November 27, 2016

"Their business are booming, booming, booming. Somebody joked with me that they’re even getting tons of business from the protesters. It’s come, protest, shop."

From a NYT article about how retailers near Trump Tower are dealing with all the barricades, police, and police dogs. The quote is from a landlord in the area. People connected to the stores are more circumspect. They don't want to discourage shoppers from coming to the 5th Avenue stores or create any bad feeling that would deter people from shopping at other stores and on line. Whatever the real experience, they are smart to talk like this:
“We’ve been through a lot of different things,” said Jeff Bennett, a market vice president of Tiffany who oversees the Fifth Avenue flagship. “We’ve been a resilient New Yorker for nearly 180 years.... For international tourists, it’s creating a little bit of excitement.... Occasionally, when it’s appropriate, the police and our Tiffany ambassadors are taking pictures. The combination of our ambassadors and the N.Y.P.D. out there, it’s creating a nice environment.”

28 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

This post caused me to create a Tiffany tag. I searched and added it automatically, then realized I'd just added it to all the times somebody was named Tiffany, like Tiffany Trump.

Ann Althouse said...

There. I fixed it. Now, I'm down from 21 to 11. Not all the 10 inapt Tiffanys were Tiffany Trump.

I left in the references to the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's." (There were 4.) That title refers to the store.

The best thing that comes up when you click on the Tiffany link is: Let me supply the missing links for that NYT article about the Althouse + Meade love story.

rhhardin said...

I bailed out of Breakfast at Tiffany's in five minutes. The characters were too obvious and thin, a convention of acting at the time that doesn't work for me.

rhhardin said...

Among the act II romcom writing problems that cause a bailing-out are a drinking problem, which means a half hour of really bad acting, and taking bad advice on women from friends.

Movies before the 70s have a general acting convention that no longer works, a sort of character three-camera sitcom effect.

rhhardin said...

Grant: All l want is someone as intelligent as you... ...but a llttle less tense and argumentative. A sort of Katharine Hepburn figure.

Bullock: You don't deserve Katharine Hepburn.

Grant: -Audrey Hepburn.

Bullock: -Also too good. Just stay away from the Hepburns.

- Two Weeks Notice

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I promise you, I did not know that Tiffany had ambassadors.

rehajm said...

Whatever the real experience...

I can't speak to the economics but the protests look to be just another curiosity within the midst of humanity that is midtown during the holidays.

It still quite inconvenient if you have to work there.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I bailed on Breakfast at Tiffany's as well. And here I thought that it was just that George Peppard was a really bad actor. I read on the internet that the movie makes sense once you realize that the Audrey Hepburn character is really a homosexual man. Intriguing theory, but life is short and I already gave it a chance.

tim in vermont said...

Well, I liked Breakfast at Tiffany's, I like old Rock Hudson movies too, and Doris Day. In fact I just watched an old Bob Hope rom-com, with more emphasis on the "com" than the "rom" called "Boy Did I Call a Wrong Number." Phyllis Diller was in it too, and she was definitely funnier than Hope. I guess his one liners haven't aged that well.

As for Trump, I just drove by Mar A Lago and let my daughters flip off the house from the car. It seemed to be a little cathartic for them. They are starting to get a little more reconciled. I almost told them "That's what freedom feels like" but I know they hate Pence worse than Trump.

rehajm said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rehajm said...

I did not know that Tiffany had ambassadors.

Rumor has it Robin Leach is on Trump's short list for the appointment.

Etienne said...

Eric the Fruit Bat said...I promise you, I did not know that Tiffany had ambassadors.

Is that a high-end synonym for bouncers and store detectives?

Michael K said...

Tiffany makes me think of The Hot Crazy Matrix.

"The Danger Zone. Anyone named Tiffany..."

buwaya said...

I loved "Breakfast at Tiffanys".
And, I think, not just because Im a sucker for Audrey Hepburn.

rhhardin said...

Tiffany Eckhardt is a great Austrailian folksinger. First album recorded in a laundromat for the acoustics.

rhhardin said...

Well my five minutes introduced a crazy Japanese guy, apparently a gag character to be dealt with for an hour or so, a ditzy lady (phone in the suitcase) and a too-goody but sensible hero, so it didn't look good.

Wince said...

