Attention, students: at your request and upon your demand, humor has been permanently banned from campus

Here’s a contract proffered to a comedian who was scheduled to perform at a university.



Someone should inform these students that from the days of court jesters, comic acts were sarcastic, biting, and often funny. Maybe it this news was delivered with a cuddle bear it would be absorbed, though I doubt it: the banshees and their craven peers have declared that there is no place for humor in their modern world.

Even Jerry Seinfeld — Jerry Seinfeld! — has announced that he will no longer appear at college campuses. Sheesh; the children won’t ever know about humor, but I suppose they won’t miss it.

I'm gobsmacked

With enough in the till, this buyer can presumably afford to get what he wants

110 Clapboard Ridge Road, 18,000 sq.ft (plus accessory buildings) on five acres and an asking price of $24.995 million is reported as pending. Wow.

The seller bought this then-new construction in $10.5 million in 2010 when it was generously described as “80% complete”. finished it, and has been trying to sell it since 2015, when it started at $35 million. Three years and a price cut of 30% later, it has found a buyer. That length of time on the market and even that percentage of price cut isn’t unusual for a house in this pricer range, but I’ll admit to reacting, when I saw this notice this morning, “what are they thinking?”

I predict that this will prove to be a lousy investment, but I suppose that’s not the point, because if the buyer has a large enough fortune to see $25 million as just a pittance, and wants to live in a house this size, why not? For its type, it’s a nice enough place, and considering the millions of dollars poured into its construction, I’m sure its very well made.

Some write-off.

POOL HOUSE (AND I’M NOT KIDDING)

mel Gibson had one of these in his house on old mill. from what i could see, he never used it

Foreclosure sale follies

1397 King Street, purchased for $1.730 million in 2007, but lots of bad things have happened to people who bought houses here in that year

A report of an arrest at 1397 King Street for domestic disturbance caught my eye, because I thought I remembered a notice of foreclosure by auction on the property back last spring, and was surprised to learn that at least one of the defendants was still there. I checked the judicial docket, and sure enough, there had been an auction, the creditor had bought the property for the debt owing: $1,100,000, which is the usual result of these auctions, and title had been transferred to the bank. So what’s the former owner still doing there? Lord knows, but this report from the auctioneer illustrates the hazards and travails of the poor saps (lawyers, usually) who sell off these properties:

(Interesting factoid: as a young law associate back in the mid-80s I was occasionally ordered by my betters to conduct these auctions and even then, King Street generated a disproportionate share of foreclosures. Auctions in other parts of town usually proceeded without incident, but King Street sales often saw problems including, like this one, notice of foreclosure signs, required by law, torn down, owners refusing access to appraisers, and so forth. I completely understand why a home owner would fight fiercely to keep his family in their house but, sadly, when the game’s over, it’s over.)

Well that was quick — sort of

It wasn’t the price, it was those happy little clouds

Steve Archino listed 42 Mooreland Road a month ago on November 9, priced at $6.599 million, found a buyer in just 12 days and it closed Friday for $6.530 million. That’s going to do wonders for our realtor board statistics, so readily distributed to gullible consumers: 12 days on market, 99% ask-to-sell price, and isn’t that wonderful?

Unsaid will be the fact that this disaster, once owned by the now-bankrupt Antares (wonderful history here) partner Joe Beninati, started off back in 2012 at $26,080,000, and Steve got the listing only after Citi Bank’s strict foreclosure suit was completed this year. I’m happy for Steve, sorry for Mr. Beninati’s wife, who took the hit here, but I won’t be dancing on the tables over this positive addition to our sales price ratio and days on market numbers.

They call me Mr. Grinch.

But Bob Ross wasn’t:

UPDATE: Not to be crass, but this photo from the interior just caught my eye: WTF, twisted bowel syndrome?

(Another) Update: Beninati’s fellow flame-out, James Cabrera, built his own mansion, also with other people’s money, right next door to partner Joe’s, at 42 Moorland. He too tried to bail out, listing the place for $17.999 million in 2012, but when that failed he rented it out, at $30,000 per. I suppose that’s better than strict foreclosure.

And I’ve mentioned this before, but the buyer of 37 Mooreland, who paid $8.4 million for much smaller new construction up the street just the past Halloween should, perhaps, be feeling a twinge of doubt about the wisdom of that purchase.

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What have the Romans ever done for us?

Romans v Gauls — have we got a deal for you!

Sounds like a question today’s students and their teachers pose about western civilization

“Okay, but except for roads, aqueducts, irrigation, medicine, wine, education, public order and peace, what else have the Romans done for us?”

Why we hate the press, Chapter 8,917

21-year-old Kyler Murray wins Heisman Award, and on the proudest moment in his young life, it took the media just a few hours to dig up four “homophobic” social media posts written when he was fifteen-years old and that, rather than his triumph, became the story. Murray used the word “queer” back then, a term which, so far as I know, is still in use, even by queers, faggots and light-in-the-loafer Nancy boys themselves, so, so what?

The modern, sanctimonious version of reporters like Scott Gleeson, who claims to be a sports-writer, and his peers disgust me. It’d be amusing to dig into their own backgrounds and see what they themselves might have said and written when they were fifteen, but why waste time on such miserable, sanctimonious wretches?

Greenwich Titanic heads for the bottom

All ashore

Greenwich Free Press has a very well written article on the demise of the “Showboat”, the old pseudo-paddle wheeler that was parked for years in Greenwich Harbor.

I was a little reluctant to link to Greenwich Free Press’s writer/publisher’s web site, because although I’ve linked, favorably, to her publication over the years, she’s responded by calling me a Nazi misanthrope and even tried to shut down this blog, but what the heck, when she’s not publishing puff-pieces for her advertisers and squeaking hysterically about Trump and the horrible male sex, she can write well, and she did a good job on this story.

The Showboat was once an attraction at Freedomland, the short-lived amusement park located where Co-Op City now stands (in fact, speculation has it that the owner of the marshland where it was built, William Zeckendorf, was in cahoots with NYC’s mayor and allowed Freedomland to be built solely to prove that the land itself could be developed as a far more profitable housing project — given the corruption in that city, there’s no reason to doubt that). I don’t remember much of the place except that my friend Sandy Hamill’s father (also father of Sandy’s younger sister, the Olympic skater Dorothy), took a group of us Boy Scouts there when I was ten. The amusement park ceased operations soon thereafter, but I don’t believe our visit had anything to do with that.

Regardless, the Showboat Inn eventually joined Freedomland into failure, despite its reputation as the finest whorehouse in Greenwich*, and was demolished and replaced by the DelaMar (still reputed to have an active meat market, but I wouldn’t know — perhaps you could ask the Free Press’s publisher) and the boat itself was sold for peanuts to Bill Frenz, local musical legend, founder of Billy and the Showmen, a band dating back to 1963 which, ironically, was the year Freedomland opened, and Bill had the hulk towed over to Byram, where it served as an entertainment venue for years.

This year, Frenz auctioned off the Showboat for a thousand-bucks and it was supposed to be loaded on a cargo ship and transported to Korea (?!!!). As the Free Press [sic][ reports, things did not go well:

[Greenwich Harbor Master Ian MacMillan] said the weight of the boat had been underestimated and that the bow of the boat, which had been full of cement, had broken up in the wind this week.

“This is a screw up,” MacMillan said, as the crane lifted the boat a few inches from the water. Popping noises could be heard as the bottom of the boat began to buckle.

On Friday afternoon, MacMillan said the fate of the Showboat did not look good

• Possibly rivaled by Lucas’, now Gabriela’s — GPD Folk, help me out here.

Contract on Pintail

12 Pintail, still under construction, $2.795 million. Unusual construction, which is refreshing, after touring so many standard “colonials” — I don’t have to absolutely love a design to appreciate a break from the conventional — and though I’m surprised by the price, comps for new construction on Pintail support it. Quarter-acre lot.

Gosh.

Pending in Mid Country

8 Rockwood Lane Spur, latest asking price $2.895 million (started at $3.250 last February). Nice house, excellent location, good yard. Owners paid $3.350 for it in 2006, redid the kitchen and made some other improvements yet still came out with a loss. I’m not sure whether that’s a sign of the general market out there or just the unpopularity of 1958 homes. It would certainly work for me.

Hope springs eternal up on Conyers Farm

2018 vErsion

74 Upper Cross Road, which sold for $7.5 in September, 2017 (and $13.5 in 2012) is back again, now priced at $8.495.

The property, indeed the entire development, has a history of overly-aspirational pricing, and I suspect this time will prove no exception.

No noticeable changes have been made since it sold a year ago — heck, this new broker has even reused the pictures from the previous broker’s listing — and I’m unaware of any changes in the market that would justify a higher price.

The Gate, circa 2018

maybe the home theatre’s busted?

THIS POOR DEAD OCELOT IS STILL RESTING, A YEAR LATER

circa 2017

the gate was so nice in 2017, they kept it

same for the picture on the tv

2017: THIS GUY’S GOING NOWHERE, NOT EVEN HIS FLEAS