june 17 you make me feel so young It's raining here today. Pissing pouring rain. Nothing like in Philly or North Carolina, from what I've heard -- they're getting drowned down there. But here, it's just a rainy Sunday. And there's something nice and comforting about that, even if I don't get to go on a historical walking tour of the area. (The brochure said "rain or shine" but I'm not wandering around the neighborhood for two or three hours getting sopping wet just to learn about buildings and architecture.) Besides, yesterday I got to tour some of the gardens in the neighborhood, and that was just fine. A surprise, too -- you never know what's lurking behind some of the buildings of Jackson Heights, and with good reason: They're hidden and locked off from casual visiting. If you live in the buildings, you can peep behind, but without access like that, you have to wait until once a year, when they open them to the public. Who knew? I certainly didn't. The building I'm in doesn't have a garden, except for a nice -- though small -- decorative entryway that leads to the front entrance.
But behind several of these other buildings, which all have elegant names like The Chateau, Hampton Court, Linden Court and Belvedere Gardens, you can find all manner of English-style gardens that stretch for a block lengthwise. I took pictures -- I'll fill this entry in later once I get them developed (drat the lack of a digital camera). Doric columns, one with a waterfall, climbing flowers, Venus statues, benches, even a very large mulberry tree (no faking, this is too big for a bush). Here's a bit from the brochure that allowed entrance to the gardens (with the package JH walking tour deal it came to $15, and even without the tour I think it was worth it):
"Developed between 1910 and 1945 by Edward MacDougall's Queensboro Corporation, Jackson Heights holds a unique place in 20th Century urban planning history. Inspired by the English "Garden City" movement, MacDougall developed the first planned apartment community surrounded by gardens, parks, clubhouses and athletic facilities. Unlike earlier developments based on the private home, Jackson Heights became the first "garden apartment" community in the United States. By using the complete city block as the unit of design, the illusion of a "house in a garden" was created. This was accomplished by placing a large garden in the center of each block, surrounded by low-density apartments. In 1919, MacDougall's development company initiated another innovation, making Jackson Heights the first cooperative apartment community in America. While cooperative ownership had existed for years, the development of a complete "cooperative" community was unique. By 1925, well over 1,000 cooperative units had been built. "Jackson Heights was a planned community, meaning that development was a gradual and well-thought out process. Flanking the central core of apartment buildings between 76th and 84th Streets are rows of English Garden Homes, located between 70th and 90th Streets. A commercial hub was created at 82nd Street and along 37th Avenue. Athletic facilities, including a 12-hole golf course, a 20-court tennis club, a clubhouse and supervised playgrounds, dotted the neighborhood." [Ed. note: I'm still looking for all of those things, although I did find the playgrounds.] "While the architecture was traditional, the fact that the buildings were designed to relate to one another was vital to making Jackson Heights a cohesive sub-city within the greater metropolis. The Queensboro Corporation retained control over what each and every building looked like. While the golf course and tennis courts are long gone" [Ed. Note: Aha!] "Queensboro's aesthetic control is still visible today. "Jackson Heights was designated a Historic District by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1993. In 1999 an even larger portion of the community was listed on the New York State and Federal Registers of Historic Places."Sounds like I moved into a pretty swank location. Had two friends over: Pete and DeeDee (husband and wife team) on Friday night and they were struck by the space. Earlier today, Super Ioan came with (super-underling? super-in-training?) Danny to install my A/C and Danny noted that the place felt "homey." That, despite the fact that I have no real furniture and several boxes of stuff. So that's a nice feeling. I like being assured that the biggest purchase of my life was worth it. So it's all very tranquil and pleasant here. (One of the apartments was having an open house while I paraded through the gardens and as a 3 bedroom, it was going for about $349K, which was pretty impressive.) Lets hope the market booms here and the apartment is worth twice what I paid for it in merely five years. Not that I'll likely be moving.Also happening: I'm exploring my dog options, visiting shelters and staring into a lot of sad little brown eyes. I'd really like to have a dog, but that means walking it day and night -- regardless of what I want to do in town after work -- and dealing with the smell, the hair, the -- well, bodily emissions. But it's also a stab of big dumb unwavering animal affection and frankly I've been feeling a need for that lately. Plus, I love dogs. I've been to CACC ( the city shelter), Bide-A-Wee, North Shore and the ASPCA. The nicest was North Shore, and a close runner up the ASPCA (this surprised me). But apparently the city shelter, which is truly hell in a handbasket, is one of the very few "intake" facilities. You have a pet you don't want/can't take care of, you bring it to them. From there the best and most adoptable are culled out and farmed to the other facilities. The CACC, which is the city shelter, appears to try to do its best. But in terms of general appearance and living conditions, it ain't great. The front entrance had no A/C, while the dog areas had almost too much -- a freshly-washed animal was shivering. I liked her: She was some kind of mix (as most of the dogs are, usually some shepherd or chow in there) and was called Princess. We played outside a bit, but I need a dog that isn't quite so rowdy. I don't have much furniture, and I'd rather what I have stay relatively nice. While I waited (45 minutes!) to see the dogs and be seen at CACC, a man came in to adopt two kittens; a woman came in wanting to know where her rooster (!) had been taken off to and balked when she was told they couldn't tell her that information, because chickens are illegal, even if all she wanted to do was give them her hen so the rooster and hen could continue to live in marital bliss; and two uniformed officers showed up with a taped box full of baby raccoons they retrieved from a roof.
