Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Second Ave Subway: Opening 2000 Never

When my father was just a boy growing up in Borough Park, Brookyln, the Second Ave Subway project began. My dad is just a few years away from retirement now, and I live an avenue over from the Second Ave. subway construction. The MTA has had decades to get this project right and yet I guess it never occured to them that perhaps blasting holes in the middle of the road with dynamite might not be so good for anything - people, business and and homes - on Second Ave. Tennants are actually being made to evacuate their homes and put up in hotels because the blasting has made buildings so unstable. Now I ask, while the idea of a Second Ave. subway sounds amazing, I've lived here for 10 years without one and managed just fine. Is it really necessary to go ahead with the project if it means destroying every business and home on the street along the way? I'm going to say NO! The express bus works just fine.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Chase is a pretty shitty bank...literally


This just cracks me up. Someone left a huge pile of horse poop in the vestibule of the Chase Bank on Second Ave. and 10th St. I'm wondering if this has something to do with people angry with the gentrification of the East Village. Where the bank now stands used to be the famous Second Avenue Deli, which had to close because the landlord jacked up the rent.

I look friendly, even when I'm barfing.

I had the great misfortune to come down with some nasty food poisoning this weekend, which I think may be from a funky steak at Outback (that's what I get for being a New Yorker and eating at a chain restaurant) or the cheap-ass nasty hot dogs at Gray's Papaya. What's worse is I started to feel ill right in the middle of a Broadway show. I somehow made it through the whole show without tossing my cookies, and decided to take the subway home because getting a cab near Times Square on a Saturday night just wasn't going to happen. I get onto the platform when a wave of nausea hits me, and I start to hover next to the garbage can. Right before I'm about to puke a guy comes over to me to ask if he's on the correct side of the tracks. I just tell him yes (which was wrong) and puke as he walks away. Not one damn minute later, I'm hanging onto the garbage can and some other shmuck comes up to me and asks me if this is the uptown side!!! I mean, really people? Was everyone else on the platform so damn scary that your only alternative was to ask the vomitting girl for help? Or, how about looking at the enormous signs all over the subway!!