I saw this article on Yahoo this morning.......HERE.
It's a Yahoo Travel survey where they asked people what they thought were the most "Overrated Cities".
I am sorry to tell you Sonya Ann, but these folks named your favorite, Las Vegas, as the most overrated city in the world.
Rounding out the Top 3 Most Overrated in the survey were New York City and Miami, respectively.
I have never been to Vegas or Miami but I have been to NYC on many occasions.
Heck, I almost went to graduate school there!
Plus I worked in Brooklyn for a couple of years.
I must say as far as Manhattan goes I am NOT a fan.
Of the places I have visited I'd put on this list.......most are not major cities since I tend to NOT go to those(my preference)......
*New York City (Noisy, dirty, expensive, crowded)
*Niagara Falls, NY (The American side is pitiful.)
*Myrtle Beach, SC (Hated, HATED it!)
*Ocean City, MD (Nothing but schlock for miles but we go back every Fall....what does that say about me?)
*Any place in NJ (LOLZ...hey! I lived in NJ for 3 years.)
*Gatlinburg, TN(miles of tourtisy schlock for miles...man has ruined this place)
*Columbus, OH(breaking down there may have something to do with my POV on this one)
*San Diego, CA(crowded, hot, and rude people)
*Dallas, TX(very hot in Summer, polluted, crowded)
*Wilkes-Barre, PA(a big depressing grey slag pile of a place overrun with NYC criminal elements)
*Scranton, PA(a big depressing grey slag pile of a place like W-B, but with nice highways)
*Toronto, Canada(traffic and a tall tower and they don't sell biscuits in McDonald's for breakfast because a biscuit up there is a cookie....meh)
If you live in one of these places I am sorry if I offend.....and you have my pity. ;-)
So what places have you been that didn't live up to the hype and why?
Here's the plan at Chez Sluggy for the weekend.
Hold onto your hats because we are getting WILD here! 8-)))
We are going to clean out my daughter's old room.
She has been gone now just about 2 years since moving to Louisiana.
Needless to say whatever she couldn't fit into her subcompact car when she left didn't go with her.
We are in "get the house ready to sell" mode now so it's time to clear her stuff out.
I'll be taking photos of everything we remove from the room that belongs to her and will send the pictures to her and she can decide if it goes too charity, to the trash or we bring it with us on this next trip to see her.
I got enough of my own crap here, I don't need her "left-behinds" too.
Next it's on to the oldest son's stuff. He has very little here but there is some and I'll do the same(take photos and he can decide)and the next time we go there or he comes here it can be carted off.....unless it is something he doesn't want then it goes soon to SA or the dump.
Also on the "clean out and clear out" list this weekend are--
A. MY closet Need I say more? lolz
B. My flash drives I have 2 flash drives I need to clean out/up the old files on them. Every time my computer is about to die I backup files on these FDs. I need to go through and delete stuff I don't need/want any longer and then reorganize what is left.
I have already started on 1 of the FDs.
And I found some photos I thought I had lost a long time ago.
Back in March of 2012 right before I had my heart episode I did a swap.....I think Carla organized it?
Anyway, my swappee was Judy. I put a lot of time/thought into gathering her goodies according to her likes and dislikes and I took photos of everything even though how swaps work is that the recipient usually posts photos of what they get in the swap on their blog(if they have one).
Well around that time was also when Judy lost her husband so needless to say she never posted about what she got......nor would I have expected her to post about it given the circumstances.
So I can now(2 YEARS later!lolz)show what she got. ;-)
Everything packed in a cute puppy gift bag
An over view of the goodies
A running joke about "Calgon, take me away!" and some hand sanitizer because she works in a hospital.
My prized homemade Pepper Relish
Some Easter candy(because it was almost Easter) and it's Irish Crème filled because of her Irish ancestry.
A PlanAhead journal for 2013 in her favorite color, red.
She wanted a new rosary and I found this neat set in her favorite color from a seller on eBay so it had to go into the swap bag.
So now I can mark this undone thing off my list.
And I can remark again that I miss Judy......as do many others.
If you are out there Judy reading this, please know that we miss you and worry about you and I'd love it if you'd email me sometime.
Ok, I am off to start the cleaning out upstairs now. I doubt I'll get all this stuff done today but we'll get as much as we can and finish up during next week.
Maybe by next weekend the weather will be warm enough to start some yard clean-up.
I can only hope....
What exciting things have you got going on this weekend?
While I am glad that there are generous people in this world, who will give money to a complete stranger this article bothered me on many levels.
Your life, my life, everyone's life is made up of little decisions. String together these decisions and it forms the basis of what becomes your life.
Where you choose to go to school....if you chose to go to school.
Which career path you choose.
What job you take which leads you to live in a particular area.
