Category: Urban issues

According to this NYPost story, all U.S. Starbucks stores are closing for 3 hours today for “espresso excellence training”. The reactions —

“What am I supposed to do, make it myself?” fumed NYU student Mallory Drew, 18, at the always-packed Lafayette Street and Astor Place location.

“I am shocked. Shocked and appalled.”

Alba Morales, 22, a student at BMCC, noted, “A lot of people come here to make out, read, sleep. I can’t imagine how lost people will be tomorrow.”

— put me in mind of this classic movie moment.

(Thanks, Badmovies!)

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Almost 10 years ago, when my micropress published its first book, we had a launch party at Webster Hall in NYC. This was facilitated by the author’s pal Baird Jones, whom I met briefly at the event. Two years later, we used the same venue for our second book’s launch. There was no payment involved, which gratified this cheap bastard no end; I assume Baird was just looking for any way to boost traffic at the hall on a weeknight.

Over the years, Baird was often cited as the source of Page Six gossip items in the NYPost (always referred to as the “curator” of Webster Hall). I would feel a little celebrity-by-proxy moment, a flicker of “I met that guy!” even though I didn’t actually know him.

So I was kind of sad this morning when I discovered that Baird died earlier this week. But I think he’d be glad to know that the news made Page Six.

(Update: here’s a long piece on Baird over at Radar.)

This week’s issue of New York has a cover feature about the impending recession and how it’ll affect NYC:

See? The Boom Is Bust! Plus: The Upside of the Downside and The Everything Guide to Belt-Tightening.

But as I read the issue (it’s really become a great magazine under Adam Moss), I got the feeling that not everyone’s taking this premise seriously. It’s not that the ads were frighteningly inappropriate (not like a few weeks ago, when the cover feature on finding silence and peace in NYC was filled with ads for gyms that tend to, um, pump the megamix) (oh, and Quebec? Try to find a better tagline than “Providing emotions since 1534,” please); rather, it was a certain passage that betrayed New York’s status as a boomtown. That would be Adam Platt’s review of Dovetail, a new restaurant on the Upper West Side, which includes this gem:

As at other destination joints around town, there is a small private dining room downstairs, and if you have the inclination, you can wash your dinner down with a glass or two of ’98 La Tâche Burgundy ($1,840 per bottle) or, even better, a bottle of legendary ’95 Romanée-Conti ($3,700).

Remember, kiddos: the boom is bust! Better buy that $3,700 bottle of wine while you can still afford it!

At the Licensing Expo in 1997, I met with some Sony executives about properties they were licensing for merchandise. (I also met Gary Panter at that event, but that’s another story). I asked why they were so excited about their new Godzilla flick. Grinning from ear to ear, one of the Japanese execs told me, “Because this time Godzilla destroys New York!”

That movie may’ve been the first to violate my rule that Jean Reno makes any movie good, but it seems to have helped kicked off a trend of movies about New York getting smacked down. This post from a NYTimes Cityroom blog offers a timeline of great New York ass-whompings, pre- and post-9/11, and links to a New York mag Top 10 list of ’em, too.

I’m just glad New Jersey tends to get off easy. Lex Luthor’s the only one who tried blowing us up.