fewer starbucks in the world is not a bad thing

Further to our recent discussion of the pleasures and pitfalls of iced coffee, I note that Starbucks is closing 600 US outlets. That represents about 6% of the company's 7,200 US stores.

This is very bad news for 12,000 people who will find themselves unemployed. So I say this with great sympathy for those workers: I told you so! And so did everyone else.

There are 235 Starbucks in New York City alone. There aren't enough people to drink all that coffee, or to spend their hard-earned dollars on over-priced non-essentials in such difficult economic times. We all wondered why they wanted to open an identical store on every block. We wondered how long it would last. Apparently, this long.

It won't be easy for those 12,000 newly unemployed people, and I shouldn't be jubilant about anyone losing work, especially a decent-paying, union job. So the labour activist in me is poking the New Yorker in me with a sharp stick.

But as someone who loves New York City, I can only hope that at least half of those 235 stores are destined to get the ax. Hooray and hurrah. Shutter those babies and grow weeds in their place if you have to.

Long live the New York City coffee shop.

The Starbucks closing story is actually about three weeks old - two weeks older than the last iced coffee post!

from nyc to gta, from coffee shops to starbucks

It all started with iced coffee.

I love iced coffee. I need it. In the summer, I am addicted to it. (I am a caffeine addict anyway, and in summer it becomes more intense.) I came to southern Ontario, and there was no iced coffee. To quote myself:

When we landed in Canada on August 30, 2005, little did I know that a smooth, cold, delicious iced coffee, ice cubes rattling in a plastic cup, my summer safety valve, my five-month-a-year addiction, would become an elusive quest.

Where is iced coffee?? Not frozen cappuccinos, not "Coolattas" or "Icespressos" or Mochafrappuyaddayaddaccinos. Iced Coffee.

. . .

Last year I was shocked to find that this simple recipe was unobtainable from my local Second Cup. Tim Hortons was no better. But we were very busy - painting, unpacking, filling out forms, buying everything in Ontario - and I ignored the warning signs of growing dread.

Here we are eight months later, warm weather on the way, and not an iced coffee in sight.

The closest I can find is Starbucks' Iced Americano. This is bad on so many levels. First, must I order something called an Americano? Next, must I go to Starbucks? And lastly, must I go to Starbucks and order an Americano??

This urgent problem was solved by two friends and Starbucks.

In New York City, I avoided Starbucks on principle. You cannot imagine how that company has taken over the landscape of New York, how much blame it assumes for The Great Homogenization. If I told you there was a Starbucks on every block of midtown, you'd think I was exaggerating, but you'd be wrong. World domination by coffee.

I wouldn't have minded so much if they weren't all exactly alike. You young 'uns may not know this, but there was a time when every cafe and restaurant had individual character and its very own menu.

I will admit I broke my private boycott after I got my iPAQ. Starbucks offered wireless hotspots from my cell-phone provider, and that was a big thing back then. But I still kept my Starbucks usage to a minimum, and only went there when I needed an internet connection.

Then we moved to the Toronto area, and I couldn't find iced coffee. Starbucks was my only option. I still tried to avoid it, and felt a bit guilty whenever I succumbed.

Then two things happened that put me over the edge.

One, someone at work gave Allan a Starbucks card as a gift. He turned it over to me. Free coffee! Free yogurt parfaits! Then I reloaded it...

And two, Starbucks started carrying iced brewed coffee.

The end. I am now a Starbucks user all the way, happily reloading that same card, guzzling refreshing iced coffees in the summer and yummy extra-shot lattes in the winter.

I don't like the coffee at Tim Hortons at all, and only drink it in a pinch. I do like Second Cup, but they don't serve iced coffee. What's a girl to do.

from my hometown

These blogs are making me homesick.

NYC Donut Report!! is written by Duane Reade, international donut reporter, because "the donut watch never stops".

Most wmtc readers probably don't know that Duane Reade is the name of a huge drugstore chain in New York City. New Yorkers walk around town carrying stuff in big Duane Reade shopping bags. The store itself is named for two downtown streets. There are more than 250 Duane Reades in New York, and everyone who works in one has a pierced nose.

