The unleashed mutts that once roamed free and fierce on Bond Street are a species extinct, their habitat overtaken by strollers and Heath Ledger on a skateboard.
And while the demise of the so-called wild dogs is one that has been amply noted by pundits and politicians as a sign of progress, some who live in the area aren’t so sure that their disappearance is a good thing.
“I’d rather live with the famous Bond Street wild dog packs than people who can spend a million on an apartment,” the blogger Found in Brooklyn wrote last week.
It’s an odd time in a neighborhood’s development when seemingly sane people believe they would be better off living next to mongrels with sharp incisors and a habit of defecating in the street than stock traders who probably aren’t even home much.
“Dogs don’t bother you unless you bother them,” the Found in Brooklyn blogger (a.k.a. artist Lisann McTernan) told me.
McTernan, who has lived on Bond Street for 14 years, sees an occasional scary growl, or bad dream as a necessary tradeoff for affordable housing. It pays to live in a place where people play “Spot the Pinscher” (the one who likes to play in the garbage) rather than watch the paparazzi as they chase Australian heartthrobs down Smith Street.
“The dogs kept my rent down,” she said, “Soon enough I know I’ll be looking for a new Bond Street.”
I understand wanting to live in a community that is wild, untamed and without any celebutantes, but really the whole thing strikes me as psychotic. In the year 2007, one would hope that a city like Brooklyn would be able to maintain affordable housing without relying on wild beasts to control the market.
I raise this issue now for personal reasons.
Last week, I read Found in Brooklyn’s musings on wild dogs while visiting a place where in fact, dogs run wild and let me tell you, it was frightening.
I was visiting my sister in a small town in Israel where dogs, but not leashes, are plentiful. Worse, her town hasn’t yet discovered the newfangled breeds so popular in Brooklyn that are engineered to not do beastly things like fight, or chase. In my sister’s Israeli town, people raise old-fashioned mutts, beasts that have the stamina and the brain power to actually run down and maybe even bite a person — especially when they don’t have a leash.
Needless to say, we spent a good chunk of each afternoon playing crowd control to the collection of animals that enjoyed barking at us each time we left the house. All the dogs appear to want to kill anyone riding a bike and are not afraid to chase cyclists down very busy streets.
“It gets freaky sometimes,” my sister told me, her voice grave as she pushed a stroller down a canine-crowded street, the pet beasts barking madly as passed.
But the biggest irony may be that land values are skyrocketing there. Apparently, the “rustic” is back. Uh-oh, Found in Brooklyn. You may not be looking for a new Bond Street after all.
The Kitchen Sink
Red Hook’s fave mustachioed civic warrior, John McGettrick, has agreed to judge what could be the city’s first ever mustache contest. The ’stache pagaent will happen on May 12 at a fundraiser for local artist group Falconworks and the “Off the Hook” production. Start growing. …
Friends of Bond Street had a first meeting last week. The neighbors are worried about the new Toll Brothers condos going up on the block. Email karlaroberts@verizon.net for more info. …
Brooklyn band, the Nighttime, rocked out at midnight-hour book release party for Jonathan Lethem’s latest novel, “You Don’t Love Me Yet” at Book Court on Monday, playing a champagne-fueled rendition of the song “Monster Eyes” that appears in the novel. …
Naidre Miller Loughney, owner of the eponymous Henry Street café, has already snapped up three of the 20 paintings by our DUMBO painter pal Pasqualino Azzarello that are now hanging in her cozy shop. …
Representatives from the carpenters union are asking Community Board 6 to dissent from a developer’s plan to build a non-union Sheraton Hotel at Duffield Square in Downtown Brooklyn. “Bruce Ratner had to go union. Why not Sheraton?” said union rep Anthony Pugliese, who is a member of the CB6. …
The US Postal Service has scheduled a “Postal Solutions Day” at the Times Plaza branch on Atlantic Avenue on March 21 to teach people how to use the USPS Web site so you can buy postage and mail packages from home. Just imagine never again having to go postal (literally and figuratively) again. …
The folks at Flying Saucer, an excellent coffee bar on Atlantic Avenue, were complaining the other day about the declining quality of the bagels they get from that overrated, Manhattan-based chain, H&H. Our response: Buy Brooklyn!