Apartment Rent and Building Management in the City

I was recently presented with the opportunity to renew my lease with the company that manages the apartment complex.

I grew up in a really small town; most people live in houses and worry about mortgage payments, not rent payments. At least, that's what it was like when I was growing up. After gas well people came to town the number of rentals...some apartments, some homes, and some homes converted into apartments...swelled. But that's another story.

Having grown up in a small town where the familiar experience dealt with home ownership, the logistics of living in a big city is still baffling, and definitely not what you are shown on television. Another important factor is that I moved to the city and have a job that pays above-average, both of which count against you when trying to find affordable rental space.

Pretty much standard is the idea that you'll be treated in a way that lends evidence to the idea that the management company hates their tenants. And in the city, you're almost always dealing with a management company. There doesn't seem to be many individuals or co-ops that own buildings in the city; it's almost always a large company that has little reason to listen to the individual needs of tenants in a city where housing is scarce and rent is always on the rise (my rent was raised by over $200/month, but it shouldn't change for the next two years, which for this area isn't too horrible. This is still absolutely crazy for someone back home to consider when rent here started at $1600/month.)

Many would think that for rent like that, you'd get some nice amenities. There's a laundry room where sometimes most of the washing machines and dryers are all working, and there's even some machines free if I get there at the right time. It is nice that there are three elevators; I've actually had very little problem with them so far, despite looking like they're from the 70's and leaving me to wonder if they're going to fail at an inopportune moment when they rattle.

The building has a "front desk" guy and doors that are badged with a keyfob in order to pass, but to be honest I'm not sure why. The guard doesn't stop anyone. I routinely come home to find various business cards, menus and door hangers stuck to my apartment entrance. Once someone started getting into my apartment; my wife and I were sitting in the living area watching a movie when there came a knock at the door followed by the sound of a key in the lock. The two people in the hall were held out only by the chain on the door; they muttered something upon seeing us, shut the door, and disappeared before I could get to the door and look for them in the hallway. I reported it to the front desk. A "special patrol" NYPD officer came up and wrote a brief statement on the back of scrap paper (literal scrap paper; it looked to have been torn from something on the desk.)

To my knowledge, they never did check the elevator camera footage to try finding them.

The front desk doesn't provide much in the way of security; nor do they assist with packages. If it doesn't fit in the mailbox, you might as well arrange to deliver a package to a local storage area or post office box, unless you can be certain someone will be available in the apartment to get the delivery.

The only thing I've seen the front desk people do is patrol the front parking area to make notes of who's parked too long so they can be booted and have fines collected.

But the way the company does business that more cynical people would think that the management company is purposely doing things inefficiently. The office that handles renewals is down the street from me. It is about five minutes' walk from my building, just past a post office.

The renewal forms came with an envelope for mailing it back to them (the office address is the destination and sender on the envelope) but I was still required to put on postage. It at least had a helpful box for the stamps with a note saying "Extra postage required." It didn't tell me how many stamps it would need, but it did imply more than one.

The renewal meant not just filling in forms but also including a check for the difference to go towards my security deposit. I'm not entirely comfortable sending these things through mail to the office...I mean, it's five minutes away. Why not just deliver it?

Unfortunately the weekday hours are 10AM to 6PM most days. I leave by 6 in the morning and usually get back around 7 or 8 at night. But their listed hours did say that they were open on Saturday from 10 to 5!

So I emailed the building superintendent and assistant super asking if I can deliver the renewal papers that weekend. I waited a day, and when I didn't hear anything, I tried another address in my contact list, and she confirmed I could deliver them. Great!

I got to the office on Saturday and the front desk buzzed me in. I asked about going up to the renewal office, and the person at the front desk said that office was closed.

"The leasing office is open, but the office that renews leases is closed?"

"Yes."

"And I can't leave this here for delivery?"

"No..."

Now I was just getting over the fact that this is 2016 and I have to write a paper check for renewing my lease, but I was having a lot more trouble figuring out why their leasing office was separate from their lease renewal office, and why their office hours are squarely placed in the time period when people trying to afford rent would most likely be at work trying to get a paycheck to afford the rent, and they expected residents to mail the letter out to traverse...at a small but inconvenient price...the mail delivery system so it would be delivered five minutes away from the apartment being renewed.

Why?

Perhaps they really don't care. Or maybe they don't like their tenants. Or they are just used to doing things this way and change is annoying. There are a number of possibilities, the number of which I can come up with changes depending on my mood and how annoyed I am.

Of course, I still put up with it.

The space is nice compared to a lot of other apartments. My first apartment was close to the size of a hotel room, and I had to walk eight flights of stairs to get to it. This apartment has an elevator to get me to the right floor.

And I am near suburbia. It's not as low-population as back home, but it's familiar...malls within 10 minutes walk from me. A grocery store at an even more convenient reach. There's a Costco not far from me. And a parking garage that isn't exactly cheap, but still less than the average Manhattan parking garage.

My previous apartment also had a building super that didn't live in the building; I think he lived in New Jersey, if he didn't work a second job there, because when I did get ahold of him for a repair request he would have to schedule it at a time he could come in when traffic wasn't horrible on the connecting bridges or tunnels. The staff here are relatively good about accommodating schedules and doing decent work.

And best of all I'm not horribly far from a subway line that leads pretty close to work. Maybe a ten or fifteen minute hike.

The neighborhood is relatively nice. I'm close to the densely populated island of Manhattan while being far enough away to have a slightly more affordable rent in an area not surrounded by skyscrapers.

In the end, living the apartment life in the city is a series of compromises. You pay way too much money to co-habitate with bugs and hopefully you will have a management company that might reply to you when you contact them about a leaky faucet or malfunctioning heater, and in return you get to live in one of the most cultured, active and diverse places in the country. Love it or hate it, my new lease says I'll be (barring unforeseen events) experiencing it for the next two years!

Adventures in Apartment Mismanagement

I like to look at examples of events and practices that piss me off and question, "How could this be improved? Is there a good reason the system sucks?"

I'm running into that today with my apartment management company.

On a Saturday afternoon not long ago my family and I were sitting in the apartment trying not to melt during yet another hot, sticky NYC day. All of a sudden the doorbell rang. 

The ring was followed shortly by another ring. My wife and I looked at each other, perplexed; we didn't order anything. We weren't expecting anyone from the maintenance department. The way the building was managed, I didn't even try to get deliveries. Who the hell could it be?

Before I could get up, the fucking door unlocked.

Yeah. We keep the door locked and chained when in the apartment. And whoever was at the door unlocked it. The door started to open, only to have the chain go taut.

A 20-something year old guy and his companion peered in, mumbled something about, "Oh, someone's home," and closed the door. 

I grabbed a shirt...like I said, it was hot...and opened the door. The hallway was empty.

I went down to the front desk where "security" is stationed. I explained what happened, and he made a phone call. He said that maintenance didn't have anyone there. He didn't know why anyone would be on our floor. "They shouldn't do that...that's like an invasion of privacy or something."  Yeah, thanks Security. I'm feeling more secure knowing how sure you are of the rights of your tenants not to have intruders barge in. "The super has a master key, and some keys that are good in certain apartments. But access to those are controlled." Well, that's good, I guess. If this was an employee they should know who has access.

He asked if I wanted to file a report. 

"Well...yes." I just had someone with a copy of my key open the door to my apartment. If I wasn't there, would he have stolen my laptop? Would he have used the toilet? Maybe kick back and watch my non-cable-connected TV?

Security said he'd sent the cop up to my apartment, since I said I would head back up there and my wife could help with the description of what happened. After a few minutes the doorbell rang and a uniformed cop...think he has a "special patrol" badge sewn on his uniform?...is standing there. He takes down the description of what happened on a piece of what seemed to be scratch paper plucked from the corner of a desk he passed on his way up. 

We're short on details. Male. No uniform, so he's not maintenance...t-shirt and shorts, my wife said. Early to mid twenties. Maybe 5'9" or so. I wanted to say Asian, but wasn't entirely sure...it happened pretty fast and I'd rather say nothing than give the incorrect details. Second guy standing behind him in the hall. 

The cop says that sometimes lock keys work in multiple apartments. "Someone could have gone into the wrong apartment," he says. "Got on the wrong floor, or something. It happens." I wanted to remind him of the detail regarding the doorbell. I don't know too many people that are like, "Home at last! I'd better ring the doorbell a few times before going in. In case, I don't know, my wife is banging the neighbor. They'd appreciate the heads up that I'm home."

"You should get a top lock," the cop continued. He's referring to getting a deadbolt that the resident installs, instead of just the door lock the super has access to.

We thank him and he leaves. I'm wondering if they're going to follow up using the security footage from the elevators. 

At this point I'm uncomfortable leaving the apartment, since that means the chain would be undone and Heckle and Jeckle might come back. I give my wife some cash and ask her to run to a store to find a lock we could install; she's had experience with lock installation and the door has a pre-drilled cylinder hole in it from another resident in a bygone era. Surely we can figure this out.

