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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Riding the Escalator with Groceries, on the Upper West Side

Trader Joe's, nyc Photo by myself at Trader Joe's, on the Upper West Side.

In cities, floor area is limited. So one option for more space is to go up or down.

At many supermarkets and drugstores, escalators take people and their shopping carts to other levels. The street level might have an entrance and a small display area, but larger lower floors provide more area for shopping.

It's a win-win situation: windows aren't necessary for stores, and buildings can rent out large underground expanses in one fell swoop.

At Trader Joe's on the Upper West Side, an escalator brings shoppers down to a larger basement floor. Their shopping carts ride on a separate escalator alongside. There are two basement levels at this store, one for produce and the checkout lines, another for frozen foods and other items. The store was packed as usual, Tuesday night.

Trader Joe's is known for its grass roots aesthetic, reasonable prices and interesting foodstuffs. There are many grocery store chains here, each with their own personality.

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By the way, I ran around town Tuesday while carrying: architectural drawings, a 25-foot measuring tape, wallet, pens, tracing paper, a notebook and my big Canon DSL camera. Without exaggeration, my bag must have weighed 15 lbs!

Life has been much busier than usual, with weekends spent at the office, and early mornings at my desk until late at night. I'm working on several things: a townhouse kitchen renovation, a two-part renovation on Central Park South, a small project on the Upper East Side that is just finishing up, and another project on the Upper East Side that just started. Yipes.

I miss walking around the city with my camera. The craziness will end soon, thank goodness!

8 comments:

biebkriebels said...

This is amazing, have never seen this before. You are lucky to have so much work. Architecture is going bad here at the moment because of the crisis.

Olivier said...

c'est la premiere fois que je vois ca, je trouve cela delirant ;)))

Wayne said...

This is a first for me too.

Ken Mac said...

thought that was the subway for a moment. It's the heat!

fruitandcake said...

Hi, love your photo as always. Could I ask for a huge favor? I'd love to see a photo from Times Square. Not a typical touristic one but one from your point of view. If you ever find yourself in that area, don't forget me. Bye.

K10 said...

We actually have one of those at our Target down in here in suburban Atlanta. Convenient, but just one more thing for the unattended rugrats to injure themselves on.

Survive the storm yesterday?

Rose ~ from Oz said...

Oh my gosh Kitty, surely only a NYer could keep this pace up? ;) Never, ever seen a trolly escalator like that!! amazing.

Kitty said...

Thanks everyone! I have to wonder whether these will be more common even in less dense areas? it's a good way to maximize a building.

Hi Bieb
I have friends here who are still unemployed, so...not everyone has a job. But I do think nyc has suffered less than elsewhere. We count ourselves very fortunate.

Hi Fruitandcake
I work very close to Times Square and will get over there this week. Thanks for the suggestion!

Hi K10
Ah, you heard about our storm! it blew out the intercom in our apartment building. Everyone is in a kerfuffle about it because the delivery guys can't get into the building with dinner, haha