Anyway, the donut report. It's not that I care very much about donuts. I rarely eat them, and I'm almost always sorry when I do. (I only like the first bite.) But donuts are as integral to the culture of New York as they are to Canada. Kramer didn't spot Joe DiMaggio in a Starbucks.

NYC Donut Report!! captures New York's authentic spirit, something timeless, neither hip nor nostalgic. A little piece of the dirty, misshapen collection of neighbourhoods under the corporate glitz.

In Found in Brooklyn, Lisanne McT, Wanderer and Dilly Dallier, chronicles a similar space. What is found in Brooklyn? It might be a woman's hat, or some graffiti, or the bottom of a pool. The tiny observation that illustrates the whole.

Lisanne's blog makes me feel like I never saw my city, like I missed it all in the 22 years I called it home. That's not true, of course. I was a constant wanderer myself. But every seeker finds different treasure. This blog makes me miss my urban life, however much I love my current suburban one.

Found in Brooklyn links to some excellent blogs that are trying to keep what remains of their authentic city from being paved over and destroyed. Among them are Hotel Chelsea Blog, No Land Grab, Washington Square Blog and Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, but all the blogs on Found In Brooklyn's roll are important. Check out the photos on the sidebar of The C.O.R.D. Blog to see a neighbourhood uprising in action.

Taken together, these blogs document part of what made it easier for me to leave my beloved New York. The City is constantly changing, and often at a bewildering pace. I would never say "it's not what it once was," because it never was that.

So it's not that I wanted the city to stay the same. That would be both futile and completely counter to the spirit of the place. But the nature of the change that's been occurring is all of one type, moving the city in one, seemingly irreversible direction: the homogenization and suburbanization of New York. Cumulatively, it's a great loss.

I didn't mean for this post to end on a sad note. Everyone go eat a donut.

art adventurers create a subway double-take

Remember the performance art that froze Grand Central Terminal in New York?

The same group, Improv Everywhere, now creates a human mirror on a New York City subway.

I'd love to have seen this! Thanks to James for sending.

random notes from nyc and usa

I saw The Rat. I saw Dr. Zizmor on the subway. I bought a $5 umbrella on the street. I feel at home.

Home foreclosures have resulted in animal shelters being inundated with surrendered pets. Families cannot afford to keep their animals, or cannot have animals in apartments - or in homeless shelters, or in tent cities. I can scarcely imagine how heartbreaking this is for both the people and the animals.

Last night I ate kangaroo for the first time. I went to this Australian bar and restaurant - actual Australian, not theme-park Australian - and had kanga skewers. They were totally tender and delicious.

Friends are extremely excited and hopeful about Barack Obama. These folks are very politically savvy, they understand the Democrats, they understand election fraud, they understand racism... yet they have hope in Obama. This is amazing. I am so without hope that I can't even hope that they're right. But I do hope I am wrong.

"Does Canada realize how bad it will be if the war resisters are deported? How un-Canadian it will look??" So says my friend Alan With One L. Canada, please understand this. Please be Canada.

colson whitehead writes in brooklyn

Way back when, when I was still blogging from New York City, and this blog had a completely different (and very small) readership, I quoted Colson Whitehead: here, and here. (I just went back and checked the posts: I had been blogging for four days! It's safe to say my readership was, at most, two: me and Allan.)

Whitehead, a New Yorker, wrote a collection of essays called The Colossus of New York. It's a contemporary cousin of E.B. White's classic Here Is New York, two love songs to a place. I love them both.

One of Whitehead's essays was published in the New York Times Magazine, as part of a special post-9/11 issue. I was reading it on a flight to Dublin, on November 11, 2001. A plane had crashed outside JFK Airport that morning. For the first and only time in my life, I was afraid to fly.

I was finally going to Ireland, a much-anticipated trip. I was reading Colson Whitehead, and thinking about how much I love New York City. I was thinking about how much I love my dogs, and how much I wanted to see them again. It's a very clear and potent memory.

A new essay of Whitehead's ran in yesterday's Times: "I Write In Brooklyn. Get Over It."

