Sorry, Danny.

Raise prices, find efficiencies, do a better job meeting the changing demand, or move. The guy who owns the property is a business owner, just like you, and he gets to charge what the market will bear, just like you.

This is a great and very successful restaurant. Not cheap, either. If it can't make it with the rising rents, few non-chains can.

I've been watching over the last few years as restaurants and shops close in NYC and way too often are replaced by nothing. The spot stays empty for years. I keep wondering how that can possibly make sense for the building owner.

I can tell you this much -- it's really changing the character of the city. We are, as Amy notes, increasingly turning into a city of the very rich and the homeless, and since only chains can afford the rising rents, Broadway looks more and more like a mall in New Jersey -- except with a lot more meth addicts hanging around. It makes me sad.

So, somewhere else will become the new cool town to be in.

I think this is the case with most cities that are successful and experiencing growth. Home prices in my old central Austin neighborhood have doubled in the last ten years, and many of the "cool/weird" businesses around town have been displaced because their funky old buildings have been bulldozed to make room for mixed-use developments. Things change.

"I've been watching over the last few years as restaurants and shops close in NYC and way too often are replaced by nothing. The spot stays empty for years. I keep wondering how that can possibly make sense for the building owner."

I have seen this happen in suburban hip cities like Fort Collins Colorado.

Landlords bet that a business like a restaurant or grocery that is difficult to relocate will pay the jacked up rate because of cost benefit analysis.

When they bet wrong, they lose. But the tax code generally allows the landlord to use it as a write off.

Leasing space is a bad idea. If you don't control your location by being the owner, this is the kind of unpredictable overhead that really eats up a business.

Many many small business fail when they do not take this possibility into account when they first set up shop.

New York State government is now directly involved in a similar bait and switch promising no property taxes for ten years if you relocate your business to New York.

Unless your business is really mobile, this would be a very bad idea.

I can tell you this much -- it's really changing the character of the city. We are, as Amy notes, increasingly turning into a city of the very rich and the homeless, and since only chains can afford the rising rents, Broadway looks more and more like a mall in New Jersey -- except with a lot more meth addicts hanging around. It makes me sad.

[drums fingers]. The New York-New Jersey metropolitan area has a personal income per capita which exceeds the national mean by 25%; applying some price deflators for basic expenditures, it would appear it registers 2.5% below the national mean in terms of standard of living conceived of a certain way. You've got 19 million people living there. Somehow I do not think they are a compound of the wealthy and the homeless, nor will that ever happen. (During the Koch years, the homeless numbered about 30,000 in a municipality with 7,000,000 people living in it).

The counties more affluent than the local mean are Bergen, Morris, Monmouth, and Somerset in New Jersey; Nassau and Suffolk on Long Island; Westchester and Rockland north of the City; and Manhattan. Suffolk and Rockland are only a shade above the mean, so it's seven of 19 counties of which only one is in the City itself. You mean Manhattan is getting too expensive, don't you?

mmm, this is just regret talking, methinks. Ultimately things change, impermanence rules. If they've been there 30 years, that's a good long time. Not that I don't think the landlord is being/has been stupid... if you've a good tennant, running them out like that is trading the golden egg goose for a bunch of funky replacements that don't last, which means cash flow disruption. Perhaps they aren't willing to do incremental increases, or shorter leases... as values in the area increase, you have to find the pain/return point that everyone can bear.

As a bettin' man, Ima say that they want this place gone, but then we don't know the whole story, now do we?

Still, I used to work for a guy that had the same thing happen downtown chicago... after we put many hours of sweat equity into the old building, the owner sold it to some larger building owner. 'Bout the time I left.
Within 2 years they had run the guy out... made a buncha improvements, expecting, dunno, something. Far as I know, 15 years on, it's still empty.

um, oops, guess it's an empty lot for sale, now.
https://cbks0.google.com/cbk?output=thumbnail&cb_client=maps_sv&thumb=2&thumbfov=60&ll=41.873732,-87.625977&yaw=264.8&thumbpegman=1&w=300&h=118

:shrug: Time goes on. I'm going to go on with it.

