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Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

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Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#251

Post by epc »

vram22 wrote: post #142
ChuckMcM wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. Fun historical note, IBM generated cash in its early days as Google and Apple do today, it bought a lot of real estate all around the world. In the 90's when it seemed liked it was doomed, it "saved itself" by selling off big chunks of that real estate. That gave the company operating capital without having to go to the equity markets or debt markets. Given the ups and downs of tech, it seems like a…

>In the 90's when it seemed liked it was doomed, it "saved itself" by selling off big chunks of that real estate. Wonder if that was during Lou Gerstner's time as CEO at IBM. I had read his book Who says Elephants can't Dance, about what he did to turn IBM around. It was an interesting read. Don't remember if selling off some of their real estate was part of what they did, though it could have been. A review of the b…

Something to remember with that book is that it's a highly selective perspective. Gerstner did do a lot to turn IBM around, possibly the best thing he did was to cut through tradition and corporate poltics with a chainsaw to make decisions. IBM in the early 90s was catastrophically stuck in between knowing the world was shifting and an inability to address the changing world.

Decisions you don't hear much about are things like selling off the IBM Global Network at the height of the dot com era, probbaly short term brilliance, but the sale included much of IBM's commercial web hosting, which left IBM blind to the shift to cloud a decade ago.

Or the decision to effectively axe OS/2 almost immediately after the Warp release, not so much because Windows 95 was better, but because the continued existence of OS/2 was inconvenient to the PC division.

Not saying it's a bad book, but like much history it tells a story from the perspective of the victor.

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#252

Post by epc »

jowiar wrote: post #126
saalweachter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the businesses in Chelsea Market rely heavily on traffic from the office-workers above? Store-fronts in NYC tend to be pretty disconnected from the office/residential spaces above, with a few notable exceptions.

Last time I went to Chelsea Market I got the feeling of "Nobody (local) goes here... there are too many tourists and the experience walking around here is miserable" Times Square-esque

I live in the neighborhood. It's a nightmare to walk throthere during the day, but fairly quiet in the morning until 10. Also a decent place to pick up dinner after 6:00, especially if you enter through one of the side doors.

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#253

Post by quickthrower2 »

crashoverdrive wrote: post #224
quickthrower2 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... until the bubble pops, which seems like it might be happening now. I just sold most of my shares.

I’m sorry you did this. Someday, you’ll be sorry you did this. Historically speaking, there is a correction every year. Corrections last on average no more than 54 days. After a correction, the stock market will go back to rising. Timing the market is near impossible, but leaving the market is just asking to lose money. With some reading and some fear management, you could be extremely successful in the stock market.…

There are some other considerations such as having non tax-deductible mortgage debt. Should I buy later I can convert that to tax-deductible investment debt.

(I'm not in the USA).

Also had a lot in a single stock which was going a bit risky for me. (Although my greedy side said hold it, it could be worth a lot in the future). If I buy in again, maybe I will go for an Index or portfolio.

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#254

Post by vram22 »

epc wrote: post #251
vram22 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the 90's when it seemed liked it was doomed, it "saved itself" by selling off big chunks of that real estate. Wonder if that was during Lou Gerstner's time as CEO at IBM. I had read his book Who says Elephants can't Dance, about what he did to turn IBM around. It was an interesting read. Don't remember if selling off some of their real estate was part of what they did, though it could have been. A review of the b…

Something to remember with that book is that it's a highly selective perspective. Gerstner did do a lot to turn IBM around, possibly the best thing he did was to cut through tradition and corporate poltics with a chainsaw to make decisions. IBM in the early 90s was catastrophically stuck in between knowing the world was shifting and an inability to address the changing world. Decisions you don't hear much about are t…

I get your points.

Incidentally, I had read good reviews of OS/2 Warp in a computer magazine, PC Quest. I think they included a trial or full copy of Warp with that issue on a CD. (They used to do that now and then, and I got to try out QNX for a while that way - very fast and light OS.) It was a while back, but I remember a few things, like they said it (Warp) was very stable, maybe fast, and probably a few more good points.

