No... Still Not Safe To Travel To Mogadishu Or Anywhere Else In Somalia... Nor Afghanistan

I was surprised by this New York Times headline Sunday night: Popular Hotel In Somalia Is Bombed By Militants. How is it possible that Mogadishu has a popular hotel? I mean who goes to Somalia and stays in a hotel? Sunday terrorists blew up the front gate of the Sahafi Hotel and then started shooting guests and workers, at least 14 of them.

If there is one hotel everyone knows in Mogadishu, it is the Sahafi. Warlords and militants alike used to hang out and plot schemes in the lounge and courtyard while sipping grapefruit juice and pulling apart camel meat steaks.

Sahafi means journalist in Arabic, and for years the hotel has served as the gateway to one of the world’s most dangerous countries for foreign journalists, aid workers and the rare brave businessman. Even in the hardest times, the staff managed to provide clean rooms and good food. Lobster was one of the house specialties, served alongside mountains of French fries. Recently, the hotel was a popular rendezvous spot for officials from Somalia’s fledgling government.

Mogadishu may be safer than it used to be, but it is still not safe. The Shabab once controlled much of the city, bullwhipping women and terrorizing the population by enforcing a harsh version of Islamic law. But even after being pushed out by African Union troops, Shabab fighters have shown they can strike anywhere at any time.

Somalia’s government tried to play down some of the concerns stirred up by the attack. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia said on Sunday, “We want to confirm that such terrorist acts does not mean Shabab’s revival, but in the contrary shows clear signs that they are in desperate situation.”

This is the warning posted on the top of the Wikitravel site for Mogadishu: "There is a high threat from terrorism, including kidnapping, throughout Somalia, excluding Somaliland. Terrorist groups have made threats against Westerners and those working for Western organizations. It is known that there is a constant threat of terrorist attacks in Mogadishu. The city also remains in great danger of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks carried out by extremists who manage to get past security checkpoints around the city. Walking the streets of Mogadishu remains very dangerous, even with armed guards. Tourists are emphatically discouraged from visiting Mogadishu for the time being, while business travelers should take extreme caution and make thorough plans for any trips. Travel outside Mogadishu remains extremely dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. Those working for aid agencies should consult the security plans or advice of your organization."

5 airlines fly into Aden Adde International Airport a few miles from Mogadishu: Somalia's own Jubba Airways, African Express Airways, which flies to Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Nairobi, Daallo Airlines, which flies to Hargeisa (with a stop in Djibouti), East African, which lies to Nairobi on Sundays and Turkish Air, which flies twice a week to Istanbul via Khartoum or Djibouti. What's to see? "Sightseeing is obviously extremely dangerous in Mogadishu, and is strongly discouraged. However, some interesting sites include the historic Mogadishu old town and the Mogadishu mosque." OK, what's to do? "Visitors are encouraged to stay inside for the duration of their stay. The chances of theft and/or assault are extremely high while walking around the city." And to buy? "The Bakaara Market (Suuqa Bakaaraha) is an open market and the largest of its kind in Somalia. Created in late 1972 during the reign of Siad Barre, its original purpose was to allow proprietors to sell daily essentials, but the civil war subsequently created demand for arms and ammunition. Everything from pistols to anti-aircraft weapons are being sold here. Falsified documents are also readily available, such as forged Somali, Ethiopian and Kenyan passports. This illicit submarket is known as Cabdalle Shideeye after one of its first proprietors. Most markets and are a focus of ongoing arms control efforts for the disarmament of Somalia. Marketplaces should be considered hazardous not only because of their content and the presence of unsavory characters, but also due to the fact that they have caught fire several times in the last few years." The food is rumored to be safe to eat at the Sahafi Hotel, the one that just got blown up.

Trip Advisor has no reviews but gives it a nice 4.5 stars and ranks it #2 in Mogadishu.

I remember when I first got to Afghanistan in 1969, 2 of my passengers, Canadians Nate and... I want to say Nate and Al, but that's a deli in Beverly Hills... maybe it was Nate and Kevin. 45 years a long time. Anyway, I slept in my VW van but they settled into the posh-- for Afghanistan-- Intercontinental Hotel just outside town. They went to local pharmacy near the royal palace, bough a huge bag of pharmaceutical cocaine and settled into the Intercontinental, which had just opened a month before we got there-- the first luxury hotel in the country-- and was pretty empty. 200 rooms but I never ran into anyone in the living quarter floors but Kevin and... let's say Kevin.

Eventually it was taken over by Russian military officers when they invaded. Then it was used for target practice by the Taliban, leaving only 85 habitable rooms. Once the U.S. invaded the country, Western Journalists started staying there. In 2011 there was a suicide bombing and a few dozen people were killed. Today there are 13 Trip Advisor reviews giving it an average rating of 3.5 stars (although just 2.5 stars for value).

Vacation Rental Sites Are Usually Fine... Other Than AirBnB

Vacation rental in rural Bali

At one time, most of my travel including sleeping in my VW van. Eventually I switched to hotels but in recent years I've tended to rent homes through sites like HomeAway and VRBO. I tried AirBnB once and the quality was astounding bad and I never used them again. The pictures and description didn't match the slum in New York they rented me and the level of service they provided was... basically non-existent. I've never had a bad experience with HomeAway or VRBO and I've rented places in Indonesia, Turkey, Italy, Mexico, Morocco... I just remembered that I used a local site in Buenos Aires, BytArgentina, and that was really bad and I was ripped off by the landlady. But that was a rare exception. None of these rentals though seemed like mass commercial enterprises (except for BytArgentina). AirBnB is definitely that and my friend Denise Sullivan wrote about it in terms of the electoral decision that will be made this coming Tuesday.

Vacation Rental Sites Could Go Belly-Up If Forced To Pay Like The Rest Of Us

by Denise Sullivan

It hasn't been a great month in public relations for the so-called "sharing economy," at least here at the industry's ground zero, not-so-affectionately known as San Francisco 2.0. Here, even regular citizens-- and not even particularly politicized ones-- are starting to get hip to what unfettered capitalism and unregulated business looks like in their town now that the umpteenth Uber driver was accused of threatening a female passenger with sexual violence, followed by Airbnb's appallingly tone-deaf ad campaign calling out public works and employees. The home-sharing app stirred further controversy as its misguided billboard and bus shelter ads sparked questions of the financing of the No on F measure they fiscally sponsored. Going to vote next Tuesday, if F passes, it could  result in tightening existing regulations on the books by actually enforcing them, which would mean a new dawn for vacation rentals, and a bummer for the pure profit margin of Airbnb.

The No people, meaning Airbnb, believe that registration of units and thus, regular payments into the hotel tax pool, will open the door to neighbors "spying" on neighbors. In a classic case of employing scare tactics, Airbnb's rhetoric is the kind that has long had people voting against their own best interests and contributed to the nation's slow drift to the right. Taking this matter to the ballot has fooled only some of the people, though so far it's been totally successful in another regard: At pitting neighbor against neighbor, and generally turning otherwise rational humans into stark raving monsters; Facebook friends are officially becoming frenemies and mere mention of Airbnb in town has pretty much been grounds for cooling out and winding down longstanding relations. As of today, the ballot recommendations of venture capitalist Ron Conway are making the rounds: He's voting No on F. Now if it were me, that would be enough to swing my Yes vote, but sadly, even  the most educated and engaged among us are still waffling and think No is a go.