"When they bet wrong, they lose. But the tax code generally allows the landlord to use it as a write off."

Thank you Isab, this answers a question I had. So it's really just corporate welfare in the form of tax breaks for failure. I had wondered how they were able to keep income property idle for so long. It turns out it's because the relevant government is subsidizing them.

"The guy who owns the property is a business owner, just like you, and he gets to charge what the market will bear, just like you. "

Especially when he is getting government subsidies to tide him over the rough spots his bad decisions inevitably cause him.

No, art deco, I don't just mean it's getting more expensive. I mean that it used to have a lot of interesting independently owned shops, businesses, and restaurants, and now it has far fewer because you need to be a huge chain to pay the rent. Even a lower end chain like the Gap or Old Navy is better able to pay the rent than a highly successful and expensive independent shop. We have way, way more chain stores and empty store fronts than ten years ago, and yeah, that changes the character. It also changes the character when middle class people move out to Jersey because they can't afford it anymore. And we've had a massive explosion in the homeless population in the last couple of years, partly because of nyc city and ny state policies. I've lived here for 20 years, and basing my comments on the changes I've seen over that period. You?

Swiss Army D, extremely unlikely the owner wants the place out. Despite the homey-sounding name, it's quite posh and there's no way it's a nuisance or having trouble attracting clientele. That's why it's jaw-dropping that it's closing. I've grown accustomed to the little coffee shop or the cute Mexican place or the only moderately successful wine bar going out of business. This is a case of -- if this restaurant can't pay that rent, anything either than multi-billion dollar corporation can't pay it.

"Thank you Isab, this answers a question I had. So it's really just corporate welfare in the form of tax breaks for failure."

Pretty much. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but there seem to be substantial tax advantages to letting a commercial property sit empty, so much so that property owners can afford to set high, take-it-or-leave-it rent demands and then just cool their heels if nobody bites. Contrast that to house flipping, where the flipper has got to get the property sold as fast as possible at a reasonable price, because every month it sits empty is money out of their pocket.

I know that the Reagan-era tax reform bill of 1986 tried to address this. When I lived in South Florida, there were a lot of office parks and strip malls built where the owner obtained one or two tenants for appearances' sake, let the rest of the property sit unfinished and empty, and sold the tax writeoffs. There was a seven-story office building built near where I lived that had a partially occupied first flooor, and the rest of the building was a completely empty shell -- no interior, plumbing, wiring, HVAC, or fixtures of any kind. The elevators and stairs weren't installed. The owner wasn't going to spend money on those things since the sole purpose of the building was to sit there and be a tax writeoff.

After the 1986 reform, commercial rents got really cheap all of a sudden -- I knew two groups of people who were able to launch successful businesses because all of a sudden they could get mall space that they couldn't afford before. Some properties got torn down but others filled up. But over time, apparently the property owners found new loopholes and now things have gone back to the way they were before 1986.

> Pretty Soon, There Will Be No One In New York
> But The Homeless And The Billionaires

What's the problem?

For anyone doubting Gail's assertion that the homeless population has exploded, it is at its highest since the Great Depression.

Also the New York Constitution guarantees shelter to anyone, including anyone from out of state.

Bloomberg came in and made some changes that have worsened the problem. Instead of just providing shelter (they spend like 3500 per room? cant remember the figure) they try to help you find a relative or friend you can stay with (hah!) via a bureaucratic process, and then if you prove to them you really dont have anyone then you can stay for only an certain time. You have to go through the process again (hah!).

Why did they do that? Because there isn't enough room but they can't legally not provide shelter.

Put another way: When first-commenter Gail gets "sad" enough, she'll move. And then Apple housing with be worth just a teentsy-deedle-bit less than it's worth when she's paying her not-sad rent so religiously.

A few years ago:

"Fifty-one or 52 percent of our taxes come from people who earn $500,000 a year or more," he said, with the shocking addendum that a mere 5,000 people were responsible for 30 percent of the city's local-tax inflow of $35 billion. "Think about that-5,000 people!" he said. (On average, then, every one of those 5,000 people paid $2 million in taxes to New York City alone.) If only 1,500 of them were to move to Connecticut, Bloomberg pointed out, "that would cut 10 percent of our tax base. That's another $3.5 billion."

