July 17, 2022
"An industrious vagrant has built a 16-square-foot wooden home on the Manhattan Bridge bike path...."
"The ramshackle shed was pieced together with plywood, two-by-fours and cardboard.... The front door... latches shut with a bike lock....The squatter is a Chinese man in his 50s or 60s who speaks in broken Mandarin. Approached by The Post on Thursday, he rambled on about Mao Zedong and executed acquaintances, according to a translator.... Local progressive City Councilman Christopher Marte [said]... 'We are not going to comment on this story and don’t want to bring more trouble to this man’s life. I know he has been there for over a year....'"
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The price of apartments in China is insane.
Feng shui analysis is called for. It may be perfect.
I wonder if they mean "16-square-foot" or "16-foot-square." A shelter that's 4x4 feet or 8x2 feet doesn't stand out as particularly as sign of industry; two shopping carts of scavenged stuff takes up close to 16 square feet. A sleeping bag on the ground is close to 12 square feet.
Journalists...
I don’t know how many fellow commentators here have daily major urban experience. Probably not many. I grew up in a poor Philly neighborhood and spend 2-3 days a week in center city for personal reasons. I walk a lot through one of the wealthiest, most liberal neighborhoods in the country. I am no stranger to city life. Two observations-
1) the homeless are an institution now. They have regular grates and stairways to sleep in. Lack of food doesn’t seem to be an issue. I usually see half eaten pizza and Wawa cartons surrounding them. There may be 6 per block or so. Usually asleep or mindlessly staring into space. Drug addled or mental problems or both. Ignored by passerby and inert enough to be harmless UNTIL THEY ARE NOT. They can come alive in a violent manner in any random moment. A person walking alone can never relax. Especially women.
2) racial relations are horrible. The contempt blacks have for whites is palpable in the street. You see it in small ways. Games of walking chicken as a black approaches you. Who moves aside first? Aggressive eye contact. Physical confrontations that can be defended as innocuous bumps. Etc. The white residents I know are very liberal. I see them pretend not to notice but they do. They look down in the street and pretend not to see. Cops are rare and usually in groups of 3. It is not good.
you're 50 or 60 years old..
you're Homeless (well, you built yourself a shack)..
You speak "broken Mandarin"???
You've lived Here, How Long? And you STILL can't speak even your Native language?
How ARE you eating? WHO is paying for this zoo?
’The ramshackle shed was pieced together with plywood, two-by-fours and cardboard...’
According to Zillow, it has an estimated value of $325k.
The failure of 'woke' city/state governments to deal with total human failure is going to drive human success out of these areas. Who wants to live with what Jefferson's Revenge (above) describes?
People who can't be a part of civilized life, due to mental illness, drug addiction, etc., need to be apart from it. Either institutionalized for treatment, or allowed to camp in some out-of-the way spot, where normal people don't have to tip-toe around their tents, shacks or sleeping bags. Treatment should always be available, but if they won't go for it, then isolate them.
Did he pay for a permit?? Does he pay property taxes? Maybe we ALL should follow his direction, and do whatever we want. Would it work for us??
"I wonder if they mean "16-square-foot" or "16-foot-square."
Look at the photos. It's 16 square feet.
"how many fellow commentators here have daily major urban experience"
But me but I live it vicariously through Reddit city subs. Man, it's bad all over! Except in my pleasant little exurban bubble in Missoula.
Did I plan ahead or what?
"According to Zillow, it has an estimated value of $325k."
Beasts wins the thread.
Look at the photos. It's 16 square feet.
Then, oops! I saw the NY and missed the Post - assumed I would be blocked by the paywall of the NYT. And we all know what happens when one assumes...
But in that case my other point still stands: that's not particularly a sign of great industry - at least not in the encampments I see around Houston. His location is pretty bold, but the camps around Minute Maid Park are too.
"'We are not going to comment on this story and don’t want to bring more trouble to this man’s life. I know he has been there for over a year..."
It's almost as if progs like homelessness and lawlessness, as if not bringing trouble to deviants is more important than basic social order for law-abiding citizens. Of course, at this point, veneration of the marginalized is part of prog dogma in itself. But the sheer lust for disorder has its own rationale: beat down any confidence in any social ties protected by any responsible government, create a sense of powerless helplessness, and then exploit the anarchy by assertions of prog power.
Recently travelling to San Francisco. Homeless on literally every block. Friend of mine was driving me to his place of business in the Mission district. He commented, It's really hard to find parking around here...
We get to his place, and across the street there's this homeless guy, taking up the sidewalk for forty feet, tents and a bicycle and bags of gear, extending out into the street a few feet. My friend tells me, He's Russian. He gets out of the car, exchanges a few words with the guy, Dobroe Utro or such. The homeless guy gets up, moves some of his stuff around off the street onto the sidewalk, and my friend parks there in the new spot.
The city is ok with the build, but the Manhattan Bridge Homeless Owner's Assoc. is complaining about the color he chose for his poop pail.
