As If This 'Summer' Couldn't Have Gotten Any Worse...

I just happened to find out the other day that my favorite Starbucks in the whole city, the Astor Place location where I looked forward to making a summer people-watching day out of all school year, closed this past April. I spent several wonderful lazy days here last summer just watching the stream of people head to and fro on Astor, passing by between me and Cooper Union.

I guess my only consolation is that it closed way back in April, before my spring semester had finished, which left me with a good excuse why I couldn't have come out to bid it farewell. Had it have closed this May or June, I would have felt terrible that I had missed one last day of lazing around in its yard. Regardless, let's hope that something new and similar takes the old Starbucks' place before the end of the summer. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to head over to Union Square.

Here Comes the Bride...

Back in 1980's Brooklyn, the "in" thing to do after your wedding ceremony (read: "ghetto fabulous"), especially among the Puerto Ricans and Italians, was to barrel around the neighborhood in your tacky fleet of white 1987 Lincoln Town Car Limousines with your pals, while the limo driver would be continuously blaring the custom horn which would repeat the "Here comes the bride, all dressed in white" tune over and over and over.

I remember during one such festive occasion, when I was probably about 8 years old, I guess one classy couple's limo got stuck in traffic on my block, because I heard the horn blaring downstairs for about five solid minutes while I was trying to watch "Diff'rent Strokes."

I looked out the window to see what all the commotion was about, and I saw the limo sitting in traffic right under my window. Just as I looked, the Puerto Rican/Italian (I don't remember which) bride looked up at me through the sunroof, so I stuck my tongue out at her (her convoy was disturbing my TV-watching, after all). She responded by giving me the middle finger.

I miss the old New York.