I lived in Brooklyn for seven years, including my first years on my own after graduating university, and my first years living with Allan. Both my parents grew up in Brooklyn, and I visited family there all my life. But I hope people with no connection to that fine borough will still appreciate this terrific piece.

I live in Brooklyn. I moved here 14 years ago for the cheap rent. It was a little embarrassing because I was raised in Manhattan, and so I was a bit of a snob about the other boroughs. At the time there was a big buzz about the "Black Renaissance" of Fort Greene. It was one big house party thrown by Spike Lee and Branford Marsalis, Rosie Perez swinging from the chandelier. I wanted to be part of the vibrant cultural scene. Who doesn't want to be part of a vibrant cultural scene? That didn't happen, but it was cheap, and I grew to love it and it's my home.

It's changed a lot. As you may have heard, all the writers are in Brooklyn these days. It's the place to be. You're simply not a writer if you don't live here. Google "brooklyn writer" and you'll get, Did you mean: the future of literature as we know it? People are coming in from all over. In fact, the physical act of moving your possessions from Manhattan to Brooklyn is now the equivalent of a two-year M.F.A. program. When you get to the other side, they hand you three Moleskine notebooks and a copy of "Blogging for Dummies." You're good to go.

I have a hard time understanding all the hype. I dig it here and all, but it's just a place. It does not have magical properties. In interviews, I get asked a lot, "What's it like to write in Brooklyn?" I get invited to do panels with other Brooklyn writers to discuss what it's like to be a writer in Brooklyn. I expect it's like writing in Manhattan, but there aren't as many tourists walking very slowly in front of you when you step out for coffee. It's like writing in Paris, but there are fewer people speaking French. What do they expect me to say? "Instead of ink, I write in mustard from Nathan’s Famous, a Brooklyn institution since 1916." "I built my desk out of wooden planks taken from the authentic rubble of Ebbets Field. Have I mentioned how I still haven’t forgiven the Dodgers for moving to Los Angeles?"

Do yourself a favour, read the whole essay here.

frozen grand central again

My favourite clip yet of that great performance art action in Grand Central Terminal (here incorrectly called Grand Central Station). Since everyone enjoyed it so much the first time, why not post another.

art adventurers freeze grand central terminal

While I'm posting short non sequiturs, how about some site-specific performance art from New York City? 207 people stood perfectly still for five minutes in the main hall of Grand Central Terminal. Go to Improv Everywhere to see some of the results.

I love this kind of thing. And it's wonderful to see the main hall in Grand Central, one of the most beautiful public spaces anywhere (although marred by those huge ugly flags). If you've read Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale, you'll always look up to see the stars. A nice click-to-enlarge photo (sans flag) here.

I'm a bit shocked that, for all the work that must have gone into staging this event, Improv Everywhere didn't bother to get the name of the building right. It's Grand Central Terminal. There is a Grand Central Station, but it's a nondescript postal facility.

Thanks to James, via Boing Boing. But go here to see more.

harlem of the north, part 2

I have a letter in today's Toronto Star about this. Just a short version of yesterday's blog post.

They edited my "30 years" to say "a good many years". Let's just say many, many, many.

the harlem of the north? you wish.

I happened to notice this local headline this morning: "Don't call it 'Scarlem' - Scarborough councillors to debate today if area gets fair shake from city".

Scarborough is the east end of Toronto, once a separate town, now incorporated into the city. It has a bad reputation, although there are certainly nice areas in it. Trontonians like to call it "Scarberia," pronounced in withering tones of disdain.

Now, as a New Yorker, I'm all for withering disdain. But is this headline supposed to be a reference to Harlem? The article says: ". . . an invitation to Toronto Life magazine representatives to discuss an article portraying the former city as a bleak, gang-infested "Scarlem.""

Bleak, gang-infested? Harlem??

Scarborough wishes it was as vibrant, happening and desirable a place to live as Harlem! People all over the GTA would be flocking there to buy expensive homes on historic, tree-lined streets, eat at hip restaurants, go to jazz clubs and shop at boutiques.

If Trontonians are ragging on a place by comparing it to Harlem, they need to have their cool meters checked stat. They need to get on a plane to New York and go uptown. There are some bleak, gang-infested areas in New York City, but Harlem hasn't been one of them in, what, 40 years?

