[Sca-cooks] OOP - Not sure how to react to this NYT article

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Dec 20, 2006, at 9:23 AM, Ysabeau wrote:

> On my only visit to NYC, I was staying near my brother's house. I  
> noticed a
> line of people on the sidewalk...some wearing some really shabby  
> clothing
> and others looking like they were ready for a night on the town in  
> leather
> and fur coats. I asked my brother what they were doing and he said  
> they were
> lined up for the soup kitchen or to get a place in the shelter. It  
> was at
> the Jewish Synagogue across the street from Central Park...I  
> thought they
> were the best dressed street people I've ever seen! They had better  
> clothing
> than me! He told me that when you were getting cast-offs from some  
> of the
> richest people in the world, you are bound to dress better. I want  
> to find
> the Goodwill where they donate their clothing!

The article hints at this, but apparently there is a growing  
phenomenon, mostly in Manhattan, where people who are employed and  
would be considered well-off almost anywhere else, have to spend so  
much of their income on housing and clothing of the sort they're  
required or pressured to wear in their professions, that they simply  
can't afford food.

> Another thing I remember from my trip, it was at Christmas time and  
> it was
> really really cold that year. I don't think the temps got above  
> freezing the
> whole time I was there. Anyway, I was walking down the street that  
> is one
> block over from Central Park (FAO Schwartz side) and was following  
> this
> little old woman. She was very dignified in her long fur coat and  
> picking
> her way carefully in the ice and snow. When we stopped for a light, I
> noticed that her fur coat was bare in places, there were some  
> holes, her
> shoes were very worn and starting to come apart. Yet, she her  
> attitude was
> that she owned the street. I wonder now if it might have been the  
> woman who
> just had the major law suit about her son making her live on a  
> pittance when
> she has billions of dollars.

It's possible, or she could have been someone who had simply fallen  
on ill fortune in some way. I myself know of several older women (and  
of course there are men, too) who had been living a sort of Nick and  
Nora Charles lifestyle all their adult lives, only to find that bad  
investments, maybe widowhood, and a variety of other circumstances,  
combined to put them in severely straightened circumstances in their  
later years. Hey, I'll probably be one of them someday ;-)

> Here, I remember seeing this homeless guy all over my side of town.  
> He was
> memorable because he was in a wheelchair and missing a leg. He  
> always wore
> an old army jacket. He would be in the median and I always wondered  
> how he
> got there without being killed. Well, I read in the paper one day  
> that he
> had been killed by another homeless guy. I don't know about other  
> towns, but
> I wonder if Austin is the only one where we can identify our street  
> people
> (we have a cross-dresser who runs for Mayor every year named  
> Leslie) either
> by name or location.

I think a lot of places experience this phenomenon, but it may be  
more localized... for a rough, random example, the Upper East side of  
Manhattan probably has as many people in it as are within the St.  
Louis city limits; such people might be neighborhood luminaries, but  
not necessarily known all over the city.

Of course, there _are_ no street people on the Upper East Side; I  
assume they're ground up into Soylent Green or something.

Seriously, though, the entire city does seem to have markedly fewer  
homeless people than it did, say, 20 years ago. The predecessor of  
our current mayor embarked on a Quality of Life Campaign that has  
pretty consistently earned us, for about the past fifteen years, the  
designation of the cleanest, safest, and lowest-crime large city in  
America. Civil rights? Who needs 'em???


Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04