Sabine Farm price reported

17 Sabine Farm Road, $5.8 million. Owners paid $8.2 for it in 2005, — it had started at $9.985 the year before, so they probably thought they were getting a bargain —poured in still more, and re-listed it 2018 for $8.1. This is what they got.

On a brighter note, watch this space for news of brother Gideon’s sale that closed last Friday. I’m waiting for it to officially hit the airwaves, but it is, to quoite his favorite politician, huuuuge!

Eerily reminiscent of star wars movie, no?

There's something so tiresome about these aging old commies in New York

A pair of barbarians threw red paint on the Washington statues that flank the entrance to Washington Square Park this morning. That’s hardly a surprising event in Fun City these days, nor are the sentiments of one Iven Young, M.D., an 86-year-old physician in the neighborhood: he hates America.

“Washington has blood on his hands. I’m in favor of them defacing!” local Dr. Iven Young, 86, told The Post of the damage at the park.

I’m going to make a leap here and assume that Iven Young: lower Manhattan circa 1933; NYU Medical School; and liberal, is Jewish. If so, his disdain fior this country is all the more disgusting.

Washington fought to found a country that offered freedom to immigrants like Dr. Young’s forebearers, and while he was suckling at the teat of America as a 10-year-old, his fellow Americans were fighting to defeat the fascist rule that was rounding up and slaughtering his relatives back in Europe. Gratitude for those who made it possible for him to live here at peace and in freedom would be nice, but at the very least he could conceal his loathing for this country and refrain from cheering on its destruction. Screw you, doctor.

And the dead shall rise again

123 Doubling Road, $5.495 million, is reported pending. This once-spec house was built on land purchased in 2007 for $2.395 and first made its appearance on our MLS in late 2010 at $6.795 million. It’s been on and off the market since then, with periods of rentals to break the monotony.

The agent had me a tad confused with her claim that the house enjoyed “captivating views of Long Island Sound from open-air cupola”, but then I realized that she was merely updating what we realtors used to call “seasonal water glimpses”. Oh well, at least this one still has a master bedroom.

Where? Where?

Hoping for a second wave

Price cuts on houses that missed the first wave of flu refugees:

70 Old Mill Road

70 Old Mill Road, dropped today to $4.695 million. Purchased for $6.4 million in 2006, on the market since April 2018 when it began at $5.425.

480 Cognewaugh

480 Cognewaugh Road, now $2.3 million, which seems like a decent price; certainly better than its starting number of $2.750 last October. Owners paid $2.875 in 2005, new pool in 2015.

Surfers refer to the “Seventh Wave” based on a belief that waves come in sets of seven. Let’s hope for the nation and these homeowners that we won’t have to wait that long to see this all end.

Cowabunga!

COVID isn't bailing out underwater owners, but it is moving their unwanted houses

Sad to see how quickly 1990s architecture has aged

Case in point, 613 Round Hill Road (way up north) sold for $3,999,999 in 2007; they sold it Friday for $2.775 million.

But at least it sold; started at $3.8 million in January 2019 and until now, no one wanted it.

Harvard to change "Master of Business Administration" degree to "Group Participation Award"

And with grades eliminated, everyone gets a perfect GPA

Already out:: “master bedroom” and “master sommelier”. Next up, “Chess Grand Master”, “Masterpiece Theater” “Master Card”, “masters classes“, and every schoolboy’s favorite, “Master Bates”. Mechanics may be briefly confused by the renaming of brake master and slave cylinders but once it’s explained how those terms are relics of a racist past they will surely admit their white guilt and adopt “Can’t we all get together and stop forward progress?” as the correct term. That or get fired.

If so, then his enthusiasm for defunding the police is understandable

Fitzgerald Francois on the Ave

A reader sends along two reports from Greenwich Time and asks whether the “Fitzgerald Francois” quoted in the article on the Bureau of Land Management parade yesterday is the same individual who encountered his own form of police brutality back in ‘16.

Saturday Mr. Fitgerald recounted a sad tale of racial oppression to Greenwich Time’s reporter:

“We set this up with the intentions to disrupt the privileged people, because they need to hear this message the most,” said Fitzgerald Francois, a Black man, who lives in Stamford but grew up in Greenwich.

“I feel like they don’t believe the stuff that they’re hearing from us and that they’re really just blind and oblivious to the fact of all the trials and tribulations that we go through, the racial profiling that we go through,” he said.

Francois, who lived in Greenwich for 15 years, said he’s experienced “multiple” instances of racism while living in town. On many occasions, while walking down the street, he said, he has watched as white people have crossed to the other side of the road to avoid encountering him, only to cross back once they had distance between them.

The other article, from August 29 2016, also features one Fitzgerald Francois; if it’s the same gentleman, then it may explain why some people cross the street to avoid him (and others, drug buyers and the police, cross the street to join him): “Greenwich police arrest “active drug dealer” in town park

GREENWICH — An alleged drug dealer who police said was selling marijuana at Pemberwick Park and other locations in the region is facing a rash of criminal charges.

Fitzgerald Francois, 23, of Summer Street, Stamford, is due in court Sept. 12 to answer charges of sale of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, reckless endangerment, tampering with evidence and resisting arrest.

The arrest of a suspect who authorities called “an active drug dealer within the town of Greenwich,” according to a court affidavit, resulted from police activity on Aug. 1. The Police Department had received an anonymous tip that drugs were being sold at Pemberwick Park, police said, and two plainclothes police detectives were keeping vigil at the park in the early evening.

