Recent comments in /f/nyc

jonnycash11 t1_jckwb3y wrote

Reply to comment by casanovaelrey in NY lawmakers say they won't support MTA's planned fare hike for commuters by King-of-New-York

Do you need to buy a house in NYC to have a 户口 and access to the pubic services? That’s what subsidizes public transport.

If the income to housing cost ratio was as skewed in NYC as it is in Shanghai, we could hire migrant workers to build and repair tunnels without OT, probably it would be close.

My qualifying my earlier statement is not the same as saying the MTA is great. Different inputs produce different results.

3

casanovaelrey t1_jckuzma wrote

Reply to comment by jonnycash11 in NY lawmakers say they won't support MTA's planned fare hike for commuters by King-of-New-York

> Congrats, I’ve lived in all three places too. 给你鼓个掌

恭喜你。Then I question your previous statements because it should have been obvious to you then. While Shanghai CAN BE cheaper than NYC, is also a pretty high cost of living city. Hong Kong on the other hand, is extremely expensive and often surpasses NYC in COL. Both places have significantly better metro systems and have about the same number (or more) in terms of usage. Point being that for the resources that the MTA has at it's disposal, it does a really bad job.

2

StrngBrew OP t1_jcktx6m wrote

Reply to They Wanted a Backyard. Now They Hate It. | Outdoor space was the city renter’s dream. Then came the rats by StrngBrew

Molly* loved her backyard at first. She and her husband had moved to the garden-level two-bedroom in Crown Heights in early 2021. It was pricier than their last place, but it seemed worth it: She had visions of a thriving garden and casual dinner parties impervious to new COVID variants or indoor-dining regulations. But things slowly soured. She began to resent the backyard — the constant maintenance, the rats and mosquitoes, a mulberry tree with fruit that stained everything it touched. The next two years would become something like a constant battle against Mother Nature. “I went from being this ambitious gardener to barely being able to keep my area of the yard clean,” Molly said. “I didn’t realize how much more work it was going to be, or how dirty the work was going to be.”

Between March and September 2020, searches for rentals with “outdoor space” on StreetEasy rose 249 percent. Luxury buildings touted private terraces — even those pathetic little ones — as the amenity of the pandemic; sales grew accordingly, increasing by 42 percent in the span of a year. “We’re going to look to incorporate outdoor space, if not in every unit, in almost every unit,” one developer told the New York Times of the balcony boom in new construction. Amber Freda, a gardener who runs a landscape-design business, told me that 2021 was her biggest year to date. “People still were not traveling that much and they weren’t going to restaurants,” Freda said of the time, “so they really needed their outdoor spaces.”

Backyards felt like freedom in the early months of social distancing. With movie theaters closed, you could host your own outdoor Fast & Furious screening. Shuttered bars didn’t matter so much if you could host friends for an alfresco drink. But backyards in the city aren’t always as relaxing as they seem, and some tenants found themselves in their own version of the upstate regret story, confounded by their new (modest) acreage and the local wildlife. One person I spoke to who paid extra for a Brooklyn two-bedroom with a backyard during COVID ended up unwittingly sharing it: “We would open the door and there would just be an army of rats staring at us,” she said. Their landlord tried poison and dry ice, but nothing worked. “We would have friends over for dinner outside, and a rat would just dart under the table.” Another backyard regretter told me that their former yard, which had been marketed as private, was actually accessible through a door that led to the basement of a restaurant in the building; once, the previous building owner suddenly appeared, saying he was there to dig up a “special onion.”

Another renter I spoke to said they paid an additional $600 a month for a Brooklyn brownstone with a concrete backyard, which was fine at first. Come fall, the leaves clogged a drainage pipe, and the yard became a “mosquito-filled swamp.” When their lease renewal came up, their landlord tried to take away their backyard access without reducing the rent. “Even though I hate going out in the yard, this made me mad,” the tenant said. They managed to negotiate a reduction, which they now felt was “more valuable” to them than outdoor space. (This kind of remorse is not exactly universal. When asked if she ever felt burdened by her pandemic backyard, one tenant simply replied, “No.”)

Outdoor spaces require a certain amount of time and toil, Freda said, which can catch some people by surprise. “A lot of spaces are really raw,” she said of the yards, terraces, and rooftops she sees among her clients, who are mostly homeowners. Without any kind of irrigation system in place, watering can become a Sisyphean chore. Freda recalled a client in Soho who had bought an apartment with a beautifully staged rooftop garden that lacked a water hookup. Soon enough, the plants began drying up and the artificial greenery left behind by the previous owner faded and fell over. “It’s a bigger project than he realized when he bought the place,” Freda said. Hot summer days, when people most want to get out of the city, are also when gardens require the most upkeep, which, Freda said, might mean “no more trips to Fire Island on the weekend.”

Molly in Crown Heights never ended up starting that garden — she had her hands full with a newborn — but her neighbors’ kids did end up planting tomatoes. (They were later eaten by rats.) Tiki torches have done little to deter the mosquitoes. She’s stayed put, but says she hardly uses the yard anymore outside of a few dinner parties during ideal season — the shoulder months of spring and fall when there are fewer bugs and berries aren’t falling on their heads. But the stress of having a backyard was too much for some. The tenant dealing with the squadron of rats eventually gave up: “We just completely ceded the backyard to them.” When they started coming into the house, she fled. Her new place has no backyard, and she’s happy to keep it that way. “Never again,” she said.

18

PoopEmoji8618 t1_jcktqaw wrote

Reply to NYC Koreatown restaurant shut down after couple reports they found dead rat in soup by bachstop

Wow that’s crazy that the couple also deleted a yelp review on another restaurant about flies. Not sure how Gammeeok found it if it was deleted but idk much about yelp.

Gammeeok also has video footage of them serving the soup with no rat. Makes it seem like the couple is the one at fault but interested to see how the story develops.

I personally have never been but I would hate to see a restaurant go down if this is in fact not true

141

HamsterCultural3081 t1_jcko5vl wrote

Reply to comment by Mrmilkymilkster in NYC has thousands of 3-K vacancies. City Council says that’s an outreach problem by Ok-Training-7587

I've lived in NYC all my life. I agree that offering 3k programs is an awesome step and definitely benefits people. But I have higher standards for my childrens education and wellbeing at school. And NYC education system is still garbage. Being free isnt an excuse to have low standards for education and safety.

5