Contract in Havemeyer

37 North Ridge Road, 2020 construction and priced at $2.730 million reports a contract after 26 days on the market.

New construction in Havemeyer, which until recently sold in the (approximate) range of $1.8, has suddenly seen prices like this. That’s good news for owners of older homes here because the higher the price a builder can get for his new project, the more he can pay you for your land. This property, with a doomed house on it, sold for $1.020 in May 2018; a similar lot would probably fetch more today.

I’ve also noticed that as prices have climbed, “Havemeyer Park” is being replaced by vague terms, as here, like “in the Palmer Hill section of Old Greenwich”. I never thought ‘Havemeyer Park” carried a stigma — it’s a great neighborhood – but it is true that it has historically been associated with affordable homes. Now that that seems to no longer apply, I suppose a change of name is appropriate, though I’ve always thought of Palmer Hill” as Havemeyer’s poor cousin; “Moneyed Acres” might be better.

And not to nitpick, but I’ve also noticed that spec houses are no longer described as such, and are called “custom-built” instead. Traditionally, custom-built meant built to the individual specifications of an ower; technically, I guess, the builder is the owner during construction, so if he specifies the details, it might, by stretching the term, be considered a custom home, but that’s not too different from a Chevrolet that’s been built to GM’s specifications being described as a “custom-built” car; to me, it’s still just a Chevy.

I suspected that this was from the Bee, but I actually clicked on the link, just to confirm

CNN mourns ACB confirmation by lowering Chinee flag to half-mast

With the minor correction that “half-mast” “specifically refers to flags on ships or naval bases, while half-staff applies to flags anywhere else, like civilian structures, the article seems fair, if a little bit fake. That’s an improvement over CNN’s own reporting, which is consistently unfair, and completely fake.

Well yeah, some city slickers aren't to the wilderness born

I’m a (Ralph Lauren) lumberjack, and I’m okay! Well, sort of. Maybe.

“I fled New York, and it was the worst decision of my life”

Turns out, not all New Yorkers are cut out for country living.

“I was definitely not in farm-shape when I got there,” said Thacher, who volunteered at a friend’s organic farm for four and a half months.

And so after testing out life in Massachusetts, Vermont and Beacon in upstate New York, Thacher settled on, well, Brooklyn.

“I missed the diversity and my Jewish community,” said Thacher, who runs a digital marketing company.

“It’s just so easy to walk places without having to plan things out. You can stumble upon bars or restaurants and not be on a script here.”

And here’s another:

Noelle, a 32-year-old commercial real estate developer, recently decamped to Whitefish, Mont., with her partner and their two young children.

Thankfully, they still have the keys to their Gramercy place.

“I miss talking to the doormen in the morning when I walk my dog,” said Noelle, who declined to give her last name for privacy reasons. “I miss going outside and being able to talk to people.”

In a previous post on the phenomenon of New Yorkers invading and buying property in the northernmost reaches of Maine, I predicted that their first bleak winter in Caribu would drive them back home. It didn’t occur to me to mention Whiteface, Montana, but it looks like Noelle is discovering that truth on her own.

(Addendum: Reader Anton Fitch points out that I omitted the best part, from below the fold):

Even her toddler can’t wait to return to his cosmopolitan routine.

Said Noelle: “My son looked at me one day and said, ‘Mommy, I miss sushi.’ ”

Before they retreat to Park Slope, is it too late to teach Noelle and her toddler how to fish? As Confuscious says, “give a boy a tuna roll and you feed him for a day. Teach a boy to ice fish and to carry a filleting knife and you feed him for a lifetime”

Okay, Chelsea Handler's TDS may be pathetic, but this is just Hilliaryareous

Hillary claims she “was born to be president”, and gets “physically sick” at the thought of Trump in her office.

t makes me literally sick to my stomach to think that we’d have four more years of this abuse and destruction of our institutions [could be that voka/Thunderbird diet of yours, kid. Try sticking with one or the other – Ed] and damaging of our norms and our values, and lessening of our leadership, and the list goes on. But there’s no doubt that he would do everything he could to attack and punish anyone who was, in his view, an adversary …

And then there’s this bit pf projection, coupled with a fixation that’s truly alarming:

… I don’t think he has any boundaries at all, Kara. I don’t think he has any conscience. He’s obviously not a moral, truthful man. So he will do whatever he can to lift himself up. And remember, as I said, he lives with this specter of illegitimacy. He knows more about how he got really elected than we still do. Hopefully, we’ll learn more in the years ahead.

I'm curious whether this will be reported by the enemies of the people

Apparently the news did reach his basement

GDP grew 33.1 % 3rd quarter

I'd say he nailed it

Crenshaw on the Big-Tech hearings

And another story the media won’t report:

Tucker Carlson: Damning Biden documents mysteriously disappear in transit.

