{"id":3651,"date":"2008-10-27T10:18:32","date_gmt":"2008-10-27T10:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/this-is-u\/"},"modified":"2008-10-27T10:24:36","modified_gmt":"2008-10-27T10:24:36","slug":"this-is-u","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/this-is-u\/","title":{"rendered":"This is U"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Russell Bittner.<\/p>\n

Ugliness in the hoopla of spring isn’t easy to come by even for the most jaded among us. \u00a0 But turn a keen eye on the wrong neighborhood, you’ll find it. \u00a0 In Brooklyn, certainly \u2013 and no doubt in other \u2018hoods, too. \u00a0 Neighborhoods by the growing score in this last year before the second Great Depression. \u00a0 All of them wrong, and becoming more wrong by the day.<\/p>\n

On today’s round for the Census Bureau, I’ve taken the \u201cN” line to Avenue U in Grave’s End \u2013 \u00a0 and I think I may’ve just found the ugliest station in the entire crumble of the NYC subway system.<\/p>\n

\"brooklyn-1.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2018Urban blight’ is a facile phrase \u2013 facile, that is, until you come face to face with it on a spring morning bursting with vigor and calling to all passers-by: \u00a0 Hey! \u00a0 Look at me!<\/p>\n

\"brooklyn-2.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Instead, I look at the peeling paint, the garbage, the graffiti, the grey faces \u2013 however few of them there might be with somewhere to go at this mid-morning hour. \u00a0 One poster on the wall advertising HBO’s \u201cThe Tudors” catches my particular attention because someone has carefully keyed away the paper over the queen’s tit precisely where her nipple would be. \u00a0 \u2018Scratch \u2018n’ sniff?’<\/em> I wonder. \u00a0 Looking for a lucky lotto number? \u00a0 Maybe just groping, with a scratch, for a glimpse. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"brooklyn-3.jpg\"<\/p>\n

I exit the station and turn, quite arbitrarily, in one direction \u2013 pass the RAMBUG Termite & Pest Control; and then, following hard on, the Beautie Bounty Hair Salon.<\/p>\n

\"brooklyn-4.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Next to both, a Russian video store with a couple of English-language titles in the window advertising \u201c30 Days of Night” and \u201cExtinction” is beginning to set a genial mood. \u00a0 Our Lady of Perpetual Help stands willing on the opposite side of the street just in case I’m not yet getting into the swing of things.<\/p>\n

I turn \u2018round \u2013 this can’t be right \u2013 and head out in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n

More constant ugliness (in what might’ve been dayglo in former times) is what I next find at the Wrong Number Cocktail Lounge at the corner of Avenue T and W. 7th Street, just half a block down from the station. \u00a0 If this is a lounge,<\/em> I think, give me nails \u2013 a whole bed’s worth<\/em>. \u00a0 The letters of the Wrong Number \u2013 each of them in a different (and differently bad<\/em>) original choice of color \u2013 hang, fading, on the exterior wall.<\/p>\n

\"brooklyn-5.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The front door opens, and I see a sign hanging on the inside face: \u00a0 \u201cCaution: \u00a0 We don’t call 911.” \u00a0 Nice touch<\/em>, I think. \u00a0 A woman walks out; takes a last drag on her cigarette; flicks the butt out into the street. \u00a0 She’s somewhere between twenty and a hundred and twenty \u2013 and looks as if she’s never taken a breath of unconditioned air in her life, never tasted water that wasn’t meant as a mixer, never walked into sunlight unless pushed out of a door or window. \u00a0 I decide it’s time to get a little scratch \u2018n’ sniff myself, to go in and meddle.<\/p>\n

I enter. \u00a0 Another woman with a buffo hairdo and huge tits sees the camera and tripod I’m carrying and says \u201cHey, honey, let’s go in the back room and take a picture of these<\/em>!” as she spreads open her blouse and gives an extra push to her push-up bra. \u00a0 I force a smile, then move on to the other end of the bar, sit down and order a beer from a lady behind the bar named \u2018Carol,’ but otherwise keep quiet. \u00a0 The place is in every sense nondescript: \u00a0 filled with video games, a couple of overhead televisions \u2013 both showing today’s Mets versus Cubs game \u2013 and a foursome playing a very loud card game. \u00a0 The lounge is a low-hanging cloud of foul voices mouthing banalities, complaints about aches and pains, complaints in general about the state of the planet. \u00a0 I drink my beer, then grab my stuff and walk off towards the \u201cCaution: \u00a0 We don’t call 911″ front door.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, at least, no one says \u2018Have a nice day’ as I’m exiting. \u00a0 This, after all, ain’t a Starbucks.<\/p>\n

I’m sorry. \u00a0 You were expecting a story? \u00a0 The only story here is that there is no story \u2013 just a neighborhood in decline and with no disaster plan even within wishful thinking distance. \u00a0 No need to Google this \u2018hood \u2013 never was; never will be. \u00a0 The Wrong Number doesn’t answer to the right number, doesn’t call 911, doesn’t even bother with a street address.<\/p>\n

And your Census guy \u2013 me?<\/p>\n

I’ll just keep on counting, taking numbers, collecting data. \u00a0 Heads and bodies \u2013 as long as they’re connected and still in motion. \u00a0 Your tax dollars at work, right? \u2013 though not at the Wrong Number. \u00a0 Those tax dollars are what keep me out of Shantytown, thank you, though not by much. \u00a0 But hey, I’m an \u2018information worker,’ know how to Google and use Mapquest, know how to work the subway system, know how to talk to people who clearly don’t<\/em> want to talk to me. \u00a0 In short, I’m part of the \u2018New Society.’<\/p>\n

After all, we’ll still need data come the second Great Depression. \u00a0 We can eat data, right?<\/p>\n

\"russell-bittner.jpg\"<\/p>\n

ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong>
\nRussell lives, works and writes on a small island off the East Coast of the U. S. called \u2018Long’ \u2013 just over the bridge from another funny-sounding island called \u2018Manhattan.’ \u00a0 That bridge, named after the same borough he calls \u2018home,’ is the Brooklyn Bridge. \u00a0 One day before he dies, he’d like to build or write something as enduring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"rb.jpg\" I enter. Another woman with a buffo hairdo and huge tits sees the camera and tripod I’m carrying and says \u201cHey, honey, let’s go in the back room and take a picture of these!\u201d\u009d as she spreads open her blouse and gives an extra push to her push-up bra. I force a smile, then move on to the other end of the bar, sit down and order a beer from a lady behind the bar named \u2018Carol,’ but otherwise keep quiet. The place is in every sense nondescript: filled with video games, a couple of overhead televisions \u2014 both showing today’s Mets versus Cubs game \u2014 and a foursome playing a very loud card game.<\/p>\n

\nBy Russell Bittner<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}