Getting Ugly?

Recently, my old pal Matt Welch asked how ugly is the overall atmosphere of the U.S.A.

Well, Denis Hamill writes in today's Daily News that living in New York City is getting pretty damn ugly.

I left my house and carried my two just-emptied garbage cans toward my house, a squadron of flies following. Which reminded me that I had to buy another two cans with secure lids, because come July, trash in my part of Queens will be collected only once a week. Just in time for 104-degree heat.

This is good for families, I thought. Families of raccoons. And flies. And when I hose the cans out, this year it will cost an extra 6% on the water bill, on top of the 18% real estate tax hike and the 7% on the reassessment. If there's another drought, I'll get fined $400. I jumped in my car, securing the seat belt. My son recently got an $80 ticket for not wearing his. I drove one block, passing a cop on a scooter who wrote a driver a ticket, apparently for showing Liberty plates instead of Empire State plates.

Every agency in the city is now a revenue-producing engine - fines, fees, licenses, tariffs, tolls, taxes. The flag of New York City should be imprinted with a black hand.

Nothing's the same.

Well, Denis Hamill can be overly grim at times, but then again, I am not a property owner in NYC. This amazing city has always been an expensive and some times difficult place but is sure getting worse these days.

For one thing, everyone is sure noticing and feeling the transit fare hike. To be fair, two dollars is a good deal for a train ride from Coney Island to the Bronx but most people don't ride that much rail each day. If you are only going three stops in Manhattan, it is still two bucks. OK, we will have to live with it. What is so annoying is that the MTA didn't seem ready to handle the fare change and the killing of the subway token.

At the 77th Street station on the Lexington Ave line, I have had nothing but trouble. The MetroCard machines are always out of order in some way. They are not accepting paper money, or there is no single-ride cards left, or they are out of the $7 unlimited one-day Funpass. And if they is someone in the token booth, they aren't helpful, seemed annoyed or won't give you chance for your twenty. And the machines only give up to $6 in change. So, back up to the street, buy a paper, beg for four dollars in coins and go back underground. And this just doesn't happen at the 77th St. station, it is going on all over the city.

What is truly bad about all this is you just can't seem to by a single ride on the New York City Subway any more. At best, you have to buy $4 Metrocard to get to where you are going, even if you are only going one way. Granted you still have that other ride in your pocket, but this has to be tough on many working poor who have to couting coins to get to work every morning.

So, just getting around costs more and is more of a hassle. That's ugly. And then there is the smoking ban in New York bars.

As a smoker, this is simply a pain. But what can you do. It is Bloomberg law.

What I can do, is limit where I go out and spend my money. Many other people are also doing this and loads of bars are feeling it in the purse. And the city is losing tax dollars when the bars make less. Many commuters are skipping the post-work pints downtown and waiting to sip and smoke in peace in Jersey on their way home.

If I am in the city I go to places where smoking is still allowed. It has almost become a hobby of making a list of New York smoking bars. It is still a short list.

Happily, my local and favorite bar in all of New York, Toad Hall at 57 Grand Street in SoHo, has applied for status as a legal smoking bar. Smoking is still allowed while all this is pending. It seems that if 10% of your annual sales is tobacco, you can be registered as a smoking bar.

FYI for those who want to smoke while having a drink in NYC: You can still smoke at the Oak Bar at The Plaza. And there is the little Marty O'Brien's on 2nd Ave at 88th Street. And you can lit up in the great back courtyard at Bull McCabe's on St. Mark's place.

Or you can just cross the river to New Jersey and smoke where every you like, including restaurants. Hoboken has a great night life and more than a hundred bars in one square mile.

Okay, maybe all of this is not that ugly. But it is making city living more difficult. And the economy here is still in the crapper. Every night I work bartending some one calls asking if we are hiring staff. And I always have a few guys at the bar slowly sipping a beer or two after another fruitless day of job hunting. I don't ever remember it being this bad on the job front.

There have been upsides to the bad economy here. Rents have dropped a fair bit. I know people in Hoboken who have gotten their rent reduced $300 a month because the market is so down. And you want that 2-bedroom flat in a brownstone with hardwood floors and high ceilings. Well, it is only $1200 a month in trendy downtown Jersey City. And only a five minute walk to the PATH train to Manhattan. It still only costs $1.50 to get to the city.

The overall mood ugly though? Well, things are grim and people are felling it and I think they feel pretty damn helpless. I do my best to keep political talk out of the bars but few I ran into were gung-ho on the war. And most just seem kinda of indifferent. I pick up a vibe that goes something like this: The economy's bad, I have to take care of myself and family and I just have to keep my head down and keep going. Bush and the folks in Washington don't give a damn about us, so what can you do. Just keep going. It has to get better.