A Street Person's To-Do List

For a few weeks this summer my workplace has had to deal with a street person's leftovers. This person would sleep overnight in one of our entry ways, then leave behind a bizarre collection of odds-and-ends the next day, including syringes.

Some of his leftovers have been bizarre -- children's toys, a broken stereo, a sleeping bag -- but once I discovered a backpack, and in it a "To-Do" diary with some very interesting notations.



His writing is difficult to decipher. Here's page one:

I NEED DO THE DO
STOP
DO NO HARME
BI BI
LEET GOOD

DO
CALL SHARON
MOM

Page two is labeled "TO DO" and says:

1 DENTOS AP
RENT TO INTENT LETTER
1 2 3

FIND OUT WHAT NEEDS TO BE DON AT
1 TAX
2 WELFARE
GET RENT
PHONE BANK

400 WATS + iPOD
99 HDML DVD
49 5.100
B: DVD
79 200WAT

Page three is one-sided:

START TO SLOW DOWN AND STOP
M L

AT 5:00 I WAS DOWN TOWN AT MARKET IN KIT
$120 PAND FOR RED PUMPKIN
7 DID IN IN THE ROW
8 WALKT HOME

10 TO 2:00
1 AM

Page four is most interesting:

CALL MOM
GOOD DAY TO DAY
TRY 3 OR
$10: OOW AT LARAL STREET

TO DO
GET NUMBER FOR METH
CLINICK WOOD STACK
BUS FAIR
$20 DOLLERS

NIKKEY IS WITH ROS AND ALL I SENS IS NEGATIV MY LAIF IS OFF THE HOOK

And finally, page five:

I CANT US
I CANT SEE YOU MONBER
HEPUT

I suppose this is a glimpse at the functionality of a drug-addicted, partially literate person. He hasn't come around lately.

PS: As much as my workmates hated having to dispose of his garbage, what they objected to most were the syringes. This annoyed me too, but then I realized that they were all prominently displayed...almost laid out deliberately in front of his former possessions.

Suddenly it occurred to me: what is a street person going to do with used syringes? They aren't going to carry "sharpie" boxes around which would advertise to the world that they're injecting drugs. When they want to dispose of a needle, I think their only options are to throw it in a garbage or hide it in something until they're far away.

I don't know about you, but I'd much rather the syringes be immediately visible...I don't want to pick up somebody's old backpack or pull out a garbage bag and get a needle in the hand. I wonder if, by leaving their needles where everybody can see them, these street people are being CONSIDERATE?

Daily Muffy: "Drag Your Ass Out Two"

We'll be doing some repeats over at The Daily Muffy for a bit, so if you want to see some historical shots from ye olde Muffye archives, go over and have a look. The current episode is a brief "behind the scenes" look at shenanigans after 2004's "Drag Your Ass Out" event.

Gukanjima, Another Place You're Not Allowed to Visit

One of the seven wonders of forbidden exploration is the island of Gukanjima, which was abandoned suddenly in 1974 and has remained virtually untouched since, except by the elements. Wind, rain, and rot have given the place an apocalyptic beauty, most famously captured by photographer Saiga Yuji here.

Hart Island

Ah, those mysterious places that we aren't allowed to visit...

In the May 5th, 1928 issue of The New Yorker I've come across a brief description of Hart Island. Known variously as a barracks, missile base, prison, and potter's field, this small New York City island is now off-limits to the public, except for occasional tours granted to historians and other really nosy people.

Here's what it was like in 1928, when people still lived and worked there.

New York's pauper dead are buried in a sandy hill on the north end of Hart's Island in Long Island Sound, a mile from Execution Light. They lie in big graves, tier on tier, unclaimed. It was blowy the day we went out there to see the field, and the low storm-swept island looked particularly weatherbeaten. Michael Breen, warden of the island prison, met us, smiling broadly, glad of a visitor.

Twice a week the boat comes up from Bellevue. The prisoners bury the dead, solemnly and without ceremony, one hundred and fifty to a grave, one white headstone for the lot. It is a beautiful spot--the sweep of the Sound, the restless clang of the bell buoy at the point. An incongruous spot, too, for directly across the water are the homes of the millionaires, Hearst's place on Sands Point, the broad lawns and grandeur of Great Neck.

On the cemetery hill are the frame houses which served as barracks in the Civil War. Now they house ancient prisoners who are too feeble to require iron bars for their detention: old beggars, cripples, panhandlers, old men who hang magazine pictures of beautiful girls above their iron cots. In the centre of the island are the dog-eared brick buildings where the regular prisoners live and work, making clothes, making brooms and shoes, snatching a little sleep on the sea-wall in the sun, between jobs. At the extreme southern end is a house formerly owned by a negro, who ran a negro resort there until a year ago when the City acquired the property.

But nothing much interested us except the field for the dead. Even the statistics seemed important--two hundred and sixty-six thousand persons in that small hill. Mr. Breen allowed us to look at the record books, and we glanced at a few entries: a baby found in the parcel room of the Penn Station, a man picked up in the Fifth Avenue sewer, page after page, six thousand a year. There is a single monument to honor them--a small cross bearing the inscription: "And He shall call His own by name."

As we stood there a gull wheeled and circled above our head. From the far side of the island the wind brought the smell of tide flats, the incessant sounding of the bell. And rather vaguely we heard the fine Irish voice of Michael Breen: "Thim horsechissnut trees will be all full o' blossoms soon--pretty as a picture!"

You want pictures? I do too, and here are some, taken on a 2000 history tour.