Why shouldn’t there be a Denny’s in Manhattan?

By Dan Brooks in New York 1 Comment
The interior of Manhattan Denny's at 150 Nassau Street

The interior of Manhattan Denny’s at 150 Nassau Street

This interior shot of Denny’s new Manhattan location captures what it is about New York City: that special feeling of standing where something awesome used to be. Probably, it doesn’t mean anything that the national diner chain/punchline has opened its first Manhattan location. Likely there is no particular significance to the news that, to preserve its tradition of low prices, Manhattan Denny’s charges no more than $11 for a specialty cocktail. And certainly there is no reason that Manhattan shouldn’t have a Denny’s. So why did this news make me sad?

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Brooklyn artists live in marketing house, are marketing product

By Dan Brooks in New York 2 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddrQ5BPCcOk

Before you read this New York Times article about a communal house in Brooklyn that is also a new media company, you should know that the first person you encounter will be named Dickerman Cade Sadler III. Keep reading. It is important that you complete the article, in the same way it was important that the first Marines who entered Saddam Hussein’s palace search every room. Someday, history will need to understand this decadence. Welcome to the Clubhouse, a three-story house in Ditmas Park where “eight roommates, most of them musicians and artists, share meals and expenses, use a Google doc to keep track of their chores, and pitch in to shop for groceries and stock the bathrooms.” That probably sounds like a normal house to you, but it’s actually a brand/new media startup/final step in the substitution of lifestyle for art.

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