Am I reading this wrong? Because I'm ready to explode over here. Time to write a letter.

we are happy to serve you

My favourite mug, home to my morning caffeine fix since 1996, is on the disabled list with a career-ending injury. The mug was my favourite souvenir from when I covered the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta. When I discovered the hairline crack, I retired it to decorative status.

Who will replace the trusty Paralympic mug? I've been using a bland Ikea replacement until a suitable player could be signed.

Prime Minister of Red Sox Nation to the rescue. While scurrying around New York City last week, Allan bought this for me.

If you are lucky enough to have visited New York before the Starbucks Era, you will recognize the ubiquitous coffee shop mug. Most of the zillions of coffee shops (i.e., diners) in New York City are owned by Greeks, hence the design.

Allan once bought me a t-shirt with this same design, but it died many years ago. This is even better: a daily reminder of my hometown. The mug doesn't have a handle, but it's made of thick ceramic, so the outside doesn't get too hot.

The box says the We Are Happy To Serve You mug is a "classy, useful New York souvenir," and reminds you that "the future is green" (box made from recycled paper). More at We Are Happy To Serve You.

"m-fer, i want more iced tea"

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about some particularly loathsome racism spewed by Bill O'Reilly (scroll down). James, who had alerted me to the incident, recently sent me a video clip, courtesy of Jon Stewart.

I find it's good to see this shit with my own eyes. Otherwise it's just too hard to believe.

and we wonder why the country is such a mess

We're home. It was lovely - altogether beautiful and relaxing. And now back to reality, which isn't so bad either. I have a bunch of odds and ends I've been waiting to post, so here we go.

Loyal wmtc reader and news source James sent me two random notes from the Can You Believe Anyone Is So Stupid Department. Both are related to race relations in TGNOTFOTE.

First, from Oliver Willis (yet another terrific blog completely despoiled with advertising), quoting a chat in The Washington Post, about the situation in Jena, Louisiana:

When did nooses become racist symbols? When I was a kid we'd always make nooses in scout camp in Virginia to "string up the rustlers." It was a Western symbol with roots in all the Western movies we grew up with -- something dangerous that knot-tiers could make, but always about the Old West. Later in high school depressed friends would make them for what you'd now call "Goth" culture, but back then it was more Alice Cooper. About five years ago an African American friend said that nooses are "always about lynching." I never thought that my entire life and it's totally news to me. Is this a symbol with strong meaning in the South?

What can you say? Really. What can you say. Note this person presumably grew up in Virginia. And he wonders when nooses became racist symbols.

Perhaps it was when black Americans were living in a constant state of terrorism, when tens of thousands of Americans of African descent were murdered by their countrymen, while their white neighbours attended their executions in a picnic atmosphere, buying souvenir postcards, while their own government turned a blind eye and did nothing to protect them? Perhaps then?

It's tempting to chalk this up to one exceptional idiot, but I think it's an illustration of the quality of the US education system.

We turn from the quality of US education to the quality of the media in that great country.

From the good folks at Media Matters:

Discussing his recent dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at the Harlem restaurant Sylvia's, Bill O'Reilly reported that he "couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." O'Reilly added: "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.'"

James sent me the quote with commentary from The Plank, a New Republic blog:

Other surprises from Bill O'Reilly's trip to Sylvia's:

* Chairs and tables were sturdy and four-legged.

* Napkins already on the table, leaving no need for them to be special-ordered.

* Menu actually printed on paper, suggesting widespread literacy of clientele, rather than selections being sung to him by kindly old black man playing the banjo as he'd expected.

* Meal served by waitstaff in a customary appetizer-entree-dessert order, and not out of a trough.

* Meatloaf made of ground beef, not ground welfare checks.

* No need to pay with food stamps--credit cards and U.S currency accepted.

* Money was collected through traditional handing over of a bill, rather than mugging.

* Widespread use of knives, forks, spoons.

It's easy to laugh at Bill O'Reilly, since he's a clown. But he's also a principal news source for millions of Americans. More from Media Matters on Bill O'Reilly's enlightened views on his fellow Americans.

second tallest

As everyone in the Toronto area knows, the CN Tower is no longer the world's tallest freestanding structure, bested by the Burj Dubai, which is still under construction in the United Arab Emirates.

