Category: New York

New York, retail

Wishing you a Bergdorf Holiday

Christa Avampato

I’ve had every career aspiration known to man. When I was in elementary school I wanted to be a paleontologist. When it was announced that Christa McAuliffe was going to be the first non-astronaut in space, I took that as a sign that I should join the space program. Doctor, engineer, attorney, film maker, naval officer, train conductor. And for a while when I first moved to New York City many years ago, I thought I was destined to be a window dresser. I fantasized about working into the wee hours of the morning, creation works of art for all of New York to see the next morning. The movie Mannequin was a tiny bit too real for me.

Have you been to the display windows at Bergdorf Goodman? If you live in New York City, I would suggest that you stop reading this post and run over there right now. 5th Avenue and 57th Street. They lush, stunning, artful displays. The best in the city, and I can’t believe they haven’t gotten highlighted more often in the “window gazing” guides published in NYC publications. During my window dresser career aspiration phase, I would sometimes go by there just to stare at the windows, make notes and drawings of the displays, and then imagine what I might do differently. I went into the store once – this was a bad idea. No one even spoke to me; clearly I didn’t belong there, and everyone knew it. I rode the escalator all the way to the top, turned around, and went back out the door to the windows. I really should have stopped there.

Don’t let the snootiness of the store staff dissuade you from seeing the windows. They are a spectacle. And if you’re outside of NYC, never fear. I’ve posted photos of this year’s displays on my photoblog at : http://www.flickr.com/photos/21231722@N03/sets/72157603297522599/. And they’re so fabulous and the company takes such pride in them that they have a dedicated website with archives – http://www.bergdorfgoodman.com/store/catalog/template/catB7.jhtml?itemId=cat243842&parentId=cat243864&masterId=cat000006&_requestid=85688.

The greatest accomplishment of the windows – they bring a sense of magic to the holidays. And couldn’t we all use a little more magic for a while?
holiday, New York, retail, work

Black to Green

Christa Avampato

Our economy may be in for tough times. The growing number of labor strikes, unexpected bank write-offs, mortgage defaults, and mounting debt are enough to make us think the sky may actually be falling. No where is this worry more alive than in retail during the holiday season. The sheer dollar amount of holiday spending is an indicator of consumer confidence, highly scrutinized by every analyst with airtime.

I was thinking about this at 4am on Friday as I took the subway down to Times Square to help our store staff on the day that kicks off the holiday shopping season. Black Friday, or Green Friday as we call it, is a day a lot of people look forward to. It’s a tradition for families and friends to stand on-line outside the stores they think will have the best deals.

I am not one those people – I have never been inside a retail store on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I completely avoid them until about the second week of December. Better yet, I get onto my computer and never have to contend with retail check-out lines and disgruntled shoppers who grapple with out-of-stocks and too-long wish lists from their families and friends.

This year, though I would be on the front lines in arguably the craziest retail center in the world. I arrived at 4:15, half an hour early so I could familiarize myself with which product categories were on which floors. This was a handy list to have. I felt glad to be able to help guests get those special items they had been looking forward to purchasing and gifting. There was a rush of people for a few hours and then the traffic calmed down to a reasonable level. Stocking shelves, showing guests to items they couldn’t find on their own, checking prices, clearing aisles, restocking shelves. All in a day’s work. By far the greatest contribution I could make was to say hello, smile, wish shoppers a happy holiday, and ask them to visit our .com site if we were out of stock on the items they wanted. They seemed generally appreciative to pause for a moment and answer the questions, “how are you today?”

The thing about being a retailer is that you learn to be a better customer. You read circulars cover to cover, you look for department directories, you utilize price checking machines, and match item numbers from shelf tags to packages. By being a retailer, even for a short period of time, you become a retailer’s dream guest.

That said, many people at the store 5am have never been retailers. They were crazed. “Where can I find Dora?” “Where are your video games?” “What about dance mats?” “Do you carry Barnyardigans?” (Huh??? – what exactly is a Barnyardigan? I soon found out it’s a licensed property from Nickelodeon.) And the number of bags – some people dragging around 5 large bags behind them filled to the brim with boxes. There were a few grumps – when I didn’t know the price of an electronic keyboard off-hand, one women wished me “A merry f*****g Christmas.” I smiled and wanted to say, “Same to you” but I stopped short after the smile and helped her to a price checking machine just across the aisle. ‘Tis the season to be nicer than you would be other times of the year!