During the 2000s, domestic emigrants took $49 billion to other parts of the country.

THAT'S THE POINT, FER CHRISSAKES.

They used to write songs about this!

New York should no more have its policies warped to fit your fantasies of sophistication and achievement than should Palos Verdes or Ponte Vedra or Bel-Air.

If you don't like it, MOVE.

Apply, not applies.

Sorry- I'll make it up to you.

No, art deco, I don't just mean it's getting more expensive. I mean that it used to have a lot of interesting independently owned shops, businesses, and restaurants, and now it has far fewer because you need to be a huge chain to pay the rent.

No, you do not need to be a 'huge chain', Gail. What needs to be the case is that your marginal increment of revenue derived from Manhattan locations needs to exceed the premium you pay in rent. Specialty vendors benefit from concentration because they have a niche clientele. (See Mark Hinshaw on this point).

You recycled the bushwah about the city turning into a sinkhole of the 'very rich' and the 'homeless'. Waal, BO's Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates there are about 600,000 vagrants in the United States, or 0.2% of the total. The number of people living in households where the interest and dividend income after taxes exceeds about $25,000 per person is exceedingly modest (without a doubt

(without a doubt

(without a doubt less than 3% of the total). So, you fancy that the Five Boroughs are being over-run with social strata which would hardly exceed 3% of the population anywhere else even though personal income per capita is below national means in the outer boroughs.

For anyone doubting Gail's assertion that the homeless population has exploded, it is at its highest since the Great Depression.

The HUD estimate issued last year is identical to the estimates the Urban Institute was trading in ca. 1990.

This is a case of -- if this restaurant can't pay that rent, anything either than multi-billion dollar corporation can't pay it.

Gail, if the increment to your revenue stream from setting up there does not justify the location, multi-billion dollar corporation is not going to put an outlet there either. Walmart did not get to be the largest employer in the United States by concentrating on high value real estate. They put their stores in small towns and provincial cities before moving into suburbs.

Either you're looking at friction, or perversities derived from tax codes, or retail trade is not the most advantageous use of the space in question. Or maybe you just don't perceive things as they are.

It also changes the character when middle class people move out to Jersey because they can't afford it anymore.

Again, four of the 10 counties in northern New Jersey have per capita personal income levels well above local means, above all four outer boroughs, and above Suffolk and Rockland counties as well. They only look impecunious next to Manhattan. A grand total of 8% of the population of metropolitan New York lives in Manhattan. They joined the 92%. Big deal.

You guys, here's a trick for textual analysis.

It's called the "cluck."

A cluck is a feigned, transitory expression of superiority to one's surrounding fellows or one's present topic. Beyond posture, it makes no promises, confesses no humility and accepts no responsibilities.

So it's a dick move.

Now, Gail herself is not a dick, but the cluck is just sitting there, right at the end of her first comment. (It makes her sad! We should sympathize with her emotions!)


So I think the correct way to read the cluck in that particular comment is,

This is just a neighborhood annoyance, but I'm dealing with it OK, and we appreciate it when people on this blog check in with us from time to time.

Whoops. Gail was the 2nd comment.

I didn't recognize the first name, OK?

That guy is dead to me.....

"The HUD estimate issued last year is identical to the estimates the Urban Institute was trading in ca. 1990."

Link me the statistic, because HUD, federal, state and private advocacy groups have all agreed that the homeless population in NYC has exploded, bucking the trend of the rest of the US.

http://tools.coalitionforthehomeless.org/page/-/NYCHomelessShelterPopulationCharts042014.pdf

The only group that is close to c.1990 levels is single adults (especially male) but that is because they are openly denied shelter and services by the city. They tend to be more transient and harder to track.

