Living Inner City

WE HIT THE BEACH, Rockaway Beach, on Sunday -- a day after the Great Shark Sighting of '07. Actually, it was a 6-foot Thresher Shark that washed ashore Saturday on Beach 109th Street, just a few short blocks away from where we usually plop our towels down on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, it turned up dead less than a day later with a large open gash on its underbelly, the apparent victim of a float-by mauling.

But on Sunday we had our own scare right on Beach 102nd Street: the reported drowning of a young girl. Around 30 lifeguards came running from all up and down the Beach to search for the missing youngster, while a police helicopter swooped low, very low, overhead. Turns out the girl was on the boardwalk all along. According to a lifeguard I chatted up, the girl's parents panicked; she told me that the dad had lost a brother from drowning years ago and immediately freaked out when he didn't see his daughter. Long story short, we went back to tossing the football around after a short interlude of feigned concern.

But the shark was hardly the only victim of violence in the City on the long Laborious Day Weekend. As if channeling the notoriously deadly Summer of '77, New Yorkers seemed to revert to form, confirming the worst urban stereotypes. But if rumors of a dangerously out of control city keep even one family of fat annoying tourists away, somehow it will all have been worth it.

Now, I hope you're sitting down when you read this next item, because shockingly violence broke out at the 40th annual West Indian Day Parade. I know, I know, hard to believe, but a "reveler" was shot twice in the leg. The news reports all stuck to the same tone: a beautiful day was marred by a few bad apples. On one broadcast, an overhead shot focused in on what looked like a giant mosh pit, with literally thousands of young men pushing each other in what looked like an orgasmic orgy of coordinated violence. Funny, but for whatever reason, cultural or otherwise, it's the kind of thing that rarely happens at, say, the Salute to Israel parade, or even the drunken spectacle that is St. Patrick's Day. Just saying.

On Staten Island, violence also marred a Labor Day block party, with a 4-year-old girl the victim this time of a stray gunshot. The disgusting part is that despite plenty of witnesses to this barbarous act, not one person has thus far come forward to aid the investigation so that police can nab the shooter. The likely reason, of course, is the fear of repercussion should word get out that some concerned citizen is cooperating with the police. Don't worry, though: Al Sharpton will somehow find a way to blame centuries of racial prejudice and white oppression for this outrage, instead of putting the blame where it belongs. Again, just saying.

But the worst act of violence this weekend occurred just a few blocks from where I sit a-typin' this entry. A hard-working 19-year-old Mexican dishwasher named Jose Sierra was shot and killed in Astoria early Sunday morning inside a subway station. Five people, now considered suspects, were seen running away from the Broadway N/W train station after shots rang out at 1:00 AM. Not that everything is all about me, but this is my blog, and that was my "home" stop when I lived in the neighborhood about 20 years ago. Now I live a grand total of 3 subway stops away, in the beautiful Ditmars Blvd. area. The consensus of those residents interviewed by on-location network newspeople is that the "neighborhood is very good," "this is a peaceful neighborhood," it's "unbelievable," etc. Trust me, it's not all that wonderful, unless the area changed a whole lot from when I was a resident in the pre-gentrified '80s. Then, it was overwhelmingly dirty, noisy, malodorous, crowded & rundown -- and I loved it, because my rent was a mere $235.40 when I first moved into rent-controlled apartment B4 at 29-08 31st Avenue, in a building incongruously called Windsor Garden.

Now, my theory is that the name "Windsor Garden" was chosen by savvy real estate honchos to suggest the lush, verdant acres and sprawling hills one might encounter while strolling outside an English country manor. Not only was there no greenery or garden to speak of, but the soulless, dilapidated edifice resembled an embattled fortress more than a royal castle. (Of course, people have a funny way of upgrading their own neighborhood when they describe it to outsiders, except for those posers who like to brazenly "romanticize" their neighborhood as more dangerous than it really is in a pathetically transparent attempt to garner street cred.)

Again, call me cynical, call me disturbed, just don't call me late to dinner, but if this prevents even one set of spoiled, annoying, three- or four-to-an-apartment-sharing yuppies from moving into my nabe, driving rents & food prices up, maybe some good will come from this after all. The other day I saw that a Greek deli had closed, and a sign on the boarded up storefront informed passers-by that a new sushi place was coming -- soon to join the ranks of overpriced coffee joints, boutiques and cafes. Great. Now, I've eaten sushi maybe 10 times in my life, while I used to cop spinach pies from this place on a semi-regular basis. So I've done the math, people, and I'm here to tell you it ain't pretty!