Dude, That Totally Reads Like A Talk Of The Town Piece!

Where do all the Talk of the Town rejections go? To silenceofthecity.com*:

The prospect of breaking into the seemingly impenetrable fortress that is The New Yorker can make a writer contemplate crazy and desperate things. So it was for Mac Montandon, when, a couple years ago, he received an assignment to write an article on spec for the magazine’s Talk of the Town section. To Montandon, who’d been trying, unsuccessfully, to break into the magazine, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But on the day he’d arranged to conduct the crucial interview, one that couldn’t be postponed, his wife went into labor with the couple’s first child. “I’ll probably sound like the bastard of all time,” the 35-year-old journalist says, “but I was a little conflicted.”

On the day his daughter, Oona, was born, he was to meet Bob Pollard, the frontman of the band Guided by Voices, who, Montandon had learned, planned to announce the dissolution of the band to a capacity crowd at the Bowery Ballroom that evening. It promised to be one of those offbeat New York moments that Talk of the Town stories capture so well, and Pollard seemed the type of quirky, yet complex, persona that might intrigue New Yorker readers. Luckily, Oona was born in time for Montandon to meet Pollard that afternoon. And making trips back and forth from the venue to the hospital, he even caught one of Guided by Voices’ final performances. Later, Montandon framed his story with the elegance, wit, and detail he believed were the ingredients of a successful Talk story. In the end, though, the magazine never published it. “I think that was the closest I’ve come to cracking into the golden tower,” recalls Montandon, a senior editor at the soon-to-be-relaunched Radar magazine, who estimates he’s pitched Talk of the Town 15 times over the past four years. (One of his most recent: a piece on the etiquette of holding subway and elevator doors open for other passengers—do you make a token effort with the “dainty one-toe” technique or take “the full-body approach”? In retrospect, he concedes, his pitch may have been a bit too “high-concept.”)

Rejection, of course, is simply a rite of passage for most writers. For Montandon, though, it formed the seed of an idea. Since there was no shortage of writers like him who’d tried and failed to make The New Yorker’s pages, he figured there was an abundance of unpublished Talk stories lying around New York City. About a year ago he set out to provide a home for the orphan submissions, quietly launching silenceofthecity.com, where he resurrects the unpublished contributions of Talk of the Town rejectees.

. . .

Though Montandon has yet to receive any feedback from The New Yorker about Silence of the City and was unsure whether anyone there had even come across it, staffers at the magazine have been aware of the site for some time. “We were flattered by it more than anything,” says Lauren Collins, a 26-year-old New Yorker staffer who writes for Talk of the Town and assists in putting the section together. “I think it’s good-humored and a fun spoof on what we do.”

“I thought that the stories were pretty good and fun to read,” adds Susan Morrison, who’s edited Talk for the past 10 years, “so it’s providing a service, I suppose, because we don’t have that much space to run many stories.”

*This Voice article is the most meta thing you’ll read all year.

See also: Silence of the City.

Out: Unsightly Coin-Op Laundromats And Check Cashing Places; In: Dog Walkers

Development brings upscale professionals. Upscale professionals bring dogs. And dogs demand dogwalkers:

With huge residential developments in construction all along the East River waterfront, and hundreds of upscale professionals flocking to the neighborhood, Long Island City now has a new growth industry: professional dog walking.

“I’m going to need an assistant soon, once all these buildings go up,” said Cynthia Zapata, 36, who walks dogs from the Avalon Riverview building on 50th Avenue.

Zapata started walking dogs part time two years ago “to make a few extra bucks,” she said. Now she walks 10 or more dogs a day. At $10 for a walk, a run in the park and a few minutes playing catch or Frisbee, the job soon became a major source of income.

She’s not the only one to see profit at the end of a leash. “I have a few customers who have their dogs walked seven days a week, every day of the year,” says Hanna Polaski, who works at the City Dog Lounge on Vernon Boulevard. City Dog’s walking service doesn’t come cheap either — at $12 for a half hour, five weekday walks add up to almost $300 per month. But with many commuters leaving early in the morning and returning late at night, their dog’s comfort is worth the price.

