And set up housekeeping in your castle
With my mother,
Where you can prepare my meals,
Clean my clothes, bear my children,
And forever feel
Grateful and happy doing so. '
~~~~~~~~
That night,
As the princess dined sumptuously
On lightly sautéed frog legs
Seasoned in a white wine
And onion cream sauce,
She chuckled and thought to herself:
I don't fuckin' think so.

I live in Parkchester now, and have lived there for 19 years. Although Parkchester used to be safer and quieter (WWII vets and their families lived there, their kids grew up there), many things have changed. 

The population that lives there has changed: now more working families and young professionals live there. 

Commercially the area used to be dominated by a few businesses, notably Macy's (the *second Macy's ever opened) and Woolworth's, the American movie theater and shoe stores, have now greatly increased in number and variety: AT&T wireless store, Macy's (still there), NY&Co, Zales, Starbucks, Sleepy's, Radio Shack, Game Stop, Foot Locker, etc.  This brings more people (shoppers) to the area; there are several stores catering to children's clothes: it is profitable to sell children's clothes in Parkchester, which tells you that a lot of families live and shop there. 

Unfortunately, there are some families with poor education, so you will see a lot of trash thrown in the streets, gum on the sidewalks and in general kids hanging out at all hours (where are their parents and what are they doing).  Parkchester still has its own public safety officers (now North Condo and South Condo use the same Public Safety office), and you can always count on NYPD who often patrol the area. 

It can be a good place to live; use precaution like in other areas of the city (get to know your neighbors, be cautious where you go, don't open the door to strangers, etc).

oh.also There's very little parking available in Parkchester; you have to compete with too many drivers and people have been known to get shot at for a parking spot.

Jabber IM with MK 7/17/08 9: 31 AM
MK: Were you affected at all by the fire in Parkchester this morning?
killstead: mmm... no
killstead: so that's what i smelled last night
killstead: when i went to bed i smelled smoke, so I checked the entire house
killstead: i looked out the windows, but didn't see anything, so i went to bed
killstead: didn't hear of the fire until u
MK: Oh it was the headline story on NY1 this morning
MK: http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=83853
9: 37 AM
killstead: it was *not around 2 in the morning
killstead: i went to bed around 1:30
MK: On TV it looked like it carried through to the morning
killstead: but i did not see any smoke or fire looking out the windows
killstead: damn.. now i'm sorry i didn't call
killstead: i thought about it
MK: Or maybe that was just cause some woman went back to bed during the fires and walked out of the building when all the news stations were there
Its hard to tell
MK: when you can't see anything someone else is probably closer and has a better idea of it they should call
killstead: that was a six-story bldg; i'm on a 13-story bldg
MK: You must have been pretty far from it
killstead: well if you smell the smoke you're close enough
MK: True
killstead: but if you're close enough to *see the fire, you DEFINITELY smell it
killstead: "fire was reported at 1:20am" Parkchester Fire Leaves Dozens Homeless
killstead: wcbs
killstead: oh, that's not Parkchester condo
killstead: it's Parkchester neighborhood, but not the condo.. there are no fire escapes in Parkchester
MK: Do you have a back stairway for fires?
different fire code..
killstead: two internal staircases
MK: That's better for tall buildings
killstead: these are buildings from the '40s, are subject to different fire code..
MK: They have that in the Silver Towers
MK: I figured cause they were so tall
killstead: Stuyvesant town / peter cooper village was developed by same developer and at the same time as parkchester (and with same purpose, house some of the WWII veterans & their families)
killstead: the building material can "contain" fires more..

From a NYTimes on the Web article:

“I’m not going to lie: I used to smoke crack in there,” said one homeless woman, Veronyka Cordner, nodding toward the toilet behind Pike Place Market. “But I won’t even go inside that thing now. It’s disgusting.”

The article is about how Seattle is shutting down its free public toilet because drug abusers and prostitutes overran them and ran them down so much that it disabled the self-cleaning mechanism.  Worth reading for a good chuckle.

Read the original article.