Category Archives: Albany

The Starbucks on Pearl Street in Downtown Albany is where I often hang out on lunch. I’ll order a silly Frappucino Grande, open up a book, and keep my eye on the big clock at the bank across the street. I go there on average about three times a week, for probably forty weeks during the year. (Which, at $4.75 a frap, three times a week, for forty weeks, comes out to about $570 a year. And since I’ve been going there for eight years now, that totals about $4560. I just shuddered.) The point is, I’m a regular, and they know me. (There aren’t a lot of guys in pink pants, orange coats, and bow-ties in Albany.)

The one day I go there and sit down without ordering anything, a bottle of non-Starbucks-sold water in one hand, and a book in the other, I get called out by one of the workers and told I couldn’t stay there if I didn’t have bank business (there is an adjoining bank) or a Starbucks purchase. At first, I didn’t believe it. This guy knows me, he’s served me countless times in the past eight years, and this is one of the only times I didn’t have a Starbucks drink in my hand.

In the seat next to me was a Starbucks worker who was on break, eating a Subway sandwich, and not drinking or eating anything from Starbucks. She’s usually friendly, complimenting me on my hair or tie, so I turn to her and ask her where her Starbucks items are. She said she worked there. Okay, I get it. It’s fine for employees to take up seats and eat food from other establishments, but not regular customers who up until today gave their loyal patronage.

Did he have a right to ask me to leave if I wasn’t buying anything? Absolutely.

Was it a cool move to treat a regular customer that way? Absolutely not. The cool thing would have been to let it go, ignore me for twenty more minutes, and go on with our friendly banter the next day I was in line ordering an over-priced coffee drink. This was the first time I witnessed anything like that, as there are often people sitting there eating Chinese takeout with nary an item from Starbucks. In fact, as one friend put it, “the freaking homeless sit in there all day long and you are a regular paying customer.”

And so it goes in Downtown Albany.

UPDATE: I returned there the next day to see how many non-Starbucks people were sitting there not eating or drinking Starbucks’ products. I got two semi-clear pics out of about five who were there reading, texting, or idly sitting around without any coffee whatsoever. Hmmm… Even more amusing is the pledge on their FaceBook page: “Starbucks has an unusually human approach to business. We always figured that putting people before products just made good common sense.”
It usually does.

The park in which this statue sits is just across the street from where I work, yet even though I pass it any number of times a day, and have for the past eight years, I’ve never had my photo taken with it. Until now. The man depicted is former Albany Mayor Thomas Whalen III. I’m assuming that’s his pooch. (It would be strange for it to be some stray dog that just haphazardly wandered into the pose – not that it isn’t strange on its own to have a dog immortalized in such a manner. This isn’t Disneyworld, or Michael Jackson’s Neverland compound.) At any rate, someone pointed out that he could pass for a bronzed Bill O’Reilly. I don’t think I’d so willingly sidle up to Mr. O’Reilly though. And speaking of bronzed, I wonder if Jerry Jennings will ever get a statue like this…?

PS – This was my ensemble for Saturday’s performance of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. I won’t even touch on what the other patrons were wearing, as I’ve slagged off Albany enough this week. Sometimes, though, criticism is amply justified. We’ll leave it at that.

The Best Dressed Man of the Capital Region (if that’s still even my title) is most likely to be found in something like this comfy get-up until the return of Spring. Yes, I wear sweat-pants and tank-tops when no one’s around, and the weather is getting me down. That lack of style is in full-force for this season. It struck me as I was walking outside the Plaza yesterday, heading up the street to El Mariachi: the gray doldrums of winter are here. Along the way, that nasty mix of salt and dirt and snow mirrored the cloudy sky. From now until April, this is what we in upstate New York will have the displeasure of seeing. It seems like such a long soul-sucking stretch to then, and every year – usually about February or so – I wonder how we will make it. This year that dispiriting moment seems to have arrived even sooner.

I paused on the sidewalk and let the wind rush around me. The thought of a margarita did not hasten my step. The notion of a cozy dinner with my husband did not quicken my pace. The dullness of Albany was having its way, eroding the shiny and sparkly veneer I try to keep so polished. Even my red messenger bag, chosen to highlight the crimson accents of the Burberry plaid of my coat, did not manage to elicit the slightest of smiles. When Burberry fails to thrill, you know the winter, or the location, has you whipped.

The wind pushed me on, toward the fuzzy warmth of a salt-rimmed tequila pool, into which I dove to divert myself, and there I closed out a mundane Monday.