{"id":338,"date":"2000-12-20T14:53:39","date_gmt":"2000-12-20T14:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/?p=338"},"modified":"2024-11-27T20:46:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T01:46:16","slug":"getting_involve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2000\/12\/20\/getting_involve\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Involved"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK, I\u2019m a lot calmer now, thanks.<\/strong> No more undignified outbursts for a little while more, at least. (By the way, thanks for all the love, gang. It helped more than you may ever realize.) Yesterday was a pretty damn stressful day, spent worrying and panicking and running around trying to figure out what is going on with this big crackdown on artists\u2019 lofts here in Brooklyn. There was a big community meeting about it last night (which I missed) and another one tonight (which I damn well won\u2019t miss), so people are up in arms and on top of the situation, which is good. The people in my building met last night and we got ourselves organized so we can avert catastrophe by making a preemptive strike at getting things up to snuff around here before any inspectors come by and try to claim it’s not safe here. We even coined a plucky name (EWAC! The East Williamsburg Artists Coalition), set up a web page and an listserv, and started imagining how fun it would be to weld artwork to the outside of the building to baricade ourselves in if the bastards try to kick us out. Never say that activism doesn\u2019t have room for a little goofiness.<\/p>\n

The meeting really helped calm me down and realize that there are steps we can take to avert gettin\u2019 the boot. Now that they\u2019ve evacuated a few buildings and created such a fuss, the city agencies involved say that they would only evacuate buildings in imminent danger (a very sketchy evaluation, from the sound of it), and try to fine or warn the rest on the list of 121 targeted loft buildings. Presumably the political pressure now is for them to avoid kicking anyone else out into the streets around Christmas, so we\u2019re counting on the inspectors to look favorably on anyone\u2019s attempts to make sure their buildings comply with the fire code. That\u2019s why we\u2019re springing into action to make sure our building is OK before anyone gets in to look around. My building isn\u2019t as raw as it looks, so things may not be so tenuous. The thing is, we want to know for sure before we take any chances. That\u2019s why we’re all springing into action today \u2014 keeping exits clear, getting smoke detectors and fire extinguishers, taking care of any flammable materials we may have around our pads.<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t all temporary measures to avert this catastrophe, even if that\u2019s what has sprung us into action. We want<\/i> the building to be safe. One of the things you can\u2019t take for granted when you live in an artist\u2019s loft is that everything is safe and honky-dory all the time (especially when the owner is a notorious loft slumlord). Also, we want to pull together as a building and a neighborhood of people with the same concerns about the life we\u2019re trying to carve out here in the hinterlands of Brooklyn. So this organization of ours will hopefully live on past this dilemma and allow us to continue and improve our lot in life. Besides, why waste the snappy acronym?<\/p>\n

Also, I\u2019m glad that something has spurred me to getting to know my neighbors after living here for well over a year. One of the problems of life in New York, and this neighborhood in particular, is that it\u2019s really easy to just hole up in your cave and never get many chances to know the people living mere feet away from you. It\u2019s worse around here where there are no public places to congregate and mingle. I\u2019ve said hello to plenty of the folks around here, but I now realize that I actually like everyone. Pretty much everyone in my building is really good-looking and hip, too, so that helps.<\/p>\n

And, Dori<\/a>, this is SO not Bushwick out here. I\u2019ve lived in Bushwick, so trust me. I\u2019m very happy to be on the East Williamsburg side of Flushing Ave., where it\u2019s at least 20 percent less bleak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, I\u2019m a lot calmer now, thanks. No more undignified outbursts for a little while more, at least. (By the way, thanks for all the love, gang. It helped more than you may ever realize.) Yesterday was a pretty damn stressful day, spent worrying and panicking and running around trying to figure out what is … Continue reading “Getting Involved”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultrapersonal","category-ultrapolitical"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71428,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions\/71428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}