When I was in the middle of helping one guest, 3 others would ask me for help. This was a good sign to be this busy. Maybe the economy isn’t crumbling as quickly as we may have thought. I remembered how many times I’ve done that when I need help in the store. I should have been a more patient guest.

Once the crowd died down, I headed out to take look at other retailers. My favorite experience by far was the the Apple Store on 5th Avenue and 59th Street. Judging by the crowd, a lot of people shared my view. They have designed a way to anchor floor models so you can try out every item they sell in store. You can make a one hour appointment with a MAC personal shopper to help you pick the perfect holiday gifts. And the store is strikingly clean, airy, and open for a small space, so a bit of that holiday stress has room to dissipate.

Another brightly spot in service was Old Navy. Knowledgeable staff, great deals, and mesh bags galore. Not bad for a store that has to content with an association with the ever-more-boring The Gap and Banana Republic.

The shopping frenzy is continuing this weekend. I am watching it intently for signs of hope. Tomorrow is another big shopping day – Cyber Monday. The day when working folks decide Christmas shopping on-line is time better spent than on work. I love it. Shoppers have aligned so tightly on this that they created another holiday tradition of their own. It’s so strong that a boss can’t complain about shopping during the workday tomorrow. After all, they’re only helping the economy.

New York, retail, thanksgiving

On NYC: My first grown-up Thanksgiving

Christa Avampato

This year is the first time that I am ever spending Thanksgiving away from my family. They are all sunning themselves in Florida, and oddly enough, I am sunning myself on the Upper Westside of Manhattan. It’s as warm here as it is in Florida. Over 60 degrees tomorrow, and green leaves abound in Riverside Park, a.k.a my park.

While I miss the fam and their always crazy antics, I am thankful for not having to fly to my turkey this year. I’ll be able to sleep late tomorrow, watch the parade on TV (despite the fact that it rolls past me several blocks to the east – too crowded and I don’t think anyone wants me showing up on Central Park West in my jammies), and then stroll up about 10 blocks around 4pm to my friend, Lisa’s, for a lovely catered dinner devoid of stress. I have been looking forward to this for months.

The real reason I remain here at the heart of consumerism is because at 4:45am on Friday I will be surrounded by frantic shoppers at our Times Square store. To be fair, I volunteered for this, choosing the location and the time. And to be honest, I am looking forward to it. A friend at work today told me I should make it a party. Whoop it up! Have some fun! Pretend everyone in the store is my best friend. I like this idea.

Truth be told, I have never set foot in a store on Black Friday. I’m beginning to wonder if I am agoraphobic. Just thinking about the crowds is making me nervous. The idea of getting up, standing in line at an ungodly hour, all to save a few bucks makes me scratch my head. Why do people do this?

By nature I am obsessed with comparison shopping. Now being in retail, that obsession is even more heightened. It turns out that you don’t just save a few bucks on Black Friday. You save a boatload of bucks! Some of these deals are unbelievable. Plus this year there are added on-line sales that are released on Thanksgiving night. You’d think some of these places were giving it away. It’s incredible.

So while I wish I was chowing down on turkey with my lovely, though exceedingly dysfunctional, family and playing with Sebastian, my sister’s adorable daschund puppy, I’ll settle for the magic of NYC, not flying on the busiest travel day of the year, and Friday morning embedded with my fellow bargain-hunters. I’m sure that 4:45 Friday morning will be just the beginning of a long list of blog post topics from the front.

Until then, I wish you a safe, happy, and relaxing holiday wherever you find your turkey.

happiness, moving, New York, retail

On Happiness: Giving it Away

Christa Avampato

This weekend, a friend of mine moved out of her apartment of ten years. Messy roommate situation, messy subtler situation. She looked around her boxed up apartment to find almost 100 boxes, furniture in various conditions, much of her from her childhood home. She lost both her parents at a young age. She has worked so hard to get her life in order, to find her place in the world. She is one of the bravest people I know.

And even with so much courage, so much meditation on detaching herself from worldly possessions for the sake of lasting happiness, she is having a tough time letting go. Despite the fact that she is thrilled to be saving money, time, and effort by cleaning out many of these remaining remnants of her past, she is finding that letting go is in many ways just as painful as hanging on.

In the U.S., we are criticized as a nation of consumers, pack rats, too few people with too much stuff. I agree with that to an extent, except when the possessions we have really stand for a diary, a journal of where we’ve been and who’s played a part. My friend isn’t just letting of materials items; in a very really sense she is putting to rest a part of her life gone by. Giving up what’s been, what’s defined her, for the sake of what could be. It’s the gamble of a lifetime, literally.