Yes on F voters are rightly irritated and concerned: They want to limit rentals and track hosts according to the regulations on the books already in place. They see unregulated vacation rentals tying-up precious housing stock, driving rents upward, and keeping our town more friendly for tourists while it grows increasingly hostile to residents and everyday workers and people. Add to that, our normally quiet and tight-knit neighborhoods are turning into hotel zones, with faceless parades of daily newcomers wheeling suitcases in and out of units that could more effectively be put to use as permanent housing for an expanding as well as aging workforce. Last Spring the City of Santa Monica successfully voted to enforce pre-existing vacation rental regulations, and guess what: It has not destroyed the influx of tech businesses, workers, vacation renters or new residents. At all.

Santa Monica, Calif., is cracking down on Airbnb and the rest of the short-term rental industry. Tuesday night, the Santa Monica City Council adopted its home-sharing ordinance, which bans the rental of an entire unit for less than 30 days and requires those who take part in allowable home-sharing to obtain a business license from the city and pay a 14% hotel tax. The law takes effect June 15. The city says proceeds from the hotel tax will help pay for enforcement officers and an analyst to find illegal rentals online.

The ordinance makes a clear distinction between what Santa Monica officials term "home-sharing" and "vacation rentals." Home-sharing requires the primary resident of the space to live "on-site during the visitor's stay." Vacation rentals, as defined by Santa Monica are any rentals 30 days or less in which the guest "enjoys the exclusive private use of the unit." The new ordinance deems vacation rentals illegal if the property is only approved for permanent residence.

Around 100 protesters organized by Airbnb gathered outside Santa Monica City Hall Tuesday afternoon before the vote, according to the Los Angeles Times. Arlene Rosenblatt, a Santa Monica homeowner who lists her apartment on Airbnb told the paper, "It's such a blessing for us to have this money... We need to have these regulations changed."

But in an interview with NPR, Santa Monica Mayor Kevin McKeown said vacation rentals aren't good for his city. "When a landlord or other property owner takes a unit off the housing market and uses it for vacation rental, there is no permanent resident on the site, we've lost that part of the fabric of our community," McKeown said. "And the people who are coming to stay are not directly supervised, so they, being on vacation may, in total innocence, may be coming and going at two or three in the morning. They may be not aware of the noise they're making for the neighbors. The neighbors aren't sure who the people are. You end up with somebody you don't know who has the keys to the building, to the parking garage. You don't who they're going to bring in with them. And you don't have that connection."

Santa Monica isn't the only city to push back against Airbnb and others in the short-term rental industry. We previously reported that New York's attorney general found that almost three-quarters of New York City bookings break the law, and that the state is owed $33 million in hotel taxes. An increasing number of cities across the country are starting to institute hotel taxes on Airbnb rentals. The pushback has even gone international, with Spain fining Airbnb $40,000 and threatening to block its website.

Opponents would have you believe they need to rent out their rooms and in-law apartments to supplement their incomes in an increasingly expensive San Francisco which is of course a point well-taken, BUT: If they aren't already registered and reporting, they are likely among the one in 10 hosts presently operating illegally. Only a fraction of San Francisco's approximately 10,000 rentals are currently registered with the City and yet Airbnb claims a share from those rentals-- without penalty. The fact that they have poured more than a reported $8- $10 million into the No on F campaign should again be enough to make doubters understand: a No vote on F stands to further benefit Airbnb-- a company with a $10 billion valuation-- while robbing city coffers and services of income. If that's not enough to persuade people to vote Yes, there's really no reasoning with anyone. Check back with us next Wednesday for results on this and other matters pending in San Francisco where the style of "sharing" is likely coming to a charming and beloved city in your state or country soon-- if it hasn't already.

UPDATE: Occupy!

Tomorrow is election day in San Francisco and do or die for AIrBnB's efforts to keep their business model in that city.

Dozens of housing and homeless activists stormed the Airbnb headquarters at 888 Brannan Street around noon today. A day before San Francisco voters will decide whether to regulate "home-sharing" more strictly, the activists sought to show the short-term rental company what "sharing" is all about.

The protesters entered Airbnb's office and released paper houses lofted by helium-filled balloons into the four-story atrium. The houses bore messages referencing the corporation's ill-fated passive aggressive ad campaign, which took the form of "letters" to various public agencies boasting of the hotel tax revenue the company generates for San Francisco:

• Evictions. Love, AirBnB
• Homelessness. Love, AirBnB
• Deregulation. Love, AirBnB
• Pay-to-Play Politics. Love, AirBnB

"There are over 3,000 homeless children in San Francisco," said activist Maria Zamudio, an organizer with Causa Justa. "Airbnb's practice of turning homes into hotels is exacerbating those conditions."

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back To Egypt...

18 years ago I finally got to fulfill a childhood dream-- visiting Egypt. We planned to spend about a week in Cairo and a couple weeks roaming the country (including a Nile cruise to Aswan). Although it didn't seem so at the moment, some real misfortune for everyone else turned into a break for me and Roland. Just as we were leaving L.A. in November a bunch of religionist fanatics slaughtered a busload of tourists from Switzerland, Japan and the U.K. It was really a spectacular horror show with scimitar-wielding terrorists chasing unarmed tourists around the Temple of Hatshepsut across the river from Luxor and mercilessly slashing them to death. It was a bloody slaughter that went on for almost an hour; 5 dozen were murdered. Egypt, one of the world's biggest tourist destinations, immediately emptied of tourists. And they stopped coming (at for a couple weeks). I feel terrible for the Swiss and Japanese, of course; I mean what a way to go! But... well, Roland and I pretty much had Egypt to ourselves. I mean it was just us and the Egyptians, who, except for the scimitar-wielders, are an extremely generous, friendly and gracious people.

I think Luxor-- ancient Thebes, with goes back to about 3,000 BC-- and its environs (basically the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens) are the biggest tourist attractions in Egypt after the Pyramids. Tourism in Egypt brings in around 10 million visitors a year and accounts for about 10% of the economy. It was devastated by what happened in Luxor and devastated by subsequent acts of terrorism since then. Friday was a biggie, although American media has been pretty quiet about it. ISIS terrorists planted a bomb at an intersection close to the Hotel Medidien where many tourists visiting the Pyramids-- about a mile away-- stay. The bomb was found around 6AM, before it killed anyone but 4 Egyptians (2 policemen and two hotel security guards) were wounded, one critically, trying to defuse it with a water canon.

Last week Morgan Freeman was working at the Pyramids filming part of a #ThisIsEgypt tourism campaign meant to persuade western tourists that tourism is completely safe again. And, yes, he also visited lovely Luxor. It all looks safe to me:

Maybe the best reason to spread word of Nancy Reagan's first home is that she doesn't seem to like people knowing

Justin's caption: "Though this modest 2-story frame house with yellow siding at 149-14 Roosevelt Avenue, between 149th Street and 149th Place, remains unmarked by a plaque or medallion of any kind, this is the home where former First Lady Nancy Reagan spent the first two years of her life."

by Ken

The other day I promised to return to what sounds like a fairly routine question: Where was Nancy Reagan born? What makes the question rather more interesting is that it seems to be a touchy subject for Mrs. Reagan, and suggests in turn that Mrs. R has a relationship to reality reminiscent of that of her late husband, the sainted Ronnie, whose most enduring legacy to the country seems to me the lesson, now totally absorbed by the Right, that reality is whatever you want it to be -- or, to put it another way, whatever makes you feel best.

Now of course "feeling best" doesn't necessarily mean "feeling contented." For right-wingers, in fact, it often means what seems like the opposite: feeling mad as hell. We just need to remember that one of the things they like best in life is feeling outraged, aggrieved, betrayed, and so on. And of course the people who treat the unwashed rubes like brainless puppets know this better than anyone, and know how much return there is to be gotten from getting the pathetic, otherwsie-useless, doody-kicking legions of right-wing saps hopping mad at the usual targets. Thus the ease of spreading psychotic delusions about, say, Hillary Clinton, or Planned Parenthood, or indeed anyone with a working brain and an ounce of decency or humanity.