If you choose to marry or remain single.
If you chose to have kids.
And on and on.
Likewise all your financial decisions also lead, one by one, to where you are with your money today.
This woman made decisions in her life that led her to where she was, up to when this accident befell her.
She chose to get a degree that led to her working in a hospital and earning a pretty good salary from the sound of it(average wage for a child psychiatrist in NY is $160K yr.).
She chose to remain in her parent's rent controlled Manhattan apartment after they died.
She chose to either adopt or have IVF/etc.(both are costly) and have 3 children at an advanced maternal age as a single parent.
She chose to spend her money on nannies for these kids(and I assume they go to private school).
She chose to not get any sort of renter's insurance.(One wonders too if she has life insurance for these kids sake.)
And then her apartment and it's contents was destroyed in this terrible accident.
And she wants others to cough up $200K so she can resume the life she was leading.
I am sorry.
But my wallet won't be opened for this lady.
Who I DO feel sorry for are those kids.
They are the victims in this scenario.
She made lots of bad or at the least questionable money decisions up to this point.
With her large salary she made a conscious decision NOT to get renter's insurance when she KNEW full well if something ever happened to her apartment that she'd have to pay a HUGE amount to replace it with a market rate priced apartment.
Let her move to Jersey or Brooklyn and commute into Manhattan for her job.
These kids are young and it won't do them any harm to change schools and move out of the city.
Or maybe I am just being an old scrooge.....
We need to help our fellow man on one hand.
But on the other hand, our fellow man needs to live with the consequences of the choices they have made.
What do you think?
Would you give someone like this money?
Let's continue on with this family line of Bowmans.
To recap--
Maurice O'Brien's daughter, Catherine "Katie" O'Brien married to Frank Bowman, Sr.
In the 1920 census the O'Brien/Bowman family is still living in Bridgeport, CT and contained Frank Senior, Katie, their children Frank Junior, Mary, John and Margery(Margaret), and Katie's father, Maurice.
In 1925 the O'Brien/Bowman family has removed to NY state-New Windsor, in Orange County on Drury Lane.
The family has grown to include 1 more child, Eleanor. Frank Sr. is 39 and working for the NY Highway Dept.
So why did the O'Brien/Bowman family move to upstate NY sometime between 1920 and 1925?
If we look at this 1925 census on the next page we see that Frank's parents, James Garrett and Mary Elizabeth Bowman live nearby on Station Rd. in New Windsor, NY. That's about 3 miles away. James Garrett is 59 and a farmer and his wife Mary E. is 58.
Going ahead to the 1930 Federal Census and the O'Brien/Bowman family is now living on Station Road as well, still in New Windsor, NY. Another child has been born, William in 1928, but only the 3 youngest children are still in the family home. Frank, Jr., Mary and John are living elsewhere.
Frank Senior's occupation is a farmer on a dairy farm.
Further down on Station Road we find Frank Sr.'s brother, James Garrett and family living nearby. James is an engineer in the steam roller industry. Still working on highways I suppose.
So in 1920 the Bowman family is living near/with his wife, Katie O'Brien's family in Connecticut, then moves in 1925 to reside near Frank Sr.'s Bowman family in New York.
Moving on--
By 1930 the oldest son, Frank, Jr., has moved out from his parent's home in NY and is married and living in Manhattan with his wife, Catherine(nee McCarthy). Frank is working as a salesman in a department store and they report being married in 1928 and are both 21 now, so they married at 19. There are no children living in their home.
They are renting their apartment for $36 a month. I imagine that Manhattan location goes for much MUCH more these days!
Here's a shot of this location today.......
Gourmet deli(Hampton Deli) and flower shop on the corner.....
And a massage parlor in the store front on the right of the door to the upstairs parts of the building.....
My brother had heard a story about my grandmother, Catherine McCarthy and how she had grown up in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan and how she had been a flapper girl.
This story is partly truth once you dig into the records.
Yes she had lived in Hell's Kitchen but not until after her marriage in 1928 as the census records confirm. And as for being a flapper.....she was 19 in 1928 and in Manhattan, one of the epicenters of youth culture of the 1920's so I am sure she had her wild side though I've never seen any photographs of her at this age. 8-)
But I digress.....
This West 51st St. location is in what is known as the "Hell's Kitchen" area of NYC.
After the War of Northern Aggression ended in 1865, the area which had housed shantytowns along the Hudson River saw a boom in population growth. Tenements were erected and the poverty stricken among New York's residents crammed these overcrowded buildings. Gang activity grew and at one time this area was called the "most dangerous area on the American Continent". Violent gangs such as the Gopher Gang and the Hell's Kitchen Gang ran the area and after Prohibition was implemented the area became known for illicit brewing and the many warehouses in the area were used by rumrunners. During the 1920's the gangs transformed into organized crime entities and the leader of the Gophers, Owney Madden, became one of the notorious crime bosses in the city(he owned the famous Cotton Club speakeasy in Harlem). After Prohibition was repealed in 1929 these crime organizations moved into other illegal activities and by the time my grandparents lived there it was still a neighborhood for poor and working class Irish Americans but was not the den of crime and iniquity it had been.
