Category Archives: New York

Hey, People on the Subway

Posted on September 10, 2010 | Leave a comment

Hey, people on the subway–guy with the broad, black African face, red eyes and Yankees hat; lady with a South American Indian face straight out of Avatar holding two iPods; the Latino guy wearing a straw hat with Glen plaid band and sporting a trim gray mustache; the gray-haired white lady with chunky jewelry standing with her suitcase and reading Updike; and you, cute little Asian girl with your finger up your nose: this train is crowded. It certainly is no oasis of suburban, car-cocoon commuting. But I’m glad you are all here. You are part of my city and part of my commute. And it’s better with you all than without you. Have a good evening.

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Posted in New York

Walking Everywhere in New York

Posted on June 10, 2009 | Leave a comment

I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I can walk almost everywhere I go. It’s almost a pre-industrial lifestyle. And I love it.

The Upper West Side and Central Park as seen f...
Image via Wikipedia

Here are some of the places I’ve walked to from my home in recent years:

  • A wedding
  • A funeral
  • A bris
  • A bar mitzvah
  • work
  • my kids’ school
  • the opera
  • the movies
  • out to dinner
  • a picnic in the park
  • with 12 kids home from a birthday party three miles away in Union Square, stopping after dark to play in the fountain at Columbus Circle
  • grocery shopping
  • shopping of all kinds
  • music lessons for the kids (both teachers live in our building)
  • dinner parties
  • making the rounds to the homes of a half dozen friends on New Year’s Eve (when we had babysitting and they did not), carrying a jug of homemade punch
  • the river, to go kayaking
  • the park to watch my son’s soccer game
  • the dance studio for ballet classes
  • a Broadway show–or home from one
  • a job interview
  • a TV interview with CNN (mass transit was on strike, but the CNN studios in the TimeWarner building are just  a mile from my home)
  • a doctor’s appointment
  • Shakespeare in the park
  • the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, American Museum of Natural History
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]There is something special about being able to live your life on foot.

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Posted in New York

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Barnes & Noble Enforces No-Dog Rule But Closes the Sale

Posted on May 6, 2009 | Leave a comment

Just a word of appreciation for Barnes & Noble here on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I showed up there this afternoon with my dog to pick up a copy of “The Last Olympian,” the lastest by Rick Riordan, for my son.

The security guard met me at the door and told me that no dogs are allowed. (I suppose it’s because because they sell food at the Starbucks upstairs and the New York City health code prohibits it.) I turned and was about to head out the door when the guard asked me if I knew what book I wanted. When I said I did, she directed me to the information booth saying they would get it for me. So happens, they had the book right on the counter. So I picked it up, sailed through checkout, and headed on my way.

I love the fact that the guard asked that question. Great way to meet my need and save a sale while still enforcing the no-dog rule. Bravo B&N.

Your stories of excellent retail experiences like this are welcome!

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Posted in Commerce, New York

The Weird Demographics of Jewish New York

Posted on April 21, 2009 | Leave a comment

When you live here, it’s easy to forget how weird New York is from a Jewish perspective. The signs of Jewish influence are everywhere on the Upper West Side where I live: Kosher restaurants proliferate and are busy. There are throngs outside synagogues on Friday night. You can see families walking to synagogue on Saturday morning dressed in dowdy finery. On joyous holidays like Simchat Torah, the evening streets are filled with revelers, while solemn ones like Yom Kippur blanket the neighborhood in quiet.

Raising Jewish children in this environment is a privilege.

I’ve recently been looking over some Jewish demographic data and now have a fresh understanding of just how distinctive New York is. According to “Jewish Community Study of New York: 2002,” published by UJA-Federation of New York, as of 2002, 21 percent of Manhattan households and 16 percent of its population was Jewish.

It’s hard to overstate how dramatic those numbers are: In the US as a whole just under one person in fifty is Jewish. Globally, the difference is even starker. According to the American Jewish Year Book, just 0.2 percent of the global population is Jewish.

It is jarring to contemplate this vibrant Jewish community as a tiny speck in a sea of humanity.

