AbleBrains

AbleAdvisory: Why NY Is Poised for a Hot Wave of Startups

Over at SAI, James Robinson from RRE Ventures tells us a story - prosaic as it is, as to why New York is poised for some hot start-up activities. Distilling it down to its essence he says the reasons are quite simple: New York is a great place to live,  its the epicenter for seven global industries competing aggressively (prime customers), the economics are better than ever before, especially in the technology enablement/infrastructure arena and finally because New York is is attracting a widening talent pool.

AbleAdvisory: Finally, A Tech Mashup With Transportation Policy That Doesn't Suck!

Stewart Mader blogs about 4-id creative network, a Barcelona-based transportation design firm. They've created a system that helps you figure out where the best place to board a subway is in order to find a seat. He picked it up from 2nd Avenue Sagas a blog devoted to, yes you guessed it, the NYC Subway system (with an homage to the painful construction of the 2nd Avenue Subway here in NYC).  I digress. Anyway, the system they have proposed, scans subway cars using imaging sensors placed inside train cars or “artificial vision software applied to existing security cameras” to highlight which areas of the train are emptiest and which still have seats. Holy Fare Increase Batman!!! I wonder if NYC's Metropolitan Transportation Authority could see it's way clear to actually applying technology to some of the most painful problems its ridership faces. 

Mystery Bench Baffles City Officials

This is on Houston Street, here in the Village... via Gothamist

SubWeb MatchMaking

Only in New York (Gothamist)

With Craigslist becoming ever-increasingly creepy, this smitten young man has gone and purchased his own URL to find the girl he ogled on the subway last night. NYGirlOfMyDreams.com has a simple mission, it's "skinny, tall, not insane" creator would like to meet the the "fancy-braided, rosy-cheeked, journal writing" girl he saw on the the 5 train at 9:30pm last night. And if it doesn't work out, we're sure he has that URL for at least a year, and we expect to see a rotating cast of illustrated girls he's fallen for underground.

Can't wait to see this play out on the big screen, we're thinking John Krasinski and Natalie Portman or Ryan Gosling and Zooey Deschanel as the leads.

Update: According to this lad's Flickr account, he was at the Apes & Androids show on Halloween...so he can't be all that bad.

Gertel's Bakery: A Major New York Loss

Gertel's Bakery down on Hester Street on the Lower East Side of New York is gone.  It actually closed its doors back in July but here is  a sad picture of it being torn down for Condos!  This is really sad.  The bakery was Glatt Kosher (completely kosher) and served up an amazing variety of baked goods, especially for the Jewish Holidays. We used to love to go down there  around Passover to pick up sweets, go to the Guss' for pickles and buy nuts and other savories.

This place held the essence of the immigrant flavor of the Lower East Side.  It kills me to see it go not only for its sake but for the homogenization and gentrification of New York, which it sadly represents.

Here's a pic of Gertel's still standing and the food...

One of the myriad reasons I live in New York City

Susan and I love the diversity, energy and general craziness of New York City.  We do not appreciate unethical, avaricious and mean spirited folk.  So its in this spirit that I repost this From the New York Times

 

Last month on Craigslist.com, someone who described herself as a “spectacularly beautiful” 25-year-old placed a personal ad seeking a husband who made at least $500,000 a year, because “$250,000 won’t get me to Central Park West.”

Here's the original post from Craigslist:

What am I doing wrong?

Okay, I'm tired of beating around the bush. I'm a beautiful
(spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I'm articulate and classy.
I'm not from New York. I'm looking to get married to a guy who makes at
least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind
that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don't think
I'm overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could
you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around
200 - 250. But that's where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won't get
me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married
to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she's not as pretty as
I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I
get to her level?

Here are my questions specifically:

- Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars,
restaurants, gyms

-What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won't hurt my
feelings

-Is there an age range I should be targeting (I'm 25)?

- Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east
side so plain? I've seen really 'plain jane' boring types who have
nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I've seen drop dead
gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What's the story
there?

- Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows - lawyer, investment
banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they
hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?