"A proposal by New York City's Department of Homeless Services aims to free up space in local homeless shelters by sending single adults back to the last place they lived, lest they risk being forcibly removed from shelters"

Ppen, I specifically made reference to national totals, which HUD places at 600,000 and the Urban Institute placed at 600,000 in 1990. If metropolitan New York had a rate 3x the national mean, you'd have 110,000 in and around the city.

If you're concerned about the number of vagrants, get rid of your rent control laws and revise planning and zoning regulation to allow more housing options including flop houses. See Mark Hinshaw's book True Urbanism for some suggestions.

Link me the statistic, because HUD, federal, state and private advocacy groups

You do realize that they have a raison d'etre, no? And those connected with Mitch Snyder were complicit in his (admitted and blatant) lying?

Got it, you're pulling numbers for NYC out of your ass.

Understood, carry on.

Gee, Art Deco, guess they've opened up a whole bunch of new homeless shelters all over NYC for nothing, then, this last couple of years. And how sad that the publications like the NY Times share my deluded perceptions about the burgeoning homeless populations -- and the impossibility of independent stores paying the commercial rent (an example of which Amy is citing right here) -- and the increasing squeeze on the middle class here in the city -- and the increasing number of wealthy foreigners driving up real estate prices by buying exorbitant pied a terres they don't intend to live in. Pathetic, really, that supposedly reputable publications share my delusions. Who could blame you for drumming your fingers?

Crid, I've stayed here this long because it was one of the more interesting places to livd in the US, at least in my opinion. It's been home. But as it becomes more and more like a suburban mall filled with homeless folks (did I mention they put a four hundred bed homeless shelter next door to me?), I have been seriously rethinking it. I could live in a much nicer, larger home somewhere else, still have access to Applebee's and the Gap, and not have vagrants parked on my doorstep.

"...pulling numbers for NYC out of your ass..."

Ppen, that's twice you've made me laugh today!

Ppen, I never offered any statistics on the number of vagrants in New York City. I offered national statistics, as said. You're being an ass about it. Vagrancy is a phenomenon which varies from locality to locality according to a number of factors: rent control, weather, the welfare regime, &c. Nothing you can do about the weather, you can certainly remove administrative barriers to housing and shelter construction, and you certainly can remand some people to asylums, nursing homes, and group homes. Bleating about rents does precisely nothing.
--

Gee, Art Deco, guess they've opened up a whole bunch of new homeless shelters all over NYC for nothing,

As has been pointed out in other circumstances, tracking the use of common provision is a poor way to gauge the autonomous social processes which induce an interest in providing goods and services by philanthropies or public agencies, because the provision itself generates a 'need' from the perspectives of clients and providers alike which feeds back to affect demand levels.

Per HUD, there are about 77,000 vagrants in the state of New York and 12,000 in New Jersey. If they are evenly distributed over metropolitan regions, we should expect about 58,000 in greater New York.

I've addressed your other complaints, Gail, as have other participants here. We can explain this to you. We cannot comprehend it for you.

Also, to the couple of you who imply that I'm longing for old-timey goods and services that the current market no longer wants. No. Not correct. I'm not pining for typewriter shops or mourning the demise of the penny candy shop. That's been what's so disturbing this last few years -- many of the places that are going out of business in recent years are not marginal at all. They're well-established and hugely popular. But no amount of business could enable them to pay a triple rent increase. The places that can are chains and luxury brand boutiques who want a presence in NYC. Oh, and banks. An unbelievable number of bank branches have popped up everywhere -- way more than any neighborhood needs. And the Gaps and Victoria's Secrets and Dior makeup stores and Kate Spade shoe stores are not more popular than the businesses they are replacing -- the opposite appears to be true. It's not that the neighborhood is clamoring for the changes.

When a place as hugely successful and popular (and well-run -- and expensive!) as the Union Square cafe can't afford to stay in business, something very, very strange is going on. And I don't think it's just "the free market." That place should prosper anywhere, with the business it gets.

Cousin Dave's info on why it can be more profitable for the building owner to have an empty space at least part of it -- the mystery of why owners seem to prefer empty spaces to rent paying tenants.