She gets the lock, and after an hour of trying...it won't work. The holes already in the door from a previous resident are too large for the screws in the lock kit, and the bolt doesn't readily fit into the frame in a way that allows the door to shut.

I go online and file a maintenance ticket marked "emergency" priority explaining what happened and asking for assistance in getting the lock mounted. I mention that at this point, my son is disturbed at the idea of sleeping in the apartment without periodically checking that the door is chained so "bad men" won't come in during the night.

"Dad, is it okay to stab people that come into the apartment if we don't know them?"

He's such a kidder. But I tell him that yes, he can stab people that break into the apartment.

On Sunday I get a call from the super saying he got an email about the incident. I'm not entirely sure, but I think the super for my apartment building is also the head of maintenance for our building, so...did he hear about this from security? The management office? My maintenance ticket? I'm not sure. We had convinced ourselves that this incident was weird enough that we could go out for awhile, since this was our last weekend together in the city and we'd been promising Lil' Dude we'd take him to Coney Island for a walk on the beach and a trip to Nathan's famous hot dog stand. Plus talking on the phone is not my favorite activity in the world, so making out everything he was saying was taking extra effort. 

What I did get out of the call was that he didn't know who it was, he didn't know of any reason for it to happen, and once again, we should get a top lock. He also promised to send a recommended locksmith contact information to me via email.

Monday morning came and my wife sent a message that the maintenance guy came, only to be told they won't install locks or have anything to do with locks. Considering that we needed this to get done on Tuesday at the latest since I was leaving town...yay, school starting plus doctor appointment/lecture time...this was not news I wanted to hear. We bought the lock. We just didn't have a way to get the damn screws to fit into a door that was already fucked up from a previous tenant.

Well...fuck it.

My wife found a recommended locksmith, available 24 hours, with high ratings on Yelp...we never got a recommended locksmith from the super. My wife insisted I had to contact them ("Your name is on the lease!") and they made an appointment for early afternoon.

True to their word, they arrived, and $160 later, we had a new top-lock. Their lock, plus they drilled into the frame area to get it all fitted properly. My wife was impressed. I was relieved to get this crap out of the way before having to leave.

I can understand why the building would have a policy against installing locks since that can imply some kind of liability if someone still broke in after the fact. At the same time, I haven't seen too much action taken in regards to actually trying to figure out who the fuck opened my door. 

It was most likely not another apartment-dweller who happened to have a key that accidentally fit my apartment lock. As I said...they rang the doorbell and were surprised we were home.

It wasn't building maintenance...they were out of uniform.

They had a key that may likely have been an access key...the super is supposed to have it, or the main office. Someone that has access for building work or in the event of a lockout. Supposedly these keys are locked up, and possession is tracked.

So far all I've heard is a lot of head scratching, like "That's not supposed to happen..." Well, no shit.

I haven't even heard if someone checked the security cameras on the floor. They knew approximately when it happened. I was told no one else reported a disturbance. More to the point, my neighbor has papers sticking out of their door...they're obviously not home since the papers have been there awhile. So...why my place? And why aren't the security cameras being checked for two guys, in that approximate time frame, riding the elevators after I said they had disappeared from the hallways? Are the cameras nonfunctional (I should hope not...little corner dome cams suddenly appeared in the elevators recently...) or are they only consulted if someone is assaulted in the elevator?

The entire feeling I get is one of lackadaisical malaise from people involved. Like, "Well, these things happen. You should get a better lock."

We have "security" at the entrance of the building and the only thing they seem to guard against is me getting a Dominoes delivery (or any other package delivery, for that matter, if it doesn't fit in my mailbox...) Any stranger can walk in if they wait long enough for someone to walk through.

We have cameras, but I still have no indication they're going to check it.

There are supposed to be secured keys with limited access to each of the apartments. But I've heard nothing of them being audited. Does someone have the key that shouldn't? And what about the whole "Tenant keys sometimes fit other doors" thing. That's a bit of a worrying thing, don't you think?

I feel like my car broke down, smoke pouring from the engine, fluids spurting out like a fountain, and the mechanic...the people who should know what they're doing...is standing there, scratching his chin and ruminating, "Well, that ain't supposed to happen..."

No shit. Such is life in the city, apparently. And another reason to think landlords just hate their tenants.

"What's It Like To Live In New York City?"

I needed to kill some time before meeting up with my son and parents in his classroom for a class pizza party. I decided to pass this time by hanging around my wife's classroom and siphon Internet connectivity while she taught some high schoolers that light is faster than sound (apparently there are high schoolers that do not know this, which is, in my opinion, utterly pathetic and a subject for a separate rant.)

One of my wife's students asked what it was like to live in the city. On the surface that seems like a simple question, probably because it was likely meant as a shallow kind of question people ask in passing, like asking about the weather or inquiring how you are doing. But when I thought about it, the question is deceptively complex.

The town I grew up in is rural. Very rural. Not necessarily outhouse-for-a-bathroom or travel fifteen minutes just to find another inhabited house level rural (although my great-grandmother did have an outhouse and lived in this general area...), but it was rural enough that we tend to have more cows than people and about as many bars as churches. The county I grew up in was nearly 1,200 square miles and had a population density of approximately 55 people per square mile, which sounded impressive to me until I found that New York City alone is 470 square miles and has a population density a little under 28,000 people per square mile. The people are stacked into skyscrapers like food on the plate of our local Chinese Buffet customer.

People are bad with numbers. But the fact that the entire county can't hold a candle to the population density of the city should tell you the magnitude of difference between the home town where she was accustomed to living versus the city in which I spend most of my time now. If not, I suppose the fact that New York City has people running small stores dedicated just to selling "I <heart> NY" kitsch, and managing to stay in business despite the soul-crushing amount charged for rent, while my home town can barely sustain a business that isn't tied to a national chain might be more relatable as a measure.

"Have you ever been to the city?" I ask.

"Once. On a field trip."

"Oh, a field trip. I'm guessing you went to Times Square?"

That was exactly where she went. She alluded to how expensive it was, and how the kids had to pay for everything. "Even taking pictures of people in costumes!" she said.

Oh, Times Square. I was overwhelmed with it at first too; it's so iconic, so recognizable. That's exactly why Times Square, along with Central Park, led the way in increased police patrols when the local government decided to clean up prostitution and crime and make the city more tourist-friendly.

And tourist-friendly it became, which also meant it became a magnet for spectacle. I've had my picture taken with body-painted women in Times Square. There's an indoor ferris wheel at the Times Square Toys R Us. It's been featured in countless television shows, movies and New Years Rockin' Eve specials.

"Technically you didn't have to pay them. But they'd harass you if you didn't," I said.

But that doesn't answer the question; what's it like to live in New York City? In order to answer that question, we would have to have some common reference point. I'm not entirely sure there is one.

Sure, there are a lot of big buildings. Tall things that don't dot the landscape; they are the landscape. This is perpetuated in countless shows. But it's not the entire picture. Or rather, it's not the New York City I know. Skyscrapers are basically three quarters of Manhattan, one of five boroughs that comprise the city. The other boroughs have a few high structures and plenty of population-dense areas, but the phallic representations symbolic of Wall Street are pretty much condensed around Wall Street.

I have seen celebrity; been there, done that. I've seen Carol Burnett. I've seen Tyrese Gibson with Run DMC's Rev Run. I've had a book signed by Stephen King as well as Neil Gaiman. It took a few moments for Norma and I to realize Al Roker pedaled right past us as we walked through midtown. I debated going to a book signing by Hillary Clinton and another by Danielle Fishel. I can't begin to enumerate the list of celebrities I've missed performing on Broadway if I were driven enough to spend hundreds of dollars to see them on stage.

In the hometown I think we once had Bea Arthur visit a local theater to give a talk.

I've been to the Body Worlds museum, where you see actual plasticized human bodies dissected and frozen in different poses for eternity. There's a museum dedicated to the subway system.  There are exhibits about the technology of the Avengers and Hunger Games. I still have a visit to the Museum of Sex on my bucket list.

My home town has a museum dedicated to...well, there's a historic site with information about some french settlers that were in the area for a period of time. And the local history society has a museum with artifacts from the area.

There had to be an intersection of understanding somewhere.

"Imagine living next to a shopping mall," I said, referring to the major shopping hub about half an hour away from the school we were sitting in. Much of the town heads there on the weekend for their outlet shopping needs when the local K-Mart or Walmart just doesn't have the items that discerning shoppers find in Target. "Mainly because I do live next to a shopping mall."

Which is true. In the city, I'm a few blocks away from a couple malls, with no skyscrapers in sight. For the most part suburbia with apartments and malls and chain restaurants around me in Queens.

"I'd love that!" she said.

