May

11

Greetings from Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the nation's wealthiest towns. This year:

1) Steinway closed its piano store and announced that all pianos would be liquidated at steep discounts.
2) Saks Fifth Avenue closed its brand-new (and very good) restaurant after spending $1 million on a remodel. Also closed its retail stores along the main drag.
3) A favorite Chinese restaurant in Old Greenwich closed after serving three generations.
4) A venerable Old Greenwich sit-down cafe with the best fish-and-chips in Connecticut also closed.
5) A good-value nice clothing store on Greenwich's main shopping street closed, just one of several.

It isn't just East Coast. On a UCLA visit with my son, I breakfasted at a landmark, Patrick's Roadhouse in my hometown, Santa Monica Canyon. The week after I left, a friend told me that Patrick's had closed after 52 years. COVID relief had expired. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has a special throne there that can bear his weight, had bailed it out previously — but hasn't stepped up to the plate. A GoFundMe campaign is attempting to keep Patrick's alive. Fixer-uppers on my old street start at $6 million.

Why is any of this important? When small businesses close, the ordinary people must move on, be they customers or owners. They spend less. The economy reflects their diminished circumstances.

What grinds me the most is the Steinway store's failure. I'm teaching piano now, and I am so tired of seeing my students fail to develop their ears because they can only afford horrible electric keyboards.

Bo Keely responds:

i think it's a local thing. we can't see the world forest for the American trees. i just traveled through Mexico the hard way under a pack and the country bustles, thrives, and has altered the mindset to friendliness to strangers. the best investment is along the Sea of Cortez where, 15 years ago, there was one sleepy fishing village where i couldn't find a meal or bed. i slept in the weeds. now it's the Platinum Coast with twenty miles of high rises. there's a 200-mile new skyscraping powerline to meet electricity demand across the dune capped desert where, as seen yesterday on my throne on La Bestia, the last poles are driven and strung to blow open the coast to investment.


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