The Financial Crisis: Fallout in New York City

For a couple of months now, I've meant to start a series of postings on how the current financial crisis has been affecting cities, including the one where I live -- New York. The city is, geographically and metaphorically speaking, the epicenter of the crisis. The five boroughs have been hit by waves of massive layoffs as Wall Street fallout reaches other sectors. In my neighborhood of Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, the following symptoms are already visible:

• Empty storefronts: The number of "for rent" signs and empty storefronts has at least doubled along the main shopping street in my area. Last summer, when I moved to the area, there were already some empty storefronts, but the number seems to have grown quickly. Last time I walked the main avenue, I counted 8 empty storefronts along just two blocks. I also noticed the trend in the heart of Manhattan; strolling along 6th Avenue in the Chelsea area last November, I noticed two large commercial spaces were vacant. Two months later, the "For Rent" signs were still up.
  
• Nervous Developers: Last week, after seeing an Open House sign, I peeked into one of the shiny new condo developments in the neighborhood. I noticed that the listed prices for the condos hadn't changed much since earlier in the year, but the broker said -- emphatically -- that the owner was "definitely willing to negotiate, by all means." The folks who normally buy such apartments are unable or unwilling to put a downpayment on a heavy mortgage, and some of the results are seen right here in Williamsburg: condo buildings converted into rentals, empty condos, halted construction sites, and falling prices.
  
• Shopping:
• Recession Specials: On a lighter note, many stores are offering creative "recession specials." A bakery on Bedford offers "recession cookies" (comes with free coffee), and a pet shop in Fort Greene suggests the following:
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• Coupons and Sales galore: Stores are slashing prices way past Black Tuesday levels; the Times has been running articles on how the high-end department stores are starting to resemble discount stores like Filene's Basement. Coupon-cutting is back in vogue, and personal finance blogs extolling the virtues of a frugal lifestyle are mushrooming. The specter of deflation looms over the economy, and shoppers are too tightfisted to take advantage of the steep price cuts