IF YOU WERE TO LOOK NANCY REAGAN UP --

Urban Gadabout: Return to Queens's historic First Calvary Cemetery

Plus: Where was Nancy Reagan born?


In Calvary Cemetery, Long Island City (Queens), with a familiar skyline in the distance. Photo by Mitch Waxman (click to enlarge).

All I need is an angle, an angle, an angle.
And some timing, timing.
All I need is an angle, an angle, an angle.
It's the angles and the timing that count.

-- Hubie Cram, in "Take a Job," from Do-Re-Mi (lyrics by
Betty Comden and Adolph Green, music by Jule Styne)

Nancy Walker (Kay Cram), Phil Silvers (Hubie Cram); Original Broadway Cast recording, Lehman Engel, cond. RCA, recorded December 1960

by Ken

Forget the angles. Just now my timing is, shall we say, off.

I got all excited last month when my pal Mitch Waxman mentioned, during a walking tour around the Dutch Kills tributary of his beloved Newtown Creek, that he was going to be doing a walk in First Calvary Cemetery, the original section of the now-mammoth Calvary Cemetery, on the northern shore of the Creek, in the Blissville neighborhood of Long Island City, Queens. Mitch had been enthusing mightily about First Calvary on his Newtown Pentacle blog, in a post called "ordinary interpretation" (with subsequent posts: "sepulchral adorations" and "obvious empiricism). As he's written:

It's the largest chunk of 'green infrastructure' found along the Newtown Creek as well as serving as the final resting place of literally millions of Roman Catholic New Yorkers. It's part of the firmament of LIC, and a significant touchstone for the history of 19th century NYC.

So I was gung-ho for the tour. But as soon as I was able to check my calendar, I discovered that I was conflicted out. Rats! But that's old business, which I wrote about (at the above link). Subsequently, even before Mitch announced it himself on the blog, I got excited all over to see that he was doing Calvary again -- this coming Saturday, October 3, at 11am -- for New York Obscura Society (the local arm of Atlas Obscura), with whom he does periodic tours, as he does with Brooklyn Brainery. (It was on account of Mitch, in fact, that I first learned about both outfits. I've now done a bunch of events with both.)

This time I approached my calendar gingerly, and found what I thought would be a tight fit but a perfect match: That same day I was already registered for a Municipal Art Society tour of Transmitter Brewing -- located under the Pulaski Bridge over Newtown Creek, on the Queens side. That's not exactly a stone's throw from Calvary up the creek, but it's about as neat a pairing as you could hope for. The timing might be a little tight getting from one to the other, but it was certainly workable, based on the 2pm start time I had entered on my calendar.

Unfortunately I had entered the Transmitter Brewing time wrong, as I discovered right after I registered for the Calvary tour. It starts at noon, not 2pm. The Obscura Society folks have been kind enough to refund my registration, and I'll have to wait for another opportunity to do Calvary with Mitch. But if you're free Saturday, you don't have to wait:

Flanked by the concrete devastations of western Queens’ industrial zone and backdropped by an omnipresent Manhattan skyline, Calvary Cemetery is a historical smorgasbord and aesthetic wonderland of sculptural monuments.

Founded in 1848 by the Roman Catholic Church, Calvary Cemetery is the resting place of over six million dead, among them Senators, Governors, Businessmen, Mafiosos, most of Tammany Hall in fact - and on a certain hill - an heir to the throne of Ireland. The Roman Catholic Church continues to upkeep and maintain its administration over the cemetery to this day. In addition to its original purpose, Calvary also serves the City of New York as a significant parcel of Green Infrastructure, a green oasis in the middle of the Newtown Creek's industrial zone which drinks up billions of gallons of water during storms.

Join Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman for a walk upon the rolling hills of what was once known to Queens as Laurel Hill. We'll visit the 300 year old headstones of the colonial era Alsop cemetery - which is uniquely a Protestant cemetery encapsulated by a Catholic one - see the memorial to NYC's Civil War soldiers laid down by Boss Tweed and the Tammany elite, and one dedicated to the "fighting 69th."

Meeting Place: North east corner of Greenpoint and Review Avenue, nearby the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge in Blissville.

Details: We will be exiting the Cemetery through the main gates at Greenpoint and Gale Avenue, nearby Borden Avenue and the Long Island Expressway. Afterwards, discussion will continue informally over food and drinks at the Botany Bay Publick House, a bar and restaurant at the corner of Greenpoint and Bradley Avenues.

Dress and pack appropriately for hiking and the weather. Closed-toe shoes are highly recommended. Bathroom opportunities will be found only at the end of the walk.

The price is $30. For information and to ticket purchases, go here.


WHERE WAS NANCY REAGAN BORN?

I thought I was going to get to this in tonight's post, but perhaps it's better to deal with it separately (perhaps tomorrow, perhaps not). It's not a trick question, and if you look it up, you'll probably get an answer that's correct as far as it goes but that doesn't go quite as far as one might have reason to expect. It's kind of as if Mrs. R has been hiding something all these years. (Speaking of which, just how many years has it been? This is another Nancy Reagan question that's just a little tricky.)

Stay tuned.

#

A Dark Side Of "Gay Culture"-- In Traditional Afghanistan

How do you go into a relatively primitive traditional culture and demand it change because it doesn't meet our 21st Century standards? I can remember arguing with progressive congresswomen who wanted to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan to help liberate Afghan women. We're talking about hundreds, if not thousands of years of ingrained behavior tied to religion, culture and the most intimate of social relations. Soldiers aren't going to make it happen; they're just going to kill people and be killed. My times in Afghanistan-- in 1969 and again in 1972-- were awesome... and a total culture shock. I mean TOTAL.

Over the weekend the NYTimes carried a story about bacha bazi, traditional Pashtun pedophilia that was supposedly banned under the Taliban but that is back in full swing now. It upsets American soldiers there.

“At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s their culture.”

Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene-- in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records.

The policy has endured as American forces have recruited and organized Afghan militias to help hold territory against the Taliban. But soldiers and Marines have been increasingly troubled that instead of weeding out pedophiles, the American military was arming them in some cases and placing them as the commanders of villages-- and doing little when they began abusing children.

“The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people, how they were taking away human rights,” said Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. “But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did-- that was something village elders voiced to me.”

The policy of instructing soldiers to ignore child sexual abuse by their Afghan allies is coming under new scrutiny, particularly as it emerges that service members like Captain Quinn have faced discipline, even career ruin, for disobeying it.

After the beating, the Army relieved Captain Quinn of his command and pulled him from Afghanistan. He has since left the military.

Four years later, the Army is also trying to forcibly retire Sgt. First Class Charles Martland, a Special Forces member who joined Captain Quinn in beating up the commander.

“The Army contends that Martland and others should have looked the other way (a contention that I believe is nonsense),” Representative Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who hopes to save Sergeant Martland’s career, wrote last week to the Pentagon’s inspector general.

In Sergeant Martland’s case, the Army said it could not comment because of the Privacy Act.

When asked about American military policy, the spokesman for the American command in Afghanistan, Col. Brian Tribus, wrote in an email: “Generally, allegations of child sexual abuse by Afghan military or police personnel would be a matter of domestic Afghan criminal law.” He added that “there would be no express requirement that U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan report it.” An exception, he said, is when rape is being used as a weapon of war.

The American policy of nonintervention is intended to maintain good relations with the Afghan police and militia units the United States has trained to fight the Taliban. It also reflects a reluctance to impose cultural values in a country where pederasty is rife, particularly among powerful men, for whom being surrounded by young teenagers can be a mark of social status.