"Their business are booming, booming, booming."

An excellent metaphor. It appears even many Democrats recognize that Obama policies have left a lot of "low-hanging fruit" on the economic tree for the last eight years for reasons of "fairness" and social control that Trump and the Republicans can easily reverse and add to economic growth.

If that happens, even if the Republicans fail to address longer-term economic issues, it could be a long time before Democrats regain a majority. The prospect of even short-term prosperity is the greatest source of fear on the part of Democrats, not the issue of "social intolerance", which they know is a distraction and are also certain will lessen even further with added prosperity.


Carol said...

I read on the internet that the movie makes sense once you realize that the Audrey Hepburn character is really a homosexual man.

Yeah the original story was pretty gay, too. The narrator makes more sense as Capote himself or a young Alan Ginsburg, obsessed with young Cassady or Kerouac or any man more attractive than himself.

With so much disguising going on, I gave up. The thing with the movie was simply the glamor of Hepburn herself. And NYC at the time.

Laslo Spatula said...

“Tiffany was consistently a problem: she was a Prize, and unfortunately she knew it. …”

Who needs a Pimp? YOU need a Pimp, Tiffany.


I am Laslo.

Ficta said...

I'm a Breakfast at Tiffany's obsessive. I find it endlessly appealing. Except for Mickey Rooney in yellowface. That's awful. And George Peppard is a bit of a stiff.

Peppard's character is gay in the original, well, the character is based on Capote himself, so presumably... But Holly is not a coded man, at least I've never read anyone before who thought that. Capote allegedly based her on a type of woman he knew several examples of (and envisioned Marilyn Monroe in the part!).

Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. is a really great book about the film and its influence on society, if you're interested.



Ann Althouse said...

I've never watched BAT either!

It's just come up in posts for various reasons.

rhhardin said...

I've never watched BAT either!

I hope I have not given away the plot, which remains unknown to me.

Sabrina and Roman Holiday were okay. My Fair Lady was an instant bailout too.

Of the other Hepburn films, I don't remember if I bailed out of any and which ones. The rest would be so-so romcoms, I guess.

I'm fond of Sandra Bullock but she was in some stinkers too.


rhhardin said...

Sandra Bullock delivers some excellent one line quips in Japanese and German in Two Weeks Notice, to intimidate the opposing counsel.

She's actually fluent in German. I don't know about Japanese.

alan markus said...

Funny how this thread has morphed into a discussion of the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I have to admit that I once started watching it, until I realized this song wasn't going to part of the movie.

And I said "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said "I think I remember the film. And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it" And I said "Well, that's the one thing we've got

Paco Wové said...

"I know they hate Pence worse than Trump."

For all the wailing that Trump has generated, it is not clear to me that any current non-leftist political figure is less bad than Hitler as far as the Democrats and their friends are concerned. They cannot brook *any* opposition or dissent.

William said...

I haven't seen it in a number of years. I remember that the Rooney character was offensive. But mostly I remember how beautiful Audrey Hepburn was and how magical she looked while singing Moon River. It might not have been a great rom/com, but Hepburn incarnated every romantic ideal and yearning this side of Camelot. If more women took the time and trouble to look like Audrey Hepburn, fewer marriages would end in divorce.........Iirc, her character came from a trashy Arkansas background and made herself over into a svelte sophisticate. Hepburn couldn't do trashy. When you stop to think about it, Marilyn Monroe might have been the better fit for the role. I don't think Marilyn could have pulled off Roman Holiday however.

William said...

I always feel vaguely reassured when a movie star's back story matches their screen image. Hepburn lived under the Nazi occupation of Belgium and worked for the Resistance. How cool is that! You didn't see Ingrid Bergman dong any work behind enemy lines despite what you may have been led to believe by Casablanca.

SukieTawdry said...

David Duchovny, an all-around bright boy who was working on a PHD in English literature at Yale when the acting bug bit, blew this Celebrity Final Jeopardy answer (throwing the win to Stephen King): The store that on March 24, 1994 held a breakfast to announce the new Truman Capote literary trust.

He guessed Rizzoli (ah yes, Breakfast at Rizzoli's, a Capote fave). In a later X-Files episode, the writers rubbed it in by showing Scully reading Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I have an old hatbox from Bendel's. It's a treasure.