Saturday, November 11, 2023

A new view of "The City"

Just back from a quick 2-day hop to New York, which marked a milestone for me. For the first time ever, my trip did not see me step foot once in Manhattan, above ground at least, because on Thursday I did have to change from the N to the 4 at Lexington Ave. I stayed in Queens at Beth's house and visited exclusively with clients, prospects and friends in Brooklyn. I even spent a good chunk of the afternoon at a branch of our co-working space on Park Slope.

The gentrified parts of Brooklyn, of course, feel very much like the Manhattan of my youth, if in fact a shiner, better appointed version thereof. A couple of clients as well as my co-working space were right near the intersection of Flatbush and Bergen where Hilary and Mattie lived back in '86. The place is literally unrecognizable, the Barclay's Center having arrived like a meteor in the heart of the neighborhood. 

Yesterday after a lunch in what I think was Fort Greene I took the G train from Brooklyn to Queens without even bothering to pass through Manhattan underground. That was novel and kind of liberating.

Walking down Atlantic Avenue I passed the first ever Removery I've seen, a business dedicated to the removal of tattoos. Not surprisingly it is a chain. There are a number of them already in NC, maybe 150 of them nationwide. I was surprised to learn that Removery features partnerships with tattoo artists, offering to remove their tattoos for free. I can't quite figure out if that's because people clients come to tattoo artists feeling remorseful or because they want to remove old ink so they can put something new on their body. Whatever. Removery has, I think, a lot of potential. I wouldn't be surprised to see an IPO somewhere in there, because it does not yet seem to be a franchising opportunity. One path or the other, if not both, will make sense as it expands.

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