Black Friday Shopping Report

On Broadway early this morning, all the stores on the Upper West Side--Loehmann's, Barnes&Noble, etc.--were open but the traffic was puny.

The one notable exception was the new Apple store, it was packed. But, the odd thing was that half the people were store employees. There was almost a 1:1 ratio of shoppers to red shirts.

Couple the observation about store traffic with the fact that I just saw, for the first time ever, an "Apartment available" sign on both West End Ave. and CPW and my sense is that we still have a way to go with this economic recovery.

[For those not familiar with the city, there are certain areas, like Central Park West and South, Sutton Place, that are considered very desirable--as in very expensive in terms of renting or buying an apartment--to live in. The Upper East Side also fits this description but, for some reason, signs for available apartments have always been a common occurrence in that neighborhood. On the other hand, seeing an "Apartment available" sign on the sidewalk in front of a Sutton Place building is quite extraordinary.]

So there's your on-the spot Black Friday report. I'm not a store person to begin with (with one exception: Guess which store I can spend hours upon hours in?*) so I will do all my shopping on-line. I've just discovered the Black Friday deals page at Amazon (affil. link) so I plan to spend some time there bargain hunting.

I've already spotted some deals on an item of interest, the Canon PowerShot. Because let's face it, if I insist on posting pics on this blog I better make an effort and upgrade to a more professional camera, no?



*The Store I Love (TM) is...Staples. What can I say, I have a thing for paper products, office supplies, and assorted bits and bobs.