You Can’t Stop Driftwood Art; You Can Only Hope To Contain It

The Times investigates the abstract driftwood formations that have been cropping up along the Hudson River near the Upper West Side:

Among the many mysteries of the universe – Stonehenge, black holes, alien corn mazes – the driftwood sculptures along the Hudson River in Manhattan have to qualify among the most intriguing, at least to the many bikers, joggers, fishermen and picnickers who pass them every day.

Since at least the spring, someone has been gathering branches worn smooth and silvery by the river, and assembling them into abstract designs. Some incorporate delicately balanced stones; some are tied with found rope. Some are small, others 6 to 8 feet tall. They are anchored among the boulders that line the river from about West 115th Street north almost to the Fairway supermarket at 132nd Street.

Most regulars have no doubt this is art. Yet one Friday in early July, Parks Department cleanup crews uprooted every one of the sculptures and tossed them on the sidewalk to be carted away, as if they were trash.

Over the last three weeks, new driftwood sculptures have slowly risen, taking the place of the old ones.

The strangest part is that nobody seems to know the identity of the artist.

Sad to say, but these pieces are in some ways more interesting than a lot of public art in the city.

But lest you call the B2 article “fluff,” know that writer Anemona Hartocollis seems to have gone to some lengths to figure out the artist’s identity:

It seems possible that the artist lives a double life, artist by night and, say, tennis pro by day.

This loosely describes an apparently homeless man who rides his bike every morning from Upper Manhattan to the Trump development at 72nd Street, where he proceeds to hit a few tennis balls, with considerable skill, on the courts under the West Side Highway.

It was afternoon, well after tennis time, and he was perched on a rock at the latitude of 120th Street, staring pensively at the river, at an intimate distance from a driftwood sculpture resembling a scarecrow. Was he the artist, someone asked. The tennis player looked startled for a moment, then shook his head and said, in an East European accent, “Maintain the law.”

The plot thickens . . . and apologies to ESPN’s Dan Patrick for the silly post title.

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

As trustafarians artificially inflate prices across the city, regular working-class joes are forced to pilfer household goods from their parents, as reported by the Times’ Style Section:

A generation ago, adult children visiting their parents’ homes might have left with a Tupperware container of lasagna. Today, many of them stealthily make off with toiletries, groceries, sometimes clothing and even furniture. It is an apparently widespread practice, born of a sense of entitlement among young adults – and usually amusedly tolerated by parents – that gives new meaning to the phrase “home shopping.” Like most adults, the pilferers have set up their own households, but they seem not to have given up the expectation that their parents should provide for them in certain ways. They loot their parents’ houses to cut costs, or because they would rather not pay for incidentals. Or because they want things with sentimental value.

Sometimes the children ask if they can take things. Often they do not.

. . .

Stephen Kunken, 34, an actor in New York who is an admitted “pillager” of his parents’ possessions, said he rationalized that his parents had too much stuff and that he was both “trimming the fat” and “liberating” things. “I thought: ‘These poor things. These are never going to get used. I’m going to liberate them and bring them into the city,’ ” he said.

Through the years Mr. Kunken has taken briefcases, a slide projector, an electric toothbrush, razors, blank tapes, paper towels, soap and bottles of wine.

His parents did not know their wine was missing until he served it to them at a party at his Brooklyn apartment. “We had our own wine that he stole,” his mother, Ginny Kunken, said. “It was very nice that he invited us.”

His parents are accustomed to finding things missing. “What have they taken?” said her husband, Fred Kunken, a dentist from Upper Brookville, N.Y., referring to Stephen and his 37-year-old brother, Jeffrey. “What haven’t they taken? They’ve taken just about every bit of my clothing, from my underwear and socks to –”

“Bathing suits,” his wife interjected, laughing.

“All of a sudden my razors disappear,” Dr. Kunken said. “Shaving cream disappears. It’s gotten to the point that if I see them coming, and if it’s something I just got that I want to wear, I hide it.”

