15th Street - Bachelor Pad

Now that we have decided to leave New York... everything that was once charming has become increasingly annoying... take for instance the collection of bums in our neighborhood. I used to appreciate the recognition (nod or the occasional grunt) that a couple of them would give me when I passed by them on the street. I thought it was kinda endearing that the guy that bags our garbage is called "sweats", which after multiple encounters is perhaps a mis-nomer as he doesn't get the alcohol "sweats" so much as the "shakes" and sometimes the alcohol "snots" (which is rare and may be indigenous to our neighborhood).

All this was fine in our little gentrified skid row until the bachelor pad was built. This lair is located on the far end exit of the 15th Street stop on the F train, and this particular exit just happens to be closest to my house. About a year ago it was just a neglected exit of the subway, an unobstructed and uninterrupted place to rest one's weary head - a pied -a-terre if you like. Over the last month it has become something entirely different. One of our local bums, we will call him "old guy" now has furniture, storage and some days he even has house guests.


This could be interpreted as the "American Dream" or even described as "American Ingenuity"... because when life gives you lemons, you dam well better make lemonade. But in this instance, the lemonade stinks. And to stretch the metaphor even further, the lemons get a little riper everyday. And the lemons sleep in... and the lemon urinates in every corner... and I think, but I cannot prove it, I think the lemons took a shit on one of the stairs a couple months ago. And on multiple occasions I think I saw a pair of lemons not properly zipped up - if you catch my drift.