I was too busy at the waterpark this week to give the New York Times a proper look. So, I am grateful to Dr. Manhattan for sending a link to this article about the Bukharian Jews building McMansions in Queens. They’re building monstrosities and paving over front yards in Forest Hills.

There, Bukharians have been tearing down the neighborhood’s sedate
Tudor, Georgian and Cape Cod-style homes, paving over lawns and
erecting white-brick edifices that borrow from old Europe, with
sweeping balustrades, stone lions bracketing regal double doorways,
chateau-style dormers and pitched roofs, Romanesque and Greek columns
and ornate wrought-iron balconies accented with gold leaf that glints
in the sun.

I love the quotes from a local rabbi.

“We like to utilize every single square inch of land, every inch of
territory,” explained Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov, head of a Bukharian
synagogue and community center in Kew Gardens Hills. “For some reason,
people don’t appreciate it.”

The Bukharian tendency to pave over everything is practical, he
continued. Bukharians preferred a terrace or patio to a lawn, which he
called “useless land.” A yard required mowing — “a waste of time,” he
said.

“Exhibit A,” he said, gesturing to a brick row house on 76th Road.
It had a verdant front yard that seemed to beg for mowing and pruning.
“You see this?” he said dismissively. “What is this? What are we seeing
here?”

He then pointed to the house next door. “Exhibit B,” he
declared. The house was fronted by a well-swept terrace of red and
black paving stones and enclosed within a five-foot-high wall that, he
said, ensured some privacy. Any remaining green was an accent rather
than a feature.

“You can eat outside, the kids have a place to play,” the rabbi said. “You have usage of the front of your house.”

“It’s nice, it’s beautiful,” he added. “What are you afraid of?”

I was laughing as I read this piece not only because you can easily hear the rabbi saying "it’s nice, it’s beautiful" in a Borat voice, and because the clash of new immigrants and old New Yorkers is such a familiar story. I was laughing, because this story is so universal. This story of clashing tastes plays out everywhere.

Last week, I was sitting in the backyard of some neighbors and gossiping about the latest town battle about a drive through KFC. Clearly, I’m not a fan. (leftie, professor, arugula-eater) I want a walkable downtown with restaurants that I will actually patronize. It doesn’t make sense to reduce your tax burden by $20 but lower your property value by $20,000. This all makes perfect sense to me, but I wasn’t able to convince my neighbors of the wisdom of my words. They honestly don’t think that drive through fastfood joints are an eye sore. More Heart Attack Heavens, they said. After a short while, I changed the topic, because it’s impossible to convince people that they have bad taste.

I’ve been getting semi-involved in town planning politics, because we live so close to the downtown. And I’m fascinated. It’s really the politics of taste. I suppose there is something cool that each town defines good taste in its own way, and people can choose where they live in, in part based on the comparable taste levels. It’s also very frustrating, because it’s impossible to appeal to facts. How do you convince someone that a cement front lawn is ugly?