To be sure, it’s quite possible that the subjects’ professions have something to do with it. Age, Sex, Profession and Neighborhood of interviewees in article follows:

• F, 24, Fashion Model, Manhattan
• M, 34, Actor, Brooklyn
• F, 26, Musician, Brooklyn
• F, 31, Actress, [No Neighborhood Mentioned]
• F, 24, “campus recruiter for a financial institution,” [No Neighborhood Mentioned]

You see where we’re going with this . . .

Is there any end in sight? Researchers are optimistic:

The phrase “emerging adulthood” does imply that these sticky fingers will eventually become independent. Is there a specific age by which one should finally accept the responsibility of paying one’s way? Psychologists and economists point to the early or mid-30’s.

“By the early 30’s the assistance that kids are receiving from their parents dissipates strongly,” said Robert F. Schoeni, an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “The kids are establishing their careers, they’re getting better-paid jobs, getting married.”

Ms. [Nicole] Atkins, who has decorated her Brooklyn apartment with shot glasses, candles, Mexican marionettes and boxing gloves from her parents’ house in Neptune, N.J., says she will cease her home shopping once she gets married and has a family.

“If I had kids and a husband, and I was still taking stuff from my parents,” she said, “that would be really lame.”

The Problem With Fanny Packs

The Times does a post-mortem on Sunday’s tour bus terror scare, noting in particular that the problem with keeping an eye out for dark-skinned men with backpacks is that there are an awful lot of dark-skinned men with backpacks in New York:

According to the police, the Gray Line supervisor told the captain that the five men had aroused the concerns of a Gray Line ticket agent at the Waldorf-Astoria, where the men had boarded bus 320. The ticket agent, the police said, had told the supervisor that the men had purchased their tickets in advance; that they carried backpacks; and that they wore something else – perhaps fanny packs – that caused bulges to appear around their waists.

Bonus: Perhaps the British tourists were confused when police told them their “fanny packs” were suspicious?

The Last Taboo

The Village Voice examines the last great New York taboo topic — Trustafarians:

Sex with strangers. Drug abuse. Mental illness. Among educated twentysomethings reared in the therapy culture, every personal scandal is fair game at the dinner table. Except for one: coming from money.

“Please don’t tell anyone about my trust fund, I really don’t want that information being passed around,” one young New Yorker e-mailed me. “Oh, so I’m the bad guy?” another heir asked warily.

It may sound strange that in the most affluent society in the world, in the richest city in the world, Richie Riches would be ashamed of their inherited fortunes. After all, President Bush repealed the estate tax just for them, the luckiest 2 percent of the population!

But America still sees itself as an egalitarian society, and wealth is still a loaded issue. Those who bear the dreaded “trustafarian” tag say they have problems with guilt, embarrassment, and most importantly, figuring out what to do with their lives.

All of which sets up the devastating conclusion: getting a job helps one “get direction” in life. Say it ain’t so!

At Least They Didn’t Shoot Them

A group of five Sikh tourists deemed suspicious by a bus driver were escorted off the double-decker tour bus they were sightseeing in and forced to kneel handcuffed on Broadway while police determined they were, in fact, just tourists:

The five British tourists left town yesterday to continue their U.S. trip, and one said the Sunday incident didn’t spoil their time in the city.

“These things happen, don’t they?” said the man, who gave his name as Jas, 39. “We have no hard feelings. It certainly made our trip different, but didn’t ruin it at all.”

The tourists were all members of the Sikh religion who grew up together in Birmingham, England. Jas said he planned to return to New York in December to celebrate his 40th birthday. “I’m definitely coming back,” he said.

Meanwhile — surprise, surprise — crime on the subway has gone down since police have begun randomly searching riders’ bags:

Subway crime has plummeted 23% so far this month, compared with same time period last year, officials said yesterday. That’s helped bring the year-to-date felony increase, which was 18% at the end of March, down to about 2%. The NYPD has flooded the subways since the July 7 transit blasts in London, and began random bag searches last week.

“The criminals are staying away,” MTA board member Barry Feinstein said after a Metropolitan Transportation Authority committee meeting. “They are in more danger than they ever were of being caught and being prosecuted.”

Bonus: Sikh Terrorism fact sheet