Some soldiers believed that the policy made sense, even if they were personally distressed at the sexual predation they witnessed or heard about.

“The bigger picture was fighting the Taliban,” a former Marine lance corporal reflected. “It wasn’t to stop molestation.”

We looked at this 5 years ago on this blog when I wrote about my own experiences seeing it. When I first got to Afghanistan in 1969, having driven in my VW van from London, my strongest immediate thought-- other than how unbelievably strong the hash is-- was that no matter how far I had traveled in space I had traveled much further in time-- straight backward. I was thousands of miles from my parents' home in Brooklyn... and what felt like as many thousands of years back in time. I remember writing to a friend that I was feeling like I was living in the Bible (Old Testament).

Things have changed a little since then. I lived in a "village" (two family compounds off a barely demarcated dirt track) for a winter up in the Hindu Kush where no one had ever heard of the United States (and no one had ever experienced electricity). I'm not sure if they've experienced electricity some 4 decades later but I'd bet you they've heard of the United States.

When you travel to, let's say "exotic" places like Afghanistan, you're better off leaving your cultural judgments in check. There's no way to reasonably compare our cultural standards to the ones that govern their lives. I got used to the concept, for example, of two good cleanings a year-- one in the spring and one in the fall, something very different from the swim, jacuzzi, steam bath and shower I do in some combination everyday here in L.A. Better to just roll with the punches. However, there was something I experienced a couple times in Afghanistan that I just couldn't swing with. It was pretty horrifying. They call it Bacha Bazi and my experience of it came at two weddings, one in Ghazni southwest of Kabul, which I believe was the 4th biggest town in the country, and one up in the Hindu Kush, the land time forgot. Bachas are young dancing boys. We'll come back to this cultural artifact in a moment, but this is what Wikipedia says about it.

You don't ever see the womenfolk in Afghanistan. My closest friend got married while I was there and I lived in his house and spent virtually all of my time with him for several months. Everyone used to joke that we were brothers. I never saw the girl he married, not once. In the same house! Nor was she-- or his mother or sisters-- at the wedding. Well, that isn't exactly accurate. They had their own party in the women's part of the house. But it wasn't exactly separate-but-equal; just separate.

Big steaming platters of rice with meat and vegetables were brought out by male servants-- actually slaves but no one called them that-- and everyone dug in with their fingers, food rolling down everyone's beards back onto the platters. Yum, yum. When the men were done eating, the leftovers were fed to the servants and dogs, although I don't remember in what order, and then what was left from that was sent to the women. Meanwhile we had song and dance-- the young boys. There was a troupe of them from somewhere who are hired to entertain at parties. They looked like they were between 12 and 16 and they were wearing women's dancing clothes, more or less; they all had big heavy farmer boots on. And they all had their eyes smeared with kohl and some kind of rouge substitute. Everyone was hootin' and hollerin' when they were dancing, kind of alluringly, truth be told. No one was drunk but everyone-- every single person-- was high on hash. At one point the groom's grandfather suddenly jumped up-- apparently unable to restrain himself for another second-- grabbed the youngest, smallest bacha and dragged him behind a building and raped him.

It was gruesome to hear... but it didn't seem to put any kind of a damper on the party at all. The rest of the troupe kept dancing and everyone else just ignored the commotion and just enjoyed the festivities. It's part of their culture. Ten minutes later grandpa and the 12 year old came back from around the building, straightening their clothes. The bacha seemed to have felt his dignity was affronted but he jumped right back into the line and danced away the rest of the evening as though nothing had happened. I'm not sure what happened afterwards but from what I heard, all the boys were raped (more or less).

And although these people definitely have heard of America now, they still enjoy a little bacha bazi as part of their cultural heritage, especially the wealthy men, although wealth is a relative thing and whomever is exercising power gets himself a young bacha or two (or a half dozen) to keep as sex slaves. Frontline did a special on the phenomena by journalist Najibullah Qurasishi. You may find it difficult to watch but it will certainly give you an idea about a not uncommon aspect of Afghanistan, a country the U.S. military is occupying for no apparent purpose and with no apparent positive effect.

"Have airlines cut service to the point that no one wants to fly anymore? Some travelers say yes" (Christopher Elliott, WaPo)

by Ken

The Q-and-A in the post title above, which comes from a recent piece in the Washington Post by Christopher Elliott ("consumer advocate, journalist and co-founder of the advocacy group Travelers United"), probably won't be of interest to readers unless: (a) they have flown before, or (b) they may ever be forced to fly again. In the piece, "Gripes about air travel have some people swearing off certain carriers," Christopher asks: "What’s your breaking point? When do you say 'That's it — I'm never flying again!'?"

This is, he adds, "no academic question for America’s airlines." The airlines, he says, "continue to provoke passengers with new fees, surcharges and rules. They want to know when passengers would rather stay home."

As another summer winds down, maybe they’re a little closer to finding an answer. Airline consumer complaints rose more than 20 percent for the first six months of the year, the Department of Transportation reported last week. From January to June 2015, the government received 9,542 consumer complaints, up from 7,935 received during the first six months of last year. DOT complaints typically represent a small fraction of total complaints.

At the same time, amid a government investigation into collusion, fare-watchers predict that air ticket prices will drop to record lows this fall because of lower fuel prices and, most important, decreased seasonal demand.

To put the question another way: "Have airlines gone too far? Have they cut service to the point that no one wants to fly anymore?"


THE LUGGAGE FIXATION

"Some travelers say yes" -- the airlines have gone too far.

Crystal Stranger, an accountant from Honolulu, reached her breaking point when United Airlines — which she describes as “the worst airline ever for traveling with small children” — first charged for her checked stroller and then dinged her for overweight baggage as well.

“We had to take all our bags apart and re-pack” for being a couple of pounds beyond the limit, she remembers. “We were still charged an overweight baggage fee.”

"Airlines are fixated on collecting more money for your luggage," Christopher says. "Last year, they pocketed more than $3.5 billion in fees, and this number is on the rise." But it turns out that United was only No. 2 in the baggage gouging derby, at a mere $652 million. The champion? Would anyone be surprised to learn that it's . . . Delta? Delta's haul: $863 million.


THE GENIUS IS IN HIDING THE FEES

And "the undisputed industry leader" at hiding the fees, says Christopher, is Spirit.

Taylor Murray recently booked a flight from Las Vegas to Denver on the discount carrier and was surprised at the airline’s fees, which seemed even more extreme than the ones you’d find on one of the major carriers.

For example, Spirit charges for carry-on bags, and if you want a reserved seat, you have to pay extra for it. For Murray, a sales manager for a Las Vegas call center software company, it felt like a bait-and-switch. He says Spirit offered a low fare but then added hidden fees.

“At the end of the day the price came out to be the same as a known-name airline,” he says.

"A recent survey," Christopher reports, "estimated that about 40 cents out of every dollar you spend on [Spirit] will be a surcharge." And just to prove that up is really down and left is really right, "In a recent ad campaign, Spirit claimed airlines that include items like checked bags or seat reservations in ticket prices are dishonest about their pricing."

This "dishonesty" apparently extends to airlines that, nefariously, will actually give you a cup of coffee, just like that -- the fiends. For some reason a fellow named Matt Foley was surprised when he asked for a cup of coffee on a Frontier flight from Washington to Denver and was asked for a credit card.

“A buck-ninety-nine for coffee?” he says. “Really? To charge for nonalcoholic drinks almost made me scream.”

