The Hole: A tiny NYC community forgotten for decades | Hacker News Reader

The Hole: A tiny NYC community forgotten for decades

bloomberg.com

105 pointsLastNevadan28 comments

> Those organizing efforts culminated in a February 2022 demand letter from 43 community members to local, state and federal officials about the conditions in the neighborhood. Chief among the demands were stormwater and wastewater sewer systems, green stormwater infrastructure and enforcement against illegal dumping and vehicle abandonment.

That sounds like a lot of expensive infrastructure to cater to 50 people (many of whom are squatters or homeless, it implies?). Maybe it would make more sense to condemn the area, and turn it into a large park intended for flooding. The NYC area as a whole is going to need much more flood capacity in the future, if projections are right, and this place has nothing of note and sounds like it's already 90% of the way there (to being both a park and a flood zone), whether you like it or not.

I love The Hole, it’s incredibly weird. Feels like the middle if nowhere but you’re near highrise projects.

If you go there by car, you need a 4x4 with some lift. The flooding and road quality are downplayed. It’s really something.

It's literally called "The Hole" on Goolge maps

It has Street View -

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6717614,-73.8605122,3a,75y,3...

Thanks! I think these must be the pigeons the article mentions:

76-15 Dumont Ave https://maps.app.goo.gl/a22sMBoFe49fWuik6

Oh cool, you can even see the same fence in the background. And if you turn the camera around, you see the fence and development that the small child was looking at from the article. Cool find!

The Hole’s profile was recently raised by John Wilson[1].

It’s a very strange area. You can see it on the way to JFK; the dip in ground level is significant.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/arts/television/how-to-wi...

For a place like New York City finding solitude would be nearly impossible. I really hope that anything the city does for the community doesn't destroy its sanctuary-like properties for the residents, but merely improves their quality of life. But I doubt it.

> Many residents of The Hole, long abandoned by the state, find peace in the isolation that The Hole provides.

> Then, he softens as he explains why he stays. “I stay here because it’s quiet. It’s peaceful,” Lopez says. “This place, it’s idyllic.”

My heartfelt respect to Richie Gonzalez for taking care of injured animals.

I am willing to bet good money that almost all of these people would prefer to live in a nice modern apartment in the same spot, if provided at the same cost.

Pretending otherwise might get clicks but is doing the people a disservice.

> if provided at the same cost.

Pretty big if, if you ask me.

That's not what I'm writing about. It's obvious from the photos that they're living in apartments already (those who aren't living in vans), so a "modern" apartment is just a living accommodation upgrade. It's about trying to find relative solitude in a huge city. It's hard enough to do so in a modern sub-urban environment.

I'm personally paying about $1k/month more for relative solitude in an older place with some solitude near a large metropolitan area than I would for a modern apartment in the area. It's worth it not just for the solitude, but for the things not being physically connected, or even really close, to your neighbors' homes provides.

We all like different things.

I've tried many of the different lives, and there's nothing better than being in close quarters for me.

And people like you have got almost all of New York to do this in. At a cheaper-than-solitary rent, too.

Yeah sometimes it's worth preserving the feel even when making improvements.

For example I really lament never having been able to visit the walled city in Kowloon. For a simple 1 square city block it's pretty legendary, and a huge influence on fiction and culture (Cyberpunk genre for example, ghost in the shell, games like stray, call of duty, etc). I'm sure it was going to collapse sooner or later but I'm sad they completely destroyed it instead of improving it and keeping something unique.

Fort Tryon Park during the day on a weekday used to be pretty quiet. I would sit and see maybe two people in 30 mins or even fewer sometimes. Not sure what it's like post-covid though..

Nice article. I go next to that area all the time (there is a cluster of good South Asian grocery stores on the opposite side of Conduit from the Hole, plus the Hole is on the way to the beach or airport), but had never taken a walk through there. I always assumed all the broken down trucks and RVs belonged to a scrap yard - I did not realize they were simply abandoned and that there are people living in those RVs!

'forgotten community' seems like a strange way to paint what seems to be an area ranging from undeveloped to derelict, 'home' to approximately 50 homeless people/squatters?

I'm sure there are some forgotten communities near where I live too.

Sure, but it's where it is and the juxtaposition of it's apparent isolation despite being within NYC that makes it interesting. It's isolation from infrastructure, too, despite being real streets and (some) real houses. Surprising, at least to me.

Oh definitely, I'm not saying it's uninteresting that it's managed to get into and be left in such a state, I just thought it was a funny euphemism for it.

Yeah, the septic tanks surprised me. I grew up in a rural community in the Midwest and we had septic tanks, but I can't imagine people living in a city, let alone NYC, not having access to basic infrastructure like sewers.

what a strange definition of the word "community" (or even "home") you must have to think this term does not apply perfectly to an area where people are living?

sorry dang here's that indignant thing you told me about...but seriously

I took it as them saying the whole phrase “forgotten community” is painting over the neglect the area has experienced. Not that it isn’t a community but that it isn’t a “forgotten community”. You don’t end up with derelict buildings and a transient population, stray dogs and a mob graveyard over decades by being forgotten. The city government clearly knows about it. They make promises every decade or so. The FBI discovered the mob was using it etc. it wasn’t forgotten it has just been deprioritized or neglected. In fact I’m surprised the article didn’t go in harder on the city’s ineptitude. Forgotten community is a euphemism in that sense.

Some of the residents aren’t squatters but just homeowners in an undesirable area. It makes me wonder if some of the “squatters” in the area weren’t at one point homeowners whose property was damaged beyond repair.

The article is all about how the community has been "forgotten" by the authorities with the power to improve it. Nothing strange about that.

Feels like material for a movie script, even the name is fitting.

They make this sound like there is some abandoned city within New York City. I accidentally drove into this area while trying to find the McDonald's(on Linden BLVD) in the area without using a GPS.

The street suddenly ran downhill, there was water accumulating at the end of a dead end block and the houses there looked a bit like they needed some work on done. It was only later on here I found out what this area was called.

Reminds me of that street in Corona, Queens (under the shadow of Mets stadium) with small auto mechanic garages. Which reminded me of streets I’ve seen in Latin America where you would find metal workers and mechanics. The smell of oil, grease and iron heavy in the air.

That place in Corona is now gone.

Wow this is crazy, I took a cab from queens to Brooklyn once, and it was weirdly long and circuitous

Didn’t realize there were places like this though

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