I can't say this mattered to me, as I have no great love for the Tower, an ugly concrete mass that only looks good at night. I do like the distinctive shape it gives the Toronto night skyline. But I don't know about the whole "structure vs building" argument. It seems sliced pretty thin just to get the bragging rights.

But the CN Tower's dethroning was a good excuse for newspapers and websites to break out graphics of skyscrapers all over the world, and to compare tall buildings through history. I really enjoyed that, both for the architecture lesson, and for the New York City memories.

Many of the former world's-tallest-buildings have been in New York, and those remain some of the city's most beautiful and treasured places.

Click for a larger image. The older buildings are in the lower right corner.

hilly kristal

Another important New Yorker has died. The New York Times reports:

Hilly Kristal, who founded CBGB, the Bowery bar that became the cradle of punk and art-rock in New York in the 1970s and served as the inspiration for musician-friendly rock dives throughout the world, died in Manhattan on Tuesday. He was 75.

His son, Mark Dana Kristal, told The Associated Press that the cause was complications from lung cancer.

From its opening in late 1973, when Mr. Kristal, a lover of acoustic music, gave the club its name, an abbreviation of the kinds of music he originally intended to feature there — country, bluegrass and blues — until a dispute with its landlord forced the club to close last October, CBGB presented thousands of bands within its eternally crumbling, flyer-encrusted walls.

Most famously, it served as the incubator for the diverse underground scene of New York in the 1970s and early ’80s, with acts like the Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, Television, Talking Heads and Sonic Youth playing some of their earliest and most important concerts there, at a time when there were few outlets in the city for innovative rock music.

I blogged about CBGB's impending demise here, here and here. When Kristal was asked about the gentrification of The Bowery, the historic neighbourhood where CBGB lived, he surprised many people with his attitude: "You want old stuff? Go to Europe."

In that sense (and many others), Kristal truly understood New York. Everything is always changing, and nothing lasts forever.

the queen of mean

After posting the obits of four great New Yorkers, I'll post one of a not-so-great. Leona Helmsely is dead at age 87.

Helmsely, the self-described queen of her hotel empire, was dubbed The Queen of Mean by the New York tabloids, and for a time was the New Yorker we most loved to hate. She was the perfect target: rich, arrogant, corrupt and female. Although I was no fan of Leona Helmsely's, I have no doubt that the special venom she drew was at least partially fueled by sexism.

Her most celebrated moment, which I'm sure you'll read about everywhere, came during her 1989 tabloid-rich trial for tax fraud: a former employee testified that Helmsely said, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

Much like the "Ford to City: Drop Dead," it may never have been said (Helmsely always denied it), but it came to define the would-be speaker.

Boy does her death bring back memories. New York in the 80s, a crazy city in a crazy time.

New York Times obit here.

carolyn goodman, rest in peace

Dr Carolyn Goodman has died in New York City at age 91. Goodman was a strong woman of courage and determination, who channeled her own incalcuable loss into a lifelong cause, who sought justice, and never succumbed to revenge. Although I never met her, she was someone I admired and have tried to emulate in my own life.

Carolyn Goodman, a Manhattan clinical psychologist who became a nationally prominent civil rights advocate after her son Andrew and two other civil rights workers were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi in 1964, died yesterday at her home on the Upper West Side. She was 91.

Dr. Goodman, who had suffered a series of strokes and seizures in recent weeks, died of natural causes, her son David said. At her death, she was assistant clinical professor emeritus of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in the Bronx.

Politically active until she was 90, Dr. Goodman came to wide public attention again two years ago. Traveling to Philadelphia, Miss., she testified at the murder trial of Edgar Ray Killen, a former Klan leader recently indicted in the case. On June 21, 2005, the 41st anniversary of the killings, a jury acquitted Mr. Killen of murder but found him guilty of manslaughter in the deaths of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner.