Despite its apparent vigor, the Jewish population here has actually declined significantly in recent years. According to the UJA-Federation Study, between 1991 and 2002 the number of Jewish households and Jewish individuals in Manhattan declined by 15 percent and 21 percent respectively. (The overall Jewish population of New York area has remained stable during that period, though, with the declines in Manhattan offset by sharp increases in Westchester, Staten Island and Brooklyn.)

I don’t know yet what to make of this data. But I’m glad that there are lots of smart people compiling it, analyzing it, and debating its policy implications. For now, the Jewish population that gets most of my attention lives with me. And we are exploring our tradition, plumbing its wisdom, practicing its rituals and living its values as meaningfully as we can.

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Posted in New York, Research

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Why New York Is Well Positioned

Posted on February 12, 2009 | Leave a comment

I attended a breakfast seminar today titled “Raising Funds in Turbulent Times.” It was a panel of VCs moderated by my former boss, Gene De Rose. (Gene used to be CEO of Jupiter Communications, the company that became JupiterResearch where I was president until the end of last year.)

The VCs on the panel were:

  • Kim Bangash, Orchid Ventures
  • Brad Burnham, Union Square Ventures
  • Warren Lee, Canaan Partners
  • Danny Schultz,  DFJ Gotham Ventures

There was good discussion about how to approach a VC, what they look for in a pitch and an an entrepreneur, and how the economic climate has altered the fund raising process.

At a time of economic gloom, it was refreshing to hear Brad Burnham’s take on why New York is a good place to build a startup. His firm invests in technology enabled services in media, marketing and some other verticals. In Burham’s view, IT infrastructure is mature and doesn’t look like a promising sector in the near term. It was never NYC’s strength. Where the action and opportunity are, he believes, are in human factors, design, user experience and the like–areas where NYC is rich in talent.

He also sees a silver lining in the implosion of Wall Street, which will no longer be in a position to pay the unjustifiably large salaries that drew so many people with useful skills, from quants, Java coders, away from other more useful fields. It will become a fertile talent market for growing companies.

Warren Lee, of Canaan, agreed with this assessment and observed that in this period of financial austerity, large companies are cutting innovation budgets. They will look up in 3 years, he says, and ask, “What is our growth strategy?” and find they have none. They will then be induced to look for new exploitable oportunities to the  crop of startups that have been developing the next wave of cool ideas, unleasing a period of acquisitions.

A positive take for entrepreneurs and the companies that back them.

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Posted in Commerce, Economics, New York

Stopping by NYU for Inspiration: The Spatula of Death

Posted on May 8, 2007 | Comments Off

I dropped by New York University this evening to check out the spring show staged by the Interactive Telecommunications Program. The entire 4th floor of 721 Broadway was like a wacky, edgy science fair, brimming with the creative output of programs’ students, ranging from whimsical to thought provoking.

I love these kinds of events. There is so much creative energy in the air. It reminds me of an evening a spent a few months ago trolling among the students at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and their in-process projects. But here, at NYU, there was also the possibility I could identify some folks to recruit for Jupiter’s analyst team.

Here are some of the projects that stuck with me:

Adaptive Videography. This one hacked a video camera’s remote control to create an alternative control that allows a wheel-chair bound person with limited motor control to capture video. There were a number of great projects there aimed at people with disabilities.

Anti-Smoking Jacket. I’d place this in the whimsical column. A jacket featuring two lungs that darken the more you smoke.

Happy Feedback machine. Gratifies the universal desire to push buttons and flip switches.

Information Recast: A Flexible Map. This is an intense one. A dynamic, graphical platform for visualizing complex information. The demo was displaying census data on immigration patterns. Great domain to demo on, and a promising tool. By the way, the more I read about demographic trends, the more worried I get. (See pieces in the WSJ here and here.)

Spatula of Death. An anti-social network. The name says it all. (PG-13 at least.) One of many seemingly pointless experiences on the Web. I asked the creator who has the time for this thing? What would these people be doing if not for interacting with the Spatula of Death? “Sitting around being sullen,” he suggested.

There were many other stimulating projects. It runs one more night (5/9). Stop by if you have a chance.

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Posted in New York, Uncategorized