We forget – details, events, emotions. Our minds have a wonderful way of glossing over many awful experiences, dulling the pain, or shock, or discomfort so that we can move forward. Friends and family remind us, and we keep mementos of past experiences to memorialize them. By giving away these mementos, we are not only giving away possessions, but also giving away the ability to recall the details down the road. We are losing a part of ourselves.

And we have to. We can’t possibly hang on to all of it. A lifetime holds so many things, people, occurrences. We have to assume the responsibility of editing our lives – of culling out the things that matter most from the great cumulative mass of living. It is the toughest job we will ever do. In seemingly simple acts like giving away furniture, we are choosing how to remember our lives and how to we will be remembered by others. As nice as a clean slate sounds, there is a period of mourning that happens in the cleansing.

My friend walked me to the subway Saturday afternoon after we spent a good couple of hours hashing through this idea of letting go. All I could do was give her two giant hugs, promise her my positive energy, and assure her that the next chapter would be an adventure. I am sure she walked away teary-eyed. I did, too. It’s part of the cleansing – a clean slate is on the way.

change, happiness, New York

On NYC: What gets rewarded

Christa Avampato

NYC is a tough place to live. On the surface it may appear to be all fun and games. It’s not – this city and living in it is serious stuff, not for the faint of heart. People manage it in all different ways – after thinking they can hack it in the thick of it all, they grow tired and weak. Some move to a new borough, or a new state if it’s really bad. They get new roommates, a new job, new friends, new hobbies. They cry, scream, join a gym. Some just hide under the covers hoping tomorrow they will wake up in a more polite, less crowded, quieter NYC, only to be disappointed that overnight the city seems to have grown more rude, more crowded, and nosier.

And don’t forget how damn expensive it is to live here! I won’t even tell you what I pay in rent – it’s horrifying, and I have the best deal in town. I recently went to Disney World for the day with my sister, Weez, and brother-in-law, Kyle. (They live near Orlando.) You know you’ve lived in NYC too long when you think the prices for Walt Disney World concessions are cheap.

So what’s a girl to do? I’ve tried all of the strategies I listed above. I have had horrible roommates, and even more horrible bosses in years past. I tried to moving to a borough, and several other states. I got new friends, and saved my good old ones too. I’ve tried new hobbies, volunteering. I’m quite adept at hiding under the covers, and I consider myself to be an expert screamer and crier when the tension gets too much. I have never joined a gym here – I put initiation fees on par with broker fees. “Oh, please, let me give you an outrageous sum of money to have the right to pay you an even greater sum of money on a monthly basis for the privilege of being in your presence.” No thanks – I’ll take to running on the streets of NYC.

The best remedy I’ve found for surviving and ultimately coming to love NYC – keep showing up. Truly. Falling in love with this city is a long, slow, and very painful process. It takes deep commitment. It plays hard to get better than all of us combined. And it wins every time. The harder you fight its freakish, bizarre happenings, the more it will throw at you.

And then one day you turn the corner to your apartment, or fly over Manhattan to land at one of the city’s airports, and you realize there is no place in the world like your New York. You meet good people. You find that dream job. You nurture and develop hobbies that complete you. Sometimes it takes a few tries – it took me 3. And now I know I could never call another place home. It’s true that if you can make it here, you make it anywhere. Trouble is that once you’ve made it here, you’ll have a hard time wanting to make it anywhere else – you fought too hard to make this work. And just when you’re ready to throw in the towel, it relents. Anything worth having is worth fighting for, right?
driving, New York

On NYC: Making your own space

Christa Avampato

“No task is so humble that it does not offer an outlet for individuality.”-William Feather

One thing that I love about New York is its constant battle against routine and sameness. At every moment, around every corner lies an opportunity for individuality and a fresh outlook. Always the chance to learn something new.

On Monday I had coffee with a professional colleague and then stopped in at my doctor’s office for my annual check-up. Great experience. Very efficient. Hardly any wait. And now I have a doctor before I need a doctor.

I stopped back at my apartment to pick up my lunch bag before heading to my car on 94th Street, where I had parked it that morning in a very legal space. And what to my wondering eyes did appear but a row of double parked cars blocking me in that brought me to tears. Of course there was no cop anywhere to be found; no where to turn for help. I was boxed in – completely. I was standing on the sidewalk, thoroughly exasperated, and then I saw this kind elderly man, also standing by a penned in car with a friend of his.

At least I thought he was kind. I asked him what was going on with the double parked cars and he replied, “Aren’t you a New Yorker? It’s street cleaning time and there’s no where for them to park so they have to do this.”