But even that loses luster after awhile. I suppose there's truth to the Garfield aphorism, "It's not the having, it's the getting." Or maybe Elizabeth Taylor said it. I don't know for sure. I just know I walk by this mall every workday and I have rarely ever made a side trip to shop for something.  Maybe it's my age that means I find comfort in the readily accessible bathroom, nearby bed for sleepy time, and computer calling me to log into Netflix instead of shuffling around JC Penney or Gamestop.

She asked how often I eat out. My wife was quick to point out my employer supplies lunches for free; otherwise I'd probably spend way too much money at the nearby Chipotle, Wendy's or Melt Shop. "I really don't eat out much. It's too damn expensive." Again...very true. A meal at a local restaurant here, for my family, even with alcohol will push maybe $50. We just went to a local Chinese Buffet (I think I mentioned that...) and I, my wife, my son and my parents ate for under $40. In the city the average chain can easily run $70 as a base cost for just three of us. I'd not go to any "known" restaurant (or family sit-down restaurant) with less than $120 in my wallet. If we were careful we could probably get delivery for a decent price; otherwise we'd have to shop around to find a bargain. Cost of eating out once in awhile just isn't a big deal in the small town area for the average family (notice I said once in awhile...eating out every night would without a doubt be a budget buster.)

For me, eating leftovers or microwaving a frozen sandwich from the Costco freezer is just fine.

But I doubt she'd be able to relate to that, as a student. The home town is spread out enough that having a car isn't a luxury; it's a necessity and thus a rite of passage. In the city I ride the subway every day with the exception of days I'm lugging suitcases to the bus station. Having a car in the city means paying between $300 and $500 a month just to park it in one spot; that doesn't count the cost of parking in a garage in the city when I actually commute somewhere (unless I manage to find parking on the street, and and carry with that the associated risk of leaving a car in the open. Crime is on the downturn but I still see quite a few cars sporting The Club antitheft devices on the steering wheel (although those are apparently a bad idea...). That's on top of increased insurance rates, and usually the car only offers the convenience of coming and going when you please rather than depending on the MTA's schedule. Well, that, and you get a personal seat with some environment control from the heater or AC, depending on time of year.

She may "get it" when I say it's expensive, but not truly get it.

I pay one and a half times my mortgage for my apartment per month. My home has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a basement on three acres of land. With AC. My apartment is basically a living room and bathroom and a bedroom an hour away from my workplace. And I'm paying one and a half times more for the apartment. Where I don't have control over the neighbors possibly burning candles or bringing used furniture laced with bedbugs.

Oh, the bedbugs! I live in a perpetual fear of that word. Bedbugs. They carry a stigma along with the near impossibility of eradicating without also losing all your belongings (or losing many of them along with a few thousand dollars in exterminator fees to try saving your belongings...but from anecdotes I've heard, you might as well burn your clothes and furniture and start over.)

I'm not a huge fan of the summertime in the city. It gets hot...not summertime in Vegas hot, but 80's and 90's uncomfortably hot. The city has a unique geography that makes the effect worse; it's filled with black pavement, brick and stone facade buildings that concentrate and magnify the sun. But the city is located on the beach; the proximity to the ocean means the city gets the humidity of the ocean but, for most of the people living and working in the city, there are none of the benefits of the beach life. Indeed, it feels strange how little rainfall the city seems to get. The buildings play games with the winds so we don't even get a sea breeze.

Winter does tend to make up for that a little, however. The alleys concentrate the wind to form a kind of pseudo-wind tunnel effect, so the moment you step between buildings you get a sudden punch of pure chill.

There are also little things that I noticed as "different" from back home. Not just the obvious like being able to order a food delivery at two in the morning during a hurricane while my home town shuts down around seven or eight in the evening.

"I think McDonalds is open all night," she said. "Maybe Wal-Mart too."

Yes, that's true, as is the local mini-marts that now sell subs and pizza at late hours. A few of the local super-mini-marts are 24 hours. But it's not quite the same. And it's also recent. I grew up when the town actually shut down. There was even a kind of curfew in effect. It wasn't so much a law as it was a non-surprise when the town cop pulled out behind you at night and selectively pulled you over to find out what you were doing out late while not old enough to have a beard.

The town is slowly being dragged by necessity of expectations from newcomers working in the gas industry, as well as the realization of unclaimed profits, from staying open later. As I previously mentioned the city has shops that specialize in selling luggage or NYC-exclusive kitsch. When there's enough people to support that level of specialization, it's pretty safe to assume there's a longstanding tradition of some store or restaurant being open and probably willing to deliver to your apartment.

What little things are there?

I mentioned the lack of cars. The majority of people use public transit to get around the city. Cars are a huge expense in the city. This means you see a lot more walking. This introduces a new problem; if you don't have a lot of money (enough to afford routine periodic deliveries), how do you get supplies? Especially for families. You're limited to a couple of shopping bags at a time; basically you whatever you can carry with you are your groceries.

But people adapt. This means you see carts. All the time. People usually have one or two collapsible wire pushcarts. They take them shopping, load those up, and roll their groceries home. Back home you never see people with personal carts; groceries fill the trunk, they drive them home, and make trips between the car and front door until stocked up.

Another challenge is the weather. Sure, there's crappy weather back home. Normally the worst weather means a race between the door car. In the city, you may be hiking several blocks in a light rain. Or hazy fog. It's not really common to have rain, but when it does, moving around in wet clothes tends to be more than  little annoying.

It's still surprising to find people with umbrellas in the city. Or as I call them, sidewalk sails. It takes surprisingly little wind to turn umbrellas into inverted cups rather than protective domes. It's not a surprise to see the remnants of umbrellas lying in garbage cans or along the sideswalks.

Other things I've noticed; people in suits spitting like rednecks. New York is a city of social extremes; I work near Wall Street and there are people who don't give a second thought to the fact they are walking past homeless people while wearing $700 shoes. There is a social strata that looks like a parfait, with the wealthiest comprising a thin layer of cream on top of thick layers of the less privileged. Naturally it's a little strange to see someone in a business suit casually spitting as if removing chew from their cheek.

Weird is usually not noticed in the city, which is nice. Being different back home makes you an anomaly, and anomalies are usually not something to be treated with a live and let live mentality. Which I suppose is great for people who want to use that as an opportunity to seek attention. In the city, you ignore the mundane and the unique. I saw a father holding a little girl over a grate as she peed. I see people with animals perched on their heads. I once saw a plane rotating on a pole as an "art exhibit." An actual plane.

Except Times Square. It's hard not to take notice of topless women wearing paint and Iron Man that looks like he's returning from retirement to squeeze into the suit once more to fight evil and collect tips for photographs.

We have lots of events. Street fairs, for example. They'll shut down blocks of roads to set up booths and sell necklaces and hats and shirts and ethnic food. If you walk more than a couple of blocks you'll notice that the booths seem to repeat, though. It's kind of spooky, as if you walked a little too far and reappeared a few blocks backwards in time.

Other events seem more random, like the time I came upon a silent dance party. An area was cleared out and a small DJ stand was set up. They handed out headphones to participants, and the headphones were receivers for whatever music the DJ's were transmitting. It was a large group of random strangers dancing around with headsets on.

And there are other grand spectacles as well. It's like the city thrives on spectacle; maybe it's a distraction from the high rents or slowly decaying public transit system, maybe it's truly an annual celebration. I think it's a mix of both.

Some of the spectacles you're probably aware of, like the forty foot tree in Rockefeller Center. Or the New Year's Eve bash in Times Square. These kinds of things are rather popular on television and nearly impossible for people go to. I once tried going to Rockefeller Center for the tree ceremony; I was there a couple of hours early, but there was no way I was getting within two blocks of the event. People were apparently waiting an absurd amount of hours to get decent standing spots near the performance stage. And if you ever wondered how it is possible for people to get trampled or trapped in a crowd, try going to one of these types of events. You'll quickly learn how that's possible. Also, don't eat or drink for half a day beforehand. You aren't taking a whiz unless it's on the person standing next to you in one of these events, because there's no way you're leaving once you're in the heart of that crowd.

Other spectacles are a little less advertised, like Fleet Week. Want to see fighters and battleships cruising around? That's the time to visit. The New York Marathon passed in front of my first apartment...quite a crowd had gathered. Or you get events that weren't necessarily planned, like Occupy Wall Street. There is a certain rush being near events that end up as breaking news near where you are. Maybe you heard about the time someone climbed the Brooklyn Bridge and removed the American flags, replacing them with white flags? I saw that on Twitter as a news event and just turned to look out my window to see the white flags waving in the breeze. There have been times I see "breaking news" about protesters blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and I can watch the flashing police lights from my office seat.

It's like a shared experience to see this thing that is not only happening near me, but in the news as well. Maybe it's an extension of a need for people to connect in some way. Maybe it's a way to feed the inner narcissist, to have this "thing" happen that now you can be part of.