BUT THEN, SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST CHRONIC COMPLAINERS

Take this whiny Foley fellow, who --

says he’s baffled by the way airlines gradually removed legroom and then tried to charge extra for it in an effort to profit. At some point, he figures, either the airlines will run out of things to charge for, or passengers will run out of things they’re willing to pay for. But for him, that time has already come. He refuses to fly Frontier no matter how low the fare.

Asking "Have we reached the limit?" Christopher notes that Frontier has "caved in to customers such as Foley" -- that is, assuming you would call this solution Frontier recently came up with a cave-in. "In August, [Frontier] began bundling several extras, including one checked bag, one carry-on, the 'best available' seat and no fee for changing the ticket later, into a package it calls 'the Works.' " Why, this is practically philanthropy! (Matt Foley has probably noticed that "the Works" doesn't include the cup of coffee. Maybe Frontier will add a "Works Plus" package that includes the coffee -- but probably no more legroom.)

One reason the game continues, it seems, is that "passengers keep buying low fares." Says Spencer Carlson ("who runs a travel company in Kansas City, Mo."), "Most travelers take the cheapest fares and are then disappointed when they do the traveling." But, he adds, "Some airlines are figuring out this threshold."

"Seems the question isn’t whether airlines have gone too far," Christopher says. "They have, and they know it. It's more a question of which direction they've done it in. In an effort to eke out a little extra profit, are they more willing to anger their customers or their employees?"


YEAH, SCREW THE EMPLOYEES!

Although Christopher doesn't go into it, I think it's safe to say that we could have gotten a whole other report on the many ways in which the airlines are squeezing money out of the hides of their employees. If you know anyone who works (or worked) for one, you've undoubtedly heard a smattering of the horror stories.

Instead, Christopher merely offers us this curious case. I hope he doesn't mean us to be inspired by this sort of counter-example offered by Spencer Carlson, the Kansas City travel guy.

Norwegian Air, a low-cost European carrier, offers one-way tickets from New York to Oslo at about $180 but has still figured out how to exceed expectations. Yes, it was extra for luggage, but Norwegian didn’t charge for in-flight movies, the food was good and the seats were comfortable, Carlson says. “I was blown away at the professionalism of the staff and the cleanliness of the aircraft. The overall experience was fantastic.”

Norwegian is an interesting example, because American carriers have been trying to stop it from operating in the United States. The reason? Instead of cutting back service, Norwegian found creative ways around high labor costs. Instead of using European or American flight crews, for example, it reportedly hires Bangkok-based crews through a Singapore employment agency who are governed by Singapore labor law.

Because having to pay flight crews a living wage is what's driving the cost of flying so high. Do you suppose Singapore labor law has anything to say about high-level execs having to make do with a few dollars less? (And as a matter of fact, yes, it is dollars, even in Singapore, where the Singapore dollar is the actual currency. I looked it up.)

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Urban Gadabout NYC: Exploring Calvary Cemetery and the L train -- plus fall schedules from the NY Transit Museum and MAS

First Calvary Cemetery occupies a commanding position on the Queens side of the borough's western border with Brooklyn. (Click to enlarge.) Mitch Waxman will be leading a Calvary walking tour on Saturday, August 22, 11am to (approx.) 1pm.

by Ken

Awhile back Mitch Waxman devoted a Newtown Pentacle post to Queens's First Calvary Cemetery ("ordinary interpretation," August 5), when he called it "my favorite place in Queens." That post has taken such root in my head that I was delighted when he mentioned during his recent walking tour of Newtown Creek's Dutch Kills tributary that he'd cleared a date for a walking tour there: Saturday, August 22. The date left me with a bad feeling, and sure enough, when I was able to check my calendar, I was reminded that that's already my date from scheduling hell.

IF YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW, ON THE 22ND --

I'll first be LIRR-ing it out to Port Washington, on the eastern shore of Long Island's Manhasset Bay, for a 2pm "Great Gatsby Boat Tour" with the Art Deco Society of New York, which you better believe I signed up for as soon as I saw the announcement. (And wisely so. ADSNY has a waiting list for the event.) I have been to Port Washington, and fairly recently; it was our lunch stop on a bus tour with Justin Ferate, en route between visits to two noteworthy Long Island estates. But I've never been out on a boat in Manhasset Bay.

Where things get crazy is that from there I absolutely must catch the 4:39pm train out of Port Washington, which, if everything goes right, should get me to the LIRR Woodside (Queens) station in time to get to the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria for a 6pm screening of Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm. (Lawrence is also being screened at 4pm Sunday the 23rd, but in order to do that I would have to leave an MAS tour of Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza with Francis Morrone after an hour or even less.)

If I were really crazy, I could top the day off with a wild overnight (10pm-1am) Obscura Society of New York outing to "a hidden Chinatown den of iniquity" for "The Cheaters Party -- A School for Scoundrels," where participants will be given demonstrations in the art of card-playing sleight of hand, including, yes, full-fledged cheating, with opportunities (and, yes, permission) to try out this newly acquired, er, skill, not to mention indulging an open bar dispensing "Rat Pack-inspired cocktails"! Actually, what's holding me back isn't so much a lack of craziness as a lack of any known gambling instinct. And even that open bar isn't the lure it might once have been. Also, music is promised, and I would expect that to be both deafening and horrible.)

First Calvary Cemetery, with a view! Photo by Mitch W (click to enlarge)

By the way, Mitch -- wearing his hat as official historian of the Newtown Creek Alliance -- will also be participating in a pair of Open House New York boat trips up his "beloved" creek, along with NCA program manager Will Elkins and representatives of the NYC Department of Environmental Preservation (and I think I read somewhere of the EPA) on Thursday, September 3, at 5pm and 7pm. Scroll down to "Newtown Creek Boat Tour" on the OHNY programs page, or go directly to the ticket and booking info.


"LIFE ON THE L TRAIN" WITH JACK EICHENBAUM

The L train has a fascinating history -- and a booming present and near-term future, as ridership has been undergoing huge increases. (Click to enlarge.)

As regular readers are aware, one of my favorite genres of NYC tours is Jack Eichenbaum's day-long single-subway line explorations -- most famously his "World of the #7 Train" (the Flushing line), which he describes as his "signature" tour, and which he does pretty much every year. Over the length of the route, Jack has picked out half a dozen stops as sites for mini-walking tours of neighborhoods that not only are enormously different from one another but have rich and various histories unto themselves, all scheduled around a long lunch stop at the Flushing end of the line, with all the dining options of Flushing's flourishing Chinatown and Koreatown.

I was delighted finally to get to "do" the #7 train again in June, at which time Jack noted that by the next time he does this tour, it will undergo major changes, starting with the incorporation of the under-construction extension of the #7 from Times Square to the Javits Center at 11th Avenue and 34th Street. (Completion dates have come and gone fairly regularly since the days when then-Mayor Bloomberg liked to terrorize NYC Transit with phone calls demanding to know when it would be done. Mayor Mike really didn't have much interest in improved transit as such, but he wound up deeply immersed not just in the #7 expansion but in the massive East Side Access project that will bring Long Island Rail Road passengers into Grand Central Terminal -- because they're both crucial to multi-zillion-dollar area redevelopments, something our billionaire ex-mayor was very interested in.)

Jack does other subway lines too, though, in that same basic format: usually a half-dozen mini-walking tours along the route, visiting enormously contrasting neighborhoods with even more contrasted histories. In recent years I've had the pleasure of joining Jack in explorations of the J line, which runs from Lower Manhattan across to Brooklyn and on into Queens, and Brooklyn's Brighton Line (now the Q), the descendant of one of the original steam railroads to the resort haven of Coney Island. During the June "World of the #7 Train," Jack announced that he would soon be doing the L train, which actually functions as a crosstown subway in Manhattan, running across 14th Street from Eighth Avenue to First Avenue, then under the East River to Brooklyn's Williamsburg and Bushwick and onward, till it comes to rest in Canarsie, within bus reach of the shore of Jamaica Bay.

