My ‘Pretty’ Street

I tend to be a rather private person so I avoid posting online those things that are of a personal nature. With that being said, I definitely do not post content indicating my place of residence, in case one of my ‘raving stalker fans’ may be lurking in the darkness ;) I post photograph of locations all over the city, but available time has been scarce as of late so in an attempt to deliver new content, I have taken to the Hannibal Lecter strategy of coveting what I see everyday…In this case, my own street.

Without disclosing exactly where, I will describe the vicinity. I reside in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. The section of the neighborhood that I live is in the far northwest corner where it borders Williamsburg (to the north) and Clinton Hill (the the west). I have seen realtors market property in this area as being in either neighborhoods to avoid the whole Bed Stuy [do or die] image. Regardless of the spin, I live in Bed Stuy. The neighborhood is in transition and my street is no different. My block consists of brownstone and tenement stock that have been rehabbed, the photo directly below was taken from my stoop.

Such is typical of a dense neighborhood, one block is completely different from the next. The next block contains old industrial properties that have been converted into lofts with a few areas that still contain light industry. The buildings are well utilized by graffiti artists.

The next block is mainly retail, this shot was taken on garbage collection day-eve; case closed on the ‘rats the size of cats’ mystery that are frequently seen at night. Its quite a surreal sight to be walking home at night to see rapid, mobile, masses inside closed garbage bags, or garbage cans that wobble as if they are in some kind of eccentric orbit with about five tails sticking out of the top.

Welcome to NYC retail after dark, opaque, graffitied, gates rule the landscape. From what I hear, there is an initiative to ban these things [citing safety and law enforcement concerns], but I’m not for sure.

Forget Ikea or some other urban home store, a real man needs only a few dozen of these to furnish his place…