"Can't you just let them go in a park?" I asked.
"Nope," one of the officers said. "You'd have to take them all the way out to Westchester or something, and they'd die anyway -- they're just babies."
Another man brought in two guinea pigs. Another woman who had adopted a cat on Saturday (this was now the following Friday afternoon) was bringing it back: It had pneumonia and had been at the vet ever since the adoption. On the one hand: heartbreaking. On the other: Isn't pneumonia something you can cure? On the other: Maybe she didn't bond and didn't care much for the cat -- apparently she was keeping the other she'd brought home that same day. But after she handed the box with the cat over, she walked over to the bathroom, her face screwed up into a fist of despair. She had a little cry in the bathroom, then left. I played with Princess, whose stomach (like many of the others) was shaved into a neat rectangle, indicating they'd had the spay/neuter operation. The CACC employee watching me and the dog frolic in the back pointed out that Princess had definitely been from North Shore and was neutered because -- and she turned the dog over -- she'd been tattooed. Apparently North Shore tattoos the symbols for male and female, with an X over the symbol, to indicate that he or she is now an "it." There was something Holocausty-creepy about it, despite the obvious sense of doing it.
The ASPCA was a bit of a hike further south (the CACC is located smack in Spanish Harlem, near the East River -- talk about being a fish out of water in that neigbhorhood for me, but on a hot Friday afternoon everybody sweats the same), and felt cleaner and more organized. I got to walk right in and look around. The dogs are almost to an animal large or medium-large, exactly what I don't want. I'll go for a medium, beagle-sized animal, but in my hearts I'd been hoping for a Cairn terrier, like Pepper.
Perfect size, perfect temperament. But no such luck. Not that it's really crucial -- I like the idea of taking into my home a dog someone else couldn't handle or own, and it doesn't matter how old or really what kind, but you have to make some distinctions.
I found one I really did like at Bide-A-Wee, which seems to have very few criteria (compared to CACC and ASPCA) for adoption, but the place is a no-kill shelter, so maybe that's why. His name was Moses, and he had a great face. Plus, he didn't growl at me -- and according to the guy looking after the dogs, I was one of the very few he didn't growl at. He's a bit energetic, but I like him. The breed is an odd name that has slipped my mind. But with my leanings towards symbols and meanings -- the name Moses is perfect. He's Jewish! Plus, Moses was adopted, just as he would be -- and I was, too. But I wanted to look around and not take the first dog from the first shelter that grabbed my attention. So now that I'm feeling better about possibly owning him, my luck he'll be gone. I'll call on Tuesday to see what's up with him, and see if he's still available. I don't want to make a snap decision, and I can't take him home (or any animal home) before next week anyway, since I'll be in Maryland next weekend for white-water rafting. So they'd need to hold him for me a little longer. Moses. Moses the dog. There's something very amusing about that. I want to teach him all the right signals and to obey, but when it comes to lying down, I want him to respond to "Go down!" Just so I can say: "Go down, Moses!" I'm a card.
Finally on the subject of dogs, I saw the largest canine (outside those horse-sized Great Dane things) I had ever seen in my life at North Shore. He's a Malamute named Simon and clearly has some collie blood, but he was enormous. Fat, apparently, and very furry. They have him on a special diet. If I didn't think a) he'd shed the amount of a cat every day b) he'd be impossible to get from Port Washington to Jackson Heights c) he'd prevent mom from ever visiting, I'd incline to take him in. But whoa, what a size! He's like a bear. And that's all I have to say on dogs for now.
To close out, some of the best news I've read in a while. Yes, Dubya is still an idiot, but when I first saw this headline: "Report: Bush Stunned by U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Size" I figured he'd be "stunned" because somehow we just didn't have enough for his Republican tastes. Instead, the accompanying article went like this:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) was stunned last month when told of the extent of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, Newsweek magazine reported in its June 25 edition, released on Sunday. ``I had no idea we had so many weapons,'' Bush was quoted as saying by an unidentified ``White House insider.'' ``What do we need them for?'' the president was said to have asked at a briefing, according to the Newsweek report. But that was not a dumb question, the magazine noted in detailing the vast U.S. nuclear arsenal, which includes 5,400 warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles, 1,750 nuclear bombs and cruise missiles ready to be launched from B-2 and B-52 bombers, 1,670 ``tactical'' nuclear weapons and another 10,000 warheads in bunkers around the United States. That potential for nuclear overkill may be reined in, however, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld prepares at the Pentagon (news - web sites) to implement Bush's stated goal of streamlining and downsizing the arsenal. Rumsfeld has brought back retired Gen. George (Lee) Butler and former Reagan administration national security guru Richard Perle to spearhead an effort to reduce the arsenal to safer, more manageable and more cost efficient levels, Newsweek said. ``I see no reason why we can't go well below 1,000'' warheads, Perle told the magazine. ``I want the lowest number possible under the tightest control possible.'' ``The truth is we are never going to use them,'' Perle added. ''The Russians aren't going to use theirs either."
Of course missing from the article is a quote I wish he'd made, something along the lines of: "You mean we've been wasting all of that money on more bombs while our kids are shooting each other in schools and not learning how to read? Doh!" But you learn to take what you can get.