Somehow I missed Jack's announcement of the actual date -- Saturday, October 17 -- and by the time I learned the date, I had a schedule conflict, and now that MAS tour prices have increased to $20 for members ($30 for non-members), I'm not as quick to blow off the tour I've registered for as I might once have been. (Besides, I want to do that tour!) So it looks like I'm going to miss:

LIFE ALONG THE L TRAIN
Saturday. October 17, 10am-5:30pm

The L train has a complex history: first as a steam railroad line, later as an elevated BRT train, eventually integrated into the subway system with its expansion to Eighth Avenue in Manhattan in the 1930’s. Beginning in the 1950’s the L train has stimulated artist-spearheaded gentrification along its route. We’ll explore the West Village and meatpacking district— including a portion of the new Highline Park— and then on to the East Village, Williamsburg, East Williamsburg, Bushwick and Ridgewood, noting the status of transformation in each of these neighborhoods.

This tour is limited to 25 participants and requires registration by check of $42/pp to Jack Eichenbaum, 36-20 Bowne St #6C, Flushing, NY 11354. For a prospectus and any questions, contact Jack at jaconet@aol.com

These days, owing in good part to its Williamsburg (and now Bushwick) connection, the L train is the city's fastest-growing, ridership-wise, and has gone from being a stepchild of the system to its proudest prodigy, with much-improved service finally catching up to the dramatic increase in use.


NEW SCHEDULES FROM MAS AND THE TRANSIT
MUSEUM -- AND SOME SURPRISES FROM MAS

I should mention too that both the New York Transit Museum and the Municipal Art Society have announced and begun booking tours for September and October.

As noted, the fall MAS offerings come with the price increase (I mentioned earlier, from $15 to $20 for members, and from $20 to $30 for non-members). On the plus side, tour registrants now get nearest-transit information for the meeting point (not exactly an innovation, since this used to be included in all tour descriptions) and also -- and this is new, and most welcome -- approximate tour end-point information.
All of this was mentioned in a covering e-mail to MAS members. What was not mentioned, and I didn't in fact learn until I registered for five tours that I knew I wanted to do and didn't want to get closed out of, is that tours have been shrunk from two hours to 90 minutes.

Of course we don't buy tours by the minute, but if we did, then the member price has increased not by 33 percent but by 78 percent, and the non-member price not by 50 percent but by a full 100 percent. It's not the price that concerns me, at least not so much, as what represents a radical change in format. A 90-minute tour isn't just shorter than a 120-minute one; it's really a different animal, especially when you consider how long it takes any tour to actually "get going." And while there are undoubtedly tour subjects that are better-suited to a 90-minute format, and would have to be padded out to fill two hours, a two-hour tour that was a proper two-hour tour to begin with is probably going to have to be reconceived to make the cut, and I can't help thinking shrunk in ways other than just time.

In fact, the two-hour format, which has become a much more rigidly enforced time limit since I began doing MAS tours not that many years ago, was really more like two and a half hours back then. I gather, though, that MAS received enough complaints to start cracking the whip about the time limit. This boggles my mind, that people would complain about getting more than they paid for. But there you are.

Clearly the people in charge believe that this is what people want. (I'm pretty sure that I don't count among the "people" they're concerned about.) And the September-October list contains lots of interesting-looking offerings -- I jotted down 17 tours I was interested in, after allowing for known schedule conflicts. As I mentioned, I've already registered for five, and it was when I downloaded my tour info that I discovered that what I registered for are 90-minute tours. Suddenly I found myself thinking that maybe the five tours I've registered for will do it for me.

Like I said, at some point we should probably talk about this. But not now.

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NYC Watch: "See It Big! 70mm" at the Museum of the Moving Image. Plus an Urban Gadabout note: "I Remember NY"

Coney Island (this Sunday, August 9) is one of two neighborhoods tour leader Joe Svehlak will be revisiting this month in his Municipal Art Society series I Remember New York. Also coming up is Downtown Brooklyn (Sunday, August 30). See below.

by Ken

As I mentioned recently, I wiped out most of a day of potential Jane Jacobs Weekend walks to catch a 70mm screening of Robert Wise's 1965 film version of The Sound of Music, which as it happened I had never seen in any form, at the Museum of the Moving Image. These days, as digital projection takes over for theatrical showing even of movies that weren't made digitally, it's getting harder and harder to see films on, you know, film, and the 70mm jobbies -- forget about it. At the MoMI Sound of Music event, though, Chief Curator David Schwartz mentioned that the museum would be showing a 70mm print of West Side Story -- the 1961 film musical Wise had already directed which established him as candidate for the Sound of Music film when, apparently, nobody else wanted to direct it -- in an upcoming installment of its See It Big! series, this one devoted to 70mm films.

Well, See It Big! 70mm is here! Eight films, ranging chronologically from 1961 (West Side Story) through 2014 (Interstellar), each being shown either two or three times between August 7 and August 30.

As the introduction to the series notes:

With a higher resolution and more light hitting the frame, 70mm film offers a bigger, brighter image than 35mm. It also offers richer sound, with more space on the soundtrack. It is the ideal film format for ambitious cinematic spectacles, yet with the transition to digital filmmaking, 70mm movies have become increasingly rare.

But, as the introduction goes on to note, 70mm hasn't been entirely abandoned.

Filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson and Christopher Nolan are keeping the tradition alive, with films that were surely inspired by the work of Stanley Kubrick, David Lean, Douglas Trumbull, and Robert Wise. From West Side Story to Interstellar, here is a selection of great 70mm films, including adventure, comedy, drama, musical, and science fiction -- and all indelible experiences.

THESE ARE BIG MOVIES

In the listing below, culled from the museum's listings, it occurred to me to include the films' running times, because so many of these are really big time-wise in addition to film-format-wise. Four of the eight are over 2½ hours, and a fifth, Interstellar, is only six minutes short. Two, in fact, are over 3 hours, and one is over 3½ -- Lawrence of Arabia, of course. Although director David Lean has been dead for 24 years, there are people who'll swear that the movie still hasn't ended.

It's a wild mix of films. I'm taking a pass on 2001, which I just saw at MoMI in 70mm -- but if you haven't seen it in 70mm, you should. It doesn't solve the film's problems or plug its gaps, but for the considerable effect it makes nevertheless, it really should be seen in full format. But I'm hoping to get to all the others -- some that I haven't seen, or seen theatrically, since they were new, and four that I've never seen at all.

It's the usual MoMI deal: Screenings are free for members at the "Film Lover" level and above; for others it's $12 ($9 for senior citizens and students), which includes museum admission for that day. Both members and nonmembers can book ahead; go to the link below and if you prefer follow it to the alternate date(s); then click on the "Order tickets online" link. I would be especially careful with the films that are only being shown twice.

See It Big! 70 mm

August 7-30

With a higher resolution and more light hitting the frame, 70mm film offers a bigger, brighter image than 35mm. It also offers richer sound, with more space on the soundtrack. It is the ideal film format for ambitious cinematic spectacles, yet with the transition to digital filmmaking, 70mm movies have become increasingly rare. Filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson and Christopher Nolan are keeping the tradition alive, with films that were surely inspired by the work of Stanley Kubrick, David Lean, Douglas Trumbull, and Robert Wise. From West Side Story to Interstellar, here is a selection of great 70mm films, including adventure, comedy, drama, musical, and science fiction -- and all indelible experiences.

