Macy’s wasn’t always on Herald Square. Starting in 1858, it was downtown, on 14th Street. It began as a dry goods store on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, way north of the city’s normal dry goods district down in present-day SoHo. Here, many modern shopping concepts were born. R.H. Macy, the owner, set… Read more »
Today was a day lived at light speed. Press event, work, lunch with a colleague, more work, coffee with a friend from Tourism Australia, more writing. The frenetic pace carried right into Fox News’ newsroom. The stage manager grabs me late, and then I was placed in this seat (a new one for me) at… Read more »
Step 1: Raise rent on beloved neighborhood institution (such as Joe Jr.’s Diner) Step 2: Force closure of said tenant. Step 3: Suffer without rental income as a result of putting your greed ahead of your community. Step 4: Watch neighborhood decline. … The only step I love is number three. Here’s the same place… Read more »
I was invited on the two-day inaugural preview on Norwegian’s colossal new cruise ship, the Epic. While most of the other journalists were upstairs getting soused on the open bar (which I did — later), I was downstairs investigating the new “Studio” cabins. These new solo quarters will enable people who wish to vacation alone,… Read more »
Here are two videos I made that are seemingly unrelated, but which have a common thread: bartering. The first is a look at George Washington’s actual bookkeeping ledger, which shows that much of his business was conducted through swap. Like: He sold fish to get ingredients for whiskey! The second is about a hospital in… Read more »
It’s just like Google Earth: a flyover of New York City, showing all the rooftops, streets, rail lines and street life. Except it was shot in 1924.
Here’s a new video I did (and the link to the original). I’m not actually in it because I felt that it should be about them, not me. But it was me who was asking the questions, and it was me who approached Disney to do this topic. There are actually a bunch of people… Read more »
I took a few days out of a five-day vacation to create this video because I thought it would be so cool to have an internationally shot segment on WalletPop. I am especially proud of a few of the shots in here, such as the shot of the traghetto gondolier shot from below. On the… Read more »
This weekend, I was having drinks with an old friend, someone I’ve known for 17 years, when all of a sudden he asked what I did. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised; dear friends know each other deeply and don’t always need to sweep up every morsel of information of their progressing careers. Nonetheless, I realized that… Read more »
After yesterday’s appalling Ride the Ducks tragedy in Philadelphia, which killed two Hungarian tourists, the media is doing its typical post-game pig-pile, grilling operators about the safety of the land-to-water vehicles and forcing Herschend Family Entertainment, which operates Ride the Ducks, to suspend all operations across the country. The sad truth is that accidents happen…. Read more »