Being neighborly

This is part of my walk to the subway every morning. That coffee guy is just fantastic with the cheapest prices around, the guys at the hardware stores are often accepting shipments and joking around, and across the street is the nicest post office store, Post-Al. You can bring whatever you want shipped and they will package it up very nicely and mail it for you. It's about a thousand times better than being at the post office. They also love dogs in that place.



What people often avoid thinking about in this neighborhood are the many people heading out of the shelters every morning, or those who don't make it into the shelters. I was reminded of this, with the pending lawsuit against the homeless people trying to take advantage of the heat vents against the cold, in the Upper East Side. In front of the subway entrance, there's an kind of big air duct, and a quiet guy has been sleeping there these past few nights, since winter seems to have arrived. But no longer - I think these were put in as recently as yesterday. The spikes had a fresh coat of paint.


Note the pre-existing spikes on the pipes next to the vents - a nasty looking trio of no-sits!

People who do know that there are shelters near my apartment often ask me if I've ever been bothered by the folks who need to stay in the shelters. The truth is not even once, and I do see and have to interact with a lot of them, as we have to share the sidewalks and public spaces in our micro-nabe. There are better ways of treating people and our spaces than putting out spikes - literally or figuratively.