See It Big! is an ongoing series organized by Reverse Shot editors Michael Koresky and Jeff Reichert, Chief Curator David Schwartz, and Assistant Film Curator Aliza Ma.


2001: A Space Odyssey
(dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1968, 159 mins)
Friday, 8/7, 7pm; Saturday, 8/8, 2pm; Sunday, 8/9, 2pm


Brainstorm
(dir. Douglas Trumbull, 1983, 106 mins)
Saturday, 8/8, 6pm; Sunday, 8/9, 6pm


Tron
(dir. Steven Lisberger, 1982, 96 mins)
Saturday, 8/15, 7pm; Sunday, 8/16, 7pm


It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
(dir. Stanley Kramer, 1963, 205 mins)
Saturday, 8/15, 2pm; Sunday, 8/16, 2pm


West Side Story
(dir. Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, 1961, 151 mins)
Friday, 8/21, 7 pm; Saturday, 8/22, 2pm


Lawrence of Arabia
(dir. David Lean, 1962, 217 mins)
Saturday, 8/22, 6pm; Sunday, 8/23, 4pm


Interstellar
(dir. Christopher Nolan, 2014, 169 mins)
Friday, 8/28, 7pm; Saturday, 8/29, 6pm; Sunday, 8/30, 6pm


The Master
(dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012, 144 mins)
Saturday, 8/29, 2pm; Sunday, 8/30, 2pm

URBAN GADABOUT NOTE: Joe Svehlak's
MAS "I Remember New York" walking tours

This month Joe Svehlak, the total sweetheart among NYC tour guides, a lifelong New Yorker who pours passion as well as charm into his tours, and has always given a generous sense of historical development in his neighborhood walking tours, has two more tours coming up in the wonderful "I Remember New York" series he's been doing for the Municipal Art Society: Coney Island this Sunday, August 9, 10:30am-12:30pm, and Downtown Brooklyn.

These will be more personal versions of popular tours Joe has been doing for some time, tracking changes in these much-changing neighborhoods. His tours have always been personal, but in this I Remember New York series he's undertaken at age 75, he has been unabashed in sharing his history with the places he's leading us through. It says something about Joe that I run into him all the time taking other people's tours; his enthusiasm and curiosity seem if anything to have continued growing with time.

On the first tour in the I Remember New York series, Joe mentioned that at his age he doesn't know how much longer he'll want to continue leading tours, and for anyone who appreciates the value of experience and memory, the walks in this series so far have been treasures. On those my schedule has enabled me to do, there was a special warmth to this walk through Manhattan's Financial District, where he had his first job and later worked for a considerable time; and then in the two-part traversal of Brooklyn's Sunset Heights, where he did much of his growing up and later returned as a first-time homeowner and pioneering preservationist. I really should have posted something about the series sooner. Sorry!

Not to mention that Joe is just good company. Again, there are links for online registration for both members and nonmembers. I'm embarrassed at how long it took me to find my way to MAS; now I can't imagine not being a member.

I Remember New York: Coney Island, Brooklyn
Sunday, August 9, 10:30am-12:30pm

Join tour guide and preservation activist Joe Svehlak who still swims here, to reminisce about Coney Island in his younger years when Steeplechase Park was still a great amusement attraction before it was demolished in the 1960s. Hear Joe describe the thrill of the Parachute Jump and the Steeplechase. In addition to Steeplechase Park, Joe remembers four rollercoasters, merry-go-rounds, and an assortment of other rides, sideshows and games of chance. Both the Cyclone rollercoaster and the Wonder Wheel are New York City landmarks and a testament to Coney Island's illustrious past and resilience. We'll also view a new amusement park, a restored carousel, and two poignant memorials by the ballpark. Stroll the boardwalk as Joe remembers family outings, amusements, bathhouses, and other facilities and attractions by the sea. On our walk we'll learn about Coney Island's honky-tonk past and issues of preservation and planning for the future. Coney Island has seen many changes in Joe's lifetime. He's happy to see it coming back with new amusements, activities and restaurants. Stay for a swim and treat yourself to a Nathan's Famous! Please note that this tour has been offered before with a slightly different theme, and there may be significant overlap in content. Cost: $20 / $15 Members

I Remember New York: Downtown Brooklyn
Sunday, August 30, 10am-12n

In his lifetime, tour guide and preservation activist Joe Svehlak has seen major changes Downtown Brooklyn. Growing up in the 1940s and 50s, Joe remembers Brooklyn's Downtown as one of New York City's premier shopping and entertainment centers, with grand elegant department stores, specialty shops, fine restaurants and magnificent movie palaces. He would look forward to the special holiday shopping trips Downtown and the occasional treat of a movie in one of the great theaters. By the 1970s economic decline, the days of the grand department stores were over. The Fox and the Albee theatres were demolished for other commercial purposes. The Paramount became part of Long Island University and the Metropolitan is now the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Fifteen years ago Joe moved Downtown and is now witnessing dramatic high rise construction all around him. New streetscapes and plazas are adding to Downtown Brooklyn's new livability. New Hotels and shops are opening and even a new park is planned. Joe's thoughts and memories will guide us through his neighborhood as we view old civic buildings, new commercial development, designated New York City landmarks, the revitalized Fulton Mall, redesigned Flatbush Avenue, Metro Tech expansion, and even some surprising religious edifices. End by the landmarked monumental Dime Savings Bank and Junior's Restaurant, noted for its cheesecake. Please note that this tour has been offered before with a slightly different theme, and there may be significant overlap in content. Cost: $20 / $15 Members

SPEAKING OF MAS --

The new walking-tour schedule, likely to cover September, October, and November, should be coming out in the next week or two. Meanwhile there are still a whole bunch of really interesting-looking walking tours that can still be booked for August. Check them out here -- or go to mas.org anytime and click on "Tours."

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As Mitch Waxman prepares to tramp around his beloved Newtown Creek, we look at a blogpost that shows what blogposts can do

As recently as two years ago, when binary_bob took the top photo, posted on Reddit (click to enlarge), the once-mighty but long-doomed-following-abandonment Domino Sugar plant on Brooklyn's once-industrial waterfront still retained a large measure of its grandeur. The lower image, is a rendering of the redevelopment plan (click to enlarge), courtesy of SHoP Architects, looking east and slightly southward, with the Williamsburg Bridge at the right. Quick: Can you find the refinery building itself?

"One cannot help but drop his jaw whenever the former Havemeyer or Domino Sugar plant site comes into view. It is being redeveloped as a residential structure – more luxury condos for the children of the rich to dwell within. The question of what will happen to these structures when NYC slides backwards into an era of degeneracy and decay is one few ask."

-- from Mitch Waxman's Monday Newtown Pentacle post, "last stages"

by Ken

All week I've been meaning to talk a bit about our pal Mitch Waxman's Monday Newtown Pentacle post, "last stages," which seems to me a textbook-worthy demonstration of what the blog format can do when it's crackling. A blogpost, after all, has two fundamental resources: pictures and words. (Videos seem to me for the most part less a resource than a brain-draining abomination.) And Mitch has a way with both. You may recall that he's a compulsive NYC urban wanderer and photographer with a deep connection to place and time.