Police said they observed Francois in a silver Subaru sports sedan. A detective recognized Francois from a previous arrest in Greenwich, police said. Approaching the vehicle, the detective smelled marijuana smoke, according to court papers, and then Francois drove off at a high rate of speed. Police later found the Subaru on Halock Drive, where it had struck a parked Acura, and witnesses told officers that Francois took off on foot from the Subaru, carrying something, while running toward the Byram River, according to records. …. Francois was listed as unemployed in the court records. He has had previous arrests on larceny and drug charges.

UPDATE: A reader sends along this comment:

This is just irresponsible journalism right here. If this girl's story is true or if it was alleged to be true, it would've been front-page news across the country. For this journalist to print such a horrific accusation is flat out wrong and an attempt to editorialize a story that is supposed to be about facts.

"Kiera Williams, 17, a Norwalk resident, said she’s experienced racism in Greenwich.

"'One day, while walking in town with her father, a white woman spat on her dad and called him a (n-word) after they bumped into each other," Williams said."

https://www.greenwichtime.com/local/article/Protesters-rail-against-racism-in-Greenwich-march-15371499.php

Pressure builds for Yale to change its name

Going trans will only go so far

Okay, so far, the pressure seems to be coming mostly from my side of the aisle, but how long can the Lincoln haters ignore Eli’s sordid past?

An anonymous Princeton professor sees the delicious dilemma Yale faces:

Removing Woodrow Wilson’s name from its School of Public Affairs is Princeton’s most underhanded ploy yet to undermine its hated competitor Yale–to which it more often loses than wins in the competition for outstanding students. It reveals the extraordinary cunning and ruthlessness of Princeton alumnus Christopher Eisgruber, the University’s president. It comes at a cost, of course, since the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs is a valuable brand. But clearly, and shrewdly, Eisgruber judged that the cost is well worth it. For this puts Yale in an impossible position.

“Elihu Yale, after whom the University was named, was a vicious racist–not only a slave holder but a slave merchant, a buyer and seller of black bodies. By any accounting or measure, he was an even worse racist than Woodrow Wilson. By removing Wilson’s name from one unit of Princeton University, Eisgruber has put Yale under extreme pressure to change the name of Yale University. But, of course, this would be the loss of a massively—incalculably–valuable name brand.

“Think about it. What high school valedictorian with 1580 SAT scores who founded a charity to send tricycles to toddlers in Tajikistan would turn down (say) Princeton to attend the University of Central New Haven? (It has to be central New Haven, by the way, because there is already a University of New Haven. Of course, they could rename it Angela Davis University, I suppose.) And yet, if Yale refuses to take the “extraordinary measures” required to confront honestly the University’s history of racism (etc., etc.) by removing the vile slave merchant’s name, then what Woke high schooler is going to want to attend unWoke, indeed racist, Yale over Woke Princeton, which did have the courage to take “extraordinary measures” to confront honestly the University’s history of racism (etc., etc.)? This Eisgruber fellow is a genius.”

It occurs to me that a reasonable compromise is possible here: keep the Yale name for the sake of alumi cash, but issue diplomas in the name of Central New Haven U. The old coots will continue to mention Yae in their wills, and today’s woke students can feel good knowing that they’ve relinquished their white privilege and partially atoned for their sins against the African race.

It's clear that Bob Horton wasn't picked for flag football and still resents that

From the folks who brought you our music hall …

And neither did I, but both Bob and I have paid a lot of property taxes to the town, and that should qualify either of us, or any taxpayer, to question this boondoggle.

Call “Time Out” On New Stadium Project

I’ve been writing about Greenwich for more than 11 years now, and I think it’s fair to say that I spend more time than most people following civic life in town. I have never been more confused about the who, what, when, where and why of a project than I am about the proposed new GHS Cardinal Stadium.

I have found it next to impossible to follow how a simple bleacher repair job, identified two years ago, morphed into a $10- to $15 million new stadium complex that is now before the Planning and Zoning Commission.

According to information on the P&Z website, it is holding a two-part public hearing Tuesday about the new Cardinal Stadium complex.

First it will consider placing the entire 55-acre school campus in the R-20 zone; then it will take up the school board’s application for a special permit for the “Cardinal Stadium Bleachers Project.” Now read what the so-called “bleachers project” includes: “replace home side bleachers and press box with elevator access; construct buildings under the bleachers to provide home team room; public toilet rooms and support spaces … upgrade the access drive to the bleacher area for delivery; food trucks, emergency access; an improved driveway from East Putnam Avenue to a new parking area that contains new ADA parking spaces; a new ticket kiosk; and replacement of the lighting fixtures on the current poles.”

Even that punctuation is confusing. And, that is just Phase 1. Phase 2 is not described, but I suspect it will include luxury boxes, a 360-degree Jumbotron, and enough other deluxe amenities such that Greenwich may apply to host Super Bowl LX.

Minneapolis city council members vote to replace their private security guards with social workers and therapists

Pigs in a blanket fry’em like bacon!

Well no, they haven’t done that, actually. Instead, after voting 12-0 to dismantle the police department it was revealed that they’ve been using taxpayer funds to rent private cops for themselves. “Yes, black lives matter”, council member Andrea (neé Andrew) Jenkins told FWIW, but ‘matters’ ain’t necessarily ‘equal’, and we be more equal than them others.”

Meanwhile, BLM spokesman Mr. Rashad Turner concedes that the chant “fry’em like bacon” was perhaps misinterpreted. “It definitely wasn’t a threat, I don’t know, maybe it would have been received differently if we’d said ‘put ‘em on a stick’.”

I don’t think so.