Under the headline Poor real estate decisions, not bad coffee, hurt Starbucks, the IHT analyzes the recent decline in fortunes of the ubiquitous coffee retailer.
Though the flagging economy and soaring gas prices are responsible for at least some of Starbucks's woes, interviews with commercial real estate brokers nationwide who work with the chain suggest another aspect of the story. These people say that the company was so determined to meet its growth promises to Wall Street that it relaxed its standards for selecting new store locations.
In some cases, brokers say, Starbucks misjudged the risks of putting stores close to each other, leading to the decline in same-store sales that the company started reporting for the first time in its history this year.
Or maybe the world didn't really need eight Starbucks within one block of Grand Central Station, who knows?
[Image courtesy of Dietrich/Flickr]
Joey Chestnut won the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest today again. Besting Takeru Kobayashi in a five hot dog tie-breaking eat off. It was the first tie breaker necessary in the long history of the competition. The ten-minute regular competition ended with 58 dogs downed by both.
Happy Independence Day, everyone. Today is the last Fourth that will be blighted by George Bush in the White House; and while the country may be crumbling all around us, the passage of another day that brings us closer to the end of this disastrous reign is itself worth celebrating.
But meanwhile, where are we in this imperfect union of ours? There's a war going on, obviously, one we were lied into by traitors who will probably go unpunished. Our constitutional rights, already a tenuous proposition if you happen to be black, or poor, or gay, or something other than Christian, are being further eroded by a criminal executive and its cowering occasional adversaries in the legislative branch.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
On the other hand, coming out of this nightmare, Democrats have done something many people never expected to see in their, our lifetimes: nominated a black man for the Presidency, a freshman Senator whose soaring rhetoric has propelled a new generation into politics. His chief rival? A woman. His likely opponent in November? A man who was tortured and who has a brown adopted child. There's even something new in America, a vibrant Progressive Movement that has written change on its banners, challenging the Tories of either party.
If you’re heading out for fireworks tonight, the obvious Brooklyn viewing spots include the Brooklyn Promenade, Furman Street under the BQE and Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park. There’s room for a lot of people between all these spots, but it’s a fair bet it’ll be extremely crowded. Further upriver, East River State Park in Williamsburg is going to be offering a front row seat given the positioning of the fireworks barges a bit further south than usual this year. That set of barges will be around 20th Street in Manhattan this year versus the usual 34th Street-ish spot. The park keeps track of the number of people inside and the gates are closing at 8:30. Hopefully, they’ll let in more people than last year.
If you’re in Red Hook tonight or want to head there for a non-Ikea-related reason, definitely go down Van Brunt Street and check out the Mark van S Studio at 384 Van Brunt. The people behind the “What’s the Hook?” photo show are projecting images of Red Hook on the building after dark. What’s the Hook?, which is totally worth checking out, will also be part of the BWAC Summer Show and will be running the slideshow again on July 12, which is BWAC’s “Second Saturday” night at the same studio. The image above is from last night.
We return to our Brooklyn Back in the Day series of historic Brooklyn photos with one that is entirely appropriate to July 4. This is a photo from the Coney Island History Project–whose website is worth checking out and whose facility on Surf Avenue under the Cylcone is worth a visit. It shows Coney Island on July 4, 1957, 51 years ago today. Back in the day, of course, Coney could attract up to 1.5 million people on the Fourth. Here’s a recollection fromm the Online Journal An American Dreamland:
When I was just a boy my parents would take me to Coney Island for July 4th. This was 1947, a few years after WW II, when the Cyclone roller coaster roared down from the sky, the Wonder Wheel rose in the hot sun and later the great parachute jump spilled its screaming couples 220 feet down to a jolting halt, a few feet from the sprawling boardwalk, the planked wood stretching from the proletarian Brighton Beach to the elegant gated community of Sea Gate. All this life punctuated by disastrous fires and marvelous restoration, shedding its stars, like Durante, Mae West, Sophie Tucker, Eddie Cantor, into America.Between them, Nathan’s hot dog stand grew on Surf Avenue to the mother of all fast food joints, with the greatest hot dogs, French fries, fresh fried seafood, roast beef and hot buttered corn you could imagine on working people’s wages, plus a July 4th hot dog eating contest. Is this America or is it just Brooklyn? Or are they one?
Here’s another photo below from the 1940s that shows an even more crowded Fourth of July scene:
Hausman Street in Greenpoint is one of those streets where nearly every house sports an American flag. What better way to wish everyone a Happy Fourth of July than from Greenpoint, via these photos from Miss Heather.
[Photos courtesy of Miss Heather]
Yes, we’re very heavy on Coney items on this Fourth of July, but why not? Here are some vids from Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contests of the past:
Here’s another video posted by Hunter-Gatherer that has a lot of footage of Brooklyn in the 1980s. It comes from a film about the making of Last Exit to Brooklyn, which was released in 1989 and set in the 1950s. Great, great stuff.
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