And I suspect that many of the chains and luxury brands care more about having a NYC presence than they do about profits for an individual store, so they'll pay the exorbitant rent. (Probably they get a tax write-off on the loss anyway.)

"If" they are evenly distributed, Art Deco,.which they certainly are not. Not to mention that the homeless population isn't so easily counted. When they shove people into homeless shelters here, they don't check anything -- where they're from, whether they're wanted by the police, nothing -- and they don't count at all the ones who prefer to live under a bridge.

Seriously, if the homeless population isn't burgeoning, why exactly did Bloomberg and the Department of Homeless Services fight to get all these new homeless shelters open at huge cost to the taxpayer? Just in case? They claimed the homeless population in NYC had exploded, and on that basis successfully bypassed numerous city regulations to open shelters on an emergency basis. Were they lying?

That's one problem with your statistics, Art Deco. You're pulling half of them out of your ass, and extrapolating the rest from state and national statistics, and your theories on per capita income. The other problem is your screaming condescension in discussing a place I'd lay odds you have maybe visited once, ten years ago, for a weekend.

Seriously, if the homeless population isn't burgeoning, why exactly did Bloomberg and the Department of Homeless Services fight to get all these new homeless shelters open at huge cost to the taxpayer?

Huge cost? It's a tiny minority to which you are providing austere in-kind services. The whole kit-and-caboodle will set the average household in NYC back about $270 per annum. The additional increment due to recent population dynamics much less than that.

Per capita income is not 'my theory'. It's a common metric. Sorry you don't get it.

You have no idea. At this point you're just complaining for the hell of it, like some character invented by Fran Drescher. Go away.

> Crid, I've stayed here this long because
> it was one of the more interesting places
> to livd in the US

Yeah, you used that word earlier:

> I mean that it used to have a lot of
> interesting independently owned shops,
> businesses, and restaurants

But in years of crushing public debt, and in a week when Obama is dumping truckloads of illiterate, disconnected foreigners into our heartlands, I don't think quaint shops and darling tea parlors are a promise we can afford to make, especially to our wealthiest (and theoretically best-performing) burghers.

You want a sweet little bookstore?

Open one.

More later, working.

Approximately $3600 per month for a barebones 8x10 room with no services, no kitchen, and no bathroom. That is what the city is paying the owners of homeless shelters. The owners are making a fortune on them. You don't think that's exorbitant?

Btw, for the last two years I've been actively involved in the homeless issue in NYC, as a lawyer and a pissed-off citizen. I actually do know what I'm talking about.

I think it's you who know nothing except random statistics that you pulled off of Google and out of your ass. I won't tell you to go away, since it's Amy's site, but I will tell you and your drumming fingers to fuck off.

Crid, can we argue for a while? That's infinitely more fun.

Crid, I noted above that I'm not bemoaning the loss of the little tea shop. Hey, I will miss it, but I understand why it went out of business when it was always half empty. I love independent bookstores, but they just can't compete against Amazon. That I understand. That's the free market, like it or not.

But something is happening in NYC in recent years beyond the demise of not-so-successful businesses -- like, does the market no longer need terrific, super-popular restaurants, and instead need a block of empty storefronts? Something is very wrong when an empty storefront is more profitable to a landlord than a popular rent-paying business, and that seems to be the case. I can point to plenty of places that have been empty for years on end that used to be a popular business. Maybe the owner is still hoping the Gap will eventually move in?

(And I can't open a business, at least not in NYC -- that's just the point. It's pretty much bound to fail even if I fill it every night. The Union Square Cafe is the perfect example. And the upfront costs and red tape to starting a new business in NYC are formidable.)

I don't think this is just the free market at work, at least not in cases like USC. I think it's more likely some whacked tax incentives, laws and regulations make an empty store front an attractive proposition.

More later-- am actually on a train typing on my phone, and it's almost time to get off.

By the way, Crid, my phone auto-corrects your name to "cried" every time I type it.

Maybe this makes my point clearer, Crid. If the Gap offers the building owner three times the rent that the Union Square Cafe can pay, I get that even if the whole neighborhood would prefer the restaurant, the owner's incentive is to boot out USC and put in the Gap. I might not like it -- I don't, obviously --and think it detracts from the neighborhood, but I understand it. That's the market.

