Little gardens, Elliott Houses, Cafe Ambrosia, mental health, Irish gangs
Block updates linked below. We wrote a few weeks ago about mental health around the block, which based on the volume of antidepressants and anxiety medication prescribed to our addresses, is let’s say, suboptimal. This week we met a board-certified psychiatrist named Eric (Dr. Eric Ross specifically, but I’m not big on titles), who showed up at my request to an event at Sogno Toscano technically thrown for a large group of summer associates, which is law-firm speak for summer interns. After hearing the interns joke about a rather infamous incident last summer in their world in which another intern (known in the streets as the “Sidley biter”) was fired after biting 10 of her coworkers, Eric calmly and coolly explained the underlying reasons why the Sidley biter might have felt compelled to snack on her colleagues (former colleagues).
Why am I telling you any of this? As I listened to Eric talk, it became relatively clear to me that a way to ease or at least take the first step towards easing the mental problems endemic to our neighborhood and city—depression, anxiety (and even compulsive biting, which 9 out of 10 doctors agree is the absolute hardest condition to treat)—might be to make it very clear to you that if you need help, we can put you in touch with Eric. I don’t mean that we can just give you the name of a healthcare practice; I don’t mean that we can have you fill out a form; I mean that we can give you the name of an actual guy regularly on this block trained in what your problem is. That deconstruction and deletion of steps may be the first step you and we need to figuring out why we’re all so depressed, anxiety-ridden, and biting all these people. We really need to stop biting all these people.
We want to thank Inge Ivchenko and Rodney Washington, two high-wattage and interminable members of our local community board, for inviting us to a Chelsea community dinner called Breaking Bread, Building Bonds (and good to see you there, Lisa Wager, Thuy, and Helen). I was rather inspired by a comment from a student in attendance (who I’ll refer to as O) who said, in effect, that city governments, community boards, and maybe even block associations like this one aren’t really reaching young people because they’re not crisply explaining what on earth they’re doing. Agreed, O, and challenge accepted.
Updates:
Itty Island on 24th Street and 10th Avenue is what it’s all about
World Cup Finals watch party at 26th Street space, corny guy announces
Plan to rebuild Chelsea-Elliott houses to move forward, NY court rules
Café Ambrosia on 23rd and 10th has the matcha you want and the sanctuary vibe you need
There is some pretty bloody history behind the Javits Center
Landon Donovan and Tim Howard mural getting painted on 24th Street and 10th Avenue
We missed this little pop-up at Hotel Alameda on July 12, let us know if you have any pictures
Itty Island!