With everything that happened, and the fact that there’s pretty much no power in Manhattan below 34th street, this amount of subway service (pdf) is pretty impressive.
Category: Brooklyn
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Sandy Update–Feeling Fortunate
Tuesday 7:50 am
We made it through the night with power and our cable/internet came back so we feel like the lucky ones. NYC looks to be hit hard but hopefully the worst is over.
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Sandy Update 3
Monday, 9:30 am:
My wife, who is running a half marathon in two weeks, and who is only slightly crazy, went for a run across the Brooklyn Bridge. Other than one crazy gust at the top of the bridge, she said it wasn’t bad.
The Holland and Brooklyn Battery Tunnels are being shut down at 2PM today.
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Sandy–Update 1: Croissants
Monday, 8:30am.
Sandy may have shut down every Starbucks in the area, but the guy who runs the French Pastry place next door swore he’d be open this morning and he was good to his word.
It’s not bad out yet. A drizzle and some mild gusts.
And some yummy croissants for breakfast…
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Sandy
Well, here we go. The subways and buses will be shutting down in a few hours. Schools are officially closed Monday and I don’t see how they can be open Tuesday if transit isn’t open.
Mandatory evacuations are taking place about a mile away from us as they are expecting serious flooding. You pretty much can’t find a D battery for your flashlight in any store. People are stocking up and fastening things down.
Of course, this being Brooklyn, we are still going out for dinner tonight. If we are going to be stuck in our apartment for two straight days we need one last trip out.
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Austerity vs. Growth
I like good beer. That’s been well established. There are two good local beer joints that I go to. Both are more or less on the way home from work. Both have a good and always changing beer menu. Both have WiFi (one better than the other). Both have friendly bartenders.
So either one is a nice stop on the way home from work. Have a beer, finish some work, chat with the bartender, go home.
One of them has been around forever and I’ve been going there for about 16 years. Most of the bartenders are the same. The other place is newer, but I’ve probably been going there for 5 years. It’s safe to call me a regular in both places.
With the bad economy, both places were affected. And they reacted in completely opposite ways.
The older place went with austerity. Prices went up. Food portions got a little smaller. One chef got let go (with an accompanying decline in food quality). Bartenders got new strict buy back policies (i.e. don’t). Bartenders were no longer allowed to hang out after work (can’t have the help getting free drinks).
The newer place went the other way. More promotions. Free wings on Mondays. Free cheese and crackers on Wednesday with wines $1 off. More promotions with local breweries. Plenty of buy backs.
Now it’s not like I can see either bar’s balance sheet or know the real cost drivers. But this really does seem to be a microcosm of austerity vs. spending policies. The older bar may be saving money, but fewer people are coming so their revenues have to be down even with the price increases. The other place is packed. Revenues have to be up despite the promotions.
There’s a lesson here, having nothing to do with beer…
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Yum
Stopped off for a beer on the way home at my favorite local joint. Saw a $12 beer, Zymatore, on the menu. They also have a nice pumpkin ale on tap right now so I ignored the expensive one.
But right before I was leaving someone ordered it. The bartender is a friend, so I asked him about it. He poured me a small glass to taste.
Oh my, yum.
Next time I will pay the $12.
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Scooter Woes
Well, not really woe per se. I’m just hard on scooters. For most kids, a scooter is mostly a toy. For my Brooklyn girls, it’s the primary method of transportation. And it has become my primary means of transportation as well.
When your commute and 90% of the places you need to go are with a 1.5 mile radius circle, a scooter is the perfect thing. At least in Brooklyn. No parking issues, easier to store than a bicycle and for short distances almost as fast as a bike. My commute is 1.5 miles each way, 10 minutes on a scooter. When I’m not with my girls, I can get aggressive and use bike lanes, zip in and out of traffic, up and down sidewalks, etc.
But that is hard on a scooter. Danielle is on her second Razr A5 and I just had to order my third. Between riding more distance, riding more aggressively and outweighing her by about 100 pounds, I beat the crap out of a scooter. And Saturday my scooter bit the dust.
But with Amazon Prime, my new one arrives today…
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