"Californians Keep Up With Joneses’ Water Use"

Neighbors know much more about each other than public authorities can hope to keep up with. In California, which again faces drought conditions, neighbors are encouraged to report overuse of water to authorities. People can see whose lawns are green (when they should be left to brown), hear sprinklers in the middle of the night, and see each other washing their cars by day. According to this article in the New York Times, tactics neighbors use include public and private shaming, posting photos of flourishing lawns to Twitter, calling water officials, and leaving reminders to conserve water on doorknobs.

Manhattan's Illegal Fireworks

This New York Times article, "Manhattan's Illegal Fireworks, A Tradition of Boom and Bust" by Julie Turkewitz, is full of wonderfully evocative descriptions of how neighborhoods and blocks matter in contemporary cities. The article does not describe any formal block clubs--the real topic of this blog--but gets at some of the sense of intense localism that underlies them.

A few of my favorite excerpts that show the meanings of blocks and neighborhoods:

"For at least a quarter-century, residents of Inwood, in northern Manhattan, have gathered around Dyckman Street for an unsanctioned fireworks competition, pitting various neighborhood blocks against one another, and all of them against the police."

"Here, the residents of Dyckman — where red, white and blue often call to mind the Dominican flag and not Old Glory — celebrate this holiday in a manner that mixes rebellion with celebration, each explosion an assertion of an independence of their own.
“'We’re not really celebrating Independence Day,' said Hugo Joel Collado, 30. 'We’re really celebrating our ’hood.'”

"The unofficial fireworks competition (there are no judges) pits block against block, each named in the local argot. Post Avenue, for example, has three groups: Up Post, between 204th and 207th Streets; Middle Post, between 204th and Academy Streets; and Mr. Sanchez’s Down Post."

How you know this is not your mother's block club:

"Each block has a 10- or 20-person explosives team, but anyone is free to join."

Here is a wonderful description of place:

"Officially Dyckman is not a neighborhood, but a cluster of blocks on and around Dyckman Street. Here, young ruffians are tigres, the police are los monos and any respected male older than 30 is an O.G., or original gangster. Older women float down the street in house dresses. Men fix old watches on corners, magnifying glasses held to their eye sockets."