Good news & mostly bad news about SantaCon, which reportedly starts in Tompkins Square Park

[Photo of 7th and A from 2007 by Bob Arihood]

SantaCon is fast approaching this year… just nine days 'till Dec. 14. (And just a few more days to book your trip to Greenland!)

And the Daily News casually dropped this bit of info in a feature about this year's Con:

Sources said this year's SantaCon will kick off around Tompkins Square Park and wind its way through the East Village and the Lower East Side before jumping over to Brooklyn.

Oh. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Wait, was that a bad dream?

Sources said this year's SantaCon will kick off around Tompkins Square Park and wind its way through the East Village and the Lower East Side before jumping over to Brooklyn.

Start calling 311 in advance, kids!

And was there something about good news?

The organizers will reportedly share the route for the annual pub crawl with the NYPD and elected officials ahead of the event, according to the Daily News.

Uh-huh.

And?

SantaCon organizers confirmed that they also plan to have 80 helper elves along the route to coordinate traffic and make sure their Santas stay respectful to residents and local businesses.

Feel better?

And visit Neither More Nor Less for some of Bob Arihood's photos from when SantaCon visited Tompkins Square Park in 2007. Right here.

Updated high noon:

DNAinfo has an article this morning on SantaCon here.

Excerpt:

"They're going to be there until about noon, and then wind up in Brooklyn somewhere," a police source told DNAinfo New York. "Hopefully it will be a nice safe day, and hopefully things will be much better than last year."

The police source and Community Board 3 District Manager Susan Stetzer said a SantaCon organizer contacted their offices Tuesday.

Stetzer said that she spoke with a SantaCon representative through email, on the phone and in person, adding he was "very friendly and cooperative" in the "several" conversations they had.

"I am hoping management of Santas on sidewalks and streets will be improved," she said.

In case you were feeling good about things...

Crain's New York has the story.

To Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the recession may be over. But in Queens, Anthony Fodera isn't buying it. The president of 80-year-old bakery-goods distributor Fodera Foods says checks are being returned from customers who had pristine payment histories and orders are off by nearly 25% compared with this time last year.

“I don't see the recession being over, especially in New York City, where so much of business revolves around Wall Street,” Mr. Fodera says. “It's my gut [feeling] from what I'm seeing.”

For the city, Mr. Fodera's gut appears to be a better indicator than Mr. Bernanke's statement last week that “the recession is very likely over at this point.” With tax receipts, office and hotel room rentals and Broadway ticket sales all tumbling and unemployment continuing to rise, the city's economy has further to fall before the impact of this epic downturn finally subsides. Even the most optimistic economists' estimates have the five boroughs losing about 150,000 more jobs, on top of the nearly 100,000 jettisoned since August 2008. Experts, drawing on past experience, say the bottom could be more than a year away.

Recovery in the city traditionally lags the nation. For example, in 1991, the national recession ended in March, but the city's jobless rate rose for another 18 months. And unemployment in the city didn't peak until 14 months after the national downturn ended in November 2001.

“If the recession is ending now, we're probably looking at the end of next year before peak unemployment arrives,” says James Brown, principal economist at the state Department of Labor.

Easy as...123 Third Ave. rises

At the same time we notice that the new 18-story glassy condo is finally (and quickly) taking some shape on the southeast corner of 14th Street and Third Avenue...




(No Web address listed. But a phone number. Handy!)



...the Times comes along with a piece saying that basically all of 14th Street east of Third Avenue is pretty much doomed now. As the paper notes rather ominously.

Still, the stretch bordering the East Village, east of Third Avenue, existed as a relative time capsule. Discount clothing stores still dot blocks as they did when the area was a popular middle-class shopping district, side by side with 100-year-old brick tenements.

But stirrings of change are noticeable in the neighborhood, say brokers, business leaders and developers, many of whom are betting that renewal will continue its march along 14th Street.

A 19-story condominium rising at Third Avenue from the site of a former tanning salon may be a sign.

The article goes on to say how much the condos will cost, that a Capital One is going in the retail space on the ground level, etc. Doomed as doomed can be.



Previously on EV Grieve:
Stopping work at 123 Third Ave.