But when the owner has no prospective tenant in view, and there are three other similar empty stores fronts on the block -- that have been empty for years -- shouldn't the owner have an incentive to think maybe a new tenant oaying triple the rent won't be so easy to find, and work out a deal with an existing good, successful, rent paying tenant? I'm not inventing this scenario -- I've seen it play out a few times in my neighborhood. There aren't enough deep-pocket chains to fill all the storefronts!

It doesn't make much sense to me, which is why I'm inclined to blame it on whacked tax incentives.

New York should let the free market be free.

No rent control. No corporate tax breaks. No taxpayer dollars spent on sport arenas.

And if that means there are only billionaires and homeless in the city than so be it.

I bet the city would save a bundle with no schools (and their unions) to support.

The Heartbreaking Loss of Quaint, Mom & Pop Booksellers within Walking Distance of Uncle Cridmo's Spanky Beachfront Sex Palace: Part One.

Yesterday. (Actually 2007. Note GOOB signage.)

Today.

The Heartbreaking Loss of Quaint, Mom & Pop Booksellers within Walking Distance of Uncle Cridmo's Spanky Beachfront Sex Palace: Part Two.

Yesterday. (2007 again. I'm being rhetorical.)

Today.




More later, after work.. But for now, know this. The twinned, crushing forces of competition and burdensome regulation which extinguished these neighborhood treasures have a single source:

That source of evil is Gail, who's somewhat wrong about this.

"Ppen, I never offered any statistics on the number of vagrants in New York City. I offered national statistics, as said"

You offered national statistics (on a problem that has been declining nationally, except in NYC!) to apply your own pseudo math and come up with numbers to explain a uniquely NYC issue.

And it is getting pretty apparent to everyone that it is a uniquely NYC issue since even San Francisco, the Mecca & Medina of the homeless has experienced a 28% decline in homelessness.

The around 60,000 figure for NYC is only, and I repeat only counting those that register into shelters, which for the most part tend to be families. Single adults (usually men) are turned out as a government approved POLICY.

Rent control, and whatever else you want to blame it on has existed for a very long time in NYC.

But the fact that the whole system was overhauled recently is not what is causing this issue amiright? As Gail said $3,600 is given to landlords directly for a room, without a bathroom, kitchen, living room, and usually fucking doors. That is a new policy.

Every homeless organization agrees that it is increasing, and it was caused by Bloomberg.

Why, you've never called me evil before, Crid. I'm blushing.

I am spending the day tomorrow entertaining my boyfriend's kid, and the evening with them both, so don't feel neglected if I don't come on to argue with you tomorrow.

But for the record, I am absolutely not in favor of regulations to mandate sweet mom and pop stores stay in business, no matter how much I love them and will miss them. I think many of the problems NYC faces today (a couple of which I'm bemoaning in this thread) are the result of ill-considered regulations (city, state, and federal). E.g., homeless policies, rent control, and corporate tax breaks. And disagree if you will (i'm betting you will), I think we'd be less inclined to be heading toward a city of billionaires and homeless without them.

Whether I'm right or wrong, that doesn't mean I can't be sad about my city losing its character and turning into a grimy suburb. I may be evil, but I'm human. Usually.

Home, it's late, and Free Practice One for the British Grand Prix begins in six minutes.

But the thing of it is, Gail, you seem awfully eager to talking about impersonal forces... Corporations, taxation, policies... But you're a freaking attorney, and you live in Manhattan, and you want it to be "interesting."

That's the source of the problem, right?

New York can be a great place to live. Extremely competitive people will pay a lot to live there.

Are we 'bout done here?

Any blog post that begins "When I opened by first restaurant..." is never going to get a lot of love here.

Green light in 3 minutes.

Susie Wolff didn't crash.

You guys should Google that.

I'm just grateful I got to New York and got to experience it before it became a giant mall. That yellow dress I'm wearing on the blog? $9.99 from National Liquidators, the giant weird store owned and run by turbanned Sikhs on Broadway between Bleecker and Houston.