An extension of that would be visiting the movie icons. Norma and I had experienced that before I moved to the city when we went to Las Vegas for our honeymoon; every time we saw CSI, we actually knew about the locations they referenced. We had been to many of the casinos and had driven to some of the locations the show visited, and it was eerie to think that we had been standing in spots the cameras were now sweeping their gaze upon.

In New York, I used to work in an office building where we could see the Statue of Liberty in the distance. Looking down I could see the Wall Street Bull. I can't even venture a guess how many movies were shot in Central Park. I used to live in an apartment by which the Roosevelt Island tram would float by, which was featured in a Spider-Man movie. Even the Brooklyn Bridge has been in the Batman movies. Someday I want to pay a visit to the Ghostbusters firehouse. Movies are being shot all the time around the city; it's no longer strange to me to find small notices taped along the street warning you against parking on such-and-such a date due to filming lest you have your car towed. There were scenes shot for a popular TV show outside my apartment while I was at work one day. The CEO of the company for which I work said the TV show "666 Park Avenue" used his apartment building as a set. Remember Stark Tower, later changed to the Avengers Tower in Iron Man and The Avengers? That's the Met Life building, with the top digitally altered. My walks frequently passed the avenue over which the Met Life building towered when I lived in Manhattan. Now I live closer to the giant globe called the Unisphere and seen in movies like Men In Black and Iron Man.

If you live in a place like my hometown, enjoy the space. The city doesn't seem to have a lot of that. Every time I go into a supermarket I'm lucky if I can maneuver a cart around without hitting someone. In fact I rarely use carts, preferring instead to carry a basket with me. I think the city grocery stores are roughly half the size of the average supermarket back home. There's a Costco not far from me, and for a superstore, you can barely get around the aisles; most frustrating are the shoppers that stop for seemingly no reason and stare off into the distance or just block the aisle while looking like they're pondering whether they want 5 pounds of chicken legs or 5 pounds of chicken tenders. It's a special kind of frustrating when you feel clausterphobically squeezed and you just want to get some shopping done.

I guess the last thing I learned living in the city is just how alone you can be, despite being surrounded by millions of people. There's a kind of personal space barrier that is erected because of the number of strangers that you come into close proximity to. Headphones are a must; otherwise you get pegged as a tourist, and the odds of being solicited for money increase significantly. And interacting with people can be dangerous. Most people, admittedly, are not dangerous; but there's always a nonzero chance that you're going to be played for a sucker. People will lie, and people will play on your emotions if it means profiting.

I periodically travel back home on the bus, which means a fun trip to the Port Authority. Sometimes my family was traveling on the bus as well, and one time my wife recognized a guy soliciting "anything you can spare" because his luggage was stolen and he was trying to get a ticket to travel home in Virginia. Or Carolina. Something. I don't recall. The point was this guy had been spotted by us with the same schtick in the Port Authority over at least 6 months.

Generally speaking, if someone wants to talk to you, it usually ends in trying to solicit money. And sometimes those people don't always seem the most...stable. The best thing to do is keep your headphones on and pretend the world doesn't exist; mind your own business, and you should be okay. It's isolating. But safer. I'm sure some people would argue it's better to have the contrary view.

So what's it like to live in New York City? It's exciting. It's busy. It's filled with opportunities. It's expensive as hell, and keeps getting more expensive. It's crowded. It's dirty. It's sad. It's lonely. It's loud. It's iconic. It's hot in the Summertime, and swirls with uncomfortable amounts of humidity. It's diverse. And these things are something that can be acknowledged without truly understanding them until you see a guy holding his toddler daughter over a street grate so she can take a whiz in the middle of the day and no one seems to notice.

Stephen King Just in Time For the Holidays

I am writing this a few days after the fact; I'm trying to recall the highlights. It's not even been a week and already the details are starting to slip from my sieve of a memory.

My father is a bit of a superfan when it comes to Stephen King. We've been to Maine to visit the Bangor area and try to recreate the setting for many of King's works. We've passed by his home (complete with people dressed in constructions gear having lunch at odd hours...I recall the distinct impression they were not really doing home improvements...)

While Dad is a superfan, he's not crazy. He collects King's works. He reads articles about King, watches movies based on King's works and of course buys King's short stories and novels.

The newest King novel, Revival, also marked the kickoff of a book tour. That tour happened to start on November 11th in New York City.

My parents had just been to the city for my birthday a week prior; if you have been to the city, you know that even a weekend trip can quickly drain a bank account. I knew my parents had some interest in seeing Mr. King. I had thought they were planning on coming into the city. But when I asked about the book signing after they had returned home from my birthday Mom said that the budget just couldn't cover it.

I had already emailed requesting the 11th off in anticipation of my parents coming into the city for the book signing event. Instead of reclaiming the day, I decided to go to the Union Square Barnes and Noble and try to get the signature for my father.

"I'll get up early and head to the bookstore and if the line goes around the block, I'll say, 'fuck it' and spend a day doing some shopping or relaxing." That was the last thing I said about the book signing to a coworker before heading back to my apartment on the night of the 10th. I remember him saying that I shouldn't have much trouble..."Stephen King isn't a huge name with young people today, you shouldn't have any trouble getting a decent spot in line if you get there early." I figured he was right.

I set my alarm for a quarter to five in the morning. Ugh. I was damn near dragging myself to the subway station that morning. It was a cool morning, kind of cloudy, but fortunately there was no rain or snow.

My first feeling of setback came when I arrived at the subway station; perhaps because it was early in the morning, perhaps because it was Veteran's Day, perhaps it was because of a Mole Man attack, I don't know, but the R train took seemingly forever to arrive. In reality it was probably 15 minutes. When you're used to the 5 minute rush hour schedule and you're already feeling the effects of waking up extra early, that 15 minutes feels like an eternity.

I made my way to the Union Square subway station and emerged onto the bustling sidewalk. I then passed some nice people handing out free papers and some vendors, trying to get my bearings and remember where the book store was positioned in the square. As I approached I could see some people standing along the facade. Expected; I figured there would be some early-morning people, the same people that would get in line at one in the morning for a Black Friday sale. Having checked the website in the morning to double check information, I saw that a 350-wristband limit was set for the event; I figured a few people in the front of the line wouldn't kill my chances at getting a band.

I drew closer to the building and saw people not just standing in line, but laying in sleeping bags and reclining in folding chairs along the sidewalk. But then I saw it wasn't just adults; kids were sleeping in the sleeping bags. Families. "Holy crap," I thought. "These people are hardcore."

The line filled the front of the block and wrapped around. Okay, I can deal with that. I kept hiking around the block.

...only to see the line continue around the block again. At that point, I was starting to feel a twinge of worry and remembered what I had said the previous night.

The line ended directly behind the Barnes and Noble. I mean, I was literally on the back end of the block from the store; about fifteen feet in front of me a delivery truck was hauling pallets of Nooks into the store loading dock. I had the words echoing in my head repeating my promise of leaving if the line wound around the block, but I figured it was early in the morning, I had shuffled my way through a forty-some minute commute, so it was worth standing around a bit.

It couldn't have been more than a minute before I was joined by some more fans in line. I'd like to say that I remember everyone's name, but that would be lying. I suppose I could have covered up for this by making names up, but that would be dishonest. Well, there is one person whose name I remember, but that was for a separate reason. The point is this small group gathered in my immediate area and we became line-buddies.

I'll sum them up thus; one was a friendly, slim Hawaiian-looking lady, a little more than my age. Another was an older and friendly woman from Pennsylvania, and also joining the group was a younger woman possessing very white teeth who had bussed in from Pennsylvania as well, leaving her fiance' to fend for himself for the day. And then there was Optimist Tom. He was from Jersey City and was ever the energetic optimist.

There was some friendly banter about King books and movies mixed among the pleasantries of social exchange. We confirmed with each other some of the details of the signing; 350 bands, which some in the group declared was silly, since they were certain that Barnes and Noble had handled larger events than that without problems. Indeed, a dark-haired woman who said she was an ex-employee from that very store confirmed they had larger events. I asked if it was a bad sign when a person who used to work there, and had contacts with management and other workers at that store, wasn't able to get a band.

We had another two hours before the store would begin handing out bands, and another 3 hours after that before Stephen King was expected to arrive and start signing. One of the group declared how much it would suck to be number 351 in this still-growing line, and we all heartily agreed.

The irony of this wouldn't be clear until at some point in our waiting a Barnes and Noble employee walked the line and then declared that a guy in a hoodie, about three bodies in front of me, was the 350 person cutoff. A big guy in a dark suit was left behind at that point, as if they were guarding the guy from being mugged by jealous signature-seekers.

I remember suggesting we move the guy they said was 350 back about ten people in line. That would make the line of people getting in for bands a bit bigger.

I sent a message to my wife asking what she thought...should I give in? Tom insisted that we were close enough that there wasn't much reason to give up. "They could have miscounted," he said. "Or they'll expand the line. It's up to Stephen, man. Besides, they say these things to thin the herd and discourage huge lines. I'm staying."