Shipped via a “national, well-known carrier” — sounds like FedEx — from Fox’s NY headquarters to Carlson in California, the package was opened during transit and the documents stolen. Biden’s friends in the FBI? They’ve certainly sat on Hunter’s laptop for 9 months are remain silent on its authenticity or contents. Or another branch of our thoroughly discredited intelligence apparatus. Hmmm.

From America's Paper of Record

But will it fit down the chimney?

Two Birds With One Stone: Man Protests Racial Injustice, Completes Christmas Shopping With One Trip.

The Bee interviews one Michael Parsons

"Well, this is convenient," he said as he saw people were protesting the shooting of a man who was just one knife away from being unarmed. He grabbed his balaclava, a sign reading "INJUSTICE ANYWHERE IS A THREAT TO JUSTICE EVERYWHERE," and a shopping cart, and headed out the door.

"Justice for whoever it was!" he cried as he made a stop at Best Buy and picked up an iPad for his mom and all six Star Wars movies on Blu-ray for his brother. "And you know what? I'm gonna treat myself," he added as he threw a few Xbox games into his cart for himself.

"Uh, police are bad or whatever!" he quickly added as he made his way to Target for some stocking stuffers.

Terrorist attack? The French are withholding judgment, but I spot a few clues

At least they’re wearing masks to protect their fellow-citizens; at least they’re doing that!

Arab man shouting Allahu Akbar slays three in French church, beheading one.

Mayor Christian Estrosi suggested that the Thursday morning attack seemed to be terror-related, although a motive is unclear at this time. 

Related, in a way: Security guard didn’t challenge Manchester bomber for fear of being called racist

Kyle Lawler said he was stood 10 or 15ft away from Salman Abedi, who had been reported to security by a member of the public who thought he looked "dodgy".

The Showsec security guard, aged 18 at the time of the terror attack, told police in a statement read to the inquiry sitting in Manchester: "I felt unsure about what to do.

"It's very difficult to define a terrorist. For all I knew he might well be an innocent Asian male.

"I did not want people to think I am stereotyping him because of his race.

Five minutes later, Mr. Abedi resolved those suspicions by exploding the bomb in his knapsack, killing 22 young concert-goers.

I have complete sympathy for the 18-year-old “guard”, because he was just following his proper politically correct learning, but that doesn’t excuse his teacher, whether in the government, the press, or academia.

Yes, Trump Deragement Syndrome is real, and yes, it can be treated

Stop me before i kill again!

Self-identifying comedian Chelsea Handler was able to stop screaming at Trump supporters after relieving therapy.

Interview from “The View”:

“Oh my God. I used to, I would walk into the airports, I’d go to the first class lounge, check in, then run over to the Fox News section and start assaulting people,” Handler replied, saying that she would run in and call people racists and then run right back out.

“Then I’d run back in and go, ‘Do you want your daughter to have rights, because she won’t?’ and then I’d run out,” Handler continued. “Then I’d run back into the Fox News section and I would go, ‘Are you still a racist?’ I mean, I was out of my tree, and my level of outrage was just not — I couldn’t handle it anymore.”

Unfortunately, therapy has been only partly successful:

Handler went on to say that her goal in going to therapy in 2016 was to “learn how to talk to Trump supporters” because she felt that her anger was preventing her from having productive conversations.  “Now, Trump supporters, I don’t have anything to say to them anymore at this juncture,” she added.

So, Chelsea still can’t hold conversations with Trumpers, but at least she can control her compulsion to attack them — for now. This is good; this is progress, but there’s still work to be done,

Just like other TDS victims, Handler’s irrational hate and anger turned out to stem from other, deeper issues and not just some large, orange man:

Handler concluded that her therapy had been helpful in part because it brought her to the realization that, while she did hate Donald Trump, what she was angry about was a childhood experience that she had not dealt with.

Sadly, I still fear for Chelsea’s mental health. Simply refraining from attacking strangers, but continuing to hate them, and refusing to engage them in conversation is only a start, because a suppressed urge is likely to resurface.

Chelsea reminds me very much of the late Audrey Kishline, who, unable to stop drinking, started a national movement called Moderation Management, based on the belief that alcoholics could indulge in alcohol so long as they didn’t overdo it. That was in 1994. In 2000, Kishline, driving drunk and on the wrong side of the road in an F-350 pickup, slammed into a car head-on, killing a father and his young daughter. Released from prison in 2004, resumed drinking, and hanged herself in 2014.

Pray for Chelsea on Election Day. And watch out.

It's obviously an evening for truth in advertising stories

Here’s the official Democratic Party’s entrant: