When Cassettes Ruled The World

I think there’s a point in this paragraph somewhere, though it jumps around quite a bit:

Perhaps even more relevant, Staten Island is not an incubator of preciousness; it seems allergic to preciousness. Before there were artisanal-cheese mongers in Williamsburg there were painters, performance artists, tattoos, eccentrics, an alternative-culture elite. Staten Island has a lower share of residents with bachelor’s degrees than any borough except the Bronx.

Then there is the catnip of old cassette players:

At the same time, though, the island’s North Shore does not conform to the borough’s clichés. (And in truth the borough on the whole has become less like its image: In 2010, 52 percent of Staten Island residents under the age of 18 were non-Hispanic whites, a drop from 73 percent 20 years earlier.) The area surrounding the Homeport site is less suburban, far less well off, less white and grungier than much of Staten Island. You will see graffiti, junkyards, abandoned cassette players and a methadone clinic a few doors down from a sleekly laid-out clothing store — elements that are catnip to a certain kind of 26-year-old.

Ladies And Gentlemen, I’m Not Selling Candy For Any Sports Team; I’m Just Trying To Earn The Equivalent Of $55K A Year

Then again, he spends a lot of time and energy hustling to sell candy on the subway, so what’s the problem?

They Spoke Up About Gentrification But No One Listened . . . Until They Voiced Those Concerns In A Dying Medium Perfectly Suited To The Gentrifiers Themselves

A case study in “knowing your audience”:

They saw abandoned brownstones renovated, cracks on sidewalks fixed and new families move onto their Harlem blocks.

They witnessed swanky, new restaurants open up — and they watched helplessly as the cost of housing shot through the roof.

Four Harlem natives watched the gentrification of their neighborhoods unfold, and now they’ve written a play about it.

The playwrights — all in their early 20s — have mixed feelings about the new businesses, towering new luxury apartment buildings and new faces in Harlem, and just want to see the rich culture of their neighborhoods preserved.

. . .

The play, which focuses on three young women dealing with the affects of their changing neighborhood, is in its final week-long run at the historic National Black Theatre and runs Friday through Dec. 11.

Is it also an example of irony? It’s too early in the morning for me to tell . . .

Message: If Some College Kid Asks For A Ride To East New York, Gladly Invite Him Or Her In And Remind That Person That The Credit Card Machine Is Always On

Because you’d think it should be fairly easy for them to tell who is a plant:

The student agents have hailed 1,330 yellow cabs since September and been denied 361 times, according to TLC data.

. . .

Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx were the least popular destinations, with refusal rates ranging between 15 and 63 percent during various time frames, the statistics revealed.

Twenty Years From Now, Think Back On This And Know That We Tried To Tell You But You Just Didn’t Listen

Kids today are so bubbly and positive it kills me:

For 20 years, a pessimistic poem installed on overhead beams in the Times Square subway station has provoked and puzzled commuters.

Now a Bronx college student has sneakily transformed the peevish public art into an uplifting ode.

“Every time I passed it, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a really depressing poem to have in the heart of New York City,[‘]” said [the student], 20, of Riverdale.

“I took the same poem and just made it more optimistic.”