off to CLinton Hill...

this evening for the ;play, Ding Dong its the Ocean. I know one actor in it Eliza, but its the kind of play that interests me, somewhat improvisational, about people in theater putting on a play, or something like that. Just made the plans--that leaves tomorrow open---there is a cheap ticket available for the Clubbed Thumb project, but somehow I couldn't go ahead and book it. Why? Because I don't know anyone in it? Hard to say, usually someone from the theater community that I know very well appears, and there is some good conversation, but for some reason, I could not "pull the trigger". Well, it will be on probably tomorrow's TDF chart, and if I feel like it I can book it then.
  Yesterday evening, did go to the Community Board meeting in Bushwick, on Gates Avenue. Very interesting---three different ideas seemed to appear about how to confront the rigidity of the city and their plan to "save" Bushwick. The first I think sponsored by the community board steering group was to work hard to have a plan that was what the residents wanted, then negotiate with the city planning comittee and possibly accept some sort of compromise--get something, but not everything. A second group, the one that I came to support, simply wants to shut down negotiations---let the building that is going on there take its course, and walk away from any city vision. And the third advocated hard protest, every day in the streets, to show that any program the city gives to Bushwick is destructive. I left before the meeting finished, but it was enough to give me a strong idea of what was going on, and to really resent the city government's relentless rigidity in putting in "their" plan. I live on the upper west side, I am removed from this conflict, but the people in the room and those living in Bushwick are left to struggle this thing out and deal with the developer aggressiveness and the amount of brutal displacement that it causes.
Afterwards, took the bus north on Gates to the Myrtle Junction, from there I walked west on Wycoff to the pizza place on DeKalb (very good pizza, by the way) What I saw was the "two worlds" of Bushwick, a few bars for the newcomers and a lot of neighborhood people on the street next to them. Will the twain meet? Should it? Finally I retired to Starr Bar (the activist bar) where I had a beer---no discussion---and returned home.
More to follow.