- How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for
MARRIAGE ONLY

Please hold your insults - I'm putting myself out there in an honest
way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I'm being up front
about it. I wouldn't be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn't
able to match them - in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a
nice home and hearth

      

Back to the Times:

As her post hit the blogs, it received a scathing response from a man who said he fit her description and told her that her proposition was a bad business deal. “In economic terms, you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset,” he wrote, because “your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity.”

Last week, this exchange spilled over into the e-mail world, where the it turned into a popular item to send to friends as a joke. The difference between this and other outrageous share-mail messages, however, was that instead of remaining anonymous, its ostensible author signed his name and the company where he worked, which happened to be the investment banking division of JPMorgan Chase.

This detail, which may have provoked nearly as much mirth as the contents of the exchange, made the correspondence either more or less credible. Would someone with a big job at a prestigious company really have linked his name to a message that read in part: “You’re 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!”

The man who is widely credited with writing the response did not respond to a voice message, but the media relations department at JPMorgan Chase confirmed that he worked there and said that he was not the author. Rather, a company spokesman said, he had forwarded the e-mail message to friends, and the signature setting on his e-mail accompanied the response when it wound up on blogs.

By this account, the employee was just an accidental sexist, the latest object lesson in the dangers of e-mail getting into the wrong hands — the Wall Street equivalent of a Pittsburgh Steelers coach who passed along an e-mail message with a sex video to the National Football League commissioner, among others.

“Your workplace computer does not exist as a tool for forwarding jokey things,” said Will Schwalbe, an author of “Send: The Essential Guide to E-Mail for Office and Home.”

As for the legitimacy of the original posting by the husband seeker, a spokeswoman for Craigslist wrote in an e-mail message that “it does look as if the post was made sincerely.” A message sent to the Craigslist mailbox seeking comment yielded no response.

Craigslist declined to say how many people responded to the personal ad (which asked, among other things, for names of bars, restaurants and gyms where rich single men hung out). And so far, the identity of the responder remains a mystery too.

“I wish we wrote it because I think it’s great,” said John Carney, editor of DealBreaker, a Wall Street gossip site that posted the exchange on Wednesday.

Mr. Carney said that he had received the zinger in an e-mail message from someone other than the author, and his source did not know who wrote it. (The response never appeared on Craigslist itself.)

On Thursday, Howard Lindzon posted it to his blog. After a commenter asked who wrote it, Mr. Lindzon responded “me,” but then said in a telephone interview that he had been kidding. The traffic the posting drew was serious, though. Mr. Lindzon usually gets about 3,000 daily visitors, but popularity-rating sites digg.com and reddit.com linked to the item, drawing more than 100,000 visitors and crashing his server.

Brett Michael Dykes, a blogger notorious for fake listings on Craigslist, said he had received about 40 e-mail messages accusing him of posting the husband-seeking personal ad. But he said he had not written it and was stumped about its provenance.

“I’ve probably read it five or six times, and I go back and forth,” Mr. Dykes said. “Sadly I think it may be real. I have met in New York City that type of girl.”

By now, Mr. Dykes said, a blogger would have taken credit for the listing if it were a hoax, but “who would want to step from the shadows and say, ‘I’m the gold digger’?”

And Mr. Carney said he was not holding his breath that the Wall Street type would step forward. “In the age of ultrasensitivity to sexual harassment, people might think that this guy’s response about women being depreciating assets is not exactly how they want their firm to be perceived by the public,” he said.

Clearly, it takes all types... and New York City has them.  What's fascinating is the wildly viral nature of this thing.  What is it about these types of postings that does it.. is it the sheer "so far out at the end of the bell curve" that folks want to share it with the rest of the curve? Or is it how blunt and honest the entire exchange was?  I'd like to hear your opinions.

No Joy in Mudville

My father grew up in the shadow of Yankee stadium. My mother is Bronx born and bred as well.  So being a Yankee fan is genetic as far as I'm concerned. The fact that my wife is a Mets fan is an aberration... I hope the girls can manage the disparity.  So its with a heavy heart I report the loss of my Yankees, 6-4 to the Cleveland Indians. Will Joe Torre be gone?  I sure hope not.

