Must just be a comedy bit. Rodney Dangerfield used to do a lot of them about his neighborhood (the West Side I think). "I live in a really tough neighborhood. Last week, somebody stole a police car - with the cops still in it." Another variation: "I went to my local police precinct. The front door had a peephole."
I did have my share of run-ins. Most ended up as staring contests, but I did learn to recognize when it was turning serious; then it was time to strike first. Fear was always a losing strategy. Our Brooklyn national character joke:
Hah, this brings up the topic of which is - I don't how to put this - which is more something, Brooklyn or The Bronx. I lived in the former for three years in Sunset Park. That was an interesting era, 1981 to 1984, when it was still possible to find affordable housing in New York.
And were you atop the terminal moraine of the Wisconsin Glaciation? Bay Ridge, itself? Also known as 6th Avenue? How close to the park were you? I lived there until I was 18, but that was in the 50s and 60s. By your time, the Norwegian community had largely left (did you ever eat at the Atlantic Restaurant?), the Irish and Italian, too, I believe, and the neighborhood was shifting to Asian after the 60s-70s expansion of the Puerto Ricans.
My colleague who's an electronics engineer told me that always happened to him. I didn't believe him, until he proved it to me when we were walking late at night after a drinking session in my local pub. He then when on to explain the phenomenon to me in technical terms, but I was too drunk to listen. I do remember he mentioned Van Der Graff generators at one point, and we started singing prog rock songs at the top of our voices
I was on 59th Street between 4th and 5th Avenue. Much of the block was homeowners who had those three-story row houses. It was a mixture of whites and a few Latinos. I was there 1981-84. Not familiar with the Atlantic Restaurant; there was a nice Pizzeria on 5th Avenue near 87th I think. I shouldn't have moved but my ex-wife was eager to move to New Jersey. She could talk me into anything. But the guy who owned my house and lived downstairs paid $40,000, which would be about $120,000 today. Except, it's probably going for at least a million nowadays.
The Atlantic was a few blocks up from you, on 8th Avenue. It became a Chinese restaurant, but the new owner had the old chef teach him Norwegian cooking so he could offer the older Norwegians who remained in the neighborhood their traditional dishes. My first trip to the Fortway was when they were still giving out dishware as a bonus. I was up on 6th Avenue, about a half-mile closer to Sunset Park itself.
Brooklyn once had 404 theaters (all-time) and now has 22. The Bronx only has one left, the AMC in Co-op City. This site answers all theater questions:
Unfortunately, stalking is a sign of a serious mental illness. It's not just celebrities who are the targets, although they get the most publicity. It's truly the downside of being famous. I have my real name on Facebook (it goes back years) but no photos of me or my family. I was a bit sloppy when I joined Lit six years ago, and my location is not that well hidden. I assume it would be hard to find my building in this dense neighborhood, and I haven't heard from anybody yet. Since Facebook is older, people were not that careful when it was created.
Dating sites, when they were new over twenty years ago, actually didn't have photos of everyone because digital photography was just getting started. I was - dumb enough? - to scan a photo. I met a few people for coffee or lunch, but I got a creepy feeling that I didn't know anything about them. "Cat-fishing" does happen a lot. One woman in British Columbia, I think, asked me to buy her a plane ticket to New York. I wonder if she found someone who would do that.
I never heard that one before. I assume he must have chosen when and where to turn them off; it couldn't have just been random?
Oops sorry, I meant to say, a creepy maintenance person who tried to SA my mom.
That's where they came from! If you're looking for any of them, they're all in North Dakota
Ja suure, yoo betcha. Uff Da! I kin feel the frostbite in muh hands comin' back don'tcha know.
That was the only Norwegian neighborhood I knew about in New York. I'd have to look up why they settled there.