Now who is this Catherine McCarthy who Frank Bowman, Jr. married and how did they meet?
Catherine McCarthy first shows up in the 1910 Federal Census living with her parents at 1043 Cambridge St. in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Here is what that location looks like today......
The part of the building sitting at 1043 is owned/rented by the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers Organization now. In 1910 this was an apartment building.
And here is what is located a mere 1 mile from that building......
Yes, Harvard University....though my family never had any connection to that institution.
My grandmother Catherine McCarthy was 1 year old when living in Cambridge, MA in 1910 with her parents, Dennis and Mary McCarthy.
Dennis was a worker in a rubber factory.
Ten years later in the 1920 Census the Dennis McCarthy Family is living at 242 Webster Ave. still in Cambridge, MA.
That location no longer exists and there is only a tiny stretch of Webster Ave. at this end of that road.
242 Webster Ave. was near here.....
The Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, which is now a Condominium. Off to the right of the photo is a diagonally laid out bit a street that stretched beyond that called Webster Ave.
This location is a mere .02 miles from the McCarthy family home in 1910.
Not only did they move physically .02 miles but Dennis and Mary added 4 more children to their family by 1920.....Mary in 1911, Ella in 1913, John in 1915 and Margaret in 1918. Dennis worked for the "Terminal Company" as a painter.
I found that this company was actually the Boston Terminal Company. The Boston Terminal Company, established in 1897, was charged with the task of combining the four railroad terminals that served the Boston area into one consolidated terminal.
The Boston Terminal Co. built the South Union Station in 1898 which at that time was the largest rail station ever built.
In 1928 Catherine McCarthy married Frank Bowman, Jr. and by 1930 she was no longer living in her parent's home and relocated to Manhattan and they had set up housekeeping in Hell's Kitchen after the end of Prohibition.
Still don't know how they met. Catherine McCarthy lived with her parents in Cambridge, MA in the 1920's and Frank Bowman was living with his parents in New Windsor, NY in 1925. 3 years after that they were married in 1928.
I do know that Frank Bowman Jr. attempted or actually joined the military in 1926 or so when he was 17 years old. A cousin of my father told me this a few years ago. It may have been that he went to Canada and lied about his age and who he was. He may have been thrown out too. I am still trying to sort all this out.
We can say for sure that in the late 1920's Frank Bowman was roving about and this is when he met my soon-to-be grandmother, Catherine McCarthy.
In November of 1931 Catherine gave birth to a son, Francis Dennis Bowman III. I don't know where this III came from since Frank's father's full name was Francis Foster Bowman, not Francis Dennis Bowman. Another family mystery......
By the time of his birth the Bowman family was no longer living in Manhattan but in Brooklyn according to the birth records.
In 1934 Catherine gave birth again to a daughter, Marilyn.
And in the 1940 census the Frank Bowman family had moved to 5920 5th Ave. in Brooklyn.
Here it is today.......
Here's a close up.....
The green door under the pale blue awning is 5920. This is located in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Here is what is located on the opposite corner from this road on 5th Ave. and 60th St.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church Basilica.
Here's a video from YouTube about the Church but they also talk about the history of the area a bit in the beginning of it.
Stick around for the latter part of the video if you are into architecture and grand churches.
You can catch a glimpse of the street outside my grandparents home at 3:27 in that video.
The Upper church was completed in 1928 so my father, aunt and grandparents went to this church when it was practically brand new.
In 1940 my grandfather is 31 years old, a foreman electrician for a construction company and my father is 8 years old and attending school. The family indicates that in 1935 they were living at the same address so they've been in Brooklyn at least 5 years in 1940.
Then in 1941, all hell broke loose in the family after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the US entered World War II.
* It's the one where Sluggy babbles(or should that be burbles?)on and on about debt and money, for what it's worth.
I am one of those people who believes in good debt and bad debt.
Of course, I also believe that the good debt comes with disclaimers.
Good Debt---
* Student Loans....but ONLY an amount commensurate with the income the degree earned will allow you to make. Going out and putting yourself into massive amounts of debt for a degree that won't jack up your lifetime earnings and won't allow you to pay off your student loans within 10 years(and probably NOT in your working lifetime) is NEVER a good idea.
Ask me how economically advantageous my theater/art degree was.....lolz But at least I incurred no debt getting that piece of worthless paper.
