Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Looking at new lodging options in Tompkins Square Park

Friday...


Yesterday...


Photos by Bobby Williams.

17 comments:

THE NOTORIOUS L.I.B.E.R.A.T.I.O.N. said...

Please keep them in the park! They are getting way more aggressive with their pan handling and general lunacy.

I was walking with my cousin on Second Ave the other day and Chick Crustie honed in one her and started with the "Excuse me miss" over and over, louder and louder. Finally we turned around thinking their may have been the rare chance we dropped something. No. Chick Crustie wanted money. Trailing us like a zombie in hot pursuit of brains. I screamed at her and she shuffled back off to Starbucks.

Last week it was the guys following me because I have a lot of tattoos so I must be sympathetic to their cause. Whatever that is.

Anonymous said...

are they the " super clean crustys from OHIO" waitin to go pre law at nyu

LvV said...

I'm usually sympathetic to these kids but I'm getting a bit tired of the lone crusty outside the McDonald's on 14th/1st. He props up against the exterior of the bus shelter, which blocks the sidewalk, and has been in this spot for probably six months now. I'm really not the "get a job!" type, but he is young, able-bodied, and educated (at least I see him reading books), but all he does is sit/nod off there with his crap all around him. I don't think this is what anyone at Immaculate Conception needs to see every day when they leave school/church.

Even more annoyingly, this crusty is not a bad-looking kid so he often has different female crusty companions hanging out with him. Seriously, ladies? Do not encourage this crap.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm wondering how many years this dude plans to sit there lifelessly, blocking foot traffic. I mean, at least go homestead somewhere or ride the rails or *something*.

Anonymous said...

I hate all crusties with a passion.

Anonymous said...

LvV is right. That guy blocks the small but bustling walking area. He must be a nightmare for people trying to catch the bus there.

THE NOTORIOUS L.I.B.E.R.A.T.I.O.N. said...

I'm not sympathetic to them.

When I was 18 I worked in Harvard Square - Cambridge, Massachusetts. There's a large, circular stair area that dips below ground referred to as "the pit" and all walks of life would hang out there, including Crusties. This would have been 1993-ish.

During the Summer I would hang in the area before heading home on the train at night and found myself having conversations with them. I'd buy them a bagel here, a drink there. I soon learned that after pan handling all day, a lot of them went back to their parents home in the nearby affluent town of Arlington. I made $7 an hour, I want my bagel back!

I'm not saying that's the case here, but I'm skeptical of how dire their situations are. They manage to find the money for tattoos, piercings, cigarettes, tents, cell phone, safety pins, Manic Panic hair dye, pitt bulls, kittens, and all the Dead Kennedys patches and pyramid studs St. Marks Place has to offer. They choose to live this way.

nygrump said...

"Even more annoyingly, this crusty is not a bad-looking kid so he often has different female crusty companions hanging out with him."

At that age, women are attracted to assholes, or so I was told. It often seems to be true.

LvV said...

Oh yeah Notorious, I'm not sympathetic because of dire financial reasons. It's that I figure most kids who want permanently away from their situation at home probably had a pretty good reason for hating it. My best friend ran away from home and squatted in the East Village in the mid-late 80s so I got to know some of these people (proto-crusties?) and yes, lots of rich kids, especially in summertime when the living is easier (my friend was lower-middle-class though). But even some of the rich ones came from seriously abusive/unhappy living situations.

Some of them were admittedly just jerks though. As far as the crusties of today go, I have zero sympathy for the ones with pregnant or skinny dogs, and I'm always disgusted when they start screaming at each other, which doped-up, drunk kids predictably do eventually.

LvV said...

nygrump, I made horrible decisions at that age, so yeah. But I do feel compelled for some reason to point out that this McDonald's crusty doesn't seem like an *asshole*, so much as a seriously unmotivated fellow who really needs to park his ass out of the way of pedestrians already.

Other than that, he seems harmless (except for the nodding out in front of schoolkids every damn day).

THE NOTORIOUS L.I.B.E.R.A.T.I.O.N. said...

@LvV Same here. I'm a huge animal lover and the underfed dogs and kittens hit a nerve.

Crazy Eddie said...

LvV-Don’t worry, I went to Immaculate Conception as a kid, not a fan of this Crusty or other ones but we saw a lot worse things on 14th street on our way back to home Stuy Town to go elevator surfing. Boy, what a bunch of idiots were we.

LvV said...

Crazy Eddie, you went to IC? When my moms was visiting a few weeks ago, we went to Sunday service there, and she said, "If I lived here, I would go to that church every week." I love it, but figure making the sign as I pass and dropping in occasionally is cool with JC (utterly lapsed/agnostic here). Then we went nuts at DeRobertis, the true place of worship.

I know city kids encounter much worse than our McDonald's crustacean, but he's still a pain in the butt for them to maneuver around. Seeing those kids let out of school is one of my very EV favorite things, I adore them :)

BTW I just walked home and our tattooed friend is slumped over right where he always is. He is beyond crusty, beyond crustacean ... he is a barnacle.

LvV said...

@THE NOTORIOUS

Me too -- I love animals with all my heart, and so often I want to say something to the crusties whose dogs are clearly suffering, but I know it's no use. I just hope that other responsible crusties will school them and look out for the pups.

Anonymous said...

Don't feed the crusties

glamma said...

that's awesome

Hey19 said...

@THE NOTORIOUS L.I.B.E.R.A.T.I.O.N.

Ha
Great paragraph:
I'm not saying that's the case here, but I'm skeptical of how dire their situations are. They manage to find the money for tattoos, piercings, cigarettes, tents, cell phone, safety pins, Manic Panic hair dye, pitt bulls, kittens, and all the Dead Kennedys patches and pyramid studs St. Marks Place has to offer. They choose to live this way.

Anonymous said...

My my, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay
It's better to burn out
Than to fade away
My my, hey hey.

Out of the blue and into the black
They give you this, but you pay for that
And once you're gone, you can never come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black.

The king is gone but he's not forgotten
This is the story of a johnny rotten
It's better to burn out than it is to crust
The king is gone but he's not forgotten.

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye.
Hey hey, my my.