“And how the hell am I supposed to get to work?” I asked.

“Well do you have a better solution? Maybe you should run for mayor,” he said in a mocking tone.

Now I was really steamed.

“Usually they leave a phone number as a courtesy,” he offered

“Courtesy? Please. What would be courteous is for them to get off their lazy asses and drive around to find a legal spot like I did early this morning. I’ve heard of make your own pottery, but make your own parking space? This is asinine.” There wasn’t any phone number on any car in the row either. So much for “courtesy.”

“Well that’s the way it goes, kid.”

Now I’m fit to be tied. First my car is penned in. Then this curmudgeon disguised as a kind old man gives me a hard time with that New Yorker, “Everyone Knows This” nonsense, and now at 31 I’m being called “kid”.

His friend commented to me that I was being remarkably good natured about all of this because she was completely furious. This made me feel better – I thought I was being obnoxious. She counseled me that she felt I could inch my way out with the tiny space between the two cars that had blocked me in. I figured what the hell – did I have anything better to do at the moment?

20 minutes later I had inched my way out, literally inch by inch, nearly hitting the two cars beside me and in back and in front of me. Once out of the space, I breathed a sigh of relief, though still annoyed at that indignant man.

That’s the thing about NYC, just when you think you know what’s going on, you realize you don’t. It will leave you with your jaw dropped and scratching your head on a daily basis. There are more than an ample number of opportunities to make your own way here, figuratively and literally. And the only way to learn these peculiarities is to live through them.

creativity, Darden, experience, New York

Disconnect / Reconnect

Christa Avampato

Disconnect / Reconnect

My Darden email address is being deactivated tomorrow. I didn’t anticipate the emotion that would come along with this. I took my laptop to the helpdesk and Randy helped me to back up all my old files and emails and then I went off of the domain. The background picture on my laptop changed to a generic windows photo of that grassy knoll. I got the chance, again, to start over. A new electronic slate.

There have been other last minute errands to do as I disconnect and prepare to leave Charlottesville. I went to Comcast Cable and turned in the form to take my name off of the account. I’ve taken down all of the pictures from my walls. I’ve rented a mini-van to drive my things to a storage unit that I’ll rent as I search for my own apartment. Couch is gone, bed is gone, and dining table and chairs are gone. Even the rugs and bookshelves have been sold. A new slate at home.

Soon the pictures of our class that have been in the hallway for two years will be taken down and replaced with those from the class of 2009. Our mailbox name tags will be tossed away. Someone else will be renting our home and living in my sunny bedroom. I went to JavaJava today, my favorite coffee shop in town, and saw the owner. He asked me to please find my replacement so that he could keep the steady stream of income I’ve provided to him for the past two years. I said I’d do my best. I’ve had to say “good-bye” and “see you later” to friends every day as their leases run out and they begin their journeys to new homes in new places across the world.

The Ying and Yang movement of the world even applies to moving. So as I say good-bye, give away belongings, change over accounts, I am setting up new connections. A new roommate for the summer as I rent my friend Anne’s sublet. The opportunity to see friends of mine back in New York that have not been a part of my daily life for years now. I’ll see my family more – my main motivation for moving to New York. One of my professors has made a connection for me with a theatre producer in New York that I have never worked with. I have coffee meetings with friends of friends who are also relocating to New York. And I’ll be back in my city, the only place I have ever felt at home. While it may be different in many respects – new restaurants, stores, high rises – so much of it stays the same. My friend, Nathan, upon seeing New York for the first time last fall was fascinated by it because of its many icons that he had only previously seen on TV or in movies. These icons are old friends to me – comforting familiarities as everything else around me changes.

I sold my dining table and chairs at a deep discount to an interesting woman who saw my posting on Craig’s List. She just bought her first home. She and her boyfriend of 7 years have just separated. As they were separating households she looked around and realized that none of the big items in the home, furniture, etc. were hers. She had spent almost 7 years living among someone else’s things. We figured out a way to strap the dining table to her car’s roof rack and she drove off with it to her new life.

I gave my bed away to a woman in Charlottesville who was coming home from Iraq and she had no money to set up a bedroom for him. We maneuvered the mattress set down my narrow, windy stairway and with the help of a friend’s pick-up truck, she was able to have the beginnings of a room for her son as he readjusted to his new life.

As we clean out remnants of our old life, other people can use those pieces to create something new for themselves. I’m excited to see what remnants I will find in New York, what people I will meet, that will help me to build something new as I disconnect, somewhat, from one place, and reconnect to my old home.