* Home Mortgages....but ONLY an amount that will also allow you to also EAT WELL, have heat/electricity and other necessities while paying this off. Don't spend more on a house than you can afford and NEVER listen to how much a realtor says you can afford. After all, they don't have "skin in this game" and they stand to GAIN more the more you go into debt on that purchase.
While mortgage debt can be considered "good" debt, don't confuse this debt with an INVESTMENT.
Your home is NOT an asset or investment, it is a cash flow drain on your wealth. The only time a mortgage/home IS an investment is if you rent it out or plan to fix it up and flip it for more than you put into it.
You need a place to live and that home will be a drain on your finances, from taxes, to interest on your mortgage, to insuring it, to maintaining it.
A place to live is a necessity and unless you have enough to pay cash for one, you will have to have a mortgage on your house. But get rid of that debt as soon as you can.
Bad Debt--
*Revolving Personal Debt(aka Credit Cards).....items bought with a credit card that you can't immediately pay off(meaning you don't have the money for it but want it NOW!)--Just think of anything you BUY on a credit card as NOT PAID FOR YET....because, it isn't paid for yet. You hold possession of these items but you don't OWN them until you pay that bill off.
Period.
You may want that new dress/airplane ticket/dinner out/etc. NOW but figure out how long it will take you to reimburse that cc company(months? years?)and add all that interest up and does the item look like the great deal you thought it was when you took it home? A $50 dress can end up costing you 4 or more times that if you have a habit of buying "wants" on credit but only paying off the minimum balance each month.
Even if you are a bargain shopper and can't pass up a clearance sign(*raising my hand here*), if you can't pay cash for it and put it on credit that bargain will end up being no bargain once it's finally paid off.
Of course, if it's a "need" like healthcare or keeping the heat on in Winter and you don't have the cash to cover it, you'll have to break this rule. But if you've lived frugally and financially responsible for many years you'll possibly never end up in a situation like this.
Knock on wood.
* Financed Cars.....you should avoid financing cars.
I now believe in our 2015 society that there are 3 main reasons that keep many consumers from getting ahead in life.......too much mortgage on a home, having to have electronic gadgets and financing cars.
Yes, cars have become for many a necessity in our society. But even if you have to buy a car you can control what you buy and how much you spend.
Buy the car you can afford. If that means a beater(a cosmetically challenged, older car with mechanical issues), that's what you buy.
If you can ill afford to throw money away, NEVER buy a new from the dealership car.
Now I haven't always followed that bit of advise myself. In the last 32+ years of married life, Hubs and I have bought 12 cars over the years. 8 were used from dealers/family/friends, 4 were new from the dealer. Though we haven't only bought used we never bought more new than we could comfortably pay off quickly or pay cash for.
Of the 4 cars bought new only 1 purchase was stressful since it was unplanned and brought on by an emergency situation. And we were young and had yet to build an adequate financial cushion for ourselves.....that is what made it stressful.
We had a Chevy Chevette and Hubs was going to commute(1.5 hours each way)in it to his job in NJ when we moved to PA in 1986. The week before the closing on our first house the Chevette began to have mechanical issues. So we HAD to buy a car. Hubs parents had just bought a new car(paid with cash mind you)from a dealer in NJ so we used that salesman and because he made such a grand commission off of Hub's parents(it was a large gas guzzling luxury boat!)the dealer took pity on us and we got this Omni for dealer cost. Seeing as all our cash had gone to the down payment on the house we had to finance that Omni. The purchase price was $6K.
$6K today would be a walk in the park but in 1986, when someone at our ages and levels only made $12Kish a year AND had just plunked down most of our cash on a house, this was a financial crisis.
About 6 months after moving into our small home, and I had paid all the bills for that month, I realized we had $50 or so left to our names and still had to eat that month. I vowed at that moment to NEVER get into this situation again. I went out and got a job and in the 3 years I held that seasonal job I paid off that Omni and paid off both of Hub's student loans in full. The first winter in that house we couldn't afford the electric heat(we had in on in the crawl space however for the pipes)so we moved a space heater from room to room with us. The next year I got sick from the kerosene fumes so we saved up and paid for a woodstove to be installed and we heated the entire house with that.
We have bought used cars from family, from friends needing to unload a vehicle and from companies that specialize in used vehicles. It helps that neither Hubs or I have "car fever" or have any attachment to a hunk of metal(if you don't count my middle age crisis Sonic car). ;-)
This car event back in 1986 was what solidified how we viewed debt and used debt from then on out.
I vowed to NEVER go back to feeling that helpless when it came to finances.
But I digress......
While some debt can be called "good debt" don't kid yourself that debt is good. Debt limits your choices in life in so many ways.
Have you ever had a light bulb moment about your finances and debt?
Do tell us.....
