Straightforward enough for this type of article. I just hope people aren't disappointed in Union Square...check out the Union Square photo that accompanied the piece...
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All the girls who are not in the pages of fashion magazines. The girls that live in the East Village in New York you see walking down St Mark's. They didn't look at a fashion magazine or go to Barneys and put something on their credit card. I like girls who are really eccentric and kooky. I love the rockabilly look -- not a rockabilly look because it's "this season", but the real deal. Believe it or not, there was a lot of that look in Dallas where I grew up.
The recession seems to have a sweet tooth. As unemployment has risen and 401(k)’s have shrunk, Americans, particularly adults, have been consuming growing volumes of candy, from Mary Janes and Tootsie Rolls to Gummy Bears and cheap chocolates, say candy makers, store owners and industry experts.
Theories vary on exactly why. For many, sugar lifts spirits dragged low by the languishing economy. For others, candy also provides a nostalgic reminder of better times. And not insignificantly, it is relatively cheap.
“People may indulge themselves a little bit more when times are tough,” said Jack P. Russo, an analyst with the Edward Jones retail brokerage in St. Louis. “These are low-cost items that people can afford pretty easily.”
Within the walls of one freshman dorm exists a magical place, known to most first-year students only as “Narnia.” Narnia’s mythical reputation as a refuge in which students sip beer and smoke marijuana without RA interference has spread like wildfire throughout the freshman class.
Indeed, the rumors are based on truth. The party never stops in Narnia: nearly every day of every week, four suitemates invite friends and strangers alike to celebrate life with sex, music, alcohol and weed.
Narnia is actually an eight-by-four-foot room in a spacious suite. The room is clean and uncluttered with a bedsheet spread across the floor. Photographs and hand-drawn illustrations adorn the sanctuary’s walls, and lava lamps, ashtrays and a defunct popcorn maker sit near a small window. A large poster of “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” rests on the room’s center wall.
The recession is such a bummer. Wouldn't it be nice to time travel to a simpler era the 1950s when money was plentiful, appliances were shiny, and rock was just beginning to roll? A carefree time, when wiggling a Hula Hoop rather than watching the Dow plummet was the favored pastime, and love could be found at a sock hop. Happily, a DeLorean time machine a la "Back to the Future" isn't necessary. Doo-wop shows, record hops, and soda fountains are all here. As it turns out, happier days can be had again.
This Upper East Side dining room, a one-time neighborhood joint for Bernie Madoff, hasn't changed its mood since it opened in the '50s.
Mr. Ziprin, a brilliant, baffling, beguiling voice of the Lower East Side and the East Village in all its phases — Jewish, hipster and hippie — died last Sunday in Manhattan. He was 84. The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his daughter Zia Ziprin said.
For decades, Mr. Ziprin, a self-created planet, exerted a powerful gravitational attraction for poets, artists, experimental filmmakers, would-be philosophers and spiritual seekers.
He ran his apartment, on Seventh Street in the East Village, as a bohemian salon, attracting a loose collective that included the ethnomusicologist Harry Smith, the photographer Robert Frank and the jazz musician Thelonious Monk, who would drop by for meals between sets at the Five Spot. Bob Dylan paid the occasional visit.
Distressed that Starbucks has become the "poster child for excess," CEO Howard Schultz said the coffee company plans to run an ad campaign proving its coffee isn't expensive.
"There's a myth out there that there's this $4 cup of coffee at Starbucks," Mr. Schultz told shareholders at the company's annual investor meeting earlier today. "For whatever reason, Starbucks Coffee Co. has become the poster child for excess, and if you want to be really smart, you should cut out that $4 cup of coffee."
“This is new, a real deviation from the average,” said New York City’s chief demographer, Joseph J. Salvo. “Whether it’s a trend is another thing.”
The latest census estimate did not reflect the decline in private-sector jobs in the city late last year.
Dr. Salvo, the director of the Department of City Planning’s population division, said, “When you take a look at the conditions in the rest of the country and what has happened to the housing and economic market in a lot of places our migrants have gone to, it’s very tempting to conclude that perhaps people are staying put more because the opportunities that were afforded there are not there any longer or are no longer attractive.”
Urbain J. Ledoux -- better known as "Mr. Zero" -- introduced a novelty in the form of a 5-cent turkey dinner. He fed turkey dinners at "The Tub" in the basement of 33 St. Marks Place, on the basis of "All you can eat for a nickel," and said that he was able to break even financially. Dealers furnished the turkey and trimmings at cost, the cooks volunteered, the diners waited on themselves, there was no overhead and and at the end of the day the ledger showed no red ink marks, according to Zero, who claims credit for the world's greatest achievement with the 5-cent piece.