My wife texted back that we'd have nothing to really lose in staying around; we were so close to the cutoff, that it was still likely that a small miscount would mean walking away would leave me wanting to kick myself. That, combined with the psychology of having a small group of still-optimistic linebuddies commiserating together, made me stay in line and tough it out.

The line moved in bunches; we speculated they were pulling people in batches to get their bands. It didn't take long for rumors to spread; at one point they were taking standbys. Moments later, that wasn't true. An employee traveling the line said they had only 350 books and that's why we were limited. Another said it was limited by Stephen King's people, and his handlers were limiting the signing event attendance.

More than a couple of times I felt like it might be worth giving up...but remembering that this would have meant so much for Dad kept me there. It helped to have the linebuddies there too, bolstering spirits with stories of spending time trying to get autographs from celebrities at broadway shows. Tom kept insisting that he was going to have his "nephew", a young black boy sitting in a folding chair behind his father and who kept his nose buried in a football game on his tablet most of the time, learn to make puppy eyes at the store management in an attempt to get into the store. They had to let his (white) uncle Tom in with him, right?

It kept spirits up. Even when the little boy thought we were strange.

As we rounded the corner ("Hey, look guys! I can almost see the last corner to go around to see the store doors!") someone noticed that someone in the line had posted to eBay a "guaranteed signed copy of Revival, with wrist band and promotional event posters, a bargain at $400!"

This got the dark-haired ex-employee very mad. There was nothing illegal about doing this...we suspected there were more than a few people who were paid to get this book on behalf of someone else...but she went up and complained at least twice to store security (loss prevention, I think the badges clipped to their lapels said?) about these horrible bastards who were taking spaces away from actual fans selling his or her book on eBay...before actually getting them signed! The NERVE! It was also a testament to the way we use technology now that I was still far back in line but stood swiping at pictures of the signs posted in the front of the store as part of the sellers proof of event. There ended up being at least 2 books from this event posted on eBay, and they were around the $350 to $400 range; I don't know how much they ended up going for, if they sold at all.

We were all sort of lamenting the fact that we were so close to the cutoff. Younger girl wondered if she had just taken the earlier bus, would she have made it? If she didn't spend time prepping her hair, shaving a few minutes off the travel time? Tom, from Jersey City, said he stopped and gave a homeless guy some money and he had dawdled a bit coming in...did that extra few minutes cost him his spot? I wasn't sure if he was kidding, but given his plucky positive attitude I couldn't rule it out. I lamented if I had been a few minutes earlier, maybe I wouldn't have had to wait 15 minutes for the subway; I could have made an earlier one, and that five minutes would have been enough to have been in front of the cutoff for a guaranteed band. Dammit.

But we were still in remarkably good spirits as a group. Tom kept giving us hope. I kept thinking we were in that horrible spot where the cutoff was so close that if, if, they decided to take a few more people, I'd be in that group. Or maybe we'd see Stephen King, and I could at least snap a photo for my Dad. Needed to be able to tell him that I tried.

I think that was the most important part. I had taken a vacation day, I was there, and I needed to be able to tell my Dad that I gave it my honest to goodness best shot at getting this signature. He deserved it.

I was surprised, though, at the number of people who had beaten me to a spot in line. The rumor traveling the line was that people had lined up there at 2:30 the previous fucking afternoon. That would mean that by the time they got their signed book it would be nearly a day of waiting. And they had families in line. Some in our linebuddies group drew a line at having kids sleep out on the sidewalk in NYC overnight. These were definitely hardcore fans, a notch above what I would call Superfans. I considered my Dad a superfan. I don't think he'd camp out all night on a sidewalk to have less than a minute of facetime with Stephen King.

Granted, this was a special book tour stop. King was signing in NYC. Not reading. Not visiting. No posed photos. No personalized signing. You were in line, you were marching forward, you went on stage, he said hi (if you were lucky) and you were hustled out. I looked at his upcoming stops on the book tour; the next day he was in Washington, DC, where King would do a reading and brief Q&A but no signing. Some pre-signed copies would be given out at random, and you had to buy tickets. The next night, the 13th, was another "not book signing" in Kansas City with some randomly signed copies given out at random. The 14th he was in Wichita, and again it was not a book signing with desperate fans hoping to get one of the random copies given away. The 15th King was in Austin, Texas, and it was finally a signing event. Ticketed. And it said that one person cannot buy multiple tickets for people other than themselves, and had to purchase the ticket in person. His last stop had King near his home in Maine on the 17th, and this was a book signing as well. Basically, not every event was a signing event, and NYC being a kickoff and signing was pretty good luck for me to even be close to achieving.

But really, 2:30 in the afternoon, the previous day? Those were people I would think King was afraid of meeting. Had I known there was a proto-lineup starting that early I wonder if I would have figured it was futile to even try getting there in the first place for the line. Ignorance of these...uber-fans...probably got me in line in the first place.

Another bit of debate in the line involved how long the event would go on. We knew King was slated to sign starting at noon. Some said he would sign until four; someone else said he'd be only around until two. Supposedly that was why the number of wristbands were so limited. This still gave Tom hope-fuel..."Stephen may let other people in if he has time. It's really up to him how many books he'll sign, you know. Not the store."

Once we reached the door, we were cut off. There was probably two people in front of me at the point when the security people and Barnes and Noble staff announced that they had reached the 350 cutoff. I remember these two guys...they spoke and dressed as if they were from a stereotypical old-timey Italian Brooklyn neighborhood, with smoking, hoodie jacket, large cross hanging from the neck and heavy accent, where one was allowed in and the other argued that he was there for his friend because he suffered extreme anxiety, and they had to go together. I think he somehow snuck in because he disappeared. Really they were pushy jackasses. But if there's something I discovered living here, it's that being a pushy jackass doesn't win you friends but does often give you opportunities.

This was the biggest test time. Store security came out and told us everything short of "go home." Of course, they couldn't really tell us that, because as I recall from Occupy Wall Street if you weren't blocking people trying to walk along the sidewalks and you weren't blocking access to other businesses, the sidewalks are more or less considered public space. If you didn't mind sitting on little circles of blackened, hardened bubblegum and spots of sidewalk that may or may not also have dried spit and urine, you're allowed to just sit there.

One of the exchanges had a security guy telling us point blank, "There is no standby line. There is no reason for you to form a line."

To which Tom replied, "But we're going to anyway!"

At one point the security people said that we were not going to get near the event. The store even posted signs that said the fourth floor was cut off, and if we wanted a book located on that floor a bookseller had to assist customers. But we were not going to get near the event. Subtext: go home.

"Was this from Stephen's people?," asked Tom.

"This is from management."

"The book store doesn't know what they're talking about. Stephen will tell us to go home."

Oh, Optimist Tom. At this point, our group had largely taken turns going in and buying a copy of Revival. One of the sweet older ladies turned to me and asked if I'd go in and get a book. "You don't want them to come out and say we can go in, but you have to have a book, and you didn't have a book, do you?," she said. I was tired and aching from waiting several hours on my feet (I debated sitting for a spell, but I really didn't want to get that hardened gum crap on my pants...) but, as she pointed out, I could return the book if things didn't work out. I remembered I had a B&N gift card...I figured I had nothing to really lose in getting a book. You know, just in case. So I did.

I hobbled back out to what remained of the line. Most people had given up and left, so the line had dwindled until it extended only to the end of some scaffolding that terminated before the entrance to a store next to a restaurant that was called something like the Red Line or Red End. I don't really recall the proper name, just a red canopy that extended over part of the sidewalk.

"At this point," I said, "We can keep waiting and hope we get in, we could go around back and see if Stephen King is coming in that way...maybe get a picture of him. Or we could leave." I think this sentiment was kind of stirring in many who were left outside, after having been told repeatedly by store employees that we were not going to get in and that was the end of the story.

I remember Tom was getting kind of antsy. He had left a couple times from line to talk to his friends that were farther back and to use the bathroom in different stores. He disappeared while we were under the scaffolding to look around the back of the store and see if Stephen King were coming in through the loading dock entrance.

It was at this time that an employee came out and said they were taking 12 more people.

A member of our linebuddies club squealed with joy. Someone tried to have them get Tom, as he would no doubt be back soon, but management wasn't having it. They counted us out and ushered us in. And funny enough, before letting us up the guarded escalator, they asked if we had a copy of the book because we needed to have one to sign. I had fortunately listened to their advice.

They ushered us up to the fourth floor and made us stand in the back next to a life-sized LEGO Batman. I know...strange. but nonetheless we were there. We made it.

The store never quite seemed to have everyone on the same page. We were asked twice if we had wristbands. Er...no? You had someone specifically bring us up...why do you not know that?

