Friday, July 3, 2009

*Everyday Chatter

The High Line is helping to sell condos. And that's why you call it an amenity. [TRD]

Swarms of upscale food trucks whine and refuse to play by street rules--aim to push out the city's long-term hot dog vendors. [NYT]

You can plant all the pretty flowers you want on the LES, but you can't stop the locals from picking them. [Curbed]

Superdive: "frattier than the frattiest frat party imaginable, and was populated by about 90% business-casual clad iBanker types, and the plain-looking, done-up to the nines girls that follow them around." [Eater]

More on the closing of Joe Jr's--1,000+ signatures so far. [CR]

1 comment:

JakeGould said...

Wow! The food truck and flower stories really rile me up. First, the New York Times completely ignores the fact that many of these gourmet trucks are simply satellites of larger/established stores.

Rickshaw Dumplings has it's main operation on 23rd Street. MUD Truck started as a truck, but has a storefront. In fact, any of these truck owners who claims they are simple folk are just lying. Any one of them is looking to set up a storefront. Thus, their goals, intentions and resources are out of scale with average vendors. Not to mention the fella who runs the Street Sweets truck claims he was a graphic designer who was pulling in $200,000 a year but has now quit it all to do this? Doesn't add up.

Also the claims that hot dog vendors see everyone as competition and is unreasonable is bogus. There are corners where a mix of vendors co-exist without issue. Kebab guys next to hot dog guys next to ice cream guys and even coffee carts.

The issue is the same old maddening entitlement. I doubt any of these folks whining have ever really talked or tried to negotiate with established vendors.

Also, the flowers being stolen? Good for them! I'm all for cleaning up and making neighborhoods look nicer, but you can't force it down the throats of the neighborhood.

Both of these things are based on disconnected entitlement wrapped in patronage. Folks who believe they can just swoop in out of nowhere, declare something "good" and then complain when others don't accept it.

Please, grow up folks.