The Gowanus Canal has an STD

View Larger Map

I read this this morning in the NY Post that a test of the Lavender Lake AKA The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn tested positive for Gonorrhea.  From a scienceline article:

Nilofaur Haque, a biologist at the New York City College of Technology, has her students analyze water samples and observe the oily substance that coats the water’s surface each afternoon. “One group of students found gonohorrea in a water drop,"

Previously the Canal had tested positive for Typhus and Typhoid and Cholera...  can't wait to go kayaking in the canal!

Another radical MTA Fare Hike??????

Gothamist posted this today and I'm so pissed at how badly this agency manages their funds its criminal.  Absolutely criminal.  These jokers belong in jail! When I read this on my EXTREMELY SLOW, POORLY TIMED AND CROWDED SUBWAY THIS MORNING, I nearly screamed.

If the report released yesterday by the city's Independent Budget Office is true, it could get a lot more expensive to ride the MTA subways and buses in the future. The IBO believes that the MTA has to increase its revenues by 20% by 2010. That means subway and bus fares could go up at least 20% by 2010, making a single ride $2.40. The worst case scenario - where rates for other revenue sources are not increased - has subway and bus fares jumping to almost $3. The price of a monthly metrocard would would jump from $76 to $112. A weekly card would go from $24 to $36. The last increase in fares was in 2004.

Why the drastic increase in subway and bus fares? Years of borrowing money for improvements in the system has resulted in mounting debts. The agency faces projected deficits of $800 million in 2008, $1.4 billion in 2009, and $1.8 billion in 2010. For 2007, there is a projected surplus of $270 million. In previous years, the MTA has often projected a deficit (though you can never trust them), only to have a surplus at the end of the year because of real estate tax revenue that was more than projected. This may change in the coming years, according to the IBO's report (full .pdf report).

Gean Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, who asked the IBO to review the MTA's budget, said that Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan could keep the fares from rising so drastically. "We call on Gov. Eliot Spitzer for help, especially in pressing for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal to help bring billions to the transit system."

The MTA is to announce its budget plans next month, but Executive Director Elliot Sander has already asked departments within the agency to cut 4% from their budgets. The Post mentions some other ideas from the IBO that could generate revenue: 1/8% increase in sales tax (additional $236 million), include co-ops in the mortgage-recording tax (additional $140 million), raising state aid to the maximum level (additional $444 million).

Photograph by Triborough on Flickr

If the report released yesterday by the city's Independent Budget Office is true, it could get a lot more expensive to ride the MTA subways and buses in the future. The IBO believes that the MTA has to increase its revenues by 20% by 2010. That means subway and bus fares could go up at least 20% by 2010, making a single ride $2.40. The worst case scenario - where rates for other revenue sources are not increased - has subway and bus fares jumping to almost $3. The price of a monthly metrocard would would jump from $76 to $112. A weekly card would go from $24 to $36. The last increase in fares was in 2004.

Why the drastic increase in subway and bus fares? Years of borrowing money for improvements in the system has resulted in mounting debts. The agency faces projected deficits of $800 million in 2008, $1.4 billion in 2009, and $1.8 billion in 2010. For 2007, there is a projected surplus of $270 million. In previous years, the MTA has often projected a deficit (though you can never trust them), only to have a surplus at the end of the year because of real estate tax revenue that was more than projected. This may change in the coming years, according to the IBO's report (full .pdf report).

Gean Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, who asked the IBO to review the MTA's budget, said that Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan could keep the fares from rising so drastically. "We call on Gov. Eliot Spitzer for help, especially in pressing for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal to help bring billions to the transit system."

The MTA is to announce its budget plans next month, but Executive Director Elliot Sander has already asked departments within the agency to cut 4% from their budgets. The Post mentions some other ideas from the IBO that could generate revenue: 1/8% increase in sales tax (additional $236 million), include co-ops in the mortgage-recording tax (additional $140 million), raising state aid to the maximum level (additional $444 million).

Photograph by Triborough on Flickr

NYC Subway to Steve: Welcome Baaacck! (HA)

Today was my first day back in the office... I was hoping for a smooth entry, a relatively early start and an uneventful subway ride to the office.  Did I get any of that? Of course not.  Am I surprised? Of course not.  Once again, the NYC Subway system, delivered courtesy of the MTA, a worthless, "I want my 2 Dollars back" subway experience... overcrowded, late and disgustingly slow.... but a picture is worth a thousand words (forgive the fidelity... was taken with my phone)