Multiple times while down in line we were given different stories of what was going on; where limits came from, how many books there were, etc. The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, and this confusion was part of what I think Tom could use as hope-fuel. It was funny as hell to me to hear him say the store didn't know what they were talking about and surely Mr. King would have final word, and hopefully he would take pity on the people standing outside.

We were all sad upstairs when we speculated on Tom's fate. We hoped that he had met King in the back of the store entrance, maybe got a photo with him. There was an irrational sense of pity and we told ourselves this story to comfort ourselves, that we didn't abandon a fair-weather friend.

After standing around for ten or fifteen minutes, we were told to move up to the end of the line for the book signing because they were bringing up another batch of people. Another batch! The line was moving pretty fast, too. King wasn't dawdling. A book slid in front of him, he wrote his name, and in barely enough time to acknowledge the fan with a courteous howdy, the book was handed back over and the fan was ushered away to the 3rd floor escalator. I had never seen the seats empty so quickly; Stephen King may be getting older, but damn, he was a fast signer.

It took several minutes before the next group of people arrived. I looked over and said, "Tom's here!"

There was a cheer from our group. Loud enough that surely the people in the front probably wondered what happened. Tom jumped up and down as we waved; "Hey guys! I got back and the line was all different!"

"We tried to save you a spot, they wouldn't let us!," said one of our buddy group.

"That's okay!" he called back. "It wasn't your fault!"

I turned to the younger girl in the group and said, "He's the most optimistic son of a bitch I've ever met. He's the only one that I'm fairly certain returned to see that much of the group had been taken in, and instead of being crushed that he missed the opportunity, he doubled down that it meant he would probably get in with the next group he was certain would be brought in." And sure enough, he was standing on the fourth floor with us waiting to get a book signed.

From that point it was rather straightforward. Photos were allowed until you reach the stage. No flash. No posing. No personalization. Stephen King said think you to me...not sure why, but I remember replying, "No, thank you so very much!" as I headed towards the exit.

I was sad that my parents couldn't be there. I knew my father would have loved to see King, despite not being able to have a conversation of any meaningful length with his favorite author. I wished he could have been there with me, but I knew he would never have wanted to wait as long as the uber-fans had waited. Also, by the time I was sliding the book into my bag and heading for the exit I had been on my feet at least five hours. My parents would never have been able to tolerate that; my own feet were howling in pain and my appreciation for the suffering of restaurant staff reached a new level. I couldn't imagine what my father's feet would have felt like; sure, could have folding chairs, but that's just another hassle of something to carry around the streets. Everything's a tradeoff.

So Dad...I got it for you. There were so many times I was told to leave, and that this wasn't going to happen...but perseverance paid off. Or just ignoring the people running the store paid off. Maybe a little of both.

Merry Christmas.

This was where we were initially placed to wait once inside the store. An employee said it was supposed to go in the toy section, but was a little too "unsteady" on its feet to be near kids.

One of several photos I took...

Camera phones apparently don't yield the best results...

People and Their Environment

People are influenced by their environment more than most people probably think.

Or at least, they're affected by their environment more than I thought they were.

I'm talking about the little, but significant, ways the environment affects people's behavior. I noticed this after my recent move to the middle of Queens. I started to notice some patterns in how people transport goods.

I grew up in a rural area. Most of my life, including time spent in college, was spent in a rural PA town. When we wanted supplies, we drove to a supermarket or to a Sam's Club; we loaded the car, drove home, and I'd make five or six trips between the house and trunk unloading supplies. Most of our transportation was car based; we were limited by the storage capacity of the car.

Then I moved to Manhattan for my job. In Manhattan it wasn't uncommon to see people pulling little carts behind them. The carts had two wheels and a stand-foot; the basket was basically a canvas-like bag, roughly three feet high with a clasp flap to keep items from flying out. IKEA calls them knallas.

These things are about as common in Manhattan as rolling suitcases. I never saw them while shopping back home; but they are very suited to life in Manhattan. Unless you have a lot of income, the average apartment is quite small and cramped, and the more affordable apartments are often walkups. The knalla rolling cart was big enough to carry a few bags-worth of groceries while being small enough to maneuver up steps and around sidewalks. They were common enough that you need not feel strange walking around pulling one of these rolly-carts.

Then I moved to Queens. I grew up in a rural town, where your neighbors were fields or trees. Manhattan was skyscrapers and pavement; everywhere you looked was a monument to mankind's craftwork. It was the polar opposite of my home.

Queens is another facet of NYC, one that you don't see in movies and television shows. It doesn't have the skyscrapers, but it is anything but rural. It's more along the lines of suburban sprawl; chain restaurants and malls interspersed among residential apartments and homes. While Manhattan was filled with skyscrapers, most of the area I moved to seems to have leveled out around five or six stories.

I noticed that the people here also pushed carts around; these carts are larger, though. Instead of canvas or plastic strapped to an inexpensive hand-cart frame, these are four-wheeled metal-mesh carts with probably twice the capacity of my little IKEA cart. I see these mesh carts around all the time filled with groceries and supplies; in some cases young children are sitting in them being pushed along by a tired parent; I never see the knalla-type carts.

It's a subtle change, but pervasive. It's like rolling into town and noticing that everyone is driving the same over-sized customized truck, or that every kid managed to afford a spoiler for their car in the high school parking lot. A group hivemind, if you will.

The strange thing is that this area of Queens is so diverse yet shares this little quirk.

But when you think about it, there could be a reason it makes sense. Back home your supply runs...groceries, or trips to bulk suppliers like Sam's Club...were limited by the car or truck you drove. In Manhattan, people tended to get more things delivered and actual shopping excursions were to places that were cramped to begin with; many grocery stores resembled what back home were convenience stores in size, or small bodegas. This area of Queens, however, you get access to full size Barnes and Noble bookstores, Kohls department stores, Staples, even a Costco. Back home is still very much a car culture and the shopping conveniences are geared for it. Queens and Manhattan have enough public transit that not owning a car is not so much a hindrance, but the larger stores (and sidewalk space) seems to be open enough...and the stores geared for...the larger capacity mesh 4-wheeled carts.

It's another little observation I've made about people and their environment since moving to the city. It's fascinating to me to experience things that I may have been told about before coming here but written off as rubbish speculation. Speculation until you come here and actually see what effects the city has on people. In the past I've summed the phenomena up as, "We used to laugh when people moved the country from a city and not know how to swim. What do you mean you can't swim? Then I came to the city, where the only pools you have access to are in places like Central Park or a school or a Y, and in many cases cost money to get access to. Kids can easily get the necessities within a few blocks of their apartment, and never actually move outside the city or even need to learn how to drive yet still function in society. And may the universe have mercy on you if your family isn't wealthy and you live in the city. That alone will cut your exposure to opportunities. Now it's not so surprising to have someone from the city move to the country and see them look around like it's a different planet. In many ways, it is."

Now I'm seeing the effects of pockets of culture within different areas. Shared community behavior, in novel things like common tools for helping you get groceries to your apartment. It's interesting to see how various areas share a common behavior and it's probably not even a conscious choice.

But what does that mean for other possibly linked behaviors by residents in certain areas? Are blighted communities breeding a particular mindset by residents? Do we have areas where stupid is not just common, but pervasive, where schooling is prevented not because the school system is inherently bad but the community mistrusts academic behavior? Do we have areas where there are so many people effected by a poor economy that poverty or lower-middle-class economic status is somehow encouraged among residents?

Maybe it's something to consider despite the idea that we are in charge of our own future and economic standing. Maybe we have our community influencing us more than we think sometimes. Take a look at your neighborhood and see how much you fit in. You may find that it's more of a mirror than you originally thought.

Halloween Fun: Jekyll and Hyde (Club)

My family (and by family I mean not only my wife and son, but my parents as well) came to the city for an early birthday celebration, and part of that visit was a "dinner wherever you want."

This of course leads to a series of minor hijinks in its own right, as is typical for the way life moves along. I thoroughly enjoy Halloween, horrors, and general spookiness, and my Mom is not a fan of many of the places my wife and I typically enjoy, so I thought I'd finally try the haunted scary house themed restaurant near the Port Authority (with the conveniently located A-C-E subway line only a short walk away...like, across the street from the restaurant) that I'd been eyeballing whenever I happened by that area.

I thought it was called the Jekyll and Hyde Club. I'd even seen a vehicle driving around Manhattan with skeletons and zombies, making it seem like it could be a cool experience. My parents, as part of my birthday, sent some money along with a note to get in their club membership so we could get seated more quickly.

I don't often go to Times Square. It seems most New Yorkers don't need to elaborate on this explanation, but for those who aren't living here, I'll just say that my idea of fun isn't having to shove through a mass of shambling tourists and leave it at that. I kept putting off getting the membership until my wife came to visit over Comic Con weekend, when I knew we'd probably, at some point, end up going through Times Square.

My wife looked up the restaurant for some information. This was when Google said the restaurant was permanently closed.

"That doesn't seem right," I said. "There were people soliciting guests outside not long ago."