I remember terms like System Object Model and Workplace Shell, although I probably did not understand all of those concepts fully - a bit too junior at the time, maybe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System_Object_Model

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_Shell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#255

Post by epc »

vram22 wrote: post #254
epc wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something to remember with that book is that it's a highly selective perspective. Gerstner did do a lot to turn IBM around, possibly the best thing he did was to cut through tradition and corporate poltics with a chainsaw to make decisions. IBM in the early 90s was catastrophically stuck in between knowing the world was shifting and an inability to address the changing world. Decisions you don't hear much about are t…

I get your points. Incidentally, I had read good reviews of OS/2 Warp in a computer magazine, PC Quest. I think they included a trial or full copy of Warp with that issue on a CD. (They used to do that now and then, and I got to try out QNX for a while that way - very fast and light OS.) It was a while back, but I remember a few things, like they said it (Warp) was very stable, maybe fast, and probably a few more goo…

I’m obviously biased but I thought it was a decent O/S. App support was minimal but with the WinOS2 support you could run most Windows code. I thought the TCP/IP stack was years ahead of Windows, not quite comparable to what you'd find on SunOS/Solaris or whatever DEC ran on the microvax workstations.

IBM, being IBM, charged an arm and both legs for the development kit, even to internal employees.

I managed to use it until June 1998 when I found it was getting to be too much of a pain to dual boot to Windows to open Netscape (there was a Netscape browser for OS/2 but it was web years behind what they were distributing on Windows and *nix).

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#256

Post by timdierks »

bonesss wrote: post #230
CydeWeys wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a lot of the space has these beautiful antique wooden floors and the ceilings are held up gigantic wooden columns and beams. Most of the buildings on the site are over a century old and predate the modern construction methods that use reinforced concrete and steel I-beams. Contrast with 111 8th Ave, which was built contemporaneously with the Empire State Building (and in the same aesthetic). It uses reinforced co…

> ...and there's two skybridges -- one that goes nowhere, and one that goes across 10th Ave to our space in that building. This sounds like a pretty awesome, yet harsh, way to handle internal performance reviews... Top performers get to walk over to 10th ave for cake and coffee. Low performers get to walk the plank, taking a skybridge to "nowhere", and are never heard from again. ... Need to get a subordinate to shap…

The skybridge to "nowhere" just ends in another building which Google doesn't lease space to, so it is more of a "skylounge"; open at one end to Google, closed at the other, suspended three storied above 15th St. https://goo.gl/maps/Qzc4ZEB5hdw

Re: Google is buying Chelsea Market building for over $2B

#257

Post by vram22 »

epc wrote: post #255
vram22 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your points. Incidentally, I had read good reviews of OS/2 Warp in a computer magazine, PC Quest. I think they included a trial or full copy of Warp with that issue on a CD. (They used to do that now and then, and I got to try out QNX for a while that way - very fast and light OS.) It was a while back, but I remember a few things, like they said it (Warp) was very stable, maybe fast, and probably a few more goo…

I’m obviously biased but I thought it was a decent O/S. App support was minimal but with the WinOS2 support you could run most Windows code. I thought the TCP/IP stack was years ahead of Windows, not quite comparable to what you'd find on SunOS/Solaris or whatever DEC ran on the microvax workstations. IBM, being IBM, charged an arm and both legs for the development kit, even to internal employees. I managed to use it…

Interesting.

>I thought the TCP/IP stack was years ahead of Windows, not quite comparable to what you'd find on SunOS/Solaris or whatever DEC ran on the microvax workstations.

I remember back in the day, people saying that the TCP/IP and Internet layers on Windows were not good. There was this software called Trumpet Winsock, which may have tried to make things better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsock#Other_implementations

You may be interested in "Mike's PC Jr. page" which is linked to in this blog post:

Lissajous hippo, retrocomputing and the IBM PC Jr.:

https://jugad2.blogspot.in/2012/09/lissajous-hippo.html

He wrote a TCP/IP stack for his IBM PC Jr. and is using it :)

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