In the early 90s, Russ Smith started the wonderful, quirky New York Press (how I learned of, became a fan of and eventually a friend of Cathy Seipp). There was Spy Magazine and Amy Downs hats and there were countless little burger joints and weird restaurants, and I went to some days at the Edison Hotel Coffee Shop with a bunch of character actors who did voiceovers and appeared in Woody Allen movies...Harry Goz, Alan Kalter, Bill Nelson, etc. (I was this young TV commercial producer at Ogilvy & Mather, so I knew them from hiring them all.) I rollerskated all over town and first lived above the witchcraft store, Magickal Childe, on 19th between 5th and 6th when it was the photo district and you couldn't get a newspaper on Sunday without walking to 3rd Avenue.

Oh, and on the corner of West Broadway and Broome, Saturdays in nice weather, from about 1988 on, you'd find The Advice Ladies on three folding chairs, with a magazine rack for a table -- offering "free advice from a panel of experts." (What we were experts in was exactly nothing, but I started doing a little reading, and a little more...)

…At Disneyland, I particularly enjoyed the Teacups and the Haunted Mansion. And in New York, there were many wonderful visits to what had already been a theme park for most of my lifetime.

What's the last thing you loved that was made in Manhattan from something besides cooked meals or sexual encounters, the fondly-remembered trinkets from my own vacations?

For me, that would be the guitars from the Kenmare shop of John D'Angelico, whose handcrafted archtops surpassed even the production-line Gibson instruments, which were the pinnacle of graceful American manufacturing.

D'Angelico died in 1964; his deeper-genius protege moved the shop to Long Island. Even in my mostly-90's visits, the town could really only offer her guests nostalgic sentiments, whether in the decor of the hipster nightlife or the treasures of the Met.

But other than that, Noo Yawkers —Manhattanites, anyway— are in the words business. Some of them write contracts and prospectuses, some are writing dustjacket blurbs and some write ad copy; but a Martian would find these lives to be identical.

Who of those left is equipped to do something, perhaps with their hands, which Gail would find "interesting"?

If you're getting sold a bunch of flavorless Fieri burgers and pale Gap bluejeans, it's because you deserve them. This ain't a policy problem. Don't come cryin'.

You selected your demons long ago.

Every homeless organization agrees that it is increasing, and it was caused by Bloomberg.

That's their business, ppen. Advocates for the 'homeless' have a history of blatant fraud in this regard and of attempting to disrupt efforts to enumerate their clientele. These people are not guilty of Mitch Snyder's games, but Snyder's games (for which a readily gulled media were the conduit) should induce anyone to regard the claims of professional social service mavens with some reserve.

There's no point in blaming the Mayor unless he undertook policies which induced an additional increment of this particular expression of human dysfunction. There are always going to be people who fall through the slats in a free society. There is not much you can do about it but the sort of adjustment mechanisms which urban ministries operate.

Isn't Brooklyn the cool place for the funky somewhat wealthy now? And parts of Queens? That's where the hip singletons and young families from the creative class live now. Buy now, before it follows Manhattan, which it is already starting to do.

It's happening everywhere. Here in Phoenix, a good friend of mine and his wife (a true mom-n-pop) owned a sports-themed pizza restaurant near the ballpark and basketball arena.

A new management company took over his building (part of a large office complex) and raised the rent 3.5x. Their expressly-stated intent was to "shake out the rugs" and force small businesses out, since they'd rather have a Chipotle than a mom-n-pop with some personality. He's now forced to move to a more affordable location much farther from the sports venues that made up his bread and butter.

Yes, of course my dear libertarians, the management company can charge whatever they want for rent, since we live in a formerly free country. But eventually every city in America is going to look exactly the same, with the same boring corporate restaurants on every corner. I certainly don't want to live in a country where Boston, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Austin, Portland, Phoenix, San Francisco and Chicago all look alike, with zero local experiences.

In the old Stallone movie "Demolition Man," every restaurant in the future is Taco Bell. We're getting closer to that every year.