Empty auto dealerships mean new attractions for travelers

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Auto dealerships, smacked by the recession, have shut down across the country, but many of those buildings are coming back to life. These large, empty buildings have become restaurants, schools, yoga studios and even art galleries. It’s not just empty dealerships – shuttered businesses of all kinds are giving way to new attractions that can add color to any trip. Just down the road from me, an empty commercial spot on Central Park West became home to a 10-artist exhibition for several weeks. These are the surprises that can turn any vacation into something truly memorable.

The opportunities aren’t just in New York; you can find them around the country. Art students from the Columbus College of Art & Design in Ohio have taken advantage of an empty local dealership to bring a new energy to an empty space. The school has invested $8.3 million in the space.

If you find yourself needing a yoga fix in Los Angeles, check out the Golden Bridge Yoga Studio, which occupies an empty dealership. You can dine in one at NEO in St. Louis.

[Photo by David Hilowitz via Flickr]

Hertz running out of cars in NYC

by Tom Johansmeyer on

When the airports shut down, short-haul fliers turn to the rental car kiosks. They’re willing to brave dangerously slick streets to get home, causing a one-way drain for the lots. The rush of bad weather that cut through New York on December 19 and 20, 2009 left parking spaces empty and led to more than a bit of frustration, as Hertz was unable to deliver on rental reservations.

According to an e-mailed statement in Bloomberg News, Richard Broome, a spokesman for the company, said, “We have been moving in cars to Manhattan as fast as possible, but we are playing catch up.” He continued, “The unusually severe storm created a temporary fleet shortage.”

When 10 inches of snow were dropped on New York City, 1,600 flights were canceled. Over the past two years, Hertz has cut its rental car fleet, and it has fallen victim to the travel slump that’s raged around the world. Both factors put pressure on the company’s ability to fulfill. This quarter, however, it began to increase its fleet by 18 percent, because of an increase in demand it had already noted.

Airport food nastier than airline food

by Tom Johansmeyer on

And you thought airline food was nasty …

Airport restaurants have been spanked hundreds of times over the past year for food safety violations, according to a USA Today review of inspection records. Check it out – close to 800 restaurants in 10 airports had tuna and turkey sandwiches that weren’t kept cold enough, raw meat getting a little too chummy with ready-to-eat meals, rat droppings and kitchens that didn’t have soap for employee hand-washing.

Blech.

Yea, it gets nastier. Forty-two percent of the 57 restaurants at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport were found to have at least one “critical” violation each. At Reagan National Airport, it was even more disgusting: 77 percent of 35 restaurants. These were violations of a caliber that make the risk of illness common.

JFK, apparently, isn’t so bad. According to the New York City health department, “Restaurants at JFK have had relatively few problems with rodents in comparison to restaurants citywide.”

That’s one hell of a vote of confidence!

[Photo by asplosh via Flickr]

NYC tops U.S. list of most expensive cities

by Tom Johansmeyer on

It’s not exactly shocking to see that New York City is the most expensive city in the United States. Groceries, gasoline and other items tend to run a tad more than twice the national average. Whether you rent or buy, you’ll spend a fortune in this city, where the average price for a home is $1.1 million and an apartment, on average, will cost $3,400 a month.

So, how can so many bloggers live here? Remember: these are averages. That means someone has to be on the underside of them.

Housing prices were also among the reasons why San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. worked their way into top spots on the list. Average home prices shot past $600,000 in all four of these cities. In Austin, the average home price is a much more modest $226,998, and it’s even more comfortable in Nashville, at $201,020.

The measure used to determine the cost of leaving in each of the cities is based on expenses in six categories: groceries, housing (rent/mortgage), healthcare, utilities, transportation and miscellaneous items. The prices of 57 goods in these categories were used.Six of the most expensive cities in the country are in California, with four of them among the top 10. Texas has four – Austin, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas. Most of the costliest cities are on the two coasts, though Chicago (14), Las Vegas (18), Phoenix (25) and St. Louis (35) made the top 40.

The most surprising appearance on the list of most expensive places to live is Detroit. Even though it’s plagued by unemployment of 16.7 percent, utilities are expensive. Electricity costs an average of $243.56 a month, compared to a mere $141.64 in Atlanta.

The ten most expensive cities on the list are:

  1. New York City
  2. San Francisco
  3. San Jose
  4. Los Angeles
  5. Washington DC
  6. San Diego
  7. Boston
  8. Philadeplhia
  9. Seattle
  10. Baltimore

Check out the full list here.

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[Photo via MigrantBlogger]

Winter travel time: East Coast gets buried, disrupts travel

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A monstrous storm ran up the East Coast yesterday, burying parts of the country in more than a foot of snow and making life a living hell for road-trippers and airline passengers. As of last night, five deaths were reportedly caused by the storm. Fourteen inches fell on Reagan National Airport, setting a single-day record for December. Several hundred thousand homes in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina lost power. Airports in New York and Washington, D.C. canceled flights and had to cope with long delays.

It’s winter travel season again, in case you didn’t know.

The first major storm of the year was nothing short of severe. Some drivers ditched their cars on the side of the road, giving up any attempt to compete with the snowstorm. Meanwhile, malls were empty, as many didn’t bother trying to compete with the weather.