In the summer of 1964, Mr. Goodman and Mr. Schwerner, two white Northerners, and Mr. Chaney, a black Mississippian, converged in Neshoba County, Miss. They were there to take part in Freedom Summer, a campaign to register black Mississippians to vote. On June 21, they disappeared.

From the moment the disappearance was made public, Dr. Goodman was in the spotlight, facing batteries of television cameras outside her apartment on West 86th Street as she pleaded for Mississippians, and all Americans, to help in the search. On Aug. 4, the bodies of the three men were found in an earthen dam near Philadelphia. All had been shot.

The fate of the three young men — Mr. Goodman was 20, Mr. Chaney 21, Mr. Schwerner 24 — was widely seen as helping inspire the historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965, and the passage of the Voting Rights Act the same year.

A slender, elegant woman with sleek short hair, Dr. Goodman remained for decades a highly visible political presence. As she repeatedly made plain, she was not seeking revenge. (To the end of her life, she publicly opposed capital punishment.) She was, rather, agitating to see justice done — not only for her son and his colleagues, but on a wide range of issues.

In 1966, Dr. Goodman and her husband, Robert Goodman, started the Andrew Goodman Foundation, which supports a variety of social causes. Over the years, she took a prominent part in antiwar demonstrations, lectured often to student and religious groups and marched in civil rights rallies of all kinds.

In a telephone interview yesterday, her son David recounted a characteristic incident, which happened in 1999, during the public protest over the death of Amadou Diallo, the Guinean immigrant shot and killed by New York police officers. A colleague came into Mr. Goodman's office to tell him that his mother had just been seen on television, being taken off to jail.

"I said, 'Well, that happens from time to time,'" Mr. Goodman recalled.

I blogged about Carolyn Goodman when Killen was indicted for the three murders in January, 2005, and again briefly on the anniversary of the murder.

I've posted a lot of obituaries lately! They were all New Yorkers, and the city is diminished without them. But I'm glad they were all old, and they lived wonderfully full lives.

# 10

While I was out, word was posted that Phil Rizzuto has died at age 89.

I knew the Scooter was sick and his passing was imminent, but I'm still so taken aback and saddened.

Here is Rizzuto's obituary in the New York Times, and the tribute to him on the Yankees' website.

Rizzuto played shortstop for the New York Yankees for 13 years, and helped the team win championships in seven of those. To Yankees fans, his play is legendary; to others, over-rated. I knew the Scooter only as a broadcaster. He was a fixture in the Yankees broadcast booth for 40 years, and was very, shall we say, entertaining.

Among the bizarrely hilarious gems Rizzuto was famous for were a "WW" on his scorecard - "wasn't watching" - and an early exit "to beat the traffic over the bridge". And Holy Cow (his signature) could that man make a non-sequitur. Some of his crazy riffs were collected in a book: O Holy Cow!: The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto. People hated him, people loved him. He drove everyone crazy.

I used to like to hear him talk about his wife Cora. It was so obvious how much he loved her. Old-time Yankees fans all felt they knew Cora, and also Yogi Berra's wife Carmen.

Rizzuto is almost the last of his generation of Yankee greats. Now only Yogi remains.

brooke astor

One of the best-known and well-loved New Yorkers has died. Brooke Astor, a remarkable woman, died yesterday at the remarkable age of 105.

I don't have time to write anything about her this morning. I'll just link to her obituary in the New York Times. (There's a really nice picture on this obit, from an earlier edition.)

Ah, Brooke Astor. Where would New York have been without her.

harper's alert

New Yorkers, former New Yorkers, and everyone afraid of the Bush agenda: quick, run out and buy the current issue of Harper's. The terrific New York writer (and my email friend) Kevin Baker has this cover story: "A Fate Worse Than Bush: Rudolph Giuliani and the politics of personality".

The first sentence:

Rudolph Giuliani has, by far, the most dubious known personal history of any major presidential candidate in American history, what with his three marriages and his open affairs and his almost total estrangement from his grown children, not to mention the startling frequency with which he finds excuses to dress in women's clothing.

There's tons of other worthwhile stuff in this issue, including Jonathan Kozol (another favourite writer of mine) on US education, Benjamin DeMott on addiction to violence, and fiction by Alice Munro. Go for it.