The Big Apple Sept. 10

WHILE THE U.S.  SUFFERED IN Q2, MANHATTAN HOUSING IMPROVED

After disturbing Q2 reports were released last month on the U.S. housing market (in “Weekly Roundup” below), the Wall Street Journal’s Josh Barbanel armed himself with statistics to show that the situation in Manhattan wasn’t so bad. Sales of apartments in Manhattan appear to have strengthened this summer, with median prices up, inventory down and an increase in the number of apartment closings, he reported.

“The figures suggest that the Manhattan market, buoyed by a resumption of hiring and a healthy Wall Street bonus season ahead, has so far escaped much of the distress across the country,” Barbanel wrote.  He noted that July’s median home sale price in Manhattan was $900,000 in comparison with $182,600 nationwide.

In a subsequent piece,

It’s an old refrain: Can print survive the Internet?

While Barnes & Noble now is for sale, so are its books--online, of course, above.

Maybe I’m just an old crank when it comes to my current musings about the challenges facing magazines, newspapers and printed books.

Though I live on my computer, I come from a print background.

In college, I was editor of the newspaper and, at the same, time a professional journalist with the long-defunct Hartford Times.  I went on to become a stringer for Time magazine while getting my graduate degree in communications at Stanfrod, edited a magazine for public information officers in the Navy, became a national writer for the Associated Press and was a Money magazine writer.

So, my affection for print is hardly surprising.  Yet three recent events and one insight have brought the issue (no pun) to the top of my mind.