Hobos supposed to be movin' around.
Same thing with vagrants.
So get movin', hobo.
Blogger Jefferson's Revenge said...
I don’t know how many fellow commentators here have daily major urban experience. Probably not many. I grew up in a poor Philly neighborhood and spend 2-3 days a week in center city for personal reasons. I walk a lot through one of the wealthiest, most liberal neighborhoods in the country. I am no stranger to city life. Two observations-
1) the homeless are an institution now. They have regular grates and stairways to sleep in. Lack of food doesn’t seem to be an issue. I usually see half eaten pizza and Wawa cartons surrounding them. There may be 6 per block or so. Usually asleep or mindlessly staring into space. Drug addled or mental problems or both. Ignored by passerby and inert enough to be harmless UNTIL THEY ARE NOT. They can come alive in a violent manner in any random moment. A person walking alone can never relax. Especially women.
2) racial relations are horrible. The contempt blacks have for whites is palpable in the street. You see it in small ways. Games of walking chicken as a black approaches you. Who moves aside first? Aggressive eye contact. Physical confrontations that can be defended as innocuous bumps. Etc. The white residents I know are very liberal. I see them pretend not to notice but they do. They look down in the street and pretend not to see. Cops are rare and usually in groups of 3. It is not good.
7/17/22, 7:04 AM
****************
I work in New York City. I have a very different daily experience than you. Also, I would hesitate calling the person walking towards you on the sidewalk "a black". It makes you come off like some unenlightened Dutch Afrikaner, your own racial fear is reeking, and you're describing a fellow human being like they're some predatory monster.
Ingenuity would be adding a toll booth gate and charging the bike riders a quarter to pass.
San Diego has many public bathrooms on the beach. The new ones are single stalls that are used by both sexes. They lock. What has happened is the more vulnerable take over these stalls after sunset and remain there until just after sunrise.
I see this guy has built a house w/ some security. But, he doesn't have a toilet like the San Diego homeless!
Why is it that bike paths are always attracting favelas?
I've been to India once, and saw the slums encircling large cities. This is how that starts. Stop it now, stop it hard. Get that guy a room in a jail cell or Section 8 housing, but do not let anarchy turn into a property right.
One of the links goes to a story from 2014 when there were lots of homeless (Chinese) people living on the Manhattan bridge. I assume they're smuggled over here to be cheap garment laborers. Maybe some run off, maybe some pay off their transport but then have nowhere to go. Some probably turn out to be mentally ill.
Really Arturo? Black is a descriptive word. Much like white. Or pompous arse.
Do you take the subway in NY or just stroll around Brooklyn looking for artisanal coffee?
Maybe you are pretending not to notice? Or are too enamored of your progressive bona fides to allow yourself to notice. It was the black community in NY who voted for the law and order candidate. Not the white progressives.
Randomizer said...
Ingenuity would be adding a toll booth gate and charging the bike riders a quarter to pass.
i was thinking a table with drinks and snax.
That would be SURE to get the city involved (closing him down)
So get movin', hobo.
this was The Purpose of the vagrancy laws. The racist parts were just a bonus
gilbar said...
You speak "broken Mandarin"???
You've lived Here, How Long? And you STILL can't speak even your Native language?
Would the journalist be able to tell the difference between broken and fluent?
You people are incredible. You want to eliminate the homeless, but not the underlying cause. You object to subsidized housing and would be the first to complain if taxes were raised to pay for the treatment and institutions you claim you want. You fought tooth and nail against any form of "socialized " health care yet you want the state asylum back.
Here we go with this crap again. Just say Mao. The other annoying pretentious thing is writing Japanese names with the Last name first. As in "Abe Shinzo" - yes, that's the way it is in Japanese. But we're not writing Japanese (if we were we'd be using Japanese characters) we're TRANSLATING it into English.
Its part of the same pattern of changing names and spellings of foreign cities and countries to be different. Kiyve instead of Kiev. For some reason, these same people call it Germany instead of Deutchland.
In silicon valley there are thousands. There's an official camp / parking area, about a city block, near the county offices. In Mountain View and Sunnyvale, there are whole streets lined with semi-broken RVs. Occasional tents appear inside the highway sound walls. Piles of belongings appear in out of the way niches everywhere.
Yesterday I was wondering how the RV crowds dispose of their black water. I know they are not using public restrooms, because I do not see them there. I suppose they are dumping their black water tanks into the street storm drains, on top of those cute little signs that say "No dumping. Flows to bay." that were placed there years ago by the previous generation of sensitive citizens.
How does one speak in 'broken' Mandarin if one is a native speaker?
I could see him speaking in broken English...
Trump can learn a thing or two from this enterpriser.
I'm having a hard time processing the phrase "industrious vagrant."
Freder. I don’t know about the rest of “you people” but all major cities, mine included, have subsidized housing. The problem is that there is a subset of the left that objects to homeless people being forced into subsidized housing. That basically means that to get a mentally disturbed person off the street, they must agree to that, which most don’t. The addicted resist it as well because it means they lose their drug connection. Those locations that allow the addicted into shelters without restrictions have found that the shelter turns into a drug marker.