She noted the address and said, "We could take a look and see, just to make sure."

We started heading to the address when I realized this was not the restaurant I thought it was. I was actually thinking of Times Scare, and the Jekyll and Hyde Club was something totally different. Whoopsie.

When we arrived, we discovered that no, it was not closed permanently. It was quite busy, as a matter of fact, with a very, very long line to get in. We weren't looking to have a meal; we just wanted a membership. We talked to the guy controlling the line at the entrance, and he pointed us to another door that led to their gift shop/exit.

It was at this point that we found a contrast to another restaurant that offered memberships; when we first went to Bubba Gump's in Times Square, we were offered their membership; one of the bonuses was to get early seating. We pay extra for the membership, we get to jump line.

Both the doorman and the girl at the front desk said we could get a membership, but it would not allow for us to jump line that night. "It wouldn't go over well with the people in the line," said the doorman.

We assured them that wasn't our goal, but rather we were preparing for a return trip in a week or two. It was a little off-putting to be reminded that we were paying for a privilege that was essentially worthless upon joining, however. I suspected they wouldn't have minded us using the membership card for discounted and members-only purchases in the gift shop, though.

Upon joining, we got a few items to designate our membership status. One, a cardboard membership card; I'll admit, I was a little disappointed that it was cardboard since that meant it would be less resistant to damage in the wallet. I was hoping for a plastic card. But as long as it serves its purpose, I suppose that's good enough for me.

In addition to the card we received a pin and a huge certificate of membership; like, posterboard sized. The pin was a nice touch; but I don't normally wear pins. The giant certificate was puzzling to me because it was rather impractical. Theatrical flourish, perhaps? If so, it fits with the theme of the restaurant.

Fast forward to the dinner. True to the promise of the membership club, we showed the doorman our membership card and he pointed us back to the same door leading to the gift area, instructing us to show the clerk the card. We were then pointed up a set of stairs to be seated by the hostess.

The skeletons seemed to be a nice touch.

The restaurant is filled with various statues and knicknacks that at a glance seem to be for gloomy ambiance.

The case has skulls and heads. The Pharaoh's mask reminded me of Stargate.

 

 

Turns out many of these objects are animatronic.

And the ancient dead king spoke English pretty well, too

A giant elephant's head, a mermaid, an organ-playing skeleton, a gargoyle, even a werewolf took turns doling jokes and birthday wishes. There were also a few announcements over the loudspeaker from the security department warning people not to eat floor meat, as it was a trick from the people living under the stairs to lure club members to their death.

In addition to the speaking knicknacks and statues were costumed actors engaging the diners in character. We talked to an assistant to Dr. Hyde and a "social director" for the club. I can only imagine how awkward it must be for them to have uncooperative guests, and imagine they often do encounter them. I don't envy their jobs at all, but they do add to the ambiance.

After a few rounds of the talking statues a live show was performed on a stage below us.

Rise! Rise! And shine!

The restaurant was definitely geared for a spectacle, like a Gothic dinner theater. The food was decent; not outstanding, but definitely not bad. My son actually ate most of his fried chicken and mashed potatoes, as did my father with the same order. The tomato-based sauce with my cheese tortellini (pomodoro?) wasn't my favorite, but overall not bad at all. We also had nachos as an appetizer, which were also good but not great (MORE CHEESE PLEASE!) in my opinion.

Oh, and I got a signature glass with an order of a Zombie. I like getting signature glasses at themed restaurants.

The theatrical display, the ambiance, and the actors were pluses. The biggest drawbacks were the prices and our waitress.

Don't get me wrong; this was only slightly more than Manhattan expensive in terms of restaurants, and there were five of us at the table bringing a bill to around $200. This was quite a splurge, one I don't anticipate repeating for a very long time! But it was to be a special birthday dinner and apparently my parents had been saving up for the occasion. The menu had a note warning customers that the bill adds an extra $3 per person as an entertainment fee, on top of the Times Square food tax (read: tourists tend to pay extra to eat in Times Square.) For most people from my home area, this would be quite a sticker shock. On the other hand you have to think of this as not just dinner, but dinner and a show. Then the pricing makes a little more sense.

Plus I got to keep the signature glass.

I should also note that the desserts my mother and wife ordered were, from what I was told, "Awesome!"

The other drawback was our waitress. Service was beyond slow. The actors talked to us before the waitress. We at first thought another table was being a pain, as we thought we saw her taking several plates back to the kitchen. But even factoring that in, it really was taking too long for her to get to us, and another waitress (hostess?) came to take a drink order for our table to "help her out."

When she did come to our table, she didn't really pay much attention to our table. Rushing, perhaps? Distracted? Uninterested? Even when she asked about dessert, my mom said what she wanted, and the waitress replied with, "I'll get a dessert menu."

I can understand the menu may be for others at the table to look at and opt to order from, but the way she said it came off sounding like she ignored my mother's order. I found this annoying at best.

I prefer to think of incidents like this being isolated one-offs; the waitress could have been overloaded, perhaps it was a bad night, perhaps the kitchen was causing problems. I don't know. My opinion usually goes full-anger if there's a repeated pattern, and since this was a one-time visit I can't tell if there's a pattern against which to judge. So this one visit marks the service as "annoyingly slow."

The last thing to mention would be the gift shop. It, too, carries the Gothic horror theme, decorated with items such as traveling trunks stamped with the White Star line (Titanic history, anyone?) and Dr. Jekyll's name. The walls had bookshelves that doubled as hidden doors, probably to the haunted house attraction we didn't buy tickets to. There were a number of interesting Halloween-esque trinkets available, with discounts for members and some items marked for purchase by members-only.

Overall it was a good experience; I'd have to say that the entire meal was meant to be an experience, rather than just a meal. It was definitely a fitting prep to the days leading up to Halloween.

Project Breaks

Sometimes life gets the better of you. I knew time was passing without having put any blog posts in the queue, but I didn't realize how much time had passed. It was one of those, "It's been awhile since I wrote something into the blog...I should do that," type of deals. It was easy to put off since I didn't have an audience clamoring for fresh posts to read.

But still, I didn't like leaving it too long.

The truth is I've had a couple other things going on. This past weekend my wife came to the city and we spent three exhausting days running around New York Comic Con. Panels, cosplay, panels, shopping, and of course, some more panels. My wife went home with some gifts for my son, like a recent issue of Nightwing signed by Kyle Higgins and some t-shirts to show off at school.

She was ecstatic about having seen the cast of Walking Dead; it was probably the only TV-show panel that had the majority of the cast on stage, and they really seemed like awesome people.

This week the office is hosting our remote employees in the community, developer and systems administrator groups. That's a lot of people in our office space, pushing us to capacity and then some.

In yet another bit of news, just before my wife came to town, a coworker and I started recording a podcast. We had been discussing it and coming up with topics to use in the program, but kept putting it off. Finally I kind of made the decision to just up and do it; we recorded the day of our company town hall, held bi-weekly, so we could use that as a kind of reminder of when to record. It's not perfect by any means; we recorded on the cheap, using headset mics and recording over Google Hangouts (since we were remote and couldn't work in the same room.) We definitely could use better microphones, and we may have to experiment with audio processors to properly clean things up. But if we waited to get things just right we never would have ended up actually getting it done.

We recorded, he cleaned up the audio, and when I could sneak in some time here and there I worked on the album artwork and configuring a blog, the hosting account and the iTunes feed after doing some tiny post-editing on the MP3 file. I just got these things working; as I told my coworker, the programming side project I've been talking about was put on hiatus and I was hoping to get the podcast posted within a week of the recording, which I miraculously did, despite also telling him that I was going to try to get the podcast worked on over the weekend but realistically I wouldn't get much done over Comic Con weekend, as I knew it would be exhausting.

All of this comes down to the point of the post title...the need for breaks. Sometimes things come up and priorities shift. We all get the same 24 hours in a day, but there are times where the things we want to get done have to take a back burner.

The Month of the Busies isn't over yet. I have family coming next weekend in preparation for my birthday-when-it's-not-my-birthday. I'm not sure how much I can get done in that time. And of course this happens to be a birthday where I need to get my license renewed, meaning another trip back home in the near future. All of which tends to interfere with getting things done.

On the other hand, taking a break from my projects may mean returning to them with a renewed sense of purpose and energy. Plus, I'm experimenting with podcasting as an outlet for creativity. I'm not sure where it'll lead but it might feel rewarding. Breaks in routine can be both a source of anxiety ("I'm not getting anything done!") and source of perspective ("The world didn't end despite not having finished XYZ when I wanted to...and look what I made instead!")

I suppose I can chalk up several "me-time" projects now. The personal blog. The podcast. And the program. The biggest challenge will be scheduling them to fit into the same 24 hours that up until now I've been complaining about fitting only two projects into!

A Reason Wealth Inequality Matters

I intended to follow up on my previous post regarding wealth disparity much sooner than this, but sometimes life gets in the way.