And if the residents of Avalon Riverview are any indication, the additional residential towers under construction will swell Long Island City’s population — four footed and two footed alike.

“There are more dogs than there are kids,” said Rob McSparron, the concierge of the 372 unit rental building that opened in 2002. He estimated that one out of every four apartments has a dog. At an average rent of $3,000 per month, and some apartments fetching more than $6,000, the dogs reflect their owners’ upscale tastes.

“It’s mostly purebreds,” McSparron said. “You see a lot of bulldogs and Labradors, and a lot of the yippy little Paris Hilton dogs.”

. . .

The character of the neighborhood is already changing quickly, according to Polaski. Having worked at City Dog Lounge for two years, she can tell by the dogs. “No more mutts,” she said. “All the city people that are coming, they bring in purebreds and more of the little dogs.”

One of the most popular new breeds she sees is the Maltese, which Polaski describes as a “small, fluffy, white ball of fur.”

The type of dog owners are changing too.

“They come in here and ask for clothes for the doggies, for nail polish,” Polaski says. “We don’t sell that here. For us, a dog is a dog. We love doggies but we treat them like dogs and not like little kids.”

But What’s The Right Temperature For $100 Bills?

Two Queens bank robbers find out the hard way that when it comes to exploding dye packs you should really send out your laundry:

Two men tried to launder money –literally — at the Metro Motel, 73-00 Queens Blvd., Woodside, last Friday, July 14, but were interrupted by police and arrested. The men, 51-year-old Anthony Digiosaffate and Paul Villaneuva, age unknown, had allegedly robbed a Queens County Savings Bank in Howard Beach of about $65,000 earlier in the week. A dye pack in the money exploded, covering the money and the two alleged robbers with red dye. The two checked into the Metro Motel and tried to clean the money in a washing machine in the motel’s laundry room, but were arrested. They are being held without bail.

If I Can’t Pay $50 Then No One Should Be Able To Pay $50!

The Neue Galerie has scrapped plans for a special no-riff raff $50 off-hours deal:

Less than a week after announcing a special $50 opportunity to view its newly purchased Klimt portrait on a day its doors are normally shut, the Neue Galerie canceled that plan yesterday, saying the offer was misread by the public.

A museum spokesman, Scott Gutterman, said that a wave of callers had contacted the Neue Galerie yesterday leaving the museum with the impression that some found the price objectionable. The Neue Galerie had described the $50 ticket, which was to be offered each Wednesday from noon to 4 p.m. starting today, as a way for visitors to avoid crowds. “It was originally intended for members, who can get in for free,” Mr. Gutterman said of the Wednesday viewings. “But then we thought that we would offer the public a chance to come on Wednesdays for $50, when it would be less crowded.”

Previously on: Congestion Pricing Is Un-American!

Who Is “They”? I’ll Tell You Exactly Who “They” Is!

It’s not often that you can pin the shadowy, nebulous forces of gentrification on one person. Good thing we still have Clinton to kick around:

Harlem residents gathered outside President Clinton’s office yesterday to protest against the former president as a symbol of Harlem’s gentrification and the displacement of its residents.

The Harlem Tenants Council hosted the protest at 125th Street between Lenox and Park avenues that was attended by about 40 mostly elderly, African-American residents of the area. A HTC co-founder, Nellie Bailey, said the primary goal of the protest was to draw attention to what she calls a “housing crisis in Harlem,” due in part to displacement because of price increases by landlords and evictions.

“We’re hoping to have a dialogue with a president of enormous influence,” Ms. Bailey said, “so he can understand the concerns of Harlem tenants,” including the lack of a comprehensive, beneficial housing policy and legal services. A Clinton Foundation spokesman, Jay Carson, declined to comment on the protest.