Read Michael Shellenberger. The issue is not funding. There is plenty of money. It’s will, which is lacking. There is a self sustaining homeless industry that is in the way of a solution. You cannot take a person off the street without their consent nor put them in an institution with any restrictions. If you to, the homeless industry sues.
This is not a “you people” problem.
Freder, the underlying cause is mental illness and drug addiction, as you seem to acknowledge at least in part. Look to set up facilities to treat these chronic problems ignored by homeless and housing “advocates” and let’s then talk about taxes. If there’s no intent to deal with the underlying issues (which would “stigmatize the homeless”) then I’ll pass
"The issue is not funding. There is plenty of money."
Plenty of money? Progressive grievance studies majors need pretend jobs so they can eat, you know.
7/17/22, 9:53 AM
Blogger Jefferson's Revenge said...
Really Arturo? Black is a descriptive word. Much like white. Or pompous arse.
Do you take the subway in NY or just stroll around Brooklyn looking for artisanal coffee?
Maybe you are pretending not to notice? Or are too enamored of your progressive bona fides to allow yourself to notice. It was the black community in NY who voted for the law and order candidate. Not the white progressives.
7/17/22, 9:58 AM
***********
If someone of a different race described you as "a white", you'd think "yeah they seem kind of racist there."
I take the NYC subway every day.
LOL
".....your own racial fear is reeking, ...."
Cannot disagree with substance, so pulls racist card from bottom of deck. Obviously hates whites.
Jefferson's Revenge said...
Freder. I don’t know about the rest of “you people” but all major cities, mine included, have subsidized housing. The problem is that there is a subset of the left that objects to homeless people being forced into subsidized housing. That basically means that to get a mentally disturbed person off the street, they must agree to that, which most don’t. The addicted resist it as well because it means they lose their drug connection. Those locations that allow the addicted into shelters without restrictions have found that the shelter turns into a drug marker.
Read Michael Shellenberger. The issue is not funding. There is plenty of money. It’s will, which is lacking. There is a self sustaining homeless industry that is in the way of a solution. You cannot take a person off the street without their consent nor put them in an institution with any restrictions. If you to, the homeless industry sues.
This is not a “you people” problem
***************
It was President Reagan who killed off the government-run mental health institutions that used to house the vast majority of what are now homeless mentally ill Americans, when he killed off the MHSA. Stop blaming your dreaded liberals for what was a right-wing policy "answer" to this problem.
It was President Reagan who killed off the government-run mental health institutions that used to house the vast majority of what are now homeless mentally ill Americans, when he killed off the MHSA. Stop blaming your dreaded liberals for what was a right-wing policy "answer" to this problem."
Yet somehow Clinton didn't revive it. Nor did Obama. And Biden hasn't mentioned it. What's the excuse now Arturo?
Actually it was a magic pill will solve everything belief that killed off mental health institutions, that were run at a state level.
Liberals were happy the poor hapless mentally ill were no longer confined to horrible institutions as portrayed in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
And Conservative were Happy with the money that was saved.
And now the Homeless Industrial Complex has rebranded it as a "Lack of Housing Issue" and throws lots of money at the issue, which somehow keeps on getting worse. The real issue of decriminalization, red tape making building cheap affordable housing impossible without Government Handouts (I think it's $750,000 to build a lousy unit for homeless now in LA), and drug addiction.
LA County per the LA Sheriff ended up somehow with was it 1/4 or 1/3rd of the nations homeless.
Going to LA City, it's really bad. In the garment district, there are now a bunch of broken down RV's right off the 10, around San Pedro. Google Map does not show how bad it is.
And on my recent visit to NYC, at night walking near the Chrysler Building. A buy was urinating as my wife and I walked by him on the side walk. It was sprinkling, so he was under the construction roof over the sidewalk. That was a first for me. Previous trip in NYC we saw a guy over dosing next to Penn Station. Another first for me.
I suppose Auturo should consider himself fortunate he isn't stabbed or pushed in front of a train. But that might change his POV. Only a maroon would think that walking in a bad (read BLACK) neighborhood (or any major city ffs) would not result in some nastiness including mortal wounding. Or just a sucker punch if you're Asian or 74 years old. Get a life. Liberals, what don't they believe?
Marcus Bressler said...
I suppose Auturo should consider himself fortunate he isn't stabbed or pushed in front of a train. But that might change his POV. Only a maroon would think that walking in a bad (read BLACK) neighborhood (or any major city ffs) would not result in some nastiness including mortal wounding. Or just a sucker punch if you're Asian or 74 years old. Get a life. Liberals, what don't they believe?
***************
Wow: just pure, uncut racism. I suppose I should thank you for your honesty. It saves a lot of time.
This idiot thinks he'll get stabbed if he walks through a black neighborhood. How do you put your pants on in the morning without accidentally killing yourself? Have you left the house since December?
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