I rent an apartment in Manhattan. If you know anything about the five boroughs of New York, Manhattan is the borough the Muppets, Jason, several superheros and Cloverfield have all either taken or destroyed, and is also known as one of the most expensive places to live despite the several times it has had to be rebuilt. Well, the non-Hollywood part is true, at least.

I work in a part of Manhattan called "The Financial District," a very small area of real estate where each weekday enough money flows through the virtual coffers of the banks and trade floors to fund small countries.

Last Friday I was sitting in the back seat at the coffee bar with some developers who, despite having Internet access cut off at the office, decided to stick around and socialize a little. A small part of the conversations involved a nearby apartment building whose rent, they said, ran around $40,000 a month.

That's $480,000 a year. Nearly half a million dollars.

I said I couldn't imagine what it's like to have so much money in the bank that I could afford to spend that as rent. I'd love not to have that kind of financial worry in my life...and then I wondered, what is it like for people who do make that kind of money?

Someone said that they knew someone who had lived near there a period of time and said it was a nice apartment, but the location sucked. My first reaction was, "How?" but someone else reminded us there aren't really any supermarkets nearby.

That's true...groceries would almost exclusively be delivered.

(I know there are some markets in the financial district; they tend to be small and pricey, though, even for Manhattan.)

This isn't to say that if you have groceries delivered in Manhattan that it means you are wealthy. It's quite common; there are several people I know that are getting various grocery-type items delivered who aren't what I would consider top income earners. But it is an added luxury that does add up over the course of a year, especially when you add in the cost of having laundry picked up and delivered (it usually costs a dollar or two a pound, although pricing for dry cleaning and specialty treatments can quickly increase costs. The convenience of having grocery and laundry items delivered as a service is, to me, like cable or satellite television...nice to have, but something I can do without, especially after actually sitting down and doing the monetary math.

Manhattan is a kind of illustration of the wealth disparity in America. There are pockets of affordability; it's safe to say that my apartment is nowhere near forty grand a month in rent. But it certainly is far north, for what I get in relation to what I pay, to what I could afford back home with the same amount of cash. Other people get by finding roommates on Craigslist to afford rent, or making do with tiny studio apartments that suits a more frugal lifestyle.

And by tiny, I mean 500 square feet or less.

And by pockets of affordability, I mean I can cross a street or two and there are apartments that will cost the upper side of four figures, or possibly five figures, per month. Even near our office I've heard rumor of apartments that are slightly below $3,000 a month in rent being a block away from apartments that are tens of thousands per month.

The cost of living isn't getting any cheaper, either. Rent costs, along with transportation, and service industries, are creeping higher. Couple that with the news that middle class income is essentially stagnant, and you end up with the most common option for people who work in New York and need to afford housing; they have a longer commute.

The truly affordable housing tends to lay in the concentric zones farther from Manhattan; on the far north side of the island is Harlem, or people move into Brooklyn or Jersey, across the river. The rent is lower, but the commute tends to jump from a 25 minute subway ride in train-dense Manhattan to 45 minutes or an hour once you factor in multiple train hops, or in some cases and hour and a half. That's the tradeoff for affordable living if you enjoy your job (or in this economy, just want to keep the job you have.)

In the course of the conversation I recounted an account I read in a book on New York "tunnel dwellers," people who lived in the subway tunnels. It was remarkable; it described how you could walk within three feet of someone, and not even know they were there. One fellow interviewed worked more or less full time at McDonalds, and said his coworkers had no idea he lives in the subway tunnels. It was sad and surprising given the amount of spin and vitriol, especially during our recent presidential campaign season, towards the laziness of the poor who are portrayed as lazy ne'er-do-wells sucking tax dollars in exchange for sitting on the couch watching daytime TV.

Here's the thing; much of the city thrives on the poor and middle class to do the jobs the upper (and upper middle class) rely upon, but wouldn't want to do.

I don't see too many bankers who would want to be out in crappy weather delivering Seamless and GrubHub orders to hungry folks. Or doing laundry or custodial services, or waiting tables. Even the artists performing on Broadway often share rooms with multiple roommates to make ends meet. These are people eking out a living, hoping they don't become ill or badly injured lest they end up going bankrupt with a visit to the hospital or ending up not being able to go into work from illness, meaning no income since many of them are hourly workers (which, by the way, is a terrible way to prevent the spread of disease, when you think about how many people come into contact with someone who had to go to work in order to make ends meet while still contagious...think about that when you are commuting on the subway or eating prepared food.)

If prices keep rising, more people move farther away, until the strain of the commute will basically price them out of the city. They move on. It's a process that is basically an extreme form of gentrification, only with the economy being what it is, it's not only pushing out the poorest people. The lower middle class and middle class feel the strain as well.

Of course there is a counterbalance to this that econ 101 teaches us; prices will level out at a point where people will pay what they can afford. The pendulum is supposed to swing to a point where once it is noticed people are moving away, the overall economy suffers, jobs aren't being filled, and the politicians and businesses start offering incentives for people to come in again, hopefully in the form of "this apartment is pretty crappy so we'll make the rent affordable."

Only I wonder if that's what is actually happening. My employer is actually paying a very decent salary, and I'm still wondering how long it will be before I will have to look at moving to Brooklyn. The city has raised transportation fees, which doesn't affect me personally (thank you again to my employer offering Metro cards as a job perk) but does cost money when my wife and son come to visit; most people on the island are beginning to notice the nickel and diming adding up for them to get to work.

So what happens?

I wonder if you'll see a push of poor and middle class out of the city. Jobs will become more difficult to fill as people move away; at least, the jobs that keep trash cans in offices emptied, clothes laundered and food delivered. Business will end up having to pay more in order to get workers, squeezing small businesses closer to going out of business.

Quality workers may become more scarce. I see this effect in education; as the job perks slip away and the negatives become a heavier burden, teachers who are good teachers, people who care about the work of being a teacher and not a cog in the education system, they leave. They see that the reality of teaching is far removed from the job description and certainly doesn't match what they thought was happening when they were sitting at the desks on the receiving end of an education.

Instead I saw, over time, more B-stringers getting their chance to become teachers. These are people who are less passionate about teaching and more fitting into the dysfunctional system that is in place; real teachers become disenfranchised and demoralized, and soon enough begin looking for work outside the education field. The B-stringers just stop caring or are comfortable working at a mediocre level within the broken system.

Ever notice how hard it is to find teachers who are passionate about their jobs? The people who would be passionate are driven away from the field.

So what happens if a city becomes largely dysfunctional, and the people who would be passionate about it leave? Does it end up become like Detroit?

I doubt that a place like New York City will ever be like Detroit, but then again, it wasn't long ago that you wouldn't have thought Detroit would become today's Detroit. I hear stories about what has become of the Vegas suburbs after the economy tanked, and California, as a state, is having larger scale issues that are creeping into the lives of its citizens. Florida is having interesting economic effects on its citizens largely in part from Tea-Party political ideas put into effect, and Florida already has an economy heavily funded by retirees and spring break tourists.

Only time will tell. But one thing I'm sure of is that as long as people look only for themselves, there will be looming problems. The myth of the job creator paints a picture of a wealthy citizen waking in the morning and feeling the burden of keeping his employees employed; the truth is we have more people who are willing to step on whoever is in his or her path to financial gain in order to have more financial gain. There is a disconnect wherein the wealthy can't relate to the middle class, let alone the poor. I read an article outlining tips to save money for bankers and their wives, and the disconnect couldn't be more stark; it made what was common sense for middle class families sound almost novel or shocking. If these ideas hadn't occurred to them before, no wonder they don't care about the financial situation of people around them. And worse, the advice felt like the equivalent of, "Instead of driving the Ferrari, take out the Benz!"

I read the tone of the article summed up in the lines,
“I still go to New York  five or six times per year, but now I forego business class to travel in premium economy,” he said. “With the new flexibility to plan ahead – which was impossible when I worked for a bank – you can get good fares. And if you’re smart about it, the airlines still give you all the perks.”

 and,

“The wife is doing the ironing,” another banker told us. “She’s not loving it, but she doesn’t want to get a job herself so is having to accept it.”

It's a novel idea to have to scale back and still have perks many people will never have.

We need to care about our neighbors. We need to understand that when people become miserable and stressed, there are repercussions. This doesn't mean handing out free checks to everyone (although this is done in Alaska...) to boost incomes but it does mean acknowledging that maybe a single minded pursuit of everything that's best just for ourselves will come back to bite society in the ass. Benefiting everyone still means everyone will benefit, not just the poor or middle class. And we need to stop stigmatizing the desire to help others.

Otherwise you end up in a system where only the most connected and financially powerful will call the shots, and gradually they get into positions where laws are created that will only benefit the most connected and financially powerful, snowballing their accumulation of wealth until there's nothing left for anyone else.

Sound familiar?