In terms of "place," he's based in Astoria, Queens, and along the way has developed a special connection to legendarily pollluted Newtown Creek, which forms the western part of the boundary between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, and which once was the industrial heartland not just of the New York City but of the U.S.A., which after all is how it got so polluted. So before we get to that blogpost, I thought I would mention that there are two immediately upcoming opportunities to take advantage of his obsession with his "beloved" Newtown Creek for anyone who might be in the New York City area tomorrow (August 2 -- kind of late notice on this one, I know; sorry!) and/or next Saturday (August 8), when Mitch is doing two of his signature Newtown Creek-related tours:

THE INSALUBRIOUS VALLEY OF THE NEWTOWN CREEK
Bushwick and Maspeth walking tour

NEWTOWN CREEK ALLIANCE
Sunday, August 2, 10am-12:30pm

Join Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman for walk through the industrial heartlands of New York City and along the Newtown Creek. Following the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens, we will be exploring the colonial, industrial, and environmental history of the borderland communities. We will encounter century old movable bridges, visit the remains of a 19th century highway, and explore two of the lesser known tributaries of the troubled Newtown Creek watershed. For the vulgarly curious, Conrad Wissell's Dead Animal and Night Soil wharf will be described.

Meet up at the corner of Grand street and Morgan Avenue in Brooklyn. Map: https://goo.gl/psdEEO The L train stops nearby at Bushwick Avenue and Grand Street, and the Q54 and Q59 bus lines stop nearby as well. Check MTA.info the morning of for last minute transit changes.



Be prepared for rough terrain and possible heavy truck traffic. Dress and pack appropriately for hiking and hot weather. Closed-toe shoes are highly recommended. Bathroom opportunities will be found only at the start of the walk.

13 STEPS AROUND DUTCH KILLS
Long Island City walking tour

ATLAS OBSCURA
Saturday, August 8, 10am-1pm

In 13 steps, Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman will be showing us the then and now of Dutch Kills tributary, once known as the "workshop of the United States."

A central maritime artery of Long Island City, Dutch Kills is surrounded by hundreds of factory buildings, titan rail yards, and crossed by century old bridges - and it's found just a few blocks away from Queens Plaza. During this three hour tour, we will cover three miles of Brooklyn and Queens to see where the industrial revolution actually happened. Bring your camera, as the tour will be revealing an incredible landscape along this section of the troubled Newtown Creek Watershed.

Be prepared for rough terrain and possible heavy truck traffic. Dress and pack appropriately for hiking and for weather. Closed-toe shoes are highly recommended. Bathroom opportunities will be found only at the start of the walk.

Meet up at the Albert E. Short Triangle park found at the corner of Jackson Avenue and 23rd Street in Long Island City, Queens. This is the Court Square MTA station, and served by the 7, G, and M lines. Additionally, the Q39 and B62 buses have nearby stops. Drivers are encouraged to leave their vehicles near the Pulaski Bridge in either Greenpoint or Long Island City.

A "QUINTESSENTIALLY MITCH" TAKE ON THE
EMERGING BROOKLYN-QUEENS WATERFRONT

Now about that blogpost. I was talking a moment ago about Mitch's sense of "place, and for this post, our pal Mitch Waxman he was ensconced in one of his recently favorite places for wandering, the East River Ferry, taking some great shots of what's left of the once-teeming working waterfront of New York City's East River. Note that he hastens to clarify what he means by "a working waterfront," which is to say one "that is engaged in the production of something other than artisanal pickles."

However, he notes that observing "the modern day East River bums me out." And the quote at the top of this post is Mitch deep in bumnation, contemplating the finally-taking-place transformation of the Domino Sugar plant in Williamsburg, just north of the Williamsburg Bridge. Here are two photos he took, one with the bridge and one without (click to enlarge):





Not long ago, Open House New York -- as part of a new series, "Projects in Planning," which aims to "explore the design and planning process of a single project during its early stages of development," to give us a window on the process of a major development project still in the development stage -- offered members a presentation by Vishaan Chakrabarti of SHoP Architects on the "Domino Sugar Refinery Redevelopment" (see the photo above), for which redevelopment plans have been kicking around almost since the plant was shut down in 2004 Here was the description (scroll way down, to April 8, in the "Recent Programs" section of the OHNY programs page):

OHNY members are invited to a presentation of SHoP Architects' master plan for the redevelopment of Brooklyn's iconic Domino Sugar Refinery. With a renovated refinery building as its "nerve center," the project is expected to create a 24/7 mix of creative office space, market-rate and affordable housing, retail shops, community facilities, and public open spaces. The distinctive buildings, which will create a new skyline for Brooklyn, are designed to allow light and air to penetrate through the site into the neighborhood beyond.

Now Vishaan Chakrabarti is one heckuva presentation presenter. After all, while in this instance he was talking to a bunch of people whose only standing came from having ponied up OHNY's modest annual membership fee, he's accustomed to giving presentations to people who are contemplating spending zillions of dollars, or perhaps have the power to turn thumbs up or down on other people's expenditure of said zillions of dollars. And as he described the process that had brought the project to its present state, he persuaded me, at least, that as large-scale development projects go, this one -- which includes an array of new buildings as well as open spaces surrounding the old plant itself (which is one of three buildings on the site that have landmark protection) -- has been planned with unusual sensitivity to the site's history and to the current needs of the nearby community.

Nevertheless, it looks to be a blight on the waterfront (don't you just love that "doughnut hole" building?), and it doesn't matter, because in the end it all comes down to what it all always had to come down to: the triumph of money. Williamsburg, after all, is now NYC's hippest and perhaps also hottest neighborhood, and the whole point of hipness, at least from the commercial standpoint, and it's hard to think of any other standpoint that can be said to matter, is to create hotness, in the real-estate sense, of course. So if the shores of Long Island City (Queens) and Greenpoint (Williamsburg's Brooklyn neighbor to the north) are to be lined with sky-high and sky-high-priced giant glass boxes, and they are, you can be sure that Williamsburg is getting them even glassier and boxier. (The one concession that city has extracted from developers is parkfront development along the riverfront proper and free access to it, which is certainly very different from the waterfront in its old industrial stage.)

Now here's Mitch ruminating on the old Domino site:

Williamsburg is officially lost as a point of interest for me. Bland boxes of steel and glass will extend all along the East River soon enough, stretching from the former industrial heartland once called “America’s Workshop” in Long Island City all the way through the Gold Coast of North Brooklyn to the Williamsburg Bridge.

BUT HE ADDS "QUINTESSENTIALLY MITCH" TOUCHES

First, speaking of this span of high-priced glass-and-steel boxes rising above the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront north of the Williamsburg Bridge, he notes:

Criminals are already beginning to focus their attentions on this area, just as they did in the age of industry. Why? Because predators go where the prey is.

Then he adds another characteristic touch -- a touch, one might say, of bumnation: "It’s cliché to even comment on it anymore, one realizes."

Except that Mitch has a comment on this redevelopment of the Domino site "as a residential structure -- more luxury condos for the children of the rich to dwell within."

The question of what will happen to these structures when NYC slides backwards into an era of degeneracy and decay is one few ask.

Any historian will tell you that it’s a cyclical thing here in the megalopolis, one that flips back and forth on a roughly forty year cycle which can be directly correlated to rates of crime, and that the City’s current upswing began in the late 1990’s – reversing a decline process that started shortly after the Second World War.

Rich people tend to move away from the City center when things get hairy. The rest of us are kind of stuck here.

This, I think, is sweet. Finally, here's Mitch's sendoff for this post:

Scenes long familiar, lost. The wilderness of the oligarchs is upon us, and deep in the woods – wolves howl to celebrate and delight. The nobles will be safe in their keeps, but the peasants – we’re on our own.

WHAT DOES A WORKING WATERFRONT LOOK LIKE?



On his ferry ride, Mitch observed "the Alice Oldendorf bulk cargo ship at work, making a delivery to a concrete plant at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The ship hosts a series of cranes and conveyors which unload her holds, producing the cyclopean mounds of sand and gravel witnessed above." (Again, click to enlarge.)

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